New Year objectives

As the end of his first year in office approached, Carter wrote in his diary that ‘With the Middle East, Rhodesia, the Soviets on SALT, European acceptance of the neutron bomb, and the general reaction to my late November trip, all seem to be good.’ Carter's key national security advisers shared the president's sentiments. In a lengthy overview of the president's first year in office, Brzezinski claimed that immense progress in all of the core areas of Carter's foreign policy had been made. Yet as the president was all too aware, ‘all this could go back again quite rapidly’. Events would prove that Carter was right to feel reticent. Whilst significant progress in the Middle East talks had been made, other aspects of the president's foreign policy were beginning to falter. The issue of the ERW was already developing into a major source of US–European antagonism. The SALT II talks, which were becoming mired in technical deliberations with Moscow, were encountering increasing difficulties with congressional critics. As one adviser to Carter noted:

Other areas of Carter's foreign policy were also coming under pressure not least with regards to how the promotion of human rights should be incorporated into the president's broader foreign policy. Indeed, the president's human rights agenda had become diluted to the point that nobody was quite sure, including Carter himself, as to what the promotion of a human rights foreign policy actually entailed in practical terms. Within the administration there was a divergence of opinion as to how far it was practicable to emphasise human rights concerns in US foreign policy. Throughout the year Carter failed to provide the necessary presidential leadership that was required to enforce a coherent human rights focused foreign policy.