America needs more Jimmy Carters

Jimmy Carter: The Fate of America, the Death of an American President, and the Last Days of World Warfare in the U.S.

There’s no predicting history’s verdict. Up to now, Jimmy Carter, who died on Sunday at age 100 in Plains, Ga., has been judged to be a middle-of-the-pack president, his one term in office remembered for circumstances and events that simply overwhelmed him: the seizure in Iran of 52 American hostages, the bungled attempt to rescue them, the gasoline lines, inflation, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He was a peacemaker and backstage diplomat, as well as a human rights champion, monitor of free elections, and advocate for the homeless, while finding time to write poetry.

In 2002, having been nominated many times for the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Carter finally won it for his “vital contribution” to the Camp David agreement, which set the stage for peace between Israel and Egypt, as well as for his commitment to human rights, his work fighting tropical diseases and for furthering democracy everywhere.

Carter was elected when the mood of the country was bitter and cynical in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. The man from Georgia hit out on a different course during his inauguration. Carter and his wife stepped out of their car and walked towards the White House to show their connection to the American people.

He could not have run at a better time. The previous decade was very bad for the United States. Lyndon Johnson decided not to seek another term because of increasing public anger about the Vietnam war. Nixon resigned so he could not be impeached. Assassinations claimed the lives of yet another Kennedy, Bobby, as well as the nation’s premier civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. The war was a failure.

The Peanut Brigade: Jimmy Carter Jr. During His First Five Years in the United States, During the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis

James “Jimmy” Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains, Ga., on Oct. 1, 1924, and spent his childhood on a farm just outside that tiny southwest Georgia community. His parents were peanut farmers and a nurse. He was the first president of the United States to be born in a hospital.

“Other than Jimmy Carter, no person from the Deep South since the American Civil War had been elected president,” said Steven Hochman, a longtime assistant to the former president who works for the Carter Center.

Carter was taught the value of hard work and determination when he was a child. He was an engineer working on submarines after getting a qualification from the Naval Academy. But Carter resigned from the Navy in 1953 after his father died.

But a grassroots effort changed that, Hochman said. “He would campaign on the street corners and go to radio stations. Nobody knew who he was except that he was running for president.”

The peanut brigade, a group of friends and family from Georgia who traveled to New Hampshire, Iowa and all over the nation to campaign for Carter, who wanted to be president, was reliableSoutherner who wanted to be president.

Carter told audiences he wouldn’t tell a lie. I won’t make a false statement. I’ll always honor the trust of those that have confidence in me, and will never dodge a controversial issue.

“It was mainly an attempt to draw a distinction between what he saw as the people’s presidency and the more imperial presidency of Richard Nixon,” said historian Dan Carter (no relation to Jimmy Carter).

The accords led to a peace treaty, but the relationship between the two Mideast countries remained tenuous. While in office, Carter also worked on the SALT II nuclear weapons agreement and signed the Panama Canal treaties, giving control of the canal to Panama.

The Iran hostage crisis was a challenge that Carter had to contend with. Dozens of Americans were taken captive in 1979 when militant attacked the US Embassy in Iran. People were glued to reports on the crisis for more than a year, as Carter continued to negotiate for the release of the hostages. Eight American soldiers were killed in a failed rescue attempt in 1980.

The administration also battled domestic problems, including an energy crisis and double-digit inflation. Carter held a series of meetings among his Cabinet members that resulted in a blunt television address in 1979 that came to be known as the “malaise” speech.

“It’s clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper — deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. Carter pleaded for help, saying that as a president he needs your help more than ever.

Source: Jimmy Carter, former U.S. president and peace activist, dies at 100

Jimmy Carter: A New Perspective on the World’s Most Expansive and Unprecedentedest Presidents: From World War to World Warfare

“I am told by theIranians that the aircraft carrying 52 hostages made it through the first leg of its journey home, and that all of them were unharmed,” Carter said, as his voice broke.

After leaving office, Carter became dedicated to promoting democracy, monitoring elections, building homes with Habitat for Humanity and eradicating disease in some of the world’s poorest countries. In 1982, the president and his wife opened the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Carter talked about his experiences in an interview with NPR. For the last 25 years, his life has been more expansive, unpredictable, and adventurous.

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil, but no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never a good. Carter said that we won’t learn how to live in peace by killing each other’s children.

The leaders of countries that US presidents had refused to acknowledge such as North Korea, Nicaragua and Cuba were meeting with the former president. He met with the leader of Hamas despite criticism from the U.S. government.

Historian Dan Carter said that the former president did prove to be a kind of honest broker for peace in many cases and that as Jimmy Carter grew older, he was less afraid of speaking out.

Carter was in hospice care in February. The longest-lived former president had suffered from a series of health challenges in recent years, including surviving cancer, a broken hip and other recent hospitalizations for a fractured pelvis and a urinary tract infection.