In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion: The Political Conversion of Jimmy Carter

Abstract

Fundamental and sometimes abrupt change in the direction of a nation's foreign policy is a crucial but insufficiently understood driving force in international politics. One determinant of such change is the alteration in the worldview of a key national leader. Obvious examples are the transformations of the vehemently anti-communist Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan into peacemakers with China and the Soviet Union in the course of their presi dencies. A less familiar but equally important conversion is that of the leader who changes from a dove to a hawk. Such a transformation is the focus of this article on President Jimmy Carter. Carter's policies toward the Soviet Union underwent a dramatic change in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Af ghanistan on 27 December 1979. As Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein put it, in the assertion that provides the title for this article, Carter came in like a lamb and went out like a lion.1 He began his presidency in 1977 full of optimism that he could reduce international tensions by entering into a major arms reduction agreement with the Soviet Union. He sought to reform the Soviet Union by trying to influence it to end human rights abuse, reduce its armed presence outside its borders, reduce expenditure on the military, and eventually end communism. However, Carter grew more skeptical of Soviet motivations and less sure of his ability to change Soviet behavior when Soviet Chairman Leonid Brezhnev rebuffed his nuclear arms proposal and his proposed summits, and then intervened in the Horn of Africa in January of 1978. Carter's skepticism was further reinforced and magnified by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.