Jonathan alter his very best
HIS VERY BEST
Presidential historian Alter delivers the first full-length, comprehensive biography of Jimmy Carter.
James Earl Carter Jr. (b. ), the peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, can be “brisk—sometimes peevish—in private, with a biting wit beneath the patented smile.” So writes Alter, observing that Carter, who cooperated with the author, was not always the nice guy of his public image. What irritates him most, it seems, is the widespread, almost canonical perception that he was weak. “I made many bold decisions,” Carter insists, “almost all of which were difficult to implement and not especially popular.” Alter demonstrates as much, meticulously unfolding proof of Carter’s many accomplishments while just as carefully showing his missteps. High on the list of the latter was a managerial style that left Cabinet members to operate pretty much as they wished, leading to incoherence at times. However, his achievements, both during his presidency and after, are significant, as Alter capably demonstrates. The former naval officer (the title comes from a stern interview Carter endured with Hyman Rickover) tried not just to be a good man, but also to do his best every day. As Alter notes, one bit of evidence for this was that Carter never lied, unlike the current occupant of the White House. He also made significant advances in civil rights as governor of Georgia. Even though “some reporters were already thinking of him as a fluke,” when he edged out Gerald Ford in the presidential election, he corralled a big-tent Democratic Congress and plenty of Republicans as well with a governing style that revealed “no distinct political ideology.” Other achievements were further opening China after Richard Nixon first cracked the door and bringing Israel and Egypt together, if uneasily, for the Camp David Accords. Even the Panama Canal treaty, used by Ronald Reagan as a wedge issue, was successful, and though Carter faltered with respect to Iran’s Islamic Revolution, he c
His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life
Jonathan Alter writes in the introduction to the first full-scale, comprehensive biography ( pages; pages of text) of Jimmy Carter that he began the book in , but that after the election of
I felt a new urgency. It seemed to me there was no better time to reexamine our superficial assessments of Jimmy Carter. I write out of a fragile hope that the life story of the thirty-ninth president might help light our way back to some sense of decency, accountability, and seriousness in our politics….
I figured that there must be more to Jimmy Carter than the easy shorthand: inept president who becomes a noble ex-president. When I learned that he would almost certainly have begun to address global warming in the early s had he been reelected, I was hooked. I set out to paint a portrait of perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history.
Alter goes on to list Carter’s accomplishments, several important ones that were unheralded at the time, and unfortunately unremembered today. His conclusion is “that [Carter] was a surprisingly consequential president – a political and stylistic failure but a substantive and far-sighted success”.
Furthermore, Carter “fulfilled his famous promise in his campaign and did not directly lie to the American people, which is no small thing today.” The book was published in , so there is no doubt who Alter had in mind, though he doesn’t mention any names.
HIS VERY BEST
When Carter came out of nowhere to win the presidential election, much was made of the fact that he was a peanut farmer from Georgia. That was true at the time, but it overshadowed earlier accomplishments.
He was a graduate of the Naval Academy, who became a nuclear engineer under the notoriously cantankerous and irascible father of the nuclear submarine program, Admiral Hyman Rickover. After the admiral asked the young lieutenant in a job interview if he h
His Very Best
Prologue PROLOGUE
JUNE
It was just hours before the first day of summer, and the sunny weather in Washington, DC, was perfect for a leisurely drive in the country. But June 20, , was the wrong day for Wednesday golf or a picnic at Bull Run. That week, more than half of the nation’s gas stations were running out of gas.
The morning’s Washington Post reported that local authorities were inundated with requests for carpools from angry motorists who couldn’t get to work, yet a small collection of harried reporters and dignitaries managed to find transportation to the White House. There the beleaguered president of the United States was preparing yet another announcement that would lead to eye rolling in the press corps and make little news. The only thing that stood out then about this seemingly minor event was its unusual location: the West Wing roof.
The spring and summer gas shortages marked the worst of a depressing , a year that would later see the seizure of American hostages in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. “Gas stations closed up like someone died,” John Updike wrote in his novel Rabbit Is Rich. For a generation bonded to cars the way the next would be to smartphones, this was traumatic. Millions of Americans missed work, canceled vacations, and pointed fingers. Public opinion surveys in June showed Carter’s approval ratings in the Gallup poll plummeting to 28 percent, the lowest of his presidency and comparable to Richard Nixon’s when he resigned five years earlier. Vice President Walter Mondale later cracked that the Carter White House had gone to the dogs—and become “the nation’s fire hydrant.”
As usual, the president had few options. A month later, he would offer new, ambitious energy goals as part of his infamous “malaise” speech (though he never used the word), in which Carter delivered a jeremiad against empty materialism. But events all year were largely out of his control, wreaking havoc on the American economy
My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies
Jonathan Alter&#;s long-awaited biography of the thirty-ninth president &#;His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life&#; was published last month (September ). Alter is a journalist and author and was a columnist for Newsweek magazine for nearly thirty years. He has written a book on FDR&#;s first one-hundred days and two focused on Barack Obama.
Authors of freshly-minted presidential biographies often feel compelled to explain their rationale for writing yet another biography of a particular president. In the early pages of this hot-off-the-press biography, Alter works diligently to offer an explanation for his five year investment in one man&#;s life.
But if the justification Alter provides feels a bit forced, his choice of biographical subject is marvelous: Jimmy Carter remains one of the most under-covered former presidents in the modern era. And while Alter believes Carter may be the most misunderstood president in American history, Carter is &#; at ninety-six years of age &#; not only the oldest-ever former president but has led what may be the most productive and purposeful post-presidency in our nation&#;s history.
Ironically, this self-proclaimed &#;first full-length independent biography&#; of Jimmy Carter is not the longest of the books I&#;ve read on the thirty-ninth president. That honor goes to Stuart Eizenstat&#;s “President Carter: The White House Years” published in &#; a marvelous page tome dedicated exclusively to Carter&#;s four-year presidency. Alter&#;s modestly shorter book (with pages of text) is wonderfully comprehensive, adequately detailed, extremely balanced and very well-paced.
Carter&#;s childhood and naval career are well-covered as is his personal life&#;though, at times, his family disappears into the background when his political life dominates the discussion. In the book&#;s early chapters, the reader can almost sense the narrative being drafted from Carter&#;s own r