realize the public relations of the Arab world was just nonexistent." In a five-point formula for potential peace in the region, Carter endorsed proposals for the creation of a Palestinian state, an issue opposed by conservatives. A leading Jewish Democratic Party contributor said that West was more "the Saudis' ambassador to the United States", rather than the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, as he had been appointed. Death and legacy After returning to the United States, he became a Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of South Carolina. He endowed a professorship at The Citadel, which currently resides in The Citadel School of Humanities and Social Sciences. From 1993 until his death from cancer in 2004 at Hilton Head Island, he was a partner in the law firm of Bethea, Jordan, and Griffin. He was Presbyterian. Philip G. Grose, a former staff member for both Governors McNair and West and later a research associate at the University of South Carolina's Institute for Southern Studies, wrote a 2011 biography of West entitled Looking for Utopia: The Life and Times of John C. West. Grose took the "looking for Utopia" line from McNair, who once described his friend and colleague West as "an idealist ... always looking for Utopia". Grose depicts West as a determined statesman who shaped his career by championing causes of the underprivileged in a state with more than its share of poverty and denied opportunities to many of its citizens. Grose concludes that West "was right about a lot of things, as it turned out, and his Utopian quest left a permanent, undeniable, and irreversible impact on a state whose residents ordinarily did not like the idea of change." John "Jack" West, III called his father "a combination of John C. Calhoun and Atticus Finch." References External links John West: In His Own Words at University of South Carolina, South Carolina Political Collections John Carl West Papers at South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina Governor John C. West Collection at the South Carolina Department of Archives & History (RG 552000) 1971 John C. West Inaugural Parade and Swearing in Ceremony on South Carolina Educational Television 1922 births 2004 deaths Democratic Party South Carolina state senators Lieutenant Governors of South Carolina Democratic Party governors of South Carolina University of South Carolina faculty University of South Carolina trustees University of South Carolina School of Law alumni