THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL WORLD LEADERS OF ALL TIME

7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7

banker. When Carter stood by Lance—whom he eventu-
ally asked to resign and who later was acquitted of all
charges—many questioned the president’s vaunted scru-
ples. Carter’s image suffered again—though less—in the
summer of 1980 when his younger brother, Billy (widely
perceived as a buffoon), was accused of acting as an influ-
ence peddler for the Libyan government of Muammar
al-Qaddafi. Senate investigators concluded that, while
Billy had acted improperly, he had no real influence on
the president.
In foreign affairs, Carter received accolades for cham-
pioning international human rights, though his critics
charged that his vision of the world was naive. In 1977 he
obtained two treaties between the United States and
Panama that gave the latter control over the Panama
Canal at the end of 1999 and guaranteed the neutrality of
that waterway thereafter. In 1978 Carter brought together
Egyptian president Anwar el-Sādāt and Israeli prime
minister Menachem Begin at the presidential retreat in
Camp David, Maryland, and secured their agreement to
the Camp David Accords, which ended the state of war
that had existed between the two countries since Israel’s
founding in 1948. On Jan. 1, 1979, Carter established full
diplomatic relations between the United States and
China and simultaneously broke official ties with Taiwan.
Also in 1979, in Vienna, Carter and Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev signed a new bilateral strategic arms limitation
treaty (SALT II) intended to establish parity in strategic
nuclear weapons delivery systems between the two
superpowers on terms that could be adequately verified.
Carter removed the treaty from consideration by the
Senate in January 1980, however, after the Soviet Union
invaded Afghanistan. He also placed an embargo on the
shipment of American grain to the Soviet Union and