From Steve Hayward, who is, after all, author of a definitive and utterly dispassionate work on James Earl Carter, Jr., The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry:

Re: Your query about Carter. I have a hunch…that since JPII could only make Carter’s determination to follow detente more difficult, I guess that he was privately unenthusiastic about JPII. Carter was shrewd enough to conceal these views. Thank God for Brzezinski, the only ray of light in the entire Carter White House.