THE PRESIDENCY OF JIMMY CARTER

Jimmy Carter discovered that coming into the presidency as an outsider has some advantages but also some definite drawbacks. One of the weaknesses of the Carter presidency was his inability to find “insiders” in Congress that he could successfully work with to get legislation passed. Carter hired many women and minorities for his White House staff and did away with some of the pomp and circumstance traditionally associated with the presidency (he sometimes wore sweaters when giving addresses to the nation). To Carter’s critics, these were signs that he was not really up to the responsibilities of the presidency.

Domestic problems continued to exist in the Carter presidency. Unemployment and inflation remained as major problems. As Ford had done, Carter asked the American people to voluntarily refrain from spending and excessive energy use to bring down inflation. He then tried to cut government spending to cool the economy, and angered many liberal Democrats by cutting social programs. Another approached tried by the administration was to have the Federal Reserve Board tighten the money supply, hoping this would stop inflation; the resulting high interest rates served to depress the economy. Unfortunately, none of these policies worked, and confidence in Carter’s abilities to solve economic problems began to wane; by the end of his term, unemployment still stood near 8 percent, with inflation over 12 percent.

Other domestic measures undertaken by Carter included the granting of amnesty to those who had left America to avoid the draft during the Vietnam era and measures for the federal cleanup of chemical waste dumps. Pressures from OPEC drove the price of gasoline higher during the Carter presidency; in 1978 the National Energy Act passed, which taxed cars that were not energy efficient and deregulated the prices of domestic oil and gasoline. During the Carter administration a Cabinet- level Department of Energy was created.

In foreign policy, Carter’s early speeches stated that the goal of America should be the spreading of basic human rights around the world. Critics maintained that Carter’s idealism blinded him to the real interests of America at the time. Conservatives were very critical of his treaty that gave the Panama Canal hack to Panama (this would not actually take place until 1999). Critics also attacked his decision to officially recognize the People’s Republic of China as the government of China (thus reducing America’s support of Taiwan) and his continued negotiations with the Soviets to limit nuclear weapons (critics stated that America’s military might should not be limited). Conservatives were cheered by his response to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Carter cut aid programs to the Soviet Union and refused to allow the athletes to compete in the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics.

One of the high points of the Carter presidency was the September 1978 negotiations between Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt that produced the Camp David Accords. These negotiations were mediated by Carter; as a result of these talks, Israel promised to return occupied land to Egypt in return for official recognition of Israel’s right to exist by Egypt. Carter was unable to negotiate a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees (a problem that still exists today).

The nadir of the Carter presidency was the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Iran had been governed by the repressive Shah of Iran, who wag propped up by arms and economic aid from the United States. In 1978 a revolution of fundamentalist Muslims forced the Shah to leave the country; the Ayatollah Khomeini, a fundamentalist Muslim leader, became leader of Iran. In October 1979, the exiled Shah was suffering front cancer, and Carter allowed him into the United States for treatment. This outraged the Iranians; on November 4 protesters stoned and then seized the American embassy in Tehran, Iran, taking 66 Americans who worked there hostage.

The Americans were kept hostage for 444 days. Some were kept in solitary confinement, while others were not; most were moved around on a regular basis to discourage rescue attempts. Carter tried various attempts to win the release of the hostages, including freezing Iranian assets in America, stopping trade with Iran, and negotiating through third parties. A 1980 attempt to rescue the hostages ended in a military embarrassment when helicopters sent to rescue them either crashed or could not fly because of heavy sand. Carter had been criticized for being ineffectual on domestic programs; as the hostage crisis wore on, he increasingly was seen as ineffectual in the diplomatic sphere as well. The hostages were finally released in January 1981, but only after Carter had left office and Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president.