User talk:Davidmbland81

President Carter said in his memoirs that of all the presidents who served during his lifetime, he was the most fond of President Harry Truman. He stated in one of his memoirs that "Of the Presidents who had served during my lifetime, I admired Harry Truman most, and had studied his career more than any other. He was direct and honest, somewhat old-fashioned in his attitudes, bound close to his small hometown roots, courageous in facing serious challenges, and willing to be unpopular if he believed his actions were best for the country. Over the years the American People had come to realize how often his most controversial decisions were, in fact, right. To a surprising degree, many of his problems were still my problems- The Middle East, China, oil and natural gas, Poland, nuclear weapons, Soviet adventurism, human rights, fights with the Democratic party's liberal wing- and I was to see ever more clearly that the judgments he made, or did not make, had a great impact on my own administration." After reading Carter's memoirs, specifically pertaining to his proposal of the strategic arms and limitations talks, it is evident that Harry Truman had a huge impact on Carter's Presidency and some of the huge decisions that he made as President. Carter believed that Truman showed courage, integrity, and compassion as president and Carter showed large amounts of all three of these qualities when he pushed for the strategic arms and limitations talks. He showed courage by pushing and supporting the proposal, and compassion and integrity to think about other countries when dealing with nuclear war.

"I've only got one life to live and one opportunity to serve in the highest elected office in our land. I will never have a chance so momentous to contribute to world peace as to negotiate and to see ratified this SALT treaty. And I don't believe that any member of the Senate will ever cast a more important vote than when a final judgement is made to confirm and ratify this negotiated treaty." This quote from Jimmy Carter's Keeping Faith: Memoirs of A President describes just how important the SALT treaties were to Carter and show that he viewed this treaty as the most important of all of the legislation that he was trying to pass during his time as President.

"The strategic arms limitation talks, which began in November 1969, were exclusively between the United States and the Soviet Union. They were designed to place mutual limits on the type and quantity of nuclear weapons that could be launched by one country against the other. Coming to an agreement was slow and tedious work, requiring the careful definition of extremely complicated terms and circumstances-between two distrustful countries." This quote from Jimmy Carter's memoirs describes the SALT talks and begins to explain how difficult, time consuming, and tedious this treaty was for both the United States and the Soviets.

"Although it was a subject of deep concern to both sides, I am not sure that our other important relationships with the Soviet Union were adversely affected by our disagreements on human rights. Throughout the SALT negotiations, in my personal meetings with President Brezhnev, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Ambassador Dobrynin, and other Soviet leaders, and during other times of serious discussion between our two countries, direct cause of failure in working with the Soviets on matters of common interest. However, it did create tension between us and prevented a more harmonious resolution of some of our other differences." Carter says here that although disagreements did not directly cause conflict, these disagreements did lead to tension between the Soviets and the United States and it could very well be the reason why the SALT talks were so drawn out and such a struggle on both ends of the discussion about what types of warfare would be appropriate and what would not.

Jimmy Carter's stance on "Separate but Equal"
After reading some of Jimmy Carter’s memoirs, it was evident how important human rights were to him during his presidency. He explains that it is somewhat easy to turn our heads to the persecution of others when our own rights and freedoms are in jeopardy. He did not like the inequality within the society that he was raised in. He grew up in south Georgia, in a legally segregated society. He felt that people within his community justified segregation by saying that the “separate but equal” ruling of the supreme court seemed fair enough. It took Carter observing changes in segregation legislature that were enforced in other areas of the United States and going away to serve in the Navy for 11 years and coming back to not much change at all where he grew up to realize that it was time for some drastic changes.

"President Harry Truman was the strongest and most effective advocate of human rights on an international scale. His encouragement of the formation of the United Nations and his steadfastness in the face of great pressure as he quickly recognized the new nation of Israel were vivid demonstrations of American influence at its finest. After the Second World War when American power was at its peak, we did not attempt to turn Japan and Germany into subject states, nor to impose so harsh a punishment that the sufferings of the war would be perpetuated. Instead, we took the lead in helping to establish democratic and peaceful constitutional governments in two previously militaristic nations. The subsequent benefits to their own people and to the maintenance of world peace have been obvious." Carter writes this in his memoirs in 1982 and it is ideas of peace like Truman showed with his take on foreign policy that inspire many aspects of Jimmy Carter's approach to the strategic arms and limitations talks.

Jimmy Carter and the Middle East
Carter took a deep and special interest in resolving conflict in the middle east even though America did not have much direct conflict with the middle east during his presidency. Carter was outraged when he found out that close to 50,000 Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, most likely in order to take control of the oil supply within the borders of Afghanistan. Carter made his frustrations with the Soviet Union known in an address to the public. Carter believed that the Soviet Union was using Afghanistan as a stepping stone to take control of a large portion of the world’s oil supply. Carter thought that the Soviets believed that if they could take control of Afghanistan, then they could then move onto countries like Iran and Pakistan and monopolize a huge portion of the world’s oil supply. Again, after gaining an understanding of what Carter believed President Harry Truman stood for as during his Presidency when it comes to foreign affairs, a similarity can be seen by the actions Carter took pertaining to conflict resolution.

Jimmy Carter on Equal Opportunity Financially
Jimmy Carter’s chief speech writer tells a story about Carter that shows his compassion for people living in poverty and struggling financially within the United States. In Florida while Carter was campaigning, A drunk woman addressed him aggressively at a bar and asked “What’re you gonna do about all those welfare cases who’ve already bankrupted New York City and Dee-troit and Washington, D.C?” Carter thanks her for asking this question and goes on to tell her that it is important to “separate the people that can work from the people that can’t.” She replies by saying that welfare recipients can work but just do not want to and Carter tells her that statistics show that only 10 percent of the people on welfare have the ability to work. Jimmy Carter took great meaning from this statistic and it is convictions like this one that drove Carter to be a part of the Democratic Party like his role model, Harry Truman.