Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, has died at the age of 100. Although he served only one term as president, he will be remembered for his decades of humanitarian work.
Those who knew him, opponents and supporters alike, described him as a man of integrity, whatever his shortcomings as president.
“If you look at the whole nitty-gritty of Jimmy Carter’s life, it’s an amazing American story,” Douglas Brinkley, author of “The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond the White House,” told Fox News Digital. spoke.
“He grew up without electricity and served in the Navy. He became president of the United States at the height of the Cold War and won a Nobel Prize after his presidency,” Brinkley said. “His ambitious humanity was always aimed at helping everyone he interacted with to behave better and more equitably in life.”
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File: Former President Jimmy Carter before the game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Cincinnati Bengals at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on September 30, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)
Carter, a peanut farmer and one-term governor of Georgia, defied the odds and was elected president in 1977.
“No one thought Mr. Carter could win the Democratic nomination. But Mr. Carter had a unique bulldog tenacity.” [and] Gumshoe patience,” Brinkley said.
Carter smiles and waves in the auditorium during the closing ceremony of the 1976 Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York, on July 15, 1976, when Carter is confirmed as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. politician Jimmy Carter. In , the former Georgia governor won the 1976 U.S. presidential election. (Archive Photo/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Carter’s campaign troubled Democrats because he was deeply religious and ran to the right of Republican opponent Gerald Ford on some social issues. A Washington outsider, Carter’s agricultural background and accent endeared him to people in the Deep South.
He took office at a time when the country was in a state of turmoil due to Watergate, the Vietnam War, and stagflation. In Washington, Mr. Carter’s populist campaign inevitably clashed with establishment Democrats who did not fully embrace him.
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“Mr. Carter never had full control of his Democratic Party. Ted Kennedy’s liberals didn’t like him, Scoop Jackson’s Cold War hawks didn’t like him either,” Blink said. Mr. Lee said. “So he was kind of an island to himself as president.”
Carter’s foreign policy victories included brokering peace in the Middle East in 1978 by bringing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the negotiating table for nearly two weeks. Domestically, Carter deregulated parts of the airline, railroad, and trucking industries and created a government department. Education and Energy, Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Jimmy Carter signs the Federal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act, circa 1977, November 9, 1977. (Ham Images/Universal Images Group)
Carter designated millions of acres in Alaska as national parks or wildlife refuges and appointed a then-record number of women and nonwhites to federal positions. He also built on President Nixon’s opening to China and promoted Latin America from a dictatorship to a democracy.
But his presidency was also marked by double-digit inflation, long gasoline stocks, and a 444-day hostage situation in Iran. His darkest moment came in April 1980, when a botched hostage rescue resulted in the deaths of eight Americans and ensured his landslide defeat.
File: Former President Jimmy Carter addresses the audience gathered for the 28th Annual Town Hall Meeting at Emory University on September 16, 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)
Carter was also crippled by, as Brinkley said, a “lack of communication skills.” Brinkley said oratory was not his forte.
In 1979, Carter gave his famous “Crisis of Confidence” speech, declaring that America, once a nation “proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and faith in God,” had degenerated into “ego.” I lamented what had happened. -Indulgence and consumption. ”
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“Human identity is no longer defined by what we do, but by what we own. But we recognize that owning and consuming things alone does not satisfy our thirst for meaning. “I realized that,” Carter said. “We have learned that no amount of material possessions can fill the emptiness of a life without confidence or purpose.”
Craig Shirley, a Reagan biographer and historian, recalled seeing the speech while working for the senator at the Capitol.
“I remember watching it that Sunday night and feeling scared for the first time in my life as an American. The speech was very depressing. It was very depressing,” Shirley said. “The president should tell the American people the truth, but he should also appeal to their hopes and aspirations, not their worst feelings and desires.”
President Jimmy Carter and Republican challenger Ronald Reagan shake hands and greet each other before a debate on the Music Hall stage in Cleveland, Ohio. (Getty Images)
Carter ultimately served one tumultuous term, losing to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.
But whatever the flaws in his presidency, Mr. Carter will be most fondly remembered for the decades he spent defending democracy, public health, and human rights through the Carter Center.
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The center, which Mr. Carter started with his wife Rosalyn in 1982, is a pioneer in election observation, having monitored at least 113 elections in Africa, Latin America and Asia since 1989. In perhaps its most widely praised public health initiative, the organization recently announced that there were just 14 human cases of Guinea worm disease reported in all of 2021, the lowest in Africa. This is the result of years of public health campaigns to improve access to safe drinking water. Carter’s work at the center won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Haitian President Michel Martelly (2L) and former US President Jimmy Carter (C) visit the Léogâne (33 km south of Port-au-Prince) housing project built by the Carter Foundation for 500 homes on November 8, 2011. Victims of the last earthquake in Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010. (THONY BELIZAIRE/AFP via Getty Images)
Shirley argued that for his humanitarian work, Carter will be remembered as “one of the greatest former presidents of the 20th century.”
“Carter wasn’t really cut out for PR. He really threw himself into philanthropy and continued to do that for many years,” Shirley said.
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“We’re going to remember him fondly. He was a great former president for what he did at the Carter Center and the work he did across the country. His writings are outstanding. [as does] his philanthropy; Therefore, he goes down in history as a very good former president. ”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This article was written by a FOX News staff member.
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