A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety (23 page)

Mark Hatfield (Oregon) was worried that former senator Mike Mansfield, now ambassador to Japan, might support his opponent in the next election.

Dennis DeConcini (Arizona) wanted a separate amendment to say more forcefully that the United States could use military force in Panama to defend the canal if necessary after 2000.

Sam Nunn (Georgia) said his fellow senator Herman Talmadge
would have to support the treaties and the DeConcini amendment would have to be approved.

Henry Bellmon (Oklahoma) wanted my promise not to veto a costly desalinization plant in his state.

Howard Cannon (Nevada) had mail running twenty to one against the treaties, and he feared condemnation from Mormon newspapers.

James Abourezk (South Dakota) resented having been excluded from congressional meetings on the energy issue and insisted that I not let cabinet members attend them.

James Sasser (Tennessee), a personal friend, was angry about my vetoing the Clinch River Breeder Reactor and other issues in his state.

S. I. Hayakawa (California) wanted to be consulted personally on foreign affairs and wanted me to recognize the Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia. He had written a semantics textbook of which he was very proud.

We finally prevailed, with sixty-eight votes, because I met the demands of Nunn and DeConcini with language that didn’t change the treaties; got Mansfield to assuage Hatfield; agreed with Bellmon on his desalinization plant; induced Mormon editors (who opposed the treaties) not to condemn Cannon; got the king of Saudi Arabia to intercede with Abourezk; invited Sasser to the White House to meet a vast array of stars at the twentieth anniversary of the Country Music Association; and read Hayakawa’s book on semantics, discussed it with him, and invited him to meet with me several times to “confer” on international affairs.

This was the most courageous vote in the history of the U.S. Senate. Of those twenty who voted for the treaties and were up for election that year, only seven retained their seats, and eleven supporters—plus one president—were defeated two years later, in 1980. Reagan used this as one of the decisive issues against me in his campaign, and the decision remained unpopular, even later.

American officials still wish to stay clear of the controversy. When
the time came in 2000 to grant sovereignty to Panama, neither President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, nor the secretary of state wanted to attend the ceremony, so Clinton asked me to represent the United States. Even later, when President George W. Bush was in office, I received another unexpected request: that I represent the United States in beginning a massive expansion of the canal’s capacity. Panama’s President Martín Torrijos (son of Omar) and I pushed the plunger to explode the first dynamite. In both cases, I was grateful for the honor.

Senator Hubert Humphrey had been a hero of mine since I watched him lead the 1948 Democratic Convention fight over civil rights. The “Dixiecrats” withdrew and formed their own party, choosing Strom Thurmond as their nominee, with the goal of taking Southern votes away from Truman. Truman won, and Humphrey was elected the first Democratic senator from Minnesota since the Civil War. I met Hubert when I was a state senator. He came back from an African trip to visit the home of a supporter of mine in Atlanta. He began describing his experiences at about 9:00 and was still talking at 2:30
A.M
., when I had to leave and drive home to Plains. When Lyndon Johnson ran for election in 1964, he chose Humphrey as the vice presidential candidate. As I mentioned earlier, Hubert and his wife, Muriel, came to Georgia to campaign, and my mother volunteered to be their host.

Johnson decided four years later not to run for reelection, and Humphrey was nominated as the Democratic candidate, with Richard Nixon as his opponent. He had inherited an unpopular war in Vietnam, and he decided not to criticize or disavow responsibility for any of the decisions that had been made concerning the war. This cost him votes among Democrats on the left, and many conservative votes went to George Wallace, who ran as an independent. Humphrey lost a close election. He was reelected as senator in 1970 and served in that office until the end of his life.

As one of the Democratic hopefuls who came to visit me in 1972, Hubert really made himself at home in the governor’s mansion and proved to be our favorite visitor. We have a delightful photograph of Amy sitting on his lap as a four-year-old, feeding him part of her brownie, and both of them have it smeared all over their faces. Once again, he was defeated in the presidential race that year, when Democrats nominated George McGovern.

When I selected Walter Mondale to be my vice president, he turned to Senator Humphrey for advice on what the office might comprise, and Hubert helped him prepare a bold and unprecedented set of proposals. They involved situating his office near mine, having an unrestricted and automatic presence in all discussions, complete briefings with me on the handling of nuclear weapons, meetings with any members of Congress without prior approval, and freedom to go on overseas trips including meetings with heads of state and with an unlimited press entourage. I was surprised to learn that these were privileges and responsibilities that had never been granted to Vice President Humphrey. I added a few perquisites for Fritz, like setting his own times for vacation periods and freedom to go to Camp David whenever he and his wife, Joan, wished. Senator Humphrey was a staunch friend and supporter and was especially helpful in giving me advice concerning how best to approach other senators when I faced sensitive issues such as dealing with Israeli supporters or getting votes for the Panama Canal treaties.

When Hubert was suffering from terminal cancer, I learned that he had never been invited to visit Camp David and asked him to go with me for a weekend. I stopped in Minneapolis on the way back from a visit to the West Coast in December, picked him up, and we spent a cold and rainy weekend together. We watched a couple of movies and spent hours in front of a warm fire in our cabin, which I described in my diary as “one of the most enjoyable and interesting weekends I’ve ever spent.”

In May 1980 the biggest natural explosion ever recorded in North America occurred when Mount Saint Helens volcano in Washington State erupted. My science adviser, Frank Press, and other scientists had been monitoring activity on the site for several months, and people had been warned of the danger, but fifty-seven people were killed when the entire north side of the volcano blew away and spread ash in fourteen states. I decided immediately to visit, accompanied by Dr. Press; the secretaries of interior, agriculture, and the army; and the directors of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Institutes of Health. We found that one cubic mile of the mountain had been pulverized, 28 feet of silt had clogged the Columbia ship channel, and every tree had been leveled in an area of 150 square miles. As we approached the still-smoldering mountain in a large helicopter, we could see that there was nothing left beneath us except a sea of boiling lava, still containing chunks of ice the size of houses, which had been blown off the peak. Thousands of people would have perished without the early warning, and Dr. Press expressed regret that scientists had underestimated the power of the explosion, which was equivalent to a ten-megaton nuclear bomb. Nearby Spirit Lake was filled with 400 feet of ash and lava, and the level of its surface was raised 150 feet. As we flew around the mountain, several miles away, we saw some large pieces of lava fall beyond our helicopter, and we agreed with the pilot that our observation tour should end.

After consulting with my advisers, I decided not to do any unnecessary renovations but to let nature heal itself. I didn’t see how anything could grow in the devastated area, but twenty-five years later, in 2005, I was leading a group of volunteers in building Habitat for Humanity homes in Benton Harbor, Michigan, when a truck drove up loaded with boards suitable for framing the roof trusses. The lumber had been cut from new-growth trees from the base of Mount Saint Helens, and the timber company wanted us to use it on these homes for poor families.

One of the most compelling facets of my life has been my relationship with China. As a boy, I shared the admiration of all Baptists for missionaries who served there, whom we considered our ultimate heroes. People would drive long distances to listen to a missionary who was home for a rare vacation, and I remember pledging a nickel a week to help build hospitals and schools for Chinese children. We still honor Lottie Moon, our missionary who died in China from starvation because she gave her food to needy families. My interest in the region was rekindled with my early visit as a submariner, and I continued to follow Chinese history.

In February 1972, President Nixon made a historic trip to China, which resulted in the Shanghai Communiqué. This agreement acknowledged that there was only one China, but our diplomatic ties with Taiwan remained intact through the balance of Nixon’s time in office and during Gerald Ford’s years. This issue was rarely discussed during my campaign for president, but I was increasingly convinced that the United States should acknowledge an obvious fact: that the People’s Republic of China was the government that should officially represent the Chinese people. I knew that the U.S. Constitution gives sole authority for diplomatic recognition to the president, and I was determined to exercise it if an adequate agreement could be reached with Chinese leaders regarding treatment of the people of Taiwan. I began to explore this possibility as soon as I was in office, but there were other, more pressing international issues on my agenda. Also, it was not clear to me which leader had the authority to speak for the Chinese government.

On February 8, soon after my inauguration, I met with Huang Chen, the chief of the Chinese liaison office, who told me that their top officials could never come to Washington officially as long as we had an ambassador here from Taiwan but were eager to visit as soon as the Taiwanese left. There was a lack of trust between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, as indicated by a misunderstanding between Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and Huang Chen, who was critical of proposed changes in our strategic planning from an ability to fight two and a half
wars to one and a half. He thought we were reducing our vigilance against the global threat from the Soviet Union but had no more objections after Harold pointed out that the war for which we would no longer plan was against the People’s Republic of China.

Instead of choosing a professional diplomat to represent me in Beijing, I decided to send Leonard Woodcock, president of the United Auto Workers. What I needed was not a smooth-talking diplomat but the toughest negotiator I could find.

Woodcock arrived in China in July, and I sent Secretary Vance in August for consultations with the leadership. The results were discouraging, and there was virtually no progress toward normalization for months. In May 1978, I sent National Security Adviser Brzezinski to see what he could do. He hit it off with the leadership, and Woodcock was able to continue the process. There were a number of people in our State Department who were deeply committed to Taiwan, so we never sent any substantive messages from there to Woodcock. To maintain secrecy, all dispatches were approved by me and transmitted from within the White House.

There had been a leadership struggle going on in China, but it became increasingly clear that Deng Xiaoping (then spelled Teng Hsiao-ping) would prevail over Hua Guofeng. Although his title was vice premier, in late 1978 Deng was the real Chinese leader with whom we were negotiating. I had basic demands on which I was not willing to compromise, and we were pleasantly surprised on December 13, when Woodcock informed me that the Chinese would accept our key proposals, all relating to the status of Taiwan. Amazingly, the secret was kept until Deng and I announced our agreement simultaneously from Washington and Beijing two days later. I wrote in my diary:

“We were very favorably impressed with Teng and the rapidity with which he moved and agreed to accept our one-year treaty with Taiwan, our statement that the Taiwan issue should be settled peacefully would not be contradicted by China, and that we would sell defensive weapons to Taiwan after the treaty expires.”

Except for diehard Taiwan supporters, the joint statement was
remarkably well received in the United States and throughout the world. Because commercial and political ties with Taiwan were strong, I had expected strong congressional opposition, but it did not materialize. That same week Deng announced a profound policy change within China to “openness and reform,” tied directly to the new relationship with the United States. My invitation to Deng Xiaoping to visit Washington was quickly accepted, and his charisma, frankness, and quick wit went a long way toward overcoming the widespread aversion to the “Red Chinese Communists” on the mainland. Measured by long-term global impact, this was probably the most important diplomatic decision I ever made.

During his visit, Deng and I signed numerous agreements to recover from the thirty years of alienation and incompatibility between our nations. We discussed the steady series of wars in Asia that we had known, including those between Japan and China, World War II, the Korean War, and the more recent conflicts in Vietnam and Cambodia. Deng confidentially alerted me that he planned a punitive strike against Vietnam. I objected to this, but he assured me that it was to be a short-term conflict. China has maintained peace internally and with its neighbors since then. Its economy has boomed into the second largest in the world, and its diplomatic and trade relations have been extended to almost every other nation.

I have visited China regularly since leaving office, and The Carter Center has been given major requests for assistance. We planned and helped design a large prosthesis factory in Beijing and carried out a five-year project to bring special education teaching skills to the schools of China. We trained hundreds of instructors who would teach the teachers how to address the needs of the approximately 51 million Chinese suffering from disabilities. Beginning in 1996, our greatest program effort was to monitor and encourage the small villages of China as they chose their leaders with democratic elections. For twelve years we worked to bring this opportunity to what were initially almost a million villages (which are not part of the government system). After a few years of trial, we made recommendations for improving the original law. Candidates can seek office whether or not they are members of the Communist Party, there is
a secret ballot, and officials can be reelected after completing their three-year terms. Rosalynn, I, and other representatives of our Center have personally observed many of these elections. One interesting feature is that candidates are usually permitted to give three-minute campaign speeches immediately before votes are cast. These sometimes are recorded and played again three years later if the elected official seeks a new term. The turnover rate has been quite high.