President Carter: Thank You

After declaring over a year ago he was moving into hospice care, it is amazing that former President Jimmy Carter has reached 100 years of age.

He is the first president to do so and he also has the distinction of having the longest life post-presidency at 43 years. He left office January 1981 with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan.

I have a general interest in U.S. presidents and American history. The presidents are unique in that only 46 men have served in the position among all of the citizens we have had born since the inception of the country officially in 1789, with ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

Strong or weak, their individual lives intersected with circumstances to lift them to the role of president. Most through their own elective efforts, sometimes in changing political conditions like Abraham Lincoln for the newer Republican Party, some via changes in presidential party selection, like President Carter, and others through the death of a president where a convenient political partner becomes president. John Tyler (1841-1845),was the first vice president to assume office on the death of President William Henry Harrison, who died just 32 days into his term.

Some have been exceptional leaders at a time of severe tests within our country. The best known being George Washington, as the first president and, by default, the initial definer of the role, and Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, who led us through the Civil War.

In more modern times I would have to say Franklin Roosevelt fits into the category based on being the longest tenured president in history, just over 12 years, and leading the country through The Great Depression and World War Two.

President Carter, I feel, has gotten a bad rap with the image of "Good man (for post presidency work), but a bad president."

Given he served 1977-1981, you pretty much have to be age 60 at a minimum, and more likely age 70 (age 23 when he assumed office) to have a truly tangible feel for his presidency.

Carter is extremely intelligent and, I will admit, his focus and righteousness in office, coming in as a virtual outsider in the Democratic Party, meant he was sometimes be his own worse enemy related to politics. He wanted to govern, not do politics. Well, if you are going to be president, you are in politics.

He started with a super majority of Dems in the Senate and House but was in conflict with them often because--this is hard to believe these days--he was a social progressive but a fiscal conservative.

Reading his White House diary notes, Carter was still trying to create a balanced budget in his third year in office. If he had given in to more liberal spending to appease party regulars, he might have been re-elected.

It was possible to elect someone with that approach at the time and, almost unbelievable in the context of modern politics, his being openly Christian was not a real drawback.

It many ways it was positive at a time when a good part of his support was to speak to a greater social morality in the wake of the political scandal of Watergate and our long involvement in the Vietnam War, both concluded just a few years earlier. He talked about having "A government as good as it's people."

Still, for those who know '70s history, he was dealing with staggering inflation, which also effected his predecessors Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, due to the oil embargoes through that decade.

Dealing with the hostage crisis in Iran the last year in office ultimately led to his defeat.

An aborted rescue attempt in April 1980 was an unfortunate disaster due to equipment failures and weather conditions that led to an accident of colliding helicopters and loss of eight servicemen. Carter looked like he could not get things solved.

Some saw him as feckless but the reality is the man was in the Naval Academy, active seven years and then a reserve eight years. Studying nuclear engineering, he was involved with the program for the first nuclear powered submarines.

I will note he could have taken a Rambo approach to the hostages but through patience eventually negotiated the return in the last hours of his presidency. All 50+ hostages returned unharmed. That was his ultimate goal.

Some of his key accomplishes came in diplomacy and, in contrast to modern times, with the help of Republicans, and had wins on the home front

• The Camp David Accords which established peace between Israel and Egypt in 1978. A peace that has lasted since then
• The Panama Canal Treaty which returned control of the canal to Panama and helped ease imperialist tension with Latin America and many feel helped avoid a guerilla war being started against the United States. I will also note he have support through active lobbying of President Ford, the man he had just defeated. The two men later became friends.
• Established formal relationships with communist China in 1979 while still holding to a policy of protection for Taiwan
• Added the greatest amount of protected federal lands than any other president, especially in the Alaska Wildlife Reserve
• Was ahead of the country with an energy independence and pursuit of clean energy technology
• Was the first president to actively seek and place women and minorities into judgeships. 1/3 of his appointments were women, Blacks or Hispanics out of 260 appointments.
• Opposed the Neutron Bomb development, due to the potential lethal destruction, and the B-1 bomber as a costly program for the benefit, getting him into political fights with senators who wanted development funds in their states, especially California
• While not a strong supporter of manned space flight, saved the space shuttle program and increased funding. The first shuttle launches were delayed so did not take place until early in the Reagan administration so most associate it with him.
• Made the hard choice to appoint Paul Volker head of the Federal Reserve and gave him the freedom from influence, as should be the case with The Fed, to create stringent policy to strangle inflation, but led to an economic recession that resulted in layoffs and interest rates. A reader not familiar with the time would be shocked that Volker raised the interest rate in one step from 4% to 15.5%. Carter was willing to pay the political price to address a decade long problem that ultimately helped his successors, Reagan and others, who benefitted from steady, sustained growth in the economy 1983 to 2000.
• Until the post-Covid bounce back, had the record for the most job growth in a four year term.
• Attempted to pass a national healthcare program which was, unfortunately, blocked by a Dem political rival, Edward Kennedy, who sought more but only ended up delaying an eventual program until 2009 with the Affordable Care Act

If anything, Carter was criticized for trying to take on too many initiatives at one time while failing to cultivate relationships with longtime Washington power brokers.

Post Presidency

Many know President Carter through his continued diplomatic work through the Carter Center, which focuses on fair election processes in other countries, and peace negotiations plus healthcare work. A special focus has been on the effort of virtually eliminating guinea worm disease in the world.

This has been an outstanding success through the Carter initiative. In 1986 there were 3.5 million cases worldwide recorded and in 2023 just 14 human cases worldwide.

He is most noted for his work, and that of former First Lady Rosalyn Carter, for their support and active involvement with Habitat for Humanity.

A carpenter and wood crafter, the president actively participated with teams on homebuilding for recipients in what has grown to 14 countries. When younger he would sleep on project sites in a cot with the rest of the volunteers. The total projects Carter worked on resulted in the new building or repair of 4,390 homes.

Because of his various activities he won the Nobel Peace Prize 2002.

President Carter has published numerous books and won a Grammy three times for the "Best Spoken Word" narration of his books He has been nominated nine times. He has touched on a wide variety of topics:

• Policy like "Peace Not Apartheid" about Israel and Palestinian relations that got him a lot of criticism, and earlier "Blood of Abraham", an historical survey of Middle East conflict
• Poetry
• Public outlook in the United States ("Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis"),
• A presidential memoir, "Keeping Faith", and later, not officially a memoir, a book on the diary notes he kept during his time in office
• Personal reflection on his life including "Morning Before Sunrise", about his childhood growing up in rural Georgia and "A Full Life: Reflections at 90"
• Religion including "Living Faith" and "Sources of Strength", a book of meditation on scripture.
• Even hunting and fishing ("An Outdoor Journal") which, I will admit, I did not read

I have read books about the Carter presidency by others:

• "The Unfinished Presidency" by Douglas Brinkley. Published 1998, this was, I believe, the first comprehensive book post-presidency as distance in time was starting to treat Carter more sympathetically overall.
• "His Very Best, Jimmy Carter, a Life" by Jonathan Alter (2020)
• "The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter" by Kai Bird (2021)
• "President Carter: The While House Years" by Stuart Eizenstat (2018)

The Eizenstat book has prolific detail on all the different legislative issues that came up during Carter's tenure, since he was his domestic policy advisor. He also had the perspective of serving under Carter while he was governor of Georgia.

It is definitely a policy wonk type of book for the details, although he makes observations, I think fairly, on the strengths and weaknesses that hurt Carter as he served and included interviews and perspectives from many others who served in the cabinet or in Congress at the time.

While I have read (or listened by audiobook) to many presidential biographies, for some reason I have given more attention to Carter, I think partially because, unlike Lincoln who I have also read a lot about, Carter exists in my lifetime so he is more tangible. Also, between his own varied writings and his being examined by others, there is a better ability to put him in context and also get context on more modern times of my own life.

Last, a personal note related to the president. I tried to see him in person at Town Hall in Seattle when he spoke there in 2000. I and the person I was with were at the head of the line waiting to see if additional space was open in the basement (the main hall was full) where a video feed would show the discussion upstairs.

The good news is that we got squeezed in. The bad news is that right after we went in President Carter arrived and went down the line shaking hands with those waiting before he went inside. I found out because, by coincidence, I casually knew the woman and her husband waiting in line behind us. Thus, they were at the head of the line and the first greeted by Carter.

I was prompted to write Carter on a topic years later and noted the incident in a PS. He was kind enough to write back a brief note thanking me for what I shared and added "maybe we will have an opportunity to meet in the future" with his notable "JC" signature.

Well, I do not think we will have the opportunity to meet, so let me just say once again, this way, "Thank you" for your service, leadership and modeling of character inside and outside of elective office. Oh, and Happy Birthday!