US President Bush Visits Coffin Of Late President Ford

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The flow of ordinary mourners paused slightly Monday as US President George W Bush and wife Laura visited the casket of former president Gerald R Ford, lying in state in the Rotunda of the US Capitol. The first couple stopped at the flag-draped coffin and bowed their heads for a moment of silence - interrupted only by rapid clicks and whirls of waiting photographers. Ford, 93, died last Tuesday in California, where he and his wife Betty had lived in retirement after the nation's only unelected president was defeated in the 1976 presidential poll. He was a long-serving member of Congress and leader of the centre- right Republican minority in the House of Representatives, before being appointed in late 1973 to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency.