Jimmy Carter Essay Research Paper James Earl

Jimmy Carter Essay, Research Paper

James Earl Carter Jr.

(1924- )

James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th President of the United States, was the first President from the Deep South since Andrew Jackson, and the first President to officially use his nickname, Jimmy, is office.

Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia on October 1, 1924. In 1927 his family moved to the tiny settlement of Archery, just outside Plains, where he lived until he was 17 years old. As a boy he mopped cotton, which means to take the seeds out of cotton. He graduated from high school in 1941, then spent a year at Georgia Southwestern College and another at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Carter began a military career in June 1943 by enrolling in the United States Naval Academy. By 1946 he was serving as a comissioned officer, and in that same year he married Rosalynn Smith. In 1948 he entered submarine school, subsequently serving as the junior officer on four submarines. He was accepted into the navy?s protype nuclear submarine training program in 1952 and remained there for 11 months. On his father?s death, he left the navy to take over the family?s peanut business in Plains.

In Georgia, Carter became a prominent businessman and active citizen, known as a liberal on racial matters. He was elected to the state senate in 1962, was reelected two years later, and then ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1966. At that time, he had a religious experience, becoming a “born-again” Christian. He won the governorship in 1970 and headed a politically moderate administration, representative of the so-called New South.

Before his governmental term ended, Carter had decided to run for the presidency. After intense primary battles, he overcame the problems of being an unknown candidate from the Deep South without a national constituency, and in 1976 gained the Democratic party?s nomination on the first ballot. Carter and his vice-presidential running mate, Senator Walter F. Mondale, defeated the Republican incumbent president, Gerald R. Ford, and his running mate, Senator Robert Dole, with an electoral vote of 297 to 241. Carter received 40.8 million popular votes to ford?s 39.1 million.

Carter?s biggest obstacle in solving the country?s economic problems was the energy crisis. Throughout Carter?s term, oil prices kept going up. In 1979 alone, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, known as OPEC, doubled oil prices from fourteen to more than twenty-eight dollars a barrel. This led to a shortage of affordable gasoline. When lines at the pumps reached a mile and a half long, most states introduced gasoline rationing.

To limit the dependence on foreign oil, Carter proposed an energy bill with strict rules for conversation. Carter?s bill also included money for the development of new energy sources. For eighteen months, the president struggled with Congress before a watered-down version of his bill was passed in November 1978.

In matters of defense, Carter advocated increased spending, favoring a cruise missile system. He endorsed a strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but opposed its use of neutron bombs. He secured a passage of a new Panama Canal treaty.

With regard to the Soviet Union, Carter continued Nixon?s policy of detente. The Strategic Arms Limitation alks (SALT II) produced another treaty, which Carter and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev signed in June 1979.

Before SALT II could be ratified, however-and its prospects were not good-the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Waging a war that resembled the U. S. effort in Vietnam, the Red Army spent nine years fighting unsuccessfully to defend the Soviet-backed government against Islamic rebels. In response to the invasion, President Carter cut off U.S. grain sales and led a sixty-four nation boycott of the Moscow Olympics held during the summer of 1980.

Carter initiated a foreign policy based on respect for human rights. The president believed it was immoral for the United States to support governments that abuse their citizens?even if those governments also oppose communism. Providing that he meant what he said, the president cut off aid to brutal military dictatorship in Argentina, Ethiopia, and Uruguay.

Carter?s greatest triumph came when he provided the framework for the historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Israel Prime Minister Menahem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, signed the “Framework of Peace in the Middle East” and the “Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel,” following eleven days of U. S. sponsored talks at Camp David. The treaty was signed on March 26, 1979.

On November 4, 1979, a mob of Islamic students attacked the U. S. embassy in Iran and took the staff hostage. President Carter did not approve of the torture the shah had used to control Iran. But neither was he willing to submit to terrorism. Instead, he tried to free the hostages through diplomatic means, all of which failed.

As the months passed, public pressure on Carter continued to grow. When nothing else seemed to work, the president approved a military rescue mission in April 1980. Unfortunately, helicopter problems forced the mission to pull out, and eight servicemen were killed when one helicopter hit a transport plane. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had opposed the