Cyrus Vance

Highest-level national security documents reveal a tough-minded, detail-oriented president.

Jimmy Carter is associated with an idealistic “human rights agenda.” In reality, he was paving the way for Ronald Reagan’s aggressive anti-communism.

Cold War politics empowered democracy — and dictatorship.

Carter’s work in Zimbabwe forms a significant and underappreciated part of his legacy.

Somewhere in Jamaica survive the original cannabis strains that were not burned by American agents or bred to be more profitable.

A conversation with presidential biographers Jonathan Alter and Kai Bird.

An interactive depiction of more than a century's worth of foreign travel by U.S. presidents and secretaries of state.

Why the rifles jammed.

Carter’s speech heralded a dramatic shift in foreign policy toward a policy of containment of Soviet influence.