Failure™ Magazine

Jimmy Carter’s “Malaise” Speech

The presidential address that should have changed the country.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under History

Set the stage for our readers: What was going on in the U.S. in the months leading up to July 1979?
What you had was a maelstrom of things occurring. First off, there were enormous gas lines, and a lot of violence on those gas lines, with fights breaking out and murders occurring. In addition, you had independent truckers upset with the fact that they couldn’t find diesel supplies, and an independent trucker strike that was also quite violent.

But the event that is most symbolic of how crazy and chaotic things had become took place in Levittown, Pennsylvania, where there was a confluence between the gas lines and the truckers strike. There were gas lines and protests against gas lines. Then the truckers drove into town and there was a full-fledged riot.

Originally, Carter’s speechwriters drafted a different address slated for July 5. Why didn’t Carter deliver that speech?
Carter was out of the country for most of June, engaged in diplomatic initiatives. He cancelled a vacation and came back in late in the month to try to deal with the gas crisis. At that moment there was a push for him to address the situation. A speech was drafted very quickly, one that the speechwriters didn’t believe was very good, and one that Carter didn’t like either.

During a telephone conversation with his advisors Carter told them he was going to cancel the speech. They told him he couldn’t cancel, that it would be really detrimental to do so. At some point during the conversation Carter said, “I don’t want to bullshit the American people any longer.” Then he hung up, which gives you a sense of how tense things had become within the White House, and how precarious things had become for his presidency.

Carter went on to cancel the speech—with no explanation—even though he had blocked out television time on all the networks.

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