RIP James E Carter
Dec. 31st, 2024 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseI don't know if I'll ever be able to answer whether Carter was a good president. He was a humane president who tried to kickstart saving the environment (Michelle Obama's was not the first vegetable garden, but more importantly, Carter had solar panels put in so that the White House was energy independent. Reagan pulled them out to extend the Rose Garden. *sigh)
Carter was bright. He had to be to be an engineer and submariner.
Dad told two stories about him. The first circulated around the Pentagon in early 1977. Carter was given an evacuation plan for the White House and its staff his first day in office. He read it thoroughly and a few days later called in the people in charge of the plans implementation and said, "I want a drill to see if this works." They said something about scheduling one for a month out, and Carter said, "No. Now." What was supposed to take thirty minutes for the president and his family and under three hours for the rest of the staff took over 12 hours. It had never been tested in full and without rerouting traffic days in advance.
The second was more personal. Dad was an intelligence analyst. As such, he wrote papers on a variety of topics: some from direct intelligence feeds, some to precis other reports. They averaged about 30 pages including bibliography, front page precis, and two page summary immediately behind the precis. As intelligence went up the ladder -- Dad was a full Colonel by then so the ladder was somewhat shorter upward than downward -- the precis or summary might be attached to intelligence reports written by his superiors (or written by Dad under his superior's name -- I found out about that in the 1980s), but the full report never reached the Joint Chiefs, much less the President. They had to read more widely and needed the digested versions so that they didn't get bogged down.
Dad received one of his reports back with detailed marginalia in Carter's handwriting. On the one hand, he was impressed with the comments and respected the depth of reading Carter did. On the other hand, the President should never have requested the full report. Had it just been his report, maybe it was a special interest, but apparently, Dad was not the only officer to have that experience.
I think the world might be a better place had Carter had a second term. He was handed a poor economy. The collapse of Iran and the hostage crisis was a bad show, but in no way his fault. Prior presidents had supported the Shah and turned a blind eye to his abuses. Revolution shouldn't have been a surprise. But Carter was blamed.
His record on Human Rights, including lifting the ban on LGBTQ+ people serving in the State Department, is exemplary. His work with Habitat for Humanity was legendary. [https://www.habitat.org/ ]
The Carter Center has done magnificent work including toward the eradication of Guinea Worm disease. [ https://www.cartercenter.org/ ]
I hope we can find another leader with such depth of kindness and commitment to human rights.
Carter was bright. He had to be to be an engineer and submariner.
Dad told two stories about him. The first circulated around the Pentagon in early 1977. Carter was given an evacuation plan for the White House and its staff his first day in office. He read it thoroughly and a few days later called in the people in charge of the plans implementation and said, "I want a drill to see if this works." They said something about scheduling one for a month out, and Carter said, "No. Now." What was supposed to take thirty minutes for the president and his family and under three hours for the rest of the staff took over 12 hours. It had never been tested in full and without rerouting traffic days in advance.
The second was more personal. Dad was an intelligence analyst. As such, he wrote papers on a variety of topics: some from direct intelligence feeds, some to precis other reports. They averaged about 30 pages including bibliography, front page precis, and two page summary immediately behind the precis. As intelligence went up the ladder -- Dad was a full Colonel by then so the ladder was somewhat shorter upward than downward -- the precis or summary might be attached to intelligence reports written by his superiors (or written by Dad under his superior's name -- I found out about that in the 1980s), but the full report never reached the Joint Chiefs, much less the President. They had to read more widely and needed the digested versions so that they didn't get bogged down.
Dad received one of his reports back with detailed marginalia in Carter's handwriting. On the one hand, he was impressed with the comments and respected the depth of reading Carter did. On the other hand, the President should never have requested the full report. Had it just been his report, maybe it was a special interest, but apparently, Dad was not the only officer to have that experience.
I think the world might be a better place had Carter had a second term. He was handed a poor economy. The collapse of Iran and the hostage crisis was a bad show, but in no way his fault. Prior presidents had supported the Shah and turned a blind eye to his abuses. Revolution shouldn't have been a surprise. But Carter was blamed.
His record on Human Rights, including lifting the ban on LGBTQ+ people serving in the State Department, is exemplary. His work with Habitat for Humanity was legendary. [https://www.habitat.org/ ]
The Carter Center has done magnificent work including toward the eradication of Guinea Worm disease. [ https://www.cartercenter.org/ ]
I hope we can find another leader with such depth of kindness and commitment to human rights.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-01 04:03 am (UTC)