Federal Communications Commission chairman and member Frederick Wayne Ford was born on September 17, 1909 in Bluefield, West Virginia, the son of George Michael and Annie Laurie Ford. He attended public schools in Charleston and Dunbar, West Virginia, before entering West Virginia University, from which he received his A.B. in 1931. Ford went on to study law, graduating fifth in his class at West Virginia University Law School in 1934. He later practiced with Stathers and Cantrell in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
In 1939 Ford accepted a position as general counsel with the Federal Security Agency. His duties included preparation and review of regulations, investigation of the legal problems of employment, and extensive research on Old Age and Survivors Insurance. In 1942 he transferred to the Legal Department of the Office of Price Administration but shortly thereafter entered the armed forces as a second lieutenant in the Air Force. He left the service in 1946 with the rank of major.
Returning to OPA, Ford became a hearing commissioner and while with the agency he supervised litigation concerning black marketeers. His work dealt principally with processing cases for litigation and recommending proper sanctions. In September 1947 Ford accepted a position as hearing commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission. For the Commission he served, in turn, in the Hearing and Review Section, the Special Legal and Technical groups, and in the General Counsel's office. In 1950 he became a trial attorney, and in 1951 he was named the first chief of the Hearing Division of the Broadcast Bureau. During these years Ford helped in the litigation concerning two of the most famous cases ever to come before the FCC: the Paramount anti-trust case and the George Richards news-slanting case.
In 1953 Ford left the FCC and joined the Justice Department, where he served first as assistant in the Office of the Legal Counsel and then acting assistant attorney general in charge of that office. He later served as assistant deputy attorney general.
In 1957 President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Ford to a seven-year term on the Commission. As commissioner, Ford was liaison with the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization for long-range frequency allocation planning. He was also an alternate member of the Inter-agency Telecommunications Advisory Board, which advised the director of defense mobilization on national telecommunications plans, and he acted as an FCC alternate defense commissioner. He also belonged to the Commission's telephone and telegraph committees.
In 1960 Chairman John Doerfer resigned as a result of charges that he had accepted bribes and fraternized too closely with the broadcasters the FCC was charged with regulating. In March 1960 Eisenhower named Ford as Doerfer's successor. Although he served in that capacity for only twelve months, Ford had a pronounced reformist impact on FCC policy and the stricter regulatory policies associated with Newton Minow actually began during the Ford's administration.
In 1961 President John F. Kennedy appointed Minow as chairman of the FCC. During the following years Ford continued to attract attention as a swing vote on regulatory issues. In May, 1964 Ford was reappointed to a second term on the Commission, but a few months later he accepted a position as president of the cable television trade group, the National Community Television Association. In 1970 Ford became a senior partner with the law firm of Lovett, Ford, and Hennessey. From 1981 until 1986 he was a partner with Pepper and Corrazzini.
Ford married Virginia Lee Carter on August 12, 1933. One year after her death in 1958 Ford married Mary Margaret Mahoney. They were divorced in 1981. Ford had two children, Mary Carter Ford Beary and Frederick Wayne Ford. Ford died on July 26, 1986.
