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{{Infobox President| name = James Earl Carter, Jr. ]
| image=Jimmy Carter.jpg|200px
| order=39th [President of the United States
| term_start=
January 20, [
| term_end=
January 20, [
| predecessor=[Gerald Ford
| successor=[Ronald Reagan
| order2=76th [List of Governors of Georgia
| term_start2= January 1, [
| term_end2=
January 14, [
| lieutenant2= [Lester Maddox
| predecessor2= [Lester Maddox
| successor2= [George Busbee
| birth_date={{birth date and age|1924|10|1-->
| birth_place=[Plains, Georgia
| spouse=[Rosalynn Carter
| alma_mater=[United States Naval Academy
[Georgia Southwestern College
[Georgia Institute of Technology
| occupation=[Politician, [peanut [farmer
| party=[Democratic Party (United States)
| religion=[Baptist
| vicepresident=[Walter Mondale
| signature=JimmyCarterSignature.png
|-->
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) was the thirty-ninth
President of the United States from 1977 to 1981, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Prior to becoming president, Carter served two terms in the
Georgia Senate, and was the 76th
List of Governors of Georgia from 1971 to 1975.
During Carter's presidency the United States was beset by stagflation, suffered massive fuel shortages, and struggled through several major crises including the invasion of the American Embassy in Tehran, the subsequent holding of embassy personnel as hostages by Islamic Radicals, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His administration also created two cabinet-level departments: the
United States Department of Energy and the United States Department of Education. He established a national energy policy,http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jc39.html removed price controls from domestic
petroleum production,http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=33281 but was unable to make America less reliant on foreign oil sources. He introduced a staggered increase in the payroll tax in a failed attempt to bolster the
Social Security (United States). In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the
Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Carter advocated a policy that held other countries to the highest moral standard possible, a standard by which, he believed, Americans would want themselves to be judged.http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/55.htm The final year of his term was dominated by the Iran hostage crisis, during which the United States struggled to rescue diplomats and American citizens held hostage in
Tehran. By 1980, Carter was so unpopular that he was challenged by Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party (United States) nomination in
United States presidential election, 1980. Carter eventually received the nomination but lost the election, in a landslide, to Republican Party (United States)
Ronald Reagan.
After leaving office, Carter founded the
Carter Center to promote global health, democracy and human rights. He has traveled extensively to monitor international elections, conduct peace negotiations and establish relief efforts. After leaving office, he also became a prolific author writing some 27 books. As of 2007, he is the earliest living United States president and the
oldest living United States president.
Early years
Jimmy Carter descended from a family that had resided in
Georgia (U.S. state) for several generations. His great-grandfather Private L.B. Walker Carter (1832–1874) served in the
Confederate States Army in the Sumter Flying Artillery, seeing considerable action at the
Battle of Gettysburg.
, February 17, 1977Jimmy Carter, the first president born in a hospital,
Jimmy Carter was the oldest of four children of James Earl and Lillian Gordy Carter. He was born and grew up in the tiny southwest Georgia hamlet of
Plains, Georgia near the larger town of Americus, Georgia. Carter's father was a prominent business owner in the community and his mother a registered nurse. He was a gifted student from an early age who always had a fondness for reading. By the time he attended Plains High School, he was also a star in basketball and football. He was greatly influenced by one of his high school teachers, Julia Coleman (1889-1973). Ms. Co, at the commencement ceremonies at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, February 20, 1979Carter had three younger siblings. His brother,
Billy Carter (1937–1988), caused some political problems for him during his administration. His sister, Gloria Carter Spann (1926–1990), was low-key but was famous for collecting and riding Harley-Davidson motorcycles. His other sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton (1929–1983), became a well-known Christianity evangelist.
and Amy Carter on the south lawn in front of the
White House,
July 24, 1977He married Rosalynn Carter in 1946. They had three sons — John William Carter, born in 1947; James Earl "Chip" Carter III, born in 1950; and Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter, born in 1952 — and a daughter, Amy Carter, in 1967.
He attended
Georgia Southwestern College and
Georgia Institute of Technology and received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the United States Naval Academy in 1946.The Class of 1947 had a war-accelerated three-year program. . Carter was a gifted student and finished 59th out of his Academy class of 820. Carter served on submarines in the
US Atlantic Fleet and U.S. Pacific Fleet fleets.
He was later selected by Captain (later Admiral)
Hyman G. Rickover for the
United States Navy fledgling
nuclear submarine program, where he later completed qualification requirements to serve as a commanding officer. Rickover's demands were legendary, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Admiral Rickover had the greatest influence on him. There was a story he often told of being interviewed by the Admiral. He was asked about his rank in his class at the Naval Academy. Carter said "Sir, I graduated 59th out of a class of 820." Rickover only asked "Did you always do your best?" Carter was forced to admit he had not, and the Admiral asked why. Carter later used this as the theme of his presidential campaign and titled his first book
Why Not The Best?Carter loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become Chief of Naval Operations. Carter did some post-graduate work, studying nuclear physics and reactor technology for several months at Union College starting in March 1953. Upon the death of his father in July 1953, however,
Lieutenant Carter immediately resigned his commission and was discharged from the Navy on October 9, 1953... This cut short his nuclear power training school, and he was never able to command a nuclear submarine, as the first of the fleet was launched January 17,
1955, over a year after his discharge from the Navy.http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2006/01/picking-on-jimmy-carter-myth.html
He then took over and expanded his family's peanut farming business in Plains. There he was involved in a farming accident that left him with a permanently bent finger.
From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to Christianity, serving as a
Sunday School teacher throughout his life. Even as President, Carter prayed several times a day, and professed that Jesus Christ was the driving force in his life. Carter had been greatly influenced by a sermon he had heard as a young man, called, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" Lieutenant James Earle Carter, Jr., USN - Naval Historical Center, United States Navy, October 19,
1997.
Early political career
State Senate
Jimmy Carter started his career by serving on various local boards, governing such entities as the schools, hospital, and library, among others. In the 1960s, he served two terms in the
Georgia Senate from the fourteenth district of Georgia.
His 1962 election to the state Senate, which followed the end of Georgia's
County Unit System (per the Supreme Court of the United States case of
Gray v. Sanders), was chronicled in his book
Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. The election involved corruption led by Joe Hurst, the sheriff of
Quitman County, Georgia; system abuses included votes from deceased persons and tallies filled with people who supposedly voted in alphabetical order. It took a challenge of the fraudulent results for Carter to win the election. Carter was reelected in 1964, to serve a second two-year term.
Campaign for Governor
In 1966, at the end of his career as a state senator, he flirted with the idea of running for the
United States House of Representatives. His Republican opponent dropped out and decided to run for Governor of Georgia. Carter did not want to see a Republican Governor of his state, and, in turn, dropped out of the race for Congress and joined the race to become Governor. Carter lost the Democratic primary, but drew enough votes as a third place candidate to force the favorite, Ellis Arnall, into a
two-round system, setting off a chain of events which resulted in the election of
Lester Maddox.
For the next four years, Carter returned to his agriculture business and carefully planned for his next campaign for Governor in 1970, making over 1,800 speeches throughout the state.
During his 1970 campaign, he ran an uphill populism campaign in the Democratic primary against former Governor
Carl Sanders, labeling his opponent "Cufflinks Carl". Carter was never a racial segregation, and refused to join the segregationist
White Citizens' Council, prompting a boycott of his peanut warehouse. He also had been one of only two families which voted to admit blacks to the Plains Baptist Church. People & Events: James Earl ("Jimmy") Carter Jr. (1924–) - American Experience, PBS, accessed March 18, 2006. However, he "said things the segregationists wanted to hear," according to historian E. Stanly Godbold. Also, Carter's campaign aides handed out a photograph of his opponent celebrating with black basketball players. http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.977/article_detail.asp "Jimmy Carter", Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2005, accessed March 18, 2006. Following his close victory over Sanders in the primary, he was elected Governor over Republican Hal Suit.
Governor of Georgia
cover; May 31, 1971Carter was sworn-in as the 76th Governor of Georgia on January 12, 1971 and held this post for one term, until January 14,
1975. Governors of Georgia were not allowed to succeed themselves at the time. His precedessor as Governor,
Lester Maddox, became the Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. However, Carter and Maddox found little common ground during their four years of service, often publicly feuding with each other. During his quixotic campaign for President in 1976 (the same year Carter was elected) on the ticket of the American Independent Party, Maddox called Carter "the most dishonest man I've ever met".
Civil rights politics
Carter declared in his inaugural speech that the time of racial segregation was over, and that racial discrimination had no place in the future of the state. He was the first statewide office holder in the Deep South to say this in public. Afterwards, Carter appointed many African Americans to statewide boards and offices. He was often called one of the "New Southern Governors" — much more moderate than their predecessors and supportive of racial desegregation and expanding African-Americans' rights.
State government reforms
Carter made government efficient by merging about 300 state agencies into 30 agencies. One of his aides recalled that Governor Carter "was right there with us, working just as hard, digging just as deep into every little problem. It was his program and he worked on it as hard as anybody, and the final product was distinctly his." He also pushed reforms through the legislature, providing equal state aid to schools in the wealthy and poor areas of Georgia, set up community centers for mentally handicapped children, and increased educational programs for convicts. Carter took pride in a program he introduced for the appointment of judges and state government officials. Under this program, all such appointments were based on merit, rather than political influence.
Vice-Presidential aspirations in 1972
In 1972, as U.S. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota was marching toward the Democratic nomination for President, Carter called a news conference in
Atlanta, Georgia to warn that McGovern was unelectable. Carter criticized McGovern as too liberal on both foreign and domestic policy, yet when McGovern's nomination became a foregone conclusion, Carter lobbied to become his vice-presidential running mate. The remarks attracted little national attention, and after McGovern's huge loss in the general election, Carter's attitude was not held against him within the Democratic Party.
However, Carter received 30 votes at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in the chaotic ballot for Vice President. Interestingly, McGovern offered the second spot to Reubin Askew, from next door Florida and one of the "new southern governors," but he declined.
Death penalty issues
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Georgia's death penalty law in 1972, Carter signed new legislation to authorize the death penalty for murder, rape and other offenses and to implement trial procedures which would conform to the newly-announced constitutional requirements. In 1976, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's new death penalty for murder; the death penalty was subsequently held unconstitutional as applied to rape.
Despite his earlier support, Carter soon became a death penalty opponent and during Presidential campaigns (like previous nominee George McGovern and two successive nominees,
Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis) this was notedhttp://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/12/07/democrats_shift_on_death_penalty/.
Currently Carter is know for his outspoken opposition to the death penalty in all forms and in his Nobel Prize lecture he urges "prohibition of the death penalty"http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/12/10/carter.transcript/.
Other information
In 1973, while Governor of Georgia, Carter filed a report on his
Jimmy Carter UFO Incident with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma. However, in the
July 25,
2007 episode of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast Carter claimed not to remember why he filed the report and believes he probably only did it at the request of one of his children. He also stated he does not believe it was an alien spacecraft or the planet
Venus but rather believes it was likely some sort of military experiment being conducted from a nearby military base.
Carter made an appearance as the first guest of the evening on an episode of the game show
What's My Line in 1974, signing in as "X", lest his name give away his occupation. After his job was identified on question seven of ten by Soupy Sales, he talked about having brought movie production to the state of Georgia, citing
Deliverance, and the as-yet unreleased
The Longest Yard, shot at Reidville Prison.
In 1974, Carter was chairman of the Democratic National Committee's congressional, as well as gubernatorial, campaigns.
1976 presidential campaign
When Carter entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries in 1976, he was considered to have little chance against nationally better-known politicians. He had a
name recognition of only 2 percent. When he told his family of his intention to run for President, he was asked by his mother, "President of what?"However, Nixon's Watergate scandal was still fresh in the voters' minds, and so his position as an outsider, distant from Washington, D.C., became an asset. The centerpiece of his campaign platform was government reorganization.He chose Senator Walter Mondale as his running mate. He attacked Washington in his speeches, and offered a religious salve for the nation's wounds, which was necessary following the Watergate scandal.American Presidency, Brinkley and Dyer, 2004Carter became the front-runner early on by winning the Iowa caucuses and the
New Hampshire primary. He used a two-prong strategy. In the South, which most had tacitly conceded to Alabama's George Wallace, Carter ran as a moderate favorite son. When Wallace proved to be a spent force, Carter swept the region. In the North, Carter appealed largely to conservative Christian and rural voters and had little chance of winning a majority in most states. But in a field crowded with liberals, he managed to win several Northern states by building the largest single bloc. Initially dismissed as a regional candidate, Carter proved to be the only Democrat with a truly national strategy, and he eventually clinched the nomination.
The media discovered and promoted Carter. As Lawrence Shoup noted in his 1980 book
The Carter Presidency and Beyond:
"What Carter had that his opponents did not was the acceptance and support of elite sectors of the mass communications media. It was their favorable coverage of Carter and his campaign that gave him an edge, propelling him rocket-like to the top of the opinion polls. This helped Carter win key primary election victories, enabling him to rise from an obscure public figure to President-elect in the short space of 9 months."
As late as
January 26,
1976, Carter was the first choice of only 4% of Democratic voters, according to the Gallup Poll. Yet "by mid-March 1976 Carter was not only far ahead of the active contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, he also led President Ford by a few percentage points," according to Shoup.
Carter began the race with a sizable lead over Ford, who was able to narrow the gap over the course of the campaign, but was unable to prevent Carter from narrowly defeating him on
November 2, 1976. Carter won the popular vote by 50.1% to 48.0% for Ford and received 297 electoral votes to Ford's 240. He became the first contender from the
Deep South to be elected President since the
U.S. presidential election, 1848.
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."American Presidency, Brinkley and Dyer, 2004His first steps in the White House were to reduce the size of the staff by one third, and order cabinet members to drive their own cars.
Presidency (1977–1981)
Economic situation
Productivity growth in the United States had declined to an average annual rate of 1 percent, compared to 3.2 percent of the 1960s. There was also a growing federal budget deficit which increased to 66 billion dollars.The
1970s#Economy of the Seventies are described as a period of
stagflation, meaning
economic stagnation coupled with price
inflation, as well as higher interest rates. Price inflation (a rise in the general level of prices) creates uncertainty in budgeting and planning and makes labor strikes for pay raises more likely. In 1973, during the Nixon Administration, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed to reduce supplies of oil available to the world market. This sparked an oil crisis and forced oil prices to rise sharply, spurring price inflation throughout the economy, and slowing growth. Significant government borrowing for items such as the Vietnam War and the nuclear weapons stockpile helped keep interest rates high relative to inflation. Jawboning and price freezes had proved ineffective.
Energy crisis
When the 1979 energy crisis — an occurrence Carter desperately tried to avoid during his term — he was planning on delivering his fifth major speech on energy. However, he felt that the American people were no longer listening. Instead, he went to Camp David and for ten days met with governors, mayors, religious leaders, scientists, economists and general citizens. He sat on the floor and took notes of their comments and especially wanted to hear criticism. His pollster told him that the American people simply faced a crisis of confidence because of the
John F. Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, and
Watergate scandal.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/e_malaise.html 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:
I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.... I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.
The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. Transcript - "Crisis of Confidence" speech,
July 15, 1979
Carter's speech, written by Hendrik Hertzberg and Gordon Stewart, was well-received by some. But the country was in the midst of a weak economy dominated by OPEC-influenced double-digit inflation, and many citizens were directly affected by this, causing concern about the federal government's response. Three days after the speech, Carter asked for the resignations of all of his Cabinet officers, and ultimately accepted five. Carter later admitted in his memoirs that he should simply have asked only those five members for their resignations. By asking the entire Cabinet, it gave the appearance that the
White House was falling apart.
The economy suffered double-digit inflation, coupled with very high interest rates, oil shortages, high unemployment and slow economic growth. In 1977 Carter had convinced the Democratic Congress to create the
United States Department of Energy. Now, promoting its recommendations to conserve energy, Carter wore sweaters, installed
solar hot water panels on the roof of the White House, installed a wood stove in the living quarters, ordered the General Services Administration to turn off hot water in some facilities, and requested that Christmas decorations remain dark in 1979 and 1980. Nationwide controls were put on thermostats in government and commercial buildings to prevent people from raising temperatures in the winter (above 65 degrees Fahrenheit) or lowering them in the summer (below 78 degrees Fahrenheit).
Price inflation caused interest rates to rise to unprecedented levels (above 12% per year). The
prime rate hit 21.5% in December 1980, the highest rate in U.S. history under any President. Investments in fixed income (both bonds and pensions being paid to retired people) were becoming less valuable. With the markets for U.S. government debt coming under pressure, Carter appointed
Paul Volcker as Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Board; Volcker replaced
G. William Miller who left to become
Secretary of the Treasury. Volcker pursued a tight monetary policy to bring down inflation, which he considered his mandate. He succeeded, but only by first going through an unpleasant phase during which the economy slowed and unemployment rose, prior to any relief from inflation.
Domestic policies
Jimmy Carter's reorganization efforts separated the
United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare into the
United States Department of Education and the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Efforts were also made to reduce the number of government departments and employees as Carter had done when he was Governor of Georgia. He signed into law a major Civil Service Reform, the first in over a hundred years. Despite calling for a reform of the tax system in his presidential campaign, once in office he did very little to change it. http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/refarticle.aspx?refid=761566991
Walter Mondale in front of Presidential helicopter Marine One, January, 1979On Carter's first day in office, January 21,
1977, he fulfilled a campaign promise by issuing an Executive Order declaring unconditional amnesty for Vietnam-era war resisters and pacifists. .
Initially, Carter was fairly successful in getting legislation through Congress, such as canceling the B-1 bomber program (mainly production of the
B-1 Lancer), but a rift would begin to grow between the President and Congress. A few months after his term started, and thinking he had the support of about 74 Congressmen, Jimmy 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 Pincus, W., & Writer, W. P. S. (1977, April 1). When a campaign vow crashes into a pork barrel. The Washington Post.
This list was then met with opposition from the leadership of the Democratic Party. Carter had characterized a rivers and harbors bill as "pork barrel" spending. Even
Tip O'Neill, who supported the President in a lot of matters, 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 much 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."
Carter signed legislation greatly increasing the payroll tax for
Social Security, and appointed record numbers of women, blacks, and Hispanics to government and judiciary jobs. He also initiated a comprehensive urban policy. His Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act created 103 million acres (417,000 km²) of national park land in Alaska.
Under Carter's watch, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was passed, which phased out the Civil Aeronautics Board. He was also somewhat successful in
deregulation the trucking, rail, communications, oil and finance industries.
Carter was also responsible for legalizing home-brewing when he signed the congressionally approved bill into law in February 1979. This law was very much responsible for the country's renewed appreciation for better beer and the micro-brew craze of the 1990s.
Foreign policies
, Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat, 1978.
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 weapons 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 President 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 / Singlaub (NBC) from the Vanderbilt Television News ArchiveTime Magazine - General on the Carpet Carter planned to remove all but 14,000 U.S. air force personnel and logistics specialists by 1982, but after cutting only 3,600 troops, he was forced to abandon the effort in 1978.
Arab-Israeli Conflict/Camp David Accords
Carter's Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and
National Security Advisor (United States) 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.
One of Carter's most important accomplishments as President were the Camp David Accords on September 17, 1978. They were a peace agreement between
Israel and
Egypt negotiated by President 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 world interests and Israel, and Nicolae Ceauşescu of
Romania acted as go-between for Israel and the
Palestinian 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 Sadat to Camp David to continue the negotiations. The Camp David Accords produced two frameworks for peace between Egypt and Israel, and a peace treaty was later signed on
March 26,
1979. Lodge patio of Camp David on
September 6, 1978.
Rapid Deployment Forces
On October 1,
1979, President Carter announced before a television audience the existence of the
Rapid Deployment Forces (RDF), a mobile fighting force capable of responding to worldwide trouble spots, without drawing on forces committed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The RDF was the forerunner of
United States Central Command.
Human Rights
President Carter initially departed from the long-held policy of
containment toward the Soviet Union. In its place Carter promoted a foreign policy that put human rights at the front. This was a break from the policies of several predecessors, in which
human rights abuses were often overlooked if they were committed by a nation that was allied with the United States. The Carter Administration ended support to the historically U.S.-backed
Anastasio Somoza regime in
Nicaragua and gave aid to the new Sandinista 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.
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 (who was forced to grant
Chile a
constitution providing for a transition back into democracy), the Apartheid government of South Africa,
Zaire (although Carter later changed course and supported Zaire, in response to alleged - albeit unproven -
Cuban support of anti-
Mobutu Sese Seko rebelsCrawford Young and Thomas Turner,
The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State, p. 389Jeffrey M. Elliot and Mervyn M. Dymally,
Voices of Zaire: Rhetoric or Reality, p. 88) and other traditional allies.
People's Republic of China
See also Sino-American relations#Liaison Office.2C 1973-1978
Carter continued the policy of Richard Nixon to normalize relations with the People's Republic of China by granting full diplomatic and trade relations, thus ending official relations and the mutual defense pact with
Taiwan (though the two nations continued to trade and the U.S. unofficially recognized Taiwan through the Taiwan Relations Act). 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.
Panama Canal Treaties
One of the most controversial moves of President 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 segment 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 military dictator (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, Jimmy Carter visited Panama with his wife and twelve U.S. Senators, amid widespread student disturbances against the Torrijos dictatorship. Carter then began urging the Torrijos regime to soften its policies and move Panama towards gradual
republicanism.
Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT)
sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) treaty, June 18,
1979, in
ViennaA key foreign policy issue Carter worked laboriously on was the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks#SALT II, 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 his main goal (as was stated in his Inaugural Address) that nuclear weaponry be completely vanished from the face of the Earth.
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 US 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.
Intervention in Afghanistan
The United States secretly began sending aid to anti-Soviet, Afghan Islamist factions on July 3, 1979. In December 1979 the USSR
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, after the pro-Moscow Afghanistan government, put in power by a 1978 coup, was overthrown. 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 and
India in the East, and
Iran to the West. American politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, ignorant of U.S. involvement, feared the Soviets were positioning themselves for a takeover of
Middle Eastern 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. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski revealed the Carter Administration's involvement in starting the war in a 1998 interview with
Le Nouvel Observateur. Brzezinski told
Le Nouvel Observateur that the Soviet invasion gave America "the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War." Full Text of Interview
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 Russian Wheat Deal, 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. He also prohibited Americans from participating in the 1980 Summer Olympics in
Moscow, and reinstated registration for the conscription for young males.
Carter and Brzezinski started a $40 billion covert program of training Islamic fundamentalists 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 American diplomatic missions based there. The international stake in Pakistan, however, had greatly increased with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The then-
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 Russia at the time. In retrospect, this contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. 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, and also created many of the current problems with Islamic fundamentalism.
Hostage crisis (Iran)
, meeting with
Arthur Atherton,
William H. Sullivan, Cyrus Vance, President Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1977The main conflict between human rights and U.S. interests came in Carter's dealings with the Shah of Iran. The Shah,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, had been a strong ally of America since World War II and was one of the "twin pillars" upon which U.S. strategic policy in the Middle East was built. However, his rule was strongly autocratic, and he went along with the plan of the
Dwight Eisenhower Administration to depose Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953.
On a 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. The speech was apparently never shown on American television.
When the
Iranian Revolution broke out in Iran, and the Shah was overthrown, the U.S. did not intervene. The Shah went into permanent exile. 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 for Panama on
December 15, 1979. In response to the Shah's entry into the U.S., Iran hostage crisis the American embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage.American Presidency, Brinkley and Dyer, 2004 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, and
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, the hostage crisis continued and dominated the last year of Carter's presidency. The subsequent responses to the crisis—from a "
White House Rose Garden strategy" of staying inside the White House, to the unsuccessful attempt to rescue the hostages—were largely seen as contributing to Carter's defeat in the 1980 election.
After the hostages were taken, President 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 US banks, totaling about $8 billion US at the time. This was to be used as a bargaining chip for the release of the hostages.
The Iranians later changed their demand to return of the Shah and the release of the Iranian money. Through informal channels the Iranian government started negotiations with the banks holding the money. The banks took over negotiations for the release of the hostages, not the U.S. State Department. When the Shah died of cancer in the summer of 1980, the Iranians wanted no more to do with the hostages and changed their demands to just the release of the hostages in exchange for the return of their money. The hostages were finally released with the signing of Executive Orders 12277 through 12285 under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, 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.
Administration and cabinet
{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4" style="margin:3px; border:3px solid #000000;" align="left"!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"||-|align="left"|
OFFICE||align="left"|
NAME||align="left"|
TERM|-!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"||-|align="left"|President of the United States||align="left" |
Jimmy Carter||align="left"|1977–1981|-|align="left"|Vice President of the United States||align="left"|Walter Mondale||align="left"|[Cyrus Vance||align="left"|1980–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of the Treasury||align="left"|
W. Michael Blumenthal||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of Defense||align="left"|
Harold Brown (Secretary of Defense)||align="left"|1977–1981|-|align="left"|Attorney General of the United States||align="left"|Griffin Bell||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of the Interior||align="left"|Cecil D. Andrus||align="left"|[Juanita M. Kreps||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of Labor||align="left"|
Ray Marshall||align="left"|[Robert Bergland||align="left"|[Joseph A. Califano, Jr.||align="left"|[Patricia R. Harris||align="left"|[Shirley M. Hufstedler||align="left"|[Patricia R. Harris||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of Transportation||align="left"|Brock Adams||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of Energy||align="left"|[James R. Schlesinger||align="left"|1979–1981|}
Other cabinet-level and high posts
Cabinet-level:
Others:
Other matters
Amongst Presidents who served at least one full term, Carter is the only one who never made an appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.
As author Randy Shilts noted in his book titled "
Conduct Unbecoming", Jimmy Carter was one of the first presidents to address the topic of LGBT rights. He opposed a California ballot measure that would have banned gays, 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 come out in favor
{{Infobox President| name = James Earl Carter, Jr. ]
| image=Jimmy Carter.jpg|200px
| order=39th [President of the United States
| term_start=
January 20, [
| term_end=
January 20, [
| predecessor=[Gerald Ford
| successor=[Ronald Reagan
| order2=76th [List of Governors of Georgia
| term_start2=
January 1, [
| term_end2= January 14, [
| lieutenant2= [Lester Maddox
| predecessor2= [Lester Maddox
| successor2= [George Busbee
| birth_date={{birth date and age|1924|10|1-->
| birth_place=[Plains, Georgia
| spouse=[Rosalynn Carter
| alma_mater=[United States Naval Academy
[Georgia Southwestern College
[Georgia Institute of Technology
| occupation=[Politician, [peanut [farmer
| party=[Democratic Party (United States)
| religion=[Baptist
| vicepresident=[Walter Mondale
| signature=JimmyCarterSignature.png
|-->
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1,
1924) was the thirty-ninth President of the United States from 1977 to 1981, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Prior to becoming president, Carter served two terms in the Georgia Senate, and was the 76th
List of Governors of Georgia from 1971 to 1975.
During Carter's presidency the United States was beset by stagflation, suffered massive fuel shortages, and struggled through several major crises including the invasion of the American Embassy in Tehran, the subsequent holding of embassy personnel as hostages by Islamic Radicals, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His administration also created two cabinet-level departments: the
United States Department of Energy and the
United States Department of Education. He established a national
energy policy,http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jc39.html removed price controls from domestic petroleum production,http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=33281 but was unable to make America less reliant on foreign oil sources. He introduced a staggered increase in the payroll tax in a failed attempt to bolster the
Social Security (United States). In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the
Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties and the second round of
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Carter advocated a policy that held other countries to the highest moral standard possible, a standard by which, he believed, Americans would want themselves to be judged.http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/55.htm The final year of his term was dominated by the Iran hostage crisis, during which the United States struggled to rescue diplomats and American citizens held hostage in Tehran. By 1980, Carter was so unpopular that he was challenged by
Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party (United States) nomination in United States presidential election, 1980. Carter eventually received the nomination but lost the election, in a landslide, to
Republican Party (United States) Ronald Reagan.
After leaving office, Carter founded the Carter Center to promote global
health, democracy and
human rights. He has traveled extensively to monitor international elections, conduct peace negotiations and establish relief efforts. After leaving office, he also became a prolific author writing some 27 books. As of 2007, he is the
earliest living United States president and the oldest living United States president.
Early years
Jimmy Carter descended from a family that had resided in Georgia (U.S. state) for several generations. His great-grandfather Private L.B. Walker Carter (1832–1874) served in the
Confederate States Army in the Sumter Flying Artillery, seeing considerable action at the
Battle of Gettysburg.
,
February 17,
1977Jimmy Carter, the first president born in a hospital,
Jimmy Carter was the oldest of four children of James Earl and
Lillian Gordy Carter. He was born and grew up in the tiny southwest Georgia hamlet of
Plains, Georgia near the larger town of Americus, Georgia. Carter's father was a prominent business owner in the community and his mother a registered nurse. He was a gifted student from an early age who always had a fondness for reading. By the time he attended Plains High School, he was also a star in basketball and football. He was greatly influenced by one of his high school teachers, Julia Coleman (1889-1973). Ms. Co, at the commencement ceremonies at
Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta,
February 20, 1979Carter had three younger siblings. His brother, Billy Carter (1937–1988), caused some political problems for him during his administration. His sister, Gloria Carter Spann (1926–1990), was low-key but was famous for collecting and riding
Harley-Davidson motorcycles. His other sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton (1929–1983), became a well-known
Christianity evangelist.
and Amy Carter on the south lawn in front of the
White House,
July 24,
1977He married Rosalynn Carter in 1946. They had three sons —
John William Carter, born in 1947; James Earl "Chip" Carter III, born in 1950; and Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter, born in 1952 — and a daughter, Amy Carter, in 1967.
He attended Georgia Southwestern College and Georgia Institute of Technology and received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the United States Naval Academy in 1946.The Class of 1947 had a war-accelerated three-year program. . Carter was a gifted student and finished 59th out of his Academy class of 820. Carter served on
submarines in the US Atlantic Fleet and
U.S. Pacific Fleet fleets.
He was later selected by Captain (later Admiral) Hyman G. Rickover for the United States Navy fledgling nuclear submarine program, where he later completed qualification requirements to serve as a commanding officer. Rickover's demands were legendary, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Admiral Rickover had the greatest influence on him. There was a story he often told of being interviewed by the Admiral. He was asked about his rank in his class at the Naval Academy. Carter said "Sir, I graduated 59th out of a class of 820." Rickover only asked "Did you always do your best?" Carter was forced to admit he had not, and the Admiral asked why. Carter later used this as the theme of his presidential campaign and titled his first book
Why Not The Best?Carter loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become Chief of Naval Operations. Carter did some post-graduate work, studying nuclear physics and reactor technology for several months at
Union College starting in March 1953. Upon the death of his father in July 1953, however,
Lieutenant Carter immediately resigned his commission and was discharged from the Navy on October 9, 1953... This cut short his nuclear power training school, and he was never able to command a nuclear submarine, as the first of the fleet was launched January 17, 1955, over a year after his discharge from the Navy.http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2006/01/picking-on-jimmy-carter-myth.html
He then took over and expanded his family's peanut farming business in Plains. There he was involved in a farming accident that left him with a permanently bent finger.
From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to
Christianity, serving as a
Sunday School teacher throughout his life. Even as President, Carter prayed several times a day, and professed that Jesus Christ was the driving force in his life. Carter had been greatly influenced by a sermon he had heard as a young man, called, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" Lieutenant James Earle Carter, Jr., USN -
Naval Historical Center, United States Navy, October 19,
1997.
Early political career
State Senate
Jimmy Carter started his career by serving on various local boards, governing such entities as the schools, hospital, and library, among others. In the 1960s, he served two terms in the
Georgia Senate from the fourteenth district of Georgia.
His 1962 election to the state Senate, which followed the end of Georgia's
County Unit System (per the
Supreme Court of the United States case of
Gray v. Sanders), was chronicled in his book
Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. The election involved corruption led by Joe Hurst, the sheriff of Quitman County, Georgia; system abuses included votes from deceased persons and tallies filled with people who supposedly voted in alphabetical order. It took a challenge of the fraudulent results for Carter to win the election. Carter was reelected in 1964, to serve a second two-year term.
Campaign for Governor
In 1966, at the end of his career as a state senator, he flirted with the idea of running for the United States House of Representatives. His Republican opponent dropped out and decided to run for Governor of Georgia. Carter did not want to see a Republican Governor of his state, and, in turn, dropped out of the race for Congress and joined the race to become Governor. Carter lost the Democratic primary, but drew enough votes as a third place candidate to force the favorite,
Ellis Arnall, into a
two-round system, setting off a chain of events which resulted in the election of
Lester Maddox.
For the next four years, Carter returned to his agriculture business and carefully planned for his next campaign for Governor in 1970, making over 1,800 speeches throughout the state.
During his 1970 campaign, he ran an uphill
populism campaign in the Democratic primary against former Governor
Carl Sanders, labeling his opponent "Cufflinks Carl". Carter was never a racial segregation, and refused to join the segregationist White Citizens' Council, prompting a boycott of his peanut warehouse. He also had been one of only two families which voted to admit blacks to the Plains Baptist Church. People & Events: James Earl ("Jimmy") Carter Jr. (1924–) -
American Experience, PBS, accessed
March 18,
2006. However, he "said things the segregationists wanted to hear," according to historian E. Stanly Godbold. Also, Carter's campaign aides handed out a photograph of his opponent celebrating with black basketball players. http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.977/article_detail.asp "Jimmy Carter", Microsoft
Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2005, accessed March 18, 2006. Following his close victory over Sanders in the primary, he was elected Governor over Republican Hal Suit.
Governor of Georgia
cover;
May 31, 1971Carter was sworn-in as the 76th Governor of Georgia on
January 12,
1971 and held this post for one term, until January 14,
1975. Governors of Georgia were not allowed to succeed themselves at the time. His precedessor as Governor,
Lester Maddox, became the
Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. However, Carter and Maddox found little common ground during their four years of service, often publicly feuding with each other. During his quixotic campaign for President in 1976 (the same year Carter was elected) on the ticket of the
American Independent Party, Maddox called Carter "the most dishonest man I've ever met".
Civil rights politics
Carter declared in his inaugural speech that the time of racial segregation was over, and that racial discrimination had no place in the future of the state. He was the first statewide office holder in the Deep South to say this in public. Afterwards, Carter appointed many
African Americans to statewide boards and offices. He was often called one of the "New Southern Governors" — much more moderate than their predecessors and supportive of racial desegregation and expanding African-Americans' rights.
State government reforms
Carter made government efficient by merging about 300 state agencies into 30 agencies. One of his aides recalled that Governor Carter "was right there with us, working just as hard, digging just as deep into every little problem. It was his program and he worked on it as hard as anybody, and the final product was distinctly his." He also pushed reforms through the legislature, providing equal state aid to schools in the wealthy and poor areas of Georgia, set up community centers for mentally handicapped children, and increased educational programs for convicts. Carter took pride in a program he introduced for the appointment of judges and state government officials. Under this program, all such appointments were based on merit, rather than political influence.
Vice-Presidential aspirations in 1972
In 1972, as U.S. Senator George McGovern of
South Dakota was marching toward the Democratic nomination for President, Carter called a news conference in
Atlanta, Georgia to warn that McGovern was unelectable. Carter criticized McGovern as too liberal on both foreign and domestic policy, yet when McGovern's nomination became a foregone conclusion, Carter lobbied to become his vice-presidential running mate. The remarks attracted little national attention, and after McGovern's huge loss in the general election, Carter's attitude was not held against him within the Democratic Party.
However, Carter received 30 votes at the
1972 Democratic National Convention in the chaotic ballot for Vice President. Interestingly, McGovern offered the second spot to Reubin Askew, from next door Florida and one of the "new southern governors," but he declined.
Death penalty issues
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Georgia's death penalty law in 1972, Carter signed new legislation to authorize the death penalty for murder, rape and other offenses and to implement trial procedures which would conform to the newly-announced constitutional requirements. In 1976, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's new death penalty for murder; the death penalty was subsequently held unconstitutional as applied to rape.
Despite his earlier support, Carter soon became a death penalty opponent and during Presidential campaigns (like previous nominee George McGovern and two successive nominees, Walter Mondale and
Michael Dukakis) this was notedhttp://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/12/07/democrats_shift_on_death_penalty/.
Currently Carter is know for his outspoken opposition to the death penalty in all forms and in his Nobel Prize lecture he urges "prohibition of the death penalty"http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/12/10/carter.transcript/.
Other information
In 1973, while Governor of Georgia, Carter filed a report on his
Jimmy Carter UFO Incident with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma. However, in the July 25,
2007 episode of
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast Carter claimed not to remember why he filed the report and believes he probably only did it at the request of one of his children. He also stated he does not believe it was an alien spacecraft or the planet
Venus but rather believes it was likely some sort of military experiment being conducted from a nearby military base.
Carter made an appearance as the first guest of the evening on an episode of the game show
What's My Line in 1974, signing in as "X", lest his name give away his occupation. After his job was identified on question seven of ten by Soupy Sales, he talked about having brought movie production to the state of Georgia, citing
Deliverance, and the as-yet unreleased
The Longest Yard, shot at Reidville Prison.
In 1974, Carter was chairman of the Democratic National Committee's congressional, as well as gubernatorial, campaigns.
1976 presidential campaign
When Carter entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries in 1976, he was considered to have little chance against nationally better-known politicians. He had a
name recognition of only 2 percent. When he told his family of his intention to run for President, he was asked by his mother, "President of what?"However, Nixon's Watergate scandal was still fresh in the voters' minds, and so his position as an outsider, distant from
Washington, D.C., became an asset. The centerpiece of his campaign platform was government reorganization.He chose Senator Walter Mondale as his running mate. He attacked Washington in his speeches, and offered a religious salve for the nation's wounds, which was necessary following the Watergate scandal.American Presidency, Brinkley and Dyer, 2004Carter became the front-runner early on by winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He used a two-prong strategy. In the South, which most had tacitly conceded to Alabama's George Wallace, Carter ran as a moderate favorite son. When Wallace proved to be a spent force, Carter swept the region. In the North, Carter appealed largely to conservative Christian and rural voters and had little chance of winning a majority in most states. But in a field crowded with liberals, he managed to win several Northern states by building the largest single bloc. Initially dismissed as a regional candidate, Carter proved to be the only Democrat with a truly national strategy, and he eventually clinched the nomination.
The media discovered and promoted Carter. As Lawrence Shoup noted in his 1980 book
The Carter Presidency and Beyond:
"What Carter had that his opponents did not was the acceptance and support of elite sectors of the mass communications media. It was their favorable coverage of Carter and his campaign that gave him an edge, propelling him rocket-like to the top of the opinion polls. This helped Carter win key primary election victories, enabling him to rise from an obscure public figure to President-elect in the short space of 9 months."
As late as January 26,
1976, Carter was the first choice of only 4% of Democratic voters, according to the Gallup Poll. Yet "by mid-March 1976 Carter was not only far ahead of the active contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, he also led President Ford by a few percentage points," according to Shoup.
Carter began the race with a sizable lead over Ford, who was able to narrow the gap over the course of the campaign, but was unable to prevent Carter from narrowly defeating him on
November 2,
1976. Carter won the popular vote by 50.1% to 48.0% for Ford and received 297 electoral votes to Ford's 240. He became the first contender from the
Deep South to be elected President since the U.S. presidential election, 1848.
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."American Presidency, Brinkley and Dyer, 2004His first steps in the White House were to reduce the size of the staff by one third, and order cabinet members to drive their own cars.
Presidency (1977–1981)
Economic situation
Productivity growth in the United States had declined to an average annual rate of 1 percent, compared to 3.2 percent of the 1960s. There was also a growing federal budget deficit which increased to 66 billion dollars.The 1970s#Economy of the Seventies are described as a period of stagflation, meaning
economic stagnation coupled with price inflation, as well as higher interest rates. Price inflation (a rise in the general level of prices) creates uncertainty in budgeting and planning and makes labor strikes for pay raises more likely. In 1973, during the Nixon Administration, the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed to reduce supplies of oil available to the world market. This sparked an oil crisis and forced oil prices to rise sharply, spurring price inflation throughout the economy, and slowing growth. Significant government borrowing for items such as the Vietnam War and the nuclear weapons stockpile helped keep interest rates high relative to inflation. Jawboning and price freezes had proved ineffective.
Energy crisis
When the
1979 energy crisis — an occurrence Carter desperately tried to avoid during his term — he was planning on delivering his fifth major speech on energy. However, he felt that the American people were no longer listening. Instead, he went to Camp David and for ten days met with governors, mayors, religious leaders, scientists, economists and general citizens. He sat on the floor and took notes of their comments and especially wanted to hear criticism. His pollster told him that the American people simply faced a crisis of confidence because of the
John F. Kennedy assassination, the
Vietnam War, and
Watergate scandal.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/e_malaise.html 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:
I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.... I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.
The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. Transcript - "Crisis of Confidence" speech, July 15, 1979
Carter's speech, written by Hendrik Hertzberg and Gordon Stewart, was well-received by some. But the country was in the midst of a weak economy dominated by OPEC-influenced double-digit inflation, and many citizens were directly affected by this, causing concern about the federal government's response. Three days after the speech, Carter asked for the resignations of all of his Cabinet officers, and ultimately accepted five. Carter later admitted in his memoirs that he should simply have asked only those five members for their resignations. By asking the entire Cabinet, it gave the appearance that the White House was falling apart.
The economy suffered double-digit
inflation, coupled with very high interest rates, oil shortages, high unemployment and slow economic growth. In 1977 Carter had convinced the Democratic Congress to create the
United States Department of Energy. Now, promoting its recommendations to conserve energy, Carter wore sweaters, installed
solar hot water panels on the roof of the White House, installed a wood stove in the living quarters, ordered the General Services Administration to turn off hot water in some facilities, and requested that Christmas decorations remain dark in 1979 and 1980. Nationwide controls were put on thermostats in government and commercial buildings to prevent people from raising temperatures in the winter (above 65 degrees Fahrenheit) or lowering them in the summer (below 78 degrees Fahrenheit).
Price inflation caused interest rates to rise to unprecedented levels (above 12% per year). The
prime rate hit 21.5% in December 1980, the highest rate in U.S. history under any President. Investments in fixed income (both bonds and pensions being paid to retired people) were becoming less valuable. With the markets for U.S. government debt coming under pressure, Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Board; Volcker replaced G. William Miller who left to become Secretary of the Treasury. Volcker pursued a tight monetary policy to bring down inflation, which he considered his mandate. He succeeded, but only by first going through an unpleasant phase during which the economy slowed and unemployment rose, prior to any relief from inflation.
Domestic policies
Jimmy Carter's reorganization efforts separated the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare into the United States Department of Education and the
United States Department of Health and Human Services. Efforts were also made to reduce the number of government departments and employees as Carter had done when he was Governor of Georgia. He signed into law a major Civil Service Reform, the first in over a hundred years. Despite calling for a reform of the tax system in his presidential campaign, once in office he did very little to change it. http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/refarticle.aspx?refid=761566991
Walter Mondale in front of Presidential helicopter Marine One, January, 1979On Carter's first day in office, January 21, 1977, he fulfilled a campaign promise by issuing an Executive Order declaring unconditional amnesty for Vietnam-era war resisters and pacifists. .
Initially, Carter was fairly successful in getting legislation through Congress, such as canceling the B-1 bomber program (mainly production of the
B-1 Lancer), but a rift would begin to grow between the President and Congress. A few months after his term started, and thinking he had the support of about 74 Congressmen, Jimmy 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 Pincus, W., & Writer, W. P. S. (1977, April 1). When a campaign vow crashes into a pork barrel. The Washington Post.
This list was then met with opposition from the leadership of the Democratic Party. Carter had characterized a rivers and harbors bill as "
pork barrel" spending. Even Tip O'Neill, who supported the President in a lot of matters, 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 much 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."
Carter signed legislation greatly increasing the payroll tax for Social Security, and appointed record numbers of women, blacks, and Hispanics to government and judiciary jobs. He also initiated a comprehensive urban policy. His Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act created 103 million acres (417,000 km²) of national park land in Alaska.
Under Carter's watch, the
Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was passed, which phased out the
Civil Aeronautics Board. He was also somewhat successful in deregulation the trucking, rail, communications, oil and finance industries.
Carter was also responsible for legalizing home-brewing when he signed the congressionally approved bill into law in February 1979. This law was very much responsible for the country's renewed appreciation for better beer and the micro-brew craze of the 1990s.
Foreign policies
, Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat, 1978.
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 weapons 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 President 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 / Singlaub (NBC) from the Vanderbilt Television News ArchiveTime Magazine - General on the Carpet Carter planned to remove all but 14,000 U.S. air force personnel and logistics specialists by 1982, but after cutting only 3,600 troops, he was forced to abandon the effort in 1978.
Arab-Israeli Conflict/Camp David Accords
Carter's Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security Advisor (United States) 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.
One of Carter's most important accomplishments as President were the
Camp David Accords on
September 17, 1978. They were a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt negotiated by President 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 world interests and Israel, and
Nicolae Ceauşescu of
Romania acted as go-between for Israel and the
Palestinian 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 Sadat to
Camp David to continue the negotiations. The Camp David Accords produced two frameworks for peace between Egypt and Israel, and a peace treaty was later signed on
March 26,
1979. Lodge patio of Camp David on
September 6, 1978.
Rapid Deployment Forces
On October 1, 1979, President Carter announced before a television audience the existence of the Rapid Deployment Forces (RDF), a mobile fighting force capable of responding to worldwide trouble spots, without drawing on forces committed to the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The RDF was the forerunner of United States Central Command.
Human Rights
President Carter initially departed from the long-held policy of containment toward the Soviet Union. In its place Carter promoted a foreign policy that put
human rights at the front. This was a break from the policies of several predecessors, in which
human rights abuses were often overlooked if they were committed by a nation that was allied with the United States. The Carter Administration ended support to the historically U.S.-backed Anastasio Somoza regime in
Nicaragua and gave aid to the new Sandinista 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.
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 (who was forced to grant
Chile a constitution providing for a transition back into democracy), the
Apartheid government of South Africa,
Zaire (although Carter later changed course and supported Zaire, in response to alleged - albeit unproven -
Cuban support of anti-Mobutu Sese Seko rebelsCrawford Young and Thomas Turner,
The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State, p. 389Jeffrey M. Elliot and Mervyn M. Dymally,
Voices of Zaire: Rhetoric or Reality, p. 88) and other traditional allies.
People's Republic of China
See also Sino-American relations#Liaison Office.2C 1973-1978
Carter continued the policy of Richard Nixon to normalize relations with the
People's Republic of China by granting full diplomatic and trade relations, thus ending official relations and the mutual defense pact with Taiwan (though the two nations continued to trade and the U.S. unofficially recognized Taiwan through the Taiwan Relations Act). 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.
Panama Canal Treaties
One of the most controversial moves of President 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 segment 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 military dictator (
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, Jimmy Carter visited Panama with his wife and twelve U.S. Senators, amid widespread student disturbances against the Torrijos dictatorship. Carter then began urging the Torrijos regime to soften its policies and move Panama towards gradual republicanism.
Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT)
sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) treaty, June 18,
1979, in Vienna
A key foreign policy issue Carter worked laboriously on was the
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks#SALT II, 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 his main goal (as was stated in his Inaugural Address) that nuclear weaponry be completely vanished from the face of the Earth.
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 US 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.
Intervention in Afghanistan
The United States secretly began sending aid to anti-Soviet, Afghan Islamist factions on July 3,
1979. In December 1979 the USSR Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, after the pro-Moscow Afghanistan government, put in power by a 1978 coup, was overthrown. 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 and India in the East, and
Iran to the West. American politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, ignorant of U.S. involvement, feared the Soviets were positioning themselves for a takeover of Middle Eastern 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. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski revealed the Carter Administration's involvement in starting the war in a 1998 interview with
Le Nouvel Observateur. Brzezinski told
Le Nouvel Observateur that the Soviet invasion gave America "the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War." Full Text of Interview
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 Russian Wheat Deal, 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. He also prohibited Americans from participating in the 1980 Summer Olympics in
Moscow, and reinstated registration for the conscription for young males.
Carter and Brzezinski started a $40 billion covert program of training Islamic fundamentalists 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 American diplomatic missions based there. The international stake in Pakistan, however, had greatly increased with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The then-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 Russia at the time. In retrospect, this contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. 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, and also created many of the current problems with Islamic fundamentalism.
Hostage crisis (Iran)
, meeting with
Arthur Atherton,
William H. Sullivan, Cyrus Vance, President Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1977The main conflict between human rights and U.S. interests came in Carter's dealings with the Shah of Iran. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, had been a strong ally of America since World War II and was one of the "twin pillars" upon which U.S. strategic policy in the Middle East was built. However, his rule was strongly autocratic, and he went along with the plan of the
Dwight Eisenhower Administration to depose Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953.
On a 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. The speech was apparently never shown on American television.
When the Iranian Revolution broke out in Iran, and the Shah was overthrown, the U.S. did not intervene. The Shah went into permanent exile. 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 for Panama on
December 15, 1979. In response to the Shah's entry into the U.S.,
Iran hostage crisis the American embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage.American Presidency, Brinkley and Dyer, 2004 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, and
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, the hostage crisis continued and dominated the last year of Carter's presidency. The subsequent responses to the crisis—from a "White House Rose Garden strategy" of staying inside the White House, to the unsuccessful attempt to rescue the hostages—were largely seen as contributing to Carter's defeat in the 1980 election.
After the hostages were taken, President 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 US banks, totaling about $8 billion US at the time. This was to be used as a bargaining chip for the release of the hostages.
The Iranians later changed their demand to return of the Shah and the release of the Iranian money. Through informal channels the Iranian government started negotiations with the banks holding the money. The banks took over negotiations for the release of the hostages, not the U.S. State Department. When the Shah died of cancer in the summer of 1980, the Iranians wanted no more to do with the hostages and changed their demands to just the release of the hostages in exchange for the return of their money. The hostages were finally released with the signing of Executive Orders 12277 through 12285 under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, 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.
Administration and cabinet
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OFFICE||align="left"|
NAME||align="left"|
TERM|-!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"||-|align="left"|President of the United States||align="left" |
Jimmy Carter||align="left"|1977–1981|-|align="left"|Vice President of the United States||align="left"|Walter Mondale||align="left"|[Cyrus Vance||align="left"|1980–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of the Treasury||align="left"|W. Michael Blumenthal||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of Defense||align="left"|Harold Brown (Secretary of Defense)||align="left"|1977–1981|-|align="left"|Attorney General of the United States||align="left"|
Griffin Bell||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of the Interior||align="left"|Cecil D. Andrus||align="left"|[Juanita M. Kreps||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of Labor||align="left"|
Ray Marshall||align="left"|[Robert Bergland||align="left"|[Joseph A. Califano, Jr.||align="left"|[Patricia R. Harris||align="left"|[Shirley M. Hufstedler||align="left"|[Patricia R. Harris||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of Transportation||align="left"|Brock Adams||align="left"|1979–1981|-|align="left"|[United States Secretary of Energy||align="left"|[James R. Schlesinger||align="left"|1979–1981|}
Other cabinet-level and high posts
Cabinet-level:
Others:
Other matters
Amongst Presidents who served at least one full term, Carter is the only one who never made an appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.
As author
Randy Shilts noted in his book titled "
Conduct Unbecoming", Jimmy Carter was one of the first presidents to address the topic of
LGBT rights. He opposed a California ballot measure that would have banned gays, 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 come out in favor
Biography of Jimmy Carter
Short biography from the official White House site.
Jimmy Carter
Spartacus, USA History, British History, Second World War, First World War, Germany,
Jimmy Carter - Biography of the 39th President of the United States
Jimmy Carter Biography: born in Plains, Ga., on Oct. 1, 1924, Jimmy Carter became the 39th President of the United States Jan. 20, 1977, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Jimmy Carter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) was the thirty-ninth President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
American Experience | Jimmy Carter
A new presidential biography on Jimmy Carter from American Experience on PBS.
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Biography. Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.), thirty-ninth president of the United States, was born October 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains, Georgia, and grew ...
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Kids Page!
Welcome to the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum website. The Library in Atlanta, Georgia, is part of the Presidential Library system administered by the National Archives and ...
Jimmy Carter Library and Museum
Provides online photos and documents, profiles of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, gift shop catalog, and information about research, events, and collections at the library.
