Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, has died at the age of 100.
The Guardian reported that Carter, who was “a peacemaker in the Middle East of his time and a tireless defender of global health and human rights”, was “the longest-lived president in American history”.
Although he served only one term in the White House between 1977 and 1981 before being overthrown by Ronald Reagan, his tenure as president is remembered by most Americans as “incompetent.” In particular, the response to inflation and interest rates, as well as policy failures, were notable. ABC News said American hostages held in Iran should be brought home immediately.
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The “common view” is that Carter has become a better world leader since taking office. The ruling is said to have “distressed” Carter. But in more recent years, “his allies were happy to live long enough for historians to reassess his presidency.”
He took office in 1977 as a relative unknown, sometimes derided as “Jimmy who?” – President Carter “After Watergate and the Vietnam War, being new to Washington was seen as a virtue,” the Guardian said.
His early years were a show of “promise,” signing a treaty that handed over control of the Panama Canal to the host nation, and rallying Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to “promise peace that lasts today.”
But his hopes for the presidency were “devastated” by several economic and foreign policy crises, “starting with high unemployment and double-digit inflation and culminating in the Iran hostage crisis.” The “botched” rescue mission left eight U.S. service members dead, and further doubts about Carter’s leadership were raised. The hostages would be released in 1981, minutes after Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th president of the United States.
“But what no one expected at the time was that by common agreement Mr. Carter would become ‘the greatest former president in American history,'” the Times reported. “Having an almost missionary zeal,” he spent the next 40 years after leaving office as “a kind of one-man United Nations.”
NPR reported that after leaving office, Carter “turned his focus to promoting democracy, overseeing elections, building homes for Habitat for Humanity, and eradicating disease in some of the world’s poorest countries.” . In 2002, he won the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor “some say he earned when he negotiated the Camp David Accords a quarter-century ago,” NPR reported. He ended his acceptance speech with a plea for peace. “War may sometimes be a necessary evil, but no matter how necessary it is, it is always evil and never good. By killing each other’s children, we learn how to live together in peace.” “You will never learn.” ”
The Atlantic reported, “Mr. Carter showed the nation that a president’s duties extend far beyond his time in office.” Although he left the Oval Office as a “virtual laughing stock,” he “left this life on earth as a model of moral leadership.”
What’s next?
Carter will be given a state funeral in Washington on January 9, the United States’ National Day of Mourning. He will be buried next to his late wife Rosalyn in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
