An Outsider in the White House: Jimmy Carter, His Advisors, and the Making of American Foreign Policy

Abstract

Betty Glad's An Outsider in the White House is a welcome addition to the growing literature on President Jimmy Carter's foreign policy due to the depth and breadth of the author's research, encyclopedic treatment of many events, and focus on the process of foreign policy making in the Carter White House. Glad begins her work by asking: “What happens when an outsider with lofty moral and political goals and little experience or education in foreign policy takes over the U.S. presidency?” (p. 1). The answer, she states, is that he will be dependent on his staff. The centerpiece of her analysis is the battle between National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, and how Brzezinski was able to use “his superior access and ability to frame issues, control agendas, and find allies to move Carter” away from a foreign policy based on human rights and morality to “an anti-Soviet direction” that meant that Cold War concerns shaped all policy decisions by the end of Carter's term in office (ibid.).