May 1977: Carter Promises to Break with Previous Focus on Military Buildup

President Jimmy Carter again indicates that he intends to break with the hard line, confrontational policies of the past, particularly regarding the Soviet Union (see Mid-January, 1977). Speaking to the graduating class at Notre Dame University, Carter decries the “intellectual and moral poverty” of the Vietnam War and the militaristic mindset that drove that war, saying that for years the US has “fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is best quenched with water.” Now that the US is “free of that inordinate fear of Communism,” the country can pursue a much different course, featuring multi-lateral, interdependent relations with a variety of countries, and abandon the isolationism and endless military buildups of the past (see June 1977). Carter will achieve very little of these goals, and by the time his single term ends, he will have begun rebuilding the US’s military and nuclear arsenal again. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 104-105]