Interview with Jimmy Carter, 1987

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Jimmy Carter, 1987
Description:
Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States, from 1977 to 1981. In the interview Carter conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age, he relates his experience as president-elect, when the task at hand was to absorb military force structure and preparedness. As Carter recalls, the Soviets temporarily shelved the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) II talks after he pressed them on human-rights violations. From the get-go, he wanted an arms-control agreement that he negotiated, as opposed to one shaped by a prior administration. Rather than build from the 1974 Vladivostok agreement, Carter immediately sought dramatic reductions in nuclear weapons, but he was compelled to acquiesce to the step-by-step process that the Soviet Union would accept. The Salt II Treaty that he and Leonid Brezhnev signed in June 1979 was, Carter believed, the best they could do at the time. Not expecting the pitfalls that lay ahead, both men anticipated a SALT III agreement that would produce more-dramatic results. He recalls the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and its impact on the ratification of the SALT II agreement. In his interview, Carter also discusses his support for limited linkage, such as pressuring the Soviets to minimize their role in Ethiopia while still continuing arms talks. In 1978, there was general agreement about normalizing relations with China, to be followed by Deng Xiaoping's visit to the United States. The timing of the visit—it occurred just a month prior to a Soviet summit meeting—proved controversial, but it remains a decision that Carter defends. He also upholds his decision to approve funding for the MX missile as a stabilizing factor. Finally, Carter points out that the terms of SALT II, although never ratified, remained intact for at least seven years, and that its concepts provided a stable framework for subsequent negotiations.
Interviewee:
Carter, Jimmy, 1924-
Date:
January 27, 1987
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
Nuclear arms control
International relations
MX (Weapons system)
Nitze, Paul H.
Brezhnev, Leonid Il'ich, 1906-1982
Soviet Union
United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff
Intercontinental ballistic missiles
Gorbachev, Mikhail
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II
Nuclear weapons
Horn of Africa
Nuclear nonproliferation
Gromyko, Andrei Andreevich, 1909-1989
Jackson, Henry M. (Henry Martin), 1912-1983
Chamberlain, Neville, 1869-1940
Dulles, John Foster, 1888-1959
Deng, Xiaoping, 1904-1997
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Places:
Georgia > Fulton (county) > Atlanta
Ethiopia
China
Afghanistan
Extent:
00:32:11:13
Link to Item:
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_332175FFE7084DEDA75E815B914A6192
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_332175FFE7084DEDA75E815B914A6192