Later, he would alter his vision somewhat, and expand the crisis of the American spirit to a “malaise” affecting the populace as a whole.Ĭarter’s view, shared by most of the major figures in his administration (with the exceptions of Zbigniew Brzezinski and James Schlesinger, who were also the only ones who gave the President good advice on Iran), was that the United States had to be restored to moral purity. I was deeply troubled by the lies our people had been told our exclusion from the shaping of American political and military policy in Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, and other countries and other embarrassing activities of our government, such as the CIA’s role in plotting murder and other crimes. Instead of promoting freedom and democratic principles, our government seemed to believe that in any struggle with evil, we could not compete effectively unless we played by the same rules or lack of rules as the evildoers. In his Inaugural Address he wanted to cite a verse from Chronicles: “If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” At the time, the sins Carter had in mind were those he believed had been carried out by Henry Kissinger, the CIA, and the Watergate crowd: Carter’s view of us was for all practical purposes the view of the Left, couched in religious terms.

Keeping Faith by Jimmy Carter