Jimmy Carter – US president from the plains and then the world

ATLANTA (AP):

Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old.

The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023, spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said.

Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world, Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith, and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s.

“My faith demands – this is not optional – my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said.

PRESIDENT FROM PLAINS

A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores, and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and US defeat in southeast Asia.

“If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Nixon.

AND THEN, THE WORLD

Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. The Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health, and human rights.

Carter’s stubborn self-assuredness and even self-righteousness proved effective once he was unencumbered by the Washington order, sometimes to the point of frustrating his successors.

He went “where others are not treading”, he said, to places like Ethiopia, Liberia, and North Korea, where he secured the release of an American who had wandered across the border in 2010.

“I can say what I like. I can meet whom I want. I can take on projects that please me and reject the ones that don’t,” Carter said.

He announced an arms-reduction-for-aid deal with North Korea without clearing the details with Bill Clinton’s White House. He openly criticised President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also criticised America’s approach to Israel with his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. And he repeatedly countered US administrations by insisting that North Korea should be included in international affairs, a position that most aligned Carter with Republican President Donald Trump.

Among the centre’s many public-health initiatives, Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. With hardhats and hammers, the Carters also built homes with Habitat for Humanity.

The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cites his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”. Carter should have won it alongside Sadat and Begin in 1978, the chairman added.

Carter accepted the recognition saying there was more work to be done.

“The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.”

SMALL-TOWN START

James Earl Carter Jr was born October 1, 1924, in Plains and spent his early years in nearby Archery. His family was a minority in the mostly black community, decades before the civil rights movement played out at the dawn of Carter’s political career.

Carter, who campaigned as a moderate on race relations but governed more progressively, talked often of the influence of his black caregivers and playmates but also noted his advantages: His land-owning father sat atop Archery’s tenant-farming system and owned a main street grocery. His mother, Lillian, would become a staple of his political campaigns.

Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 – then and now – Carter won an appointment to the US Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. That same year, he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his Navy career.

The Carters presided with uncommon informality: He used his nickname “Jimmy” even when taking the oath of office, carried his own luggage and tried to silence the Marine Band’s “Hail to the Chief”. They bought their clothes off the rack. Carter wore a cardigan for a White House address, urging Americans to conserve energy by turning down their thermostats. Amy, the youngest of four children, attended District of Columbia public school.

AND THEN CAME IRAN

After he admitted the exiled Shah of Iran to the US for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979 by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Negotiations to free the hostages broke down repeatedly ahead of the failed rescue attempt.

The same year, Carter signed SALT II, the new strategic arms treaty with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union only to pull it back, impose trade sanctions, and order a US boycott of the Moscow Olympics after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

Hoping to instil optimism, he delivered what the media dubbed his “malaise” speech although he didn’t use that word. He declared the nation was suffering “a crisis of confidence”. By then, many Americans had lost confidence in the president, not themselves.

Carter successfully negotiated the hostages’ freedom after the election, but in one final, bitter turn of events, Tehran waited until hours after Carter left office to let them walk free.

At 56, Carter returned to Georgia with “no idea what I would do with the rest of my life”.

Still, he affirmed what he said when he underwent treatment for a cancer diagnosis in his 10th decade of life.

“I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said in 2015. “I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends. I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.”