James Earl Carter, Jr.

Birth-Death: (1924 -     ) Term: (1977-1981 )

President Carter helped bring about a number of peace promoting treaties during his term in office. In 1977, he signed a treaty establishing 1999 as the end of the U.S. Lease on the Panama Canal, and the permanent neutralization of the canal. He helped bring about the Camp David Accord, and reached agreements with the Soviet Union for further arms limitation.

Foreign Events of Jimmy Carter

    During his four years as president, Carter had signed several major international treaties. The first came in 1977. At that time the 99-year renewable lease period of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty had been in effect for 75 years. The United States was debating renewing the lease, as the yearly ³rent² had risen to $2.3 million. At last, President Carter agreed to terminate the lease. Two treaties were drawn up, one for the return of the Panama zone to Panama, the other for the defense of the zone by the United States. Both treaties were signed on September 7th and even though it was quickly ratified by Panama, it barely passed in the Senate. There were two important reasons for terminating the treaty and the lease of the canal zone. Refusal to do so would turn the political opinion of South and Central America strongly against the United States and there was no justifiable reason to renew the lease for another 99 years.

    The United States also promoted peace in the Middle East during the presidency of Carter. The Camp David Accords served as a basis for a treaty signed between Israel and Egypt. The treaty itself was signed in Washington as a commemoration of the United States work in promoting the peace.

    Global peace was ensured even further with the SALT II agreements. The SALT I treaty expired on December 1977. The Carter-Brezhnev agreements were signed a year later, in 1979. The SALT II treaty was a highly complicated and technical agreement about the number of each kind of nuclear missiles each nation could have. The treaty was never ratified by the United States after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1980, but both Carter and Reagan honored its terms.

    The situation in Iran turned sour during the Carter administration. There was a major westernization, in part sponsored by the United States during the 1950s in Iran. This "revolution" was not liked by all the Iranians, however, and on February 11th, 1979 in a violent uprising, the Ayatollahs took over the government. As part of the rebellion, fifty-two Americans were taken hostage from the American Embassy. During the next year President Carter tried everything to rescue the hostages: negotiations, negotiations through a third party, even an invasion, however all of these had failed.

    The hostages were released only after President Reagan was elected in 1980. Reagan was known to be tougher than Carter and 30 minutes after he was inaugurated military support planes left Iran with liberated hostages on board.