Jimmy Carter calls for U.S. boycott of Moscow Olympics

On January 20, 1980, in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter announced that U.S. athletes would not attend the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow unless Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan by February 20. The arrival of the deadline coincided with the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, where events, such as the amateur U.S. hockey team's ''Miracle on Ice'' victory over the Soviet super-team, demonstrated the undeniable propaganda potential of the Olympics. On April 22, with the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan only increasing, the U.S. Olympic Committee voted 1,604 to 797 to support Carter and boycott the Moscow Games. The next day, a number of disappointed U.S. athletes and coaches filed a class action suit to block the boycott, but the suit was dismissed in mid-May. Forty-four other nations eventually joined the United States in refusing to send their athletes to the Moscow Games, which carried on without the presence of many of the world's greatest athletes. Four years later, the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, alleging concerns with the safety of their athletes in what they considered a hostile and anticommunist environment. More likely, the boycott was the result of strained Cold War relations over America's generous aid to Muslim rebels fighting in Afghanistan--and payback for the 1980 boycott.

In January 1980, in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter announced that U.S. athletes would not attend the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow unless Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan by February 20. The arrival of the deadline coincided with the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, where events, such as the amateur U.S. hockey team's ''Miracle on Ice'' victory over the Soviet super-team, demonstrated the undeniable propaganda potential of the Olympics. On March 21, Carter invited 100 Olympic athletes and coaches to the White House and personally asked their support. On April 22, with the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan only increasing, the U.S. Olympic Committee voted 1,604 to 797 to support Carter and boycott the Moscow Games. The next day, a number of disappointed U.S. athletes and coaches filed a class-action suit to block the boycott, but the suit was dismissed in mid-May. Forty-four other nations eventually joined the United States in refusing to send their athletes to the Moscow Games, which carried on without the presence of many of the world's greatest athletes. Four years later, the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, alleging concern for the safety of their athletes in what they considered a hostile and anti-communist environment. More likely, the boycott was the result of strained Cold War relations over America's generous aid to Muslim rebels fighting in Afghanistan--and payback for the 1980 boycott.

On November 4, 1979, what became known as the Iran Hostage Crisis began when militant Iranian students, outraged that the U.S. government had allowed the ousted Shah of Iran to travel to the U.S. for medical treatment, seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran, taking some ninety hostages, including sixty-five Americans. The Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's political and religious leader, took over the hostage situation, demanding that the Shah be extradited to Iran to stand trial. U.S. President Jimmy Carter refused, and on November 11, 1979, he imposed an oil embargo against Iran. On November 17, the Ayatollah agreed to release non-U.S. hostages and female and minority Americans, citing these groups as among the people oppressed by the U.S. government. However, the final fifty-two captives remained at his mercy for the next fourteen months. Even after the Shah died, President Carter was unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis, and in April of 1980 he ordered a disastrous rescue mission in which eight U.S. military personnel were killed and no hostages rescued. In November of 1980, due in part to his failure to resolve the hostage crisis, Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Shortly after, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations began between the U.S. and Iran. On January 20, 1981, minutes after Reagan's inauguration, the United States freed almost $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets, and the hostages were released after 444 days. The next day, Jimmy Carter flew to West Germany to greet the Americans on their way home.

On December 15, 1974, Jimmy Carter, the outgoing governor of Georgia, announced that he would run for the U.S. presidency at the end of his gubernatorial term. As few Americans outside of Georgia had heard of Carter, experts regarded his presidential bid with skepticism and even amusement. However, they underestimated Carter, who embarked on a focused and diligent campaign, and was greeted by Americans as a welcome political outsider. Still reeling from the Watergate affair and its revelations of political corruption, voters were impressed by the soft-spoken former peanut farmer with his perpetual smile and promise that he would ''never lie.'' A moderate Southern Democrat committed to civil rights, Carter captured his party's nomination in July of 1976. On November 2, Carter narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, and on January 20, 1977, was inaugurated as the thirty-ninth U.S. president. After the ceremony, Carter declined a bulletproof limousine, and instead walked the mile-and-a-half parade route to the White House hand-in-hand with his wife, Rosalyn. Enthusiastically cheered by the parade spectators, Carter's stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue seemed to symbolize the end of one era and the beginning of another.

On January 20, 1977, Jimmy Carter was sworn in as the thirty-ninth president of the United States. In his inaugural address, President Carter announced his intention to regard human rights records as an integral factor in America's dealings with other nations. In his four years in office, he enacted this policy by suspending or reducing U.S. aid to countries known for their human rights violations, such as Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and South Africa. He also openly criticized the U.S.S.R. and Soviet bloc nations for arresting dissidents and suppressing freedom of expression, even at the cost of a cooling of Cold War relations. In a speech on October 4, 1977, he reiterated his commitment to human rights while acknowledging the deep-rooted problems that often lead to human rights abuses. Although Carter later softened his strict human rights policy, he continued to lend moral support to the suppressed people of the world. On April 27, 1979, in a dramatic example of his dedication to human rights, Carter traded two Soviet spies for five dissidents imprisoned in the U.S.S.R.

In April 1980, for the first time in seven years, Cuban leader authorized emigration out of Cuba by the country's citizens. As during the period from 1965 to 1973, when 250,000 people left Cuba for Miami in an airlift, the principle destination for the refugees was the United States. Also as before, the U.S. government pledged to welcome the refugees. However, unlike the earlier period, when most refugees were middle-class Cubans ideologically opposed to Cuba's communist regime, the 1980 refugees were made up of poorer Cuban citizens, and as U.S. officials discovered by mid-May, a disproportional number of convicted criminals. Fearing that Cuba was using the refugee flight to empty his prisons, the United States took steps to slow the tide and better screen the refugees. By the time Cuba called off the exodus in June, over 120,000 people had fled to the United States. The vast majority of these Cubans were not criminals; just people who had grown discontented with their difficult lives under the Communist regime and had come to America seeking a better life. Unfortunately, tens of thousands of them would spend months, even years, in detention camps before they were released into U.S. society to seek the opportunities denied to them in Cuba.

On September 7, 1977 President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos sign a treaty agreeing to transfer control of the Panama Canal from the United States to Panama at the end of the 20th century. The Panama Canal Treaty also authorized the immediate abolishment of the Canal Zone, a 10-mile-wide, 40-mile-long U.S.-controlled area that bisected the Republic of Panama. Many in Congress opposed giving up control of the Panama Canal--an enduring symbol of U.S. power and technological prowess--but America's colonial-type administration of the strategic waterway had long irritated Panamanians and other Latin Americans. This video courtesy of THE HISTORY CHANNEL.

In the last days of 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter embarked on a seven-nation tour of Europe, the Middle East, and India. Among the countries he visited was Poland, and he was the first president ever to do so. In Warsaw, Carter met with Communist Premier Edward Gierek and on December 30 staged the first press conference ever held in the country. In his opening remarks, he revealed that questions by Polish reporters who were prohibited from attending would be answered by him in writing. Later that year Poland returned to the international spotlight when Karol Wojtyla, the bishop of Krakow, was made Pope John Paul II. The pope's visit to Poland in June 1979 drew several crowds of over a million people.

On November 4, 1980, President Jimmy Carter was defeated in his reelection bid by Ronald Reagan in a landslide Republican victory. Carter received only forty-one percent of the popular votes and carried just six states. Four years earlier, the election of Carter, a former peanut farmer who portrayed himself as a man of the people, seemed to symbolize the end of the cynical era of politics characterized by Richard Nixon and Watergate. However, President Carter failed to convert his ambitious programs of domestic reforms into legislative realities, and his foreign affairs achievements, such as the signing of the Camp David Accords and the full diplomatic recognition of China, were overshadowed by the Iran Hostage Crisis. On Election Day, 1980, even before the polls had closed in the West, President Carter conceded defeated to Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Carter pursued charity work with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and served as an unofficial U.S. mediator in a number of international conflicts.

Deng Xiaoping, deputy premier of China, meets President Jimmy Carter, and together they sign historic new accords that reverse decades of U.S. opposition to the People's Republic of China. Under Deng, China's economy rapidly grew, and citizens enjoyed expanded personal, economic, and cultural freedoms. Political freedoms were still greatly restricted, however, and China continued as an authoritative one-party state. In 1989, Deng hesitantly supported the government crackdown on the democratic demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Later that year, he resigned his last party post but continued to be an influential adviser to the Chinese government until his death in 1997. This video courtesy of THE HISTORY CHANNEL.