Godfather of Camp David: Former US President Jimmy Carter Dies

Former U.S. President Jimmy (James Earl Jr.) Carter died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, at the age of 100. Carter, who led the country from 1977 to 1981, died Sunday afternoon at his home after nearly two years in "hospice care," his son said, according to The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Before his death, Carter was the oldest living former US president, having witnessed the death of former President George H.W. Bush (94 years old) in 2018, and also bid farewell two years ago to his vice president during his only presidential term, from 1977 to 1981, Walter Mondale.

Carter, the father of four children, who has been married to Rosalynn Carter for 77 years, has remained active in public life since leaving the White House, and founded the Carter Center for Humanitarian Action and Human Rights Advancement, which he recently confirmed will focus on the US elections in the coming period.

Carter also continued to teach Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains during his last years, despite his deteriorating health after being diagnosed with skin cancer that had spread to his brain and liver. He also spent time in his long years after leaving the presidency giving lectures and writing books.

Carter, a Democrat, served as the 39th President of the United States for one term, succeeding President Gerald Ford, a Republican, who had assumed the presidency after President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 following the Watergate scandal, and Ford was his vice president. Carter was unable to win a second term, having been defeated in the 1980 presidential election by Republican Ronald Reagan.

Democratic term between two Republican presidents

Between two Republican presidents, Carter did not have the opportunity, during his single term, to achieve the agenda he promised to implement during his presidential campaign, which is to modernize American policy in Washington, after Carter himself was opposed to many of the policies of his Democratic Party, which caused a surprise when he was elected.

For this reason, Carter's term, especially on the domestic front, remained as if it were an unfinished opportunity, after he faced the inflation and unemployment crisis that marked the 1970s in the United States, and then the crisis of Iran holding American hostages in Tehran in 1979, which is referred to as one of the main reasons for his loss of the race again for the White House.

While his era was known on the foreign level in particular for his engineering of the Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel, which was signed during his term at the White House in March 1979 between the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Carter’s involvement in public humanitarian affairs after the presidency had an impact that exceeded the weight of his presidency.

Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work to find peaceful solutions to international crises, promote democracy and human rights, and promote economic and social development, including his years of involvement in building homes for the poor.

Carter entered the White House in the 1976 election, coming from Georgia, which he represented in Congress as a senator, then was its governor for two terms, before running for president and winning the Democratic primary, before defeating Gerald Ford. From a farming family, he graduated from the Marine College in Maryland, and worked in the business sector, before reaching the governorship of the state, where he spent 8 years.

Carter came to power, raising the slogan of restoring confidence in government, after the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, and launched a series of reforms, the aim of which, according to his declaration, was to “transform the world of politics.” However, the declining economy and the hostage crisis in Iran (the detention of 52 American diplomats in Tehran in 1979) lost him popular support, as Americans continued to feel weak, which led to the victory of his rival in the 1980 presidential election, the then-Governor of California, Ronald Reagan.

According to the official White House website, Carter can point to a number of his domestic achievements, including his handling of the energy shortage issue, creating a national energy policy and controlling prices to stimulate production, and caring for the environment. After leaving the presidency, he considered expanding the Alaska reservation one of his most important achievements.

Carter Doctrine and Containment of the Soviet Union

On the foreign front, the Carter Doctrine varied between 1976 and 1981, in accordance with the external transformations imposed, especially by the relationship with the Soviet Union, which was dominated by the Cold War period. Carter, the architect of Camp David, showed a tendency towards negotiations as a way to end conflicts, and during his term diplomatic relations with China were normalized (January 1979), and he continued the strategic arms reduction talks with the Soviet Union.

In June 1979, he signed the SALT II strategic arms reduction treaty with Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, but asked the Senate to suspend it on January 1, 1980, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, sending a signal to the Kremlin that the thaw in relations that had been initiated by the Nixon administration was over.

On July 15, 1979, Carter delivered a speech from the Oval Office, later known as the "Resentment" speech, in which he said that Americans were facing a "crisis of confidence." The speech was considered one of the most honest speeches by an American president, as he stressed that the crisis began a generation ago and was based on the fact that the government in Washington no longer worked for the majority of Americans.

Although Carter's poll ratings rose after the speech, rising interest rates, collapsing jobs and industry, and the Iran hostage crisis all weakened his final year in office.

In his final State of the Union address, in 1980, Carter launched his foreign policy doctrine, in which he returned America to its traditional strategy of containing the Soviet Union, but also asserted that America was prepared to use force against any state that tried to gain control of the Gulf region, a dramatic change from the beginning of his term, which focused on promoting human rights and negotiation.

(New Arab)