When Jimmy Carter left the White House, he took with him his 5,000-page
diary. He had adopted the practice of dictating
entries for inclusion
in the diary after each of his important meetings during the working
day. He used that wealth of information in writing this book, which
recounts his experiences as
president of the United States.Coming
to office with high hopes and large ambitions, Carter found himself
thwarted as he attempted to make his mark as president. Perhaps the
darkest moments of his administration are related to the events in
Tehran in 1979. That year Iranian protestors overran the U.S. embassy
in that capital city and took a group of U.S. diplomats hostage. They
remained in captivity for 444 days. An attempt to rescue them failed
miserably. And in the last days of his administration, Carter devoted
an appreciable portion of his time to devising strategies to secure the
release of the
hostages. As it turned out, the Iranians released the
hostages just after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president.Another
effort which claimed a disproportionate share of Carter’s time in
office was the attempt to bring peace to the Middle East. To foster a
closer working relationship between the Arabs and the Israelis, he
brought Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to Camp David for one-on-one
negotiations. He himself served as mediator between the two, so intent
was he on pursuing peace in that region of the world.Carter
describes his perceptions of these and many other events during his
presidency. He offers, too, his insights about how the political system
in the United States works. He was, after all, an outsider who managed
to win his party’s nomination and then go on to win the most votes in
the election. That was no small feat for a peanut farmer from Georgia.