President Jimmy Carter

President Jimmy Carter

The President of Peace Jimmy Carter was born October 1, 1924, in the

small farming town of Plains, Georgia, and grew up in the nearby

community of Archery. His father, James Earl Carter, Sr., was a farmer

and businessman; his mother, Lillian Gordy, a registered nurse. He was

educated in the Plains public schools, attended Georgia Southwestern

College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a Bachelor

of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946. On July

7, 1946, he married Rosalynn Smith. When his father died in 1953, he

resigned a naval commission and returned to Plains. He became involved

in the affairs of the community, serving as chairman of the county

school board and the first president of the Georgia Planning

Association. In 1962 he won election to the Georgia Senate. He lost his

first gubernatorial campaign in 1966, but won the next election,

becoming Georgia’s 76th governor on January 12, 1971. He was the

Democratic National Committee campaign chairman for the 1974

congressional elections (Hochman html). After only serving one term as

governor of Georgia he announced his candidacy for president of the

United States on December 12, 1974. He won his party’s nomination on the

first ballot at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, and was elected

the 39th president of the United States on November 2, 1976. During his

presidency, Jimmy Carter made many important foreign policy

accomplishments, including the Panama Canal treaties, the Diplomatic

relations with China, and the Salt II treaty with the Soviet Union.

Jimmy Carter’s first foreign policy accomplishment, and by the United

States citizens, the most popular, were the Panama Canal treaties. After

more than eighty years after the first official ocean-to-ocean transit

of the Panama Canal, the United States and Panama embarked on a

partnership for the management, operation and defense of the Panama

Canal. Under two treaties signed in a ceremony at the OAS headquarters

in Washington, D.C., on September 7, 1977, the canal would be operated

by the United States until the turn of the century under arrangements

designed to strengthen the bonds of friendship and cooperation between

the two countries. The treaties were approved by Panama in a plebiscite

on October 23, 1977, and th...

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...T II treaty being

ratified, it set an agreement for the heavy cut back of nuclear weapons

for both the United States and the Soviet Union. This was a relief to

the citizens of the United States in a sense that the nuclear arms race

was coming to a halt. Jimmy Carter was a man who made the most of his

opportunities and did what was best, in his mind, for the general public

of all United States. The puzzle about the Carter presidency which may

never be fully answered is why Jimmy Carter became so unpopular with the

media, politicians and the general public, and stayed unpopular during

the presidency of his successor. With more political skill, and a good

bit more luck, Jimmy Carter might have been a second term president.

Works Cited

Dumbrell, John. The Carter Presidency: A Re-Evaluation. 2nd ed. Manchester UP, 1995.

Hargrove, Erwin C. “Jimmy Carter as President”: Leadership and the Politics of the Public Good. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1998. Hochman, Steven H. Metacrawler.com: October 1, 1997.

Lycos.com: September 21, 1997.

http:/www.simulations.com/panamacanal/index.htm>. Yahoo.com: March 1, 1998. http:/www.pancanal.com/ctransition/>.