The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said Sunday that Jimmy Carter, the dedicated Georgia peanut farmer who, while leading the United States through a difficult economic and hostage situation in Iran, mediated peace between Israel and Egypt and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian efforts, had passed away. He was one hundred.
In the 1976 US election, he defeated incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford to become president from January 1977 to January 1981. Four years later, voters overwhelmingly ousted Carter from office when they embraced Republican opponent Ronald Reagan, the former actor and California governor.
After leaving office, Carter outlived all previous US presidents. He quickly admitted that he was a better former president than a current one, a reputation he developed along the way.
During his one-term presidency, the Middle East experienced some stability thanks to the 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. However, a faltering economy, ongoing disapproval, and the humiliation of the Iran hostage crisis plagued his last 444 days in office.
Carter had melanoma that spread to his brain and liver, among other health problems, in recent years. Instead of seeking further medical intervention, Carter decided in February 2023 to accept hospice care. Rosalynn Carter, his wife, passed away on November 19, 2023, at the age of 96. In a wheelchair, he appeared weak when he attended her funeral and memorial service.
Carter worked tirelessly for decades on humanitarian causes, but he was incredibly unpopular when he left office. In 2002, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
As Georgia’s governor, Carter was a centrist with populist leanings before becoming the 39th president of the United States. He was an outsider in Washington during a period when the United States was still getting over the Watergate scandal, which caused Republican Richard Nixon to resign as president in 1974 and promoted Ford from vice president.
“I’m Jimmy Carter, and I’m a presidential candidate. Carter vowed to never lie to you, beaming with confidence.
“The biggest failure we had was a political failure,” Carter said in a 1991 documentary when asked to evaluate his presidency. I never convinced the American people that I was a strong and assertive leader.
Despite the challenges he faced while in office, Carter’s accomplishments as a former president were scarce. He received the respect that eluded him in the White House as a tireless human rights advocate, a voice for the voiceless, and a leader in the battle against poverty and hunger.
Carter’s efforts to advance human rights and end conflicts worldwide, from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Bosnia and Haiti, earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Delegations from his Carter Center in Atlanta traveled to polling places across the globe to observe the election.
Since he was in his teens, Carter has taught Southern Baptist Sunday school. He openly discussed his religious beliefs and brought a strong moral compass to the presidency. During his 1977 inauguration parade, he chose to walk rather than ride in a limousine in an effort to de-emphasize an increasingly imperial presidency.
Carter focused his foreign policy on the Middle East. The 1978 Camp David Accords served as the foundation for the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, which put an end to the two neighbors’ state of war.
In order to facilitate discussions, Carter invited Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. Later, when it seemed that the accords were collapsing, Carter intervened by using personal shuttle diplomacy to travel to Cairo and Jerusalem.
The agreement called for Israel to leave the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and to establish diplomatic ties. Both Sadat and Begin received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.
The Iran hostage crisis, which humiliated America, double-digit inflation, interest rates above 20%, and skyrocketing gas prices were the main concerns by the time of the 1980 election. These problems tarnished Carter’s presidency and hurt his chances of reelection.
June 13, 1977: President Jimmy Carter, surrounded by reporters, attends a press conference. Handout via REUTERS/Library of Congress/Thomas J. O’Halloran
June 13, 1977: President Jimmy Carter, surrounded by reporters, attends a press conference. Handout via REUTERS/Library of Congress/Thomas J. O’Halloran
A CRISIS IN HOSTAGE
On November 4, 1979, revolutionaries loyal to Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overran the US Embassy in Tehran. They took the Americans inside and demanded the return of the overthrown Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was receiving medical care in a US hospital and supported by the US.
The American people initially supported Carter. His backing, however, waned in April 1980 after an aircraft accident in the Iranian desert claimed the lives of eight US soldiers and a commando raid failed to free the hostages.
Iran held the 52 hostages until minutes after Reagan took office to succeed Carter on January 20, 1981, and then released the planes that were taking them to freedom. This was Carter’s last humiliation.
Carter boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics in protest of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in another crisis. Additionally, he asked the US Senate to postpone a significant nuclear arms deal with Moscow.
The Soviets stayed in Afghanistan for ten years, unmoved.
Although some argued that the canal was essential to U.S. security, Carter narrowly prevailed in the 1978 Senate vote to approve a treaty giving Panama control of the waterway. He also concluded negotiations for full US ties with China.
Carter established the US Cabinet departments of energy and education. Despite the high cost of gas, he called America’s “energy crisis” “the moral equivalent of war” and called on the nation to adopt conservation. “Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth,” he was telling Americans in 1977.
Carter gave the country what became known as his “malaise” speech in 1979, though he never used that term.
“After listening to the American people, I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can’t fix what’s wrong with America,” he stated during his nationally syndicated speech.
“In everyday situations, the threat is essentially undetectable. A crisis of confidence has occurred. A crisis is deeply affecting our nation. Our declining faith in the future poses a threat to the social and political cohesion of the United States.
Carter, who was a stern president, was ashamed of his hard-drinking younger brother, Billy Carter, for boasting, “I got a red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer.”
“YOU GO WITH ME AGAIN.”
Jimmy Carter survived a challenge from Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980, but he was politically debilitated before facing a fierce Republican opponent in the general election.
During their debates prior to the November 1980 election, Reagan, the conservative who looked strong, kept Carter off balance.
During one debate, Reagan sarcastically said, “There you go again,” in response to Carter’s belief that the president had misrepresented his opinions.
Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan, who accumulated a landslide victory in the Electoral College and won 44 of the 50 states.
Born in Plains, Georgia, on October 1, 1924, James Earl Carter Jr. was the fourth child of a farmer and store owner. After completing the US Naval Academy in 1946, he worked on the nuclear submarine program before leaving to run the family’s peanut farm.
When he married Rosalynn in 1946, he referred to their union as “the most important thing in my life.” Along with a daughter, they had three sons.
Carter was a Georgia state legislator, a millionaire, and the governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. He put up an underdog campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976 and outperformed his opponents to get a run against Ford in the general election.
During one of their debates, Carter, who had Walter Mondale as his running mate for vice president, benefited from a significant Ford blunder. Ford claimed that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration,” even though this dominance had existed for decades.
Although Ford won more states than Carter (27 to 23), Carter still won the election.
Not every aspect of Carter’s post-presidential efforts received recognition. Republican former presidents George W. Bush and his father, former president George H.W. Bush, were reportedly unhappy with Carter’s independent diplomacy in Iraq and other places.
As early as 2004, Carter referred to the 2003 Iraq War, which was started by the younger Bush, as one of the “gross and damaging mistakes our nation ever made.” He described the administration of George W. Bush as “the worst in history” and referred to Vice President Dick Cheney as “a disaster for our country.”
Republican Donald Trump’s legitimacy as president was questioned by Carter in 2019, claiming that “the Russians interfered on his behalf and he was put into office.” Trump referred to Carter as “a terrible president.”
Carter also visited North Korea, a communist country. A nuclear crisis was averted during a visit in 1994 when President Kim Il Sung consented to halt his nuclear program in return for renewed communication with the US. In exchange for aid, North Korea agreed to refrain from restarting its nuclear reactor and from reprocessing the spent fuel from the plant.
Carter, however, annoyed the administration of Democratic President Bill Clinton by announcing the agreement with the leader of North Korea without first consulting Washington.
Carter successfully negotiated the release of an American who had served eight years of hard labor in prison for illegally entering North Korea in 2010.
Among his more than two dozen books are works about religion and diplomacy, as well as a children’s book, poetry, and a presidential memoir. “Faith: A Journey for All,” his book, was released in 2018.
