Annotated Bibliography: Life After The Presidency: Jimmy Carter

There have been many different themes with many different topics for National History Day. The theme for this year’s National History Day is Leadership and Legacy in History. My topic is Jimmy Carter and the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

The Hostage Crisis in the late 1970s was considered one of Carter’s biggest failures. More than 60 members of the United States Embassy were taken hostage in Tehran. Their capturers were mere Iranian Students who were able to keep them captive for 444 days ("Jimmy Carter", 2016). This event portrayed President Carter as inept (“Jimmy Carter”, 2009). He did not negotiate their release and the rescue attempt the government tried failed. A group of student had held American citizens for over a year and nothing much was done about it. This was one of the most undermining events of Carter’s Presidential career and an embarrassment to America (Fink, 2002). Carter’s private negotiations with Panama about the canal led to more mistrust of the American citizens. They thought he was going to simply give it away without thinking about the consequences for America. Once again he lost more respect and distrust from his country (“Jimmy Carter”,

Jimmy Carter is widely known as one of the worst presidents to serve. I think that people are judging him too harshly; he is an overall great person and deserves to be recognized as such. He has accomplished many things during his four-year-term, and has accomplished many more things after his presidency. However, most people ignore the good that he's done and continue to criticize him for his past mistakes..

November 4, 1979, seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran and the hostage of four hundred and forty-four days following, were the first steps leading up to the perpetual War on Terror. In the book Taken Hostage by David Farber informs about the Iran Hostage Crisis and the First Encounter with Radical Islam. United States and Iran got into conflict, leading to the Iranians holding American Embassy members hostage as revenge for them feeling betrayed by the United States. It also informs us about other events that occurred in a decade that caused the United States many problems. Farber believes the failure of American policymakers and more specifically from President Carter, to identify the severity of the crisis made for the prolonged crisis. The sheer ineptitude of the Carter administration was the cost of the US to lose it’s way economically, culturally, politically and even military. Carter struggled to respond to the impulses of Islamic fundamentalism within the prevailing Cold War paradigm. They saw the real problem as against modernism and they knew that the US was the major force spreading this belief throughout the world. The media misrepresentations of the struggle and mass media manipulation of Americans played on the peoples emotions. Although Carter was popular at the beginning of his presidency, this began to change when he was unable to solve economic problems and was unsuccessful in negotiating the release of the American hostages in Iran.

Hardball by Chris Matthews is an interpretation of what many know as “hard-politics”. The book describes the skill of playing the game in Washington and how to be successful at it. The book is a guide that teaches a series of maxims that would be in favor of politicians to learn in order to be successful. The different tactics provided in the book hold a lot of knowledge that would make the life of anyone following these strategies much easier when trying to get ahead in life. Matthews describes a countless number of examples of successful politicians that rose to the top. Those politicians are the ones who learned how to play hardball in Washington.

Now is the time to use the power of American diplomacy to pressure Iran to stop their illicit nuclear program, support for terrorism, and threats toward Israel. Obama and Biden will offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. In carrying out this diplomacy, we will coordinate closely with our allies and proceed with careful preparation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make

Ronald Reagan was born in 1911 and died in 2004 the former president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 was also the governor of California from 1967 to 1975. Many people have mixed feelings of Ronald Reagan. Some did not like that Reagan was an actor before he became president of the United States.

Again, I do not recall this as being anything that President Carter had done. However, I believe that it is a great idea, and should be a practice for every President. Unfortunately this was too little too late for Carter.

Walter Mondale was vice president when Jimmy was president.By Jimmy expanding the park system it protected 103 million acres of Alaskan lands. Jimmy created the Department of Education so it could help out human and social services. He helped bring peace between two major countries. The Soriet invasion of Afghanistan caused the suspension of plans of the SALT. Iran held 52 American hostages for up to 14 months.. When Jimmy left office in 1980 Iran released the 52 Americans that exact same day.

The Iranian hostage crisis was one of the most dramatic events in a series of problems that took place during President Jimmy Carter’s term. The crisis, beginning in November of 1979, received the most coverage of any major event since World War II. It was one of many problems faced in light of the United State’s complex relationship with Iran. The effects on both the US and Iran were astronomical, especially politically as well as economically and socially. It took a heavy toll on American relations with the Middle East and changed the way we engage in foreign affairs. In light of this crisis, Iran started an international war that we are still fighting thirty-two years later.

James Earl Carter Jr- better known as our 39th president Jimmy Carter- was born on October 1st, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. He eventually chose a career path of politics although neither of his parents were politicians. His mother Lillian was a nurse, and his father, James Earl Carter Sr., was a businessman and farmer. He attended college in Georgia, and later enrolled in the United States Naval Academy where he completed a Bachelor of Science degree. Carter enlisted in the Navy and was posted on submarines in the Pacific and Atlantic. Eventually Carter studied nuclear physics at Union College to prepare for the Navy’s nuclear submarine program. Carter married Rosalynn Smith in 1946, and took over the family farm after his father’s

During the election of 1980 most Americans eyes were fixed on two presidents. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Most Americans hearts were fixed on one issue. The Iranian hostage crisis. Jimmy Carter, the current president, had tried without success to end the crisis diplomatically. Ronald Reagan, an actor turned politician, had very little experience in a political position. Carter was not fit to handle the current crisis. His attempts to free the hostages had gone poorly both diplomatically and through use of force. Ronald Reagan was not very well known as a politician, he was known as an actor and many people believed that he would just act in office instead of being the

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.

To many observers of contemporary international relations, Iran and its behavior in the international arena appear somewhat perplexing. Kenneth Pollack has described the “Persian Puzzle,” and the “labyrinth of U.S.-Iranian relations;” Stephen Walt has described Iran as a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma;” and Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations has testified that “the Islamic Republic of Iran remains one the most poorly understood regimes in the Middle East,” and that their foreign policy is “often inconsistent and contradictory.” A Google search of the terms “Iran enigma” returns dozens of pages of articles exploring the complexities of Iranian statecraft, rhetoric, and ideology. But despite decades of relations prior to the 1979 revolution and an unknown number of undisclosed diplomatic contacts between the United States and Iran post-1979, most Americans—and perhaps more importantly those at the highest levels of government—simply don’t understand present-day Iran on the level required to successfully engage the revolutionary state. Indeed, some former U.S. national security officials, like Columbia University professor Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council for President Jimmy Carter in 1979, have stated that the U.S. was wholly unprepared to deal with the new Islamic Iranian state, which was a "new

A point of contention in recent global media is the Iran Nuclear deal that took place in the spring of 2015. Americans for months have been conflicted on President Obama’s approach to a country that seems so far away from my own life. Curious to critically learn about the origins of this nuclear agreement and Iran’s international relations history with the rest of the world, I took the initiative to research this topic further and expand my global knowledge. Through research, I was able to analyze history and diplomatic relations to synthesis the reasoning behind the formation of this diplomatic deal, and why there is tension between both sides of the peacekeeping.