An Outsider in the White House: Jimmy Carter, His Advisors, and the Making of American Foreign Policy

26. THE FINAL MONTHS

270 26 THE FINAL MONTHS The Democratic Party Conventions opened at Madison Square Garden in New York City onAugust 11,1980.At this point Jimmy Carter’s renomination as the Democratic nominee for president was secure.By the time of the Pennsylvania primary in late April of that year, he had garnered 1,137 delegates of the 1,666 needed to win the nomination .As president and Democratic Party leader, he would be able to control the agenda and dictate the party platform. But Ted Kennedy, who had contested Carter’s nomination as the Democratic candidate for president since the previous November, was not going to give up easily. He had won the New York and other primaries in Democratic strongholds, and he now sought a change in convention rules that would allow delegates to “be free” to change their vote, deviating from prior pledges should they so desire. Though Kennedy lost on the rules change with a vote of 2,129–1,146, he upstaged Carter with an eloquent speech embracing the traditional liberal policies of his party. As Hamilton Jordan later noted,“We may have won the nomination, but Ted Kennedy won the hearts.”1 Even after that vote confirming Carter’s nomination, Kennedy refused to raise Carter’s hands in victory, as tradition dictated he should. Arriving late to the arena, Kennedy merely shook Carter’s hand.2 The divisions at Madison Square Garden signaled the problems Carter would have in the fall campaign. One week before Carter accepted the Democratic ticket at the convention, an ABC News–Louis Harris survey showed the president’s approval rating at 22 percent, the lowest of any president since polling began in 1939. An overwhelming 86 percent of Americans criticized Carter’s management of the economy. The numbers were even worse when focusing on specific aspects of the economy, as 87 percent of Americans criticized Carter’s handling of unemployment, and a full 89 percent disapproved of his anti-inflation efforts. In fact, a full two-thirds of all Democrats polled disapproved of Carter’s leadership.3 Potentially damaging were three other matters. Carter’s brother Billy had received a loan of $250,000 from Libya and refused to register as an agent of that country.4 The economy was in bad shape. Between February and July 1980, unemployment had increased from 6.3 percent to 7.8 percent. By June 1980, corporate profits had plunged by 18 percent. Then there was the third Unity Party candidacy of John Anderson. With his record of honesty and straight talk, he provided a centrist option for voters who did not like Carter but could not accept Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. He had a following of 20 percent of the voters in the summer of 1980.5 But Hamilton Jordan was back on the campaign trail as deputy campaign manager . Robert Strauss, named chairman of the Carter/Mondale campaign the previous THE FINAL MONTHS 271 November, remained in charge overall. It was an ideal combination—the personally loyal strategist who had engineered the 1976 campaign and the Washington, D.C., heavy hitter who was a“well informed authority” and“freely admitted to both playing the [political] game and enjoying it.”6 The goal was to make Carter’s foreign policy accomplishments a major part of the campaign.7 As Vance wrote Carter,“In presenting our policies publicly, we should emphasize that the practical progress we have made on central issues (SALT,China,trade, the Middle East) is fundamentally strengthening both our relationships abroad and the international system.”8 The president’s domestic accomplishments—the establishment of the senior civil service, the creation of the Departments of Education and Energy, the deregulation of the airline and trucking industries, and appointments of more able women and African Americans to federal judgeships than any of his predecessors— were not passion-evoking measures. But Reagan’s tough talk on defense and military nuclear matters could be contrasted to Carter’s relatively moderate choices. Carter had undertaken a military buildup, adopted a nuclear war fighting policy, taken a powerful stance against the USSR after its intervention in Afghanistan, and reversed his earlier commitment to a withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea.9 But unlike Reagan, he was also a man of peace: he had presided over the Camp David talks, promoted the reduction of nuclear weapons, and placed human rights on the world agenda. Matters too difficult or too controversial to handle were put on hold...