It became a dogma that his presidency was a failure, but his excellence gleamed only in his retirement years. However, lately, as viewed through the mists of time, a new appreciation of his achievements as president has emerged. Carter was ahead of his time when he realized that dependency on fossil fuels was shortsighted – Photo The New York Times
The President Who Personified Decency
By Dr Syed Amir
Bethesda, MD
As I watched President Jimmy Carter's funeral services at the National Cathedral on January 9, I was struck by the irony of the situation. Carter was a modest, self-effacing person. While president, he carried his own bags to and from Air Force One, banned the ceremonial salutation "Hail to the Chief," and auctioned off the presidential yacht Sequoia, which he considered too ostentatious. After retirement, he lived in the same simple house in Plains, Georgia, where he had grown up. He would have been very uncomfortable with all the splendor, pomp, and pageantry that marked the Cathedral ceremony.
US presidents usually become wealthy after leaving office, serving on corporate boards, delivering highly paid lectures, writing books, and often moving their residences from small towns to metropolitan areas for higher visibility. President Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, who died on December 29, 2024, at age 100, broke all those norms. He grew up in a modest family of peanut farmers in the small town of Plains, Georgia. He rose first to become governor of Georgia and then president of the United States. He had lived longer than any other US president and was married to his wife, Rosalyn Carter, for 77 years, longer than any presidential couple. She died almost a year ago, and Carter will be buried next to her in their hometown. A Baptist Christian, Carter was an intensely religious man who admitted to praying whenever he faced any difficulties. Well into his nineties, he continued teaching on Sundays in his neighborhood church.
It has been nearly half a century since Carter left the White House (1977-1981). It became a dogma that his presidency was a failure, but his excellence gleamed only in his retirement years. However, lately, as viewed through the mists of time, a new appreciation of his achievements as president has emerged. Carter was ahead of his time when he realized that dependency on fossil fuels was shortsighted. He emphasized the need to harness alternate energy sources like wind and sun. He ordered the installation of solar panels on the roof of the White House, which were subsequently removed by President Ronald Reagan, who cared little for these issues. To highlight the need to save energy, he broke with tradition by sitting informally in front of a fire in a cardigan instead of a formal suit to address the nation. As president, he carried his own bags rather than some aide doing it for him
Carter was perhaps grievously harmed in his bid for re-election by his failure to secure the release of the US diplomats who the extremists in Iran were holding. The Shah of Iran was a friend of the USA. (Incidentally, he was also a close friend of Pakistan and visited the country numerous times, offering invaluable help in the 1965 war with India). However, opposition to his autocratic rule and his moves to westernize Iran in a hurry was growing, especially among the Shia clergy. Ayatullah Khomeini provided the leadership and inspiration from his exile in Iraq and later France; ultimately, the Shah was forced to leave Iran in 1979, and Khomeini returned and assumed full power. By the time the Iranian government demanded his extradition to put him on trial, the Shah was in a pitiful situation, dying of advanced cancer. All his erstwhile friends turned their backs, and no one offered him a permanent home or the medical treatment that he so desperately needed. They feared the wrath of Ayatullah Khomeini and the new revolutionary government.
At the strong urging of Nelson Rockefeller and Dr Henry Kissinger, and in the face of opposition from some of his cabinet members, Carter allowed the Shah to enter the US on humanitarian grounds to receive medical treatment. The Shah arrived at a New York hospital on October 22, 1979, triggering a torrent of anger in Tehran. On November 4, the US embassy was besieged by an armed mob that took 63 men, women, and children hostage. All attempts to negotiate their release were unsuccessful. The Iranian revolution had been bloody, not modeled on the Prophet’s conquest of Mecca when he unreservedly forgave all his enemies. In Iran, many functionaries of the previous government, as well as some early supporters of the Islamic government, were summarily executed without a fair trial. The Shah was forced to leave the United States because of diplomatic discretion. For a while, he and his family were wandering with no place to anchor until President Sadat of Egypt courageously invited him to Egypt, offered him a place of refuge, and made his final days of life dignified and peaceful.
Hostility against Carter personally was so intense that the hostages were not released until the final hour of his presidency. Their plane was made to wait at the Tehran airport until Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president in Washington. There are reports that Reagan’s team, engaged in an election fight with Carter, urged the Iranian administration not to release the diplomats until after Reagan took over. His continued failure to secure their release made Carter look weak and ineffective during the election campaign. He later remarked that if he had chosen to bomb Tehran, as some were urging, there would have been an enormous loss of life, including that of the American hostages. He lost the elections in a landslide to Reagan, but all the hostages returned home safely.
One of the most enduring achievements of Carter's presidency was the Camp David Accords, signed in September 1978 by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Began of Israel and President Carter after 12 days of grueling negotiation at the weekend retreat of US presidents in suburban Maryland. The peace treaty was a remarkable achievement for Egypt as it recovered the Sinai Peninsula from Israeli occupation. It is believed that the extremists in Egypt never forgave Sadat, and, ultimately, he had to pay the price with his life. Both Sadat and Began received the Nobel Prize, but not Carter.
Carter had devoted his entire political life to promoting human rights, freedom, and democracy. However, his crowning achievements came after the end of his presidency when he and Rosalynn Carter, in 1980, founded the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Its goal is to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering . Its official website says, “It has supported projects across 80 countries, including election monitoring , democratic institution-building, conflict mediation, and human rights advocacy. It also led efforts to treat neglected tropical diseases , spearheading the campaign to eradicate dracunculiasis and treating onchocerciasis , trachoma , lymphatic filariasis , and malaria. ”
Carter has been described as the most successful and effective former American president ever. He supervised elections in many countries at their request to ensure they were free and fair. He built many houses for the poor, working himself like an ordinary mason and bricklayer. Under the Habitat for Humanity project, he worked personally with 4,400 volunteers for over 35 years, helping build, renovate, and repair 4,390 homes. Carter was eventually awarded The Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, and the committee cited "his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." Following retirement, he became a prolific author and an untiring advocate of Palestinian rights. The royalty from his books was the primary source of income to support his family. President Carter set an example of how religion can help elevate an ordinary person to becoming an admirable human being.
(Dr Syed Amir is a former Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, and a health science administrator, US National Institutes of Health)
