President Carter's Rise and Fall

Jimmy Carter announced his candidacy for president in 1974. His campaign called for honesty from all people, and he vowed to never tell a lie and eliminate secrecy from the government. Coming off of the Watergate scandal where President Nixon had resigned, his statements were attractive to many people, and he won a narrow victory against Gerald Ford, who had taken over after Nixon resigned. In 1977, Carter arranged two US treaties with Panama and helped Israel's war with Egypt end as well. However, under Carter, inflation and unemployment began to rise, and an energy crisis due to high oil prices caused Carter's popularity to fall. Later, Carter sent a speech to Americans known as the "malaise speech." In this speech, he told the American people, whose morales were low, that he had empathy for them and that they must rebound from the economic recession. He was critical of America's overall reaction to the oil crisis, but after Carter asked for the resignation of his cabinet, American tensions rose again. In November of 1979, Iranian students invaded the US embassy in Tehran to protest against the United States' hospitality of the Iranian Shah. Carter's failure to free the hostages became well publicized and Americans became even more upset. Carter eventually lost the Presidency to Ronald Reagan by a large margin.