Jimmy Carter’s Kennedy Problem

Townhall.com ^ | October 7, 2010 | Paul Kengor

[Kaslin]

I recently wrote about , where I objected to the former president’s rather conceited claim of “superior” ex-presidential service, as measured (by himself) against other ex-presidents.

Yet, there’s an important area where I’d like to defend President Carter. Carter hasn’t had many defenders on this score, given that he dared to criticize a political saint to Democrats, the late senator Ted Kennedy.

In recent comments to CBS’s Leslie Stahl, Carter blasted Kennedy, blaming him for the Carter administration’s inability to pass a national “health plan.” Carter described Kennedy as “irresponsible and abusive.” “The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now,” Carter told Stahl, “had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or ‘79…. It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill.”

When Stahl asked Carter if he felt Kennedy did this “just to spite you,” Carter didn’t equivocate: “That’s the implication. He did not want to see me have a major success in that realm of American life.”

Carter pointed to political motivations by Kennedy: “I felt like he went after me. I was the incumbent president…. He decided that he was going to replace me as a Democratic president.”

I understand Carter’s point, and his suspicions. In fact, this wasn’t the only realm where Kennedy opposed Carter. The rest of the story is far more disturbing.

According to Vasiliy Mitrokhin, a KGB official and senior Soviet archivist who defected from Russia in 1992, bringing with him a huge cache of documents, Kennedy went after Carter on more than healthcare.

Specifically, on March 5, 1980, Kennedy reached out to Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev, via a message personally delivered in Moscow by Kennedy’s close friend and confidante, John Tunney, the former Democratic senator from California. According to Mitrokhin, Tunney was there “to relay [Kennedy’s] ideas on ways to lessen international tension to the Soviet leadership.”

What tensions? That’s the shocker: In Mitrokhin’s account, Kennedy, amazingly, blamed the escalation in Cold War tensions not on the Soviets but on Jimmy Carter. Mind you, this was mere weeks after the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, their first direct military intervention outside the Warsaw Pact since World War II.

“[T]he Carter administration was trying to distort the peace-loving ideas behind Brezhnev’s proposals,” argued Kennedy, in Mitrokhin’s words, with “the atmosphere of tension and hostility ... being fuelled by Carter.” The Carter White House was “feeding public opinion with nonsense about ‘the Soviet military threat’ and Soviet ambitions for military expansion.”

Yes, the Massachusetts senator had somehow concluded that Jimmy Carter was guilty of belligerence and that Leonid Brezhnev was committed to peace, including a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan—which the Red Army had just invaded and would bomb mercilessly for a decade. Ted Kennedy ensured that the Soviets heard his unique conclusion, delivered by a personal liaison.

The KGB itself concluded that some of Kennedy’s “proposals are acceptable to us … as they contradict the line taken by Carter and other politicians.”

What’s so especially remarkable about this incident is that it occurred precisely the time that Kennedy was challenging Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. More so, Carter was far and away the weakest, most naïve of our presidents when it came to the Cold War. He trusted the communists to an unhealthy degree.

That fatal mistrust is best captured by the June 1979 photo of President Carter kissing Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev at the Vienna Summit. (See the photo on the cover of my latest book.) Six months after that kiss, Brezhnev betrayed the devout Christian from Plains, Georgia, sending his Red Army into Afghanistan. Carter got the awful news as he was celebrating Christmas with his family in the White House.

Only the most peculiar observer would consider blaming the escalation in Cold War tensions on Jimmy Carter rather than the Soviets.

Behold, one such observer was Senator Ted Kennedy. And Kennedy wasn’t shy about letting the Soviets know his feelings—right smack in the middle of the Democratic presidential primaries.

Personally, I’m not surprised by this at all. Kennedy did a similar thing to Ronald Reagan in May 1983. (Click here.) Of course, Reagan was a Republican; Carter was Kennedy’s own political flesh and blood.

Alas, it’s interesting that the media now, today, is giving attention to a Carter-Kennedy spat over government healthcare, whereas there was an even deeper, more troubling rift over foreign policy. Healthcare is one thing, but reaching out to the Soviet leadership at the height of the Cold War—and during a heated election campaign—is something else entirely.

If President Carter still feels spited by Ted Kennedy, he has good reason.

[Nonstatist]

Insane formatting you have there.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Does anyone else remember the Carter plan for national health insurance? I don’t remember that subject being a major issue at all while Carter was president. Is he now trying to score political points against a dead Kennedy? Is Carter doing revisionist history to paint himself in the best possible light? Does Carter realize that he has gone down in history as an insignificant weak president, not unlike Franklin Pierce or Chester Arthur or Benjamin Harrison????

[RobbyS]

A good reason for digging up Kennedy’s body and throwing it in the nearest river. That or opening the casket and driving a stake through the heart of the cadaver to make sure he doesn’t rise from the dead.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Jimmah Cahtah is delusional.
There was no possibility of a national health care bill being passed in 1979 (the year he suggests Kennedy blocked his initiative.)
Cahtah was weak, fumbling and an admitted failure. He must have dreamed this story.

[Artemis Webb]

"If President Carter still feels spited by Ted Kennedy, he has good reason."

Of course he has good reason. Nobody really cares though. Ted Kennedy was evil. Jimmy Carter was incompetent and naive to the point of being traitorous. Ted Kennedy burns in hell. Jimmy Carter will simply go into oblivion.

[econjack]

Well, if all this is true, maybe Teddy did do one good thing while he drank away his time here on earth.

[Steamburg]

I am so impressed the principled, President Jimmy Carter, lacked the courage to attack Kennedy until he was sure that he was well interred and the seal on the grave was hard. Such courage and forthright honesty seems to be the Hallmark of the Progressives...

[The Sons of Liberty]

A good reason for digging up Kennedy’s body and throwing it in the nearest river.

Throw it in Chappaquiddick - only appropriate!

[Kaslin]

I know, I noticed it right right away after I posted it and asked the Admin moderator to remove the article end then posted the article again. What happened was I forgot to close the link after this President Carter’s “superiority” complex And didn't realize it until it was to late

[Kaslin]

I don’t remember it either

[Cyber Liberty]

That’s sort of the point of the article. The health care issue was, if you’ll excuse the pun. peanuts compared to Kennedy’s perfidy with the Soviets when they invaded Afghanistan.

[ASOC]

These folks weem to think there is something on health care - back in the day - Carter and all the other presidents.

From
http://www.ontheissues.org/Jimmy_Carter.htm

Pushed national health-insurance bill. (Dec 2000)
Liberal on National Health Insurance. (Jan 1997)
Supports national health insurance. (Oct 1976)
Supports more funding for education & research. (Oct 1976)

Specifically-
Supports national health insurance:
Let me outline for you some of the goals of the next administration in the area of health [insurance]:
We must have a comprehensive program of national health insurance.
We must have government reorganization that will end the bureaucratic fragmentation that now frustrates any hope for a rational and effective national health care policy.
We must encourage alternative delivery systems such as HMOs and rural group practices.
We must clean up the disgraceful Medicaid scandals.
Source: Public Health speech, in “Good As Its People,” p. 231-33 Oct 19, 1976

SO ya, fraud has been an issue for Medicare since before 1976. Politicians (both sides) have done soooo well by us, eh?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I remember Ted stumping around Iowa when he was trying to knock off Jimmah. A national health care proposal was not in the news at the time.

[N. Theknow]

Still remember the convention where Carter was nominated to run for a second term.

Kennedy and Carter had run primary campaigns that slammed each other and built a lot of resentment and hostility between the two.

When it became obvious that Kennedy was not going to win the nomination, (A great big "Thank You" to Mary Jo) a Carter representative approached Kennedy about throwing his support to and fully getting behind Carter.

Kennedy was his usually narcissistic self and refused.

Then at the convention, several party big wigs approached Kennedy in a "For the good of the party" plea and Kennedy relented.

Then when the final vote tally was made and the balloons and confetti were falling, Kennedy came on to the stage and grudgingly shook hands with Carter. Then Kennedy proceeded to parade around the stage waving to everyone totally ignoring Carter who pathetically chased after him to try to get him to raise their hands together in a moment of unity, friendship and triumph.

A sitting President with an unresolved, 10 month long hostage situation in a formerly friendly Iran, gas lines, hyper-inflation and recession was reduced to fawning over a womanizing drunkard in front of the voters of America.

And they couldn't get to the polls fast enough to correct their mistake of four years earlier.

[Ditto]

Does anyone else remember the Carter plan for national health insurance? I don’t remember that subject being a major issue at all while Carter was president.

Newsweek Magazine, May 22, 1979. Fat Teddy pushing his plan over the Peanut's plan.

[Cyber Liberty]

I don’t recall it either, but I was not as avid a spectator of this stuff back then.

[bigbob]

Looks like Jimmah gets the scarlet letter(s)...

[Calvin Locke]

Does Carter realize that he has gone down in history as an insignificant weak president

He probably looks with pride on the damage he did to the nuclear power industry, the Panama Canal, the birth of the financial crisis we are in, etc.

I will always remember the quote from Carter's mother, Miss Lillian: "I should have remained a virgin."

(Okay, brother Billy helped inspire that sentiment...)

[Calvin Locke]

Kennedy’s perfidy with the Soviets...

His parents were big on German Socialist Workers Party and Adolph Hitler.

So much so, even FDR felt compelled to recall him [Joe, Sr.] from the "Court of St. James".

Most of the Kennedys are plutocrats. They have to buy elections nowadays.