Review of Jonathon Alter’s His Very Best: Jimmy Carter. A Life…
[This is the second part of today’s two-fer. A review of a non-fiction book? Yes, in addition to binge-reading mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi novels, I delve into doorstops when they catch my eye. Here’s a review of one.]
His Very Best: Jimmy Carter. A Life. Jonathon Alter, author (Simon & Schuster, 978-1-5011-2548-5). The author, a fellow resident of Montclair, NJ, never responded to my email of congratulations and greetings, but he has written one hell of a biography about the least understood and one of the most successful presidents in American history. Because I was working in academia in Colombia, South America, during the Carter years, 1976-1980, there were a lot of things about old Jimmy I’d never heard about. The author fortunately focuses on those White House years and previous ones because I know a lot about his activities after leaving the White House, especially after my return to the US. By the way, those later years’ activities set the bar very high for every ex-president. (Mr. Trump will never come close, of course!) Like the author, I’ll therefore focus on Jimmy Carter, Mr. President, and even pass over the authors description of Carter’s early years, which is well done, especially his time at Annapolis and life in the USN.
I knew about the hostage crisis in Iran—who in the world didn’t?—and how William Casey probably made a deal with Ayatollah Khomeini and his cohorts to release the hostages after the election (most people have forgotten that, especially the Good Ole Piranhas who consider Reagan as some kind of messiah). Mr. Carter might have won otherwise, and that would have saved the US from Reagan and Bush I’s reign that started America down the road to fascism and Donald J. Trump. There’s good evidence now that Casey also set up the Iran-Contra deal and other tidbits during those same negotiations. Alter discusses most of this but with only a historical shrug, as if saying, “What do you expect in politics?”
Jimmy made mistakes, no doubt about it; he also accomplished many things during his four years in the White House that should ensure his legacy, often promoting policies and programs that have proven to be progressive and beneficial to many Americans, but only with reasoned hindsight. For example, Reagan got credit for the fall of the Soviet Union; Carter started that and should receive at least some credit. Same with his rapprochement with China that went far beyond Nixon’s feeble efforts and brought China into the modern era. (I suppose it’s debatable whether it would have been better to keep them isolated, especially considering Covid, but I think it’s better to have contact with them, if only to slap them around more easily.)
Carter began the serious fight for the environment and against global warming. While Alter mentions the solar panels Jimmy installed on the White House, he doesn’t say that Reagan took them down—GOP presidents after Carter backtracked most environmental initiatives Carter began (especially Trump). He set aside vast tracts of land in the Alaskan wilderness, initially causing wrath among Alaskans (not Native Americans, of course), and that’s now seen as a jumpstart for today’s healthy Alaskan tourist industry (not until Trump came along was that whittled away at). Carter was more of an environmental president than Theodore Roosevelt, which means that even today no one can compare with his initiatives and achievements in that area. (Trump, of course, did his best to undo all of it, flashing his imperial scowl of a wannabe dictator while doing so.)
What disappointed me the most about this biography, though, is that, after finishing it (three or four times the length of most novels!), I felt like I still don’t know the man. Of course, Jimmy Carter remains an enigma, more engineer than politician and more moral human being than wannabe despot, and he has a right to his private life. It’s hard to know what goes on in any president’s mind (I don’t want to know what goes on in Trump’s, if he has one). Presidents in most cases are just average human beings, although Carter is more intelligent than most (Trump is a “f&^%ing moron”—that diagnosis comes from ex-SecState Tillerson), and these average guys have one hell of an important job. Some rise to that challenge; others like Nixon, Ford, Reagan, both Bushes, Clinton, and yes, even Obama, have had a tough time, some often hindered by circumstances and do-nothing congresses. In fact, some, because of their ethics and skills, deserved better help from a congress that all too often has ignored the public will. Difficult crises have also put presidents in a situation where they could use better support from often incompetent aides and congress.
Unlike Trump, who also went out after one term, Carter left the presidency a winner as far as history will see him. (Trump will justifiably go down in history as a complete loser…and the worst American president, bar none.) We need a lot more winners like Jimmy Carter if the US is going to survive the 21st century and its spiral down into fascism, in America and worldwide.
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Comments are always welcome.
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Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
