Even in Defeat, Carter Never Stopped Making an Impact
By Tevi Troy
Jimmy Carter, America’s oldest ex-president, has died at 100. Carter was known around the world not just for his one term as president, but for his four decades as a globe-trotting ex-president. His achievements in his one White House term aren’t remembered well, overshadowed by his setbacks, the resulting loss of support of the American people, and the rise of Ronald Reagan, who won 44 states in defeating Carter for the presidency in 1980.
Carter made a formidable candidate in his first run for the presidency. He was a Naval Academy graduate, with an engineering degree, service in the fledgling nuclear submarine program, and a broad and iconic smile. While never known for his sense of humor, he did manage to get some laughs on the campaign trail in 1976 with two oft-repeated lines. One was about his political goal to overcome the handicap of not being a lawyer. The second played off of Betty Ford’s comment regarding the possibility of the Ford’s adult daughter having an affair. A reporter asked Carter what his reaction would be to his own daughter having an affair: “Mrs. Carter and I would be deeply hurt and shocked and disappointed . . . because our daughter is only 7 years old.”
A reporter asked Carter what his reaction would be to his own daughter having an affair: “Mrs. Carter and I would be deeply hurt and shocked and disappointed ... because our daughter is only 7 years old.”
Others joked about Carter in 1976, but usually in a gentle manner. The earnest Jimmy Carter of 1976 was subject to ribbing about his relative anonymity. The Atlanta Journal Constitution headlined a story, “Governor Who is Running for What?” He was also joshed for being a peanut farmer. (He exited the Navy after the death of his father to take over the family business.) The peanut jokes were nothing special, with the punchlines generally being some variation on the idea that America’s leading presidential candidate grew legumes for a living.
By 1980, however, the Carter jokes had a harsher tone. Reagan, in particular, gave voice to the nation’s frustration, most often through his incisive humor. “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job,” Reagan would say. “Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.” The line fit well with the nation’s dour recessionary mood—though, to be fair, Carter’s selection of Paul Volcker at the Federal Reserve and his deregulatory initiatives would help contribute to the Reagan boom. Reagan also told of a dream in which Carter came to him, asking why he wanted Carter’s job. Reagan’s response: “I don’t want your job, I want to be president.” And he jibed to a crowd in Milwaukee about Carter’s widely mocked comment that he had consulted with his young daughter Amy about nuclear weapons. “I remember when Patti and Ron were tiny kids,” Reagan told the audience, referring to two of his children. “We used to talk about nuclear power.”
The shift in perception in only four years was highly unusual from a historical perspective. Typically, politicians are viewed through the lens of the public’s first impressions. Love them or hate them, John F. Kennedy remained young and glamorous, Lyndon B. Johnson crass and boorish, Richard Nixon shifty and evasive, Gerald Ford genial but klutzy. Only Carter saw his public image change so markedly—and his support drop so precipitously. The most plausible explanation for the stunning fall was Carter’s performance as president.
Carter’s inability to prioritize effectively was evident from the beginning. Somehow, he even managed to botch his own inauguration. His team, led by strategist Hamilton Jordan, snubbed Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill on inauguration tickets. It was a slight O’Neill would not forget. O’Neill took to referring to Jordan as “Hannibal Jerkin,” and wrote in his memoirs that “As far as Jordan was concerned, a House Speaker was something you bought on sale at Radio Shack.” One time, O’Neill called Carter himself and, when Carter asked what he could do for him, O’Neill said acidly, “I would like you to go down the hall and ask Hamilton Jordan to return my call.” The snubs made O’Neill less interested in cooperating with the new president on his legislative agenda.
Carter’s problems with Congress went beyond the Speaker. At one point, Carter legislative aide Frank Moore asked Carter to invite Democratic senators Fritz Hollings and Lloyd Bentsen over to play tennis. They played a set, and then Carter walked back to the White House. The senators were irked not to have a chance for a post-tennis schmooze, but Carter was unapologetic, dismissively telling Moore, “You told me to play tennis with them. I played tennis with them.” It’s not for nothing that his media guru Gerald Rafshoon once observed, “You know, JC only stands for ‘Jimmy Carter.’”
Inside the White House, Carter refused to designate a chief of staff for far too long and earned a reputation for micromanaging everything, be it playing time on the White House tennis courts or the details of welfare policy. As his Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joe Califano once joked, Carter’s detail-oriented approach made him “the highest paid assistant secretary for planning that ever put a reform proposal together.”
Carter earned a reputation for micromanaging everything. As his Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joe Califano once joked, Carter’s detail-oriented approach made him “the highest paid assistant secretary for planning that ever put a reform proposal together.”
In 1979, Carter cemented a negative public image with what came to be known as the “malaise” speech. The televised address, based in part on Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism—though it’s not clear whether Carter read the book or relied on adviser Pat Caddell’s summary of it—chided Americans for their lack of faith in themselves and the nation. Carter called for gasoline rationing. Initial reaction to the speech, which did not mention the word “malaise,” was positive, but shortly afterward Carter looked panicky in firing his Energy, Treasury, HEW, and Transportation secretaries. His support collapsed. The one bright spot for Carter after the speech was that Jordan finally agreed to serve as chief of staff, having turned it down three times before.
On the Middle East, to which he devoted a great deal of time, Carter’s approach was to badger Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, while buttering up Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. “For President Jimmy Carter, Israel seemed to be a constant irritant,” observed long-time U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross. Israeli ambassador to Washington Simcha Dinitz once complained to Carter aide Stuart Eizenstat, “I would like to take away [Carter’s] anger at Israel. He is dealing with an ally.”
The Middle East, of course, was also the scene of Carter’s biggest failure: his inability to get the American hostages released after the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979, one year before he would have to face voters for reelection. For 444 days, the administration appeared paralyzed. An attempted rescue in April 1980 ended in disaster, with the United States looking weak and the administration looking incompetent. The hostages would finally be released on January 20, 1981, but their liberation carried a final indignity for Carter. As he and Reagan sat uncomfortably with one another in a limousine on the way to Reagan’s inauguration, Carter got a call from National Security Agency Director Bobby Ray Inman telling him that the hostages would not be allowed to leave Iran until after Reagan was sworn in. The Iranians would not give Carter even the small victory of seeing the hostages released on his watch.
In the more than 40 years that passed following his time in the White House, Jimmy Carter never stopped trying to make an impact in the world. He was a man who might have contributed even more had he had chosen such a path from the beginning.
One of Carter’s primary weaknesses as a leader was that he had a hard time distinguishing between friends and enemies. Perhaps this fault explains why, after he left the White House, Carter gained a reputation as an ex-president for coddling dictators, whether in Haiti, Syria, or North Korea. He may have seen Reagan as a simpleton, with his clear and confident foreign policy that rewarded friends and sought to confound enemies, but voters didn’t share that view. In 1984, when Reagan accepted the GOP nomination again, he told Americans that his priorities would not change in a second term: “Our policy is simple: we are not going to betray our friends, reward the enemies of freedom or permit fear and retreat to become American policies.” This time, running against Walter Mondale, Carter’s former vice president, Reagan did even better, winning 49 states.
In the more than 40 years that passed following his time in the White House, Jimmy Carter never stopped trying to make an impact in the world, while also showing, closer to home, a commendable desire to make a difference with his time, charitable service, and philanthropic leadership — efforts at which his successes were considerably greater. He was a man who might have contributed even more had he had chosen such a path from the beginning.
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