Jimmy Carter’s Last Seventy Years in the Life of a “Round-The-Place” Presidential Candidate

History does not have any predicting of its 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 used the power of his office to help his successors, as a peacemaker, backstage diplomat, human rights champion and monitor of free elections, while also finding time to write poetry, being one of America’s greatest ex-presidents.

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.

A lifelong Democrat like most Southerners at the time, Carter was a political unknown when he began a national campaign in 1974 and was first referred to as “Jimmy Who?”

In retrospect, he could not have run at a more auspicious moment. The previous decade had been brutal for the United States. One president, Lyndon Johnson, chose not to seek another term because of rising public anger at an unwinnable war in Vietnam. Nixon was the second person to resign to avoid being impeached. The assassination of another Kennedy, Bobby, as well as the renowned civil rights leader,Martin Luther King Jr., took place. The war was a failure.

Jimmy Carter Jr.: The First President of the United States After the First World War I. Addressing 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 father was a peanut farmer; his mother, “Miss Lillian,” was a nurse. He was the first president of the United States to be born.

“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.

Growing up on the farm, Carter learned the value of hard work and determination. He became a submarine engineer after graduating from the US Naval Academy. But Carter resigned from the Navy in 1953 after his father died.

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

Carter’s friends and family from Georgia, called the Peanut Brigade, traveled to New Hampshire, Iowa and all over the country talking to voters and campaigning for Carter, the dependable Southerner who wanted to be president.

Carter told audiences that he would not tell a lie. I won’t make a false statement. I’ll never betray the trust of those who have confidence in me, and I will never avoid a controversial issue.”

The attempt was to draw a distinction between what he saw as the people’s presidency and the more imperial one of Richard Nixon, said historian Dan Carter.

The relationship between the two Mid East countries was not great despite the peace treaty. Carter signed the Panama Canal treaties while he was in office, giving control of the canal to Panama.

The Iran hostage crisis was the most difficult challenge that Carter had. The Americans were taken hostage in 1979 when the U.S. Embassy in Iran was attacked. People were interested in reports on the crisis for more than a year when Carter continued to negotiate for hostages’ release. In 1980, a failed rescue attempt led to the deaths of eight American servicemen.

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. And I realize more than ever that as president, I need your help,” Carter pleaded.

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

Jimmy Carter: A Peacemaker for the Exiled Leaders of the World’s Most Poverty-Localized Regime

“I had received word officially for the first time that the aircraft carrying the 52 American hostages had cleared Iranian airspace on the first leg of the journey home and that every one of the 52 hostages was alive, was well and free,” Carter said as his voice broke.

After leaving office, Carter devoted himself to some of the world’s most impoverished countries, such as helping build homes with Habitat for Humanity, monitoring elections and fighting disease. In 1982, the president and his wife opened the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Carter spoke about his experiences in an interview with NPR. “And for the last 25 years, my life could not have been more expansive and unpredictable and adventurous and gratifying,” he said.

“War is never a good, even if it is necessary, and even if it is evil, even if it is good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children,” Carter said.

The former president continued international peace missions throughout his lifetime, meeting with the leaders of countries that some U.S. presidents refused to acknowledge, including North Korea, Nicaragua and Cuba. In 2008, he met with the exiled leader of the militant Islamist group Hamas, despite harsh criticism from the U.S. government.

Historian Dan Carter said that as Jimmy Carter grew older, he became less afraid of speaking out and the former president proved to be an honest broker for peace in many cases.

Carter was in hospice care. 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.