Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter (October 1, 1924 - present) was the 39th President of the United States of America following Gerald Ford and preceding Ronald Reagan. He was a Democrat who served from 1977-1981, after being the Governor of Georgia.
His difficulty in overcoming the challenges that were presented to the nation during his time in office helped lead to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. He has been unusually active as an ex-president, serving as an election monitor in many emerging democracies, and as an advocate for peace around the world. For these efforts, he was recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.
Contents
Presidency
Carter's presidency was marked by a period of American supremacy being challenged abroad and economic recession and stagflation striking at home. Carter's presidency was marked by retrenchment, after the disappointing agony that had been the Vietnam War, and economic stagflation churning at home.
In the midst of the 1980 campaign, a pro-U.S. monarchy was toppled by the 1979 Iranian Revolution and dozens of American hostages were taken inside the American embassy by Islamic fundamentalist revolutionaries after Carter gave sanctuary to exiled dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Despite Carter's own Democratic Party controlling both Houses of Congress, he failed to reform the tax system or to reduce the size of government bureaucracy, which he had promised to do during the 1976 campaign.
Carter's response to Soviet aggression against Afghanistan was to single out American farmers who suffered terribly when he terminated the Russian Wheat Deal, a keystone Nixon Detente initiative to establish trade with USSR and lessen Cold War tensions.
He was defeated in the 1980 presidential election by Ronald Reagan by nearly ten percentage points. Republicans also gained control of the Senate for the first time in twenty-five years. The electoral college vote was a landslide, with 489 votes (representing 44 states) for Reagan and 49 for Carter (representing 6 states and the District of Columbia).
Stagflation
A major issue President Carter failed to deal with was inflation, caused especially by the rising price of imported oil, which was the major source of energy for many industries. The Misery Index, Carter's own invention of economic well-being, rose 50% in four years.
Government spending caused interest rates to rise to unprecedented levels (above 12 percent per year). Inflation and interest rates reached their highest levels since World War II. The rapid change in interest rates led to disintermediation of bank deposits, which sowed the seeds of the Savings and Loan crisis. Investments in fixed income were becoming less valuable. Holders of both bonds, and pensions being paid to retired people had their life savings wiped out. The stagnant growth of the economy (causing unemployment), in combination with a high rate of inflation, has often been called stagflation, an unprecedented situation in American economics.
Bert Lance, Carter's appointee to head the Office of Management and Budget which manages the U.S. federal budget, was forced to resign when his past bank overdrafts and "check kiting" schemes in Georgia were exposed.
Post-presidency
Carter has been active in foreign affairs since his presidency. His continued work mediating international disputes, organizing election observations, and working with organizations on disease and hunger were cited when he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. In his Nobel lecture, Carter declared his support for "international law":
Our President, Woodrow Wilson, was honored here for promoting the League of Nations, whose two basic concepts were profoundly important: "collective security" and "self-determination." Now they are embedded in international law. Violations of these premises during the last half-century have been tragic failures, as was vividly demonstrated when the Soviet Union attempted to conquer Afghanistan and when Iraq invaded Kuwait. [1]
In a October 2000 survey of 132 prominent professors of history, law, and political science, President Carter was grouped in the "Below Average" group, ranked 30th, with a mean score of 2.47 out of 5.00.[2]
In Jimmy Carter's latest book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, he wrote:
It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.
The sentiment was widely criticized. He apologized for the wording of that sentence, but not for his larger message.[3]
UFO Sighting
Carter claims to have witnessed an unidentified flying object in 1969; he remains the only U.S. President to have formally reported a UFO. He filed a report with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City after a request from that organization. [4] During his presidential campaign, Carter promised to release the truth about any alleged UFO cover-up. Many astronomers believe that what Carter saw was actually the planet Venus.
Voyager Probe
President Carter placed this official statement on the Voyager space probe [5] for its trip outside the solar system on June 16, 1977: "We cast this message into the cosmos . . . Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some - - perhaps many - - may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."[6]
References
- ↑ Text of Carter's Nobel Lecture Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, 2002.
- ↑ Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (New York, Wall Street Journal Book, 2004)
- ↑ Washington Post, January 24, 2007 [1]
- ↑ http://www.presidentialufo.com/carter_ufo_report.htm
- ↑ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=555
- ↑ http://www.presidentialufo.com/jimmy.htm
Further reading
- Carter the worst ex-president -- Steven Hayward
- Jimmy Carter's Jewish Problem by Deborah Lipstadt.
