How well I remember the wee hours of Nov. 3, 1976. James Earl (Jimmy) Carter had just won the presidential election.
I was devastated. I was an enthusiastic supporter of the incumbent president, Gerald R. Ford, and this was the first presidential election in which I could vote. In hindsight, what was remarkable was how close Ford came to winning; in the popular vote, he only lost by 2%. Ford’s accession to the presidency had been, to use the New York Times’ favorite word, “troubled.”
Opinion
President Richard M. Nixon was deeply mired in the Watergate scandal when, in December 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned due to unrelated corruption charges. Ford, who had been leader of the Republican minority in the House of Representatives, was appointed as Agnew’s replacement. Then, only eight months later, on Aug. 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned, and Ford was sworn in as President.
So, Ford took office under the Watergate shadow, although he never been remotely implicated in any of it. However, only a month after taking office, Ford granted Nixon a full pardon, which meant the former president could never be prosecuted for any Watergate-related malfeasance (or anything else). This led to a raging controversy about whether this was a statesman-like decision to spare the country further suffering, or as an action that protected corruption. In the interest of full disclosure, I personally believe that Ford did the right thing. However, it meant that he was, in a sense, now connected to the Watergate legacy.
Then came Carter. Carter defeated some of the Democratic Party’s old warhorses by being a Washington outsider, and essentially promising to be a “new broom.” In the wake of Watergate, this had tremendous appeal. Also, he was facing a candidate who had not been elected to his office – even the vice presidency – and therefore did not have a national base of support. Worse for Ford, he had to see off a powerful challenge by Ronald Reagan, which left the Republican Party badly weakened and divided. We can never know whether the Reagan challenge is what elected Carter, but regardless, Reagan would be back.
In the meantime, Carter assumed office for a term as president that for him and his supporters, turned into years of misery. Some of his problems were self-inflicted, but others resulted from circumstances over which he had no control.
The self-inflicted problems stemmed from Carter’s difficulty in making decisions. Laudably, he attempted to master the facts concerning every issue that he faced, but it left him tormented by indecision, of which I will give you just one example. Carter was faced with whether to approve a Western dam building project (I hope you read that carefully), supported by Western governors and opposed by environmentalists. He granted approval, which led to an environmental uproar. He reversed course, which led to an uprising among the governors. To make a long story short, he changed his decision SEVEN TIMES. Never will I forget Irving R. Levine, an old-style reporter for NBC, standing in front of the White House carefully and neutrally reporting the latest decision, and finishing up with:
And so that is the President’s position . . . for now. This is Irving R. Levine, in Washington.
Yet, to be fair to Carter, his presidency was crippled by circumstances for which he was not to blame. First, unemployment and interest rates soared – but that was the result of policies by the Federal Reserve and its tough-minded chair, Paul Volcker, who was determined to crack the inflationary spiral. (He succeeded.) To be fair, Carter during the 1976 election had added the already-high bad economic figures together to create the “misery index” – and it doubled during his own presidency. But he was in no way responsible for 18% interest rates.
Then, even worse, there was the Iranian Revolution.
Iran had been one of America’s closest allies. (Yes, really.) In turn, we were hardcore supporters of the Pahlavi dynasty that ruled the country. In 1953, we had helped overthrow a democratic government in Iran – long story – effectively making the Shah autocrat of Iran. In late 1978, a rebellion began, which culminated in the Shah’s overthrow and flight. The religious movement under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini gained the upper hand among the opposition and would establish the theocratic government that still rules Iran today. The critical turning point – for Americans – was when a student group stormed the American embassy in November 1979, holding the staff hostage for the ensuing 444 days.
Carter became a victim of events in Iran for two reasons that were hardly his fault. First, the advice he received on the situation in Iran from the CIA was completely incompetent. He had no advance warning of the growing opposition to the Shah because the CIA was hand-in-glove with SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, which gave the CIA rosy pictures – and may have believed them itself. To give you an idea of how bad American intel was; the Iranian students genuinely believed that the US Embassy was a headquarters for a major espionage operation against the rebels – but in fact, none of the three CIA officers at the embassy even spoke the Iranian language!! So, Carter was hamstrung from the beginning by bad advice.
Then it got worse. Carter hemmed and hawed between the two schools of thought in his government, one advocating patience and peace (led by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance), and the other supporting military action (promoted by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski). Carter did both; he first opted for peace, but later decided on a military rescue action. In this, he was hobbled by bad advice from the Pentagon, which assured him that we had the capacity and the equipment to launch a successful hostage rescue operation. This was pure baloney, and the operation had to be aborted – and during the retreat, a collision killed eight US service members. (Footnote: the Israelis had offered to extricate our hostages. It’s interesting to speculate what might have been for Carter had we agreed to that …)
Massively defeated in the election of 1980, Carter has become known globally in the 43 years (!) since he left office for his commitment to faith-based human rights, particularly his labors with Habitat for Humanity.
Will the legacy of his presidency improve? So far, his position among experts does not show improvement. In the most recent survey (2021) of presidential historians, he ranked 26/44. On the other hand, his presidency was not devoid of accomplishments. First of all, in 1979 he began a significant expansion of our defense capabilities; this is usually attributed to Ronald Reagan, but spending was already increasing. Second, Carter foresaw the growing importance of human rights in international affairs, perhaps appropriate for a man who has spent so much of his life literally working for the poorest among us.
