Thread by @DavidKurlander

How can a State of the Union address change the world? On Now & Then, @HC_Richardson & @jbf1755 spoke on foreign policy in #SOTU speeches. In the Time Machine, I looked at Carter’s 1980 #SOTU, which came weeks after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan:
cafe.com/article/let-th…

On June 3rd, 1979, @washingtonpost political analyst Jim Hoagland wrote an article called “A Carter Doctrine for the Middle East?” You can read the full article here:
washingtonpost.com/archive/opinio…

Hoagland argued that the collapse of the Iranian Shah and new tensions between Egypt & Saudi Arabia pushed the U.S. to militarily protect oil access in the Persian Gulf. The article included this very forthright Uncle Sam Cartoon by @BobBarkin:

Carter was already shifting his posture. In March 1979, the State Department sent the supercarrier U.S.S. Constellation into the Gulf to reassure oil-heavy Saudi Arabia during a border war between their ally North Yemen & USSR-backed South Yemen (@newsweek, March 19, 1979):

Hoagland called the Yemen move a “watershed that separates the old, more passive Carter policy from the still embryonic but more active Carter Doctrine for the Middle East.”

Hoagland was prescient. In the months after he identified the need for a “Carter Doctrine,” militants took 53 American hostages in Tehran & Saudi terrorists seized the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca.

Then, on Dec. 27th, 1979, Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul, Afghanistan to support a coup to install a more supportive Marxist government. Carter and his wife Rosalyn returned, somber, from Christmas vacation to address the crisis (@newsday, Dec. 29, 1979):

On the last day of the '70s, Carter filmed an interview with @abcnews reporter Frank Reynolds. Carter spoke tough about the Soviets. Here's the Jan. 1, 1980 installment (@YouTube user Shatner Method):

Carter when Reynolds asked how his thinking on the USSR was evolving post-invasion: “My opinion of the Russians has changed more drastically in the last week than even the previous two and a half years before that.”

Carter followed up on January 3 by recalling Thomas Watson Jr., the iconic @IBM CEO and U.S. Ambassador to Russia, who had just been appointed in June 1979 (@nytimes, June 18, 1979):

The same day, Carter also withdrew the SALT II agreements—a joint US-USSR proposal to stop making new nukes—from congressional consideration. Here’s the letter Carter sent to Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd announcing the decision (@ByrdCenter):

Despite Carter’s tough moves, conservatives doubted his follow-through on combating the Russians. @amspectator founder R. Emmett Tyrell Jr. unloaded in a @washingtonpost op-ed on January 14th, 1980:

washingtonpost.com/archive/politi…

Tyrell sarcastically acknowledged Carter’s sudden anger at the Soviets, arguing that the President was conforming to a vision of Russia many already understood: “The lovely arias Carter now sings obbligato to the ham-fisted Soviet burglary in Afghanistan is not unprecedented.”

Former Nixon speechwriter William Safire wrote an equally incredulous @nytimes essay the same day, dissing Carter’s emergent new posture: “Preserve us, then, from tough-sounding ‘doctrines’ from disillusioned doves whose empty threats are not believed”:

nytimes.com/1980/01/14/arc…

All eyes were on Carter’s January 23rd, 1980 #SOTU address. Carter told his speechwriter Stuart Eizenstat, “I need a strong speech and to preach a sermon, so we let the Persian Gulf countries know we’ll be there if the Soviets invade, and let the devil take the hindmost.”

Eizenstat still thought the speech was too soft. He wrote a memo to Carter suggesting that the speech was “mushy” and that it was “difficult to discern what the Carter doctrine or central message is in the draft” (@HistoryAtState, Jan. 19, 1980)

history.state.gov/historicaldocu…

By the time Carter gave his State of the Union on the 23rd, however, however, his rhetoric had become more aggressive. Here’s the link to watch Carter’s full address (@cspan, Jan. 23, 1980):

c-span.org/video/?124054-…

Carter levied a series of sanctions: no the prohibition of Soviet fishing in U.S. coastal waters, a potential boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and limits to imports of Soviet high-tech and agricultural goods.

And then he articulated the Doctrine: "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States. It will be repelled by use of any means necessary, including the use of force.”

The press breathlessly covered Carter’s new delineation of American power in the Gulf. Here’s the @nytimes coverage from the next morning, Jan. 24th, 1980:

Soon, however, Carter was receiving renewed attacks from both the Left and Right. Five days after the speech, Republican Alaska Senator Ted Stevens said: “If the Carter Doctrine had been in effect before Afghanistan, we’d be at war with the Soviet Union right now."

The same day, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, who was trying to primary Carter in the upcoming Democratic presidential primary, was even harsher. Here’s the full transcript of Kennedys address (@interpuertorico, Jan. 28, 1980):

dspace.cai.sg.inter.edu/xmlui/bitstrea…

Despite the initial doubt in the power of the Doctrine, Carter’s statement of enhanced military presence in the Middle East can be seen as an origin story of both the positive diplomatic changes and the brutal wars that followed in the region.

In 1990, for example, then-Delaware Senator @JoeBiden invoked the Doctrine on the MacNeil/Lehrer @NewsHour when discussing President George H.W. Bush’s buildup of troops in Saudi Arabia before the Gulf War (@amarchivepub, Sept. 5, 1990):

americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aa…

Check out the full piece for more on the legacy of the Carter Doctrine. And listen to @HC_Richardson and @jbf1755 on Now & Then to learn MUCH more about the geopolitical implications of #SOTU addresses:

cafe.com/now-and-then/d…