The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [255]
As Carter took office, the communists stepped up their march to world power and increasing the isolation of the United States. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, turning the nation into a Soviet satellite. The Carter administration responded by canceling the US participation in the Moscow Olympics. To hardnosed Soviet and Chinese leaders this proved the United States was powerless against communist expansion. In Iran, radical fundamentalist Muslims overthrew the Shah and replaced him with a radical Muslim religious leader pulled home from exile. The Muslim radicals then seized the US Embassy, taking sixty-six Americans hostages and holding them until the end of Carter’s term (444 days). This was additional proof the United States could be intimidated by bold actions.
During the Carter administration the US Congress, under the leadership of the Church Committee, discovered the CIA was spying on US citizens, and the committee discovered the intelligence agency paid off “immoral people” in its espionage operations. Congress banned the CIA from spying in the United States, employing “unsavory people” for intelligence operations, and prohibited the FBI and CIA from sharing information. These moves, among others by Carter and the US Congress, destroyed the intelligence-gathering capability the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies possessed. These unrealistic laws stopped coordination in tracking foreign spies and terrorists. The Church Committee knew the problems this legislation would create, but Church and his colleagues chose to ignore pleas from the security agencies. The Church Committee truly eviscerated the ability of the US to gather intelligence in the Cold War, and this would continue during the War on Terror. As ragged as US intelligence was before, it shrank in value after Congress “reformed” the security agencies.
The communists made inroads in Africa and Latin America throughout the Carter years. The US lost control of the Panama Canal when the tiny nation of Panama seized the Canal Zone, Cuba sent troops to Africa and Latin America to fight for communism, Nicaragua went Communist, Iran went to the terrorists, Russia was threatening Iran and Turkey, and the United States was doing little to turn the tide. OPEC[345] doubled the price of oil in retaliation for President Carter freezing Iranian assets in the United States. The world over the United States was viewed with disdain as more nations fell into communism’s sphere of influence.
The economy under Carter continued to stagger. Inflation accelerated along with government spending, meanwhile, the economy continued stagnating. With no economic growth and worsening world conditions, the future looked bleak. Some commentators were opining that the days of growth and prosperity were behind the Western world. The Western world’s economies had wandered in the doldrums for years. Since the Lyndon Johnson era, it seemed nothing had gone right economically. The European Union was coming together, and it was clear the economic union would benefit Western Europe; nevertheless, that benefit seemed a long way off. Nixon’s regulations failed to right the US economic ship, and even though these regulations were gone the economy meandered downward. The West, it seemed, was out of options. The Carter administration appeared unable to meet the challenge.
A nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, and the following media frenzy, destroyed the nuclear electric industry in the United States. France and other nations continued to build nuclear reactors for energy, but the United States would halt this construction, effectively removing this source of power as an alternative to oil or natural gas.