Scoop Jackson (D-Wash.) and, of course, Sen. Frank Church (D- Idaho), whom he particularly loathed Sen. Politically speaking, Carter was a legendary grudge holder and his comments aren’t surprising regarding Sen. (Carter’s account of his attitude toward the failed military rescue attempt and his implicit explanations for the reasons it occurred may surprise some.) Carter’s final years in office, for example, are dominated by the crises over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Islamists’ seizure of American diplomats as hostages. One of the things that jumps out with particular force is the way in which unforeseen events come to compete with a president’s own agenda for the finite amount of time and attention available to the chief executive and his team. It all makes for a uniquely unfiltered look at what occupying the Oval Office day to day means, as well as a bit of second thinking and score-settling. (The unexpurgated manuscripts are in the Carter Library and open to scholarly examination.) At various points, Carter has interjected italicized afterthoughts in which he revisits his appraisals of events and the people involved. This volume consists of his edited version of the diary he wrote and dictated during his tenure. Most important, both left office as wretchedly unpopular, one-term chief executives, but then went on to become widely admired (and generally admirable) ex-presidents.īoth also turned out to be genuinely interesting writers: Hoover and his wife translated a Renaissance Latin tract on mining, and he penned the only study of one president written by another, “The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson.” Carter has written more than 20 books since leaving Washington “ White House Diary” stands out as a substantial contribution to the history of the presidency. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover might be bracketed together for a number of reasons.īoth were engineers by training, shared an almost theological faith in the chimera of governmental efficiency, believed effective management grew from close attention to detail and were powerfully influenced by their religious upbringings - in Carter’s case that meant the Baptist Church, in Hoover’s Quakerism.

White house diary carter