See pictures from President Ford's state funeral

The grand old men of American politics, past and present, came together in Washington today to bid farewell to Gerald Ford, the 38th American President.

More than 3,000 people, including President George Bush and looming, former officials such as Henry Kissinger, gathered in the city's National Cathedral to pay tribute to the so-called "accidental" President who helped end the Vietnam War and restore the dignity of the White House after the fall of Richard Nixon.

Betty Ford, the former First Lady who won public recognition in her own right as the founder of a string of addiction clinics, looked on as her children read from the Bible and honoured their father, who died last Tuesday at the age of 93.

"In President Ford, the world saw the best of America and America found a man whose character and leadership would bring calm and healing to one of the most divisive moments in our nation’s history," said President Bush in his eulogy. "He brought grace to a moment of great doubt."

Mr Bush's father, George H W Bush, one of three living ex-presidents at the service, joined the theme of healing, saying that Ford had "rekindled our national faith", while Mr Kissinger, Ford's Secretary of State throughout his two-and-a-half-year presidency, observed: "Gerald Ford had the virtues of small town America."

On a national day of mourning, the first day of business in 2007, many banks and businesses in America remained closed. In Washington, light, quiet crowds lined the route from the Capitol, where Ford's body had been lying in state since Saturday, to the National Cathedral, where a bell tolled 38 times to signify his position as the 38th president. His term ran from 1974 to 1977.

Ford's remains were moved from the Great Rotunda at the Capitol shortly after nine o'clock this morning, local time. After reposing briefly outside the Senate chamber, his coffin was taken by a cortege to the cathedral, which hosted the funerals of Dwight Eisenhower in 1969 and Ronald Reagan in 2004.

The service began when Ford's coffin, draped in the stars and stripes and followed by a flag bearing the presidential seal, was carried into the cathedral by an honour guard of Marines.

Ahead of the casket shuffled a column of 20 officials, some serving, others retired, whose careers have stretched, like Ford's, over decades of American politics: Vice-President Dick Cheney, who was Ford's chief of staff, was in the group, along with Mr Kissinger, and Bob Dole, Ford's running mate in the failed election campaign of 1976.

Although the ceremony was coloured throughout with the spirit of bipartisan respect associated with Ford, there were reminders of Washington's present controversies.

James Baker, the former Secretary of State whose Iraq Study Group has provided the most comprehensive challenge to the Bush Administration's strategy in Iraq, attended the service, sitting near Donald Rumsfeld, the former Defence Secretary who was stripped of his job in December as the White House searched for a new direction in the war.

After the service, Ford's body will be flown to his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a brief ceremony at the Ford Presidential Library and Museum, where he will be buried tomorrow after a private family funeral.

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