Jimmy Carter
39th President
The Election
Party: Democratic
Competitor: Gerald Ford
- His most effective campaign pitch was his promise that “I’ll never lie to you.”
- Told voters he would clean the mess of the "big government"
- Won by 51% of the popular vote
- Carter had 297 electoral votes and Ford had 240 electoral votes
- Won every state, except Virginia, in the South
- 97% of the African-Americans casted their votes to Carter
Humanitarian Efforts
- As a Christian, Carter had a large concern for "human rights"
- He made the idea of "human rights" the center of his foreign policy
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Camp David (ID)
- The Camp David Accords were the peace accords signed by Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to finally end the Israeli-Egyptian disputes
- The achievement by Carter is considered his greatest achievement in office.
- Carter after thirteen days persuaded the two visitors to sign an accord (September 17, 1978) that held considerable promise of peace
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Carter also took control of full diplomatic relations with China in early 1979 after a nearly thirty-year interruption
- He composed treaties too that gave complete ownership and control of the Panama Canal to the Panamanians by the year 2000.
Economic and Energy Woes
Energy Crisis (ID)
- When Carter entered office inflation soared, due to toe the increases in energy prices by OPEC
- In the summer of 1979, instability in the Middle East produced a major fuel shortage in the US, and OPEC announced a major price increase
- Facing pressure to act, Carter retreated to Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Maryland Mountains
- Ten days later, Carter emerged with a speech including a series of proposals for resolving the energy crisis
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- One of Carter's struggles involved the economy
- Prices were rising at about 10% a year ("doubly digit inflation")
- The economy also struggled because of the crippling oil prices
- Prices eventually rose to 13% inflation
- The price for imported oil also went up, drastically hurting the economy and forcing a payment of about $40 billion
- Americans soon learned that economic isolation would never work
- Americans also learned that they must adapt their culture to be familiar with foreign cultures and languages to create a strong economy
- Carter believed that America's weak economy was all in effect of oil consumption
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mohammed Reza Pahlevi (ID)
- The Iranian leader of the 1970s whose departure in 1979 precipitated another world oil crisis
OPEC (ID)
- Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
- 1974
- International cartel that inflates price of oil by limiting supply
- Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and UAE are prominent members
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Mohammed Reza Pahlevi was overthrown, hurting America and Iran's relations
- Iran stopped exporting oil
- OPEC began to raise the oil prices
- Another oil crisis began
- Carter retreated to Camp David for ten days to think
- He then delivered a speech claiming that the people were too consumed with materials and that there are more problems in America than energy and oil
Carter's Speech to the People
Beginning of the Iranian Hostage Act Crisis in 1979
- On November 4, 1979
- The Iranian Hostage Crisis (ID) began when a howling mob of rabidly anti-American Muslim militants stormed the United States embassy in Teheran, Iran
- The mob took all of its occupants hostage
- He proposed the creation of a “Rapid Deployment Force"
- This was created to respond to suddenly developing crises in faraway places and requested that young people, even women, be made to register for a possible military draft.
- SALT II (ID) basically was repealed and not followed
- Carter orded a rescue mission
- Two of the aircrafts collided, killing eight members assigned to the rescue mission
- The crisis continued for the rest of Carter's term as president