1977

New president; Crazy weather; Spread of international terrorism; Panama canal treaty; Resignation of Bert Lance, Carter’s director of the Office of Management and budget.; Elvis Presley died; Gary Gilmore executed; Collision of two jets at Tenerife in the Canary Islands; Carter administration’s energy policy; Capture of suspected son of Sam murderer.; Investigation of Tong-Sun Park’s alleged influence peddling in Washington.

Sec Of State Warren Christopher

Cyprus talks in 1977 - ?

January 6th 1977 239 Czech and Slovak workers, ex-politicians, actor and intellectuals signed a decree demanding full restoration of human rights in their country in line with their government’s official agreement to be bound by an International Covenant linked to the so-called HELSINKI FINAL ACT signed by the United States and USSR. Harriman, pp 56, 57 & p.61

Jimmy Carter
A Liberal?
1977: It has been said that Carter attempted to improve relations with the Soviets and accommodate national interests of Palestinians – investigate.
Despite expectations, Carter’s commitment to human rights was not great. He supported Indonesia while they committed genocide and occupied East Timor, and presided over business as usual in South America.
Eventually Carter joined T.Roosevelt and Wilson in the ranks on US presidents winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Although it wasn't until 2002, and may have been more to do with embarrassing GW Bush than rewarding Carter.

In 1978 when Indonesia “was running out of arms in its attack against eas timor, then approaching genocidal levels, so that the carter administration had to rush even more military supplies to its blood thirsty friend.” Chomsky, toward sa new cold war
“Another arose a yer later, when the carter administration sought desperately to keep somoza’s national guard in power after it ad slaughtered some 40,000 civilias, finally evacuating commandos in planes disguised with Re Cross markings (a war crme), to Honduras, where they were reconstituted as a terrorist force under the direction of argentine neo-nazis. The record elsewhere in the region was arguably even worse. Peter Kornbluh @Nicaragua the price of intervention”
walter la feber “inevitable revolutions”
on the Hardy/Carter/Christopher record in El salvadr see Chomsky “Towards a new cold war” , “Turning the tide”
“US backed state terrism I the region mounted sharplyunder Reagan as is well known”

Carter’s major moves since taking over as president have been in accord with the Trilateral Commission’s  recommendations , including:
1) New economic planning agency attached to the White House
2) Some unspecified way of eliminating the pervasive suspicion of the motives and powers of political leaders.
3) Reinvigoration of political parties accomplished mainly by making it legal for corporations to support them.
4) A check on press power to include tough libel laws against journalists who insult decision makers.
5) Reduced spending for education as it leads to frustration, criticism and disrespect.
6) Government subsidies to major corporations to design unspecified new modes of organisation that will head off irresponsible blackmailing techniques.
7) A new institute for the strengthening of democratic institutions at the public’s expense.

But Carter did ditch Kissinger who proceeded to set up an international consulting group – Kissinger Associates – representing companies that dealt with China. He was also to be an ever present “expert” in the media.
There was a shift in ‘emphasis’ {A Liberal Wash?} in the White House under Carter. In 76, as Governor of Georgia, Carter told a group of Democrats that “without endangering the defense of our nation or commitments to allies, we can reduce present defense expenditures by about 5 to 7 billion annually. Exotic weapons which serve no real function do not contribute to the defense of this country. The Pentagon bureaucracy is wasteful and bloated.”
Carter’s arms embargo against human rights abusers in 1977 – allowed Israel to boost their sales to Guatemala.
Actually – as far as defence  was concerned it was business as usual.
Jimmy Carter’s human rights principles were brought under severe strain in 1979 as he rushed more arms to Indonesia. The military had managed to use up so many attacking East Timor that they were running out. Violence in Indonesia was approaching genocidal levels.
Also throwing fuel to the fire the USA supported various factions in the Afghani guerrilla war. Afghanistan had had a monarchy from 1926. King Mohammed Zahir Shah ruled from 1933 to 1973, and was overthrown in a coup by Lt. Gen. Sardor Mohammed Daud Kahn. Daud was overthrown in 1978 and a guerrilla war started , waged by right wing groups to overthrow the new pro-Soviet government. This is where the US saw an opportunity to worm its way into the territory.
Carter reaffirmed support for the Shah in Iran, one of the world’s worst human rights abusers.
After Carter’s promises – Carter requested $112bn in defense spending, about 25% more than the sum Carter had mentioned in his campaign.

Reorg
Carter carried out a reorganisation of government, splitting the health and education dept into Depts of Education and of Health and Human Services.
The Energy Agency became a brand new cabinet level department called the US Dept of Energy.
Carter’s career would encompass Israel-Egypt Camp David Accord; SALT II Treaty; Panamanian Canal treaty; and an energy crisis.

Energy
“Natural gas shortage 1972 – 74  was artificial. 100% increase in prices, officials of FPC (??) owned gas stock. In 1977 Carter launched a complex legislative program to phase in deregulation of natural gas prices over the next decade. Much of the complexity of the program was eliminated in fall of 1992 when congress passed the Comprehensive Energy Policy Act, which concluded that producers, consumers and the US economy will all benefit from deregulated competition markets.” It took 16 years for the natural gas industry to get deregulation it wanted.
US Department of Energy was created on August 4th 1977.

Neo-Con Response
Carter did not bring any CDMs (Neo Cons) into his government and they finally left to be Republicans. The CDM then helped shape Reagan’s agenda.
Neo Con writers Krauthammer and Sofie, eg, campaigned to weaken public support for Carter. Leeden claimed ties between Billy Carter (Jimmy’s drunken brother) and Libyan government officials.
George Bush and 800 CIA operatives were sacked and Bush led a revenge campaign to hound Carter out of office.

Carter’s  term in office ended under the cloud of Iranian hostages crisis.
Carter had been at war with the CIA throughout his term in office. Congress had investigated the CIA’s role in Watergate/ Vietnam under Nixon, and as a result of cunning trickery pro Bush factions within security/ CIA had turned the emphasis around so that now the FBI were accusing Congress. This resulted in the FBI “Abscam” investigation. John Jenrette Jr. indicted on June 13th (D-SC). He resigned on December 10th to avoid being expelled from the House.

South East Asia after the Vietnam War
Carter’s administration strove to “normalise” relations with Vietnam despite their “cruel” treatment of the USA. Carter’s efforts were thwarted, however, by Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia this year, as a response to murderous attacks on Vietnamese border by the new regime there. The US backed China’s invasion to punish Vietnam.
The USA was still involved in its “tilt towards China” policies and this involved support for China’s ally Pol Pot. The CIA had been concealing Pol Pot’s atrocities.
After the Khmer Rouge was expelled, the UN voted on the issue. Who was the legitimate government? The US didn’t even abstain but joined China in support of the Khmer Rouge.
Americans didn’t even find out about the killing fields in Cambodia until the 1980s and the British film “Killing Fields” was released.

Star Wars came out. “For audiences, it offered nothing less than virtual patriotism – flag-waving – without any of the embarrassment went that then clung to the stars and stripes – a chance for audiences to cheer on the scrappy rebels once again, boo the evil empire and see their founding myth play west (??) in the hamless vacuum of space.”
“In Britain, audiences could politely ignore the fact that the empire sounded British and concentrate on the fact that the imperial army looked German. In Gemrnay, the reverse. Tom Shore – “Blockbuster: How Hollywood learned to stop worrying and love summer” Simo & Schuster.

After the effort to repair relations with China – Chinese assistance to pakistan’s nuclear weapons related projects in 1977 worried the white house.

IMF interfered in other countries’ domestic politics. In November 1977 an IMF mission to Portugal refused to grant a credit tranche to the socialist minority government led by Mr. Soares as he would not make immediate savage economies. Ramsay p 26
An internal brief which states explicitly that IMF policy was to destroy left-leaning governments. P26, Ramsay

Guatemala
Carter’s embargo on arms sales to human rights violators in 1977 allowed Israel to boost their sales and become biggest single supplier to Guatemala. 300 Israeli military advisors planned Guatemalan military coup of 1982. Israeli military imports helped keep repressive regimes in El Salvador and Nicaragua and Guatemala in power after President Carter had restricted sales to the region. So how committed to peace could Carter have been if this was allowed to occur?

Argentina
The disappearance of leaders of the internationally renown civil disobedience group the Mothers of the Plazo deMayo in 1977, according to declassified US documents (08/12/02) show that the [US] Embassy in Buenos Aires had evidence of the Argentine Military Junta’s responsibility in the crime. The US dedicated substantial resources to establish the whereabouts of the victims and protect their lives, but once it learned they had been killed, it dropped the demand to the Junta to find and punish the perpetrators and discipline officers condoning it.
Between December 8th and 10th 1977, Azucena Villaflor de Vicenti and eleven members and friends of the Mothers were kidnapped by Argentine government forces and never seen again. As early as December 18th 1977, US embassy intelligence sources started reporting on the involvement of the Argentine navy, the Army first corps and later the presidential state intelligence service and a military detection facility in the crime and cover up. NS Archive.

Panama
“On September 7th 1977 – nine months after Carter took office – Carter and Torrijos signed two treaties. The first abolished the Canal Zone as of October 1st 1979, its jurisdiction reverting to Panama, and provided for the gradual transfer of canal operations to Panama by December 31st 1999. The other treaty pledged both countries to guarantee the canal’s neutrality in times of peace and war.” CNN WEB SITE

 “The Panama Canal company, the Canal Zone, and its government were disenfranchised on October 1 1979, and replaced by the Panama Canal Commission that operated the Canal during the 20 year transition period that began with the Treaty.

In 1977 the USSR started SS20 rocket deployment in October.

Haiti
“Swine fever” episode in Haiti in 1977 – US aid program wiped out pigs in Haiti by 1982 – a disaster for Haitian peasants.
See page 222, “501” Chomsky.

Human Rights
Power blackout and looting of NYC in 1977. 4/10 non-white youths will never have a job that provides livelihood or to support a family black teenage unemployment rate of 40%.Successful blacks (with jobs) are losing ground on their white colleagues . Wages of white workers increasing twice as fast as black workers. The myth of black progress. Indices of poverty applied during urban riots in 1960s or – most are worse in 1977. Growing gap between white and black income.