President Carter and the downfall of the Soviet Union

There's an idea that hangs round like a bad smell, that President Carter was a weak president who kowtowed to the Soviets and let the Communists get away with anything, that to be blunt he was a patsy.

I think that was put about by the same Republicans who maligned John Kerry's record as a decorated commander in Vietnam while G W Bush went AWOL (I have often wondered why he wasn't charged, I wonder even more what his father - another decorated serviceman- he flew Grumman Avengers Lightnings in the Pacific in World War 2- thought of his son's avoidence of service).After all President Carter is the only professional serviceman (in the wider sense- he was in the Navy) to become President since Ike (and he served in Korea, his commander Admiral Richover later saying that if Carter had stayed in the forces he would have become Chief of the Naval Staff ).

Anyhow another Republican- Robert M Gates (currently US Secretary of Defence and formerly Director of the CIA- the only career CIA officer to become Director) has set the record staight in his "From the Shadows" (published by Simon and Schuster). Gates shows that Carter not only continued all the weapons research that previous presidents had started (such as tactical neuclear weapons) but far more importantly commenced 'covert ' programmes to support human right activists in the Soviet Union. These programmes caused the Communist regime so much trouble that they (according to Gates) regarded Carter as the most dangerous President in undermining the evil empire.

And reading Gates its not hard to see why. Carter's support for dissidents for Helsinki watch and those other now gone bugbears of the Communists showed the communist system for what it was - a tyranny built on lies.

The fact that Carter refused to support right wing repressive regimes and indeed called for their reform only made him more dangerous to the Communists. They couldnt attack him as two faced.

And Carters actions were firmly based in his faith in Jesus Christ.

Gates book is now 12 years old and perhaps for some it is old news but the myth of the Carter weakness wont go away. Gates's unbiased account deserves to be better known.