WASHINGTON — A press secretary to President Gerald Ford who resigned over the pardon of Richard Nixon has died.

Jerald terHorst was 87. A longtime Detroit News journalist, he served for about a month as Ford's spokesman in 1974 before resigning to protest the president's decision to pardon Nixon.

TerHorst's son Peter says his father died at his Asheville, N.C., retirement community of congestive heart failure on Wednesday night, attended by his children.

Ford pardoned Nixon after the Watergate scandal as a way to heal the nation. The pardon itself opened a national rift, but Ford said for the rest of his life it was the right decision.

TerHorst told Ford he couldn't defend that decision when young men who evaded Vietnam military service as a matter of conscience were not pardoned as well.