Plains Train Station
Jimmy Carter was sworn in as the 39th President of the United States on January 20, 1977 in the midst of some of the worst conditions encountered by an entering president. Coming off from the long and bloody and expensive Vietnam Conflict, the United States was in the midst of what became known as "Stagflation", a stagnant economy with both high unemployment and high inflation, and repeated oil crises caused by conflicts in the Middle East. Finally, humiliated by the outcome of the Indochina Wars, the United States felt the need to show it had not been weakened by the long conflict.
Carter started by issuing an executive order pardoning draft-dodgers from the Vietnam Conflict, expanded Head Start, doubled the education budget, and signed laws increasing safety, help for underprivileged families, and minimum wage laws. He also pushed for deregulation of the airline, trucking, rail, communications, and finance industries. Environmentally, Carter was best known for two laws: the "Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA)" or Superfund Law, cleaning up areas of toxic contamination, as well as the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, protecting nearly a third of the entire state as a wilderness. However disputes with Congress (mostly involving his veto of bills he thought were pork) and increasing crises soon put his agenda on hold.
The first big crisis was the energy crisis, slowly increasing since OPEC reduced oil output over the United States deflationary dollars and support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Carter established the Department of Energy to conserve and regulate the industry. Infamously for the time, he also had solar hot water panels installed on the roof of the White House. Carter also established the National Energy Act (NEA) and the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) to support energy conservation and also promote the use of renewable energy. However he also deregulated the oil industry, the increased profits compensated by a "Windfall profits tax". These actions however did not help the skyrocketing oil prices in the short term, culminating in the 1979 Oil Crisis when gas prices doubled or gas simply ran out in some parts of the country during the height of summer. As the Carter Administration became increasingly under pressure, he responded with the "Malaise Speech":
"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...
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning....
I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel.... I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for an energy-secure nation. . . "
It didn't really work and a few days later Carter asked for and received the resignation of his entire cabinet. An austerity measure cutting credit, coupled with the high inflation quickly caused the 1980 Recession.
Internationally the chaos of the 1970s and 1980s soon took up most of Carter's time. The controversial 1980 Mariel Boatlift, the mass emigration of 125000 Cubans to the United States, ended after a number of exiles were found to have been released from Cuba's prisons and mental institutions. Jimmy Carter's greatest international accomplishment was his personal effort in negotiating the 1979 Camp David Accords, a comprehensive (if still incomplete) peace between Israel and Egypt in return for the return of the Sinai, and the establishment of autonomous Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. In Asia he normalized ties with the People's Republic of China though he semi-officially kept ties with the republic under the Taiwan Relations Act. In Latin America he returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. With the Soviet Union he signed the 1979 SALT II Treaty, reducing nuclear weapons between both powers. However the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan quickly put an end to any further cooperation. Carter imposed sanctions to the Soviet Union, provided aid to Pakistan, and initiated the secret CIA plans to equip the mujahideen fighting the Soviet forces. He also boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
However what would finally doom the presidency of Jimmy Carter was Iran. Since WWII, the United States had supported the Shah Mohammad Pahlavi, overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. By 1978 however a new revolt broke out against the Shah. The Carter administration displayed contradictory positions between appeasing the revolutionaries and cracking down hard, and eventually the Shah fled, the Iranian Revolution then leading to Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini proclaiming Iran an Islamic Republic. After the exiled Shah fell ill with cancer, Carter allowed him to come to the United States for treatment. In response, in 1979 Iranian militants seized the US Embassy, holding 52 Americans hostage in exchange for:
1. The return of the Shah to Iran for trial.
2. The return of the Shah's wealth to the Iranian people.
3. An admission of guilt by the United States for its past actions in Iran, plus an apology.
4. A promise from the United States not to interfere in Iran's affairs in the future.
The Iranian Hostage Crisis would dominate the remainder of Carter's term despite the Shah dying only a few months later. News broadcasts would depict the number of days the hostages were held, and a poorly organized rescue mission-Operation Eagle Claw-ended in a fiasco. Negotiations began, helped by $8 billion in Iranian assets seized by the United States in response to the hostage-taking. As part of the eventual deal, secured even as Pres Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 Election in a landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan, the hostages were to be returned immediately, and in response the United States returned all Iranian assets minus $1 billion to be used to paid for damages to US citizens and property relating to the Iranian Revolution. By a quirk (or Iranian tweaking the departing Carter), the Iranian hostages were released moments after Pres Ronald Reagan took office.
Historians generally rate Jimmy Carter's four year term as middling or poor.
Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, Plains, Georgia
Plains Train Station
Jimmy Carter was sworn in as the 39th President of the United States on January 20, 1977 in the midst of some of the worst conditions encountered by an entering president. Coming off from the long and bloody and expensive Vietnam Conflict, the United States was in the midst of what became known as "Stagflation", a stagnant economy with both high unemployment and high inflation, and repeated oil crises caused by conflicts in the Middle East. Finally, humiliated by the outcome of the Indochina Wars, the United States felt the need to show it had not been weakened by the long conflict.
Carter started by issuing an executive order pardoning draft-dodgers from the Vietnam Conflict, expanded Head Start, doubled the education budget, and signed laws increasing safety, help for underprivileged families, and minimum wage laws. He also pushed for deregulation of the airline, trucking, rail, communications, and finance industries. Environmentally, Carter was best known for two laws: the "Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA)" or Superfund Law, cleaning up areas of toxic contamination, as well as the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, protecting nearly a third of the entire state as a wilderness. However disputes with Congress (mostly involving his veto of bills he thought were pork) and increasing crises soon put his agenda on hold.
The first big crisis was the energy crisis, slowly increasing since OPEC reduced oil output over the United States deflationary dollars and support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Carter established the Department of Energy to conserve and regulate the industry. Infamously for the time, he also had solar hot water panels installed on the roof of the White House. Carter also established the National Energy Act (NEA) and the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) to support energy conservation and also promote the use of renewable energy. However he also deregulated the oil industry, the increased profits compensated by a "Windfall profits tax". These actions however did not help the skyrocketing oil prices in the short term, culminating in the 1979 Oil Crisis when gas prices doubled or gas simply ran out in some parts of the country during the height of summer. As the Carter Administration became increasingly under pressure, he responded with the "Malaise Speech":
"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...
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning....
I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel.... I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for an energy-secure nation. . . "
It didn't really work and a few days later Carter asked for and received the resignation of his entire cabinet. An austerity measure cutting credit, coupled with the high inflation quickly caused the 1980 Recession.
Internationally the chaos of the 1970s and 1980s soon took up most of Carter's time. The controversial 1980 Mariel Boatlift, the mass emigration of 125000 Cubans to the United States, ended after a number of exiles were found to have been released from Cuba's prisons and mental institutions. Jimmy Carter's greatest international accomplishment was his personal effort in negotiating the 1979 Camp David Accords, a comprehensive (if still incomplete) peace between Israel and Egypt in return for the return of the Sinai, and the establishment of autonomous Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. In Asia he normalized ties with the People's Republic of China though he semi-officially kept ties with the republic under the Taiwan Relations Act. In Latin America he returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. With the Soviet Union he signed the 1979 SALT II Treaty, reducing nuclear weapons between both powers. However the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan quickly put an end to any further cooperation. Carter imposed sanctions to the Soviet Union, provided aid to Pakistan, and initiated the secret CIA plans to equip the mujahideen fighting the Soviet forces. He also boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
However what would finally doom the presidency of Jimmy Carter was Iran. Since WWII, the United States had supported the Shah Mohammad Pahlavi, overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. By 1978 however a new revolt broke out against the Shah. The Carter administration displayed contradictory positions between appeasing the revolutionaries and cracking down hard, and eventually the Shah fled, the Iranian Revolution then leading to Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini proclaiming Iran an Islamic Republic. After the exiled Shah fell ill with cancer, Carter allowed him to come to the United States for treatment. In response, in 1979 Iranian militants seized the US Embassy, holding 52 Americans hostage in exchange for:
1. The return of the Shah to Iran for trial.
2. The return of the Shah's wealth to the Iranian people.
3. An admission of guilt by the United States for its past actions in Iran, plus an apology.
4. A promise from the United States not to interfere in Iran's affairs in the future.
The Iranian Hostage Crisis would dominate the remainder of Carter's term despite the Shah dying only a few months later. News broadcasts would depict the number of days the hostages were held, and a poorly organized rescue mission-Operation Eagle Claw-ended in a fiasco. Negotiations began, helped by $8 billion in Iranian assets seized by the United States in response to the hostage-taking. As part of the eventual deal, secured even as Pres Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 Election in a landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan, the hostages were to be returned immediately, and in response the United States returned all Iranian assets minus $1 billion to be used to paid for damages to US citizens and property relating to the Iranian Revolution. By a quirk (or Iranian tweaking the departing Carter), the Iranian hostages were released moments after Pres Ronald Reagan took office.
Historians generally rate Jimmy Carter's four year term as middling or poor.
Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, Plains, Georgia