Jimmy Carter: an idealistic in the White House

In 1969, Jimmy Carter declared that he had seen an UFO; 7 years later, this Baptist democrat was elected president of the United States. He made of the defence of the Human Rights the axis of his foreign policy. The president Carter will take his distances with South-Americans dictatorships, that the United States were supporting, like the Chile of Pinochet or the Nicaragua of Somoza. Jimmy Carter managed to restart the peace process in Middle-East thanks to his determining role in the signature of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978. He also signed in 1979, with Leonid Brejnev, the Salt II Treaty which limits the number of strategic arms. Moreover, in the name of freedom of peoples, he did not try to save the allied regime of the Iranian Chah being overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeyni. Nevertheless, the president Carter will be criticised in his country for a certain kind of naivety in his foreign policy. He was not re-elected against Ronald Reagan in 1980. He creates then in 1982 a foundation working for the promotion of democracy, and he becomes the mediator of numerous conflicts, such as in Bosnia-Herzegovina or Haïti. He also leads development programs in Africa, and condemned the two American interventions in Irak. In 2002, he made an historical visit in Cuba where he denounced the violations of Human Rights, but the tragic effects of the economical embargo too. The same year, he received the Nobel price of Peace for his whole action since 20 years, and this reward comes to crown the “best ex-president of the United States” (Time magazine).