Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, then Middle East peace broker and tireless defender of global health and human rights, has died, it was announced Sunday. He was 100 years old.
“My father was a hero, not just to me, but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and selfless love,” Chip Carter, the former president’s son, said in a statement.
“My brother, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. Because he brought people together, the world is our family. Thank you for honoring his memory through our shared beliefs.”
Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, was the longest-lived president in U.S. history. He lasted only one term in the White House, soundly defeated by President Ronald Reagan in 1980. But Carter spent the next few decades focusing on international relations and human rights, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Carter has had a series of hospitalizations, and on February 18 of last year, his family announced that he had chosen to “spend the remainder of his time at home with hospice care and loved ones.” . The family statement said the decision had “the full support of the family and medical team.”
Carter’s wife, Rosalynn Carter, died last November, two days after he was placed in hospice care. The former first lady was 96 years old. The two married in 1946, and the former president traveled from the couple’s longtime home in Plains, Georgia, to Glenn Memorial Church in Atlanta to attend her memorial service.
Jason Carter, the Carters’ eldest son, said in a media interview in June that the former president doesn’t wake up every day but is “experiencing the world as much as he can” as the end approaches. .
Mr. Carter is a devout Christian who took office in 1977 as “Jimmy Who?” and served one term as governor of Georgia, and after Watergate and the Vietnam War, his lack of familiarity with Washington was seen as a virtue. Ta.
But hopes for a Carter presidency were dashed by an economic and foreign policy crisis that began with high unemployment and double-digit inflation and culminated with the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The ongoing energy crisis caused oil prices to triple between 1978 and 1980, creating lines at gas stations in the United States.
These struggles betrayed the original promise. In 1977, Carter signed a treaty that returned control of the Panama Canal to the host nation, something his predecessors had failed to do. At Camp David in 1978, Carter brought together Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and forged an agreement that created a peace that lasts to this day.
Mr. Carter’s futile attempts to halt the economic downturn led Republicans to refer to him as “Jimmy Hoover,” after the Great Depression-era president. But as President Carter prepared for re-election in 1980, it was the Iran hostage crisis that weighed most visibly on the American public’s mind, and television anchor Ted Koppel told the weekly 5 He dedicated the day’s broadcast to the plight of the 52 Americans held in Tehran. The botched rescue mission left eight U.S. soldiers dead and raised doubts about Carter’s leadership.
Mr. Reagan, a former California governor, won 44 states. The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, hours after President Carter left office, sparking speculation that the Republicans had struck a deal with Iran.
Mr. Carter, unpopular at the time, went on to become not only the longest-serving president but also one of the most distinguished post-presidential careers. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his “decades of tireless efforts” for human rights and peacebuilding. His humanitarian work was conducted under the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which he co-founded with Rosalynn in the early 1980s.
Carter traveled the world as a messenger of peace, election observer, and public health advocate. He visited North Korea in 1994 and Cuba in 2002. The Carter Center is credited with the treatment of river blindness, trachoma, and Guinea worm disease, which in 1986 had millions of cases in Africa and Asia, but today there are only a few. There is.
Mr. Carter criticized the 2003 invasion of Iraq, drone warfare, warrantless government surveillance and the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He was involved in Middle East peace efforts and drew praise and loathing for his advocacy for a two-state solution in speeches and books such as “Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid.”
He met then-Israeli President Shimon Peres on a visit to Jerusalem in 2012, but after the book’s publication, top Israeli leaders generally shunned Carter. As recently as 2015, requests to meet with the prime minister and president were denied.
Carter played a central role in promoting Habitat for Humanity, which provides housing to the needy, and was a pioneer in alternative energy, installing solar panels on the White House. (Reagan removed them.)
The Carter family has four children and 11 grandchildren, including James Carter IV, who unearthed a video of Mitt Romney ranting at 47% of Americans in 2012. It is said that he played a very important role in the elections.
James Earl Carter Jr. grew up in Plains, Georgia, a town of fewer than 1,000 people about 240 miles south of Atlanta. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, he was promoted to lieutenant and worked on the early nuclear submarine program. After his father passed away in 1953, he started farming groundnuts. He was elected to the Georgia State Senate and then governor in 1970, pushing the state to move beyond racism.
Carter’s blend of moral authority and popular charisma created a moment of unusually frank national dialogue. In a 1979 speech, he spoke semi-naturally for half an hour about a “crisis of confidence”, a “fundamental threat to American democracy… that is largely invisible in normal ways.” Americans had fallen into a cult of “selfishness and consumption,” he said, but “we learned that no amount of material possessions can fill the void of a life without confidence or purpose.”
The speech resonated, and Carter’s popularity soared by 11 points. But the speech became a liability after President Reagan and others recast it as a self-indulgent exploration of personal malaise.
Former President Carter speechwriter James Fallows wrote in 1979 that although the president suffered from an inability to generate excitement, he “certainly will be better than most other leaders in the judgment of the Lord.” ” he wrote.
Carter outlived the two presidents who followed him, Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Public services will be held in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., followed by a private burial in Plains, Georgia. Mr. Carter’s state funeral, including all public events and motorcade routes, is still pending.
