President Jimmy Carter's Cold War policy continued the détente initiated by his predecessors, but forcefully emphasized human rights. In his Time cover, caricaturist Edward Sorel points to the confusion and hard feelings caused by Carter's efforts to please both parties to a dispute, to achieve too much on too many fronts simultaneously, and to frame his foreign policy on moral principles for a world that generally did not welcome his preachings. For example, he wanted the Soviet Union to consider new arms limitation proposals, but he undercut these efforts by constantly criticizing that country for failure to protect human rights.
The "lions" hovering around Carter are (counterclockwise from top right): Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev; Israeli premier Menachem Begin; Egyptian president Anwar Sadat; Chinese Communist Party chairman Hua Guofeng; and German chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
