Jimmy Carter Classified Obituary

Jimmy Carter: A Declassified Obituary Carter's handwritten comments Highest-level national security documents reveal tough-minded, detail-oriented president Handwritten notations could be severe — once chided Brzezinski: “Lying?” “You’ll be wasting your time” President privately complained Kissinger was a “liar,” “irresponsible” over U.S. treatment of Shah Published: Dec 29, 2024 Briefing Book # 881 By Malcolm Byrne with Autumn Kladder For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu 1978-09-05 - Carter greets Begin at Camp David (NLC-WHSP-C-07259-09A) Carter greets Begin at Camp David (NLC-WHSP-C-07259-09A) Jimmy Carter and General Omar Torrijos shake hands after signing the Panama Canal Treaty President Carter shakes hands with General Omar Torrijos of Panama after signing the Panama Canal Treaty, September 7, 1977. (U.S. National Archive, ARC Identifier 176083) Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter and Cyrus Vance President Carter is flanked by his two famously divided advisers, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Cyrus Vance, August 14, 1977 (U.S. National Archives, NAID: 175908) Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and U.S. President Jimmy Carter at Camp David Carter, the mediator, observes an exchange between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during a break at Camp David, September 5, 1978 (White House photographer William Fitz-Patrick) President Carter, former President Richard Nixon, and Chinese Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping at the White House President Carter, former President Richard Nixon, and Chinese Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping at the White House, January 29, 1979, shortly after the two powers established formal diplomatic relations on January 1 (Bettman/Corbis reproduced at Richard Nixon Foundation) President Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II treaty in Vienna President Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II treaty in Vienna, Austria, June 17, 1979. The subdued expressions on the American side reflect the ambivalence of many observers that accompanied the event. (Center for Strategic and International Studies (Flickr account)) Washington, D.C., December 29, 2024 – The late President Jimmy Carter, contrary to the views of some critics, was typically focused, knowledgeable, and strong-willed on matters of foreign policy, often responding sharply to attempts by his most senior aides to bend his thinking, according to a review of the voluminous documentary record on Carter’s presidency. A case in point is Carter’s relationship with his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Every week, Brzezinski sent the president a memo intended to combine both factual reporting and personal observations on global affairs. Carter often wrote brief marginal notes on those memos in reply, which in retrospect open a window into his own thinking about the world and approaches to foreign policy. A revealing example is Brzezinski’s April 21, 1978, “NSC Weekly Report,” an 8-page memo that immediately launches into a page-and-a-half appeal to modify and toughen administration foreign policy by doing more than just “negotiating agreements and devising formulas.” What was missing in the U.S. approach, Brzezinski wrote, was a hardnosed effort to “influence attitudes and to shape political events.” Sounding for all the world like his famously realpolitik predecessor, Henry Kissinger, Brzezinski called for a slew of other tactics, including an occasional “demonstration of force ... to infuse fear;” “saying publicly one thing and quietly negotiating something else;” “letting problems fester until they are ripe for action;” and using “black propaganda to stimulate difficulties for our proponents.” “The world,” he ended, “is just too complicated and turbulent to be handled effectively by negotiating ‘contracts’ while neglecting the need also to manipulate, to influence and to compel.” Carter’s handwritten replies to most of these ideas are no more than a few words but they are graphic in conveying the president’s disapproval and even sarcasm regarding Brzezinski’s ideas. Next to the mention of force, he writes “Like Malaguez?” – a reference to a forcible rescue operation of a merchant ship (the Mayaguez) off Cambodia in 1975 that ended disastrously. Next to “saying publicly one thing,” he scribbles “Lying?” – an allusion to his core campaign pledge to reject the public dishonesty of the Nixon/Kissinger years and never to lie to the American people. In other places, he simply underlines the passage and puts a question mark in the margin. Finally, reacting to Brzezinski’s statement that he plans to develop some of these ideas further for the president, Carter writes: “You’ll be wasting your time.” Carter was no gentler on critics, like Kissinger. In a memo to the president, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance describes his predecessor as behaving in a “very heavy-handed manner” concerning the Shah’s situation shortly after the U.S. Embassy seizure in Tehran. (Kissinger was extremely outspoken in this period about the administration’s supposed failure to stand by an ally in need.) Carter responds in the margin, “H.K. is a liar & also irresponsible. We must prepare to tell the truth about him.” These exchanges are among hundreds between the president and his most senior advisers that have been archived at the Carter presidential library and, over the years, declassified for posterity. Today, in the wake of Carter’s death, the National Security Archive is posting a sampling of these records to give some insight into Carter’s personality, his relationship with top aides, and his approach to foreign policy. Many of these documents are part of a just-released publication in the award-winning Digital National Security Archive series (from the academic publisher ProQuest). The collection, U.S. Foreign Policy in the Carter Years, 1977-1981: Highest-Level Memos to the President, features every declassified daily or weekly memo to the president from his national security advisor and from his two secretaries of state, Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie. The collection also includes every publicly available meeting record of the National Security Council and its two subgroups – the Policy Review Committee and the Special Coordination Committee – in an effort to reconstruct the daily flow of events at the top rungs of U.S. policymaking during a tumultuous period in world history. The top-level records in this posting are not just snapshots of the administration’s foreign policy agenda, they are often detailed expositions of the personal worldviews, attitudes, and inclinations of the most senior U.S. officials -- Carter's foreign policy alter egos -- of that time. As such, they are rich with insights into how the United States approached an array of global crises (not all of the president's own making, by any means): the Arab-Israel conflict; revolutions that ousted loyal American allies in Nicaragua and Iran; the subsequent Tehran hostage crisis and failed rescue mission; the decline of détente with Moscow culminating in the invasion of Afghanistan; instability in the Horn and elsewhere in Africa; the rise in global activism by Moscow’s partner, Cuba; the energy crisis; and more. The sampling of records selected for this posting are artefacts of a turbulent period and emblematic of how Jimmy Carter approached the foreign policy trials of his presidency. While not a complete portrait of the former president, this selection of documents provides a fascinating glimpse into Carter’s character and his approach to the issues. Regardless of one’s views of his policies or choices, it is no longer in doubt that his presidency and its consequences were far more sweeping and significant than was once assumed. The Documents 19770218 - Christopher to JC re Panama Canal Document 1 Warren Christopher to the President, Secret, February 18, 1977 Feb 18, 1977 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLJC-07-003 As President Carter’s nominally senior foreign policy adviser, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance took to sending a weekly series of memoranda to keep the president abreast of issues occupying the secretary’s attention. Sometimes the topics were broad, at other times highly specific. Carter was obviously a close reader and used these messages to give direct, immediate feedback, as evidenced here. In this case, the memo is actually from Vance’s deputy, Warren Christopher, who used to step in as correspondent while serving as acting secretary. The main topic of the day – and one of the new president’s highest foreign policy priorities early in his administration – was to return the Panama Canal to Panamanian control, thus relieving the U.S. of an increasingly costly and politically controversial burden. In fact, during the 1976 presidential campaign, Carter had spoken against returning the canal. It was Vance and other diplomats who persuaded him after the election to reconsider. While he was pilloried by the right wing in the United States for eventually signing the treaty because it was cast by some as a sign of weakness, Carter sounds anything but frail as he reacts irritably to the report that the Panamanians are adopting a “tough ... attitude,” writing by hand to Christopher, “We can’t let them push us around.” Presidential Directive / NSC-6, Subject: Cuba, March 15, 1977, Secret, 2 pp. Document 2 Presidential Directive / NSC-6, Subject: Cuba, March 15, 1977, Secret, 2 pp. Mar 15, 1977 Source The National Security Archive Press Alert from May 15, 2002 This declassified Presidential Directive, signed by Jimmy Carter less than two months after his inauguration, reflects his pursuit of normalized relations towards nations deemed enemies of the United States--in this case Castro's Cuba. The directive marked the first time a U.S. president had made normalization of U.S.-Cuba ties an explicit foreign policy goal. Twenty-five years later, on May 12, 2002, Carter became the first U.S. leader, current or former, to visit the island since the 1959 revolution. He returned to Cuba a second time in April 2011. His visits unofficially continued a dialogue that formally began with the distribution of this two-page document in March 1977. Carter's efforts helped lead to the restoration of full diplomatic relations and the reopening of embassies under Barack Obama in 2015. 19770503 helsinki violation Document 3 Cyrus Vance to the President, Secret, May 3, 1977 May 3, 1977 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-128-12-8-2-6 In this memo to his secretary of state, after responding to most of Vance’s points, the president raises one of his own that spotlights a political and personal priority from his presidential campaign – human rights. After the realpolitik years of Nixon and Kissinger, Carter had planned to put human rights at the center of his foreign policy. (That he repeatedly gave a pass to serial civil rights offenders like the Shah of Iran left him open to widespread criticism.) In his closing comment to Vance, Carter refers to a bill proposed by Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Father Robert Drinan to amend the stridently anti-Communist McCarran Act, a relic of the 1950s Red Scare. The president can be seen here exploring ways to avoid the very charges the U.S. was leveling at the Soviets – that they were in violation of the Helsinki Final Act. Signed in 1975 by most of Europe, including the USSR, as well as the United States, the Helsinki Accords committed signatories, at least in principle, to wide-ranging codes of conduct abroad and at home. It became a key lever for applying pressure on the Kremlin to observe the rights of Soviet citizens, and Carter was understandably anxious not to give away the moral high ground. 19771028-34 neglect defense Document 4 Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, “NSC Weekly Report #34,” Top Secret / Sensitive / Contains Codeword, October 28, 1977 Oct 28, 1977 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-15-126-1-6-9 In February 1977, Carter’s national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, proposed submitting weekly reports to the president on the state of the world, along with Brzezinski’s own thoughts on a variety of foreign policy topics. In total, he wrote 162 such reports over four years, some of them marked by their attempt to provide not-so-subtle counsel to the commander-in-chief on the intricacies of foreign affairs or the principles of grand strategy – a favorite pastime of Brzezinski’s. In this memo, several months into the administration, Brzezinski sounds out his boss on how he thinks the NSC process is working and how his senior White House foreign policy aide has been handling his job. “Rather than offering an opinion this week, I would like to ask yours. Specifically, I would like to ask you to comment on the operation and activities of the NSC, my role and your involvement.” He adds: “The truth may hurt, but it will assist us in assisting you.” Brzezinski’s wording is uncharacteristically self-deprecating, perhaps because he knows Carter is not shy about being direct. The president does answer bluntly in a couple of instances but overall seems pleased. Asked if he is receiving too much material, he writes: “Not too many items,” but then adds: “Often too verbose.” But he finds Brzezinski’s weekly reports useful and the opinions they often contain are “good.” Reflecting his attention to detail, Carter gets quite specific in some of his comments. In his final handwritten notation, he shows that he understands his aide pretty well: “You & your top staff are much more interested in strategy & foreign affairs. Defense matters are neglected, & because of [the] nature of DOD (closed) vs. State (more open to scrutiny) this is a mistake.” 19780421-55 lying Document 5 Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, “NSC Weekly Report #55,” April 21, 1978 Apr 21, 1978 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-128-9-14-10-4 In this memo, he holds forth on an issue that “has been gnawing at me recently,” his weakly disguised impatience with the president for failing to make use of some of the more Machiavellian tools of statecraft. These included the “demonstration of force,” the need to “infuse fear,” to “manipulate,” and to utilize “black propaganda.” Carter’s responses in the margins of these memos are often highly revealing of his own thinking but also of his relationship with his controversial aide. Here, the president poses several blunt, one-word ripostes in the form of questions next to Brzezinski’s suggestions. Next to the idea of a “demonstration of force,” he writes “Like Malaguez?” a (misspelled) reference to the Mayaguez incident, an utterly disastrous 1975 forcible rescue operation of a merchant ship off the Cambodian coast that resulted in over 40 U.S. soldiers losing their lives while the ship’s crew were already being released somewhere else. Then commenting on Brzezinski’s recommendation about “saying publicly one thing” while “negotiating something else,” Carter writes simply: “Lying?” The allusion would have been excruciatingly obvious to Brzezinski – a harkening back to Carter’s frequent campaign promise in the wake of the public dishonesty of the Nixon/Kissinger years: “I will never lie to you.” Finally, when Brzezinski volunteers to develop some of these notions further, the president tells him: “You’ll be wasting your time.” 19781202-81 everyone wrong except you Document 6 Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, “NSC Weekly Report #81,” Secret, December 2, 1978 Dec 2, 1978 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-96-122 Carter’s overall satisfaction with Brzezinski (see Document 03) does not mean that his national security advisor is exempt from reproach. In this memo, Brzezinski vents his frustration at what he sees as significant problems with the way other U.S. officials are conducting key international negotiations, but Carter is not in the mood for this passing of the buck: “Zbig, you comment as though you’ve not been involved in the process & that everyone has been wrong except you. J” Further down, his comments continue to sound terse and annoyed. He points out that an approach to Cuba which Brzezinski disparages was in fact “your proposal.” When Brzezinski complains the U.S. has “failed to respond in any concrete way” to Israeli actions in the West Bank, Carter wants to know: “What have you suggested?” Curiously, the president does not respond at all (at least on this document) to a commentary from Brzezinski that takes up almost a page-and-a-half and will become one of his signature concepts – the existence of an “Arc of Crisis” across Southwest Asia, including Iran, which is already engulfed in revolution although top U.S. officials are only just focusing on the prospect of the Shah’s collapse at this time. A few weeks earlier, U.S. Ambassador to Tehran William Sullivan sent a famous cable entitled “Thinking the Unthinkable,” which raised the possibility of the end of Pahlavi rule. It came as a shock to the White House and Carter almost fired Sullivan for not warning Washington sooner. It’s possible the subject was still too uncomfortable to deal with (or a distraction from the Camp David process); it would be another month before the administration finally decided it was time to part ways with the Shah. 19791120 Black Room Report on influencing situation in Iran (JCL) Document 7 Special Coordination Committee, Summary of Conclusions, “Iran,” Top Secret, November 20, 1979 Nov 20, 1979 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-SAFE 39 B-30-94-13-0 On November 4, 1979, the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by a group of student followers of Ayatollah Khomeini brought changes to Iran, the region, U.S. politics, and American foreign policy that continue to resonate today. In this summary of a high-level administration meeting, the anxiety is unmistakable as the group has cleared its normal calendar of business to concentrate entirely on the fate of dozens of American hostages. Of main interest here is Carter’s reaction to a slew of proposals for “influencing the course of political developments” in Iran. These options came out of a meeting of a deputies-level group, known by various labels including the Black Room, to discuss possible covert action opportunities. The choices are stark, ranging from cooperating with local tribes or exile groups in establishing a new government to “direct overt US intervention.” Even though Brzezinski, who wrote the attachment to the SCC summary, declares flatly that “We are never going to be able to work with the Khomeini regime [and] might as well recognize that fact,” Carter is hesitant at this stage. “Be extremely cautious about U.S. action for now,” he writes at the bottom of the memo, “but assess options within CIA. Let them give me analysis of all potential Anti-Khomeini elements. J” Neither Carter nor any of his successors as president, as far as is known, ever approved a direct campaign or operation to oust Khomeini or subsequent rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In April 1980, Carter did authorize Operation Eagle Claw to rescue the hostages, but that ended in disaster, very much like the Mayaguez incident, as Carter recognized more than 18 months earlier in another handwritten note to Brzezinski (see Document 01). 19791123pla hk is liar Document 8 Memorandum from Cyrus Vance to the President, Secret, November 23, 1979 Nov 23, 1979 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-128-14-13-17-2 Iran was not the only country where the U.S. faced a violent diplomatic crisis in this extraordinary period. Shortly after the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, demonstrators in Pakistan attacked the Embassy in Islamabad. In that instance, the Pakistani government pledged to work with Washington to investigate and try to resolve the incident, a far cry from the response of the Khomeini government. But the principal point of interest in this memo relates not to Pakistan but to Iran. Specifically, it shows the depth of Carter’s anger at the actions of Henry Kissinger, the one-time secretary of state and national security advisor to Carter’s predecessors, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Kissinger, along with other Republican luminaries such as David Rockefeller, had put enormous pressure on the Carter administration to back the Shah both before and after his departure from Iran, often through public statements designed to restrict Carter’s political options. Going against his instincts, Carter finally agreed to admit the Shah to the United States for medical treatment for lymphoma, a decision that led directly to the taking of American hostages two weeks later. In his comment on page 2 of this memo regarding the Shah’s current medical state and his possible departure for Mexico, Carter reacts bitterly to the characterization that Kissinger has been acting “in a very heavy-handed manner” in demanding U.S. government action on the Shah’s behalf. “HK is a liar & also irresponsible,” the president writes. “We must prepare to tell the truth about him.” A week later, Mexico surprisingly refuses to permit the ailing monarch to enter the country. He eventually travels to Panama then to Cairo where he dies on July 27, 1980. 19800129 2 minorities Document 9 Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, “Daily Report,” Secret, January 29, 1980 Jan 29, 1980 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-2-25-2-2-8 While this posting focuses on foreign affairs, it is worth remembering that Jimmy Carter had many accomplishments on the domestic front. He developed a sweeping energy policy including establishing the Department of Energy, created the Department of Education, undertook major civil service reform and promoted economic deregulation. He also invested significant capital in advancing the roles of women and minorities, notably on the federal bench. In this memo, Carter takes Brzezinski to task for what he sees as (at best) an anemic attempt to boost minority employment on the NSC staff. Among his comments is the notation “B.S.” where Brzezinski pleads powerlessness because of the requirement to keep the staff “under 100.” At the end of the memo, the president writes: “Zbig – This is an inadequate [he initially adds “& evasive” before crossing it out] answer. Do not propose the filling of any vacancies without minority representation being at least 50%. J”[1] Note [1] Similarly, in a marginal note to Secretary of State Vance during the first week of his presidency, Carter demanded greater gender equality in the U.S. ambassador corps: “Cy – In future we need many more women. J.C.” (See Cyrus Vance memorandum to the President, Secret, January 26, 1977.)