Ford's pardoning of Nixon: magnamity or sustained friendship?

On the day after eulogies have been said and President Ford has been laid to rest, one of the questions that continue to be asked and discussed is whether President Gerald Ford's Watergate pardon of President Richard Millhouse Nixon was an unselfish act of magnamity by "one of the most capable, courageous and honorable Vice Presidents we have had, as Nixon described Ford, or did Ford "... look[] upon [Nixon} as [a] personal friend ... [and therefore] ... had no hesitancy about granting the pardon, because ... we had this relationship and ... I didn't want to see my real friend have the stigma," as Ford is quoted by Bob Woodward. You be the judge.