JIMMY CARTER: “Well, as you may know, I had a policy when I was president of not selling weapons if it would exacerbate a potential conflict in a region of the world, and some of our allies were very irate about this policy. And I have to say that I was not, you know, as thoroughly briefed about what was going on in East Timor as I should have been. I was more concerned about other parts of the world then.”
That sounds like a completely believable explanation to me. I can completely believe that that the military advisors didn’t give him the full picture of what was happening there.
https://etan.org/timor/uspolicy.htm
JIMMY CARTER: “Well, as you may know, I had a policy when I was president of not selling weapons if it would exacerbate a potential conflict in a region of the world, and some of our allies were very irate about this policy. And I have to say that I was not, you know, as thoroughly briefed about what was going on in East Timor as I should have been. I was more concerned about other parts of the world then.”
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/10/jimmy_carter_indonesia_east_timor_genocide
That sounds like a completely believable explanation to me. I can completely believe that that the military advisors didn’t give him the full picture of what was happening there.