Category: Wednesday

Despite significant legislative achievements, especially in education, energy, and environmental protection; peace-making deals, notably between Israel and Egypt; and historic diplomatic breakthroughs, particularly with China, President Jimmy Carter’s presidency was not favorably considered by pundits and voters alike.

There were at least two major reasons for the poor assessment. One, the economy had taken a downturn, due in part to fuel shortages, which led to a hike in pump prices of petrol, and uncontrollable inflation. Two, Carter’s tenure was consumed by conflict in the Middle East (Israel vs Egypt; Israel vs Palestine; and Iran vs Iraq); Cold War between the United States and the old Soviet Union; and the Iran Hostage Crisis involving 53 American hostages held for 444 days in the American Embassy in Tehran. Unfortunately, Carter’s mission to rescue the hostages ended in disaster due to poor weather and the crash of one rescue helicopter, which killed 8 service members.

Voters reacted so negatively to the economic and hostage crises that they denied Carter re-election in November 1980 and gave a landslide victory to his Republican opponent, President Ronald Reagan, who assumed office in January 1981.

Nevertheless, whatever credit Carter missed as President, he got back in unprecedented post-presidential achievements. More than any other American President before and after him, Carter had the widest range of activities and the most global reach after leaving the White House. To be sure, he was aided by his longevity: He was the longest-lived President in American history, at 100 years and 89 days. He also had the longest post-presidency, at 43 years and 344 days.

Upon leaving the White House in 1981, Carter went back to his hometown of Plains, Georgia, and returned to the family farmland to tend to peanuts, cotton, soybeans, grain, and pine trees. However, as he got increasingly involved in other activities, he soon phased out his farming duties and relied on partners or renters for all farming activities.

For coordinating those post-presidential activities, he used the Carter Center, which he and his wife, Rosalynn, set up in 1982 in collaboration with Emory University in Atlanta. He and Rosalynn also collaborated with Habitat for Humanity International, a global nonprofit housing organisation, established in 1976, to provide affordable housing across the United States and in at least 70 other countries around the world.

Working with these two institutions, Carter and (for the most part) Rosalynn visited at least 145 countries. They worked on healthcare, agriculture, peace, human rights, conflict resolution, promoting democracy by monitoring elections, and building homes for the poor around the world. Carter also pursued his interests in carpentry, woodworking, painting, and writing, while Rosalynn pursued her pet project on mental health. In the last chapter of his bestselling book, A Full Life: Reflections at 90 (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2015), Carter provided a summary of each of these activities as of 2014. He still worked even until 95!

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The central focus of their healthcare project was to eradicate or at least reduce the incidences of malaria and five “neglected tropical diseases” afflicting millions of people in Africa, South America, and Asia. They include river blindness, filariasis, trachoma, and guinea worm. The Carter Center has been credited for working for nearly 40 years to eradicate guinea worm. This mission has been achieved in at least 17 countries. As of June 2024, only three human cases and 297 animal infections were reported, almost 100% reduction from an estimated 3.5 million cases in 1986, when the Carter Center took on the disease.

Their work on peace and conflict resolution took them to dangerous places. According to Carter himself, “These choices are not always popular, because they put us in contact with unsavory people or groups. They have included Maoists in Nepal, the Communist dictator Mengitsu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia, Mobutu Sese Sekop in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), Radovan Karadzic in Bosnia and Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Kin Il Sung and his successors in North Korea, the Castro brothers in Cuba, Omar al-bashir in Sudan, and leaders of Hamas in Gaza and other places.” On many occasions, he was invited by these leaders, because he had acquired a solid reputation as an impartial mediator, and he succeeded in mediating most of the conflicts.

One of the projects Carter really enjoyed to the fullest was his job as a Distinguished University Professor at Emory. He lectured in different departments and schools during the academic year. The subjects included history, political science, environmental studies, theology, African American studies, business, medicine, nursing, and law. For over 30 years in a row, he started each academic year with a town hall meeting with several thousand students, “where I answer unpredictable questions.” His appointment to this role illustrates the elasticity of the American academic tradition. It does not require the NUC’s obnoxious type of “you must have a doctorate degree” to teach in a university, thereby cutting off people with talent and experience like Carter and many others like him from sharing their expertise and experiences.

Carter discovered his love of writing, especially after buying his first word processor after leaving the White House. He authored at least 33 books, mostly bestsellers. He wrote on a variety of subjects, from history to religion, from personal reflections to a focus on his father, from his village of Plains to the White House in Washington, from war to peace, and from the boyhood years to adulthood and aging. None of Carter’s books could be pushed aside.

In the next contribution, Carter’s character, philosophy, and what President Biden described as “simple decency” will be analysed.

Jimmy Carter: Village Boy, Naval Officer, Peanut Farmer, State Senator, Governor, President, University Distinguished Professor, Human Rights and Peace Advocate, Nobel Laureate, and a Centurion (1924-2024)

When Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States (1977-1981), died on Sunday, December 29, 2024, two months after turning 100, I felt like I lost someone I knew very closely, although I never met him one-on-one. I created a bond with him because he was the first American President, whose career and election as President I followed very closely during my early years in the United States. I was attracted to him because his humble beginnings as the first son of a peanut farmer in a small village mirrored mine as the first son of a cocoa farmer in a small farming village. Moreover, each of us owned a small portion of land on our father’s farm on which we planted the same crop as our father’s. But that’s where the comparison ends! Carter rose from these humble beginnings to become the most powerful man in the world. The long title of this piece provides a trajectory of his progress through life. I focus here on his rock-and-roll presidency.

Carter became President in 1977 at a time of uncertainty in American politics, following the Watergate scandal and the fallout from the Vietnam War. Carter was a Washington outsider, unknown to the wider political establishment beyond his home state of Georgia. Nevertheless, voters quickly bought into his straight talk and “I will never lie to you” mantra, drawing a sharp contrast to Nixon’s Watergate scandals. He pledged to restore a sense of morality to domestic and foreign policy and pursue the maintenance of world peace.

Accordingly, early in his administration, Carter issued presidential directives to simplify the management of foreign policy and to focus on the maintenance of peace, nuclear non-proliferation, the pursuit of human rights, and international cooperation. He advocated going beyond East-West concerns to focusing on the developing world to fully harness global interdependencies.

Carter’s major domestic and foreign policy achievements came within the first two years of his administration. He began with bold domestic policies. He pardoned protesters and resisters of the Vietnam war and those who dodged the draft to fight in the war. He killed funding for the B-1 bomber plane to signal his peace advocacy. He also pushed for a comprehensive bill to protect consumers. Following his dislike for backroom dealings rampant in Washington, he opposed “pork barrel” bills (like Nigerian budget padding), which legislators often attach to major bills. Carter labelled them as wasteful and corrupt, which left a bad taste in the legislators’ mouths. This laid the seed of a frosty relationship with Congress.

Nevertheless, he pushed ahead with innovative bills. He established the Department of Energy and created a national energy policy on a tripod of price control, conservation, and technology. He even installed Solar panels on the White House to demonstrate his commitment to alternative energy sources. He also promoted energy conservation measures, including automotive mileage standards and reduced industry’s use of fuels.

Carter also created the Department of Education with promises of equity, excellence, and upward mobility. Moreover, at a time when little was known about climate change, Carter pushed through Congress important legislation on environmental protection. He also got legislation through on transportation to deregulate the airline, trucking, and railroad industries, which resulted in lower transportations costs for consumers.

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Carter’s foreign policy successes also came early in his administration. He successfully negotiated several historic agreements and diplomatic relations, which endure till today. First, in 1977 and 1978, he negotiated two agreements with Panama over the Panama Canal, one of which would transfer the Canal to Panama by 1999.

Second, in September 1978, he successfully mediated an historic peace treaty between Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, and Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, which led to the normalisation of relations between the two countries.

Third, on December 15, 1978, after months of secret negotiations, mediated by Carter, United States and China, recognised one another and agreed to establish official diplomatic relations.

Fourth, this was followed the following year (1979) by the successful negotiation of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II (SALT II), which was signed between the United States and the then Soviet Union to limit the number of nuclear weapons each country owned. However, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year forced Carter to delay Senate ratification of the treaty, which has remained unsigned till today.

Carter’s progress with governance was eventually limited by four factors. One, the frosty relationship he had developed with Congress, including leaders of his own party, soon limited his ability to get bills through Congress. His veto on some bills was even overturned by Congress.

Two, although the economy was in stagnation when Carter assumed office, it dipped further because of petrol price hike, following high increases in oil price by OPEC. As a result, inflation hit food and commodity markets, and unemployment figures dipped even further. These problems did not abate even as his reelection drew close.

Three, the Iran hostage crisis consumed the last quarter of his administration. Iranian students, who supported the Iranian revolution, which led to the deposition of the Shah of Iran, had held 53 American Embassy workers and visitors hostage over the asylum granted to the deposed Shah, who was receiving cancer treatment in the United States.

Finally, Carter’s administration suffered from trust deficit in some members of his cabinet, including his Budget Director, the Treasury Secretary, and his Chief of Staff, each of whom was accused of one unsavoury practice or the other. Although the charges against some of them were shown to be false, the damage had already been done. Carter’s poor media image further complicated matters. His speech on the economy (dubbed the “malaise” speech), in which he blamed the crisis of confidence on the American people themselves, received negative press coverage and poor public reception. The firing or redeployment of some cabinet members was interpreted as acknowledgement of failure.

At the end of the day, public perception of Carter’s leadership did not correspond with the reality of his performance as he pushed through Congress more legislation and successful presidential initiatives than those of his immediate predecessors and successors. No wonder then he lost reelection in a landslide to Republican Ronald Reagan. To this day, Republicans have continued to seek ways of dampening Carter’s record of accomplishments. For example, President Reagan removed the Solar panels from the White House on assumption of office, and, recently, President-elect Donald Trump promised to take back the Panama Canal and even abolish the Department of Education.

On their return to Plains in 1981 after losing re-election, Carter and Rosalyn moved back into their two-bedroom bungalow. He first resumed the family peanut business, which had been run down while he was in the White House. In the meantime, he got the Carter Center built in collaboration with Emory University in Atlanta, where he was offered, and accepted, a University Distinguished Professorship in 1982.

The concluding part of this piece will focus on details of Carter’s post-presidency; the work of the Carter Centre; the contributions of his wife; global perceptions of his contributions to humanity; and my own analysis of the man and his accomplishments.