Carter, Jimmy

Carter, Jimmy (1924– ), naval officer, farm business operator, governor, president of the United States.Born in Plains, Georgia, Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and became a nuclear submarine officer. After his father's death (1953), he returned to manage the family's farming enterprises. Active in the local Baptist church and state politics, Carter was a state senator (1963–67) and governor of Georgia (1971–75). In 1974, he narrowly defeated President Gerald Ford.

As president, Carter characterized himself as nonideological, a social liberal and fiscal conservative. He had a strong sense of morality and equity. A rational and diligent manager, Carter proved a technician rather than a logrolling politician or a highly inspiring leader. He experienced only a mixed success in foreign and defense matters, a result of circumstances and of Carter himself.

Diplomatically, the Carter administration negotiated and secured a divided Senate's ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, completed normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China, and spectacularly achieved a peace treaty, the Camp David Accords (1978), between Israel and Egypt.

Carter was also confronted with major challenges over which he had little control, although he was criticized for lurching between weak and hard‐line policies. Soviet intervention in Cuba and the Horn of Africa and Russian military occupation of Afghanistan led the administration to support a military buildup. Carter ended his opposition to increases in the military budget, approved construction of the MX missile, abandoned his SALT II Treaty, canceled U.S. participation in the Summer Olympics in Moscow, and resumed compulsory draft registration. In the “Carter Doctrine,” he pledged protection of the oil‐rich Persian Gulf region and established a rapid deployment force to enforce it.

Seizure of U.S. Embassy hostages in November 1979 by successful Iranian revolutionaries led Carter to impose diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iran. In April 1980, an ill‐fated military rescue attempt was aborted at the “Desert One” site south of Tehran after three of the eight helicopters malfunctioned. Another helicopter and a C‐130 transport plane collided in the nighttime lift‐off. Government released the hostages in January 1981 when Ronald Reagan became president.

Out of office, Carter pursued his own agenda, involving human rights, social welfare, and international mediation. He played particularly important, if often controversial, roles in easing later conflicts with Nicaragua, North Korea, and Haiti. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work as a mediator and head of the Carter Centre in Atlanta.
[See also Conscription; Iran, U.S. Military Involvement in; Panama, U.S. Military Involvement in; SALT Treaties.]

Bibliography

Burton I. Kaufman , The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr., 1993.
Gary M. Fink and Hush Davis Graham, eds., The Carter Presidency, 1998.

John Whiteclay Chambers II