RIP Jimmy Carter

James Earl Carter, the 39th President of the United States, passed away today at the age of 100. His was a life of public service, from the US Navy to the governments of Georgia and the US, to his 44-year retirement, during which he never stopped trying to make the world a better place.

Carter grew up on a peanut farm in Plains, Georgia, population 600. He met his future wife Rosalynn when he was three years old and she was just three days old. They were married while he attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis and were together for 77 until her death last year.

As a navy lieutenant, Carter organized the dismantling of the Chalk River nuclear reactor after a meltdown in 1952. Listen to the story here. The harrowing project informed his later stance on nuclear policy.

In Georgia politics, Carter leveraged support from both civil rights activists and segregationists, and only revealed his anti-segregationist views after achieving the governorship.

As president, Carter inherited a country that had little faith in its government after Watergate, and a congress that had little faith in Carter. His anti-corruption stance, his reluctance to play the Washington game, and his tendency to micromanage put off the legislators whose support he needed to accomplish anything. He attempted to bring the country together in healing from the Vietnam War by pardoning all draft dodgers, which further divided the public's opinion on him. A poor economy was exacerbated by the energy crisis of 1979. Carter’s response was to ask Americans to cut back energy usage, which did not go down well.

Carter's record in foreign policy was mixed. He signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II with Russia, and engineered the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. Carter's decision to allow the deposed Shah of Iran to come to the US for medical treatment exacerbated a bad relationship with the new government in Iran, which blamed the US for installing the Shah in 1941. Iranian extremists captured dozens of Americans at the US Embassy in Tehran and kept them hostage for over a year, until the very day Carter left office.

In the decades since Carter's presidency, the failures of his administration are often seen as due to his commitment to doing what he considered the right thing, even when it was politically damaging or divisive. He was just too ethical for the office.  

It was after Carter left office that he became the activist he wanted to be. In 1982, he declared war on the guinea worm, a parasite that caused untold misery in Africa. The infection went from 3.5 million cases per year to just 13 cases in 2022. Carter lent his name and his efforts, along with his wife Rosalynn, to Habitat for Humanity. Over 35 years, he helped build 4,390 new homes.

Carter also worked with world organizations to monitor elections in countries around the world. He worked with Nelson Mandela on issues of global justice and peace. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He also taught at Emory University for years, and led a Sunday school class in his native Plains until just a few years ago. He wrote more than 30 books on subjects from global politics to poetry. There will never be another like him.