Jimmy Carter

B

Domestic Affairs

Carter's relationship with the Congress of the United States, which was controlled by his own party, was often strained. Many members found Carter aloof and clumsy at political dealing. The administration's inexperience in dealing with Congress contributed to the defeat, among other things, of a proposal for a consumer protection agency and a bill to make labor union organizing easier.

Carter eventually won congressional approval of a program to decrease U.S. dependence on imported oil by encouraging alternative sources of energy and deregulating the price of oil and natural gas produced in the United States. Freeing domestic oil prices, however, caused a rise in inflation, an increase in prices of goods and services without an increase in their value. Inflation, which had been increasing since the late 1960s, now reached its highest point since the end of World War II in 1945. Carter refused to impose price or wage controls; instead, he asked large businesses to hold down prices and labor unions to avoid new wage demands. Unfortunately, these measures had little effect.

Personnel problems also plagued the Carter administration. Budget director Bert Lance was forced to resign in 1977 amid charges of banking irregularities; a medical-policy adviser left in the wake of a minor drug scandal; and United States ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young resigned in 1979 after the disclosure of a diplomatic indiscretion.

Carter's brother, Billy, received at least $220,000 from Libya, either as a loan or for services never revealed; the Libyan government had been denounced by the State Department for supporting terrorism. Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti, moreover, was accused of covering up Billy Carter's relationship with Libya, but a Senate investigation in 1980 failed to clear up these matters.

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Also in 1980, a federal grand jury decided that charges that White House chief of staff Hamilton Jordan had used cocaine were not supported by sufficient evidence to file charges, and the Justice Department decided against formally investigating Treasury Secretary G. William Miller, who had denied knowing that a company of which he had once been chairman had spent millions of dollars on illegal payoffs.

C

Election of 1980

Nearing the end of his term, Carter believed that his most critical problem was a vague sense of ill-being in the United States that, he felt, had produced a crisis of “national will.” The gloom hanging over the administration deepened even further when in 1979 Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced that he would challenge Carter for the Democratic nomination. Party leaders generally supported Carter, however. Claiming that he was needed to watch over the nation's business, Carter did almost no primary campaigning and refused even to debate Kennedy.

This strategy paid off in the short run: Carter won two-thirds of the primaries. But he lost several important primaries to Kennedy, those of New York, Pennsylvania, and California. Kennedy, refusing to concede defeat even after Carter had won many more than the 1,666 delegates required for nomination, fought on for a more liberal party platform. Carter was forced to accept most of his proposals.

During the campaign Carter could never quite arouse Democratic enthusiasm. In fact, former California governor Ronald W. Reagan, who was the Republican nominee, successfully competed with Carter for the votes of many Democrats. Reagan was able to appeal to many people by taking advantage of resentment against the decline of U.S. power overseas, the problems of the economy, and the decay of traditional moral attitudes. Although a large body of voters (according to public-opinion polls) were concerned about Reagan's reputation for an aggressively anti-Soviet foreign policy, Carter's attempt to make arms control the main issue of the campaign failed. The main issue of the campaign was Carter himself and what many people considered to be his record of failure. Carter and Mondale (who was also renominated) lost overwhelmingly to Reagan and his vice-presidential running mate, George Bush, with 41 percent of the vote to 51 percent for the Republicans. The Democrats also lost control of the U.S. Senate for the first time in 26 years.

Carter's last major official action was to secure the release of the U.S. hostages in Iran. The 53 Americans were freed on January 20, 1981, the day of Reagan's inauguration. Carter agreed to return Iranian assets in U.S. banks, which he had ordered frozen, and pledged U.S. noninterference in Iran's affairs.

D

Later Life

After leaving office, Carter championed human rights and became a public spokesperson for numerous charitable causes. In 1982 he founded the Carter Center of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The center serves as a forum for discussing issues related to democracy and human rights. Since the mid-1980s Carter and his wife have helped build low-income housing for the poor as part of the nonprofit organization Habitat for Humanity. Carter has also traveled extensively throughout various developing countries helping to monitor elections, establish relief efforts, and conduct peace negotiations.

In 1994 Carter negotiated a dispute between North Korea and the United States over North Korea’s alleged production of nuclear weapons with plutonium from its nuclear reactors. Following a visit to North Korea by Carter, North Korea announced that it would freeze its nuclear weapons program in exchange for Western aid to build new nuclear reactors that produced less plutonium as a byproduct. Later that year Carter helped negotiate the return to Haiti of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He also brokered a 1995 peace agreement known as the Dayton Peace Accord that ended the three-year war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (see Wars of Yugoslav Succession).

In 2002 Carter made a historic visit to Cuba to speak about human rights, becoming the most senior U.S. statesman to meet Cuban president Fidel Castro. Carter called for free elections and the right to organize political parties in Cuba, and he also proposed lifting U.S. restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba. Later that year Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize (see Nobel Prizes) for his efforts “to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The Nobel committee also cited Carter’s critical role in the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt.

In 2006 Carter stirred controversy with the publication of his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Many critics said it was an exaggeration to compare Israeli policy toward the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories with South African apartheid. Carter and other supporters, however, defended the comparison. Carter noted that “a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank” was in many ways “more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid.” The book quickly reached the bestseller lists.

Carter has written many other books, including Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (1983); The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East (1985); Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age (1993); Talking Peace (1993); Always a Reckoning and Other Poems (1995); The Virtues of Aging (1998); An Hour Before Daylight: Memoirs of a Rural Boyhood (2001); and Christmas in Plains: Memories (2001).