By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON, 2024 (Reuters) – Jimmy Carter, an honest farmer from Georgia who as US president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work his humanity, he is dead. , The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Sunday. He was 100 years old.
A Democrat, he served as president from January 1977 to January 1981 after defeating Republican President Gerald Ford (NYSE: ) in the 1976 US election. Carter was swept from office four years later in an electoral collapse as voters embraced Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, the former actor and governor of California.
Carter lived longer after his term in office than any other US president. Along the way, he earned a reputation as a better ex-president than president – a title he readily accepted.
His one-term presidency was marked by the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, which brought stability to the Middle East. But it was dominated by a stagnant economy, lingering unpopularity and the scandal of the Iran crisis that consumed his last 444 days in office.
In recent years, Carter has suffered several health problems including melanoma that spread to his liver and brain. Carter decided to receive hospice care in February 2023 instead of further medical intervention. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, died on November 19, 2023, aged 96.
Carter left office unpopular but worked hard for decades on humanitarian causes. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 in recognition of his “unrelenting efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, advance democracy and human rights, and promote economic and social development.”
Carter was a centrist as the populist governor of Georgia when he entered the White House as the 39th president of the US. He was a Washington outsider at a time when America was reeling from the Watergate scandal that led Republican Richard Nixon to resign as president in 1974 and promoted Ford to vice president.
“I'm Jimmy Carter and I'm running for president. I'm not going to lie to you,” Carter promised with an ear-to-ear smile.
Asked to assess his presidency, Carter said in a 1991 documentary: “My biggest failure was a political failure. I was never able to convince the American people that I was a strong and powerful leader.”
Despite his difficulties in office, Carter had few people to credit for his success as a former president. He gained worldwide fame as a tireless advocate of human rights, a voice for the dispossessed and a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty, winning the respect he never won from the White House.
Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world, from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Bosnia and Haiti. His Carter Center in Atlanta has sent international election monitoring delegations to elections around the world.
A Southern Baptist church school teacher since his teenage years, Carter brought a strong sense of morality to the president, speaking openly about his religious faith. He also wanted to take the glamor out of the increasingly royal presidency—walking, instead of riding in a limousine, in his 1977 inauguration parade.
The Middle East was the focus of Carter's (NYSE: ) foreign policy. The Egypt-Israel peace accord of 1979, based on the 1978 Camp David accords, ended the state of war between the two neighbors.
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Start to Camp David for the president's return to Maryland for talks. Later, as deals seemed to be breaking down, Carter saved the day by flying to Cairo and Jerusalem to talk to him about the ship.
The agreement provides for Israel's withdrawal from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the establishment of diplomatic relations. Begin and Sadat each won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.
In the 1980 election, the top issues were double inflation, over 20% interest and gas price hikes, and the Iran crisis that brought about the downfall of America. These issues damaged Carter's presidency and undermined his chances of winning a second term.
THE TROUBLE OF TRUST
On Nov 4, 1979, rebels loyal to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran attacked the US embassy in Tehran, captured the Americans there and demanded the return of deposed shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was supported by the United States. States and was treated in the United States. in a US hospital.
The American public initially rallied behind Carter. But his support ended in April 1980 when a commando raid failed to rescue hostages, with eight US soldiers killed in a plane crash in the Iranian desert.
Carter's last credit was that Iran held 52 hostages minutes after Reagan took his oath of office on Jan. 20, 1981, to replace Carter, then released the planes that carried them to freedom.
In another crisis, Carter protested the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union by boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He also asked the US Senate to suspend consideration of a major nuclear arms deal with Moscow.
Undeterred, the Soviets stayed in Afghanistan for a decade.
Carter won narrow Senate approval in 1978 of a treaty to transfer the Panama Canal to Panamanian control despite critics arguing the waterway was vital to American security. He has completed negotiations for a full US-China relationship.
Carter created two new US Cabinet departments – Education and Energy. Amid high gas prices, he said America's “energy crisis” is a “war-like morality” and urged the country to embrace conservation. “Our country is the most wasteful country in the world,” he told Americans in 1977.
In 1979, Carter gave what became known as his “malaise” speech to the nation, although he never used that term.
“After listening to the American people I was reminded once again that all the laws in the world cannot fix what is wrong with America,” he said in his televised address.
“The threat is almost invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of self-confidence. It is a crisis that attacks the heart and soul and spirit of our national will. The collapse of our confidence in the future threatens to destroy our society. and American politics.”
As president, the strait-laced Carter was embarrassed by the behavior of his younger brother, Billy Carter, who boasted: “I got a red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer.”
'YOU WILL GO THERE'
Jimmy Carter withstood a challenge from Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980 but was politically demoted heading into his general election fight against a strong Republican opponent.
Reagan, a conservative who projected an image of strength, kept Carter off balance during their debates before the November 1980 election.
Reagan told Carter, “There it is again,” when the Republican challenger felt the president had misrepresented Reagan's views during the debate.
Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan, who won 44 of the 50 states and collected the Electoral College.
James Earl Carter Jr. Graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1946, worked in the nuclear submarine program and went on to manage a peanut business.
He married his wife, Rosalynn, in 1946, a marriage he called “the most important thing in my life.” They had three sons and one daughter.
Carter became a billionaire, Georgia state legislator and governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. He mounted a minor bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, and edged out his rivals for the right to face Ford in the general election.
With Walter Mondale as his running mate, Carter was compounded by a major Ford gaffe during their negotiations. Ford said that “there is no Soviet rule in Eastern Europe and there never will be under Ford rule,” despite decades of such rule.
Carter defeated Ford in the election, even though Ford won the majority of states – 27 to Carter's 23.
Not all of Carter's work after becoming president was appreciated. Former President George W. Bush and his father, former President George HW Bush, both Republicans, were said to be dissatisfied with Carter's diplomacy in Iraq and elsewhere.
In 2004, Carter called the Iraq war launched in 2003 by the younger Bush “the worst and most destructive mistake of our country.” He called the George W. Bush administration “the worst in history” and said Vice President Dick Cheney was “a disaster for our country.”
In 2019, Carter questioned the legitimacy of Republican Donald Trump as president, saying he was “put in office because the Russians interfered on his behalf.” Trump responded by calling Carter a “terrible president.”
Carter made trips to communist North Korea. The 1994 visit defused the nuclear crisis, as President Kim Il Sung agreed to suspend his nuclear program in order to renegotiate with the United States. That led to an agreement in which North Korea, in return for aid, promised not to restart its nuclear reactor or reuse the plant's spent fuel.
But Carter angered the administration of Democratic President Bill Clinton by announcing a deal with the North Korean leader without checking with Washington first.
In 2010, Carter won the release of an American who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korea.
Carter wrote more than a dozen books, from presidential memoirs to children's books and poetry, as well as works on religious faith and diplomacy. His book “Faith: A Journey for All,” was published in 2018.
(Reporting and writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Bill Trott and Diane Craft)