- His time as US President saw him faced series of economic and foreign policy crises, including Iran hostage affair and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
- President Biden declares 9 January national day of mourning
The 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, has died at the age 100 years old.
The former President’s son, Chip Carter announced his passage on Sunday saying; “My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love.”
Chip’s statement further said thus; “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs.
“The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”
Carter, the longest-lived US President, was considered a broker of peace in the Middle East in his time, and a tireless advocate for global health and human rights.
A Georgia Democrat, Carter was the longest-lived president in US history. He only served one term in the White House and was soundly beaten by Ronald Reagan in 1980. But Carter spent the decades afterward focused on international relations and human rights, efforts that won him the Nobel peace prize in 2002.
Carter had undergone a series of hospital stays before and his family said on 18 February last year that he had chosen to “spend his remaining time at home”, in hospice care and with loved ones. The decision had “the full support of his family and his medical team”, a family statement said.
President Joe Biden on Sunday declared 9 January a national day of mourning, calling on Americans to visit their places of worship to “pay homage” to the late US leader.
Carter’s wife, Rosalynn Carter, died last November, two days after her own transition to hospice care. The former first lady was 96. The pair married in 1946 and the former president attended her memorial service, traveling from the couple’s longtime home in Plains, Georgia, to the Glenn Memorial church in Atlanta.
The Carters’ eldest grandchild, Jason Carter, had said in a media interview in June this year that the former president was not awake every day but was “experiencing the world as best he can” as his days were coming to an end.
Carter took office in 1977 as “Jimmy Who?”, a one-term Georgia governor and devout Christian whose unfamiliarity with Washington was seen as a virtue after the Watergate and Vietnam war years.
Hopes for the Carter presidency were dashed, however, by economic and foreign policy crises, starting with high unemployment and double-digit inflation and culminating in the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A rolling energy crisis saw the price of oil triple from 1978 to 1980, leading to lines at US gas stations.
Such struggles belied early promise. In 1977, Carter completed a treaty that had eluded his predecessors to return control of the Panama canal to its host country. At Camp David in 1978, Carter brought together the Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, and the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, for a deal that would produce peace that endures today.
Carter’s fruitless attempts to halt the economic slide led Republicans to label him “Jimmy Hoover”, after the Depression-era president. But as Carter prepared to run for re-election in 1980, it was the Iran hostage crisis that weighed most visibly on Americans’ minds, the TV anchor Ted Koppel devoting his broadcast five days a week to the plight of 52 Americans held in Tehran. A botched rescue attempt left eight US servicemen dead and fed doubts about Carter’s leadership.
Reagan, a former California governor, won 44 states. The hostages were released on 20 January 1981, hours after Carter left office, prompting speculation that Republicans had made a deal with Iran.
Broadly unpopular then, Carter went on to become not just the longest-lived president but also to have one of the most distinguished post-presidential careers.
He was awarded the Nobel peace prize for “decades of untiring effort” for human rights and peacemaking. His humanitarian work was conducted under the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which he founded in the early 1980s, with Rosalynn.
Carter traveled the world as a peace emissary, election observer and public health advocate. He made visits to North Korea in 1994 and Cuba in 2002.
The Carter Center is credited with helping to cure river blindness, trachoma and Guinea worm disease, which went from millions of cases in Africa and Asia in 1986 to a handful today.
