The Great President Carter
By Nayyer Ali, MD
I just finished reading a great book about President Jimmy Carter. As a history buff, this book was an outstanding read. The author, Stuart Eizenstat, had a front-row seat to the four years of the Carter administration as Chief Domestic Policy Advisor. He has turned his copious and diligent notes from every meeting and event during that time, along with hundreds of interviews with the relevant participants, to produce a magisterial work of history.
Books written by members of a Presidential administration are often score-settling and spiteful, or hagiographic retellings of how wonderful the President was. Eizenstat does neither, but produces a warts-and-all retelling of what happened and what was achieved by President Carter. Carter is a profoundly decent human being, who would make a great neighbor or best friend, but he is viewed as a hapless President that was overwhelmed by events.
But the author makes a very strong case for Carter leaving a profound mark on American society and on the world. The achievements are quite extensive, with highlights that include passing major energy policy legislation, which laid the groundwork for the steep decline in US oil use and improved efficiency, paying off by 1986 when global oil prices collapsed. He began the process of investing in renewable energy research, and 40 years later, global installation of clean energy has now exceeded 1,000 gigawatts, with much of it in the US. Deregulation of large sectors of the economy lowered costs for American consumers. Air travel came within reach of the most budget-conscious, when before 1977, it was a luxury of the jet set. Natural gas deregulation made cheap gas available to all, lowering heating costs, and natural gas is now the cheapest source of electric power, though renewables are set to beat it soon. He started the process of deregulating crude oil, helping to end gas lines forever, and trucking deregulation made freight shipping much cheaper.
Carter brought women and minorities into government in a major way. His appointment of Andrew Young to UN Ambassador showed the world an African-American representing the US. He appointed women to the Federal Courts in large numbers. He made the Vice-Presidency an office of real significance, one that in the past was not “worth a bucket of warm spit” in the words of a previous occupant (Harry Truman did not even know about the Manhattan Project when he became President).
In foreign policy Carter left a deep mark for the US. He negotiated the SALT II treaty which basically brought to a halt the expansion of strategic nuclear weapons, and while never ratified, Reagan and the Soviets both abided by the treaty. His willingness to return the Panama Canal to Panama had a major positive effect on US relations with Latin America, while his decision to make human rights a key goal of US foreign policy transformed the world. Latin America rapidly democratized over the next ten years, and many of the newly elected leaders thanked and credited Carter for making that possible. Reagan adopted the emphasis on human rights, expanding democracy to our East Asian allies, and using human rights as an effective tool to criticize the Soviet Union and communism. Human rights promotion remains a centerpiece of US policy.
Eizenstat spends several chapters on the Middle East. He details how Carter midwifed the Camp David Accords and the subsequent formal peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which would never have happened without his hands-on efforts as Begin and Sadat could not stand to talk to each other. While to many Americans it seemed to not affect their lives, this treaty has been the cornerstone of US policy in the Middle East for 40 years. It has outlived countless Israeli Prime Ministers, Sadat, Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood, and a revolution. Carter paid a high price for his pressuring Israel and for being the first US President to speak about Palestinians as a real people who had rights. The American Jewish community turned against him, and most voted for Reagan in 1980, making him the only Democratic President to lose the Jewish vote.
The Iran Hostage Crisis also gets lengthy treatment. The huge error of allowing the deposed Shah of Iran to enter the US for medical treatment is explored, and how there was intense pressure within the White House and without on Carter to allow the ill Shah to come in. Carter with great foresight asked what he was to do if the Iranians responded by taking the embassy hostage, a question to which there was no answer. It turned out that the Shah’s fatal leukemia could have been treated in many other countries, and there was no reason to let him in. The US Embassy, which had been reduced to a skeleton crew from a staff of hundreds, was taken hostage. Carter made a political error in allowing that situation to consume his Presidency. When North Korea took 80 US sailors hostage for 11 months in 1968 after it captured the USS Pueblo, LBJ did not turn that into the focus of his administration (albeit Vietnam was rather salient). Carter could have been much more aggressive against Iran, perhaps blockading their oil exports, but he had a singular focus on bringing the hostages back alive, and did not want to risk their lives.
Carter’s administration is in popular memory seen as a time of economic chaos and decline. It was in 1980, one of the worst years ever in postwar America with high inflation, gas lines, and a recession at the same time. But in the big picture, the 70’s and 80’s were not that different. GDP grew 37% in the 1970’s (Jan 71 to Jan 81), and 33% in the 1980’s. In Carter’s four years GDP grew 14% while Reagan’s first term saw growth of 13%. 20 million jobs were added in the 1970’s, and 18 million in the 1980’s, under Carter 10 million jobs were added, while Reagan’s first term saw a net growth of 5 million, while 11 million jobs were added in his second term.
What hurt Carter badly was inflation, which surged while coming out of the 1974 recession, and reached double digits by 1979. Carter focused on controlling inflation through reducing the budget deficit and deregulating to improve economic efficiency. But both Republicans and Democrats in the 1970’s just didn’t understand how to bring down inflation. In the early 1970’s Nixon even imposed wage and price controls to dampen inflation, an unthinkable act for a Republican supposedly devoted to free markets. The only thing that would really work was tight money, meaning a Federal Reserve that was willing to raise interest rates to whatever level necessary to crush demand and choke inflation. Carter finally recognized that and appointed Paul Volcker to be Fed Chairman knowing full well this meant a sharp recession in 1980, and was likely going to kill his chances of re-election, which is what happened. Volcker ended up raising interest rates to 20% and drove unemployment to a peak of over 10% by 1982 before taking his foot off the brake and setting off an economic boom.
Eizenstat goes into detail about Carter’s shortcomings. He was not a natural politician, he had no ability to soothe the towering egos of Congress, and he was not able to give a little on a minor issue to get support on something more important. His desire to master detail was usually an asset, but sometimes would drown him in memos and analyses. His inner circle known as the Georgia Mafia had a poor understanding of the legislative process, and turned off many Congressional leaders with their heavy-handed ways. His list of goals was so exhaustive it was hard for other Democrats to prioritize. He also knew he was limited as the President of a country that had shifted conservative setting up a clash with liberal Democrats wanting a return to the driver’s seat.
Eizenstat does not fully discuss the political fluke that was Carter. A one-term Georgia governor became President because of Watergate, but just barely. After 30 years of Democratic dominance built on a coalition of the solid Democratic but racist South and Northern liberals, the country had realigned to a Republican era dominated by a coalition of Western and Midwestern states along with Southern states. This coalition yielded four landslide wins from 1972-1988, with Carter the only exception as he was able to reassemble a solid South for the Democrats in 1976. But even if there was no hostage crisis and the economy was not quite so bad in 1980, it was unlikely in my view that he could have pulled it off again. The South was slipping away from liberal Democrats, and Carter was not going to be able to play the “Son of the South” card a second time around. It would take another 12 years for a new Democratic coalition to form around the upper Midwest, Northeast, and Pacific Coast to make the Democrats competitive without the South.
If you are looking to read a polemic for or against Carter this is not the book. In our deeply polarized times it is hard to take a dispassionate look at a Presidency that many of us lived through. Eizenstat has written a serious work of scholarship and what up to now must be considered the definitive book on the Carter years. He makes a compelling case that much of modern America has been shaped by decisions and policies that Carter was responsible for. In his post-Presidency Carter has cut an almost saintly figure, but his actual Presidency was more consequential than is generally understood.
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