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Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

:For the submarine, see USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23). James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) an American politician, was the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981), and 83rd Governor of Georgia (1971–1975). Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Carter's presidency was marked by retrenchment, after the disappointing agony that had been the Vietnam War, and economic stagflation churning at home. He was elected over Republican Gerald Ford, in large part because of the public's resentment that Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Even then the election was very close. Some of Carter's major accomplishments consisted of the creation of a national energy policy and the consolidation of governmental agencies, resulting in two new cabinet departments, the United States Department of Energy and the United States Department of Education. Carter also successfully deregulated the trucking and airline industries and enacted strong legislation on environmental protection, through the expansion of the national park service in Alaska. In foreign affairs, Carter's accomplishments consisted of the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the creation of full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and the negotiation of the SALT II Treaty. One of the greatest contributors to Carter's political downfall came in November of 1979 when a pro-U.S. monarchy was toppled by the 1979 Iranian Revolution and dozens of American hostages were taken inside the American embassy by Islamic fundamentalist revolutionaries after Carter gave sanctuary to exiled dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. With the international outrage at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later the same year, Carter appeared impotent, as America saw its influence declining abroad. The Iran prisoners were released as Ronald Reagan was being sworn in as president, after defeating Carter in a landslide. Carter faced interest rates reaching their highest levels since World War II, and the administration froze domestic oil prices in response to rising prices from OPEC. The Misery Index, Carter's own invention of economic well-being, rose 50% in four years. Despite Carter's own Democratic Party controlling both Houses of Congress, and the White House his administration failed to reform the tax system, and to reduce the size of the government bureaucracy, as he promised during the 1976 campaign, or to pass the Martin Luther King holiday. In the decades since he left office, Carter took a role as an international mediator and has used his position as a former U.S. president to further many charitable causes. In 1982, he founded the Carter Center as a forum for issues related to democracy and human rights. He has also traveled extensively to monitor elections, conduct peace negotiations, and establish relief efforts. In 2002, Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize for his "efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." In recent years (2003-2005), Carter has continued his decades-long active involvement with the charity Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses for the needy[http://www.habitat.org/how/carter.aspx]. He can actually be found participating in the construction of these houses. For these reasons he has become widely known as 'Americas best ex-President'.

Early years

Born the oldest of four children to James Earl Carter and Bessie Lillian Gordy in the Southwest Georgia town of Plains, he was the first president born in a hospital. Young Carter was a gifted student from an early age, who always had a fondness for reading. By the time he attended Plains High School, he was also a star in basketball and football. He was greatly influenced by one of his high school teachers, Julia Coleman. Ms. Coleman was handicapped by polio. She had encouraged young Jimmy to read War and Peace; he was disappointed to find that there were no cowboys or Indians in the book. Carter mentioned his beloved teacher in his inaugural address as an example of someone who beat overwhelming odds. Carter had three siblings, all of them younger. His younger brother, Billy (1937-1988), caused some political problems for him during his administration. Carter's sister, Gloria (1926-1990), was low-key and was famous for collecting and riding Harley-Davidson motorcycles. His youngest sister, Ruth (1929-1983), became a well-known Christian evangelist. He grew up in nearby Archery. He attended Georgia Southwestern College, Georgia Institute of Technology, and he studied nuclear physics at Union College, and received a B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946, the same year he married Rosalynn Smith. Carter was a very gifted student, and finished 59th out of his Academy class of 820. Vietnam POW and war hero, Jeremiah Denton, was one of Carter's classmates. They are considered members of the class of 1947, as their class would have graduated in 1947, except that the program had been temporarily compressed. Carter served on submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. He was later selected by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover for the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine program, where he became a qualified nuclear engineer. Rickover was a demanding officer, and Carter was greatly influenced by him. Carter later said that next to his parents, Admiral Rickover had had the greatest influence on him. There was a story he often told of being interviewed by the Admiral. He was asked about his rank in his class at the Naval Academy. Carter said "Sir, I graduated 59th out of a class of 820". Rickover only asked "Did you always do your best?" Carter was forced to admit he had not, and the Admiral asked why. Carter later used this as the theme of his presidential campaign, and as the title of his first book, "Why Not The Best?" He even mentioned Admiral Rickover in his inaugural address. Carter loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become Chief of Naval Operations. Upon the death of his father in 1953, however, Carter resigned from the Navy, and established a peanut farming business in Plains, where he was involved in a farming accident which left him with a permanently bent finger. From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to Christianity, serving as a Sunday School teacher throughout his political career. Even as President, Carter prayed several times a day, and professed that Jesus Christ was the driving force in his life. Carter had been greatly influenced by a sermon he had heard as a young man, called, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" [http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-14.htm] After World War II, he and Rosalynn started a family. They had three sons, (John William, born in 1947; James Earl III, born in 1950; and Donnel Jeffrey, born in 1952), and a daughter (Amy Lynn, late in life, in 1967).

Early political career

Carter started his career by serving on the Plains school board. In the 1960's, he served three terms in the Georgia State Senate. His 1962 election, which followed the end of Georgia's County Unit System per the Supreme Court case of Gray v. Sanders, was chronicled in his book Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. The election included corruption from the sheriff of one of the counties in Jimmy's district. This included people voting in alphabetical order and dead people voting. In his 1970 campaign, Carter was elected governor on a pro-George Wallace platform. Carter's campaign aides handed out photographs of his opponent, former Gov. Carl Sanders, showing Sanders associating with black basketball players. On the stump, he promised to re-appoint an avowed segregationist to the state Board of Regents. But, following his election, Carter said in speeches that the time of racial segregation was over, and that racial discrimination had no place in the future of the state. He was the first state-wide office holder in the Deep South to say this in public (such sentiments would have signaled the end of the political career of politicians in the region less than 15 years earlier, as was the case with Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr., who testified before Congress in favor of the Voting Rights Act). Carter served as governor of the state of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. When Carter entered the Democratic Party Presidential primaries in 1976, he at first was considered to have little chance against nationally better-known politicians. When he told his family of his intention to run for president, he was asked, "President of what?" However, the Watergate scandal was still fresh in the voters' minds, and so his position as an outsider, distant from Washington, DC, became an asset. He ran an effective campaign appealing to Christian voters, did well in debates, and won his party's nomination and then the election, receiving 50.1% of the popular vote, making him one of only two Democratic Party Presidential Candidates to win a majority of the popular vote since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1944. When running for re-election for a second term of his presidency, he was almost unseated in the primaries by Senator Ted Kennedy. The centerpiece of his campaign platform was government reorganization. Carter was the first candidate from the Deep South to be elected president since Reconstruction.

Presidency

Reconstruction Reconstruction] Reconstruction The Carter Administration's foreign policy is most remembered for the Iran hostage crisis, for the peace treaty he brokered between the states of Israel and Egypt with the Camp David Accord, for the SALT II treaty brokered with the Soviet Union, for the Panama Canal treaty which turned the canal over to Panama, and for an energy crisis. He was much less successful on the domestic front, having alienated both his own party and his opponents, through what was perceived as a lack of willingness to work with Congress — much as he had in his term as Governor. A small blow to his reelection campaign came on April 20, 1979, when he was attacked by a "killer rabbit" while fishing in a pond from a small boat. The swimming rabbit, perhaps ill or fleeing from a predator, attempted to board the president's craft. Carter flailed at the rabbit with his paddle, splashing water at it, and the rabbit turned and swam away. A White House photographer captured the scene on film. The story broke months after the attack, during the slow news month of August, when White House Press Secretary Jody Powell described the incident to reporter Brooks Jackson over tea; shortly thereafter, it was on the front page of The Washington Post with a cartoon take-off, Paws, of the poster from the film Jaws. On July 15 1979, Carter gave a nationally-televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a "crisis of confidence" among the American people. This has come to be known as his "malaise" speech, even though he never actually used the word "malaise" anywhere in the text: :I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.... I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might. :The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. Carter's speech, written by MSNBC's Chris Matthews, was well-received, although some viewed it as too much like a sermon. The country was in the worst recession since the 1930s, with inflation and unemployment at record levels. But many who had hoped for more inspired leadership after the Ford administration found themselves disappointed. Two days after the speech, Carter asked for the resignations of all of his Cabinet officers, and ultimately accepted five. With no visible efforts towards a way out of the malaise, Carter's poll numbers dropped even further. On 1 October 1979, President Carter announced before a television audience the existence of the Rapid Deployment Forces (RDF), a mobile fighting force capable of responding to worldwide trouble spots, without drawing on forces committed to NATO. The RDF was the forerunner of CENTCOM. Amongst Presidents who served at least one full term, Carter is the only one who never made an appointment to the Supreme Court.

Domestic policies

A major issue for President Carter was inflation, caused especially by continued high levels of government spending and the rising price of imported oil, which was the major source of energy for many industries. Carter added the United States Department of Energy as a new cabinet-level department. The first head of the department was James R. Schlesinger. He also installed solar power panels on the roof of the White House, and a wood stove in the living quarters; his successor, Ronald Reagan, later removed the solar panels and the wood stove. It is popularly believed that Carter appeared in a sweater to urge citizens to turn down their thermostats and conserve energy. In fact the sweater had nothing to do with energy use. He wore a sweater on inauguration day and every time he addressed the nation, to establish an informal, common man image. Carter's government reorganization efforts also separated the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. The inflation caused interest rates to rise to unprecedented levels (above 12 percent per year). The rapid change in rates led to disintermediation of bank deposits, which sowed the seeds of the Savings and Loan crisis. Investments in fixed income (both bonds, and pensions being paid to retired people) were becoming less valuable. With the markets for U.S. government debt coming under pressure, Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; Volcker replaced G. William Miller who left to become the Secretary of the Treasury. Volcker took actions (raising interest rates even further) to slow down the economy and bring down inflation, which he considered his mandate. He succeeded, but only by first going through a very unpleasant phase where the economy slowed down, causing a rise in unemployment, prior to any relief from the inflation. The stagnant growth of the economy (causing unemployment), in combination with a high rate of inflation, has often been called stagflation, an unprecedented situation in American economics.

Foreign policies

President Carter initially departed from the long-held policy of containment toward the Soviet Union, as first articulated in the Truman Doctrine and held to by all subsequent American presidents, both Republican and Democrat. In its place Carter promoted his foreign policy as being one that would place human rights at the forefront. This was intended to be a break from the policies of several predecessors, in which human rights abuses were often overlooked if they were committed by a nation that was allied to the United States. The Carter administration ended support to the historically U.S.-backed Somoza government in Nicaragua, and gave millions of dollars in aid to the nation's new regime, following a Sandinista coup. Carter continued his predecessors' policies of imposing sanctions on Rhodesia, and, after Bishop Abel Muzorewa was elected Prime Minister, protested that the Marxists Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo were excluded from the elections. Strong pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom prompted new elections in what was then called Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Carter was also known for his criticism of Alfredo Stroessner, Augusto Pinochet, the apartheid government of South Africa, and other traditional allies. Carter continued the policy of Richard Nixon to "normalize" relations with People's Republic of China granting full diplomatic and trade relations, thus ending official relations with the Republic of China (though the two nations continued to trade and the U.S. unofficially recognized Taiwan through the Taiwan Relations Act). The main conflict between human rights and U.S. interests came in Carter's dealings with the Shah of Iran. The Shah had been a strong ally of America since World War II, and was one of the "twin pillars" upon which U.S. strategic policy in the Middle East was built. However, his rule was strongly autocratic. Though Carter praised the Shah as a wise and valuable leader, when a popular uprising against the monarchy broke out in Iran, the Carter administration did not intervene. The Shah was deposed and exiled. Many have since connected the Shah's dwindling U.S. support as a leading cause of his quick overthrow. Carter was initially prepared to recognize the revolutionary government of the monarch's successor, but his efforts proved futile. In 1979, Carter out of humanitarian concerns allowed the deposed Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi into the United States for political asylum and medical treatment. In response to the Shah's entry into the U.S., Iranian militants seized the American embassy in Tehran taking some 100 Americans hostage. The Iranians demanded (1) the return of the Shah to Iran for trial, (2) the return of the Shah's wealth to the Iranian people, (3) an admission of guilt by the United States for its past actions in Iran, plus an apology, and (4) a promise from the United States not to interfere in Iran's affairs in the future. Though later that year the Shah would leave the U.S. and die in Egypt, the Iran hostage crisis continued, and dominated the last year of Carter's presidency, even though almost half of the hostages were released. The subsequent responses to the crisis, from a "Rose Garden strategy" of staying inside the White House, to the unsuccessful attempt to rescue the hostages, were largely seen as contributing to defeat in the 1980 election. Nevertheless, the 1980 election results were not even close. Carter managed to win just six states, 49 electoral votes and 41% of the popular vote, barely beating the dismal record of Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964, who managed to win six states, 52 electoral votes and 38.5% of the popular vote against an incumbent president. Many political analysts have said Carter performed very poorly in his debates with Ronald Reagan. Reagan almost seemed to be making fun of the President. At one point he said "there you go again". Carter hurt himself in the debates when he talked about asking his young daughter Amy what the most important issue affecting the world was. She said it was nuclear proliferation, and the control of nuclear arms. Carter said that the point he was trying to make was that this issue affects everyone, especially our children. However, the way he phrased it led many to ridicule him. Although the Carter team had negotiated with the hostage takers for release of the hostages, an agreement trusting the hostages takers to abide by their word was not signed until January 19 1981, after the election of Ronald Reagan. The hostages had been held captive for 444 days, and their release happened just minutes after Carter left office. However, Reagan asked Carter to head to Germany to greet the hostages. In December 1979, USSR invaded Afghanistan, after the pro-Moscow Afghanistan government placed by a 1978 coup was overthrown. There are many theories as to why the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Some believed the Soviets were attempting to expand their borders southward in order to gain a foothold in the region. The Soviet Union had long lacked a warm water port, and their movement south seemed to position them for further expansion toward Pakistan and India in the East, and Iran to the West. The Carter administration, and many Republicans and Democrats alike, feared that the Soviets were positioning themselves for a takeover of Middle Eastern oil. Others believed that the Soviet Union was fearful that the Muslim uprising would spread from Iran and Afghanistan to the millions of Muslims in the USSR. After the invasion, Carter announced the Carter Doctrine: that the US would not allow any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf. Carter terminated the Russian Wheat Deal, a keystone Nixon Detente initiative to establish trade with USSR and lessen Cold War tensions. The grain exports had been beneficial to people employed in agriculture, and the Carter embargo marked the beginning of hardship for American farmers. He also prohibited Americans from participating in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, and reinstated registration for the draft for young males. Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski started a $40 billion covert program of training Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In retrospect, this contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Critics of this policy blame Carter and Reagan for the resulting instability of post-Soviet Afghani governments, which led to the rise of Islamic theocracy in the region. However, most historians attribute Afghanistan's instability to a combination of factors resulting from the Soviet invasion and the decade long occupation.

Interest in extraterrestrial life and UFOs

President Carter claims to have witnessed a UFO in 1969; he remains the only U.S. President to have formally reported a UFO. He filed a report with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City after a request from that organization. [http://www.presidentialufo.com/carter_ufo_report.htm] During his presidential campaign, Carter promised to release the truth about any alleged UFO cover-up. Through Stanford Research Institute, Mr Alfred Webre was Principal Investigator for a proposed civilian scientific study of extraterrestrial communication presented to and developed with interested Carter White House staff. This took place during the period from May 1977 until the fall of 1977. President Carter, official statement placed on the [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=555 Voyager spacecraft] for its trip outside our solar system, June 16, 1977: "We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some - perhaps many - may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe." [http://www.presidentialufo.com/jimmy.htm] See also Voyager Golden Record.

Controversies

Members of the Reagan-Bush campaign and administration (most notably Barbara Honegger, in her contribution to Gary Sick's book October Surprise), and the president of Iran in 1980 (Abu Al-Hasan Bani-Sadr, My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals With the U.S.) have alleged that a secret agreement between the Reagan campaign and the Iranians (orchestrated by George H. W. Bush) was responsible for destroying a deal between the Carter administration and the hostage takers that might have led to their release a month before the election. Honegger and others said that, with the November election approaching, the Reagan team had reason to believe a second rescue attempt was being prepared or, absent that, a diplomatic deal to gain an election-eve release of the 52 American officials held in Tehran. [http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/1992_cr/h920205-october-clips.htm] Such a scenario was termed "the October surprise" by the Reagan team. In 1977, Carter stated that there was no need to apologize to the Vietnamese people for the damage and suffering caused by the Vietnam war as "the destruction was mutual". During Carter's administration, diplomatic recognition was switched from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China, a policy continued into the 21st century. In response, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act. Some have accused Carter of ordering a cover-up of the events at Three Mile Island following the near meltdown of that nuclear plant. He has also been criticized for not doing enough to promote his stated human rights foreign policy stance in his administration, such as continuing to support the Indonesian government even while it was implicated in the commission of acts of genocide in the occupation of East Timor. In 1977, Bert Lance, Carter's director of the Office of Management and Budget, resigned after past banking overdrafts and "check kiting" were questioned by the U.S. Senate.

Cabinet

Post-Presidency

U.S. Senate U.S. Senate attended the funeral of Richard Nixon on April 27 1994, in Nixon's hometown of Yorba Linda, California. From left: Bill and Hillary Clinton, George H.W. and Barbara Bush, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Gerald and Betty Ford.]] Since his unsuccessful bid for re-election, Carter has been involved in a variety of public policy, human rights, and charitable causes. His work in international public policy and conflict resolution is largely through the Carter Center. The center also focuses on world-wide health care including the campaign to eliminate guinea worm disease. He and members of the center are sometimes involved in the monitoring of the electoral process in support of free and fair elections. This includes acting as election observers, particularly in Latin America and Africa. Carter was the third U.S. president, after Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to receive the Nobel Peace Prize award. In his Nobel Lecture, Carter told the European audience that U.S. actions after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the 1991 Gulf War, like NATO itself, was a continuation of President Wilson's doctrine of collective security. [http://jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/nobel.phtml] He and his wife Rosalynn are also well-known for their work with Habitat for Humanity. Carter visited Cuba in May 2002, meeting with Fidel Castro and becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution. Not all Carter's efforts have gained him favor in Washington; President Clinton and both Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush were said to have been less than pleased with Carter's "freelance" diplomacy in Iraq and elsewhere. Critics of Carter's diplomatic efforts (during and after his presidency) generally concede that Carter is honest and well intentioned, but consider him to be naive about less scrupulous foreign leaders. In 1994 Carter went to North Korea at the behest of President Clinton during a period of rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula that were caused by North Korea's expulsion of investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency and that country's threat to begin processing spent nuclear fuel. Carter met with North Korean President Kim Jong Il resulting in the signing of the Agreed Framework, under which North Korea agreed to stop processing nuclear fuel, in exchange for a return to normalized relations, oil deliveries and two light water reactors to replace its graphite reactors. Though the Agreed Framework negotiated by Jimmy Carter was widely hailed at the time as a diplomatic achievement, it soon became apparent that despite their promises to Carter, North Korea had no intention of stopping its nuclear weapons program. In 2005, North Korea announced that it had nuclear weapons. In 2001, Carter blasted President Clinton's controversial pardon of Marc Rich, calling it "disgraceful" and suggesting that Rich's large contributions to the Democratic Party were a factor in Clinton's action. In March 2004, Carter roundly condemned George W. Bush and Tony Blair for waging an unnecessary war "based upon lies and misinterpretations" in order to oust Saddam Hussein. He claimed that Blair had allowed his better judgement to be swayed by Bush's desire to finish a war that George H. W. Bush (his father) had started. In June 2005, Carter urged the closing of the Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba, which has been the centerpoint for recent claims of prisoner and Muslim holy book Quran abuse. On November 22, 2004, New York Republican Governor George Pataki named Carter and the other living former presidents (Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton) as honorary members of the board rebuilding the World Trade Center. Because he had served as a submariner (the only president to have done so), a submarine was named for him. The USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) was named on April 27 1998, making it one of the very few U.S. Navy vessels to be named for a person still alive at the time of the naming. In February 2005, Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter both spoke at the commissioning ceremony for this submarine. U.S. Navy Carter currently teaches a Sunday School class at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. He is also an accomplished amateur woodworker and has occasionally been featured in the pages of Fine Wood Working magazine, which is published by Taunton Press.

Miscellaneous

- On October 14, 1978 President Carter signed into law a bill that legalized the homebrewing of beer and wine. Carter has written over 20 books since leaving the presidency. He was the first president to make public statements in support of gay rights. In California in the late 1970s, voters were facing a law which would have banned gays and lesbians (and heterosexuals that endorsed gay rights) from working in the school system. At a speech in California, Carter urged voters to reject the bill. Incidentally, former California governor Ronald Reagan, who later defeated Carter also opposed the bill. In the early days of the Carter campaign, Carter had promised to oppose discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but backed off on the pledge when he won the Democratic Party nomination. The Carter White House had the first official visit by a gay rights organization, and allowed a group of gay veterans to participate in an official ceremony for the Vietnam War Memorial. During his unsuccessfull relection camapign, the Carter campain competed with the Ted Kennedy campaign for the support of the gay rights organizations. However, the Carter administration's tepid support of gay rights did not please liberal Democrats (who felt Carter was too moderate on the issue) or the socially conservative Christians that Carter had previously courted and would help elect Ronald Reagan.

Bibliography

Jimmy Carter has been a relatively prolific author. He has written the following:
- Why Not the Best? (1975 and 1996)
- A Government as Good as Its People (1977 and 1996)
- Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (1982 and 1995)
- Negotiation: The Alternative to Hostility (1984)
- The Blood of Abraham (1985 and 1993)
- Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life (1987 and 1995), with Rosalynn Carter
- An Outdoor Journal (1988 and 1994)
- Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age (1992)
- Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation (1993 and 1995)
- Always a Reckoning (1995), a collection of poetry, illustrated by his granddaughter
- The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer (1995), a children's book, illustrated by his daughter
- Living Faith (1996)
- Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith (1997)
- The Virtues of Aging (1998)
- An Hour before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood (2001)
- Christmas in Plains: Memories (2001)
- The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture (2002)
- The Hornet's Nest (2003), a historical novel and the first work of fiction written by a U.S. President
- Sharing Good Times (2004)
- Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (2005)

Biographies about Jimmy Carter

- Jones, Charles O. The Trusteeship Presidency: Jimmy Carter and the United States Congress. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1988.
- Jordan, Hamilton. Crisis: The Last Year of the Carter Presidency. NY: Putnam, 1982.
- Jordan, William J. Panama Odyssey. Austin: UT Press, 1984.
- Kaufman, Burton I. The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr. Lawrence, KS: U. of KS, 1993.
- Kucharsky, David. The Man from Plains: The Mind and Spirit of Jimmy Carter. NY: Harper & Row, 1976
- Lance, Bert. The Truth of the Matter: My Life in and out of Politics. NY: Summit Books, 1991

External links

- [http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/people/carter.html Jimmy Carter] Biography of President Jimmy Carter
- [http://www.usa-presidents.info/inaugural/carter.html Inaugural Address of Jimmy Carter]
- [http://vvl.lib.msu.edu/showfindingaid.cfm?findaidid=CarterJ Audio recordings of Carter's speeches]
- [http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/2002/carter-lecture.html Nobel lecture], Oslo, Norway (10 December 2002)
- [http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2463 Nobel Prize for Carter]
- [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html The malaise speech text]
- [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/e_malaise.html About the malaise speech]
- [http://www.cartercenter.org/ Carter Center]
- [http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/ Jimmy Carter Library and Museum]
- [http://www.sumeria.net/politics/oct-sur.html The October Surprise]
- [http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jc39.html White House page for Carter]
- [http://www.submarinehistory.com/PresidentCarter.html Navy Years]
- [http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/mar/14onk.htm "The U.S. President was here" — about Carterpuri, a village in Haryana, India named after President Carter]
- [http://www.statecraft.org/chapter13.html Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, and Counterterrorism, 1940-1990 Chap. 3 The Carter Years]
- [http://www.presidentialufo.com/carter_ufo_report.htm Carter's hand written UFO sighting report of 1969]
- [http://www.maranathachurchplains.org/ Carter's church and Sunday school teaching schedule]
- [http://www.narsil.org/politics/carter/killer_rabbit.html More information about the "killer rabbit" incident]
- [http://www.geocities.com/carterbiography/ Jimmy Carter's Life]
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- Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy zh-min-nan:Jimmy Carter ko:지미 카터 ja:ジミー・カーター simple:Jimmy Carter

USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23)

USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), the third and last Seawolf-class submarine, is the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for former President Jimmy Carter, who served in the US Navy as an officer in the Submarine Service as a nuclear engineer. Jimmy Carter is one of the few ships of the United States Navy to have been named for a person who was alive at the time of the ship's naming. The contract to build Carter was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut on 29 June 1996 and her keel was laid down on 5 December 1998. Original schedules called for Carter to be commissioned in late 2001 or early 2002, but on 10 December 1999 Electric Boat was awarded an US$887 million extension to the Carter contract to modify the boat for highly classified missions and testing of new submarine systems, missions previously carried out by Parche (SSN-683). Carter was christened on 5 June 2004 sponsored by Rosalynn Carter, Jimmy Carter's wife. Carter is roughly 100 feet (30 m) longer than the other two ships of her class. This is due to the insertion of a section known as the Multi-Mission Platform (MMP), which allows launch and recovery of ROVs and Navy SEAL forces. The plug features a fairing over a wasp-waist shaped passageway allowing crew to pass between the fore and aft sections of the hull while providing a space to store ROVs and special equipment that may need to launch and recover from the submarine. According to figures published by Electric Boat, the MMP increased the Carters displacement by about 33%, her navigation draft by over a foot (300 mm), and made her louder by two dB at 20 knots (37 km/h). It reduced her speed by two knots (4 km/h). The Carter has additional maneuvering devices fitted fore and aft that will allow her to keep station over selected targets in odd currents. Past submarines that were so outfitted were used to place listening devices on undersea cables and listen on communications of foreign countries. On 24 January 2004, Commander David Bartholomew, Jr., commanding officer of PCU (Pre-Commissioned Unit) Jimmy Carter was relieved of command because of a "loss of confidence" in his ability "pending further administrative or disciplinary action as appropriate." Captain Robert D. Kelso, deputy chief of staff of Submarine Development Squadron 12 in New London, took temporary command of the PCU until a new commanding officer could be named. Captain Kelso will continue as CO of USS Jimmy Carter through her move to NB Kitsap in Bangor, Washington. On 19 November 2004, Jimmy Carter completed alpha sea trials, her first voyage in the open seas. On 22 December, Electric Boat delivered Jimmy Carter to the Navy, and she was commissioned 19 February 2005 at the Navy submarine base in Groton. Jimmy Carter is the last submarine to be commissioned at Groton for the foreseeable future. Jimmy Carter began a transit from Naval Submarine Base New London to its new homeport in Bangor, Washington on 14 October 2005 but was forced to turn back when an unusually high wave caused damage while the submarine was still running on the surface. The damage was quickly repaired and Carter left New London the following day, arriving at Bangor the afternoon of 9 November 2005. 2005 2005 2005

External links

- [http://www.submarinehistory.com/JimmyCarter.html USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23)]
- [http://www.submarinehistory.com/PresidentCarter.html James Earl "Jimmy" Carter]
- [http://www.submarinehistory.com/21stCentury.html Submarines in the 21st Century]
- [http://www.oralhistoryproject.com World War II Submarine Veterans History Project]
- [http://www.csg2.navy.mil/jimmy%20carter.htm PCU Jimmy Carter SSN-23]
- [http://navysite.de/ssn/ssn23.htm USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23)]
- [http://dsc.aticorp.org/documents/Chapter7_TheUSSJIMMY%20CARTERMMP_deliverd.pdf USS Jimmy Carter Multi-Mission Platform], in PDF format
- [http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/cno/n87/usw/issue_5/ussjimmycarter.html USS Jimmy Carter: Expanding Future SSN Missions]
- [http://www.csg2.navy.mil/jimmycartercommissioning.htm USS Jimmy Carter Commissioned], from the Navy's Commander Submarine Group Two website
- [http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20050219/ap_on_re_us/uss_jimmy_carter USS Jimmy Carter Commissioned in Connecticut], an AP story via Yahoo! Jimmy Carter 023 Category:Buildings and monuments honoring American Presidents ja:ジミー・カーター (潜水艦)

1924

1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January

- January 7 - Great fire in London harbour
- January 8 - Heavy blizzards in England
- January 10 - British submarine L-34 sinks in the English Channel - 43 dead.
- January 12 - Gopinath Saha shoots a man he erroneously thinks is a Police commissioner of Calcutta, Charles Augustus Tegart - he is arrested soon after
- January 21 - Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins to purge his rivals to clear way for his leadership.
- January 22 - Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister.
- January 23 - Soviet Union officially declares that Lenin died January 21.
- January 25 - The 1924 Winter Olympics open in Chamonix, France (in the French Alps), inaugurating the Winter Olympic Games.
- January 26 - Petrograd (St. Petersburg) is renamed Leningrad.
- January 27 - Lenin is buried in a mausoleum in the Red Square.

February

- February 1 - The United Kingdom recognizes Soviet Union.
- February 1 - Australian Loans Council meets for the first time
- February 4 - Mohandas Gandhi is released prematurely on medical grounds.
- February 5 - GMT: Hourly time signals from Royal Greenwich Observatory are broadcasted for the first time.
- February 8 - Death penalty: The first state execution using gas in the United States takes place in Nevada.
- February 14 - IBM corporation founded.
- February 16-February 26 - Dock strike in US harbors.
- February 22 - Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.

March

- March 1 - Diana Vreeland, fashion editor and columnist, marries Thomas Reed Vreeland at St. Thomas's church in New York.
- March 3 - The 1400-year-old Islamic caliphate is abolished when Caliph Abdul Mejid II of the Ottoman Empire is deposed. The last remnant of the old regime gives way to the reformed Turkey of President Kemal Atatürk.
- March 9 - Italy annexes Fiume
- March 25 - Greece proclaims it is a republic.
- March 29 - Government of Raymond Poincaré starts in France.

April

- April 1 - Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years in jail for his participation in the Beer Hall Putsch. However he was only in jail for nine months.
- April 1 - First revenue flight for Belgium's SABENA Airlines.
- April 6 - Fascists win elections in Italy with 2/3 majority.
- April 13 - Referendum in Greece favors the formation of Hellenic Republic.
- April 26 - Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrates his "death ray" in London but fails to convince British War Office
- April 27 - Group of Alawites kill some Christian nuns in Syria – French troops march against them.

May

- May 3 - The Aleph Zadik Aleph, the oldest Jewish youth fraternity, founded.
- May 4 - The 1924 Summer Olympics opening ceremonies held in Paris, France.
- May 10 - J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head the Bureau of Investigation.
- May 21 - University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a thrill killing.

June

- June 1 - Harry Grindell Matthews returns from Paris to London - he tries to use a Pathe film to demonstrate that his death ray works
- June 2 - U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.
- June 5 - Ernst Alexanderson sends the first facsimile across the Atlantic Ocean (to his father in Sweden).
- June 8 - George Mallory and Andrew Irvine are last seen "going strong for the top" of Mount Everest by teammate Noel Odell at 12:50 PM. The two mountaineers were never seen alive again.
- June 10 - Fascists kidnap and kill Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti in Rome.
- June 12 - the Roundout Heist - Six men of Egan's Rats gang rob a mail train in Roundout, Illinois. Robbery is later found to have been an inside job
- June 16 - Whampoa Military Academy is founded.
- June 23 - American airman Russell L. Maughan flew from New York to San Francisco in 21 hours and 48 minutes on a dawn-to-dusk flight in a Curtiss pursuit plane.

August-October

- August 18 - France begins to withdraw its troops from Germany.
- September 9 - Hanapepe Massacre occurs on Kauai, Hawaii
- September 9 - 8-hour work day in Belgium
- October 2 - The Geneva Protocol is adopted as a means to strengthen the League of Nations.
- October 19 - Abdul Azis declares himself protector of holy places in Mecca.
- October 22 - Toastmasters is founded.
- October 24 - British Foreign Office publishes Zinoviev Letter.
- October 25 - British authorities in India arrest Subhas Chandra Bose and jail him for the next two and half years

November

- November 4 - Fermin Romo of Wyoming elected as the first woman governor in the United States.
- November 4 - Calvin Coolidge defeats John W. Davis in the U.S. presidential election
- November 19 - In Los Angeles, California, famous silent film director Thomas Ince ("The Father of the Western") dies, reportedly of a heart attack, in his bed (rumors soon surface that he was shot dead by publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst).
- November 27 - In the New York City the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held.

December

- December 12 - Failed communist takeover attempt in Estonia
- December 24 - Air crash in Croydon air field - 8 dead.
- December 24 - Albania becomes a republic.
- December 30 - Edwin Hubble announces the existence of other galaxies.

Unknown date

- Andre Breton founds surrealism, defining it as "pure psychic automatism"
- Voting in federal elections becomes compulsory in Australia
- US bootleggers begin to use Thompson SMGs
- Fritz Haarmann sentenced to death for 27 murders

Births

January-February

- January 2 - Sabine Baring-Gould, English composer and novelist (b. 1834)
- January 3 - Hank Stram, American football coach and broadcaster
- January 6 - Earl Scruggs, American musician
- January 11 - Roger Guillemin, French neuroendocrinologist, recpient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- January 11 - Sam B. Hall, American politician (d. 1994)
- January 11 - Slim Harpo, American musician (d. 1970)
- January 12 - Olivier Gendebien, Belgian race car driver (d. 1998)
- January 16 - Katy Jurado, Mexican actress (d. 2002)
- January 19 - Jean-Francois Revel, French author
- January 21 - Telly Savalas, American actor (d. 1994)
- January 26 - Annette Strauss, American philanthropist and mayor of Dallas, Texas (d. 1998)
- January 27 - Sabu, Indian actor (d. 1963)
- January 29 - Luigi Nono, Italian composer (d. 1990)
- January 30 - Lloyd Alexander, American writer
- February 2 - Elfi von Dassanowsky, Austrian-born producer and musician
- February 17 - Margaret Truman, American novelist
- February 19 - Lee Marvin, American actor (d. 1987)
- February 20 - Gloria Vanderbilt, American cosmetics entrepreneur
- February 21 - Robert Mugabe, first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe
- February 23 - Allan McLeod Cormack, South-African physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1998)
- February 29 - Al Rosen, baseball player

March-May

- March 1 - Deke Slayton, astronaut (d. 1993)
- March 7 - Kobo Abe, Japanese novelist (d. 1993)
- March 15 - Walter Gotell, German actor (d. 1997)
- March 27 - Sarah Vaughan, American jaz singer (d. 1990)
- March 28 - Freddie Bartholomew, British actor (d. 1992)
- March 30 - Alan Davidson, British author (d. 2003)
- April 1 - Brendan Byrne, Governor of New Jersey
- April 3 - Marlon Brando, American actor (d. 2004)
- April 3 - Doris Day, American actress
- April 4 - Gil Hodges, American baseball player (d. 1972)
- April 7 - Johannes Mario Simmel, Austrian writer
- April 15 - Sir Neville Marriner, English conductor and violinist
- April 24 - Clement Freud, British writer, radio personality, and politician
- April 25 - Albert King, American musician (d. 1992)
- May 11 - Antony Hewish, English radio astronomer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
- May 12 - Tony Hancock, English comedian (d. 1968)
- May 18 - Priscilla Pointer, American actress
- May 19 - Sandy Wilson, British composer
- May 22 - Charles Aznavour, French singer, actor, and songwriter

June-August

- June 1 - Dr. William Sloane Coffin, American clergyman
- June 3 - Torsten Wiesel, Swedish scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- June 12 - George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st United States President
- June 18 - George Mikan, basketball player (d. 2005)
- June 20 - Chet Atkins, American country guitar player (d. 2001)
- June 20 - Audie Murphy, American World War II hero and actor (d. 1971)
- June 27 - Bob Appleyard, English cricketer
- June 29 - Flo Sandon's, Italian singer
- June 29 - Ezra Laderman, American composer
- July 4 - Eva Marie Saint, American actress
- July 5 - Janos Starker, Hungarian cellist
- July 13 - Carlo Bergonzi, Italian tenor
- July 14 - James W. Black, Scottish pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- July 19 - Stanley K. Hathaway, American politician
- August 1 - Georges Charpak, Ukrainian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- August 2 - John Carroll O'Connor, American actor (d. 2001)
- August 3 - Leon Uris, American writer (d. 2003)
- August 12 - Derek Shackleton, English cricketer
- August 12 - Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, leader of Pakistan (d. 1988)
- August 15 - Robert Bolt, English writer (d. 1995)
- August 23 - Robert Solow, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- August 28 - Peggy Ryan, American actress (d. 2004)
- August 29 - Consuelo Velázquez, Mexican songwriter (d. 2005)
- August 31 - Buddy Hackett, American comedian and actor (d. 2003)

September-October

- September 2 - Daniel arap Moi, President of Kenya
- September 4 - Joan Aiken, English writer (d. 2004)
- September 8 - Mimi Parent, Canadian painter (d. 2005)
- September 9 - Rik Van Steenbergen, Belgian cyclist (d. 2003)
- September 11 - Tom Landry, American football player and coach (d. 2000)
- September 19 - Don Harron, Canadian entertainer
- September 22 - Charles Keeping, English illustrator (d. 1988)
- September 22 - Rosamunde Pilcher, English novelist
- October 1 - Jimmy Carter, President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- October 1 - William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States (d. 2005)
- October 10 - Ed Wood, American filmmaker (d. 1978)
- October 11 - Mal Whitfield, American athlete
- October 12 - Doris Grau, American actress (d. 1995)
- October 15 - Mark Lenard, American actor (d. 1996)
- October 21 - Celia Cruz, Cuban singer (d. 2003)

November-December

- November 13 - Motoo Kimura, Japanese population geneticist (d. 1994)
- November 19 - William Russell, British actor
- November 20 - Benoit Mandelbrot, Polish-born mathematician
- November 24 - Mel Patton, American athlete
- November 25 - Takaaki Yoshimoto, Japanese poet, critic, and philosopher.
- December 2 - Alexander M. Haig, Jr., American politician
- December 25 - Rod Serling, American television screenwriter (d. 1975)
- December 25 - Atal Behari Vajpayee, tenth Prime Minister of India
- December 25 - Moktar Ould Daddah, first President of Mauritania (d. 2003)
- December 28 - Milton Obote, President of Uganda (d. 2005)
- Tuanku Al-Mutassimu Billahi Muhibbudin Sultan Abdul Halim Al-Muadzam Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Badlishah, King of Malaysia
- King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

Deaths

- January 21 - Vladimir Lenin, first leader of the USSR (b. 1870)
- January 24 - Marie-Adélaïde, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (b. 1894)
- February 3 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1856)
- April 21 - Eleonora Duse, Italian actress (b. 1858)
- May 4 - E. Nesbit, English author (b. 1858)
- May 15 - Paul-Henri-Benjamin d'Estournelles de Constant, French diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1852)
- May 24 - Victor Herbert, Irish dramatist (b. 1859)
- June 3 - Franz Kafka, Austrian author (b. 1883)
- June 10 - George Mallory, English mountain climber (lost on Mount Everest) (b. 1886)
- June 11 - Théodore Dubois, French composer and teacher (b. 1837)
- July 23 - Frank Frost Abbott, American classical scholar (b. 1860)
- July 27 - Ferruccio Busoni, Italian pianist and composer (b. 1866)
- August 3 - Joseph Conrad, Polish-born author (b. 1857)
- August 17 - Pavel Urysohn, Russian mathematician (b. 1898)
- September 15 - Frank Chance, baseball player and manager (b. 1877)
- October 12 - Anatole France, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1844)
- November 4 - Gabriel Fauré, French composer (b. 1845)
- November 29 - Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer (b. 1858)
- December 7 - Gene Stratton Porter, American author (b. 1863)
- December 29 - Carl Spitteler, Swiss writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1845)
- December 31 - Sir Samuel William Knaggs, British civil servant (b. 1856)

Nobel Prizes

- Physics - Manne Siegbahn
- Chemistry - Bryan Hymer
- Physiology or Medicine - Willem Einthoven
- Literature - Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont
- Peace - Fermin Romo Category:1924 ko:1924년 ms:1924 ja:1924年 simple:1924 th:พ.ศ. 2467

Politics of the United States

The federal government of the United States was established by the United States Constitution. United States politics is dominated by the two major parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. There are several other groups or parties of minor political significance.

Federal, state and local governments

The federal entity created by the Constitution is the dominant feature of the American governmental system. However, every person outside the capital is subject to at least three governing bodies: the federal government, a state, and a county (Note: county government has been abolished in some places, see New England and Town Meeting, the town/city fulfills this level of government). Within an incorporated entity, such as a city, they are also subject to the local government and possibly a district. Each level has its own political system (subject to constraints at higher levels). This multiplicity of jurisdictions reflects the country's history. The federal government was created by former colonies that had been established separately and had governed themselves independently of the others. Within these colonies were counties and towns with varying levels of development and therefore different administrative needs. Rather than replacing the states' legal systems with a unitary government, the Constitutional Convention chose to keep the states largely self-governing. As the country expanded, it admitted new states modeled on the existing ones.

State government

Before their independence, colonies governed themselves separately under the authority of the British Crown. In the early years of the republic, prior to the adoption of the Constitution, each state was virtually an autonomous unit. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention sought a stronger, more viable federal union, but they could not ignore state traditions, nor the interests of state politicians. In general, matters that lie entirely within state borders are the exclusive concern of state governments. These include internal communications; regulations relating to property, industry, business, and public utilities; the state criminal code; and working conditions within the state. Within this context, the federal government requires that state governments must be republican in form and that they adopt no laws that contradict or violate the federal Constitution or the laws and treaties of the United States. There are, of course, many areas of overlap between state and federal jurisdictions. Particularly in recent years, the federal government has assumed ever broadening responsibility in such matters as health, education, welfare, transportation, and housing and urban development. But where the federal government exercises such responsibility in the states, programs are usually adopted on the basis of cooperation between the two levels of government, rather than as an imposition from above. Like the national government, state governments have three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial; these are roughly equivalent in function and scope to their national counterparts. The chief executive of a state is the governor, elected by popular vote, typically for a four-year term (although in a few states the term is two years). Except for Nebraska, which has one legislative body, all states have a bicameral legislature, with the upper house usually called the Senate and the lower house called the House of Representatives, the House of Delegates, or the General Assembly. To confuse matters further, some states refer to the entire state legislature as the "General Assembly", with two houses therein. In most states, senators serve four-year terms, and members of the lower house serve two-year terms. The constitutions of the various states differ in some details but generally follow a pattern similar to that of the federal Constitution, including a statement of the rights of the people and a plan for organizing the government. On such matters as the operation of businesses, banks, public utilities, and charitable institutions, state constitutions are often more detailed and explicit than the federal one. Each state constitution, however, provides that the final authority belongs to the people, and sets certain standards and principles as the foundation of government.

City government

Once predominantly rural, the United States is today a highly urbanized country, and about 80 percent of its citizens now live in towns, large cities, or suburbs of cities. This statistic makes city governments critically important in the overall pattern of American government. To a greater extent than on the federal or state level, the city directly serves the needs of the people, providing everything from police and fire protection to sanitary codes, health regulations, education, public transportation, and housing. The business of running America's major cities is enormously complex. In terms of population alone, New York City is larger than 41 of the 50 states. It is often said that, next to the presidency, the most difficult executive position in the country is that of mayor of New York. City governments are chartered by states, and their charters detail the objectives and powers of the municipal government. But in many respects the cities function independently of the states. For most big cities, however, cooperation with both state and federal organizations is essential to meeting the needs of their residents. Types of city governments vary widely across the nation. However, almost all have some kind of central council, elected by the voters, and an executive officer, assisted by various department heads, to manage the city's affairs. There are three general types of city government: the mayor-council, the commission, and the council-manager. These are the pure forms; many cities have developed a combination of two or three of them. Mayor-Council. This is the oldest form of city government in the United States and, until the beginning of the 20th century, was used by nearly all American cities. Its structure is similar to that of the state and national governments, with an elected mayor as chief of the executive branch and an elected council that represents the various neighborhoods forming the legislative branch. The mayor appoints heads of city departments and other officials, sometimes with the approval of the council. He or she has the power of veto over ordinances — the laws of the city — and frequently is responsible for preparing the city's budget. The council passes city ordinances, sets the tax rate on property, and apportions money among the various city departments. As cities have grown, council seats have usually come to represent more than a single neighborhood. The Commission. This combines both the legislative and executive functions in one group of officials, usually three or more in number, elected city-wide. Each commissioner supervises the work of one or more city departments. One is named chairperson of the body and is often called the mayor, although his or her power is equivalent to that of the other commissioners. Council-Manager. The city manager is a response to the increasing complexity of urban problems, which require management expertise not often possessed by elected public officials. The answer has been to entrust most of the executive powers, including law enforcement and provision of services, to a highly trained and experienced professional city manager. The city manager plan has been adopted by a growing number of cities. Under this plan, a small, elected council makes the city ordinances and sets policy, but hires a paid administrator, also called a city manager, to carry out its decisions. The manager draws up the city budget and supervises most of the departments. Usually, there is no set term; the manager serves as long as the council is satisfied with his or her work.

County government

The county is a subdivision of the state, sometimes — but not always — containing two or more townships and several villages. New York City is so large that it is divided into five separate boroughs, each a county in its own right. On the other hand, Arlington County, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., is both an urbanized and suburban area, governed by a unitary county administration. What has happened, in these cases, is known as consolidated city-county government, which is also used by several other larger U.S. cities. In most U.S. counties, one town or city is designated as the county seat, and this is where the government offices are located and where the board of commissioners or supervisors meets. In small counties, boards are chosen by the county as a whole; in the larger ones, supervisors represent separate districts or townships. The board levies taxes; borrows and appropriates money; fixes the salaries of county employees; supervises elections; builds and maintains highways and bridges; and administers national, state, and county welfare programs. In some New England states, counties do not have any governmental function and are simply a division of land.

Town and village government

Thousands of municipal jurisdictions are too small to qualify as city governments. These are chartered as towns and villages and deal with such strictly local needs as paving and lighting the streets; ensuring a water supply; providing police and fire protection; establishing local health regulations; arranging for garbage, sewage, and other waste disposal; collecting local taxes to support governmental operations; and, in cooperation with the state and county, directly administering the local school system. Note that in many states the term "town" does not have any specific meaning--it is simply an informal term applied to populated places (both incorporated and unincorporated municipalities). And in some states, the term town is equivalent to how civil townships are used in other states. The government is usually entrusted to an elected board or council, which may be known by a variety of names: town or village council, board of selectmen, board of supervisors, board of commissioners. The board may have a chairperson or president who functions as chief executive officer, or there may be an elected mayor. Governmental employees may include a clerk, treasurer, police and fire officers, and health and welfare officers. One unique aspect of local government, found mostly in the New England region of the United States, is the "town meeting." Once a year — sometimes more often if needed — the registered voters of the town meet in open session to elect officers, debate local issues, and pass laws for operating the government. As a body, they decide on road construction and repair, construction of public buildings and facilities, tax rates, and the town budget. The town meeting, which has existed for more than two centuries, is often cited as the purest form of direct democracy, in which the governmental power is not delegated, but is exercised directly and regularly by all the people.

Other local governments

The federal, state, and local governments covered here by no means include the whole spectrum of American governmental units. The U.S. Bureau of the Census (part of the Commerce Department) has identified no less than 84,955 local governmental units in the United States, including counties, municipalities, townships, school districts, and special districts. Americans have come to rely on their governments to perform a wide variety of tasks which, in the early days of the republic, people did for themselves. In colonial days, there were few police officers or firefighters, even in the large cities; governments provided neither street lights nor street cleaners. To a large extent, people protected their own property and saw to their families' needs. In modern times, meeting these needs is usually seen as the responsibility of the whole community, acting through the agency of one or more levels of government. Even in small towns, the police, fire, welfare, and health department functions are exercised by governments. Hence, the bewildering array of jurisdictions.

Participation

Suffrage is nearly universal for citizens 18 years of age and older. A major remaining exception is the District of Columbia, where residents have no representation whatsoever in the US Senate; only a non-voting "delegate" in the House; and an extremely weak "home rule" city government. Also, US voting rights can be restricted as a result of felony conviction (such laws vary widely by state). The most significant fact about politics in the United States, especially at the national level, is that successful participation requires large amounts of money, especially for television advertising. This money is very difficult to raise by appeals to a mass base, although the Republican Party has had some success, as has Howard Dean with his Internet appeals. Both parties must depend on wealthy donors and organizations - traditionally the Democrats depended on donations from organized labor while the Republicans relied on business donations. Since 1984, however, the Democrats' business donations have surpassed those from labor organizations. This dependency on donors is controversial, and has led to laws limiting spending on political campaigns being enacted; as a complicating factor due to the United States Constitution, opponents of campaign finance laws cite the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, and challenge campaign finance laws on grounds that they attempt to circumscribe their constitutionally-guaranteed rights. Even when laws are upheld, the complication of compliance with the First Amendment requires careful and cautious drafting of legislation, leading to laws that are still fairly limited in scope, especially in comparison to those of other countries such as the United Kingdom, France or Canada. Some would allege that funding practices commonplace in the United States would likely be considered political corruption elsewhere.

Political culture

Most schools in the United States teach the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the writings of the Founding Fathers as the definition of the country's governing ideology. Among the core tenets of this ideology are the following:
- The government is answerable to citizens, who may change it through elections.
- The government's power in matters of religion, expression, and law enforcement should be limited to prevent abuse of power.
- The laws should attach no special privilege to any citizen (that is, citizens should be equal before the law).
- Individuals and political parties debate how this ideology applies to particular circumstances, and may disagree openly with any of it. At the time of the United States's founding, the economy was predominantly one of private business, and state governments left welfare issues to private or local initiative. The United States government has largely accepted the system of private enterprise and opposed broad grants of support to citizens, although the experience of the Great Depression challenged both positions. As a result the US tends to be ideologically oriented toward capitalism in contrast with the social democratic cultures in Europe. Prior to World War II the United States pursued a policy of isolationism in foreign affairs by not taking sides in conflicts between foreign powers. The country abandoned this policy when it became a superpower, but the country remains skeptical of internationalism. The ideology of the incumbent President and the President's advisors largely determines the government's attitude in foreign affairs.

Political parties

See also: Republican Party, Democratic Party, Puerto Rico political parties Many of America's Founding Fathers hated the thought of political parties. They were sure quarreling factions would be more interested in contending with each other than in working for the common good. They wanted individual citizens to vote for individual candidates, without the interference of organized groups — but this was not to be. By the 1790s, different views of the new country's proper course had already developed, and those who held these opposing views tried to win support for their cause by banding together. The followers of Alexander Hamilton, the Hamiltonian faction, took up the name "Federalist"; they favored a strong central government that would support the interests of commerce and industry. The followers of Thomas Jefferson, the Jeffersonians and then the "Anti-Federalists," took up the name Democrat-Republicans" (not to be confused with the modern Republican party); they preferred a decentralized agrarian republic in which the federal government had limited power. By 1828, the Federalists had disappeared as an organization, replaced by the Whigs, brought to life in opposition to the election that year of President