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The presidency of Jimmy Carter
Carter failed to solve the ailing economy or confront a growing crisis in the Middle East during his one-term presidency.
Overview
- Democrat Jimmy Carter served as president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.
- Carter was unable to solve most of the problems plaguing the country during his administration, including an ailing economy and a continuing energy crisis.
- Although Carter brokered the historic Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, relations with the Middle East broke down after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Iranian extremists seized the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 American hostages captive there for over a year.
The election of Jimmy Carter
The election of 1976 fell on the bicentennial of the United States, but few people felt much like celebrating. The economy was in bad shape, and the Watergate scandal had eroded Americans' trust in their elected officials. Incumbent president Gerald Ford, who had ascended to the highest office in the land after Nixon's resignation, had little chance of retaining his position given his association with the disgraced ex-president.
Into this bleak political landscape stepped James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr., former peanut farmer and governor of Georgia. Carter was such a long shot at the start of the race that when he told his mother he planned to run for president, she asked, "President of what?" But strategic victories in early primaries led Carter to win the 1976 Democratic nomination, along with running mate Walter Mondale.
Carter campaigned as a Washington outsider, a pious and forthright man who promised voters that he would never lie to them. His message resonated just enough to put him in office by a narrow margin, 50.1% of the popular vote to Ford's 48%.
The Carter years (1977-1981)
Carter, as a breath of fresh air after the Nixon and Ford years, enjoyed an initial burst of popularity in 1977, but his ratings slipped as it became increasingly clear that Carter was unwilling to work with Washington to achieve results. He surrounded himself with advisers from his native Georgia and refused to delegate any authority whatsoever: in the first six months of his presidency Carter even personally reviewed requests for use of the White House tennis court.
Carter crafted legislation packages concerning crucial fixes to the energy crisis and the economy in secret, and then rained them down upon an increasingly hostile Congress. As a fiscal conservative, he alienated the liberal wing of the Democratic party by refusing to spend much money to invigorate the economy or to fund social programs. He alienated conservatives by pardoning some 10,000 Vietnam War draft evaders, negotiating the return of control of the Panama Canal to Panama, resuming diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and halting the construction of new nuclear weapons.
The economy continued to slump in the late 1970s. Inflation soared to a staggering 13% and gas shortages once again plagued the country after violence erupted in the Middle East. After cloistering himself with advisers for days in summer 1979 in order to determine a solution to these woes, Carter emerged offering nothing more than a highly-critical speech that blamed Americans for causing the present 'malaise' through a loss of moral virtue.
Foreign policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis
As a president deeply committed to human rights around the world, Carter achieved some victories in international relations. Significantly, Carter brought Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat together at the presidential retreat in Maryland to negotiate the Camp David Accords, which stipulated that Egypt would recognize the state of Israel in return for regaining control of the Sinai peninsula.
But elsewhere, things took a turn for the worse. US-Soviet relations, which seemed on the verge of a breakthrough when Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev announced their agreement to a second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), broke down yet again when the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Consequently, the US Senate never ratified SALT II, and the United States even boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
Meanwhile, the situation in the Middle East rapidly destabilized in January 1979 when followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrew Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the shah of Iran. The shah had been installed as dictator with the help of the CIA in 1953, and Khomeini's Muslim fundamentalist followers sought to purge Iran of secular, Western influences.
In November 1979, Iranian militants seized the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage. They demanded that the United States return the shah (who had fled to New York for medical treatment) and his assets to Iran and issue an apology. Though 14 hostages were released within a few months of the siege, negotiations to free the 52 others dragged on for over a year. A complex rescue attempt failed, killing eight American soldiers in a helicopter crash. Finally, the United States agreed to pay the captors nearly $8 billion to end the hostage crisis. To add insult to injury, Ayatollah Khomeini did not release the hostages until January 20, 1981: Ronald Reagan's inauguration day.
Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in the presidential election of 1980, making him the first elected president to be unseated by the American people since Herbert Hoover in 1932.
Although Carter's years in office were rocky, his post-presidential career as a diplomat and human-rights advocate earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
What do you think?
What do you think Carter hoped to achieve with his "Crisis of Confidence" speech? Why do you think it was so poorly received by the American public?
Carter has been compared to Herbert Hoover, another president who failed to solve an economic crisis. Do you think that's a fair comparison? Why or why not?
How would you characterize the Carter administration’s foreign policy? Was it effective?
How did the Cold War contribute to later tensions in the Middle East?
Want to join the conversation?
What has Carter done to deserve a Nobel prize?(9 votes)
He won it for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.(30 votes)
What does the phrase, " making him the first elected president to be unseated by the American people" mean?(6 votes)
He was the first president since Herbert Hoover in 1932, who had been elected (i.e. hadn't become president by being vice president and the president being assassinated or resigning), who lost his campaign for re-election.(10 votes)
It says Carter gave the Iranians nearly $8 Billion dollars for the hostages. Is that correct? I thought Carter agreed to lift sanctions on the Iranians and return money they had invested in U.S. banks, which would be returning Iran's own money and not giving them tax payer dollars. In other words, my concern is that your statement "the United States agreed to pay the captors nearly $8 billion to end the hostage crisis" may need further explanation. Actually, I just googled it. The agreement I was thinking of was the Algiers Accords, which was an agreement that included many things but also the unfreezing of $7.9 billion of Iranian assets and the lifting of trade sanctions.(12 votes)
Carter a conservative? He was a liberal. "Carter has been compared to Herbert Hoover, another president who failed to solve an economic crisis. Do you think that's a fair comparison? Why or why not?" Yes, because they were both miserable failures as President of the United States of America. The Peace Deal between Egypt and Israel was one of the few good things that President Carter did. His foreign policy apart from the Egypt-Israel peace deal was disastrous.(1 vote)
No, he was a Conservative. Not a very good one though.(2 votes)
I think that carter is right with his Crisis of Confidence speech. The main goal of this speech was not for his own confidence, but the whole United States confidence. During these tough times of U.S people being held confidence, this was most crucial for the moment. And I think that Carter did the right thing as he was speaking on the behalf of the whole country.(4 votes)- I think that it contribute to the poor people and the farmers.(3 votes)
The Carter presidency was a hopeful time. After the scandal of the corrupt Nixon administration, and a brief breather with Gerald Ford as president, America got a decent and moral man in the White House. Sadly, the political forces angry that "their guy" was hounded out of office, unrelentingly opposed President Carter. Other parts of Americas Imperialist legacy also bore negative fruit, particularly in Iran.
The inability of America to deal with the situation in Iran gave opportunity to the political forces that ushered in the Reagan era and its shortcomings the power to end the presidency of a decent human being.(2 votes)
- what would the defining characteristics, beliefs, and actions be for Carter(2 votes)
- What is Carter’s Biggest Success?(2 votes)
- Did the Iranian Hostage Crisis doom Carters presidency(2 votes)
what events in recent history led the United States to doubt itself in the 1970's?(1 vote)
The first satellite launch occurred in the late 1950's. Stagflation, the loss of the Vietnam War and the gasoline shortage were more recent in the 1970's.(3 votes)
