name	King David
title	King of Israel
reign	over Judah c. 1010–1003 BC; over Judah and Israel c. 1003–970 BC
predecessor	Saul (Judah), Ish-bosheth (Israel)
successor	Solomon
consort	Michal, Ahinoam, Abigail, Maachah, Haggith, Abital, Eglah, Bathsheba and Abishag
royal house	House of David (new house)
father	Jesse
mother	not named in the Bible; identified by the Talmud as Nitzevet, daughter of Adael.
birth date	c. 1040 BC
birth place	Bethlehem
death date	c. 970 BC
death place	Jerusalem
buried	}}

David (; ISO 259-3 Dawid; Strong's Daveed; beloved; or ‎ ) was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary. He is depicted as a righteous king, although not without fault, as well as an acclaimed warrior, musician and poet, traditionally credited for composing many of the psalms contained in the Book of Psalms.

Edwin Thiele dates his life to c. 1040–970 BC, his reign over Judah c. 1010–1003 BC, and his reign over the united Kingdom of Israel c. 1003–970 BC. The Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles are the only source of information on his life and reign, although the Tel Dan stele may record the existence in the mid-9th century of a Judean royal dynasty called the "House of David", although this is disputed.

David's life is very important to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic culture. In Judaism, David, or David HaMelekh, is the King of Israel, and the Jewish people. A direct descendant of David will be the Messiah. In Islam, he is known as Dawud, considered to be a prophet and the king of a nation.

Biblical narrative

David is chosen of God

God withdrew his favour from Saul, king of Israel. It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments. 1 Samuel 15:11 The prophet Samuel seeks a new king from the sons of Jesse of Bethlehem. Seven of Jesse's sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel says "The LORD has not chosen these." He then asks "Are these all the sons you have?" and Jesse answers, "There is still the youngest but he is tending the sheep." David is brought to Samuel, and "the LORD said, 'Rise and anoint him; he is the one.'"

David at the court of Saul

God sends an evil spirit to torment Saul,1 Samuel 16:14, and his attendants suggest he send for David, a young warrior famed for his bravery and for his skill with the harp. Saul does so and makes David one of his armor-bearers and "whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him."

David and Goliath

The Israelites, under King Saul, face the Philistines in the Valley of Elah. The boy David is bringing food to his older brothers who are with Saul. He hears the Philistine giant Goliath challenging the Israelites to send their own champion to decide the outcome in single combat. David tells Saul he is prepared to face Goliath and Saul allows him to make the attempt. He is victorious, striking Goliath in the forehead with a stone from his sling. Goliath falls, and David kills him with his own sword and beheads him; the Philistines flee in terror. Saul sends to know the name of the young champion, and David tells him that he is the son of Jesse.

King Saul and David

Saul makes David a commander over his armies and offers him his daughter Michal in marriage for bringing more than 200 foreskins of the Philistines to him. David is successful in many battles, and his popularity awakes Saul's fears — "What more can he have but the kingdom?" By various stratagems the jealous king seeks his death, but the plots only endear David the more to the people, and especially to Saul's son Jonathan, who loves David (1 Samuel 18:1, 2 Samuel 1:25-26). Warned by Jonathan, David flees into the wilderness, where he gathers a band of followers and becomes the champion of the oppressed while evading the pursuit of Saul. He accepts the town of Ziklag as a chief from the Philistine king Achish of Gath, but continues secretly to champion the Israelites. Achish marches against Saul, but David is excused from the war on the accusation of the Philistine nobles that his loyalty to their cause cannot be trusted.

David becomes king

Jonathan and Saul are killed in battle with the Philistines at Mount Gilboa. David mourns their deaths, especially that of Jonathan, his friend, and then goes up to Hebron, where he is anointed king over Judah; in the north, Saul's son Ish-Bosheth is king of the tribes of Israel. War ensues between Ish-Bosheth and David, until Ish-Bosheth is murdered. The assassins bring the head of Ish-Bosheth to David hoping for reward, but David executes them for their crime against the Lord's anointed. Yet with the death of the son of Saul, the elders of Israel come to Hebron, and David, 30 years old, is anointed King over Israel and Judah.

Jerusalem and the Davidic Covenant

David conquers the Jebusite fortress of Jerusalem, and makes it his capital, and "Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, also carpenters and masons who built David a house." David brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, intending to build a temple, but God, speaking to the prophet Nathan, forbids it, saying the temple must wait for a future generation. God makes a covenant with David, promising that he will establish the house of David eternally: "Your throne shall be established forever."

With God's help David is victorious over his people's enemies. The Philistines are subdued, the Moabites to the east pay tribute, along with Hadadezer of Zobah, from whom David takes gold shields and bronze vessels.

Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite

David commits adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Bathsheba becomes pregnant. David sends for Uriah, who is with the Israelite army at the siege of Rabbah, so that he may lie with his wife and conceal the identity of the child's father. Uriah refuses to do so while his companions are in the field of battle and David sends him back to Joab, the commander, with a message instructing him to abandon Uriah on the battlefield, "that he may be struck down, and die." David marries Bathsheba and she bears his child, "but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord." The prophet Nathan confronts David, saying: "Why have you despised the word of God, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife." Nathan presents three punishments from God for this sin. First, that the "sword shall never depart from your house" (2 Samuel 12:10) second, that "Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel., (2 Samuel 12:12) and finally, that "the son born to you will die" (2 Samuel 12:14). David repents, yet God "struck the [David's] child ... and it became sick ... [And] on the seventh day the child died." David leaves his lamentations, dresses himself, and eats. His servants ask why he wept when the baby was alive, but ends his mourning when the child dies. David replies: "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The may be gracious to me and let the child live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." (2 Samuel 12:22-23, New International Version).

David's son Absalom rebels

David's son Absalom rebels against his father, and they come to battle in the Wood of Ephraim. Absalom is caught by his hair in the branches of an oak and David’s general Joab kills him as he hangs there. When the news of the victory is brought to David he does not rejoice, but is instead shaken with grief: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!"

The old age of David

When David has become old and bedridden, Adonijah, his eldest surviving son and natural heir, declares himself king. Bathsheba, David's favorite wife, and Nathan the prophet, fearing that they will be killed by Adonijah, go to David and procure his agreement that Solomon, Bathsheba's son, should sit on the throne. And so the plans of Adonijah collapse, and Solomon becomes king. It is to Solomon that David gives his final instructions, including his promise that the line of Solomon and David will inherit the throne of Judah forever, and his request that Solomon kill his oldest enemies on his behalf. David dies and is buried in the City of David, having ruled forty years over Israel, seven in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem.

David the Musician

In various biblical passages, David is referred to as “the favorite of the songs of Israel,” the one who soothed Saul with music, and the founder of Temple singing. A Psalms scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QPs^a) attributes 3600 tehilim (songs of praise) plus other compositions to David. Seventy-three of the 150 Psalms in the Bible are attributed to David. The supreme kingship of Yahweh is the most pervasive theological concept in the book of Psalms, and many psalms attributed to David are directed to Yahweh by name, whether in praise or petition, suggesting a relationship. According to the Midrash Tehillim, King David was prompted to the Psalms by the Holy Spirit that rested upon him.

In addition to ascribing authorship to David, several Psalms are identified with specific events in David’s life. Psalm 34 is attributed to David on the occasion of his escape from the Abimelech (king) Achish by pretending to be insane. According to the narrative in 1 Samuel 21, instead of killing the man who had exacted so many casualties from him, Abimelech allows David to depart, exclaiming, “Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?" Psalm 34 is one of seven acrostic Psalms in the original Hebrew; most English translations do not retain the acrostic form. The first part of Psalm 34 is directed toward Yahweh in complete and humble gratitude (David does not even mention his own royal status); the second part confidently directs others to Yahweh. encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them … Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the . | Psalm 34:6-7,11 (ESV)}}

In contrast, Psalm 18 is not related to a specific incident but rather to God’s faithful deliverance from “all of his enemies and from the hand of Saul.” The text of this Psalm was thought to date to the 10th century BC even before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and is very similar to that of 2 Samuel 22. In this Psalm, David recalls being in deadly situations: “The cords of death entangled me, the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.” He cries out to God for help, and God rescues David.

The Scottish theologian Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) notes that crying out to God is mentioned in many Psalms attributed to David. He comments, “Fervour is a heavenly ingredient in prayer. An arrow drawn with full strength hath a speedier issue.” The Midrash Tehillim teaches from Psalm 4 “that the mere mechanical application to the Throne of Mercy is not efficacious is plainly seen from the words of King David, who says God is nigh to all that call upon Him, and … he adds the important words, 'to those who call upon Him in truth.'”

According to Psalm 40, David’s cries to God were heartfelt though not necessarily impatient; the poignant combination of a cry for help with a confident expression of faith echo today in the song “40” by the rock group U2 and that encapsulates David’s experience with his God: ; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the . | Psalm 40:1-3 (NIV)}}

Religions and David

David in Judaism

Name	King David the Prophet
Birth date	c. 1040 B.C.E.
Death date	c. 970 B.C.E.
Venerated in	JudaismChristianityIslamBaha'ism
Birth place	Bethlehem
Death place	Jerusalem
Titles	Holy Monarch, Prophet, Reformer, Spiritual Poet & Musician, Vicegerent of God, Psalm-Receiver
Attributes	Psalms, Harp, Head of Goliath
Prayer attrib	}}

David is an important figure in Judaism. Historically, David's reign represented the formation of a coherent Jewish kingdom centered in Jerusalem. David is an important figure within the context of Jewish messianism. In the Hebrew Bible, it is written that a human descendant of David will occupy the throne of a restored kingdom and usher in a messianic age.

David is also viewed as a tragic figure; his acquisition of Bathsheba, and the loss of his son are viewed as his central tragedies.

Many legends have grown around the figure of David. According to one Rabbinic tradition, David was raised as the son of his father Jesse and spent his early years herding his father's sheep in the wilderness while his brothers were in school. Only at his anointing by Samuel - when the oil from Samuel's flask turned to diamonds and pearls - was his true identity as Jesse's son revealed. David's adultery with Bathsheba was only an opportunity to demonstrate the power of repentance, and some Talmudic authors stated that it was not adultery at all, quoting a Jewish practice of divorce on the eve of battle. Furthermore, according to David's apologists, the death of Uriah was not to be considered murder, on the basis that Uriah had committed a capital offence by refusing to obey a direct command from the King.

According to midrashim, Adam gave up 70 years of his life for the life of David. Also, according to the Talmud Yerushalmi, David was born and died on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (Feast of Weeks). His piety was said to be so great that his prayers could bring down things from Heaven.

David in Christianity

Originally an earthly king ruling by divine appointment ("the anointed one", as the title Messiah had it), the "son of David" became in the last two pre-Christian centuries the apocalyptic and heavenly who would deliver Israel and usher in a new kingdom. This was the background to the concept of Messiahship in early Christianity, which interpreted the career of Jesus "by means of the titles and functions assigned to David in the mysticism of the Zion cult, in which he served as priest-king and in which he was the mediator between God and man." The early Church believed that "the life of David [foreshadowed] the life of Christ; Bethlehem is the birthplace of both; the shepherd life of David points out Christ, the Good Shepherd; the five stones chosen to slay Goliath are typical of the five wounds; the betrayal by his trusted counsellor, Achitophel, and the passage over the Cedron remind us of Christ's Sacred Passion. Many of the Davidic Psalms, as we learn from the New Testament, are clearly typical of the future Messiah." In the Middle Ages, "Charlemagne thought of himself, and was viewed by his court scholars, as a 'new David'. [This was] not in itself a new idea, but [one whose] content and significance were greatly enlarged by him." The linking of David to earthly kingship was reflected in later Medieval cathedral windows all over Europe through the device of the Tree of Jesse its branches demonstrating how divine kingship descended from Jesse, through his son David, to Jesus.

Western Rite churches (Roman Catholic, Lutheran) celebrate his feast day on 29 December, Eastern-rite on 19 December. The Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Church celebrate the feast day of the "Holy Righteous Prophet and King David" on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (two Sundays before the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord), when he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus. He is also commemorated on the Sunday after the Nativity, together with Joseph and James, the Brother of the Lord.

David in Islam

Main article Islamic view of David

David (Arabic داود, Dāwūd) is a highly important figure in Islam as one of the major prophets sent by God to guide the nation of Israel. David is mentioned several times in the Qur'an, often with his son Solomon. In the Qur'an: David kills Goliath (II: 251) and God grants him kingship and wisdom and enforces it (XXXVIII: 20). David is made God's "vicegerent on earth" (XXXVIII: 26) and God further gives David sound judgment (XXI: 78; XXXVII: 21-24, 26) as well as the Psalms, which are regarded as books of divine wisdom (IV: 163; XVII, 55). The birds and mountains unite with David in ushering praise to God (XXI: 79; XXXIV: 10; XXXVIII: 18), while God instructs David in the art of fashioning chain-mail out of iron (XXXIV: 10; XXI: 80). Together with Solomon, David gives judgment in a case of damage to the fields (XXI: 78) and David judges in the matter between two disputants in his prayer chamber (XXXVIII: 21-23). There is no mention in the Qur'an of the wrong David did to Uriah nor is there any reference to Bathsheba, and therefore Muslims reject this narrative.

Muslim tradition and the hadith stress David's zeal in daily prayer as well as in fasting. Qur'an commentators, historians and compilers of the numerous Stories of the Prophets elaborate upon David's concise Qur'anic narratives and specifically mention David's gift in singing his Psalms as well as his beautiful musical and vocal talents. His voice is described as having had a captivating power, weaving its influence not only over man but over all beasts and nature, who would unite with him to praise God.

David in Baha'i Faith

David is described as a minor prophet who came in the shadow of the dispensation of Moses to develop and consolidate the process he set in motion.

David in the LDS Faith

The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cites David as one directed by God to practise polygamy, but who sinned in committing adultery with Bathsheba and having Uriah killed. The LDS doctrine is that polygamy is only allowed as directed by the Lord, otherwise it is a grievous sin. Since 1898 the LDS church has prohibited the practice of polygamy by its members.

Historicity of David

See The Bible and history and dating the Bible for a more complete description of the general issues surrounding the Bible as a historical source.

Archaeological evidence

Tel Dan Stele and Mesha Stele

A fragment of an Aramaean victory stele discovered in 1993 at Tel Dan and dated c.850-835 BC contains a phrase (bytdwd). Because ancient Aramaic script does not contain vowels, different readings are possible. Scholars agree that the first part should be read (beyt), meaning "house". However, the second part can be read as 1) (dod), which means "uncle" or "beloved" or as 2) (David). The phrase therefore can mean either "House of the beloved", "House of the uncle" or "House of David". Since the stele recounts the victory of an Aramean king over "the king of Israel" the translation of "" as "the House of David" is not illogical. The Mesha Stele from Moab, dating from approximately the same period, may also contain the name David, in two places: in line 12, where the interpretation is uncertain, and בת[ד]וד in line 31, where one destroyed letter must be supplied (here it is bracketed in the middle). Kenneth Kitchen has proposed that an inscription of c. 945 BC by the Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenq I mentions "the highlands of David." Although a reference to King David in this geographical name is not certain, some scholars suggest it is reasonable.

City of David and Judah, ca. 1000 BC onward

The Bronze and Iron Age remains of the City of David, the original urban core of Jerusalem identified with the reigns of David and Solomon, were investigated extensively in the 1970s and 1980s under the direction of Yigal Shiloh of the Hebrew University, but failed to discover significant evidence of occupation during the 10th century BC, In 2005, Eilat Mazar found a Large Stone Structure which she claimed was David's Palace, but the archaeology is contaminated and impossible to date accurately. Finkelstein and Silberman feel the archaeological evidence from surface surveys indicates that Judah at the time of David was a small tribal kingdom, although both do accept that David and Solomon were likely historical figures in Judah about the 10th century BC (describing David as a "bandit leader").

The biblical account

The biblical account about David comes from the book of Samuel and the book of Chronicles (both of which are divided into two books in Jewish and Christian traditions). (Although almost half of the Psalms are headed "A Psalm of David", the headings are later additions, and no psalm can be attributed to David with certainty). Chronicles merely retells Samuel from a different theological vantage point, and contains little if any information not available there, and the biblical evidence for David is therefore dependent almost exclusively on the material contained in the chapters from 1 Samuel 16 to 1 Kings 2.

Since Martin Noth put forward his analysis of the Deuteronomistic History biblical scholars have accepted that these two books form part of a continuous history of Israel, compiled no earlier than the late 7th century BC, but incorporating earlier works and fragments. Samuel's account of David "seems to have undergone two separate acts of editorial slanting. The original writers show a strong bias against Saul, and in favour of David and Solomon. Many years later, the Deuteronomists edited the material in a manner that conveyed their religious message, inserting reports and anecdotes that strengthened their monotheistic doctrine. Some of the materials in Samuel I and II, notably the boundary, allotment and administrative lists are believed to be very early, since they correspond closely to what we know of the territorial conditions of the late Davidic-early Solomonic period.

Beyond this, the full range of possible interpretations is available. The late John Bright, whose History of Israel, which went through four editions from 1959 to 2000, takes Samuel at face value, but Donald B. Redford thinks all reconstructions from Biblical sources for the United Monarchy period are examples of 'academic wishful thinking', and Thomas L. Thompson measures Samuel against the archaeological evidence and concludes that "an independent history of Judea during the Iron I [i.e., the period of David] and Iron II periods has little room for historicizing readings of the stories of I-II Samuel and I Kings." Some interesting studies of David have been written: Baruch Halpern has pictured David as a lifelong vassal of Achish, the Philistine king of Gath; Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman have identified as the oldest and most reliable section of Samuel those chapters which describe David as the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws who captures Jerusalem and makes it his capital. Steven McKenzie, Associate Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Rhodes College and author of King David: A Biography, states the belief that David actually came from a wealthy family, was "ambitious and ruthless" and a tyrant who murdered his opponents, including his own sons.

David's succession

Genealogy

According to and , David is the eleventh generation from Judah, the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob (Israel). The genealogical line runs as follows: (1) Judah → (2) Pharez → (3) Hezron → (4) Ram → (5) Amminadab → (6) Nahshon → (7) Salmon → (8) Boaz (the husband of Ruth) → (9) Obed → (10) Jesse → (11) David.

David's family

David was born in Bethlehem, in the territory of the Tribe of Judah. His father was named Jesse. His mother is not named in the Bible, but the Talmud identifies her as Nitzevet daughter of Adael. David had seven brothers and was the youngest of them all. He had eight wives: Michal, the second daughter of King Saul; Ahinoam the Jezreelite; Abigail the Carmelite, previously wife of Nabal; Maachah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur; Haggith; Abital; Eglah; and Bathsheba, previously the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

The Book of Chronicles lists David's sons by various wives and concubines. In Hebron he had six sons : Amnon, by Ahinoam; Daniel, by Abigail; Absalom, by Maachah; Adonijah, by Haggith; Shephatiah, by Abital; and Ithream, by Eglah. By Bathsheba, his sons were: Shammua; Shobab; Nathan; and Solomon. His sons born in Jerusalem by other wives included: Ibhar; Elishua; Eliphelet; Nogah; Nepheg; Japhia; Elishama; and Eliada. According to , Jerimoth, who is not mentioned in any of the genealogies, is mentioned as another of David's sons. According to , David adopted Jonathan's son Mephibosheth as his own.

David also had at least one daughter, Tamar by Maachah, who was raped by Amnon, her half-brother. Her rape leads to Amnon's death. Absalom, Amnon's half-brother and Tamar's full-brother, waits two years, then avenges his sister by sending his servants to kill Amnon at a feast to which he had invited all the king's sons.

Descendants of David

The following are some of the more notable persons who have claimed descent from the Biblical David, or had it claimed on their behalf:

Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon of Spain/haRaMbaM apx. 1135-1204)

Judah Loew, Yehuda Loew ben Bezalel (c. 1525, Prague; 22 August 1609 Prague), also known as "The Maharal of Prague".

The Abravanel family

The Baal Shem Tov, and through him every Hassidic Rebbe descended from him

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, whose family is descended from Judah Loew.

Legend & Legacy

In European Christian culture of the Middle Ages David was created a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes encapsulating all the ideal qualities of chivalry. His life was thus proposed as a valuable subject for study by those aspiring to chivalric status. This aspect of David in the Nine Worthies was popularised firstly through literature, and was thereafter adopted as a frequent subject for painters and sculptors.

Representation in art and literature

Art

Famous sculptures of David include (in chronological order) those by:

Donatello (c. 1430 - 1440), David (Donatello)

Andrea del Verrocchio (1476), David (Verrocchio)

Michelangelo (1504), David (Michelangelo)

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1624), David (Bernini)

Antonin Mercié (1873)

Literature

Dryden's long poem Absalom and Achitophel is an allegory that uses the story of the rebellion of Absalom against King David as the basis for his satire of the contemporary political situation, including events such as the Monmouth Rebellion (1685), the Popish Plot (1678) and the Exclusion Crisis.

Elmer Davis's novel Giant Killer (1928, The John Day company) retells and embellishes the Biblical story of David, casting David as primarily a poet who managed always to find others to do the "dirty work" of heroism and kingship. In the novel, Elhanan in fact killed Goliath but David claimed the credit; and Joab, David's cousin and general, took it upon himself to make many of the difficult decisions of war and statecraft when David vacillated or wrote poetry instead.

Gladys Schmitt wrote a novel titled "David the King" (1946, Doubleday Books) which proceeds as a richly embellished biography of David's entire life. The book took a risk, especially for its time, in portraying David's relationship with Jonathan as overtly homoerotic, but was ultimately panned by critics as a bland rendition of the title character.

In Thomas Burnett Swann's Biblical fantasy novel How are the Mighty Fallen (1974, DAW) David and Jonathan are explicitly stated to be lovers. Moreover, Jonathan is a member of a winged semi-human race (possibly nephilim), one of several such races co-existing with humanity but often persecuted by it.

Joseph Heller wrote a novel based on David, God Knows (1984, Simon & Schuster). Told from the perspective of an aging David, the humanity—rather than the heroism—of various biblical characters are emphasized. The portrayal of David as a man of flaws such as greed, lust, selfishness, and his alienation from God, the falling apart of his family is a distinctly 20th century interpretation of the events told in the Bible.

Juan Bosch, Dominican political leader and writer, wrote "David: Biography of a King" (1966, Hawthorn, NY) a realistic approach to David's life and political career.

Allan Massie wrote "King David" (1996, Sceptre), a novel about David's career which portrays the king's relationship to Jonathan and others as openly homosexual.

Madeleine L'Engle's novel Certain Women (1993, HarperOne) explores family, the Christian faith, and the nature of God through the story of King David's family and an analogous modern family's saga.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used the story of David and Bathsheba as the main structure for the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Crooked Man. The betrayal of the Crooked Man is paralleled with David's betrayal of Uriah the Hittite, carried out in order to win Bathsheba.

Stefan Heym's "The King David Report" (1998, Northwestern University Press) is a fiction depicting the writings of the Bible historian, Ethan, upon King Solomon's orders, of a true and authoritative report on the life of David, Son of Jesse.

Malachi Martin's 1980 factional novel King of Kings: A Novel of the Life of David relates the life of David, Adonai's champion in his battle with the Philistine deity Dagon.

William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!"(1936) refers to the story of Absalom, David's son; his rebellion against his father and his death at the hands of David's general, Joab. In addition it parallels Absalom's vengeance for the rape of his sister Tamar by his half-brother, Amnon.

Film

Gregory Peck played King David in the 1951 film David and Bathsheba, directed by Henry King. Susan Hayward played Bathsheba and Raymond Massey played the prophet Nathan.

Jeft Chandler played David in the 1960 film Story of David

Finlay Currie played an aged King David in the 1959 film Solomon and Sheba, directed by King Vidor. Yul Brynner played Solomon and Gina Lollobrigida played the Queen of Sheba.

Richard Gere portrayed King David in the 1985 film King David directed by Bruce Beresford.

Music

Josquin des Prez's Planxit autem David is a polyphonic setting of 2 Samuel Chapter I verses 17-27, David's lamentation for the dead Saul and Jonathan. His Absalon fili mi is a polyphonic lamentation from David's perspective on the death of his son.

George Frideric Handel's oratorio Saul features David as one of its main characters

Arthur Honegger's oratorio, Le Roi David ('King David'), with a libretto by Rene Morax, was composed in 1921 and instantly became a staple of the choral repertoire; it is still widely performed.

Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah" has references to David ("there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord", "The baffled king composing Hallelujah") and Bathsheba ("you saw her bathing on the roof") in its opening verses.

"Mad About You", a song on Sting's 1991 album The Soul Cages explores David's obsession with Bathsheba from David's perspective.

Dead by the Pixies is a retelling of David's adultery and repentance.

Herbert Howells (1892–1983) composed an artsong for voice and piano called "King David".

Eric Whitacre composed a choral piece, "When David Heard," chronicling the death of Absalom and David's grief over losing his son.

mewithoutYou has a song from their album It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright, entitled "The Angel of Death Came to David's Room," which tells the story of David struggle with the Angel of Death when his (David's) time of death has arrived. It is based on folk tradition of King David and some Hebrew Bible.

Pierce Pettis wrote and recorded a song on his album "Making Light of It" called "Absalom, Absalom," expressing David's feelings of grief over and responsibility for his son's death.

Spoken (band) released a track on their album Echoes of the Spirit Still Dwell called "David" that is based on 2 Samuel 6:14.

Musical theatre

King David, a modern oratorio, with a book and lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Alan Menken.

Television

Nathaniel Parker portrayed King David in the 1997 TV film "David", with Leonard Nimoy as Samuel and Jonathan Pryce as Saul.

In 2009, NBC introduced the series Kings, which was explicitly designed as a modern retelling of the David story.

In the PBS television series Wishbone the episode "Little Big Dog" recounts the story of David, his favor with Saul, and his triumphant battle over Goliath.

The season two episode of Xena: Warrior Princess "Giant Killer" features David and his killing of Goliath.

Trivia

For a considerable period, starting in the 15th century and continuing until the 19th, French playing card manufacturers assigned to each of the court cards names taken from history or mythology. In this context, the King of Spades was often known as "David".

See also

David and Jonathan

King David's Palace site

King David's Tomb

Midrash Shmuel (aggadah)

Passover songs

Tel Arad

Notes

is the traditional Koranic spelling without vocalization.  In Modern Standard Arabic, it is normally written .

References

Kirsch, Jonathan (2000) King David: the real life of the man who ruled Israel. Ballantine. ISBN 0-345-43275-4.

See also the entry "David" in Easton's Bible Dictionary.

Dever, William G. (2001) What did the Bible writers know and when did they know it? William B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Cambridge UK.

Further reading

For a more complete summary of all the episodes in the Saul/David story in Samuel (but excluding Chronicles), see synopsis

External links

Complete Bible Genealogy David's family tree

Double Identity: Orpheus as David. Orpheus as Christ? Biblical Archaeology Review

Category:Hebrew Bible people Category:Kings of ancient Israel Category:Kings of ancient Judah Category:10th-century BC biblical rulers Category:11th-century BC biblical rulers Category:Biblical murderers Category:Burials in Jerusalem Category:History of Jerusalem Category:Old Testament saints Category:People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar Category:People from Bethlehem Category:Shepherds Category:Books of Samuel

ace:Daud ar:داود az:Davud peyğəmbər bn:দাউদ be:Давыд, цар ізраільска-іудзейскі br:David (roue Israel) bg:Давид ca:David cs:David (biblická postava) cy:Dafydd (brenin) da:Kong David pdc:Daafit de:David (Israel) el:Δαβίδ es:David eo:Davido eu:David fa:داوود fr:David (Bible) fur:Davide ga:Dáiví gl:David hak:Thai-ví-vòng ko:다윗 hi:दाउद hr:Kralj David id:Daud it:Davide he:דוד ka:დავითი sw:Daudi (Biblia) ku:Dawid lbe:Давуд идавс la:David (rex) lt:Dovydas hu:Dávid zsidó király mk:Давид ml:ദാവീദ് nl:Koning David ja:ダビデ no:David av Israel nn:David I av Israel pl:Dawid (król Izraela) pt:David ro:David (Iuda) ru:Давид sco:David sq:Mbreti David simple:David sk:Dávid (biblická postava) so:Nabi Daa'uud C.S. sr:Давид (краљ) fi:Daavid sv:Kung David ta:தாவீது அரசர் tl:David th:เดวิด tr:Davud uk:Давид vi:David wo:Daawuda yi:דוד המלך zh:大衛

David Was (born David Weiss; October 26, 1952) is, with his stage-brother Don Was, the founder of the 1980s pop group, Was (Not Was).

Was was born in Detroit, Michigan. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Was fled his native Detroit for California, and found employment as the jazz critic for the now-defunct Hearst daily, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, where he forged friendships with Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis, and Mel Tormé.

With his childhood friend Don Was he went on to form Was (Not Was), providing the lyrics and playing various instruments, primarily flute, keyboards and harmonica. Reviewed by The New York Times in 1980 as "the funkier art-funk band" (comparing them to Talking Heads), Was (Not Was) used members of Funkadelic, alongside jazz legends like trumpeter Marcus Belgrave; and singers Mel Tormé,and Ozzy Osbourne. They released five albums and enjoyed four Top 10 singles worldwide. They continue to tour, their most recent album, "Boo," being issued in 2008. It ranked among that year's top ten releases on many critic's lists. Their 1989 release, "What Up, Dog?" featured two top 10 singles, the latter of which, "Walk the Dinosaur," has been re-recorded by Queen Latifah for the animated feature, Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs."

In other projects, Was produced two soundtrack albums for the X-Files TV show and feature film, as well as music supervised features for Fox and Disney. He joined network music composers on CBS Education of Max Bickford, starring Richard Dreyfuss, and also did the music for ABC's "That Was Then." His theme music introduces Fox Sports' "NFL Pregame Show." As a record producer, he has also worked with Bob Dylan, Rickie Lee Jones, Roy Orbison, k.d. lang, Wayne Kramer (of MC5 fame) and the Holly Cole Trio of Canada.

Was has been a regular contributor to National Public Radio's, Day to Day and, currently, "All Things Considered," where he writes essays about classical, jazz and other forms of music, as well as covering the Consumer Electronic Show annually. As a journalist, he has had bylines in the New York Times, Detroit News, Seattle Post, Entertainment Weekly, Golfweek, Golf and Travel & Golf.

Was lives in California with his wife, Vickie, with whom he has two children, Nicholas and Phoebe.

References

Category:1952 births Category:American record producers Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Michigan Category:University of Michigan alumni

Name	Jimmy Carter
Office	39th President of the United States
Vicepresident	Walter Mondale
Term start	January 20, 1977
Term end	January 20, 1981
Predecessor	Gerald Ford
Successor	Ronald Reagan
Order2	76th Governor of Georgia
Lieutenant2	Lester Maddox
Term start2	January 12, 1971
Term end2	January 14, 1975
Predecessor2	Lester Maddox
Successor2	George Busbee
Office3	Georgia State Senatorfrom the 14th District
Term start3	January 14, 1963
Term end3	January 10, 1967
Predecessor3	Constituency established
Successor3	Hugh Carter
Constituency3	Sumter County
Birth date	October 01, 1924
Birth place	Plains, Georgia, U.S.
Party	Democratic Party
Spouse	Rosalynn Smith (1946–present)
Children	JackJamesDonnelAmy
Alma mater	Georgia Southwestern State UniversityGeorgia Institute of TechnologyUnited States Naval Academy
Profession	FarmerOfficer
Religion	Baptist
Signature	Jimmy Carter Signature-2.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Branch	United States Navy
Serviceyears	1946–1953
Rank	Lieutenant
Awards	Nobel Peace Prize }}

James "Jimmy" Earl Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia (1971–1975), and was a peanut farmer and naval officer.

As President, Carter created two new cabinet-level departments: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama.

Throughout his career, Carter strongly emphasized human rights. He took office during a period of international stagflation, which persisted throughout his term. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (at the end of 1979), and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

By 1980, Carter's popularity had eroded. He survived a primary challenge against Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1980 election, but lost the election to Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. On January 20, 1981, minutes after Carter's term in office ended, the 52 U.S. captives held at the U.S. embassy in Iran were released, ending the 444-day Iran hostage crisis.

After leaving office, Carter and his wife Rosalynn founded the Carter Center in 1982, a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization that works to advance human rights. He has traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project, and also remains particularly vocal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Early life

James Earl Carter, Jr., was born on October 1, 1924, in the tiny southwest Georgia city of Plains, near Americus. The first president born in a hospital, he is the eldest of four children of James Earl Carter and Bessie Lillian Gordy. Carter's father was a prominent business owner in the community and his mother was a registered nurse.

The Carter family had come from southern England (Carter's paternal ancestor arrived in the American Colonies in 1635), and had lived in the state of Georgia for several generations. Carter has documented ancestors who fought in the American Revolution, and he is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Carter's great-grandfather, Private L.B. Walker Carter (1832–1874), served in the Confederate States Army.

Carter was a gifted student from an early age who always had a fondness for reading. By the time he attended Plains High School, he was also a star in basketball. He was greatly influenced by one of his high school teachers, Julia Coleman (1889–1973). While he was in high school he was in the Future Farmers of America, which later changed its name to the National FFA Organization, serving as the Plains FFA Chapter Secretary.

After high school, Carter enrolled at Georgia Southwestern College, in Americus. Later, he applied to the United States Naval Academy and, after taking additional mathematics courses at Georgia Tech, he was admitted in 1943. Carter graduated 59th out of 820 midshipmen at the Naval Academy.

Carter had three younger siblings: sisters Gloria Carter Spann (1926–1990) and Ruth Carter Stapleton (1929–1983), and brother William Alton "Billy" Carter (1937–1988). During Carter's Presidency, Billy was often in the news, usually in an unflattering light.

He married Rosalynn Smith in 1946. They have four children: John William "Jack" Carter (born 1947); James Earl "Chip" Carter III (born 1950); Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter, (born 1952) and Amy Lynn Carter (born 1967).

He is a first cousin of politician Hugh Carter and a distant cousin of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. on his mother's side, and a cousin of June Carter Cash.

Naval career

Carter served on surface ships and on diesel-electric submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. As a junior officer, he completed qualification for command of a diesel-electric submarine. He applied for the US Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program run by then Captain Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover's demands on his men and machines were legendary, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on him. Carter has said that he loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become Chief of Naval Operations. Carter felt the best route for promotion was with submarine duty since he felt that nuclear power would be increasingly used in submarines. Carter was based in Schenectady, New York, and working on the nuclear propulsion system for prototype of a new submarine.

On December 12, 1952, an accident with the experimental NRX reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada’s Chalk River Laboratories caused a partial meltdown. The resulting explosion caused millions of liters of radioactive water to flood the reactor building’s basement, and the reactor’s core was no longer usable. He was now ordered to Chalk River, joining other Canadian and American service personnel. Carter was the officer in charge of the U.S. team assisting in the shutdown of the Chalk River Nuclear Reactor.

Once they arrived, Carter's team used a model of the reactor to practice the steps necessary to disassemble the reactor and seal it off. During execution of the actual disassembly each team member, including Carter, donned protective gear, was lowered individually into the reactor, stayed for only a few seconds at a time to minimize exposure to radiation, and used hand tools to loosen bolts, remove nuts and take the other steps necessary to complete the disassembly process.

During and after his presidency Carter indicated that his experience at Chalk River shaped his views on nuclear power and nuclear weapons, including his decision not to pursue completion of the neutron bomb.

Upon the death of his father James Earl Carter, Sr., in July 1953, he was urgently needed to run the family business. Lieutenant Carter resigned his commission, and he was discharged from the Navy on October 9, 1953.

Farming and prayer

Carter took over and expanded his family business in Plains. His farming business was successful, and during the 1970 gubernatorial campaign, he was considered a wealthy peanut farmer.

From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to Christianity, serving as a Sunday School teacher throughout his life. Even as President, Carter prayed several times a day, and professed that Jesus Christ was the driving force in his life. Carter had been greatly influenced by a sermon he had heard as a young man, called, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"

Early political career

State Senate

Jimmy Carter started his career by serving on various local boards, governing such entities as the schools, hospitals, and libraries, among others. In the 1960s, he served two terms in the Georgia Senate from the fourteenth district of Georgia.

His 1961 election to the state Senate, which followed the end of Georgia's County Unit System (per the Supreme Court case of Gray v. Sanders), was chronicled in his book Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. The election involved corruption led by Joe Hurst, the sheriff of Quitman County; system abuses included votes from deceased persons and tallies filled with people who supposedly voted in alphabetical order. It took a challenge of the fraudulent results for Carter to win the election. Carter was reelected in 1964, to serve a second two-year term.

For a time in State Senate he chaired its Education Committee.

In 1966, Carter declined running for re-election as a state senator to pursue a gubernatorial run. His first cousin, Hugh Carter, was elected as a Democrat and took over his seat in the Senate.

Campaigns for Governor

In 1966, during the end of his career as a state senator, he flirted with the idea of running for the United States House of Representatives. His Republican opponent, Howard Callaway, dropped out and decided to run for Governor of Georgia. Carter did not want to see a Republican Governor of his state, and, in turn, dropped out of the race for Congress and joined the race to become Governor. Carter lost the Democratic primary, but drew enough votes as a third place candidate to force the favorite, liberal former governor Ellis Arnall, into a runoff election, setting off a chain of events which resulted in the nomination of segregationist Democrat Lester Maddox. Maddox would go on to be selected governor of Georgia by the Georgia General Assembly despite finishing a close second in a three-way general election race between Maddox, Callaway, and Arnall, who ran as a write-in candidate. During the primary Carter ran as a moderate alternative to both liberal Arnall and conservative Maddox. Although he lost, his strong third place finish was viewed as a success for a little-known state senator.

For the next four years, Carter returned to his agriculture business and carefully planned for his next campaign for Governor in 1970, making over 1,800 speeches throughout the state.

During his 1970 campaign, he ran an uphill populist campaign in the Democratic primary against former Governor Carl Sanders, labeling his opponent "Cufflinks Carl". Carter was never a segregationist, and refused to join the segregationist White Citizens' Council, prompting a boycott of his peanut warehouse. His family was also one of only two that voted to admit blacks to the Plains Baptist Church.

"Carter himself was not a segregationist in 1970. But he did say things that the segregationists wanted to hear. He was opposed to busing. He was in favor of private schools. He said that he would invite segregationist governor George Wallace to come to Georgia to give a speech.", according to historian E. Stanly Godbold.

After his election, Carter would make a statement that would displease the segregationists: "I say to you quite frankly, that the time for racial discrimination is over. No poor, rural, weak, or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job, or simple justice."

Leroy Johnson, Georgia State Senator reflected: "We were extremely pleased. Many of the white segregationists were displeased. And I'm convinced that those people that supported him, would not have supported him if they had thought that he would have made that statement."

Carter's campaign aides handed out a photograph of his opponent celebrating with black basketball players. Following his close victory over Sanders in the primary, he was elected Governor over Republican Hal Suit.

Governor of Georgia

Carter was sworn in as the 76th Governor of Georgia on January 12, 1971 and held this post for one term, until January 14, 1975. Governors of Georgia were not allowed to succeed themselves at the time. His predecessor as Governor, Lester Maddox, became the Lieutenant Governor. Carter and Maddox found little common ground during their four years of service, often publicly feuding with each other.

Civil rights politics

Carter declared in his inaugural speech that the time of racial segregation was over, and that racial discrimination had no place in the future of the state, the first statewide office holder in the Deep South to say this in public. Afterwards, Carter appointed many African Americans to statewide boards and offices. He was often called one of the "New Southern Governors" much more moderate than their predecessors, and supportive of racial desegregation and expanding African-Americans' rights.

Abortion

Although "personally opposed" to abortion, after the landmark US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973) Carter supported legalized abortion. He did not support increased federal funding for abortion services as president and was criticized by the ACLU for not doing enough to find alternatives.

State government reforms

Carter improved government efficiency by merging about 300 state agencies into 30 agencies. One of his aides recalled that Governor Carter "was right there with us, working just as hard, digging just as deep into every little problem. It was his program and he worked on it as hard as anybody, and the final product was distinctly his." He also pushed reforms through the legislature, providing equal state aid to schools in the wealthy and poor areas of Georgia, set up community centers for mentally handicapped children, and increased educational programs for convicts. Carter took pride in a program he introduced for the appointment of judges and state government officials. Under this program, all such appointments were based on merit, rather than political influence.

Vice-Presidential aspirations in 1972

In 1972, as US Senator George McGovern of South Dakota was marching toward the Democratic nomination for President, Carter called a news conference in Atlanta to warn that McGovern was unelectable. Carter criticized McGovern as too liberal on both foreign and domestic policy, yet when McGovern's nomination became a foregone conclusion, Carter lobbied to become his vice-presidential running mate.

During the 1972 Democratic National Convention he endorsed the candidacy of Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington. Carter received 30 votes at the Democratic National Convention in the chaotic ballot for Vice President. McGovern offered the second spot to Reubin Askew, from next door Florida and one of the "new southern governors", but he declined.

Death penalty and crime

After the US Supreme Court overturned Georgia's death penalty law in 1972, Carter quickly proposed state legislation to replace the death penalty with life in prison (an option that previously didn't exist).

When the legislature passed a new death penalty statute, Carter, despite voicing reservations about its constitutionality, signed new legislation on March 28, 1973 to authorize the death penalty for murder, rape and other offenses, and to implement trial procedures that conformed to the newly announced constitutional requirements. In 1976, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's new death penalty for murder. In the case of Coker v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional as applied to rape.

Many in America were outraged by William Calley's life sentence at Fort Benning for his role in the My Lai Massacre; Carter instituted "American Fighting Man's Day" and asked Georgians to drive for a week with their lights on in support of Calley. Indiana's governor asked all state flags to be flown at half-staff for Calley, and Utah's and Mississippi's governors also disagreed with the verdict. Currently, Carter is known for his outspoken opposition to the death penalty in all forms; in his Nobel Prize lecture, he urged "prohibition of the death penalty".

United States Senate appointment

Richard Russell, Jr., then-President pro tempore of the United States Senate, died in office on January 21, 1971. Carter, only nine days into his governorship, appointed state Democratic Party chair David H. Gambrell to fill an unexpired Russell term in the Senate on February 1. Gambrell was defeated in the next Democratic primary by the more conservative Sam Nunn.

Other activities

In 1973, while Governor of Georgia, Carter filed a report on his 1969 UFO sighting with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City. In 2007, Carter stated that he did not remember why he filed the report and that he believes he probably only did it at the request of one of his children. He also stated he does not believe it was an alien spacecraft, but rather that it was likely some sort of military experiment being conducted from a nearby military base.

Carter made an appearance as the first guest of the evening on an episode of the game show What's My Line in 1974, signing in as "X", lest his name give away his occupation. After his job was identified on question seven of ten by Gene Shalit, he talked about having brought movie production to the state of Georgia, citing Deliverance, and the then-unreleased The Longest Yard.

In 1974, Carter was chairman of the Democratic National Committee's congressional, as well as gubernatorial, campaigns.

1976 presidential campaign

When Carter entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries in 1976, he was considered to have little chance against nationally better-known politicians. He had a name recognition of only two percent. When he told his family of his intention to run for President, his mother asked, "President of what?" The Watergate scandal was still fresh in the voters' minds, and so his position as an outsider, distant from Washington, D.C., became an asset. The centerpiece of his campaign platform was government reorganization.

Carter became the front-runner early on by winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He used a two-prong strategy: In the South, which most had tacitly conceded to Alabama's George Wallace, Carter ran as a moderate favorite son. When Wallace proved to be a spent force, Carter swept the region. In the North, Carter appealed largely to conservative Christian and rural voters and had little chance of winning a majority in most states. He won several Northern states by building the largest single bloc. Carter's strategy involved reaching a region before another candidate could extend influence there. He traveled over 50,000 miles, visited 37 states, and delivered over 200 speeches before any other candidates even announced that they were in the race. Initially dismissed as a regional candidate, Carter proved to be the only Democrat with a truly national strategy, and he eventually clinched the nomination.

The media discovered and promoted Carter, as Lawrence Shoup noted in his 1980 book The Carter Presidency and Beyond:

Carter was interviewed by Robert Scheer of Playboy for its November 1976 issue, which hit the newsstands a couple of weeks before the election. It was here that in the course of a digression on his religion's view of pride, Carter admitted: "I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times." He remains the only American president to be interviewed by this magazine.

As late as January 26, 1976, Carter was the first choice of only four percent of Democratic voters, according to a Gallup poll. Yet "by mid-March 1976 Carter was not only far ahead of the active contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, he also led President Ford by a few percentage points", according to Shoup.

He chose Senator Walter F. Mondale as his running mate. He attacked Washington in his speeches, and offered a religious salve for the nation's wounds.

Carter began the race with a sizable lead over Ford, who was able to narrow the gap over the course of the campaign, but was unable to prevent Carter from narrowly defeating him on November 2, 1976. Carter won the popular vote by 50.1 percent to 48.0 percent for Ford and received 297 electoral votes to Ford's 240. He became the first contender from the Deep South to be elected President since the 1848 election.

Presidency

Carter was elected over Gerald Ford in 1976. His tenure was a time of continuing inflation and recession, as well as an energy crisis. On January 7, 1980, Carter signed Law H.R. 5860 aka Public Law 96-185 known as The Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act of 1979 bailing out Chrysler Corporation. He led the plan to deregulate the airline industry. He canceled military pay raises during a time of high inflation and government deficits. He declared amnesty to Vietnam draft dodgers. He encouraged energy conservation, installed solar panels on the White House, and wore sweaters while turning down the heat. While attempting to calm various conflicts around the World, most visibly in the Middle East resulting in the signing of the Camp David Accords, giving back the Panama Canal and signing the SALT II nuclear arms reduction treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the final year of his administration was marred by the Iran hostage crisis, which contributed to his losing his 1980 re-election campaign to Ronald Reagan

Carter wore a sweater on April 17, 1977 while delivering a televised "fireside chat" and declaring during the speech (with clenched his fist for dramatic effect) that the U.S. energy situation during the 1970s was the moral equivalent of war.

In 1978, Carter declared a federal emergency in the neighborhood of Love Canal in the city of Niagara Falls, New York. More than 800 families were evacuated from the neighborhood, which was built on top of a toxic waste landfill. The Superfund law was created in response to the situation. Federal disaster money was appropriated to demolish the approximately 500 houses, the 99th Street School, and the 93rd Street School, which were built on top of the dump and to remediate the dump and construct a containment area. This was the first time that such a thing had been done. He then said that there were several more "Love Canals" across the country, and that discovering such dumpsites was "one of the grimmest discoveries of our modern era".

During 1979, Carter deregulated the American beer industry by opening access of the home-brew market back up to the craft brewers, making it again legal to sell malt, hops, and yeast to American home brewers for the since the effective 1920 beginning of Prohibition in the United States.

One of Carter's most bitterly controversial decisions was his boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow in response to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This marks the only time since the founding of the modern Olympics in 1896 that the United States has ever failed to participate in a Summer or Winter Olympics. The Soviet Union retaliated by boycotting the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and did not withdraw troops from Afghanistan until 1989 (eight years after Carter left office).

Carter wrote that the most intense and mounting opposition to his policies came from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which he attributed to Ted Kennedy’s ambition to replace him as president. Kennedy, originally on board with Carter's health plan, pulled his support from that legislation in the late stages; Carter states that this was in anticipation of Kennedy's own candidacy, and when neither won, the tactic effectively delayed comprehensive health coverage for decades.

Carter's campaign for re-election in 1980 was one of the most difficult, and least successful, in history. He faced strong challenges from the right (Ronald Reagan), the center (John B. Anderson), and the left (Ted Kennedy). He had to run against his own "stagflation"-ridden economy. He alienated liberal college students, who should have been his base, by re-instating registration for the draft. He was defeated by Ronald Reagan.

Post-Presidency

In 1981, Carter returned to Georgia to his peanut farm, which he had placed into a blind trust during his presidency to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. He found that the trustees had mismanaged the trust, leaving him over one million dollars in debt. In the years that followed, he has led an active life, establishing The Carter Center, building his presidential library, teaching at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and writing numerous books.

Legacy

}} When he first left office, Carter's presidency was viewed by some as a failure. In historical rankings of US presidents, the Carter presidency has ranged from #19 to #34. Although Carter's presidency received mixed reviews from some historians, his all-around peace keeping and humanitarian efforts since he left office have led him to be widely renowned as one of the most successful ex-presidents in US history.

Although Carter has also received mixed reviews in both television and film documentaries, such as the Man from Plains (2007), the 2009 documentary, Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace, credits Carter's efforts at Camp David, which brought peace between Israel and Egypt, with bringing the only meaningful peace to the Middle East. The film opened the 2009 Monte-Carlo Television Festival in an invitation-only royal screening on June 7, 2009 at the Grimaldi Forum in the presence of Albert II, Prince of Monaco.

Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale are the longest-living post-presidential team in American history. On December 11, 2006, they had been out of office for 25 years and 325 days, surpassing the former record established by President John Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson, who both died on July 4, 1826.

Jimmy Carter is one of only four presidents, and the only one in modern history, who did not have an opportunity to nominate a judge to serve on the Supreme Court. He was the only president out of the four to have served at least a full four years in office. The other three are William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and Andrew Johnson.

Public image

The Independent writes, "Carter is widely considered a better man than he was a president." While he began his term with a 66% approval rating, this had dropped to 34% approval by the time he left office, with 55% disapproving.

Much of this image in the public eye results from the Presidents proximate to him in history. In the wake of Nixon's Watergate Scandal, exit polls from the 1976 Presidential election suggested that many still held Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon against him, and Carter by comparison seemed a sincere, honest, and well-meaning Southerner.

Carter's administration suffered from his inexperience in politics: Carter paid too much attention to detail, was quick to retreat when under fire from political rivals, he frequently appeared to be indecisive and ineffective, and did not define his priorities clearly. He seemed uninterested in working with other groups, or even with Congress controlled by his own party, which he denounced for being controlled by special interest groups. Though he made efforts to address many of these issues in 1978, the approval he won from his reforms did not last long.

When Carter ran for reelection, Ronald Reagan's nonchalant self-confidence contrasted to Carter's serious and introspective temperament. Carter's personal attention to detail, his pessimistic attitude, seeming indecisiveness and weakness with people was also accentuated by Reagan's charm and easy delegation of tasks to subordinates. Ultimately, the combination of the economic problems, Iran hostage crisis, and lack of Washington cooperation made it easy for Reagan to portray him as a weak and ineffectual leader, causing Carter to become the first president since 1932 to lose a reelection bid, and his presidency was largely considered a failure.

Notwithstanding perceptions while Carter was in office, his reputation has much improved. Carter's presidential approval rating, which sat at 31% just prior to the 1980 election, was polled in early 2009 at 64%. Carter's continued post-Presidency activities have also been favorably received. Carter explains that a great deal of this change was owed to Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, who actively sought him out and was far more courteous and interested in his advice than Reagan had been.

Carter Center

As President, Carter expressed a goal of making government "competent and compassionate." In pursuit of that vision, he has been involved in a variety of national and international public policy, conflict resolution, human rights and charitable causes.

In 1982, he established The Carter Center in Atlanta to advance human rights and alleviate unnecessary human suffering. The non-profit, nongovernmental Center promotes democracy, mediates and prevents conflicts, and monitors the electoral process in support of free and fair elections. It also works to improve global health through the control and eradication of diseases such as Guinea worm disease, river blindness, malaria, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, and schistosomiasis. It also works to diminish the stigma of mental illnesses and improve nutrition through increased crop production in Africa. A major accomplishment of The Carter Center has been the elimination of more than 99% of cases of Guinea worm disease, a debilitating parasite that has existed since ancient times, from an estimated 3.5 million cases in 1986 to 3,190 reported cases in 2009. The Carter Center has monitored 81 elections in 33 countries since 1989. It has worked to resolve conflicts in Haiti, Bosnia, Ethiopia, North Korea, Sudan and other countries. Carter and the Center actively support human rights defenders around the world and have intervened with heads of state on their behalf.

Nobel Peace Prize

In 2002, President Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work "to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development" through The Carter Center. Three sitting presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama, have received the prize; Carter is unique in receiving the award for his actions after leaving the presidency. He is, along with Martin Luther King, Jr., one of only two native Georgians to receive the Nobel.

Diplomacy

North Korea

In 1994, North Korea had expelled investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency and was threatening to begin processing spent nuclear fuel. In response, then-President Clinton pressured for US sanctions and ordered large amounts of troops and vehicles into the area to brace for war.

Bill Clinton secretly recruited Carter to undertake a peace mission to North Korea, under the guise that it was a private mission of Carter's. Clinton saw Carter as a way to let North Korean President Kim Il-sung back down without losing face.

Carter negotiated an understanding with Kim Il-sung, but went further and outlined a treaty, which he announced on CNN without the permission of the Clinton White House as a way to force the US into action. The Clinton Administration signed a later version of the Agreed Framework, under which North Korea agreed to freeze and ultimately dismantle its current nuclear program and comply with its nonproliferation obligations in exchange for oil deliveries, the construction of two light water reactors to replace its graphite reactors, and discussions for eventual diplomatic relations.

The agreement was widely hailed at the time as a significant diplomatic achievement. In December 2002, the Agreed Framework collapsed as a result of a dispute between the George W. Bush Administration and the North Korean government of Kim Jong-il. In 2001, Bush had taken a confrontational position toward North Korea and, in January 2002, named it as part of an "Axis of Evil". Meanwhile, North Korea began developing the capability to enrich uranium. Bush Administration opponents of the Agreed Framework believed that the North Korean government never intended to give up a nuclear weapons program, but supporters believed that the agreement could have been successful and was undermined.

In August 2010, Carter traveled to North Korea in an attempt to secure the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes. Gomes, a U.S. citizen, was sentenced to eight years of hard labor after being found guilty of illegally entering North Korea. Carter successfully secured the release.

Middle East

Carter and experts from The Carter Center assisted unofficial Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in designing a model agreement for peace–-called the Geneva Accord–-in 2002–2003.

Carter has also in recent years become a frequent critic of Israel's policies in Lebanon, West Bank, and Gaza.

In 2006, at the UK Hay Festival, Carter stated that Israel has at least 150 nuclear weapons. He expressed his support for Israel as a country, but criticized its domestic and foreign policy; "One of the greatest human rights crimes on earth is the starvation and imprisonment of 1.6m Palestinians," said Carter.

He mentioned statistics showing nutritional intake of some Palestinian children was below that of the children of Sub-Saharan Africa and described the European position on Israel as "supine".

In April 2008, the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat reported that Carter met with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on his visit to Syria. The Carter Center initially did not confirm nor deny the story. The US State Department considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Within this Mid-East trip, Carter also laid a wreath on the grave of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah on April 14, 2008. Carter said on April 23 that neither Condoleezza Rice nor anyone else in the State Department had warned him against meeting with Hamas leaders during his trip. Carter spoke to Mashaal on several matters, including "formulas for prisoner exchange to obtain the release of Corporal Shalit."

In May 2007, while arguing that the United States should directly talk to Iran, Carter again stated that Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal.

In December 2008, Carter visited Damascus again, where he met with Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the Hamas leadership. During his visit he gave an exclusive interview to Forward Magazine, the first ever interview for any American president, current or former, with a Syrian media outlet.

Carter visited with three officials from Hamas who have been living at the International Red Cross office in Jerusalem since July 2010. Israel believes that these three Hamas legislators had a role in the 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and has a deportation order set for them.

Africa

Carter held summits in Egypt and Tunisia in 1995–1996 to address violence in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Carter played a key role in negotiation of the Nairobi Agreement in 1999 between Sudan and Uganda.

On July 18, 2007, Carter joined Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa, to announce his participation in a new humanitarian organization called The Elders. In October 2007, Carter toured Darfur with several of The Elders, including Desmond Tutu. Sudanese security prevented him from visiting a Darfuri tribal leader, leading to a heated exchange.

On June 18, 2007, Carter, accompanied by his wife, arrived in Dublin, Ireland, for talks with President Mary McAleese and Bertie Ahern concerning human rights. On June 19, Carter attended and spoke at the annual Human Rights Forum at Croke Park. An agreement between Irish Aid and The Carter Center was also signed on this day.

In November 2008, President Carter, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and Graca Machel, wife of Nelson Mandela, were stopped from entering Zimbabwe, to inspect the human rights situation, by President Robert Mugabe's government.

Americas

Carter led a mission to Haiti in 1994 with Senator Sam Nunn and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell to avert a US-led multinational invasion and restore to power Haiti's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Carter visited Cuba in May 2002 and had full discussions with Fidel Castro and the Cuban government. He was allowed to address the Cuban public uncensored on national television and radio with a speech that he wrote and presented in Spanish. In the speech, he called on the US to end "an ineffective 43-year-old economic embargo" and on Castro to hold free elections, improve human rights, and allow greater civil liberties. He met with political dissidents; visited the AIDS sanitarium, a medical school, a biotech facility, an agricultural production cooperative, and a school for disabled children; and threw a pitch for an all-star baseball game in Havana. The visit made Carter the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since the Cuban revolution of 1959.

Carter observed the Venezuela recall elections on August 15, 2004. European Union observers had declined to participate, saying too many restrictions were put on them by the Hugo Chávez administration. A record number of voters turned out to defeat the recall attempt with a 59% "no" vote. The Carter Center stated that the process "suffered from numerous irregularities," but said it did not observe or receive "evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome of the vote". On the afternoon of August 16, 2004, the day after the vote, Carter and Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General César Gaviria gave a joint press conference in which they endorsed the preliminary results announced by the National Electoral Council. The monitors' findings "coincided with the partial returns announced today by the National Elections Council," said Carter, while Gaviria added that the OAS electoral observation mission's members had "found no element of fraud in the process." Directing his remarks at opposition figures who made claims of "widespread fraud" in the voting, Carter called on all Venezuelans to "accept the results and work together for the future". A Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates (PSB) exit poll had predicted that Chávez would lose by 20%; when the election results showed him to have won by 20%, Schoen commented, "I think it was a massive fraud". US News and World Report offered an analysis of the polls, indicating "very good reason to believe that the [Penn, Schoen & Berland] exit poll had the result right, and that Chávez's election officials and Carter and the American media got it wrong." The exit poll and the government's programming of election machines became the basis of claims of election fraud. An Associated Press report states that Penn, Schoen & Berland used volunteers from pro-recall organization Súmate for fieldwork, and its results contradicted five other opposition exit polls.

Following Ecuador's severing of ties with Colombia in March 2008, Carter brokered a deal for agreement between the countries' respective presidents on the restoration of low-level diplomatic relations announced June 8, 2008.

Vietnam

On November 18, 2009, Carter visited Vietnam to build houses for the poor. The one-week program, known as Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project 2009, built 32 houses in Dong Xa village, in the northern province of Hai Duong. The project launch was scheduled for November 14, according to the news source which quoted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga. Administered by the non-governmental and non-profit Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), the annual program of 2009 would build and repair 166 homes in Vietnam and some other Asian countries with the support of nearly 3,000 volunteers around the world, the organization said on its website. HFHI has worked in Vietnam since 2001 to provide low-cost housing, water, and sanitation solutions for the poor. It has worked in provinces like Tien Giang and Dong Nai as well as Ho Chi Minh City.

Criticism of US policy

In 2001, Carter criticized President Bill Clinton's controversial pardon of Marc Rich, calling it "disgraceful" and suggesting that Rich's financial contributions to the Democratic Party were a factor in Clinton's action.

Carter has also criticized the presidency of George W. Bush and the Iraq War. In a 2003 New York Times editorial, Carter warned against the consequences of a war in Iraq and urged restraint in use of military force. In March 2004, Carter condemned George W. Bush and Tony Blair for waging an unnecessary war "based upon lies and misinterpretations" to oust Saddam Hussein. In August 2006, Carter criticized Blair for being "subservient" to the Bush administration and accused Blair of giving unquestioning support to Bush's Iraq policies. In a May 2007 interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, he said, "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," when it comes to foreign affairs. Two days after the quote was published, Carter told NBC's Today that the "worst in history" comment was "careless or misinterpreted," and that he "wasn't comparing this administration with other administrations back through history, but just with President Nixon's." The day after the "worst in history" comment was published, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that Carter had become "increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments."

On May 19, 2007, Mr. Blair made his final visit to Iraq before stepping down as British Prime Minister, and Carter used the occasion to criticize him once again. Carter told the BBC that Blair was "apparently subservient" to Bush and criticized him for his "blind support" for the Iraq war. Carter described Blair's actions as "abominable" and stated that the British Prime Minister's "almost undeviating support for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world." Carter said he believes that had Blair distanced himself from the Bush administration during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it might have made a crucial difference to American political and public opinion, and consequently the invasion might not have gone ahead. Carter states that "one of the defenses of the Bush administration ... has been, okay, we must be more correct in our actions than the world thinks because Great Britain is backing us. So I think the combination of Bush and Blair giving their support to this tragedy in Iraq has strengthened the effort and has made the opposition less effective, and prolonged the war and increased the tragedy that has resulted." Carter expressed his hope that Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, would be "less enthusiastic" about Bush's Iraq policy.

In June 2005, Carter urged the closing of the Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba, which has been a focal point for recent claims of prisoner abuse.

In September 2006, Carter was interviewed on the BBC's current affairs program Newsnight, voicing his concern at the increasing influence of the Religious Right on US politics.

Due to his status as former President, Carter was a superdelegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Carter announced his endorsement of Senator (now president) Barack Obama. This occurred on June 3, 2008, near the end of the primary season.

Speaking to the English Monthly Forward magazine of Syria, Carter was asked to give one word that came to mind when mentioning President George W. Bush. His answer was: the end of a very disappointing administration. His reaction to mentioning Barack Obama was: honesty, intelligence, and politically adept.

In 2009 he put weight behind allegations by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, pertaining to United States involvement in the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt by a civilian-military junta, saying that Washington knew about the coup and may have taken part.

Death penalty

Carter continues to speak out against the death penalty in the US and abroad. Most recently, in his letter to the Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, Carter urged him to sign a bill to eliminate the death penalty and institute life in prison without parole instead. The bill has already been passed by the state House and Senate. Carter wrote: As you know, the United States is one of the few countries, along with nations such as Saudi Arabia, China, and Cuba, which still carry out the death penalty despite the ongoing tragedy of wrongful conviction and gross racial and class-based disparities that make impossible the fair implementation of this ultimate punishment.

Carter also called for commutations of death sentences for many death-row inmates, including Brian K. Baldwin (executed in 1999 in Alabama), Kenneth Foster (sentence in Texas commuted in 2007) and Troy Anthony Davis (Georgia, case pending).

Torture

In a 2008 interview with Amnesty International, Carter criticized the alleged use of torture at Guantanamo Bay, saying that it "contravenes the basic principles on which this nation was founded." He stated that the next President should publicly apologize upon his inauguration, and state that the United States will "never again torture prisoners."

Author

Carter has been a prolific author in his post-presidency, writing 21 of his 23 books. Among these is one he co-wrote with his wife, Rosalynn, and a children's book illustrated by his daughter, Amy. They cover a variety of topics, including humanitarian work, aging, religion, human rights, and poetry.

Palestine Peace Not Apartheid

In a 2007 speech to Brandeis University, Carter stated: "I have spent a great deal of my adult life trying to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, based on justice and righteousness for the Palestinians. These are the underlying purposes of my new book."

In his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, published in November 2006, Carter states: He declares that Israel's current policies in the Palestinian territories constitute "a system of apartheid, with two peoples occupying the same land, but completely separated from each other, with Israelis totally dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights." In an Op-Ed titled "Speaking Frankly about Israel and Palestine," published in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, Carter states: While somesuch as a former Special Rapporteur for both the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the International Law Commission, as well as a member of the Israeli Knessethave praised Carter for speaking frankly about Palestinians in Israeli occupied lands, othersincluding the envoy to the Middle East under Clinton, as well as the first director of the Carter Centerhave accused him of anti-Israeli bias. Specifically, these critics have alleged significant factual errors, omissions and misstatements in the book.

The 2007 documentary film, Man from Plains, follows President Carter during his tour for the controversial book and other humanitarian efforts.

In December 2009, Carter apologized for any words or deeds that may have upset the Jewish community in an open letter meant to improve an often tense relationship. He said he was offering an Al Het, a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

Involvement with Bank of Credit and Commerce International

After Carter left the presidency, his interest in the developing countries led him to having a close relationship with Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Abedi was a Pakistani, whose bank had offices and business in a large number of developing countries. He was introduced to Carter in 1982 by Bert Lance, one of Carter's closest friends. (Unknown to Carter, BCCI had secretly purchased an interest in 1978 in National Bank of Georgia, which had previously been run by Lance and had made loans to Carter's peanut business.) Abedi made generous donations to the Carter Center and the Global 2000 Project. Abedi also traveled with Carter to at least seven countries in connection with Carter's charitable activities. The main purpose of Abedi's association with Carter was not charitable activities, but to enhance BCCI's influence, in order to open more offices and develop more business. In 1991, BCCI was seized by regulators, amid allegations of criminal activities, including illegally having control of several U.S. banks. Just prior to the seizure, Carter began to disassociate himself from Abedi and the bank.

Faith, family, and community

Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, are also well known for their work as volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, a Georgia-based philanthropy that helps low-income working people to build and buy their own homes.

He teaches Sunday school and is a deacon in the Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. In 2000, Carter severed ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, saying the group's doctrines did not align with his Christian beliefs. In April 2006, Carter, former-President Bill Clinton and Mercer University President Bill Underwood initiated the New Baptist Covenant. The broadly inclusive movement seeks to unite Baptists of all races, cultures and convention affiliations. Eighteen Baptist leaders representing more than 20 million Baptists across North America backed the group as an alternative to the Southern Baptist Convention. The group held its first meeting in Atlanta, January 30 through February 1, 2008.

Carter's hobbies include painting, fly-fishing, woodworking, cycling, tennis, and skiing.

The Carters have three sons, one daughter, eight grandsons, three granddaughters, and two great-grandsons. They celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in July 2011, making them the second-longest wed Presidential couple after George and Barbara Bush, a position they have held since passing John and Abigail Adams on July 10, 2000. Their eldest son Jack was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Nevada in 2006, losing to incumbent John Ensign. Jack's son Jason was elected to the Georgia State Senate in 2010.

Honors and awards

Carter has received honorary degrees from many American and foreign colleges and universities. They include:

LL.D. (honoris causa) Morehouse College, 1972; Morris Brown College, 1972; University of Notre Dame, 1977; Emory University, 1979; Kwansei Gakuin University, 1981; Georgia Southwestern College, 1981; New York Law School, 1985; Bates College, 1985; Centre College, 1987; Creighton University, 1987; University of Pennsylvania, 1998

D.E. (honoris causa) Georgia Institute of Technology, 1979

PhD (honoris causa) Weizmann Institute of Science, 1980; Tel Aviv University, 1983; University of Haifa, 1987

D.H.L. (honoris causa) Central Connecticut State University, 1985; Trinity College, 1998; Hoseo University, 1998

Doctor (honoris causa) G.O.C. University, 1995; University of Juba, 2002

Honorary Fellow of Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, 2007

Honorary Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford, 2007

Among the honors Carter has received are the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Others include:

Freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, 1977

Silver Buffalo Award, Boy Scouts of America, 1978

Gold medal, International Institute for Human Rights, 1979

International Mediation medal, American Arbitration Association, 1979

Martin Luther King, Jr., Nonviolent Peace Prize, 1979

International Human Rights Award, Synagogue Council of America, 1979

Conservationist of the Year Award, 1979

Harry S. Truman Public Service Award, 1981

Ansel Adams Conservation Award, Wilderness Society, 1982

Human Rights Award, International League of Human Rights, 1983

World Methodist Peace Award, 1985

Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, 1987

Edwin C. Whitehead Award, National Center for Health Education, 1989

Jefferson Award, American Institute of Public Service, 1990

Liberty Medal, National Constitution Center, 1990

Spirit of America Award, National Council for the Social Studies, 1990

Physicians for Social Responsibility Award, 1991

Aristotle Prize, Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, 1991

W. Averell Harriman Democracy Award, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 1992

Spark M. Matsunaga Medal of Peace, US Institute of Peace, 1993

Humanitarian Award, CARE International, 1993

Conservationist of the Year Medal, National Wildlife Federation, 1993

Rotary Award for World Understanding, 1994

J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, 1994

National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award, 1994

UNESCO Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize, 1994

Great Cross of the Order of Vasco Nunéz de Balboa, Panama, 1995

Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Award, Africare, 1996

Humanitarian of the Year, GQ Awards, 1996

Kiwanis International Humanitarian Award, 1996

Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, 1997

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Awards for Humanitarian Contributions to the Health of Humankind, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, 1997

United Nations Human Rights Award, 1998

The Hoover Medal, 1998

The Delta Prize for Global Understanding, University of Georgia, 1999

International Child Survival Award, UNICEF Atlanta, 1999

William Penn Mott, Jr., Park Leadership Award, National Parks Conservation Association, 2000

Zayed International Prize for the Environment, 2001

Jonathan M. Daniels Humanitarian Award, VMI, 2001

Herbert Hoover Humanitarian Award, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, 2001

Christopher Award, 2002

Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, 2007

Berkeley Medal, University of California campus, May 2, 2007

International Award for Excellence and Creativity, Palestinian Authority, 2009

Mahatma Gandhi Global Nonviolence Award, Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence, James Madison University (to be awarded September 21, 2009, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and to be shared with his wife, Rosalynn Carter)

Recipient of 2009 American Peace Award along with Rosalynn Carter

International Catalonia Award 2010

In 1998, the US Navy named the third and last Seawolf-class submarine honoring former President Carter and his service as a submariner officer. It became one of the first US Navy vessels to be named for a person living at the time of naming.

World Justice Project

President Jimmy Carter serves as an Honorary Chair for the World Justice Project. The World Justice Project works to lead a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the Rule of Law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity.

Participation in ceremonial events

Carter has participated in many ceremonial events such as the opening of his own presidential library and those of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. He has also participated in many forums, lectures, panels, funerals and other events. Carter delivered a eulogy at the funeral of Coretta Scott King and, most recently, at the funeral of his former political rival, but later his close, personal friend and diplomatic collaborator, Gerald Ford.

Race in politics

Carter ignited debate in September 2009 when he stated, "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he is African-American." Obama disagreed with Carter's assessment. On CNN Obama stated, "Are there people out there who don't like me because of race? I'm sure there are...that's not the overriding issue here."

Funeral and burial plans

Carter intends to be buried in front of his home in Plains, Georgia. In contrast, most Presidents since Herbert Hoover have been buried at their presidential library or presidential museum, with the exception of John F. Kennedy, who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and Lyndon B. Johnson, who is buried at his own ranch. Both President Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were born in Plains. Carter also noted that a funeral in Washington, D.C. with visitation at the Carter Center is being planned as well.

See also

Electoral history of Jimmy Carter

Jack Carter (politician) (born 1947; eldest son of former US President Jimmy Carter)

Jason Carter (politician)

Raymond Lee Harvey assassination conspirator

Jimmy Carter rabbit incident

History of the United States (1964-1980)

History of the United States (1980-1988)

References

Further reading

Primary sources

Califano, Joseph A., Jr. Governing America: An insider's report from the White House and the Cabinet. 1981

Jordan, Hamilton. Crisis: The Last Year of the Carter Presidency. 1982

Lance, Bert. The Truth of the Matter: My Life in and out of Politics. 1991

External links

Jimmy Carter Library and Museum

The Carter Center: Advancing Human Rights and Alleviating Suffering

Oral History Interview with Jimmy Carter from Oral Histories of the American South

PBS American Experience Video Biography of Jimmy Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Foundation

Text and Audio of Carter's Crisis of Confidence (Malaise) Speech

Text and Notes to Carter's Undelivered Energy Speech

Simon & Schuster Audio homepage for Jimmy Carter

Interpretive essay in New Georgia Encyclopedia

Website about Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy Carter's Visit to Cuba – May 12–17, 2002

Extensive essay on Jimmy Carter and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs

Wit and Wisdom of Jimmy Carter – slideshow by Life magazine

Extensive collection of Oral History Transcripts on the Carter Administration from the Miller Center of Public Affairs (UVa)

Oral History Interview with President Jimmy Carter, May 4, 1993 Georgia's Political Heritage Program, Digital Library of Georgia

Biographical pages

Biography, via whitehouse.gov

Biography, via Britannica.com – Jimmy Carter

Biography via ourgeorgiahistory.com

Navy Years, via submarinehistory.com

Other links

Interview about the SALT II negotiations for the WGBH series

War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Inaugural Address of Jimmy Carter via re-quest.net

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Jimmy Carter

State of the Union Addresses: 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 (written message) at UCSB's American Presidency Project

Audio recordings of Carter's speeches, via Michigan State University

Nobel lecture, Oslo, Norway (December 10, 2002)

* Nobel Prize for Carter

About the malaise speech, via PBS

* The malaise speech text, via PBS

The 1980 October Surprise

about Carterpuri, a village in Haryana, India named after President Carter">"The US President was here" about Carterpuri, a village in Haryana, India named after President Carter

Instruments of Statecraft: US Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, and Counterterrorism, 1940–1990 Chap. 3 The Carter Years

Korea Society Podcast: A Moment of Crisis: Jimmy Carter's 1994 Mission to Pyongyang

Jimmy Carter's thoughts on Earth Day 2006

Jimmy Carter's op/ed commentaries for Project Syndicate

Interview with Jimmy Carter (August 2006)

Interview with Jimmy Carter on Current Campaign (April 2007)

Interview with Jimmy Carter (April 2007) on Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett

Jimmy Carter on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos

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Name	Bill Clinton
Office	42nd President of the United States
Vicepresident	Al Gore
Term start	January 20, 1993
Term end	January 20, 2001
Predecessor	George H. W. Bush
Successor	George W. Bush
Order2	40th and 42nd Governor of Arkansas
Lieutenant2	Winston BryantJim Tucker
Term start2	January 11, 1983
Term end2	December 12, 1992
Predecessor2	Frank White
Successor2	Jim Tucker
Lieutenant3	Joe Purcell
Term start3	January 9, 1979
Term end3	January 19, 1981
Predecessor3	Joe Purcell (Acting)
Successor3	Frank White
Office4	50th Attorney General of Arkansas
Governor4	David PryorJoe Purcell (Acting)
Term start4	January 3, 1977
Term end4	January 9, 1979
Predecessor4	Jim Tucker
Successor4	Steve Clark
Birth date	August 19, 1946
Birth place	Hope, Arkansas, U.S.
Party	Democratic Party
Spouse	Hillary Rodham (m. 1975)
Children	Chelsea (b. 1980)
Alma mater	Georgetown University University College, OxfordYale Law School
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Baptist
Signature	Signature of Bill Clinton.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Website	Clinton Presidential Library }}

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Before that, he was Governor of the state of Arkansas. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat. Some of his policies, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance, while on other issues his stance was left-of-center.

Clinton was born and raised in Arkansas where he grew to become both a student leader and a skilled musician. He is an alumnus of Georgetown University where he was Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend University College, Oxford. He is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has served as the United States Secretary of State since January 21, 2009 and was the Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons received law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.

As President, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. The Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, during the last three years of Clinton's presidency. After a failed attempt at health care reform by the Clinton administration, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in 1994, for the first time in forty years. Two years later, in 1996, Clinton was re-elected and became the first member of the Democratic Party since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term as president. Later he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in a scandal involving a White House intern, but was acquitted by the U.S. Senate and served his complete term of office.

Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. president since World War II. Since then, he has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. Based on his philanthropic worldview, Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to promote and address international causes such as treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and global warming. In 2004, he released his autobiography My Life, and was involved in his wife Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign and subsequently in that of President Barack Obama. In 2009, he was named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Clinton teamed with George W. Bush to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

Early life and career

Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe, III, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. His father, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., was a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before Bill was born. His mother Virginia Dell Cassidy (1923–1994) traveled to New Orleans to study nursing soon after he was born. She left Bill in Hope with grandparents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and operated a small grocery store. At a time when the Southern United States was racially segregated, Bill's grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races. In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton, Sr., who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas with his brother. The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950.

Although he assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Billy (as he was known then) turned fourteen that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his stepfather. Clinton says he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and half brother, Roger Clinton, Jr., to the point where he intervened multiple times with the threat of violence to protect them.

In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School – where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician. Fellow students included the late watercolorist and sculptor, Tonya Bailey. He was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but as he noted in his autobiography My Life:

Clinton has named two influential moments in his life that contributed to his decision to become a public figure, both occurring in 1963. One was his visit as a Boys Nation senator to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy. The other was listening to Martin Luther King's 1963 I Have a Dream speech, which impressed him enough that he later memorized it.

College and law school years

With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (B.S.) degree in 1968. He spent the summer of 1967, the summer before his senior year, interning for Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. While in college, he became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Clinton was also a member of the Order of DeMolay, a youth group affiliated with Freemasonry, but he never became a Freemason. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity.

Upon graduation, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, though because he had switched programs and had left early for Yale University, he did not receive a degree there. He developed an interest in rugby union, playing at Oxford and later for the Little Rock Rugby club in Arkansas. While at Oxford he also participated in Vietnam War protests, including organizing an October 1969 Moratorium event.

Clinton's political opponents charge that to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War during his college years, he used the political influence of a U.S. Senator, who employed him as an aide. Col. Eugene Holmes, an Army officer who was involved in Clinton's case, issued a notarized statement during the 1992 presidential campaign: "I was informed by the draft board that it was of interest to Senator Fullbright's office that Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, should be admitted to the ROTC program... I believe that he purposely deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft classification." Although legal, Clinton's actions were criticized by conservatives and some Vietnam veterans during his presidential campaign in 1992.

After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and obtained a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973. In a Yale library in 1971 he met fellow law student Hillary Rodham, who was a year ahead of him. They began dating and soon were inseparable. After only about a month, Clinton proposed to Rodham and postponed his plans to be a coordinator for the McGovern campaign for the 1972 United States presidential election in order to move in with her in California. They later married on October 11, 1975, and their only child, Chelsea, was born on February 27, 1980.

Clinton did eventually move to Texas with Rodham to take a job leading McGovern's effort there in 1972. He spent considerable time in Dallas, at the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue, where he had an office. There, Clinton worked with future two-term mayor of Dallas, Ron Kirk, future governor of Texas, Ann Richards, and then unknown television director (and future filmmaker), Steven Spielberg.

Political career 1978–1992

Governor of Arkansas

After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. A year later, he ran for the House of Representatives in 1974. The incumbent, Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, defeated Clinton in the general election by a 52% to 48% margin. With only minor opposition in the primary and no opposition at all in the general election, Clinton was elected Arkansas Attorney General in 1976.

Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, having defeated the Republican candidate Lynn Lowe, a farmer from Texarkana. He became the youngest governor in the country at 32. Due to his youthful appearance, Clinton was often called the "Boy Governor", a referrent that continues to be used to refer to him during his gubernatorial era on occasion. He worked on educational reform and Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the Mariel boatlift) detained in Fort Chaffee in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose of Kingsland in Cleveland County, polled 31% of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat in the general election that year by Republican challenger Frank D. White. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history.

Clinton joined friend Bruce Lindsey's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings. In 1982, he was again elected governor and kept this job for ten years. He helped Arkansas transform its economy and significantly improve the state's educational system. He became a leading figure among the New Democrats. The New Democrats, organized as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), were a branch of the Democratic Party that called for welfare reform and smaller government, a policy supported by both Democrats and Republicans. He gave the Democratic response to President Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address and served as Chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas. Clinton made economic growth, job creation and educational improvement high priorities. For senior citizens, he removed the sales tax from medications and increased the home property-tax exemption.

In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee, chaired by Clinton's wife, attorney and Legal Services Corporation chair Hillary Rodham Clinton, succeeded in reforming the education system, transforming it from the worst in the nation into one of the best. Many have considered this the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship. Clinton and the committee were responsible for state educational improvement programs, notably more spending for schools, rising opportunities for gifted children, an increase in vocational education, raising of teachers' salaries, inclusion of a wider variety of courses, and mandatory teacher testing for aspiring educators. He defeated four Republican candidates for governor: Lowe (1978), White (1982 and 1986), and businessmen Woody Freeman of Jonesboro, (1984) and Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock (1990).

The Clintons' personal and business affairs during the 1980s included transactions that became the basis of the Whitewater investigation that dogged his later presidential administration. After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas.

According to some sources, Clinton was in his early years a death penalty opponent who switched positions. During Clinton's term, Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty was re-enacted on March 23, 1973). As Governor, he oversaw four executions: one by electric chair and three by lethal injection. Later, as president, Clinton was the first President to pardon a death-row inmate since the federal death penalty was reintroduced in 1988.

Democratic presidential primaries of 1988

In 1987, there was media speculation Clinton would enter the race after then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo declined to run and Democratic front-runner Gary Hart withdrew owing to revelations of marital infidelity. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton for governor, initially favored – but ultimately vetoed – by the First Lady). For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. He gave the nationally televised opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, which at 33 minutes was criticized for being too long. Presenting himself as a moderate and a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991.

1992 presidential campaign

In the first primary contest, the Iowa caucus, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. During the campaign for the New Hampshire primary, reports of an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers surfaced. As Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire polls, following Super Bowl XXVI, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on 60 Minutes to rebuff the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk, but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. News outlets labeled him "The Comeback Kid" for earning a firm second-place finish.

Winning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California Governor Jerry Brown was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside his native South. With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted New York, which had many delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate. Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California.

During the campaign, questions of conflict of interest regarding state business and the politically powerful Rose Law Firm, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton argued the questions were moot because all transactions with the state had been deducted before determining Hillary's firm pay. Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents "for the price of one".

While campaigning for U.S. President, the then Governor Clinton returned to Arkansas to see that Ricky Ray Rector would be executed. After killing a police officer and a civilian, Rector shot himself in the head, leading to what his lawyers said was a state where he could still talk but did not understand the idea of death. According to Arkansas state and Federal law, a seriously mentally impaired inmate cannot be executed. The courts disagreed with the allegation of grave mental impairment and allowed the execution. Clinton's return to Arkansas for the execution was framed in a The New York Times article as a possible political move to counter "soft on crime" accusations.

Because Bush's approval ratings were in the 80% range during the Gulf War, he was described as unbeatable. However, when Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower Federal deficits, he reneged on his promise not to raise taxes, hurting his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep. By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to just slightly over 40%. Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the Republican National Convention – with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform – many moderates were alienated. Clinton then pointed to his moderate, "New Democrat" record as governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious. Many Democrats who had supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their support to Clinton. Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, toured the country during the final weeks of the campaign, shoring up support and pledging a "new beginning".

Clinton won the 1992 presidential election (43.0% of the vote) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (37.4% of the vote) and billionaire populist Ross Perot, who ran as an independent (18.9% of the vote) on a platform focusing on domestic issues; a significant part of Clinton's success was Bush's steep decline in public approval. Clinton's election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House and twenty of the previous twenty-four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress. It was the first time this had occurred since Democrats controlled the 95th United States Congress during the Jimmy Carter presidency in the late 1970s.

Presidency, 1993–2001

During his presidency, Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, much of which was enacted into law or was implemented by the executive branch. Some of his policies, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance, while on other issues his stance was left-of-center. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. The Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, during the last three years of Clinton's presidency. At the end of his presidency, Clinton moved to New York and helped his wife win eleection to the U.S. Senate there.

First term, 1993–1997

Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Shortly after taking office, Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 on February 5, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support, and proved quite popular with the general public.

On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to cap the budget deficit. Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda. Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates.

On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office, causing a controversy even though the Travel Office staff served at the pleasure of the President and could be dismissed without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming the firings were done because of financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation. Critics contended the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and that the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted.

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Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 in August of that year, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for fifteen million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers. Additionally, through the implementation of spending restraints, it mandated the budget be balanced over a number of years.

Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan on September 22, 1993, aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda, and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. Though at first well received in political circles, it was eventually doomed by well-organized opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, John F. Harris, a biographer of Clinton's, states the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House. Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August of 1994. It was the first major legislative defeat of Clinton's administration.

In November of 1993, David Hale, the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater affair, alleged that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, pressured him to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the partner of the Clintons in the Whitewater land deal. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation did result in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains innocence in the affair.

Clinton signed the Brady Bill into law on November 30, 1993, which imposed a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers.

In December of that year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in the American Spectator. Later known as Troopergate, the allegations by these men were that they arranged sexual liaisons for Bill Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas. The story mentioned a woman named Paula, a reference to Paula Jones. Brock later apologized to Clinton, saying the article was politically motivated "bad journalism" and that "the troopers were greedy and had slimy motives."

That same month, Clinton implementing a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexuality a secret, and forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. This move garnered criticism from the left (for being too tentative in promoting gay rights) and from the right (who opposed any effort to allow gays to serve). Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President Harry Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argue that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future. Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack."

On January 1, 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law. Througout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures; there remained, however, strong disagreement within the party. Opposition came chiefly from anti-trade Republicans, protectionist Democrats and supporters of Ross Perot. The bill passed the house with 234 votes against 200 opposed (132 Republicans and 102 Democrats voting in favor; 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and 1 independent against). The treaty was then ratified by the Senate and signed into law by the President.

Clinton's 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill made many changes to U.S. law, including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. During Clinton's re-election campaign he said, "My 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons."

The Clinton administration also launched the first official White House website, whitehouse.gov, on October 21, 1994. It was followed by three more versions, resulting in the final edition launched in 2000. The White House website was part of a wider movement of the Clinton administration toward web-based communication. According to Robert Longley, "Clinton and Gore were responsible for pressing almost all federal agencies, the U.S. court system and the U.S. military onto the Internet, thus opening up America's government to more of America's citizens than ever before. On July 17, 1996, Clinton issued Executive Order 13011 - Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to utilize information technology fully to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public."

After two years of Democratic Party control, the Democrats lost control of Congress in the mid-term elections in 1994, for the first time in forty years.

Law professor Ken Gromley's book The Death of American Virtue reveals that Clinton escaped a 1996 assassination attempt in the Philippines by terrorists working for Osama bin Laden. During his visit to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Manila in 1996, he was saved shortly before his car was due to drive over a bridge where a bomb had been planted. Gromley said he was told the details of the bomb plot by Louis Merletti, a former director of the Secret Service. Clinton was scheduled to visit a local politician in central Manila, when secret service officers intercepted a message suggesting that an attack was imminent. A transmission used the words "bridge" and "wedding", supposedly a terrorist's code words for assassination. The motorcade was re-routed and the US agents later discovered a bomb planted under the bridge. The report said the subsequent US investigation into the plot "revealed that it was masterminded by a Saudi terrorist living in Afghanistan named Osama bin Laden". Gromley said, "It remained top secret except to select members of the US intelligence community. At the time, there were media reports about the discovery of two bombs, one at Manila airport and another at the venue for the leaders' meeting".

The White House FBI files controversy of June 1996 arose concerning improper access by the White House to FBI security-clearance documents. Craig Livingstone, head of the White House Office of Personnel Security, improperly requested, and received from the FBI, background report files without asking permission of the subject individuals; many of these were employees of former Republican administrations. In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray determined that there was no credible evidence of any crime. Ray's report further stated, "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official was involved" in seeking the files.

As part of a 1996 initiative to curb illegal immigration, Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) on September 30, 1996. Appointed by Clinton, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000.

The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself. The Chinese government denied all accusations.

Second term, 1997–2001

In the 1996 presidential election, Clinton was re-elected, receiving 49.2% of the popular vote over Republican Bob Dole (40.7% of the popular vote) and Reform candidate Ross Perot (8.4% of the popular vote), becoming the first Democratic incumbent since Lyndon Johnson to be elected to a second term and the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to be elected President more than once. The Republicans lost a few seats in the House and gained a few in the Senate, but retained control of both houses of the 105th United States Congress. Clinton received 379, or over 70% of the Electoral College votes, with Dole receiving 159 electoral votes.

An the January 1997 State of the Union address, Clinton proposed a new initiative to provide coverage to up to five million children. Senators Ted Kennedy – a Democrat – and Orrin Hatch – a Republican – teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff in 1997, and succeeded in passing legislation forming the Children's Health Insurance Program, the largest (successful) health care reform in the years of the Clinton Presidency. That year, Hillary Clinton shepherded through Congress the Adoption and Safe Families Act and two years later she succeeded in helping pass the Foster Care Independence Act.

In a lame-duck session of Congress after the 1998 elections, the House voted to impeach Clinton, based on the results of the Lewinsky scandal. This made Clinton only the second U.S. president to be impeached (the first being Andrew Johnson). Impeachment procedings were based on allegations that Clinton had lied about his relationship with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky in a sworn deposition in the Paula Jones lawsuit. After the Starr Report was submitted to the House providing what it termed "substantial and credible information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment", the House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the mid-term elections. Although the mid-term elections held in November 1998 were at the 6-year point in an 8-year presidency (a time in the electoral cycle where the party holding the White House usually loses Congressional seats), the Democratic Party gained several seats. To hold impeachment proceedings, the Republican leadership called a lame-duck session in December 1998.

While the House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor. The two charges passed in the House (largely with Republican support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony about his relationship to Lewinsky during a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones. The obstruction charge was based on his actions during the subsequent investigation of that testimony.

The Senate later voted to acquit Clinton on both charges. The Senate refused to meet to hold an impeachment trial before the end of the old term, so the trial was held over until the next Congress. Clinton was represented by Washington law firm Williams & Connolly. The Senate finished a twenty-one-day trial on February 12, 1999, with the vote on both counts falling short of the Constitutional two-thirds majority requirement to convict and remove an officeholder. The final vote was generally along party lines, with no Democrats voting guilty, and only a handful of Republicans voting not guilty.

Clinton controversially issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations on his last day in office on January 20, 2001. Most of the controversy surrounded Marc Rich and allegations that Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, accepted payments in return for influencing the president's decision-making regarding the pardons. Some of Clinton's pardons remain a point of controversy.

Military and foreign events

Many military events occurred during Clinton's presidency. The Battle of Mogadishu also occurred in Somalia in 1993. During the operation, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and one was taken prisoner. There were many more Somali casualties. Some of the American bodies were dragged through the streets – a spectacle broadcast on television news programs. In response, U.S. forces were withdrawn from Somalia and later conflicts were approached with fewer soldiers on the ground.

In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft attacked Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on U.N. safe zones and to pressure them into a peace accord. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement.

Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government from the presidency of Bill Clinton until bin Laden's death in 2011. It has been asserted by Mansoor Ijaz that in 1996 while the Clinton Administration had begun pursuit of the policy, the Sudanese government allegedly offered to arrest and extradite Bin Laden as well as to provide the United States detailed intelligence information about growing militant organizations in the region, including Hezbollah and Hamas, and that U.S. authorities allegedly rejected each offer, despite knowing of bin Laden's involvement in bombings on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. However, the 9/11 Commission found that although "former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to the United States", "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim." In 1998, two years after the warning, the Clinton administration ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden that failed.

In response to the 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed a dozen Americans and hundreds of Africans, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. First was a Sudanese Pharmecutical company suspected of assisting Osama Bin Laden in making chemical weapons. The second was Bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Clinton was subsequently criticized when it turned out that a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan (originally alleged to be a chemical warfare plant) had been destroyed.

To stop the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Albanians by nationalist Serbians in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's province of Kosovo, Clinton authorized the use of American troops in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force. NATO announced that its forces had suffered zero combat deaths, and two deaths from an Apache helicopter crash. Opinions in the popular press criticized pre-war genocide statements by the Clinton administration as greatly exaggerated. A U.N. Court ruled genocide did not take place, but recognized, "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments". The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is no difference. Slobodan Milošević, the President of Yugoslavia at the time, was eventually charged with the "murders of about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians" and "crimes against humanity."

In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's possible pursuit of nuclear weapons: }}

To weaken Saddam Hussein's grip of power, Clinton signed H.R. 4655 into law on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not speak to the use of American military forces. The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to December 19, 1998. For the last two years of Clinton's presidency, U.S. aircraft routinely attacked hostile Iraqi anti-air installations inside the Iraqi no-fly zones.

Clinton's November 2000 visit to Vietnam was the first by a U.S. President since the end of the Vietnam War. Clinton remained popular with the public throughout his two terms as President, ending his presidential career with a 65% approval rating, the highest end-of-term approval rating of any President since Dwight D. Eisenhower. Further, the Clinton administration signed over 270 trade liberalization pacts with other countries during its tenure. On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to People's Republic of China. The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform. Clinton also oversaw a boom of the U.S. economy. Under Clinton, the United States had a projected federal budget surplus for the first time since 1969.

After initial successes such as the Oslo accords of the early 1990s, Clinton attempted to address the Arab-Israeli conflict. Clinton brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat together at Camp David. Following the peace talk failures, Clinton stated Arafat "missed the opportunity" to facilitate a "just and lasting peace." In his autobiography, Clinton blames Arafat for the collapse of the summit. The situation broke down completely with the start of the Second Intifada.

Judicial appointments

Clinton appointed the following justices to the Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg – 1993 Stephen Breyer – 1994

Along with his two Supreme Court appointments, Clinton appointed 66 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 305 judges to the United States district courts. His 373 judicial appointments is second in American history, behind Ronald Reagan's. Clinton also experienced a number of judicial appointment controversies, as 69 nominees to federal judgeships were not processed by the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee. In all, 84% of his nominees were confirmed.

Public opinion

Clinton's job approval rating fluctuated in the 40s and 50s throughout his first term. In his second term, his rating consistently ranged from the high-50s to the high-60s. After his impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999, Clinton's rating reached its highest point. He finished with an approval rating of 68%, which matched those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era.

As he was leaving office, a CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup poll revealed 45% said they would miss him. While 55% thought he "would have something worthwhile to contribute and should remain active in public life", 68% thought he would be remembered for his "involvement in personal scandal", and 58% answered "No" to the question "Do you generally think Bill Clinton is honest and trustworthy?". Forty-seven percent of the respondents identified themselves as being Clinton supporters. The same percentage said he would be remembered as either "outstanding" or "above average" as a president, while 22% said he would be remembered as "below average" or "poor".

The Gallup Organization published a poll in February 2007, asking respondents to name the greatest president in U.S. history; Clinton came in fourth place, capturing 13% of the vote. In a 2006 Quinnipiac University poll asking respondents to name the best president since World War II, Clinton ranked 3% behind Ronald Reagan to place second with 25% of the vote. However, in the same poll, when respondents were asked to name the worst president since World War II, Clinton placed 1% behind Richard Nixon and 18% behind George W. Bush to come in third with 16% of the vote.

In May 2006, a CNN poll comparing Clinton's job performance with that of his successor, George W. Bush, found that a strong majority of respondents said Clinton outperformed Bush in six different areas questioned. ABC News characterized public consensus on Clinton as, "You can't trust him, he's got weak morals and ethics and he's done a heck of a good job." Clinton's 66% Gallup Poll approval rating was also the highest Gallup approval rating of any postwar President leaving office, three points ahead of Reagan.

In March 2010, a Newsmax/Zogby poll asking Americans which of the current living former presidents they think is best equipped to deal with the problems the country faces today, found that a wide margin of respondents would pick Bill Clinton. Clinton received 41% of the vote, while former President George W. Bush received 15%, former President George H. W. Bush received 7%, and former President Jimmy Carter received 5%. Although 26% chose "none", and 5% were not sure, Clinton maintained the highest percentage.

Public image

As the first baby boomer president, Clinton was the first president in a half-century not to have been alive during World War II. Authors Martin Walker and Bob Woodward state Clinton's innovative use of sound bite-ready dialogue, personal charisma, and public perception-oriented campaigning was a major factor in his high public approval ratings. When Clinton played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, he was described by some religious conservatives as "the MTV president." Opponents sometimes referred to him as "Slick Willie", a nickname first applied while he was governor of Arkansas and lasting throughout his presidency. Standing at a height of (1.88 m), Clinton is tied with five others as the fourth-tallest president in the nation's history. His folksy manner led him to be nicknamed "Bubba", especially in the Southern U.S.

Clinton drew strong support from the African American community and made improving race relations a major theme of his presidency. In 1998, Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison in The New Yorker called Clinton "the first Black president", saying, "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas". Noting that Clinton's sex life was scrutinized more than his career accomplishments, Morrison compared this to the stereotyping and double standards that blacks typically endure.

Sexual misconduct allegations

Throughout his career, Clinton has been subject to various allegations of sexual misconduct, though he as only admitted extramarital relationships with Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers. For alleged misconduct during his governorship, Paula Jones brought a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton while he was president. The case was initially dismissed, but Jones appealed the dismissal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. During the deposition for the Jones lawsuit, which was held at the White House, Clinton denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky a denial that became the basis for the impeachment charge of perjury. On November 18, 1998, Clinton agreed to an out-of-court settlement, and agreed to pay Jones and her attorneys a sum of $850,000.00. Clinton denies ever engaging in a sexual affair with her. Gennifer Flowers, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Sally Perdue, and Dolly Kyle Browning each have reported having adulterous sexual relations with Clinton during or before his service as governor. Gracen later apologized to Hillary Clinton.

His ability to survive multiple scandals and maintain high approval ratings led to a nickname of "Teflon Bill", in imitation of Ronald Reagan's nickname "Teflon Ron".

Post-presidential career

Bill Clinton continues to be active in public life, giving speeches, fundraising, and founding charitable organizations. Altogether, Clinton has spoken at the last six Democratic National Conventions, dating to 1988.

Activities up until 2008 campaign

In 2002, Clinton warned that pre-emptive military action against Iraq would have unwelcome consequences. In 2005, Clinton criticized the Bush administration for its handling of emissions control, while speaking at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas was dedicated in 2004. Clinton released a best-selling autobiography, My Life in 2004. In 2007, he released Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World, which also became a bestseller and garnered positive reviews.

In the aftermath of the 2005 Asian tsunami, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Clinton to head a relief effort. After Hurricane Katrina, Clinton joined with fellow former President George H. W. Bush to establish the Bush-Clinton Tsunami Fund in January of 2005, and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund in October of that year. As part of the tsunami effort, these two ex-presidents appeared in a Super Bowl XXXIX pre-game show, and traveled to the affected areas. They also spoke together at the funeral of Boris Yeltsin in 2007.

Based on his philanthropic worldview, Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address issues of global importance. This foundation includes the Clinton Foundation HIV and AIDS Initiative (CHAI), which strives to combat that disease, and has worked with the Australian government toward that end. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), begun by the Clinton Foundation in 2005, attempts to address world problems such as global public health, poverty alleviation and religious and ethnic conflict. In 2005, Clinton announced through his foundation an agreement with manufacturers to stop selling sugared drinks in schools. Clinton's foundation joined with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group in 2006 to improve cooperation among those cities, and he met with foreign leaders to promote this initiative. The foundation has received donations from a number of governments all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East. In 2008, Foundation director Inder Singh announced that deals to reduce the price of anti-malaria drugs by 30% in developing nations. Clinton also spoke in favor of California Proposition 87 on alternative energy, which was voted down.

2008 presidential election

During the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign, Clinton vigorously advocated on behalf of his wife, Hillary Clinton. Through speaking engagements and fundraisers, he was able to raise $10 million toward her campaign. Some worried that as an ex-president, he was too active on the trail, too negative to Clinton rival Barack Obama, and alienating his supporters at home and abroad. Many were especially critical of him following his remarks in the South Carolina primary, which Obama won. Later in the 2008 primaries, there was some infighting between Bill and Hillary's staffs, especially in Pennsylvania. Considering Bill's remarks, many thought that he could not rally Hillary supporters behind Obama after Obama won the primary. Such remarks lead to apprehension that the party would be split to the detriment of Obama's election. Fears were allayed August 27, 2008, when Clinton enthusiastically endorsed Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, saying that all his experience as president assures him that Obama is "ready to lead". After Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was over, Bill Clinton continued to raise funds to help pay off her campaign debt.

After the 2008 election

In 2009, Clinton travelled to North Korea on behalf of two American journalists imprisoned in North Korea. Euna Lee and Laura Ling had been imprisoned for illegally entering the country from China. Jimmy Carter had made a similar visit in 1994. After Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kim issued a pardon.

Since then, Clinton has been assigned a number of other diplomatic missions. He was named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009. In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Clinton and George W. Bush would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery. Clinton continues to visit Haiti to witness the inauguration of refugee villages, and to raise funds for victims of the earthquake. In 2010, Clinton announced support of, and delivered the keynote address for, the inauguration of NTR, Ireland's first ever environmental foundation.

Post-presidential health concerns

In September 2004, Clinton received a quadruple bypass surgery. In March 2005, he underwent surgery for a partially-collapsed lung. On February 11, 2010, he was rushed to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City after complaining of chest pains, and had two coronary stents implanted in his heart. It has been widely reported that Clinton has become a vegan for health reasons, but he still occasionally eats fish.

Honors and accolades

Clinton has received many honorary degrees, including Doctorate of Law degrees from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tulane University, and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Schools have been named for him, and statues do homage him. The Clinton Presidential Center was opened in Little Rock, Arkansas in his honor on December 5, 2001. He has been honored in various other ways, in countries that include the Czech Republic, New Guinea, Germany, and Kosovo. U.S. states where he has been honored include Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, and New York. He was presented with the Medal for Distinguished Public Service by Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen in 2001.

In 1993, Clinton was selected as Time magazine's "Man of the Year", and again in 1998, along with Ken Starr. From a poll conducted of the American people in December 1999, Clinton was among eighteen included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th century. He has been honored with a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, a J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, a TED Prize (named for the confluence of technology, entertainment and design), and many other awards and honors.

References

Further reading

Primary sources

Clinton, Bill. (with Al Gore). Science in the National Interest. Washington, D.C.: The White House, August 1994.

--- (with Al Gore). The Climate Change Action Plan. Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1993.

Taylor Branch The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President. (2009) Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781416543336

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration: For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1994-2002.

S. Daniel Abraham Peace is Possible, foreword by Bill Clinton

Popular books

Peter Baker The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton (2000) ISBN 0-684-86813-X

James Bovard Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years (2000) ISBN 0-312-23082-6

Joe Conason and Gene Lyons The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (2003) ISBN 0-312-27319-3

Elizabeth Drew On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (1994) ISBN 0-671-87147-1

David Gergen Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership. (2000) ISBN 0-684-82663-1

Nigel Hamilton Bill Clinton: An American Journey (2003) ISBN 0-375-50610-1

Christopher Hitchens No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton (1999) ISBN 1-85984-736-6

Michael Isikoff Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story (1999) ISBN 0-609-60393-0

Mark Katz Clinton and Me: A Real-Life Political Comedy (2004) ISBN 978-0-7868-6949-7

David Maraniss The Clinton Enigma: A Four and a Half Minute Speech Reveals This President's Entire Life (1998) ISBN 0-684-86296-4

Dick Morris with Eileen McGann Because He Could (2004) ISBN 0-06-078415-6

Richard A. Posner An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton (1999) ISBN 0-674-00080-3

Mark J. Rozell The Clinton Scandal and the Future of American Government (2000) ISBN 0-87840-777-4

Michael Waldman POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words That Defined the Clinton Presidency (2000) ISBN 0-7432-0020-9

Ivory Tower Publishing Company. Achievements of the Clinton Administration: the Complete Legislative and Executive. (1995) ISBN 0-88032-748-0

Academic studies

Cohen; Jeffrey E. "The Polls: Change and Stability in Public Assessments of Personal Traits, Bill Clinton, 1993–99" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 31, 2001

Cronin, Thomas E. and Michael A. Genovese; "President Clinton and Character Questions" Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 28, 1998

Davis; John. "The Evolution of American Grand Strategy and the War on Terrorism: Clinton and Bush Perspectives" White House Studies, Vol. 3, 2003

Edwards; George C. "Bill Clinton and His Crisis of Governance" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 28, 1998

Fisher; Patrick. "Clinton's Greatest Legislative Achievement? the Success of the 1993 Budget Reconciliation Bill" White House Studies, Vol. 1, 2001

Glad; Betty. "Evaluating Presidential Character" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 28, 1998

William G. Hyland. Clinton's World: Remaking American Foreign Policy (1999) ISBN 0-275-96396-9

Jewett, Aubrey W. and Marc D. Turetzky; " Stability and Change in President Clinton's Foreign Policy Beliefs, 1993–96" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 28, 1998

Johnson, Fard. "Politics, Propaganda and Public Opinion: The Influence of Race and Class on the 1993–1994 Health Care Reform Debate", 2004. ISBN 1-4116-6345-4

Laham, Nicholas, A Lost Cause: Bill Clinton's Campaign for National Health Insurance (1996)

Lanoue, David J. and Craig F. Emmert; "Voting in the Glare of the Spotlight: Representatives' Votes on the Impeachment of President Clinton" Polity, Vol. 32, 1999

Maurer; Paul J. "Media Feeding Frenzies: Press Behavior during Two Clinton Scandals" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 29, 1999

Nie; Martin A. It's the Environment, Stupid!': Clinton and the Environment" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, 1997

O'Connor; Brendon. "Policies, Principles, and Polls: Bill Clinton's Third Way Welfare Politics 1992–1996" The Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 48, 2002

Poveda; Tony G. "Clinton, Crime, and the Justice Department" Social Justice, Vol. 21, 1994

Renshon; Stanley A. The Clinton Presidency: Campaigning, Governing, and the Psychology of Leadership Westview Press, 1995

Renshon; Stanley A. "The Polls: The Public's Response to the Clinton Scandals, Part 1: Inconsistent Theories, Contradictory Evidence" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 32, 2002

Rushefsky, Mark E. and Kant Patel. Politics, Power & Policy Making: The Case of Health Care Reform in the 1990s (1998) ISBN 1-56324-956-1

Schantz, Harvey L. Politics in an Era of Divided Government: Elections and Governance in the Second Clinton Administration (2001) ISBN 0-8153-3583-0

Wattenberg; Martin P. "The Democrats' Decline in the House during the Clinton Presidency: An Analysis of Partisan Swings" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 29, 1999

Wattier; Mark J. "The Clinton Factor: The Effects of Clinton's Personal Image in 2000 Presidential Primaries and in the General Election" White House Studies, Vol. 4, 2004

Smithers, Luken J. "The Miracle Whip"

External links

;Official

White House biography

Clinton Presidential Materials Project Press releases and speech transcripts from the administration.

Clinton School of Public Service

;Organizations

William J. Clinton Foundation official website

;Books and movies

;Interviews, speeches and statements

Oral History Interview with Bill Clinton from Oral Histories of the American South

President Clinton: The Youtube Interview

Full audio of a number of Clinton speeches via the Miller Center of Public Affairs (UVa)

The Wanderer Profile in The New Yorker, September 2006, the most extensive interview post-presidency

;Media coverage

;Other

Extensive essays on Bill Clinton and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs

Armigerous American Presidents Series article from the American Heraldry Society.

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name	Anwar Sadat
order	3rd
office	President of Egypt
term start	15 October 1970
term end	6 October 1981
vicepresident	Hosni Mubarak
predecessor	Gamal Abdel Nasser
successor	Hosni Mubarak
office2	3rd President of the United Arab Republic
term start2	15 October 1970
term end2	1971
birth date	December 25, 1918
birth place	Mit Abu al-Kum, Egypt
death place	Cairo, Egypt
death date	October 06, 1981
spouse
nationality	Egyptian
party	National Democratic Party
otherparty	Arab Socialist Union
religion	Sunni Islam
signature	Anwar El Sadat Signature.svg }}

Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat ( , ; 25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. In his eleven years as president he changed Egypt's direction, departing from some of the economic and political principles of Nasserism by re-instituting the multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy.

He was a senior member of the Free Officers group that overthrew the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom he succeeded as President in 1970. As president he led Egypt in the October War of 1973 to liberate Egyptian territory occupied by Israel, making him a hero in Egypt and, for a time, the wider Arab World. Afterwards he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. This won him the Nobel Peace Prize but also made him unpopular among some Arabs, resulting in a temporary suspension of Egypt's membership in the Arab League, and eventually his assassination.

Early life

Anwar Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu al-Kum, al-Minufiyah, Egypt to a poor family, one of 13 brothers and sisters. His father was Egyptian, and his mother was Sudanese. He spent his early childhood under the care of his grandmother, who told him stories revolving around resistance to the British occupation and drawing on contemporary history.

During Sadat’s childhood, he admired and was influenced greatly by four individuals. The first of his childhood heroes was Zahran, the alleged hero of the Denshawai incident, who resisted the British occupation in a farmer protest. According to the story, a British soldier was killed, and Zahran was the first Egyptian hanged in retribution. Stories like the Ballad of Zahran introduced Sadat to Egyptian nationalism, a value he held throughout his life.

The second individual was Kemal Ataturk, who was the leader of contemporary Turkey. Sadat admired his ability to overthrow the foreign influence and his many social reforms. He also idolized Mahatma Gandhi and his belief of nonviolence when facing injustice. As Egypt was under the occupation of the United Kingdom, Sadat was fascinated by Hitler’s Nazi German army for their quick ability to become a strategic threat to Britain.

He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in 1938 and was appointed in the Signal Corps. He entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted in Sudan (Egypt and Sudan were one country at the time). There, he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, and along with several other junior officers they formed the secret Free Officers Movement committed to freeing Egypt from British domination and royal corruption.

During the Second World War he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling the occupying British forces. Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 which overthrew King Farouk I on 23 July of that year. Sadat was assigned to announce the news of the revolution to the Egyptian people over the radio networks.

During Nasser's presidency

During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed Minister of State in 1954. In 1959, he assumed the position of Secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the President of the National Assembly (1960–1968) and then Vice President and member of the Presidential Council in 1964. He was reappointed as Vice President again in December 1969.

Presidency

Some of the major events of the Sadat's presidency were his Corrective revolution to consolidate power, the break with the Egypt's long-time ally and aid-giver the USSR, the 1973 October War with Israel, the Camp David peace treaty with Israel, the "opening up" (or Infitah) of Egypt's economy, and finally his assassination in 1981.

Early years

Sadat succeeded Nasser as president after the later's death in 1970. Sadat's presidency was widely expected to be short-lived. Viewing him as having been little more than a puppet of the former president, Nasser's supporters in government settled on Sadat as someone they could manipulate easily. Sadat surprised everyone with a series of astute political moves by which he was able to retain the presidency and emerge as a leader in his own right. On 15 May 1971 Sadat announced his Corrective Revolution, purging the government, political and security establishments of the most ardent Nasserists. Sadat encouraged the emergence of an Islamist movement which had been suppressed by Nasser. Believing Islamists to be socially conservative he gave them" considerable cultural and ideological autonomy" in exchange for political support.

In 1971, three years into the War of Attrition in the Suez Canal zone, Sadat endorsed in a letter the peace proposals of UN negotiator Gunnar Jarring which seemed to lead to a full peace with Israel on the basis of Israel's withdrawal to its pre-war borders. This peace initiative failed as neither Israel nor the United States of America accepted the terms as discussed then.

Sadat likely perceived that Israel's desire to negotiate was directly correlated to how much of a military threat they perceived from Egypt, which, after the Six-Day War of 1967, was at an all time low. Israel also viewed the most substantial part of the Egyptian threat as the presence of Soviet equipment and personnel (in the thousands at this time). It was for those reasons that Sadat expelled the Soviet military advisers from Egypt and proceeded to whip his army into shape for a renewed confrontation with Israel. During this time, Egypt was suffering greatly from economic problems caused by the Six-Day War and the Soviet relationship also declined due to their unreliability and refusal of Sadat’s requests for more military support.

1973 October War

On 6 October 1973, in conjunction with Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Sadat launched the Yom Kippur War, also known as October or Ramadan War, a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Golan Heights in an attempt to retake the territory captured by Israel six years earlier. The Egyptian and Syrian performance in the initial stages of the war (Operation Badr, also known as The Crossing) astonished both Israel and the Arab World. The most striking achievement was the Egyptian military's advance approximately 15 km into the occupied Sinai Peninsula after penetrating and largely destroying the Bar Lev Line. This line was popularly thought to have been an impregnable defensive chain.

As the war progressed, three divisions of the Israeli army (IDF) led by General Ariel Sharon had crossed the Suez Canal, trying to encircle first the Egyptian Second Army and when it failed, the Egyptian Third Army. Prompted by an agreement between the United States of America and Egypt's Soviet allies, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 338 on 22 October 1973, calling for an immediate ceasefire. Although agreed upon, the ceasefire was immediately broken. Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, cancelled an official meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anker Jørgensen to travel to Egypt where he tried to persuade Sadat to sign a peace treaty. During Kosygin's two-day long stay it's unknown if he and Sadat ever met in person. The IDF then continued their drive to encircle the Egyptian army. The encirclement was completed on 25 October, three days after the ceasefire was broken. This development prompted superpower tension, but a second ceasefire was imposed cooperatively on October 25 to end the war. At the conclusion of hostilities, Israeli forces were 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Damascus and 101 kilometres (63 mi) from Cairo.

Beginning of the peace process

The initial Egyptian and Syrian victories in the war restored popular morale throughout Egypt and the Arab World and, for many years after, Sadat was known as the "Hero of the Crossing". Israel recognized Egypt as a formidable foe, and Egypt's renewed political significance eventually led to regaining and reopening the Suez Canal through the peace process. His new peace policy led to the conclusion of two agreements on disengagement of forces with the Israeli government. The first of these agreements was signed on 18 January 1974, and the second on September 4, 1975.

One major aspect of Sadat's peace policy was to gain some religious support for his efforts. Already during his visit to the US in October–November 1975, he invited Evangelical pastor Billy Graham for an official visit, which was held few days following Sadat's visit. In addition to cultivating relations with Evangelical Christians in the US, he also built some cooperation with the Vatican. On 8 April 1976, he visited for the first time at the Vatican, and got a message of support from Pope Paul VI regarding achieving peace with Israel, to include a just solution to the Palestinian issue. Sadat, on his part, extended to the Pope a public invitation to visit Cairo.

Sadat also used the media to promote his purposes. In an interview he gave to the Lebanese paper El Hawadeth in early February 1976, he claimed he had secret commitment from the US government to put pressure on the Israeli government for a major withdrawal in Sinai and the Golan Heights. This statement caused some concern to the Israeli government, but Kissinger denied such a promise was ever made.

On November 20, 1977, Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel officially when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338. He said during his visit that he hopes "that we can keep the momentum in Geneva, and may God guide the steps of Premier Begin and Knesset, because there is a great need for hard and drastic decision."

The Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty

The Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty was signed by Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Washington, DC, United States, on 26 March 1979, following the Camp David Accords (1978), a series of meetings between Egypt and Israel facilitated by US President Jimmy Carter. Both Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the treaty. In his acceptance speech, Sadat referred to the long awaited peace desired by both Arabs and Israelis.

“Let us put an end to wars, let us reshape life on the solid basis of equity and truth. And it is this call, which reflected the will of the Egyptian people, of the great majority of the Arab and Israeli peoples, and indeed of millions of men, women, and children around the world that you are today honoring. And these hundreds of millions will judge to what extent every responsible leader in the Middle East has responded to the hopes of mankind”

The main features of the agreement were the mutual recognition of each country by the other, the cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the complete withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the rest of the Sinai Peninsula which Israel had captured during the 1967 Six-Day War.

The agreement also provided for the free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways. The agreement notably made Egypt the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel has remained in effect since the treaty was signed.

The treaty, which gained wide support among Egyptians, was extremely unpopular in the Arab World and the wider Muslim World. His predecessor Nasser had made Egypt an icon of Arab nationalism, an ideology that appeared to be sidelined by an Egyptian orientation following the 1973 war (see Egypt). By signing the accords, many non-Egyptian Arabs believed Sadat had put Egypt's interests ahead of Arab unity, betraying Nasser's pan-Arabism, and destroyed the vision of a united "Arab front" and elimination of the "Zionist Entity". However, Sadat realized early on that peace is the solution. Sadat's shift towards a strategic relationship with the US was also seen as a betrayal by many Arabs. In the United States his peace moves gained him popularity among some Evangelical circles. He was awarded the Prince of Peace Award by Pat Robertson.

In 1979, the Arab League expelled Egypt in the wake of the Egyptian–Israel peace agreement, and the League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. Arab League member states believed in the elimination of the "Zionist Entity" and Israel at that time. It was not until 1989 that the League re-admitted Egypt as a member and returned its headquarters to Cairo. As part of the peace deal, Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula in phases, returning the entire area to Egypt on 25 April 1982.

Sadat's relationship with the Shah of Iran

Before the Islamic revolution of Iran in 1979, the relationship between Cairo and Tehran was so friendly that the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, called Sadat his "dear brother". The Shah's first wife was Princess Fawzia of Egypt. She was the eldest daughter of Sultan Fuad I of Egypt and Sudan (later King Fuad I) and his second wife Nazli Sabri.

After his overthrow, the deposed Shah spent the last days of his life in exile in Egypt. When the Shah died, Sadat ordered that he be given a state funeral and be interred at the Al-Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo, the resting place of Egyptian Khedive Isma'il Pasha, his mother Khushyar Hanim, and numerous other members of the royal family of Egypt and Sudan.

Unpopularity and conspiracy theories

The last years of Sadat's presidency were marked by turmoil and there were several allegations of corruption against him and his family. It has been said that he was assassinated "at the peak" of his unpopularity. In January 1977, a series of 'Bread Riots' protested Sadat's economic liberalization and specifically a government decree lifting price controls on basic necessities like bread. The riots lasted for two days and included hundreds of thousands in Cairo. 120 buses and hundreds of buildings were destroyed in Cairo alone. The riots ended with the deployment of the army and the re-institution of the subsidies/price controls.

Earlier in his reign Islamists had benefited from the `rectification revolution` and the release from prison of activists jailed under Nasser but Sadat's Sinai treaty with Israel enraged Islamists, particularly the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad. According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the group was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order" in Egypt. Chief strategist of El-Jihad was Abbud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose "plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing - he expected - a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country."

In February 1981, Egyptian authorities were alerted to El-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information. In September, Sadat ordered a highly unpopular roundup of more than 1500 people, including many Jihad members, but also the Coptic Pope and other Coptic clergy, intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes. All non-government press was banned as well. The round up missed a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who succeeded in assassinating Anwar Sadat that October.

According to Tala'at Qasim, ex-head of the Gama'a Islamiyya interviewed in Middle East Report, it was not Islamic Jihad but the Islamic Group (al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya) that organized the assassination and recruited the assassin (Islambouli). Members of the Group's 'Maglis el-Shura' ('Consultative Council') – headed by the famed 'blind shaykh' – were arrested two weeks before the killing, but they did not disclose the existing plans and Islambouli succeeded in assassinating Sadat.

Assassination

On 6 October 1981 Sadat was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal. In addition to Sadat, eleven others were killed, including the Cuban ambassador, an Omani general, and a Coptic Orthodox bishop. Twenty-eight were wounded, including Vice President Hosni Mubarak, Irish Defence Minister James Tully, and four US military liaison officers.

The assassination squad was led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli after a fatwā approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman. Islambouli was tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed in April 1982.

Aftermath

Sadat was succeeded by his vice president Hosni Mubarak, whose hand was injured during the attack. Sadat's funeral was attended by a record number of dignitaries from around the world, including a rare simultaneous attendance by three former US presidents: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon. Sudan's President Gaafar Nimeiry was the only Arab head of state to attend the funeral. Only 3 of 24 states in the Arab League – Oman, Somalia and Sudan – sent representatives at all. Sadat was buried in the unknown soldier memorial in Cairo, across the street from the stand where he was assassinated.

Over three hundred Islamic radicals were indicted in the trial of assassin Khalid Islambouli, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, Omar Abdel-Rahman and Abd al-Hamid Kishk. The trial was covered by the international press and Zawahiri's knowledge of English made him the de facto spokesman for the defendants. Zawahiri was released from prison in 1984. His brother Mohammed al-Zawahri was imprisoned from 2000 until 17 March 2011, and then re-arrested on 20 March 2011. Abboud al-Zomor and Tareq al-Zomor, two Islamic Jihad leaders imprisoned in connected with the assassination, were released on 11 March 2011.

Despite these facts, the nephew of the late president, Talaat al-Sadat, claimed that the assassination was an international conspiracy. On 31 October 2006, he was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, less than a month after he gave the interview accusing Egyptian generals of masterminding his uncle's assassination. In an interview with a Saudi television channel, he also claimed both the United States and Israel were involved: "No one from the special personal protection group of the late president fired a single shot during the killing, and not one of them has been put on trial," he said.

Family

Sadat was married twice. He was first married to Ehsan Madi at age 22, and divorced her several years later, just 17 days after the birth of their third daughter, Camelia. He then married Jehan Raouf (later known as Jehan Sadat), who was only 15 years and 9 months at the time, on 29 May 1949. They had one son, Gamal, and three daughters: Lobna, Noha and Jehan (named after her mother). It was Gamal who represented his father when he was presented, posthumously, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Jehan Sadat was the 2001 recipient of the Pearl S. Buck Award.

Anwar Sadat's autobiography, In Search of Identity, was published in the US in 1977. Currently, Mrs. Sadat is an Associate Resident Scholar at the University of Maryland where The Anwar Sadat Chair for Development and Peace was established and fully endowed in 1997 to honor her husband's legacy. A nephew, Talaat Sadat, was imprisoned in October 2006 for accusing the Egyptian military of complicity in his uncle's assassination.

Media portrayals of Anwar Sadat

In 1983, Sadat, a miniseries based on the life of Anwar Sadat, aired on US television with Oscar-winning actor Louis Gossett, Jr. in the title role. The film was promptly banned by the Egyptian government, as were all other movies produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures, over allegations of historical inaccuracies. A civil lawsuit was brought by Egypt's artists' and film unions against Columbia Pictures and the film's directors, producers and scriptwriters before a court in Cairo, but was dismissed; the court held that "the distortions and the slanders found in the film took place outside the country," so that "the crimes were not within the Egyptian courts' jurisdiction."

Western authors attributed the film's poor reception to racism — Gossett being African American — in the Egyptian government or Egypt in general. Either way, one Western source wrote that Sadat's portrayal by Gossett "bothered race-conscious Egyptians and wouldn't have pleased [the deceased] Sadat." – The two-part series earned Gossett an Emmy nomination in the United States. The first Egyptian depiction of Sadat's life came in 2001, when Ayyam El Sadat (English: Days of Sadat) was released in Egyptian cinemas. This movie, by contrast, was a major success in Egypt, and was hailed as Ahmad Zaki's greatest performance to date.

The BBC also produced a film on Sadat called "Why Was Cairo Calm?". Film director and blogger Adam Curtis summarizes the documentary: "It tells the story of Sadat's presidency - and how the American TV networks created a fantasy vision of him as a wise democratic leader who had opened up the Egyptian economy to the free market, and was loved by his people for making peace for Israel. As the film shows - this was a complete illusion."

Bibliography

Notes

Further reading

External links

Official website محمد انور السادات , الصفحه الرئيسية

Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Front Page

El-Sadat.info

Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland

Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom - March 26, 1984

Video of Sadat's assassination

Al Jazeera Video detailed coverage of the cause of Sadat's Assassination Free Egyptians Point of View About Sadat's Assassination

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Category:1918 births Category:1981 deaths Category:Murder in 1981 Category:Arab Nobel laureates Category:People from Monufia Governorate Category:Assassinated Egyptian politicians Category:Assassinated heads of state Category:Assassinated people Category:Assassinated politicians Category:Cold War leaders Category:Deaths by firearm in Egypt Category:Egyptian anti-communists Category:Egyptian Nobel laureates Category:Egyptian Sunni Muslims Category:Middle Eastern Nazi collaborators Category:Egyptian people of Sudanese descent Category:Egyptian people of the Yom Kippur War Category:Filmed assassinations Category:Free Officers Movement Category:Nobel Peace Prize laureates Category:People murdered in Egypt Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Presidents of Egypt Category:Speakers of the Parliament of Syria Category:Terrorism deaths in Egypt Category:Vice Presidents of Egypt

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