The Department of Health and Human Resources was established as well.
             A movement to amend the Constitution of the Unted States to require a balanced budget gained momentum in 1979. Thirty of the 34 states needed passed resolutions calling for a constitutional convention to draft such an amendment. Two amendments previously passed by Congress made no progress towards ratification. These were the Equal Rights Amendment, and an amendment to secure voting representation in Cogress for the District of Columbia. Two proposed amendments were also rejected by Congress, one substituting the direct popular election of the President for the electoral college system, the other would have prohibited busing to achieve school integration.
             President Jimmy Carter faced the most difficult crisis of his term in November 1979. After his decision to allow the exiled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahilaui of Iran into the U.S. for medical treatment, followers of the Ayotollah Ruhollah Khomeini attacked the United States Embassy in Teheran, Iran on November 4. They took 54 American hostages that would eventually be held for 444 days, and demanded that the shah be returned.
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             In response, the President stopped all U.S. purchases of Iranian oil, froze Iranian government assets in the U.S., and asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport Iranian students living in the Unites States illegally. In addition, the President called upon Pakistan to protect Embassy personell after the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan was attacked and burned on November 21.
             In addition to the conflicts growing in Iran, the President was faced with rising oil prices, an unstable U.S. dollar, Russian challenges in Cuba and Afghanistan, and a Senate that was hesitant to ratify the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II). Carter wanted to shift the role of the U.S. away from being the "police" of the ...