Presidency of Jimmy Carter
Encyclopedia
Jimmy Carter
served as the thirty-ninth President of the United States
from 1977 to 1981. His administration sought to make the government "competent and compassionate" but, in the midst of an economic crisis produced by rising energy prices
and stagflation
, met with difficulty in achieving its objectives. At the end of his administration, Carter had substantively reduced both unemployment and the deficit but had not been able to completely eliminate the recession. Carter created the United States Department of Education
and United States Department of Energy
, established a national energy policy
and pursued civil service and social security reform. In foreign affairs, Carter initiated the Camp David Accords
, the Panama Canal Treaties and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
(SALT II). Throughout his career, Carter strongly emphasized human rights. He returned the Panama Canal Zone
to Panama and he faced criticism at home for his decision, which was widely seen as yet another signal of U.S. weakness and of his own habit of backing down when faced with confrontation. The final year of his presidential tenure was marked by several major crises, including the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Iran
and holding of hostages
by Iranian students, an unsuccessful rescue attempt
of the hostages, serious fuel shortages
, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
.
Carter had campaigned on a promise to eliminate the trappings of the "Imperial Presidency
," and he began taking action according to that promise on Inauguration Day, breaking with recent history and security protocols by walking up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol
to the White House
in his inaugural parade. His first steps in the White House went further in this direction: Carter reduced the size of the staff by one-third; canceled government-funded chauffeur
service for Cabinet
members, ordering them to drive their own cars; and put the USS Sequoia
, the presidential yacht
up for sale.
Others:
, he appointed 56 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals
, and 203 judges to the United States district courts. Carter also experienced a small number of judicial appointment controversies
, as three of his nominees for different federal appellate judgeships
were not processed by the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee
before Carter's presidency ended.
and the Department of Health and Human Services
. He signed into law a major Civil Service Reform, the first in over 100 years.
On Carter's first day in office, January 20, 1977, he fulfilled a campaign promise by issuing an executive order declaring unconditional amnesty
for Vietnam War
-era draft evaders.
Under Carter's watch, the Airline Deregulation Act
of 1978 was passed, which phased out the Civil Aeronautics Board. He also enacted deregulation
in the trucking, rail, communications, and finance industries.
Among Presidents who served at least one full term, Carter is the only one who never made an appointment to the Supreme Court
.
Carter was the first president to address the topic of gay
rights. He opposed the Briggs Initiative, a California
ballot measure that would have banned gay
s and supporters of gay rights from being public school teachers. His administration was the first to meet with a group of gay rights activists, and in recent years he has acted in favor of civil unions and ending the ban on gays in the military. He has stated that he "opposes all forms of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation
and believes there should be equal protection under the law for people who differ in sexual orientation".
The federal government was in deficit every year of the Carter presidency. His Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
created 103 million acre
s (417,000 km²) of national park land in Alaska
.
from the start. Unreturned phone calls, verbal insults (both real and imagined), and an unwillingness to trade political favors soured many on Capitol Hill and tangibly affected the president's ability to push through his ambitious agenda.
During the first 100 days of his presidency, Carter wrote a letter to Congress proposing several water projects be scrapped. Among the opponents of Carter's proposal was Senator Russell Long, a powerful Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee
. Carter's plan was overturned and bitter feeling became a problem for him.
A rift grew between the White House and Congress. Carter wrote that the most intense and mounting opposition to his policies came from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which he attributed to Ted Kennedy’s ambition to replace him as president.
A few months after his term started, and thinking he had the support of about 74 Congressmen, Carter issued a "hit list" of 19 projects that he claimed were "pork barrel
" spending. He said that he would veto any legislation that contained projects on this list.
This list met with opposition from the leadership of the Democratic Party. Carter had characterized a rivers and harbors bill as wasteful spending. House speaker Tip O'Neill
thought it was unwise for the President to interfere with matters that had traditionally been the purview of Congress. Carter was then further weakened when he signed into law a bill containing many of the "hit list" projects.
Later, Congress refused to pass major provisions of his consumer protection
bill and his labor reform package. Carter then vetoed a public works package calling it "inflationary", as it contained what he considered to be wasteful spending. Congressional leaders sensed that public support for his legislation was weak, and took advantage of it. After gutting his consumer protection bill, they transformed his tax plan into nothing more than spending for special interests, after which Carter referred to the congressional tax committees as "ravenous wolves."
’s disagreements with Carter's proposed health-care reform plan thwarted Carter’s efforts to provide comprehensive health-care
for citizens outside the Medicare
system.
Some progress was made in the field of occupational health following Carter's appointment of Dr. Eula Bingham
as Director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
. Bingham drew from her experience as a physiologist working with carcinogen
s to raise and simplify standards, redirect the office's resources to industry groups with the worst records, while enacting occupational particulate, lead
and benzene
exposure standards and regulations on workers' right to know
about workplace hazards, including labeling of toxic substances. Bingham enacted many of these provisions over the opposition of not only Republicans, but also some in the Carter Admnistration itself, notably Council of Economic Advisers
Chairman Charles Schultze
and her own boss, Labor Secretary
Ray Marshall
; ultimately, many of her proposed reforms were never enacted, or were later rescinded.
In 1973, during the Nixon Administration
, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reduced supplies of oil
available to the world market, in part because of deflation of the dollars they were receiving as a result of Nixon leaving the gold standard
and in part as a reaction to America's sending of arms to Israel
during the Yom Kippur War
. This sparked the 1973 Oil Crisis
and forced oil prices to rise sharply, spurring price inflation throughout the economy and slowing growth. The U.S government imposed price controls
on gasoline
and oil
following the announcement, which had the effect of causing shortages and long lines at filling stations for gasoline. The lines were quelled through the lifting of price controls on gasoline, although oil controls remained until Reagan's presidency. Significant government borrowing helped keep interest rates high relative to inflation
. Carter told Americans that the energy crisis was "a clear and present danger to our nation" and "the moral equivalent of war
" and drew out a plan he thought would address it. Carter said that world oil supply would probably only be able to keep up with Americans' demand for six to eight more years.
In 1977, Carter convinced the Democratic Congress to create the United States Department of Energy
(DoE) with the goal of conserving energy
. Carter set oil and natural gas price controls, had solar hot water
panels installed on the roof of the White House, had a wood stove in his living quarters, ordered the General Services Administration
to turn off hot water in some federal facilities, and requested that all Christmas
light decorations remain dark in 1979 and 1980. Nationwide, controls were put on thermostat
s in government and commercial buildings to prevent people from raising temperatures in the winter (above 65 degrees Fahrenheit = 18.33 °C) or lowering them in the summer (below 78 degrees Fahrenheit = 25.55 °C).
As reaction to the energy crisis and growing concerns over air pollution
, Carter also signed the National Energy Act
(NEA) and the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA). The purpose of these watershed laws was to encourage energy conservation and the development of national energy resources, including renewables
such as wind
and solar energy.
However, during the 1979 crisis, Carter reinstated some price controls on gasoline, which again had the effect of causing lines at gasoline stations. During his "malaise" speech he asked Congress to impose a "Windfall Profit Tax" to help pay for energy efficiency initiatives. Enacted in 1980 on domestic oil production, the tax was repealed in 1988, as prices had collapsed in the 1980s oil glut
, making it politically possible to remove the tax, said removal one of President Reagan's campaign issues.
at its lowest level since the 1970 recession and unemployment at 9%. The second two years were marked by double-digit inflation
, coupled with very high interest rates, oil shortages
, and slow economic growth. The nation's economy grew by an average of 3.4% during the Carter Administration (at par with the historical average). Each of these two-year periods, however, would differ dramatically.
The U.S. economy, which had grown by 5% in 1976, continued to grow at a similar pace during 1977 and 1978. Unemployment declined from 7.5% in January 1977 to 5.6% by May 1979, with over 9 million net new jobs created during that interim, and real median household income grew by 5% from 1976 to 1978. The recovery in business investment in evidence during 1976 strengthened as well. Fixed private investment (machinery and construction) grew by 30% from 1976 to 1979, home sales and construction grew another one third by 1978, and industrial production, motor vehicle output and sales did so by nearly 15%; with the exception of new housing starts, which remained slightly below their 1972 peak, each of these benchmarks reached record levels in 1978 or 1979.
The 1979 energy crisis
ended this period of growth, however, and as both inflation and interest rates rose, economic growth, job creation, and consumer confidence
declined sharply. The relatively loose monetary policy
adopted by Federal Reserve Board Chairman G. William Miller
, had already contributed to somewhat higher inflation
, rising from 5.8% in 1976 to 7.7% in 1978. The sudden doubling of crude oil prices by OPEC
, the world's leading oil exporting cartel
, forced inflation to double-digit levels, averaging 11.3% in 1979 and 13.5% in 1980. The sudden shortage of gasoline
as the 1979 summer vacation season began exacerbated the problem, and would come to symbolize the crisis among the public in general; the acute shortage, originating in the shutdown of Amerada Hess refining facilities, led to a lawsuit against the company that year by the Federal Government.
Carter, like Nixon, asked Congress to impose price controls
on energy, medicine, and consumer prices, but was unable to secure passage of such measures due to strong opposition from Congress. One related measure approved by Congress during the presidency of Gerald Ford
, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, gave Presidents the authority to deregulate prices of domestic oil
, and Carter exercised this option on July 1, 1979, as a means of encouraging both oil production and conservation. Oil imports, which had reached a record 2.4 billion barrels in 1977 (50% of supply), declined by half from 1979 to 1983.
Following a August 1979 cabinet shakeup in which Carter asked for the resignations of several cabinet members (see "Malaise speech" below), Carter appointed G. William Miller
as Secretary of the Treasury, naming Paul Volcker
as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Volcker pursued a tight monetary policy
to bring down inflation, which he considered his mandate. Volcker (and Carter) succeeded, but only by first going through an unpleasant phase during which the economy slowed and unemployment
rose. Inflation did not return to low single-digit levels until 1982, during a second, more severe recession; President Reagan re-appointed Volcker to the post in 1983.
Led by Volcker, the Federal Reserve raised the discount rate from 10% when Volcker assumed the chairmanship in August 1979 to 12% within two months. The prime rate
outstripped the Federal funds rate
, reaching 20% in March 1980. Carter then enacted an austerity
program by executive order, justifying these measures by observing that inflation had reached a "crisis stage"; both inflation and short-term interest rates reached 18 percent in February and March of 1980. Investments in fixed income (both bond
s held by Wall Street and pension
s paid to retired people
) were becoming less valuable in real term
s, and on March 14, 1980, President Carter announced the first credit control measures since World War II
.
The policy, as well as record interest rates, would lead to a sharp recession in the spring of 1980
. The sudden fall in GDP during the second quarter caused unemployment to jump from 6% to 7.5% by May, with output in the auto and housing sectors falling by over 20% and to their weakest level since the 1975 recession. Carter phased out credit controls in May, and by July, the prime rate
had fallen to 11%, with inflation breaking the earlier trend and easing to under 13% for the remainder of 1980. The V-shaped recession
coincided with Carter's re-election campaign, however, and contributed to his unexpectedly severe loss.
Lower interest rates and easing of credit controls sparked a recovery during the second half of 1980, and although the hard-hit auto and housing sectors would not recover substantially, GDP and employment totals regained pre-recession levels by the first quarter of 1981. The S&P 500
(which had remained at around 100 since 1976), rose to nearly 140 by the latter part of the year. A resumption in growth prompted renewed tightening by the Fed, however, and the prime rate reached 21.5% in December 1980, the highest rate in U.S. history under any President. The Carter Administration remained fiscally conservative during both growth and recession periods, vetoing numerous spending increases while enacting deregulation
in the energy and transportation sectors and sharply reducing the top capital gains tax
rate. Federal budget deficits
throughout his term remained at around the $ 70 billion level reached in 1976, while falling as a percent of GDP from 4% to 2.5% by the 1980–81 Fiscal Year.
, he was planning on delivering his fifth major speech on energy; however, he felt that the American people were no longer listening. Carter left for the presidential retreat of Camp David
. "For more than a week, a veil of secrecy enveloped the proceedings. Dozens of prominent Democratic Party leaders—members of Congress, governors, labor leaders, academics and clergy—were summoned to the mountaintop retreat to confer with the beleaguered president." His pollster, Pat Caddell, told him that the American people simply faced a crisis of confidence because of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy
, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Vietnam War
; and Watergate
. On July 15, 1979, Carter gave a nationally-televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a "crisis of confidence" among the American people. This came to be known as his "malaise
" speech, although the word never appeared in it:
Carter's speech was written by Hendrik Hertzberg
and Gordon Stewart. Though it is often said to have been ill-received, The New York Times
ran the headline "Speech Lifts Carter Rating to 37%; Public Agrees on Confidence Crisis; Responsive Chord Struck" later that week.
Carter's later election loss may have turned other politicians off the idea of asking Americans to conserve energy in a similar way. Three days after the speech, Carter asked for the resignations of all of his Cabinet officers, and ultimately accepted those of five who had clashed with the White House the most, including Energy Secretary James Schlesinger and Health, Education and Welfare chief Joseph Califano, known as a supporter of Senator Ted Kennedy
. After campaigning that he would never appoint a Chief of Staff, Carter appointed Jordan as a new White House Chief of Staff. Many in the administration chafed when Jordan circulated a "questionnaire" that read more like a loyalty oath. "I think the idea was that they were going to firm up the administration, show that there was real change by these personnel changes, and move on," remembers Mondale. "But the message the American people got was that we were falling apart." Carter later admitted in his memoirs that he should simply have asked only those five members for their resignations. In 2008, a U.S. News and World Report piece stated:
, a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances.
He also installed a 32 solar-powered heating system on the White House roof On June 20, 1979, to promote the use of solar energy.
On December 2, 1980, he signed into law Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
. The law provided for the creation or revision of 15 National Park Service properties, and set aside other public lands for the United States Forest Service and United States Fish and Wildlife Service. In all, the act provided for the designation of 79.53 million acres (124,281 square miles; 321,900 km²) of public lands, fully a third of which was set aside as wilderness area in Alaska
.
spacecraft for its trip outside our solar system on September 5, 1977:
s from South Korea
and announce his intention to cut back the number of US troops stationed there. Other military men confined intense criticism of the withdrawal to private conversations or testimony before congressional committees, but in 1977 Major General John K. Singlaub
, chief of staff of U.S. forces in South Korea, publicly criticized Carter's decision to lower the U.S. troop level there. On March 21, 1977, Carter relieved him of duty, saying his publicly stated sentiments were "inconsistent with announced national security policy." Carter planned to remove all U.S. troops, with the exception of 14,000 U.S. air force personnel and logistics specialists, from South Korea by 1982, but after cutting only 3,600 troops, he was forced by intense Congressional pressure to abandon the effort in 1978.
Carter's Secretary of State Cyrus Vance
and National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski
paid close attention to the Arab–Israeli conflict
. Diplomatic communications between Israel
and Egypt
increased significantly after the Yom Kippur War
and the Carter administration felt that the time was right for comprehensive solution to the conflict.
In mid-1978, Carter became quite concerned as there were only a few months left before the Egyptian-Israeli Disengagement Treaty expired. As a result, Carter sent a special envoy to the Middle East
. The American Ambassador flew back and forth between Cairo
and Tel Aviv
in search of ways to narrow the disagreement between the two countries. It was then suggested that the foreign ministers meet at Leeds Castle
, England where they could discuss the possibilities of peace. They tried to come to an agreement, but the foreign ministers failed. This led to the 1978 Camp David Accords
, one of Carter's most important accomplishments as President. The accords were a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt negotiated by Carter, which followed up on earlier negotiations conducted in the Middle East. In these negotiations King Hassan II of Morocco
acted as a negotiator between Arab
interests and Israel, and Nicolae Ceauşescu
of Romania acted as go-between for Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO, the unofficial representative of the Palestinian people
). Once initial negotiations had been completed, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat
approached Carter for assistance. Carter then invited Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
and Anwar El Sadat to Camp David
to continue the negotiations. They arrived on August 8, 1978. Upon their arrival, neither leader had addressed one another since the Vienna meeting. President Carter inevitably became the mediator between the two leaders. He spoke to each leader separately until an agreement was reached. Almost a month had passed, but no resolution had been reached. President Carter decided to take the two of them on a trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to break this deadlock. He showed the two leaders the battlefield and gave them a history lesson about one of the battles
that had taken place during the U.S. Civil War. Carter emphasized how important it was to have peace in order to bring prosperity to the people. A lesson was learned, and when Begin and Sadat returned to Camp David, they finally agreed that something had to be signed.
On September 12, 1978, President Carter suggested dividing the negotiations over the peace treaty into two frameworks: framework #1 and framework #2. Framework #1 would address the West Bank and Gaza. Framework #2 would deal with Sinai.
The first framework dealt with the Palestinian territories
(the West Bank and Gaza). The first point stated that the election of a self-governing authority would be allowed to provide full autonomy to the inhabitants of the West Bank
and Gaza
. This government would be elected by the Palestinians and would only look after municipal affairs. The second step would be to grant Palestinians autonomy mainly on those municipal matters. Five years down the road after having gone through steps one and two, the status of Palestine could then be negotiated. Framework #1 was not very well received; the Palestinians and Jordanians were furious. They objected to the fact that Begin and Sadat were deciding on their ultimate destiny without consulting them or their leaders. Framework #1 for that reason was not going to work; it was essentially a dead end.
The second framework dealt with the Sinai Peninsula
. This framework consisted of two points:
1. The two parties, Egypt and Israel, should negotiate a treaty over a period of six months based on the principle of Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai and the withdrawal of Israel from that region.
2. This treaty would be followed and included in it would be the establishment of diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural relations between Egypt and Israel.
President Carter admitted that "there's still great difficulties that remain and many hard issues to be settled." This would be a peace that would establish normal relations between the two states. This was the basis of the two frameworks, but it had yet to be approved.
The reaction to this proposal in the Arab world was very negative. In November 1978, there was an emergency meeting held by the Arab League in Damascus. Once again, Egypt was the main subject of the meeting, and they condemned the proposed treaty that Egypt was going to sign.
Sadat was also attacked by the Arab press for breaking ranks with the Arab League and having betrayed the Arab world. Discussions pertaining to the future peace treaty took place in both countries. Israel insisted in its negotiations that the Israel-Egypt treaty should supersede all of Egypt's other treaties, including those signed with the Arab League and Arab states.
Israel also wanted access to the oil discovered in the Sinai region. President Carter interjected and informed the Israelis that the U.S. would supply Israel with whatever oil it needed for the next 15 years if Egypt at any point decided not to supply oil to Israel.
While framework #1 was already approved by the Israeli Government, the second framework also needed approval. The Israeli Cabinet accepted the second framework of the treaty. The Israeli Parliament also approved the second framework with a comfortable majority. Alternatively, the Egyptian Government was arguing about a number of things. They did not like the fact that this proposed treaty was going to supersede all other treaties. Egyptians were also disappointed that they were unable to link the Sinai question to the Palestinian question.
On March 26, 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in Washington, D.C. Carter's role in getting the treaty was essential. Aaron David Miller
interviewed many officials for his book The Much Too Promised Land (2008) and concluded the following: "No matter whom I spoke to — Americans, Egyptians, or Israelis — most everyone said the same thing: no Carter, no peace treaty."
(RDF), a mobile fighting force capable of responding to worldwide trouble spots, without drawing on forces committed to NATO. The RDF was the forerunner of CENTCOM
.
toward the Soviet Union. In its place, Carter promoted a foreign policy that put human rights
at the forefront. This was a break from the policies of several predecessors, in which human rights
abuses were often overlooked if they were committed by a government that was allied, or purported to be allied, with the United States.
He nominated civil rights
activist Patricia M. Derian
as Coordinator for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and in August 1977, had the post elevated to that of Assistant Secretary of State. Derian established the United States' Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
, published annually since 1977, and made their findings a factor in military aid
determinations, effectively ending such aid for five Latin American countries for the remainder of Carter's tenure. The Carter Administration ended support to the historically U.S.-backed Somoza
regime in Nicaragua
and gave aid to the new Sandinista National Liberation Front
government that assumed power after Somoza's overthrow. However, Carter ignored a plea from El Salvador
's Archbishop Óscar Romero
not to send military aid to that country; Romero was later assassinated for his criticism of El Salvador's violation of human rights. Generally, human rights in Latin America, which had deteriorated sharply in the previous decade, improved following these initiatives; a publisher tortured during Argentina
's Dirty War
, Jacobo Timerman
, credited these policies for the positive trend, stating that they not only saved lives, but also "built up democratic consciousness in the United States."
Many in his own administration were opposed to these initiatives, however, and the more assertive human rights policy of the Carter years was blunted by the discord that ensued between, on one hand, Derian and State Department Policy Planning Director Anthony Lake
, who endorsed human rights considerations as an enhancement of U.S. diplomatic effectiveness abroad, and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
, who held Cold War
considerations as paramount. These policy disputes reached their most contentious point during the 1979 fall of Pol Pot
's genocidal regime of Democratic Kampuchea
following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, when Brzezinski prevailed in having the administration refuse to recognize the new Cambodian government due to its support by the Soviet Union
. Carter was also criticized by the feminist author and activist Andrea Dworkin for ignoring issues of women's rights in Saudi Arabia
.
Carter continued his predecessors' policies of imposing sanctions on Rhodesia
, and, after Bishop Abel Muzorewa
was elected Prime Minister
, protested the exclusion of Robert Mugabe
and Joshua Nkomo
from participating in the elections. Strong pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom prompted new elections in what was then called Zimbabwe Rhodesia
(now Zimbabwe
), which saw Robert Mugabe elected as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe; afterwards, sanctions were lifted, and diplomatic recognition was granted. Carter was also known for his criticism of Paraguay
's Alfredo Stroessner
, Augusto Pinochet
(although both Stroessner and Pinochet, along with other Latin American dictators of whom Carter was critical, attended the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty), the apartheid government of South Africa, Zaire
(although Carter later changed course and supported Zaire, in response to alleged — albeit unproven — Cuba
n support of anti-Mobutu
rebels) and other traditional allies.
Carter continued the policy of Richard Nixon to normalize relations with the People's Republic of China. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski
and China expert Michel Oksenberg
who was serving on the National Security Council, traveled to Beijing in early 1978, where they worked with Leonard Woodcock
, head of the liaison office there, to lay the groundwork for granting the People's Republic of China full diplomatic and trade relations. In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations
dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The U.S. reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The U.S. unofficially recognized Taiwan through the Taiwan Relations Act
.
One of the most controversial moves of Carter's presidency was the final negotiation and signature of the Panama Canal Treaties in September 1977. Those treaties, which essentially would transfer control of the American-built Panama Canal to the nation of Panama
, were bitterly opposed by a majority of the American public and by the Republican Party. A common argument against the treaties was that the United States was transferring an American asset of great strategic value to an unstable and corrupt country led by an unelected but popularly supported General (Omar Torrijos
). Those that supported the Treaties argued that the Canal was built within Panamanian territory therefore, by controlling it, the United States was in fact occupying part of another country and this agreement was intended to turn back to Panama the sovereignty of its complete territory. After the signature of the Canal treaties, in June 1978, Carter visited Panama with his wife and twelve U.S. Senators, amid widespread student disturbances against the Torrijos administration. Carter then began urging the Torrijos regime to soften its policies and move Panama towards gradual republicanism
.
A key foreign policy issue Carter worked laboriously on was the SALT II Treaty, which reduced the number of nuclear arms produced and/or maintained by both the United States and the Soviet Union. SALT is the common name for the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, negotiations conducted between the US and the USSR. The work of Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon brought about the SALT I treaty, which had itself reduced the number of nuclear arms produced, but Carter wished to further this reduction. It was Carter's main goal (as was stated in his Inaugural Address) that nuclear weapons completely disappear from the world.
Carter and Leonid Brezhnev
, the leader of the Soviet Union, reached an agreement to this end in 1979 — the SALT II Treaty, despite opposition in Congress to ratifying it, as many thought it weakened U.S. defenses. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
late in 1979 however, Carter withdrew the treaty from consideration by Congress and the treaty was never ratified (though it was signed by both Carter and Brezhnev). Even so, both sides honored the commitments laid out in the negotiations.
in December 1979, and began promptly arming the Afghan insurgents. Vice-President Walter Mondale famously declared: "I cannot understand—it just baffles me—why the Soviets these last few years have behaved as they have. Maybe we have made some mistakes with them. Why did they have to build up all these arms? Why did they have to go into Afghanistan? Why can't they relax just a little bit about Eastern Europe? Why do they try every door to see if it is locked?" The Soviets, several times shortly before the invasion, had staged conversations with the Afghan leadership suggesting that they had no desire to intervene, even as the Politburo was—with much hesitation—considering such an intervention. Though some have argued that U.S. financial assistance to Afghan dissidents, including Islamists and other militants, prior to the invasion; along with a Soviet desire to protect the leftist Afghan government, helped convince the Soviets to intervene, the Soviets ironically brutally murdered the Afghan President and his son, replacing him with a puppet regime, immediately after the invasion for fear that the US had secretly been collaborating with him.
One of the CIA's longest and most expensive covert operations was the supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants. The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistan
i secret services, Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI), in a program called Operation Cyclone
.
According to the "Progressive South Asia Exchange Net," citing an article in , U.S. policy, unbeknownst even to the Mujahideen, was part of a larger strategy of aiming "to induce a Soviet military intervention." The article includes a brief interview with President Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski
, in which he is quoted as saying that the U.S. provided aid to the mujahideen prior to the Soviet invasion for the deliberate purpose of provoking one. Brzezinski himself has denied the accuracy of the interview. According to Brzezinski, an NSC working group
on Afghanistan wrote several reports on the deteriorating situation in 1979, but President Carter ignored them until the Soviet intervention destroyed his illusions. Brzezinski has stated that the U.S. provided communications equipment and limited financial aid to the mujahideen prior to the "formal" invasion, but only in response to the Soviet deployment of forces to Afghanistan and the 1978 coup, and with the intention of preventing further Soviet encroachment in the region. Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty," but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980.
The Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 significantly damaged the already tenuous relationship between Secretary of State Vance and Brzezinski. Vance felt that Brzezinski's linkage of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
to other Soviet activities and the MX, together with the growing domestic criticisms in the United States of the SALT II Accord, convinced Brezhnev to decide on military intervention in Afghanistan. Brzezinski, however, later recounted that he repeatedly advanced proposals on how to maintain Afghanistan's "independence" and deter a Soviet invasion but was frustrated by the Department of State's opposition.
According to Eric Alterman
of The Nation
, Cyrus Vance
's close aide Marshall Shulman "insists that the State Department worked hard to dissuade the Soviets from invading and would never have undertaken a program to encourage it" and President Carter has said it was definitely "not my intention" to inspire a Soviet invasion but to deter one.
Robert Gates
, in his book Out Of The Shadows, wrote that Pakistan had actually been pressuring the United States for arms to aid the rebels for years, but that the Carter administration refused in the hope of finding a diplomatic solution to avoid war. Brzezinski seemed to have been in favor of the provision of arms to the rebels, while Vance's State Department, seeking a peaceful settlement, publicly accused Brzezinski of seeking to "revive" the Cold War
.
The Soviet invasion and occupation killed up to 2 million Afghans. Brzezinski defended the arming of the rebels in response, saying that it "was quite important in hastening the end of the conflict," thereby saving the lives of thousands of Afghans, but "not in deciding the conflict, because actually the fact is that even though we helped the mujaheddin, they would have continued fighting without our help, because they were also getting a lot of money from the Persian Gulf and the Arab states, and they weren't going to quit. They didn't decide to fight because we urged them to. They're fighters, and they prefer to be independent. They just happen to have a curious complex: they don't like foreigners with guns in their country. And they were going to fight the Soviets. Giving them weapons was a very important forward step in defeating the Soviets, and that's all to the good as far as I'm concerned." When he was asked if he thought it was the right decision in retrospect (given the Taliban's subsequent rise to power), he said: "Which decision? For the Soviets to go in? The decision was the Soviets', and they went in. The Afghans would have resisted anyway, and they were resisting. I just told you: in my view, the Afghans would have prevailed in the end anyway, 'cause they had access to money, they had access to weapons, and they had the will to fight." The interviewer then asked: "So U.S. support for the mujaheddin only begins after the Russians invade, not before?" Brzezinski replied: "With arms? Absolutely afterwards. No question about it. Show me some documents to the contrary." Likewise; Charlie Wilson said: "The U.S. had nothing whatsoever to do with these people's decision to fight ... but we'll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones."
The United States secretly began sending limited financial aid to anti-Soviet, Afghan Islamist factions on July 3, 1979. In December 1979 the USSR invaded Afghanistan and installed a new regime that would be loyal to Moscow. At the time some believed the Soviets were attempting to expand their borders southward in order to gain a foothold in the region. The Soviet Union had long lacked a warm water port, and their movement south seemed to position them for further expansion toward Pakistan
in the East, and Iran
to the West. American politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, feared the Soviets were positioning themselves for a takeover of Middle East
ern oil. Others believed that the Soviet Union was afraid Iran's Islamic Revolution and Afghanistan's Islamization would spread to the millions of Muslims in the USSR.
After the invasion, Carter announced what became known as the Carter Doctrine
: that the U.S. would not allow any other outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf
. He terminated the Soviet Wheat Deal in January 1980, which was intended to establish trade with USSR and lessen Cold War
tensions. The grain exports had been beneficial to people employed in agriculture, and the Carter embargo
marked the beginning of hardship for American farmers. That same year, Carter also made two of the most unpopular decisions of his entire Presidency: prohibiting American athletes from participating in the 1980 Summer Olympics
in Moscow, and reinstating registration for the draft
for young males.
Carter and Brzezinski started a $3–4 billion covert program of training insurgents in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a part of the efforts to foil the Soviets' apparent plans. On the surface as well, Carter's diplomatic policies towards Pakistan in particular changed drastically. The administration had cut off financial aid
to the country in early 1979 when religious fundamentalists, encouraged by the prevailing Islamist military dictatorship
over Pakistan, burnt down a U.S. Embassy
based there. The international stake in Pakistan, however, had greatly increased with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The President of Pakistan
, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
, was offered 400 million dollars to subsidize the anti-communist
Mujahideen
in Afghanistan by Carter. General Zia declined the offer as insufficient, famously declaring it to be "peanuts"; and the U.S. was forced to step up aid to Pakistan.
Reagan would later expand this program greatly to combat Cold War concerns presented by the Soviet Union
at the time. Critics of this policy blame Carter and Reagan for the resulting instability of post-Soviet Afghan governments, which led to the rise of Islamic theocracy
in the region.
The main conflict between human rights and U.S. interests came in Carter's dealings with the Shah of Iran
. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had been a strong ally of the United States since World War II and was one of the "twin pillars" upon which U.S. strategic policy in the Middle East
was built (the other being Saudi Arabia). However, his rule was strongly autocratic
, was seen as kleptocratic
at home, and in 1953 he went along with the Eisenhower Administration in staging a coup
to remove the elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh.
On a 1978 state visit to Iran, Carter spoke out in favor of the Shah, calling him a leader of supreme wisdom, and a pillar of stability in the volatile Middle East.
When the Iranian Revolution
broke out in Iran and the Shah was overthrown, the U.S. did not intervene directly. The Shah went into permanent exile
in January 1979. Carter initially refused him entry to the United States, even on grounds of medical emergency.
Despite his initial refusal to admit the Shah into the United States, on October 22, 1979, Carter finally granted him entry and temporary asylum
for the duration of his cancer
treatment. The Shah left the U.S. for Panama
on December 15, 1979. In response to the Shah's entry into the U.S., Iranian militants seized
the American embassy in Tehran
in November, taking 52 Americans hostage. The Iranians demanded:
Though later that year the Shah left the U.S. and died in Egypt
in July 1980, the hostage crisis continued and dominated the last year of Carter's presidency. The subsequent responses to the crisis — from a "Rose Garden
strategy" of staying inside the White House, to the ill-prepared and unsuccessful attempt to rescue the hostages by military means (Operation Eagle Claw
) — were largely seen as contributing to Carter's defeat in the 1980 election.
After the hostages were taken, Carter issued, on November 14, 1979, Executive Order 12170 — Blocking Iranian Government property, which was used to freeze the bank accounts of the Iranian government in U.S. banks, totaling about $8 billion U.S. at the time. This was to be used as a bargaining chip for the release of the hostages.
In the days before President Ronald Reagan
took office, Algeria
n diplomat Abdulkarim Ghuraib opened negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. This resulted in the "Algiers Accords" one day before the end of Carter's Presidency on January 19, 1981, which entailed Iran's commitment to free the hostages immediately. Additionally, Executive Orders 12277 through 12285 were issued by Carter releasing all assets belonging to the Iranian government and all assets belonging to the Shah found within the United States and the guarantee that the hostages would have no legal claim against the Iranian government that would be heard in U.S. courts. Iran, however, also agreed to place $1 billion of the frozen assets in an escrow account and both Iran and the United States agreed to the creation of a tribunal to adjudicate claims by U.S. Nationals against Iran for compensation for property lost by them or contracts breached by Iran. The tribunal, known as the Iran – United States Claims Tribunal, has awarded over $2 billion dollars to U.S. claimaints and has been described as one of the most important arbitration bodies in the history of international law
. Although the release of the hostages was negotiated and secured under the Carter administration, the hostages were released on January 20, 1981, moments after Reagan was sworn in as President.
, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Carter administration, resigned his position on September 21, 1977, amid allegations of improper banking activities prior to his becoming Director. Lance was one of Carter's closest friends, and served as state highway director when Carter was Governor of Georgia. Carter supported Lance in his bid to succeed Carter as governor, but Lance was defeated in the primary. Lance was subsequently tried on various bank-related charges, but was acquitted. The Lance affair was an embarrassment to Carter, coming just a few years after the Watergate scandal
.
Griffin Bell
appointed Paul J. Curran as a special counsel to investigate loans made to the peanut business owned by Carter by a bank controlled by Bert Lance
, a friend of the president and the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Unlike Archibald Cox
and Leon Jaworski
who were named as special prosecutor
s to investigate the Watergate scandal
, Curran's position as special counsel meant that he would not be able to file charges on his own, but would require the approval of Assistant Attorney General Philip Heymann. Carter became the first sitting president to testify under oath as part of an investigation of that president.
The investigation was concluded in October 1979, with Curran announcing that no evidence had been found to support allegations that funds loaned from the National Bank of Georgia had been diverted to Carter's 1976 presidential campaign.
era draft dodger
s, issued in his first full day in office (January 21, 1977), President Carter used his power in other cases. In general, he issued 566 pardons or commutations as President, granting 20% of all requests that came before him.
Most notable cases:
Carter's youngest child Amy
lived in the White House while her father served as president. She was the subject of much media attention during this period as young children had not lived in the White House since the early 1960s presidency of John F. Kennedy
.
Carter's brother Billy
generated a great deal of notoriety during Carter's presidency for his colorful and often outlandish public behavior. In 1977, Billy Carter endorsed Billy Beer
, capitalizing upon his colorful image as a beer-drinking, Southern boy that had developed in the press
during President Carter's campaign. Billy Carter's name was occasionally used as a gag answer for a Washington, D.C.
, trouble-maker on 1970s episodes of The Match Game. Billy Carter once urinated on an airport runway in full view of the press and dignitaries. In late 1978 and early 1979, Billy Carter visited Libya
with a contingent from Georgia three times. He eventually registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government and received a $220,000 loan. This led to a Senate
hearing over alleged influence peddling
, which some in the press dubbed "Billygate". A Senate subcommittee was called To Investigate Activities of Individuals Representing Interests of Foreign Governments (Billy Carter-Libya Investigation).
On May 5, 1979, Carter was the target of Raymond Lee Harvey
, a mentally ill
transient
, who was found with a starter pistol awaiting the President's Cinco de Mayo
speech at the Civic Center Mall in Los Angeles, and claimed to be part of a four-man assassination attempt.
Carter lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan
in the 1980 election. The popular vote went 50.7 percent, or 43.9 million popular votes, for Reagan and 41 percent, or 35.5 million, for Carter. Independent candidate John B. Anderson
won 6.6 percent, or 5.7 million votes. However, because Carter's support was not concentrated in any geographic region, Reagan won a landslide 91 percent of the electoral vote, leaving Carter with only six states and the District of Columbia. Reagan carried a total of 489 electoral votes compared to Carter's 49.
Carter's defeat marked the first time an elected president failed to secure a second term since Herbert Hoover in 1932. Furthermore, he was the first incumbent Democratic president to seek, but fail to achieve, re-election since Andrew Johnson (Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms while Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson served one full term in addition to taking over after the deaths of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy respectively and both Truman and Johnson did not seek re-election).
While Carter kept his promise (all 52 hostages returned home alive), he failed to secure the release of the hostages prior to the election. While Carter ultimately won their release, Iran did not release the hostages until minutes after Reagan took office. In recognition of the fact that Carter was responsible for bringing the hostages home, Reagan asked him to go to West Germany
to greet them upon their release.
During his campaign, Carter was mocked for an encounter with a swimming rabbit
while fishing on a farm pond on April 20, 1979.
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
served as the thirty-ninth President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
from 1977 to 1981. His administration sought to make the government "competent and compassionate" but, in the midst of an economic crisis produced by rising energy prices
1970s energy crisis
The 1970s energy crisis was a period in which the major industrial countries of the world, particularly the United States, faced substantial shortages, both perceived and real, of petroleum...
and stagflation
Stagflation
In economics, stagflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high and the economic growth rate slows down and unemployment remains steadily high...
, met with difficulty in achieving its objectives. At the end of his administration, Carter had substantively reduced both unemployment and the deficit but had not been able to completely eliminate the recession. Carter created the United States Department of Education
United States Department of Education
The United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
and United States Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
, established a national energy policy
Energy policy of the United States
The energy policy of the United States is determined by federal, state and local public entities in the United States, which address issues of energy production, distribution, and consumption, such as building codes and gas mileage standards...
and pursued civil service and social security reform. In foreign affairs, Carter initiated the Camp David Accords
Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following thirteen days of secret negotiations at Camp David. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States...
, the Panama Canal Treaties and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of armament control. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT...
(SALT II). Throughout his career, Carter strongly emphasized human rights. He returned the Panama Canal Zone
Panama Canal Zone
The Panama Canal Zone was a unorganized U.S. territory located within the Republic of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending 5 miles on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of...
to Panama and he faced criticism at home for his decision, which was widely seen as yet another signal of U.S. weakness and of his own habit of backing down when faced with confrontation. The final year of his presidential tenure was marked by several major crises, including the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and holding of hostages
Iran hostage crisis
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian...
by Iranian students, an unsuccessful rescue attempt
Operation Eagle Claw
Operation Eagle Claw was an American military operation ordered by President Jimmy Carter to attempt to put an end to the Iran hostage crisis by rescuing 52 Americans held captive at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran on 24 April 1980...
of the hostages, serious fuel shortages
1979 energy crisis
The 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini soon became the new leader of Iran. Protests severely disrupted the Iranian oil...
, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
.
Inauguration
In his inaugural address he said: "We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems."Carter had campaigned on a promise to eliminate the trappings of the "Imperial Presidency
Imperial Presidency
Imperial Presidency is a term that became popular in the 1960s and that served as the title of a 1973 volume by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. to describe the modern presidency of the United States...
," and he began taking action according to that promise on Inauguration Day, breaking with recent history and security protocols by walking up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
to the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
in his inaugural parade. His first steps in the White House went further in this direction: Carter reduced the size of the staff by one-third; canceled government-funded chauffeur
Chauffeur
A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine.Originally such drivers were always personal servants of the vehicle owner, but now in many cases specialist chauffeur service companies, or individual drivers provide...
service for Cabinet
United States Cabinet
The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments...
members, ordering them to drive their own cars; and put the USS Sequoia
USS Sequoia (presidential yacht)
USS Sequoia is a former United States presidential yacht used from Herbert Hoover to Jimmy Carter, who had it sold in 1977. The ship was decommissioned under Roosevelt and lost its "USS" status at that time, but by popular convention is still often used...
, the presidential yacht
Yacht
A yacht is a recreational boat or ship. The term originated from the Dutch Jacht meaning "hunt". It was originally defined as a light fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries...
up for sale.
Administration and cabinet
| OFFICE | NAME | TERM |
| President President of the United States The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.... |
Jimmy Carter | 1977–1981 |
| Vice President Vice President of the United States The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term... |
Walter Mondale Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota... |
1977–1981 |
| State United States Secretary of State The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence... |
Cyrus Vance Cyrus Vance Cyrus Roberts Vance was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980... |
1977–1980 |
| Edmund Muskie Edmund Muskie Edmund Sixtus "Ed" Muskie was an American politician from Rumford, Maine. He served as Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, as a member of the United States Senate from 1959 to 1980, and as Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981... |
1980–1981 | |
| Treasury United States Secretary of the Treasury The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, which is concerned with financial and monetary matters, and, until 2003, also with some issues of national security and defense. This position in the Federal Government of the United... |
W. Michael Blumenthal W. Michael Blumenthal Werner Michael Blumenthal served as United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Jimmy Carter from 1977-1979.-Life and career:... |
1977–1979 |
| G. William Miller G. William Miller George William Miller served as the 65th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Carter from August 6, 1979 to January 20, 1981... |
1979–1981 | |
| Defense United States Secretary of Defense The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries... |
Harold Brown Harold Brown (Secretary of Defense) Harold Brown , American scientist, was U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1977 to 1981 in the cabinet of President Jimmy Carter. He had previously served in the Lyndon Johnson administration as Director of Defense Research and Engineering and Secretary of the Air Force.While Secretary of Defense, he... |
1977–1981 |
| Justice | Griffin Bell Griffin Bell Griffin Boyette Bell was an American lawyer and former Attorney General. He served as the nation's 72nd Attorney General during the Jimmy Carter administration... |
1977–1979 |
| Benjamin R. Civiletti | 1979–1981 | |
| Interior United States Secretary of the Interior The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries... |
Cecil D. Andrus Cecil D. Andrus Cecil Dale Andrus was an American politician who served as Governor of Idaho from 1971 to 1977, and again from 1987 to 1995; and in Washington as United States Secretary of the Interior from 1977 to 1981, during the Carter administration... |
1977–1981 |
| Commerce United States Secretary of Commerce The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"... |
Juanita M. Kreps Juanita M. Kreps Juanita Morris Kreps was U.S. Secretary of Commerce from January 23, 1977 until October 31, 1979 under President Jimmy Carter and was the first woman to hold that position, and the fourth woman to hold any cabinet position.-Life and career:Kreps was born Clara Juanita Morris in Lynch, Kentucky,... |
1977–1979 |
| Philip M. Klutznick | 1979–1981 | |
| Labor United States Secretary of Labor The United States Secretary of Labor is the head of the Department of Labor who exercises control over the department and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all other issues involving any form of business-person controversies.... |
Ray Marshall Ray Marshall Freddie Ray Marshall is the Professor Emeritus of the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.... |
1977–1981 |
| Agriculture United States Secretary of Agriculture The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other... |
Robert Bergland Robert Bergland Robert Selmer Bergland is a United States politician. He grew up on a farm near Roseau, and studied agriculture at the University of Minnesota in a two year program... |
1977–1981 |
| HEW | Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Joseph Anthony Califano, Jr. is Founder and Chairman of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, an independent non-profit research center affiliated with Columbia University in New York City... |
1977–1979 |
| HHS United States Secretary of Health and Human Services The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services is the head of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, concerned with health matters. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet... |
Patricia R. Harris | 1979–1981 |
| Education United States Secretary of Education The United States Secretary of Education is the head of the Department of Education. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet, and 16th in line of United States presidential line of succession... |
Shirley M. Hufstedler | 1979–1981 |
| HUD United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development The United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is the head of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, a member of the President's Cabinet, and thirteenth in the Presidential line of succession. The post was created with the formation of the Department of Housing... |
Patricia R. Harris | 1977–1979 |
| Maurice "Moon" Landrieu Moon Landrieu Maurice Edwin "Moon" Landrieu is a Democratic politician from Louisiana who served as Mayor of New Orleans from 1970–1978. He also is a former judge... |
1979–1981 | |
| Transportation United States Secretary of Transportation The United States Secretary of Transportation is the head of the United States Department of Transportation, a member of the President's Cabinet, and fourteenth in the Presidential line of succession. The post was created with the formation of the Department of Transportation on October 15, 1966,... |
Brock Adams Brock Adams Brockman "Brock" Adams was an American politician and member of Congress. Adams was a Democrat from Washington and served as a U.S. Representative, Senator, and United States Secretary of Transportation before retiring in January 1993.Adams was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended the public... |
1977–1979 |
| Neil E. Goldschmidt | 1979–1981 | |
| Energy United States Secretary of Energy The United States Secretary of Energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the President's Cabinet, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was formed on October 1, 1977 with the creation of the Department of Energy when President Jimmy... |
James R. Schlesinger James R. Schlesinger Dr. James Rodney Schlesinger is an American politician. He is best known for serving as Secretary of Defense from 1973 to 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford... |
1977–1979 |
| Charles W. Duncan | 1979–1981 |
- White House Chief of StaffWhite House Chief of StaffThe White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.The current White House Chief of Staff is Bill Daley.-History:...
- Hamilton JordanHamilton JordanWilliam Hamilton McWhorter Jordan was Chief of Staff to President of the United States Jimmy Carter.-Early life:...
(1979–1980) - Jack H. WatsonJack Watson (Presidential adviser)Jack H. Watson Jr. former Chief Legal Strategist of Monsanto Company, served as Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs, Secretary to the Cabinet, and White House Chief of Staff during the Carter Administration....
(1980–1981)
- Hamilton Jordan
- Director of the Office of Management and Budget
- Bert LanceBert LanceThomas Bertram Lance is an American businessman, who was Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter. He is known mainly for his resignation from President Jimmy Carter's administration due to scandal in 1977.- Early Life :Lance was born in Gainesville, Georgia...
(1977) - James T. McIntyreJames T. McIntyreJames T. McIntyre was a director of the United States' Office of Management and Budget from September 24, 1977 until January 20, 1981....
(1977–1981)
- Bert Lance
- United States Trade Representative
- Robert S. StraussRobert Schwarz StraussRobert Schwarz Strauss is a figure in American politics and diplomacy. A Texas political figure, Strauss’s political service dates back to future president Lyndon Johnson’s first congressional campaign in 1937. By the 1950s, he was associated in Texas politics with the conservative faction of...
(1977–1979) - Reubin Askew (1979–1981)
- Robert S. Strauss
- Administrator of the Environmental Protection AgencyAdministrator of the Environmental Protection AgencyThe Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is the head of the United States federal government's Environmental Protection Agency, and is thus responsible for enforcing the nation's Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, as well as numerous other environmental statutes. The Administrator is...
- John Quarles, Jr. (1977, acting)
- Douglas M. CostleDouglas M. CostleDouglas Michael Costle was one of the architects of the United States Environmental Protection Agency , and he served President Jimmy Carter as EPA Administrator from 1977 to 1981.- Early life and education :...
(1977–1981)
- United States Ambassador to the United NationsUnited States Ambassador to the United NationsThe United States Ambassador to the United Nations is the leader of the U.S. delegation, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The position is more formally known as the "Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, with the rank and status of Ambassador...
- Andrew YoungAndrew YoungAndrew Jackson Young is an American politician, diplomat, activist and pastor from Georgia. He has served as Mayor of Atlanta, a Congressman from the 5th district, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations...
(1977–1979) - Donald McHenryDonald McHenryDonald Franchot McHenry is a former American diplomat. He was the United States Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations from September 1979 until January 20, 1981.-Biography:...
(1979–1981)
- Andrew Young
Others:
- Stansfield TurnerStansfield TurnerStansfield M. Turner is a retired Admiral and former Director of Central Intelligence. He is currently a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Policy....
(Director of Central IntelligenceDirector of Central IntelligenceThe Office of United States Director of Central Intelligence was the head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the principal intelligence advisor to the President and the National Security Council, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United...
) - Zbigniew BrzezińskiZbigniew BrzezinskiZbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
(National Security AdvisorNational Security Advisor (United States)The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
)
Judicial appointments
Although Carter had no opportunity to appoint any justices to the Supreme Court of the United StatesSupreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, he appointed 56 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals
United States courts of appeals
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...
, and 203 judges to the United States district courts. Carter also experienced a small number of judicial appointment controversies
Jimmy Carter judicial appointment controversies
During President Jimmy Carter's presidency, he nominated four people for four different federal appellate judgeships who were not processed by the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee before Carter's presidency ended. None of the four nominees were renominated by Carter's successor,...
, as three of his nominees for different federal appellate judgeships
United States federal judge
In the United States, the title of federal judge usually means a judge appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate in accordance with Article II of the United States Constitution....
were not processed by the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary is a standing committee of the United States Senate, of the United States Congress. The Judiciary Committee, with 18 members, is charged with conducting hearings prior to the Senate votes on confirmation of federal judges nominated by the...
before Carter's presidency ended.
Domestic policies
Carter's reorganization efforts separated the Department of Health, Education and Welfare into the Department of EducationUnited States Department of Education
The United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
and the Department of Health and Human Services
United States Department of Health and Human Services
The United States Department of Health and Human Services is a Cabinet department of the United States government with the goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America"...
. He signed into law a major Civil Service Reform, the first in over 100 years.
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
for Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
-era draft evaders.
Under Carter's watch, the Airline Deregulation Act
Airline Deregulation Act
The Airline Deregulation Act is a United States federal law signed into law on October 24, 1978. The main purpose of the act was to remove government control over fares, routes and market entry from commercial aviation...
of 1978 was passed, which phased out the Civil Aeronautics Board. He also enacted deregulation
Deregulation
Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or...
in the trucking, rail, communications, and finance industries.
Among Presidents who served at least one full term, Carter is the only one who never made an appointment to the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
.
Carter was the first president to address the topic of gay
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
rights. He opposed the Briggs Initiative, a California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
ballot measure that would have banned gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
s and supporters of gay rights from being public school teachers. His administration was the first to meet with a group of gay rights activists, and in recent years he has acted in favor of civil unions and ending the ban on gays in the military. He has stated that he "opposes all forms of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
and believes there should be equal protection under the law for people who differ in sexual orientation".
Budget
Despite calling for a reform of the tax system in his presidential campaign, once in office Carter did very little to change it.The federal government was in deficit every year of the Carter presidency. His Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act was a United States federal law passed in 1980 by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on December 2 of that year....
created 103 million acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s (417,000 km²) of national park land in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
.
Congressional relations
Carter successfully campaigned as a Washington "outsider", critical of President Gerald Ford, as well as the Democratically-controlled U.S. Congress. As president, Carter continued this theme. However, his refusal to play by the rules of Washington contributed to the Carter administration's difficult relationship with Congress. Hamilton Jordan and Frank Moore, in particular, feuded with leading Democrats like House Speaker Tip O'NeillTip O'Neill
Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. was an American politician. O'Neill was an outspoken liberal Democrat and influential member of the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for 34 years and representing two congressional districts in Massachusetts...
from the start. Unreturned phone calls, verbal insults (both real and imagined), and an unwillingness to trade political favors soured many on Capitol Hill and tangibly affected the president's ability to push through his ambitious agenda.
During the first 100 days of his presidency, Carter wrote a letter to Congress proposing several water projects be scrapped. Among the opponents of Carter's proposal was Senator Russell Long, a powerful Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee
United States Senate Committee on Finance
The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance is a standing committee of the United States Senate. The Committee concerns itself with matters relating to taxation and other revenue measures generally, and those relating to the insular possessions; bonded debt of the United States; customs, collection...
. Carter's plan was overturned and bitter feeling became a problem for him.
A rift grew between the White House and Congress. Carter wrote that the most intense and mounting opposition to his policies came from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which he attributed to Ted Kennedy’s ambition to replace him as president.
A few months after his term started, and thinking he had the support of about 74 Congressmen, Carter issued a "hit list" of 19 projects that he claimed were "pork barrel
Pork barrel
Pork barrel is a derogatory term referring to appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district...
" spending. He said that he would veto any legislation that contained projects on this list.
This list met with opposition from the leadership of the Democratic Party. Carter had characterized a rivers and harbors bill as wasteful spending. House speaker Tip O'Neill
Tip O'Neill
Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. was an American politician. O'Neill was an outspoken liberal Democrat and influential member of the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for 34 years and representing two congressional districts in Massachusetts...
thought it was unwise for the President to interfere with matters that had traditionally been the purview of Congress. Carter was then further weakened when he signed into law a bill containing many of the "hit list" projects.
Later, Congress refused to pass major provisions of his consumer protection
Consumer protection
Consumer protection laws designed to ensure fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional...
bill and his labor reform package. Carter then vetoed a public works package calling it "inflationary", as it contained what he considered to be wasteful spending. Congressional leaders sensed that public support for his legislation was weak, and took advantage of it. After gutting his consumer protection bill, they transformed his tax plan into nothing more than spending for special interests, after which Carter referred to the congressional tax committees as "ravenous wolves."
Health care
Carter wrote in 1982, that Senator Ted KennedyTed Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
’s disagreements with Carter's proposed health-care reform plan thwarted Carter’s efforts to provide comprehensive health-care
Health care reform in the United States
Health care reform in the United States has a long history, of which the most recent results were two federal statutes enacted in 2010: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act , signed March 23, 2010, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 , which amended the PPACA and...
for citizens outside the Medicare
Medicare (United States)
Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over; to those who are under 65 and are permanently physically disabled or who have a congenital physical disability; or to those who meet other...
system.
Some progress was made in the field of occupational health following Carter's appointment of Dr. Eula Bingham
Eula Bingham
Eula Bingham is an American scientist who is best known as an Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health during the Carter Administration.-Biography:...
as Director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
The United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Labor. It was created by Congress of the United States under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, signed by President Richard M. Nixon, on December 29, 1970...
. Bingham drew from her experience as a physiologist working with carcinogen
Carcinogen
A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that is an agent directly involved in causing cancer. This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes...
s to raise and simplify standards, redirect the office's resources to industry groups with the worst records, while enacting occupational particulate, lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
and benzene
Benzene
Benzene is an organic chemical compound. It is composed of 6 carbon atoms in a ring, with 1 hydrogen atom attached to each carbon atom, with the molecular formula C6H6....
exposure standards and regulations on workers' right to know
Right to know
"Right to know", in the context of United States workplace and community environmental law, is the legal principle that the individual has the right to know the chemicals to which they may be exposed in their daily living. It is embodied in federal law in the United States as well as in local laws...
about workplace hazards, including labeling of toxic substances. Bingham enacted many of these provisions over the opposition of not only Republicans, but also some in the Carter Admnistration itself, notably Council of Economic Advisers
Council of Economic Advisers
The Council of Economic Advisers is an agency within the Executive Office of the President that advises the President of the United States on economic policy...
Chairman Charles Schultze
Charles Schultze
Charles L. Schultze is a United States economist and public policy analyst. He served as chairman of the United States Council of Economic Advisers during the Carter Administration. In the 1960s Schultze was appointed assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget by President John F...
and her own boss, Labor Secretary
United States Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor is a Cabinet department of the United States government responsible for occupational safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment insurance benefits, re-employment services, and some economic statistics. Many U.S. states also have such departments. The...
Ray Marshall
Ray Marshall
Freddie Ray Marshall is the Professor Emeritus of the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin....
; ultimately, many of her proposed reforms were never enacted, or were later rescinded.
Energy crisis
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reduced supplies of oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
available to the world market, in part because of deflation of the dollars they were receiving as a result of Nixon leaving the gold standard
Nixon Shock
The Nixon Shock was a series of economic measures taken by U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1971 including unilaterally cancelling the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold that essentially ended the existing Bretton Woods system of international financial exchange.-Background:By...
and in part as a reaction to America's sending of arms to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
during the Yom Kippur War
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...
. This sparked the 1973 Oil Crisis
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...
and forced oil prices to rise sharply, spurring price inflation throughout the economy and slowing growth. The U.S government imposed price controls
Price controls
Price controls are governmental impositions on the prices charged for goods and services in a market, usually intended to maintain the affordability of staple foods and goods, and to prevent price gouging during shortages, or, alternatively, to insure an income for providers of certain goods...
on gasoline
Gasoline
Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
and oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
following the announcement, which had the effect of causing shortages and long lines at filling stations for gasoline. The lines were quelled through the lifting of price controls on gasoline, although oil controls remained until Reagan's presidency. Significant government borrowing helped keep interest rates high relative to inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
. Carter told Americans that the energy crisis was "a clear and present danger to our nation" and "the moral equivalent of war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
" and drew out a plan he thought would address it. Carter said that world oil supply would probably only be able to keep up with Americans' demand for six to eight more years.
In 1977, Carter convinced the Democratic Congress to create the United States Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
(DoE) with the goal of conserving energy
Energy conservation
Energy conservation refers to efforts made to reduce energy consumption. Energy conservation can be achieved through increased efficient energy use, in conjunction with decreased energy consumption and/or reduced consumption from conventional energy sources...
. Carter set oil and natural gas price controls, had solar hot water
Solar hot water
Solar water heating or solar hot water systems comprise several innovations and many mature renewable energy technologies that have been well established for many years...
panels installed on the roof of the White House, had a wood stove in his living quarters, ordered the General Services Administration
General Services Administration
The General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S...
to turn off hot water in some federal facilities, and requested that all Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
light decorations remain dark in 1979 and 1980. Nationwide, controls were put on thermostat
Thermostat
A thermostat is the component of a control system which regulates the temperature of a system so that the system's temperature is maintained near a desired setpoint temperature. The thermostat does this by switching heating or cooling devices on or off, or regulating the flow of a heat transfer...
s in government and commercial buildings to prevent people from raising temperatures in the winter (above 65 degrees Fahrenheit = 18.33 °C) or lowering them in the summer (below 78 degrees Fahrenheit = 25.55 °C).
As reaction to the energy crisis and growing concerns over air pollution
Air pollution
Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....
, Carter also signed the National Energy Act
National Energy Act
The National Energy Act of 1978 was a legislative response by the U.S. Congress to the 1973 energy crisis. It includes the following statutes:* Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act * Energy Tax Act * National Energy Conservation Policy Act...
(NEA) and the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA). The purpose of these watershed laws was to encourage energy conservation and the development of national energy resources, including renewables
Renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
such as wind
Wind energy
Wind energy is the kinetic energy of air in motion; see also wind power.Total wind energy flowing through an imaginary area A during the time t is:E = ½ m v2 = ½ v 2...
and solar energy.
However, during the 1979 crisis, Carter reinstated some price controls on gasoline, which again had the effect of causing lines at gasoline stations. During his "malaise" speech he asked Congress to impose a "Windfall Profit Tax" to help pay for energy efficiency initiatives. Enacted in 1980 on domestic oil production, the tax was repealed in 1988, as prices had collapsed in the 1980s oil glut
1980s oil glut
The 1980s oil glut was a serious surplus of crude oil caused by falling demand following the 1970s Energy Crisis. The world price of oil, which had peaked in 1980 at over US$35 per barrel , fell in 1986 from $27 to below $10...
, making it politically possible to remove the tax, said removal one of President Reagan's campaign issues.
Economy: stagflation and the appointment of Volcker
The economic history of the Carter Administration can be divided in two roughly equal periods. The first two years were a time of continuing recovery from the severe 1973–75 recession, which had left fixed investmentFixed investment
Fixed investment in economics refers to investment in fixed capital, i.e., tangible capital goods , or to the replacement of depreciated capital goods which have been scrapped....
at its lowest level since the 1970 recession and unemployment at 9%. The second two years were marked by double-digit inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
, coupled with very high interest rates, oil shortages
1979 energy crisis
The 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini soon became the new leader of Iran. Protests severely disrupted the Iranian oil...
, and slow economic growth. The nation's economy grew by an average of 3.4% during the Carter Administration (at par with the historical average). Each of these two-year periods, however, would differ dramatically.
The U.S. economy, which had grown by 5% in 1976, continued to grow at a similar pace during 1977 and 1978. Unemployment declined from 7.5% in January 1977 to 5.6% by May 1979, with over 9 million net new jobs created during that interim, and real median household income grew by 5% from 1976 to 1978. The recovery in business investment in evidence during 1976 strengthened as well. Fixed private investment (machinery and construction) grew by 30% from 1976 to 1979, home sales and construction grew another one third by 1978, and industrial production, motor vehicle output and sales did so by nearly 15%; with the exception of new housing starts, which remained slightly below their 1972 peak, each of these benchmarks reached record levels in 1978 or 1979.
The 1979 energy crisis
1979 energy crisis
The 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini soon became the new leader of Iran. Protests severely disrupted the Iranian oil...
ended this period of growth, however, and as both inflation and interest rates rose, economic growth, job creation, and consumer confidence
Consumer confidence
Consumer confidence is an economic indicator which measures the degree of optimism that consumers feel about the overall state of the economy and their personal financial situation. How confident people feel about stability of their incomes determines their spending activity and therefore serves as...
declined sharply. The relatively loose monetary policy
Monetary policy
Monetary policy is the process by which the monetary authority of a country controls the supply of money, often targeting a rate of interest for the purpose of promoting economic growth and stability. The official goals usually include relatively stable prices and low unemployment...
adopted by Federal Reserve Board Chairman G. William Miller
G. William Miller
George William Miller served as the 65th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Carter from August 6, 1979 to January 20, 1981...
, had already contributed to somewhat higher inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
, rising from 5.8% in 1976 to 7.7% in 1978. The sudden doubling of crude oil prices by OPEC
OPEC
OPEC is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings...
, the world's leading oil exporting cartel
Cartel
A cartel is a formal agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers and manufacturers that agree to fix prices, marketing, and production. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products...
, forced inflation to double-digit levels, averaging 11.3% in 1979 and 13.5% in 1980. The sudden shortage of gasoline
Gasoline
Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
as the 1979 summer vacation season began exacerbated the problem, and would come to symbolize the crisis among the public in general; the acute shortage, originating in the shutdown of Amerada Hess refining facilities, led to a lawsuit against the company that year by the Federal Government.
Carter, like Nixon, asked Congress to impose price controls
Price controls
Price controls are governmental impositions on the prices charged for goods and services in a market, usually intended to maintain the affordability of staple foods and goods, and to prevent price gouging during shortages, or, alternatively, to insure an income for providers of certain goods...
on energy, medicine, and consumer prices, but was unable to secure passage of such measures due to strong opposition from Congress. One related measure approved by Congress during the presidency of Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, gave Presidents the authority to deregulate prices of domestic oil
Petroleum in the United States
Petroleum in the United States has been a major industry since shortly after the oil discovery in the Oil Creek area of Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. As of 2008, the US was the world's third-largest oil producer , producing 8.5 million barrels of oil and natural gas liquids per day...
, and Carter exercised this option on July 1, 1979, as a means of encouraging both oil production and conservation. Oil imports, which had reached a record 2.4 billion barrels in 1977 (50% of supply), declined by half from 1979 to 1983.
Following a August 1979 cabinet shakeup in which Carter asked for the resignations of several cabinet members (see "Malaise speech" below), Carter appointed G. William Miller
G. William Miller
George William Miller served as the 65th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Carter from August 6, 1979 to January 20, 1981...
as Secretary of the Treasury, naming Paul Volcker
Paul Volcker
Paul Adolph Volcker, Jr. is an American economist. He was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve under United States Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan from August 1979 to August 1987. He is widely credited with ending the high levels of inflation seen in the United States in the 1970s and...
as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Volcker pursued a tight monetary policy
Monetary policy
Monetary policy is the process by which the monetary authority of a country controls the supply of money, often targeting a rate of interest for the purpose of promoting economic growth and stability. The official goals usually include relatively stable prices and low unemployment...
to bring down inflation, which he considered his mandate. Volcker (and Carter) succeeded, but only by first going through an unpleasant phase during which the economy slowed and unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
rose. Inflation did not return to low single-digit levels until 1982, during a second, more severe recession; President Reagan re-appointed Volcker to the post in 1983.
Led by Volcker, the Federal Reserve raised the discount rate from 10% when Volcker assumed the chairmanship in August 1979 to 12% within two months. The prime rate
Prime rate
Prime rate or prime lending rate is a term applied in many countries to a reference interest rate used by banks. The term originally indicated the rate of interest at which banks lent to favored customers, i.e., those with high credibility, though this is no longer always the case...
outstripped the Federal funds rate
Federal funds rate
In the United States, the federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions actively trade balances held at the Federal Reserve, called federal funds, with each other, usually overnight, on an uncollateralized basis. Institutions with surplus balances in their accounts lend...
, reaching 20% in March 1980. Carter then enacted an austerity
Austerity
In economics, austerity is a policy of deficit-cutting, lower spending, and a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided. Austerity policies are often used by governments to reduce their deficit spending while sometimes coupled with increases in taxes to pay back creditors to...
program by executive order, justifying these measures by observing that inflation had reached a "crisis stage"; both inflation and short-term interest rates reached 18 percent in February and March of 1980. Investments in fixed income (both bond
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...
s held by Wall Street and pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
s paid to retired people
Retirement
Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours.Many people choose to retire when they are eligible for private or public pension benefits, although some are forced to retire when physical conditions don't allow the person to...
) were becoming less valuable in real term
Real versus nominal value
In economics, nominal value refers to a value expressed in money terms in a given year or series of years. By contrast, real value adjusts nominal value to remove effects of price changes over time...
s, and on March 14, 1980, President Carter announced the first credit control measures since World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
The policy, as well as record interest rates, would lead to a sharp recession in the spring of 1980
Early 1980s recession
The early 1980s recession describes the severe global economic recession affecting much of the developed world in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The United States and Japan exited recession relatively early, but high unemployment would continue to affect other OECD nations through at least 1985...
. The sudden fall in GDP during the second quarter caused unemployment to jump from 6% to 7.5% by May, with output in the auto and housing sectors falling by over 20% and to their weakest level since the 1975 recession. Carter phased out credit controls in May, and by July, the prime rate
Prime rate
Prime rate or prime lending rate is a term applied in many countries to a reference interest rate used by banks. The term originally indicated the rate of interest at which banks lent to favored customers, i.e., those with high credibility, though this is no longer always the case...
had fallen to 11%, with inflation breaking the earlier trend and easing to under 13% for the remainder of 1980. The V-shaped recession
Recession shapes
Recession shapes are used by economists to describe different types of recessions. There is no specific academic theory or classification system for recession shapes; rather the terminology is used as an informal shorthand to characterize recessions and their recoveries.The most commonly used...
coincided with Carter's re-election campaign, however, and contributed to his unexpectedly severe loss.
Lower interest rates and easing of credit controls sparked a recovery during the second half of 1980, and although the hard-hit auto and housing sectors would not recover substantially, GDP and employment totals regained pre-recession levels by the first quarter of 1981. The S&P 500
S&P 500
The S&P 500 is a free-float capitalization-weighted index published since 1957 of the prices of 500 large-cap common stocks actively traded in the United States. The stocks included in the S&P 500 are those of large publicly held companies that trade on either of the two largest American stock...
(which had remained at around 100 since 1976), rose to nearly 140 by the latter part of the year. A resumption in growth prompted renewed tightening by the Fed, however, and the prime rate reached 21.5% in December 1980, the highest rate in U.S. history under any President. The Carter Administration remained fiscally conservative during both growth and recession periods, vetoing numerous spending increases while enacting deregulation
Deregulation
Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or...
in the energy and transportation sectors and sharply reducing the top capital gains tax
Capital gains tax
A capital gains tax is a tax charged on capital gains, the profit realized on the sale of a non-inventory asset that was purchased at a lower price. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, bonds, precious metals and property...
rate. Federal budget deficits
United States public debt
The United States public debt is the money borrowed by the federal government of the United States at any one time through the issue of securities by the Treasury and other federal government agencies...
throughout his term remained at around the $ 70 billion level reached in 1976, while falling as a percent of GDP from 4% to 2.5% by the 1980–81 Fiscal Year.
"Malaise" speech
When the energy market exploded1979 energy crisis
The 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini soon became the new leader of Iran. Protests severely disrupted the Iranian oil...
, he was planning on delivering his fifth major speech on energy; however, he felt that the American people were no longer listening. Carter left for the presidential retreat of Camp David
Camp David
Camp David is the country retreat of the President of the United States and his guests. It is located in low wooded hills about 60 mi north-northwest of Washington, D.C., on the property of Catoctin Mountain Park in unincorporated Frederick County, Maryland, near Thurmont, at an elevation of...
. "For more than a week, a veil of secrecy enveloped the proceedings. Dozens of prominent Democratic Party leaders—members of Congress, governors, labor leaders, academics and clergy—were summoned to the mountaintop retreat to confer with the beleaguered president." His pollster, Pat Caddell, told him that the American people simply faced a crisis of confidence because of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
; and Watergate
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
. On July 15, 1979, Carter gave a nationally-televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a "crisis of confidence" among the American people. This came to be known as his "malaise
Malaise
Malaise is a feeling of general discomfort or uneasiness, of being "out of sorts", often the first indication of an infection or other disease. Malaise is often defined in medicinal research as a "general feeling of being unwell"...
" speech, although the word never appeared in it:
Carter's speech was written by Hendrik Hertzberg
Hendrik Hertzberg
Hendrik Hertzberg is an American journalist, best known as the principal political commentator for The New Yorker magazine. He has also been a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and editor of The New Republic, and is the author of ¡Obámanos! The Rise of a New Political Era and Politics:...
and Gordon Stewart. Though it is often said to have been ill-received, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
ran the headline "Speech Lifts Carter Rating to 37%; Public Agrees on Confidence Crisis; Responsive Chord Struck" later that week.
Carter's later election loss may have turned other politicians off the idea of asking Americans to conserve energy in a similar way. Three days after the speech, Carter asked for the resignations of all of his Cabinet officers, and ultimately accepted those of five who had clashed with the White House the most, including Energy Secretary James Schlesinger and Health, Education and Welfare chief Joseph Califano, known as a supporter of Senator Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
. After campaigning that he would never appoint a Chief of Staff, Carter appointed Jordan as a new White House Chief of Staff. Many in the administration chafed when Jordan circulated a "questionnaire" that read more like a loyalty oath. "I think the idea was that they were going to firm up the administration, show that there was real change by these personnel changes, and move on," remembers Mondale. "But the message the American people got was that we were falling apart." Carter later admitted in his memoirs that he should simply have asked only those five members for their resignations. In 2008, a U.S. News and World Report piece stated:
Environment
Jimmy Carter has been dubbed as the 'environmentally conscious' president. On December 11, 1980, he signed into law "Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA)" commonly known as SuperfundSuperfund
Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 , a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances...
, a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances.
He also installed a 32 solar-powered heating system on the White House roof On June 20, 1979, to promote the use of solar energy.
On December 2, 1980, he signed into law Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act was a United States federal law passed in 1980 by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on December 2 of that year....
. The law provided for the creation or revision of 15 National Park Service properties, and set aside other public lands for the United States Forest Service and United States Fish and Wildlife Service. In all, the act provided for the designation of 79.53 million acres (124,281 square miles; 321,900 km²) of public lands, fully a third of which was set aside as wilderness area in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
.
Voyager 1 message
Carter's official statement was placed on the Voyager 1Voyager 1
The Voyager 1 spacecraft is a 722-kilogram space probe launched by NASA in 1977, to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. Operating for as of today , the spacecraft receives routine commands and transmits data back to the Deep Space Network. At a distance of as of...
spacecraft for its trip outside our solar system on September 5, 1977:
South Korea
During his first month in office, Carter cut the defense budget by $6 billion. One of his first acts was to order the unilateral removal of all nuclear weaponNuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s from South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
and announce his intention to cut back the number of US troops stationed there. Other military men confined intense criticism of the withdrawal to private conversations or testimony before congressional committees, but in 1977 Major General John K. Singlaub
John K. Singlaub
John Kirk Singlaub is a highly-decorated former OSS officer and a retired Major General in the United States Army, and a founding member of the Central Intelligence Agency . He was a joint founder, with Congressman Larry McDonald, of the Western Goals Foundation, a conservative private...
, chief of staff of U.S. forces in South Korea, publicly criticized Carter's decision to lower the U.S. troop level there. On March 21, 1977, Carter relieved him of duty, saying his publicly stated sentiments were "inconsistent with announced national security policy." Carter planned to remove all U.S. troops, with the exception of 14,000 U.S. air force personnel and logistics specialists, from South Korea by 1982, but after cutting only 3,600 troops, he was forced by intense Congressional pressure to abandon the effort in 1978.
Arab–Israeli conflict/Camp David Accords
Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Roberts Vance was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980...
and National Security Advisor
National Security Advisor (United States)
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
paid close attention to the Arab–Israeli conflict
Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict refers to political tensions and open hostilities between the Arab peoples and the Jewish community of the Middle East. The modern Arab-Israeli conflict began with the rise of Zionism and Arab Nationalism towards the end of the nineteenth century, and intensified with the...
. Diplomatic communications between Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
increased significantly after the Yom Kippur War
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...
and the Carter administration felt that the time was right for comprehensive solution to the conflict.
In mid-1978, Carter became quite concerned as there were only a few months left before the Egyptian-Israeli Disengagement Treaty expired. As a result, Carter sent a special envoy to the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
. The American Ambassador flew back and forth between Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
and Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
in search of ways to narrow the disagreement between the two countries. It was then suggested that the foreign ministers meet at Leeds Castle
Leeds Castle
Leeds Castle, southeast of Maidstone, Kent, England, dates back to 1119, though a Saxon fort stood on the same site from the 9th century. The castle is built on islands in a lake formed by the River Len to the east of the village of Leeds....
, England where they could discuss the possibilities of peace. They tried to come to an agreement, but the foreign ministers failed. This led to the 1978 Camp David Accords
Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following thirteen days of secret negotiations at Camp David. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States...
, one of Carter's most important accomplishments as President. The accords were a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt negotiated by Carter, which followed up on earlier negotiations conducted in the Middle East. In these negotiations King Hassan II of Morocco
Hassan II of Morocco
King Hassan II l-ḥasan aṯ-ṯānī, dial. el-ḥasan ettâni); July 9, 1929 – July 23, 1999) was King of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999...
acted as a negotiator between Arab
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
interests and Israel, and Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
of Romania acted as go-between for Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestine Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization which was created in 1964. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations and over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed...
(PLO, the unofficial representative of the Palestinian people
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
). Once initial negotiations had been completed, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981...
approached Carter for assistance. Carter then invited Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
and Anwar El Sadat to Camp David
Camp David
Camp David is the country retreat of the President of the United States and his guests. It is located in low wooded hills about 60 mi north-northwest of Washington, D.C., on the property of Catoctin Mountain Park in unincorporated Frederick County, Maryland, near Thurmont, at an elevation of...
to continue the negotiations. They arrived on August 8, 1978. Upon their arrival, neither leader had addressed one another since the Vienna meeting. President Carter inevitably became the mediator between the two leaders. He spoke to each leader separately until an agreement was reached. Almost a month had passed, but no resolution had been reached. President Carter decided to take the two of them on a trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to break this deadlock. He showed the two leaders the battlefield and gave them a history lesson about one of the battles
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg , was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War, it is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac...
that had taken place during the U.S. Civil War. Carter emphasized how important it was to have peace in order to bring prosperity to the people. A lesson was learned, and when Begin and Sadat returned to Camp David, they finally agreed that something had to be signed.
On September 12, 1978, President Carter suggested dividing the negotiations over the peace treaty into two frameworks: framework #1 and framework #2. Framework #1 would address the West Bank and Gaza. Framework #2 would deal with Sinai.
The first framework dealt with the Palestinian territories
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...
(the West Bank and Gaza). The first point stated that the election of a self-governing authority would be allowed to provide full autonomy to the inhabitants of the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
and Gaza
Gaza Strip
thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
. This government would be elected by the Palestinians and would only look after municipal affairs. The second step would be to grant Palestinians autonomy mainly on those municipal matters. Five years down the road after having gone through steps one and two, the status of Palestine could then be negotiated. Framework #1 was not very well received; the Palestinians and Jordanians were furious. They objected to the fact that Begin and Sadat were deciding on their ultimate destiny without consulting them or their leaders. Framework #1 for that reason was not going to work; it was essentially a dead end.
The second framework dealt with the Sinai Peninsula
Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt about in area. It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south, and is the only part of Egyptian territory located in Asia as opposed to Africa, effectively serving as a land bridge between two...
. This framework consisted of two points:
1. The two parties, Egypt and Israel, should negotiate a treaty over a period of six months based on the principle of Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai and the withdrawal of Israel from that region.
2. This treaty would be followed and included in it would be the establishment of diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural relations between Egypt and Israel.
President Carter admitted that "there's still great difficulties that remain and many hard issues to be settled." This would be a peace that would establish normal relations between the two states. This was the basis of the two frameworks, but it had yet to be approved.
The reaction to this proposal in the Arab world was very negative. In November 1978, there was an emergency meeting held by the Arab League in Damascus. Once again, Egypt was the main subject of the meeting, and they condemned the proposed treaty that Egypt was going to sign.
Sadat was also attacked by the Arab press for breaking ranks with the Arab League and having betrayed the Arab world. Discussions pertaining to the future peace treaty took place in both countries. Israel insisted in its negotiations that the Israel-Egypt treaty should supersede all of Egypt's other treaties, including those signed with the Arab League and Arab states.
Israel also wanted access to the oil discovered in the Sinai region. President Carter interjected and informed the Israelis that the U.S. would supply Israel with whatever oil it needed for the next 15 years if Egypt at any point decided not to supply oil to Israel.
While framework #1 was already approved by the Israeli Government, the second framework also needed approval. The Israeli Cabinet accepted the second framework of the treaty. The Israeli Parliament also approved the second framework with a comfortable majority. Alternatively, the Egyptian Government was arguing about a number of things. They did not like the fact that this proposed treaty was going to supersede all other treaties. Egyptians were also disappointed that they were unable to link the Sinai question to the Palestinian question.
On March 26, 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in Washington, D.C. Carter's role in getting the treaty was essential. Aaron David Miller
Aaron David Miller
Aaron David Miller is an American Middle East analyst, author, and negotiator. He is on the U.S. Advisory Council of Israel Policy Forum, is Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and has been an advisor to six Secretaries of State. Miller worked within the United States Department...
interviewed many officials for his book The Much Too Promised Land (2008) and concluded the following: "No matter whom I spoke to — Americans, Egyptians, or Israelis — most everyone said the same thing: no Carter, no peace treaty."
Rapid Deployment Forces
On October 1, 1979, Carter announced before a television audience the existence of the Rapid Deployment ForcesRapid Deployment Forces
The Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force is an inactive United States Department of Defense Joint Task Force. It was inactivated in 1983, and re-organized as the United States Central Command .- Origins :...
(RDF), a mobile fighting force capable of responding to worldwide trouble spots, without drawing on forces committed to NATO. The RDF was the forerunner of CENTCOM
United States Central Command
The United States Central Command is a theater-level Unified Combatant Command unit of the U.S. armed forces, established in 1983 under the operational control of the U.S. Secretary of Defense...
.
Human rights
Carter initially departed from the long-held policy of containmentContainment
Containment was a United States policy using military, economic, and diplomatic strategies to stall the spread of communism, enhance America’s security and influence abroad, and prevent a "domino effect". A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet...
toward the Soviet Union. In its place, Carter promoted a foreign policy that put human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
at the forefront. This was a break from the policies of several predecessors, in which human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
abuses were often overlooked if they were committed by a government that was allied, or purported to be allied, with the United States.
He nominated civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activist Patricia M. Derian
Patricia M. Derian
Patricia Murphy "Patt" Derian is a United States civil rights and human rights activist, who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1977 to 1981.-Biography:...
as Coordinator for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and in August 1977, had the post elevated to that of Assistant Secretary of State. Derian established the United States' Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
United States' Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are publications on the annual human right conditions in countries and regions outside the United States, submitted annually by the United States Department of State to the United States Congress. The reports cover internationally recognized individual,...
, published annually since 1977, and made their findings a factor in military aid
Military aid
Military aid is aid which is used to assist an ally in its defense efforts, or to assist a poor country in maintaining control over its own territory. Many countries receive military aid to help with counter-insurgency efforts...
determinations, effectively ending such aid for five Latin American countries for the remainder of Carter's tenure. The Carter Administration ended support to the historically U.S.-backed Somoza
Anastasio Somoza Debayle
Anastasio Somoza Debayle was a Nicaraguan leader and officially the 73rd and 76th President of Nicaragua from 1 May 1967 to 1 May 1972 and from 1 December 1974 to 17 July 1979. As head of the National Guard, he was de facto ruler of the country from 1967 to 1979...
regime in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
and gave aid to the new Sandinista National Liberation Front
Sandinista National Liberation Front
The Sandinista National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish...
government that assumed power after Somoza's overthrow. However, Carter ignored a plea from El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
's Archbishop Óscar Romero
Óscar Romero
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was a bishop of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. He became the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador, succeeding Luis Chávez. He was assassinated on 24 March 1980....
not to send military aid to that country; Romero was later assassinated for his criticism of El Salvador's violation of human rights. Generally, human rights in Latin America, which had deteriorated sharply in the previous decade, improved following these initiatives; a publisher tortured during Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
's Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
, Jacobo Timerman
Jacobo Timerman
Jacobo Timerman was an Argentine publisher, journalist, and author who was persecuted and honored for confronting the atrocities of the Argentine military regime's Dirty War...
, credited these policies for the positive trend, stating that they not only saved lives, but also "built up democratic consciousness in the United States."
Many in his own administration were opposed to these initiatives, however, and the more assertive human rights policy of the Carter years was blunted by the discord that ensued between, on one hand, Derian and State Department Policy Planning Director Anthony Lake
Anthony Lake
William Anthony Kirsopp Lake, best known as Tony Lake, is the Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund , author, academic, and former American diplomat, Foreign Service Officer, and political advisor. He has been a foreign policy advisor to many Democratic U.S...
, who endorsed human rights considerations as an enhancement of U.S. diplomatic effectiveness abroad, and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
, who held Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
considerations as paramount. These policy disputes reached their most contentious point during the 1979 fall of Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
's genocidal regime of Democratic Kampuchea
Democratic Kampuchea
The Khmer Rouge period refers to the rule of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge Communist party over Cambodia, which the Khmer Rouge renamed as Democratic Kampuchea....
following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, when Brzezinski prevailed in having the administration refuse to recognize the new Cambodian government due to its support by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Carter was also criticized by the feminist author and activist Andrea Dworkin for ignoring issues of women's rights in Saudi Arabia
Women's rights in Saudi Arabia
Women's rights in Saudi Arabia are defined by Islam and tribal customs. The Arabian peninsula is the ancestral home of patriarchal, nomadic tribes, in which purdah and namus are considered central....
.
Carter continued his predecessors' policies of imposing sanctions on Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
, and, after Bishop Abel Muzorewa
Abel Muzorewa
Bishop Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia from the Internal Settlement to the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979...
was elected Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
, protested the exclusion of Robert Mugabe
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...
and Joshua Nkomo
Joshua Nkomo
Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was the leader and founder of the Zimbabwe African People's Union and a member of the Kalanga tribe...
from participating in the elections. Strong pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom prompted new elections in what was then called Zimbabwe Rhodesia
Zimbabwe Rhodesia
Zimbabwe Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, was an unrecognized state that existed from 1 June 1979 to 12 December 1979...
(now Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
), which saw Robert Mugabe elected as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe; afterwards, sanctions were lifted, and diplomatic recognition was granted. Carter was also known for his criticism of Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
's Alfredo Stroessner
Alfredo Stroessner
Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda, whose name is also spelled Strössner or Strößner , was a Paraguayan military officer and dictator from 1954 to 1989...
, Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
(although both Stroessner and Pinochet, along with other Latin American dictators of whom Carter was critical, attended the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty), the apartheid government of South Africa, Zaire
Zaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...
(although Carter later changed course and supported Zaire, in response to alleged — albeit unproven — Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n support of anti-Mobutu
Mobutu Sese Seko
Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga , commonly known as Mobutu or Mobutu Sese Seko , born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, was the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1997...
rebels) and other traditional allies.
People's Republic of China
- See also Sino-American relations
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
and China expert Michel Oksenberg
Michel Oksenberg
Michel Charles Oksenberg was a leading American political scientist and China watcher who moved between academia and policy work. As a senior member of the National Security Council, he was closely involved in the normalization of U.S.-China relations undertaken during the administration of...
who was serving on the National Security Council, traveled to Beijing in early 1978, where they worked with Leonard Woodcock
Leonard Woodcock
Leonard Freel Woodcock was an American labor union leader and diplomat.He was the president of the United Automobile Workers from 1970 to 1977 and the first US ambassador to the People's Republic of China....
, head of the liaison office there, to lay the groundwork for granting the People's Republic of China full diplomatic and trade relations. In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations
Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations
The Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations of January 1, 1979, established official relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China....
dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The U.S. reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The U.S. unofficially recognized Taiwan through the Taiwan Relations Act
Taiwan Relations Act
The Taiwan Relations Act is an act of the United States Congress passed in 1979 after the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and the breaking of relations between the United States and the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan by President Jimmy Carter...
.
Panama Canal Treaties
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, were bitterly opposed by a majority of the American public and by the Republican Party. A common argument against the treaties was that the United States was transferring an American asset of great strategic value to an unstable and corrupt country led by an unelected but popularly supported General (Omar Torrijos
Omar Torrijos
Omar Efraín Torrijos Herrera was the Commander of the Panamanian and National Guard and the de facto leader of Panama from 1968 to 1981...
). Those that supported the Treaties argued that the Canal was built within Panamanian territory therefore, by controlling it, the United States was in fact occupying part of another country and this agreement was intended to turn back to Panama the sovereignty of its complete territory. After the signature of the Canal treaties, in June 1978, Carter visited Panama with his wife and twelve U.S. Senators, amid widespread student disturbances against the Torrijos administration. Carter then began urging the Torrijos regime to soften its policies and move Panama towards gradual republicanism
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
.
Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT)
Carter and Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
, the leader of the Soviet Union, reached an agreement to this end in 1979 — the SALT II Treaty, despite opposition in Congress to ratifying it, as many thought it weakened U.S. defenses. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
late in 1979 however, Carter withdrew the treaty from consideration by Congress and the treaty was never ratified (though it was signed by both Carter and Brezhnev). Even so, both sides honored the commitments laid out in the negotiations.
Intervention in Afghanistan
Carter reacted with "open-mouthed shock" to the Soviet invasion of AfghanistanSoviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
in December 1979, and began promptly arming the Afghan insurgents. Vice-President Walter Mondale famously declared: "I cannot understand—it just baffles me—why the Soviets these last few years have behaved as they have. Maybe we have made some mistakes with them. Why did they have to build up all these arms? Why did they have to go into Afghanistan? Why can't they relax just a little bit about Eastern Europe? Why do they try every door to see if it is locked?" The Soviets, several times shortly before the invasion, had staged conversations with the Afghan leadership suggesting that they had no desire to intervene, even as the Politburo was—with much hesitation—considering such an intervention. Though some have argued that U.S. financial assistance to Afghan dissidents, including Islamists and other militants, prior to the invasion; along with a Soviet desire to protect the leftist Afghan government, helped convince the Soviets to intervene, the Soviets ironically brutally murdered the Afghan President and his son, replacing him with a puppet regime, immediately after the invasion for fear that the US had secretly been collaborating with him.
One of the CIA's longest and most expensive covert operations was the supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants. The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i secret services, Inter-Services Intelligence
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
(ISI), in a program called Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm, train, and finance the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989...
.
According to the "Progressive South Asia Exchange Net," citing an article in , U.S. policy, unbeknownst even to the Mujahideen, was part of a larger strategy of aiming "to induce a Soviet military intervention." The article includes a brief interview with President Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
, in which he is quoted as saying that the U.S. provided aid to the mujahideen prior to the Soviet invasion for the deliberate purpose of provoking one. Brzezinski himself has denied the accuracy of the interview. According to Brzezinski, an NSC working group
Working group
A working group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers working on new research activities that would be difficult to develop under traditional funding mechanisms . The lifespan of the WG can last anywhere between a few months and several years...
on Afghanistan wrote several reports on the deteriorating situation in 1979, but President Carter ignored them until the Soviet intervention destroyed his illusions. Brzezinski has stated that the U.S. provided communications equipment and limited financial aid to the mujahideen prior to the "formal" invasion, but only in response to the Soviet deployment of forces to Afghanistan and the 1978 coup, and with the intention of preventing further Soviet encroachment in the region. Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty," but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980.
The Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 significantly damaged the already tenuous relationship between Secretary of State Vance and Brzezinski. Vance felt that Brzezinski's linkage of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of armament control. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT...
to other Soviet activities and the MX, together with the growing domestic criticisms in the United States of the SALT II Accord, convinced Brezhnev to decide on military intervention in Afghanistan. Brzezinski, however, later recounted that he repeatedly advanced proposals on how to maintain Afghanistan's "independence" and deter a Soviet invasion but was frustrated by the Department of State's opposition.
According to Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman is an American English teacher, historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger, and educator. His political weblog named Altercation was hosted by MSNBC.com from 2002 until 2006, moved to Media Matters for America until December 2008, and is now hosted by The...
of The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Roberts Vance was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980...
's close aide Marshall Shulman "insists that the State Department worked hard to dissuade the Soviets from invading and would never have undertaken a program to encourage it" and President Carter has said it was definitely "not my intention" to inspire a Soviet invasion but to deter one.
Robert Gates
Robert Gates
Dr. Robert Michael Gates is a retired civil servant and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W....
, in his book Out Of The Shadows, wrote that Pakistan had actually been pressuring the United States for arms to aid the rebels for years, but that the Carter administration refused in the hope of finding a diplomatic solution to avoid war. Brzezinski seemed to have been in favor of the provision of arms to the rebels, while Vance's State Department, seeking a peaceful settlement, publicly accused Brzezinski of seeking to "revive" the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
.
The Soviet invasion and occupation killed up to 2 million Afghans. Brzezinski defended the arming of the rebels in response, saying that it "was quite important in hastening the end of the conflict," thereby saving the lives of thousands of Afghans, but "not in deciding the conflict, because actually the fact is that even though we helped the mujaheddin, they would have continued fighting without our help, because they were also getting a lot of money from the Persian Gulf and the Arab states, and they weren't going to quit. They didn't decide to fight because we urged them to. They're fighters, and they prefer to be independent. They just happen to have a curious complex: they don't like foreigners with guns in their country. And they were going to fight the Soviets. Giving them weapons was a very important forward step in defeating the Soviets, and that's all to the good as far as I'm concerned." When he was asked if he thought it was the right decision in retrospect (given the Taliban's subsequent rise to power), he said: "Which decision? For the Soviets to go in? The decision was the Soviets', and they went in. The Afghans would have resisted anyway, and they were resisting. I just told you: in my view, the Afghans would have prevailed in the end anyway, 'cause they had access to money, they had access to weapons, and they had the will to fight." The interviewer then asked: "So U.S. support for the mujaheddin only begins after the Russians invade, not before?" Brzezinski replied: "With arms? Absolutely afterwards. No question about it. Show me some documents to the contrary." Likewise; Charlie Wilson said: "The U.S. had nothing whatsoever to do with these people's decision to fight ... but we'll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones."
The United States secretly began sending limited financial aid to anti-Soviet, Afghan Islamist factions on July 3, 1979. In December 1979 the USSR invaded Afghanistan and installed a new regime that would be loyal to Moscow. At the time some believed the Soviets were attempting to expand their borders southward in order to gain a foothold in the region. The Soviet Union had long lacked a warm water port, and their movement south seemed to position them for further expansion toward Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
in the East, and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
to the West. American politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, feared the Soviets were positioning themselves for a takeover of Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern oil. Others believed that the Soviet Union was afraid Iran's Islamic Revolution and Afghanistan's Islamization would spread to the millions of Muslims in the USSR.
After the invasion, Carter announced what became known as the Carter Doctrine
Carter Doctrine
The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region...
: that the U.S. would not allow any other outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
. He terminated the Soviet Wheat Deal in January 1980, which was intended to establish trade with USSR and lessen Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
tensions. The grain exports had been beneficial to people employed in agriculture, and the Carter embargo
1980 grain embargo
The 1980 grain embargo describes the policy enacted by the United States that banned the export of grain and technology to the Soviet Union in response to the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Initiated by the Carter administration in January 1980, the embargo was lifted by Ronald Reagan in April 1981...
marked the beginning of hardship for American farmers. That same year, Carter also made two of the most unpopular decisions of his entire Presidency: prohibiting American athletes from participating in the 1980 Summer Olympics
1980 Summer Olympics
The 1980 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Moscow in the Soviet Union. In addition, the yachting events were held in Tallinn, and some of the preliminary matches and the quarter-finals of the football tournament...
in Moscow, and reinstating registration for the draft
Conscription in the United States
Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
for young males.
Carter and Brzezinski started a $3–4 billion covert program of training insurgents in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a part of the efforts to foil the Soviets' apparent plans. On the surface as well, Carter's diplomatic policies towards Pakistan in particular changed drastically. The administration had cut off financial aid
Aid
In international relations, aid is a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another, given at least partly with the objective of benefiting the recipient country....
to the country in early 1979 when religious fundamentalists, encouraged by the prevailing Islamist military dictatorship
Military dictatorship
A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....
over Pakistan, burnt down a U.S. Embassy
American diplomatic missions
This is a list of diplomatic missions of the United States.-History:Morocco, in December 1777, became the first nation to recognize the United States and together they maintain the United States' longest unbroken treaty.Benjamin Franklin established the first overseas mission of the United States...
based there. The international stake in Pakistan, however, had greatly increased with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The President of Pakistan
President of Pakistan
The President of Pakistan is the head of state, as well as figurehead, of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Recently passed an XVIII Amendment , Pakistan has a parliamentary democratic system of government. According to the Constitution, the President is chosen by the Electoral College to serve a...
, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq , was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator and the sixth President of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988...
, was offered 400 million dollars to subsidize the anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
Mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
in Afghanistan by Carter. General Zia declined the offer as insufficient, famously declaring it to be "peanuts"; and the U.S. was forced to step up aid to Pakistan.
Reagan would later expand this program greatly to combat Cold War concerns presented by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
at the time. Critics of this policy blame Carter and Reagan for the resulting instability of post-Soviet Afghan governments, which led to the rise of Islamic theocracy
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
in the region.
Iran hostage crisis
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had been a strong ally of the United States since World War II and was one of the "twin pillars" upon which U.S. strategic policy in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
was built (the other being Saudi Arabia). However, his rule was strongly autocratic
Autocracy
An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...
, was seen as kleptocratic
Kleptocracy
Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often without pretense of honest...
at home, and in 1953 he went along with the Eisenhower Administration in staging a coup
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
to remove the elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh.
On a 1978 state visit to Iran, Carter spoke out in favor of the Shah, calling him a leader of supreme wisdom, and a pillar of stability in the volatile Middle East.
When the Iranian Revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
broke out in Iran and the Shah was overthrown, the U.S. did not intervene directly. The Shah went into permanent exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
in January 1979. Carter initially refused him entry to the United States, even on grounds of medical emergency.
Despite his initial refusal to admit the Shah into the United States, on October 22, 1979, Carter finally granted him entry and temporary asylum
Right of asylum
Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries...
for the duration of his cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
treatment. The Shah left the U.S. for Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
on December 15, 1979. In response to the Shah's entry into the U.S., Iranian militants seized
Iran hostage crisis
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian...
the American embassy in Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
in November, taking 52 Americans hostage. The Iranians demanded:
- The return of the Shah to Iran for trial.
- The return of the Shah's wealth to the Iranian people.
- An admission of guilt by the United States for its past actions in Iran, plus an apology.
- A promise from the United States not to interfere in Iran's affairs in the future.
Though later that year the Shah left the U.S. and died in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in July 1980, the hostage crisis continued and dominated the last year of Carter's presidency. The subsequent responses to the crisis — from a "Rose Garden
White House Rose Garden
The White House Rose Garden is a garden bordering the Oval Office and the West Wing of the White House. The garden is approximately 125 feet long and 60 feet wide...
strategy" of staying inside the White House, to the ill-prepared and unsuccessful attempt to rescue the hostages by military means (Operation Eagle Claw
Operation Eagle Claw
Operation Eagle Claw was an American military operation ordered by President Jimmy Carter to attempt to put an end to the Iran hostage crisis by rescuing 52 Americans held captive at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran on 24 April 1980...
) — were largely seen as contributing to Carter's defeat in the 1980 election.
After the hostages were taken, Carter issued, on November 14, 1979, Executive Order 12170 — Blocking Iranian Government property, which was used to freeze the bank accounts of the Iranian government in U.S. banks, totaling about $8 billion U.S. at the time. This was to be used as a bargaining chip for the release of the hostages.
In the days before President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
took office, Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
n diplomat Abdulkarim Ghuraib opened negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. This resulted in the "Algiers Accords" one day before the end of Carter's Presidency on January 19, 1981, which entailed Iran's commitment to free the hostages immediately. Additionally, Executive Orders 12277 through 12285 were issued by Carter releasing all assets belonging to the Iranian government and all assets belonging to the Shah found within the United States and the guarantee that the hostages would have no legal claim against the Iranian government that would be heard in U.S. courts. Iran, however, also agreed to place $1 billion of the frozen assets in an escrow account and both Iran and the United States agreed to the creation of a tribunal to adjudicate claims by U.S. Nationals against Iran for compensation for property lost by them or contracts breached by Iran. The tribunal, known as the Iran – United States Claims Tribunal, has awarded over $2 billion dollars to U.S. claimaints and has been described as one of the most important arbitration bodies in the history of international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
. Although the release of the hostages was negotiated and secured under the Carter administration, the hostages were released on January 20, 1981, moments after Reagan was sworn in as President.
Resignation of Bert Lance
Bert LanceBert Lance
Thomas Bertram Lance is an American businessman, who was Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter. He is known mainly for his resignation from President Jimmy Carter's administration due to scandal in 1977.- Early Life :Lance was born in Gainesville, Georgia...
, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Carter administration, resigned his position on September 21, 1977, amid allegations of improper banking activities prior to his becoming Director. Lance was one of Carter's closest friends, and served as state highway director when Carter was Governor of Georgia. Carter supported Lance in his bid to succeed Carter as governor, but Lance was defeated in the primary. Lance was subsequently tried on various bank-related charges, but was acquitted. The Lance affair was an embarrassment to Carter, coming just a few years after the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
.
Special counsel investigating campaign loans
In April 1979, United States Attorney GeneralUnited States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
Griffin Bell
Griffin Bell
Griffin Boyette Bell was an American lawyer and former Attorney General. He served as the nation's 72nd Attorney General during the Jimmy Carter administration...
appointed Paul J. Curran as a special counsel to investigate loans made to the peanut business owned by Carter by a bank controlled by Bert Lance
Bert Lance
Thomas Bertram Lance is an American businessman, who was Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter. He is known mainly for his resignation from President Jimmy Carter's administration due to scandal in 1977.- Early Life :Lance was born in Gainesville, Georgia...
, a friend of the president and the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Unlike Archibald Cox
Archibald Cox
Archibald Cox, Jr., was an American lawyer and law professor who served as U.S. Solicitor General under President John F. Kennedy. He became known as the first special prosecutor for the Watergate scandal. During his career, he was a pioneering expert on labor law and also an authority on...
and Leon Jaworski
Leon Jaworski
Leonidas "Leon" Jaworski was the second Special Prosecutor during the Watergate Scandal...
who were named as special prosecutor
Special prosecutor
A special prosecutor generally is a lawyer from outside the government appointed by an attorney general or, in the United States, by Congress to investigate a government official for misconduct while in office. A reasoning for such an appointment is that the governmental branch or agency may have...
s to investigate the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
, Curran's position as special counsel meant that he would not be able to file charges on his own, but would require the approval of Assistant Attorney General Philip Heymann. Carter became the first sitting president to testify under oath as part of an investigation of that president.
The investigation was concluded in October 1979, with Curran announcing that no evidence had been found to support allegations that funds loaned from the National Bank of Georgia had been diverted to Carter's 1976 presidential campaign.
Pardons
Besides unconditional amnesty for a Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
era draft dodger
Draft dodger
Draft evasion is a term that refers to an intentional failure to comply with the military conscription policies of the nation to which he or she is subject...
s, issued in his first full day in office (January 21, 1977), President Carter used his power in other cases. In general, he issued 566 pardons or commutations as President, granting 20% of all requests that came before him.
Most notable cases:
- Oscar CollazoOscar CollazoOscar Collazo , was one of two Puerto Ricans who attempted to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman.-Early life:...
: Puerto Rican independence activist who in 1950 attempted to assassinateTruman assassination attemptThe assassination attempt on U.S. President Harry S. Truman occurred on November 1, 1950. It was perpetrated by two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, while the President resided at the Blair House. The attempt resulted in the deaths of White House Police...
President Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
. His original death sentence was commuted by Truman himself and Carter granted him full pardon. - Irving Flores, Rafael Cancel MirandaRafael Cancel MirandaRafael Cancel Miranda , political activist, is a member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and an advocate of Puerto Rican independence. On March 1, 1954, Cancel Miranda together with fellow Nationalists Lolita Lebron, Andres Figueroa Cordero, and Irving Flores Rodriguez entered the United...
and Lolita LebrónLolita LebrónDolores "Lolita" Lebrón Sotomayor was a Puerto Rican nationalist who wasconvicted of attempted murder and other crimes after leading an assault on the United States House of Representatives in 1954,...
: Puerto Rican independence activists involved in 1954 Assault on the House of Representatives. - Jefferson DavisJefferson DavisJefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
, the late President of the Confederate States of AmericaPresident of the Confederate States of AmericaThe President of the Confederate States of America was the Head of State and Head of Government of the Confederate States of America, which was formed from the states which declared their secession from the United States, thus precipitating the American Civil War. The only person to hold the...
: citizenshipCitizenshipCitizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
posthumoustly restored. - Peter YarrowPeter YarrowPeter Yarrow is an American singer who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote one of the group's most famous songs, "Puff, the Magic Dragon"...
, singer-songwriter: clemency for a sexual offence in 1969. - G. Gordon LiddyG. Gordon LiddyGeorge Gordon Liddy was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit that existed from July–September 1971, during Richard Nixon's presidency. Separately, along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the Watergate burglaries of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in...
, chief operative for the White House PlumbersWhite House PlumbersThe White House Plumbers, sometimes simply called the Plumbers, were a covert White House Special Investigations Unit established July 24, 1971 during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Its task was to stop the leaking of classified information to the news media...
during Watergate: sentence commuted.
Personal and family matters during presidency
Amy Carter
Amy Lynn Carter is the fourth child and only daughter of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. She entered the limelight as she lived as a child in the White House during the Carter presidency.-Early life:...
lived in the White House while her father served as president. She was the subject of much media attention during this period as young children had not lived in the White House since the early 1960s presidency of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
.
Billy Carter
William Alton "Billy" Carter III was an American businessman who promoted Billy Beer, was a candidate for Mayor of Plains, Georgia, and was the younger brother of United States President Jimmy Carter.-Early years:...
generated a great deal of notoriety during Carter's presidency for his colorful and often outlandish public behavior. In 1977, Billy Carter endorsed Billy Beer
Billy Beer
Billy Beer was a beer first made in the United States of America in July 1977, by the Falls City Brewing Company. It was promoted by Billy Carter, the younger brother of then-President Jimmy Carter...
, capitalizing upon his colorful image as a beer-drinking, Southern boy that had developed in the press
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
during President Carter's campaign. Billy Carter's name was occasionally used as a gag answer for a Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, trouble-maker on 1970s episodes of The Match Game. Billy Carter once urinated on an airport runway in full view of the press and dignitaries. In late 1978 and early 1979, Billy Carter visited Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
with a contingent from Georgia three times. He eventually registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government and received a $220,000 loan. This led to a Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
hearing over alleged influence peddling
Influence peddling
Influence peddling is the illegal practice of using one's influence in government or connections with persons in authority to obtain favors or preferential treatment for another, usually in return for payment. Also called traffic of influence or trading in influence ...
, which some in the press dubbed "Billygate". A Senate subcommittee was called To Investigate Activities of Individuals Representing Interests of Foreign Governments (Billy Carter-Libya Investigation).
On May 5, 1979, Carter was the target of Raymond Lee Harvey
Raymond Lee Harvey
Raymond Lee Harvey was an Ohio-born unemployed American drifter. He was arrested by the Secret Service after being found carrying a starter pistol with blank rounds, ten minutes before President Jimmy Carter was to give a speech at the Civic Center Mall in Los Angeles on May 5, 1979.Although he had...
, a mentally ill
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
transient
Homelessness
Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...
, who was found with a starter pistol awaiting the President's Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo is a holiday held on May 5. It is celebrated nationwide in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla...
speech at the Civic Center Mall in Los Angeles, and claimed to be part of a four-man assassination attempt.
1980 election
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
in the 1980 election. The popular vote went 50.7 percent, or 43.9 million popular votes, for Reagan and 41 percent, or 35.5 million, for Carter. Independent candidate John B. Anderson
John B. Anderson
John Bayard Anderson is a former United States Congressman and Presidential candidate from Illinois. He was a U.S. Representative from the 16th Congressional District of Illinois for ten terms from 1961 through 1981 and an Independent candidate in the 1980 presidential election. He was previously...
won 6.6 percent, or 5.7 million votes. However, because Carter's support was not concentrated in any geographic region, Reagan won a landslide 91 percent of the electoral vote, leaving Carter with only six states and the District of Columbia. Reagan carried a total of 489 electoral votes compared to Carter's 49.
Carter's defeat marked the first time an elected president failed to secure a second term since Herbert Hoover in 1932. Furthermore, he was the first incumbent Democratic president to seek, but fail to achieve, re-election since Andrew Johnson (Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms while Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson served one full term in addition to taking over after the deaths of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy respectively and both Truman and Johnson did not seek re-election).
While Carter kept his promise (all 52 hostages returned home alive), he failed to secure the release of the hostages prior to the election. While Carter ultimately won their release, Iran did not release the hostages until minutes after Reagan took office. In recognition of the fact that Carter was responsible for bringing the hostages home, Reagan asked him to go to West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
to greet them upon their release.
During his campaign, Carter was mocked for an encounter with a swimming rabbit
Jimmy Carter rabbit incident
The Jimmy Carter rabbit incident, dubbed the "killer rabbit" attack by the media, involved a Swamp Rabbit that caught press imagination after swimming toward then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter's fishing boat on April 20, 1979.-Background:...
while fishing on a farm pond on April 20, 1979.