“It is a new world,” Carter declared in his first speech on foreign affairs. In contrast to the shadowy dealings and sly gambits of the Nixon-Kissinger years, he would conduct a foreign policy characterized by “constant decency.” The defense of “basic human rights” would come before all other concerns. He then cut off aid to Chile and Argentina because of human rights violations. He also negotiated treaties with Panama that provided for the gradual transfer of the Panama Canal to that nation and guaranteed the canal’s neutrality. But he said little about what was going on in a long list of other nations whose citizens’ rights were being repressed.
The president also intended to carry forward the Nixon-Kissinger policy of detente, and in 1979 another Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) was signed with the Soviet Union. But the following winter the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan to overthrow the government there. Carter denounced the invasion and warned the Soviets that he would use force if they invaded any of the countries bordering the Persian Gulf. He withdrew the SALT treaty, which he had sent to the Senate for ratification. He also refused to allow American athletes to compete in the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow.
Carter’s one striking diplomatic achievement was the so-called Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. In September 1978 President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel came to the United States at Carter’s invitation to seek a peace treaty ending the state of war that had existed between their two countries for many years.
For two weeks they conferred at Camp David, the presidential retreat outside the capital, and Carter’s mediation had much to do with their successful negotiations. In the treaty Israel promised to withdraw from territory captured from Egypt during the 1967 Israeli-Egypt war. Egypt in turn recognized Israel as a nation, the first Arab country to do so. Peace ensured an uninterrupted supply of Arab oil to the United States. The Camp David Accords were the first and, as it turned out, the last significant agreement between Israel and a major Arab state.
World History
