LibGuides: G12: The Cold War and the Americas: USFP: Carter

From the Databases

Was Jimmy Carter’s Emphasis on Human Rights a Sound Basis for Foreign Policy?

Foreign Policy

A new world a new American foreign policy
the Carter administration, Nicaragua, and the legacy of the Vietnam War, 1977-1981
Carter's Foreign Policy
Carter refused to continue the past practice of overlooking the human rights abuses of our own allies
Jimmy Carter: Foreign Affairs
Carter believed that American power should be exercised sparingly and that the United States should avoid military interventions as much as possible.
Carter and the Foreign policy of Human Rights
From the first day of his Presidency, Carter set out to fundamentally alter the direction of American foreign policy.
Carter's Lasting Cold War Legacy
Critics have described Carter’s foreign policies as “ineffectual” and “hopelessly muddled.” As a historian researching Carter’s foreign policy initiatives, I conclude his overseas policies were far more effective than critics have claimed.
From the Truman Doctrine to the Carter Doctrine
Lessons and Dilemmas of the Cold War
Carter Doctrine
President Carter was no more adept at salvaging the spirit of cooperation than was Gerald Ford before him. Carter's focus on human rights alarmed Soviet leaders.
Salt II and the Growth of Mistrust
Briefing book, with documents, from the Carter-Brezhnev Project
Foreign Relations of the US, 1974-1980
collection of PS documents
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and US Response
At the end of December 1979, the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan
Brzesinski Memos to Carter on Afghanistan

Domestic Issues

Jimmy Carter: Domestic Affairs
Jimmy Carter sought to run the country the way he had run his farm—with unassuming austerity.
Carter: Domestic Affairs
At the same time that Carter struggled to come to grips with international problems, he also had to grapple with domestic ones, passed on to him by Ford. Unemployment, inflation, and the energy crisis topped the list.
Carter Administreation, '77-'81
Immediately upon taking office, Carter declared that his primary domestic goal was to create jobs for the unemployed
Carter's Economy
book review that gives a fair amount of information
Jimmy Carter and the "Malaise" Speech
The American economy in the 1970s suffered from high inflation, high unemployment, an energy crisis, a declining dollar, high government spending, and jobs going overseas because of deindustrialization that had been accelerating since World War II
The malaise speech
text, with guiding questions

Graphic History

Carter and Brezhnev sign Salt II Treaty, 1979

U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna.

The treaty placed “important new limits on both the number and quality of nuclear arms, and it allows us to continue on course toward a safer world with even more substantial limitations and reductions in SALT III.” The United States Senate chose not to ratify the treaty after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. The Soviet legislature also did not ratify it.

The agreement expired on December 31, 1985 and was not renewed.

Picky, Picky, Picky! 1979

Moscow Olympics, 1978

On July 14, 1978, the Soviet government imprisoned Anatoly Shcharansky, a dissident accused of supplying secret material to a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. The trial began on July 10, just two days before the start of U.S.-Soviet strategic arms limitation talks in Geneva. President Jimmy Carter spoke out against the trials but said that American athletes would not boycott the Moscow Olympics. He reversed this decision in 1980 after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

Salt II Signing

Speech on Afghanistan

Full Text
includes guiding questions