It's kind of old, but the flags are still at half-mast, so here's a good piece Stephen Zunes wrote about Gerald Ford's foreign policy legacy. Between allying with Mobutu in Zaire (who was also pals with Hassan II) and supporting Pinochet in Chile, his administration is partially responsible for global anti-American sentiment.Besides befriending the worst rogues of his time, Ford supported two of the most egregious violations of international law in this century: the invasions of East Timor and Western Sahara.
In The Trial of Henry Kissinger Christopher Hitchens chronicles how Ford and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, visited Indonesia. Less than 24 hours after they left the country, Indonesia invaded East Timor with weapons manufactured in the United States.
Hitchens doesn't mention the Western Sahara, but Ford and Kissinger certainly did not support Western Saharan independence on the eve of Morocco's invasion; Zunes even alleges Ford encouraged Spain to withdraw its promise of independence to Polisario. Perhaps the only thing Ford did for the Sahrawi people was the invasion of East Timor, providing the Western Sahara with a valuable ally in the struggle for self-determination.
Incidentally, "Death Struggle in the Desert" on the Time cover is about the Iran-Iraq war, not the Western Sahara. That would've been apropos, though.