1976 was the year of the Bicentennial, the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I t should have been a year of great celebration, of America looking back over the past two centuries to see proudly how well the country had done. But this was not to be.  At the moment America was not feeling very proud. Supposedly democracy had been restored.  But somehow something felt very wrong. America had lost its sense of direction, its sense of purpose. America was on the defensive, in retreat, without any sense of when that retreat might stop.  This silent understanding was quite evident in the lackluster bicentennial celebrations.

1976 was also an election year for the White House.  The Republicans had swung their support behind Ford and nominated him as their candidate for the presidency. But the Democrats had no strong front-runners among the pack of people that could have been considered potential candidates for the presidential nomination. Ted Kennedy would have been the logical choice, given the Democratic Party's love of the name Kennedy.  But Ted had the albatross of "Chappaquiddick" hanging around his neck and he knew that to run he would have to face that issue again. None of the Democrats wanted that tragic (and embarrassing) event brought back up for closer inspection.

The Democrats ultimately chose a virtually unknown one-term governor (1971-1975) from Georgia as their presidential nominee.  The press was totally fascinated with this seemingly humble peanut farmer (but also ex-Navy man) from Georgia, and in short order (from late January to mid-March of 1976) from a virtual nobody he was refashioned into the image of an amazing political genius by the press.  Since so little was known about him, he had only a local political record to draw from, there was no way to fault this image.  In the space of that small time-period Carter pulled smartly ahead of all other contenders, and ultimately received the Democratic Party nomination.¹

¹It could also be that it served Ted Kennedy's political ambitions to have someone in the White House who had no political foundations of his own to stand on – leaving the way clear for Kennedy to continue to direct American democracy from his seat in the Senate.

In his public debates as the Democratic nominee, Carter attacked the content and style of the foreign policy of the Republicans, claiming that with its "secret diplomacy" (such as had taken place in Nixon's early diplomatic initiatives with the Chinese and the Russians) it excluded the American people and Congress from their participation in the shaping of a more democratic American foreign policy.  He attacked America's support of foreign dictators, its huge involvement in arms sales, and its ignoring of human rights abroad.  The Cold War was over (or so Carter claimed) and it was clear that America had no further reason to follow the reactive diplomacy of that era.  Thus he made it particularly clear that he strongly opposed the amoral philosophy of Realpolitik practiced during the previous eight Republican White House years.   He lauded the high Idealism and moral character of America's traditional or democratic foreign policy (such as Wilson's or Johnson's?) – and repeatedly announced the idea that he was going to restore that high-mindedness in American foreign policy.  Among other new policies that would happen under his presidency, America would no longer support dictators simply because it was in some Realpolitik understanding of the "national interest." In particular he put both Iran and South Korea on notice that they must liberalize their governments, or lose American support.

This seemed to impress the American voter sufficiently so that Carter was able to defeat Ford (50.1 to 48.0 percent) and enter the White House in January of 1977, ready to send America off in a new moral direction.

But very quickly Carter was shown the dangers of cutting back on American troops in South Korea – as he had proposed during the campaign (and even NATO troops in Europe as well).  Both the military and Congress were quick to point out the terrible dangers of undercutting our South Korean ally.  So Realpolitik won that issue.

However, he was able to demonstrate some "moral" movement toward a better world in other foreign policy areas.  He was quick to amplify the opening to China started by Nixon and to sign with the Soviets a second round of arms limitation treaties (also started by Nixon) as part of his peace-through-morality crusade.

Likewise, he was able to host a bold effort at getting a breakthrough in Israeli-Arab relations, bringing into play the very political "linkage" (horse-trading) that Carter had once condemned in Nixon's (and Kissinger's) Realpolitik – but which Carter eventually began to find to be fully acceptable: full diplomatic recognition of Israel by Egypt as payment for the return of Egyptian lands seized in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.  So it was that finally Realpolitik helped Carter win on that issue as well.  Nonetheless, all of these were indeed authentic Carter achievements.

But an early action of Carter's (September 1977) would defy all explanations: Idealist or Realist.  Carter decided to "give back" the Panama Canal to Panama – a country which for $40 million in 1903 had turned control of the canal zone over to America so that America could, at its own expense, build a canal there.  Title to such a valuable piece of property was extended to America in perpetuity – but with the promise of an annual payment to the new Panamanian government that Teddy Roosevelt had just helped set up three days before the canal deal!

Now here was Carter turning the canal over (by various stages of surrender, to be completed on the last day of 1999) to a Panamanian military dictator, General Omar Torrijos – who held power in Panama by military force since his takeover in 1968.  Where were Carter's scruples about not dealing with dictators?  And what was it that he was hoping to gain by giving up a vital American asset that had taken ten years, millions (now equivalent to billions) of dollars and thousands of lives to build?

If he thought he was gaining goodwill among his Latin neighbors to the South, certainly they were glad to see America retreating from its position of dominance in the area.  But this did not increase their respect, nor even their love, for America.  Why did Carter do it?  Certainly also, the Panamanians themselves wanted to own such a valuable asset – and had long desired this.  And why not? But why now?  What was Carter hoping to gain from this?

Anyway, Americans did not know how to react to all this.  None of Carter's "achievements" seemed at the time to be of terribly earth-shaking importance or of any notable national gain to a bleary-eyed America that found greater satisfaction in watching a U.S. hockey win over the Russians in the February 1980 Winter Olympics held at Lake Placid (New York) in February, or a sense of moral or spiritual strengthening in watching the movie Rocky (1976) and a Rocky II sequel (1979).

There was not much else to go on that allowed Americans to feel any pride in their country.  In fact, in the last years of Carter's one and only term in office, America found itself spiritually in terrible, terrible shape.    

In September of 1978 Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (yes, the one-time leader of the murderous Israeli terror organization Irgun!) met with Carter for almost two weeks at the Camp David presidential retreat, to work out some kind of diplomatic agreement to bring the Arab-Israeli standoff to an end.

Despite various United Nations resolutions and back-and-forth diplomatic discussions going on between Israel and its Arab neighbors, nothing had changed in the status quo since the 1973 October War.  Egypt was having economic hard times and Sadat was determined to get some movement on the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as some kind of political offering to his people.  He thus decided to break from the Arab front and do his own separate negotiating with the Israelis (secretly of course).  At the same time, Israel found dealing with a single Arab nation rather than the broad Arab front, and the possibility even of breaking up that front, to be a distinct political advantage, and consequently received probes about a new Egyptian-Israeli rapprochement gladly.  Thus in November of 1977 Sadat totally surprised the world (including Carter, who had no advance warning of this development) by flying to Jerusalem and delivering a speech before the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), calling for new Egyptian-Israeli relations.

Carter was at first reluctant to get involved in the Byzantine complexities of Arab-Israeli relations, but finally was convinced of the need to participate in, even sponsor, formal talks between Begin and Sadat.  Besides, Sadat had put himself in a very vulnerable position within the Arab world, and some kind of payoff from this diplomatic initiative needed to be soon forthcoming, or a rather pro-American Sadat would find himself in deep trouble.  Thus Carter called for the gathering at Camp David.

But the biggest problem was what to do about the Jordanian West Bank and Gaza Strip (Palestinian territory) issue.  Sadat was interested mostly in the status of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula (still under Israeli occupation), which was not of critical interest to the Israelis and thus easily negotiable.  But the issue of Palestine (also still under Israeli occupation) was very much of critical interest to Israel, though not vital to the interests of Egypt.  However, it was a matter of critical interest to the broader Arab front, whose shadow constantly hung over the efforts to work out a peace between Egypt and Israel.  And Carter was insistent that there be a Palestinian agreement accompanying any Egyptian-Israeli agreement over the Sinai.  Thus negotiations dragged on at Camp David day after day.

But in the end neither Begin nor Sadat wanted to alienate Carter with his strong American position on the matter, nor return empty-handed from the talks. Consequently Begin agreed to respect U.N. Resolution 242 in all its parts, and pull back Israeli occupation troops from both the Sinai and the West Bank and Gaza regions, and transfer authority over the latter region to the Palestinians, over a five-year period (Syria had not participated and thus the Golan Heights were not included in the agreement).

Not everyone in the larger or international world was happy.  Some were, including Norway's Nobel Committee which awarded both Sadat and Begin the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for this diplomatic breakthrough.  Israeli settlers in the Sinai however were deeply angered by having to pull out of homes they had built there.  Likewise, stiff opposition to the agreement came from the United Nations, because it did not include all the territory, and because it had not included the other neighboring Arab governments in the deal (which actually would have made any agreement impossible, as had long been the case).  In the end, Carter chose simply to ignore the outcry.

But Sadat paid a big price for his action.  Egypt was kicked out of the Arab League, lost its position as something of the leader of the Arab world (which then prompted Saddam Hussein of Iraq to aspire to the same position), and in the end cost Sadat his life – when some of his own disenchanted troops (members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad) were able to assassinate Sadat in 1981 during a review of his troops.  But nonetheless, the agreement held, and General Mubarak, in replacing Sadat, would continue to follow the lines of the original Sadat agreement.

Then in June of 1979 Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev met in Vienna to sign a SALT II Agreement, updating the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) signed years earlier by Nixon and Brezhnev.   Weapons technology and production levels had advanced tremendously in the intervening seven years and thus the purpose of the new agreement was to bring nuclear delivery devices (notably the MIRV missiles capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads) under some kind of restriction or balance.  But there were also political motives behind the agreement, Russia becoming a bit nervous over the serious improvement in Chinese-American relations (China and Russia were more adversaries than Communist allies at that point).  And, with the Soviets seeming to be pushing ahead of America in the arms race, Carter was concerned about one-sided self-limitation in weapons development, a self-limitation on weapons development that he himself had once supported strongly.  Thus here too, Realpolitik was now directing Carter in his conduct of American foreign policy.

Nonetheless, there was a huge reaction (especially among Republicans) that the arms limitations levels agreed on in Carter's new treaty merely placed limits on arms production if one or the other of the parties was willing to make such limitations (which Carter was, as part of his general philosophy), without any clear enforcement provisions if one of the parties (namely the Soviets) chose to push ahead in weapons development.  But it ultimately came down to the fact that America was going to have to decide whether to go ahead and trust Carter on this matter of enforcement, or not.

Consequently, the debate on SALT-II in the U.S. Senate dragged on endlessly, until December of 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.  This abruptly killed the prospects for the ratification of the treaty.  The following month Carter simply withdrew the treaty from further Senate consideration. SALT II was not completely dead.  But from this point on, only something of a diplomatic "understanding" on this matter existed between America and the Soviets, sometimes respected, sometimes not.

The Soviets, in late December of 1979, had sent their own special forces into Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, taking over the governmental offices and presidential palace.  This was accompanied by a larger and broader ground invasion of Soviet troops.  The Soviets were attempting to take over directly the governing of Afghanistan.

The Afghan government had been in a state of turmoil since 1973 when the Afghan King Zahir Shah's cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan, ousted the Shah and announced the creation of the Afghan Republic, with himself as president.  But Daoud's government was much too secular for the tastes of the very conservative Afghan Muslim society, and he failed to establish popular support for his government.  Also he tried to follow a neutral foreign policy in the Cold War, succeeding only in alienating the Soviets who considered Afghanistan as part of their sphere of influence.  Two competing Afghan Communist parties, with help from the Soviets, finally got their act together and started putting pressure on Daoud, who reacted strongly.

In April of 1978 the Communists acted.  Daoud was assassinated and a Communist "Democratic Republic" under Nur Mohammad Taraki was announced. Taraki began moving swiftly against his opponents, especially the country's conservative leadership and pro-Western intellectuals.  Perhaps 27,000 of the country's leaders were arrested and executed in Afghan prisons over the next year and a half.

By October of 1978 a full rebellion in the Afghanistan countryside was underway, spreading quickly to the outlying Afghan cities as well.  Much of the Afghan army soon went over to the rebels.

Taraki now called on the Soviet Union for help (December).  Then in mid-1979, Carter began to send secret aid to the rebels (so much for "open diplomacy"!)  The situation for the Communist government only worsened through 1979 and thus it was that another Communist leader, Hafizullah Amin, decided to try to save the situation by getting rid of Taraki (murdered) and taking over the government. But the Soviets immediately began to have suspicions about Amin being a reliable ally.  Also the United States basically appeared to be merely lukewarm in its ultimate interest and minor in influence in the region, and the Soviets thus supposed that they had no reason to fear any kind of a serious reaction coming from America.

Thus it was that in December of 1979 they made their move to take direct control of the country.  Amin was assassinated (KGB) and Babrak Karmal was now installed as the new president, who in turn "invited" the full military assistance of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet War in Afghanistan was on.  But the Soviets were about to find out what the Americans had discovered in Vietnam, but apparently had not learned from the experience (nor had the Soviets learned from their own experience in defeating Hitler's invasion of Russia).²  Fighting local militia or guerrilla warriors with conventionally armed troops is an unbalanced contest, favoring heavily the local forces.  It was going to take massive numbers of soldiers and supplies to bring the Afghans under Soviet rule, something at that time that the Soviets were increasingly less able to afford.

²Nor had America learned from its own War of Independence against the English King and his troops back in the late 1700s.

Meanwhile, in October of 1979, the ousted Shah, who had developed cancer, was under consideration by Carter for admission to the U.S. for treatment.  On hearing this, Muslim students in Iran went wild, and members of the militant Revolutionary Guard in early November invaded the American embassy, seizing the staff and displaying them to the world, tied and blindfolded as their sign of contempt for the United States.  The Iranians loved it, and a month later, amidst a huge swell of Iranian patriotism, they easily passed the referendum approving the establishment of their new Islamic Republic.

For Carter this was the ultimate humiliation.  He was taking hits from the economy as well, because the Iranian upheaval had severely cut back on Iran's oil production.  And oil prices, as well as inflation, climbed for the second time in the decade of the 1970s.  As a sign of how bad things were for Carter, Ted Kennedy, who was now feeling more confident about a presidential run of his own, was unabashedly loud in his attacks on Carter's presidential performance.

In an attempt to rebuild his reputation (especially as he was facing a re-election bid that year), Carter gambled on an attempt to rescue the American hostages with a Special Forces raid on Teheran, the Iranian capital (Operation Eagle Claw).  His plan was to drop his Delta troops by eight helicopters outside of Tehran, convey them by truck at night into a darkened Tehran (Americans also having first shut down Tehran's electrical grid) to round up the fifty-two American hostages at the embassy, and then fly them out of the country.

The raid however turned out to be a total disaster from the start and never got any further than just inside southern Iran before it disintegrated in a combination of sandstorm and mechanical failure of three of the helicopters, and, after the decision to withdraw, the collision of another of the helicopters with one of the six C-130 transport planes (involving the deaths of eight American troops).

Now Carter's humiliation grew even worse – monumentally worse.