Jimmy Carter: The Outsider Who Redefined the Presidency

“President of what?” Lillian Carter asked when her son Jimmy announced he was running for the presidency. And no one really thought that the then Governor of Georgia, the astute Democrat Jimmy Carter, was flirting with the presidency of the United States. But like everything the ambitious Jimmy ever undertook, this was a carefully thought out and planned plan. He knew that it was time for radical change on the American political stage, and above all for new faces.

For the American people had still not recovered from Watergate, one of the most high-profile scandals of all time, caused by the unscrupulous pervert, Republican Richard Nixon, in 1972-1974. His successor, Gerald Ford, also failed to salvage the prestige of the presidency, and was viewed with suspicion by the people as a member of the then hated Washington elite.

That is why Jimmy Carter, a former marine, peanut farmer and businessman, then a relatively unknown local politician who emerged as a competent Democrat in the midst of a Republican hotbed in the deep and racist American South, found himself at the federal level at the right moment.

He was able to promise what his predecessors and rivals could not, namely to restore trust in politics, to restore Americans’ pride in their government, while working even harder than before to do so. Above all, that he would never lie.

And all this was enough for a disillusioned American public to elect Jimmy Carter as the 39th President of the United States (1977-1981) in November 1976.

But despite the optimism that greeted Carter’s election as a Democrat, as it had Kennedy’s sixteen years earlier, the American people did not give him a second term. Indeed, his presidency proved to be one of the most complex and difficult in modern American history. The crises and unprecedented events that have marked it have multiplied month after month, both on the domestic and the world stage.

Yet he also made history with some remarkable historical achievements. His engagement beyond his term in office is still best known today for his tireless commitment to human rights.

He was the first world leader to raise the alarm on climate change and to promote a wide range of measures to curb it and to promote sustainable development. For example, when he took office, he had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House, decades before this became a mainstream trend among the environmentally conscious. His successor, Ronald Reagan, scornfully removed them as soon as he took office.

On the international stage, Carter was much bolder, and he deserves most of the credit for the Camp David peace deal between Egypt and Israel and for normalising relations with China. While the Egypt-Israel agreement has at least cemented peace between the two countries, despite the perennial turmoil in the Middle East to this day, the establishment of diplomatic relations with China has completely changed relations on the geopolitical chessboard.

After the first two years of frenetic activity, when Carter’s work zeal grew in parallel with the many challenges of his administration, fortune turned its back on him. The energy crisis, oil shocks and runaway inflation at home, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution abroad, were key to the sharp drop in his popularity in 1980 and to his heavy electoral defeat at the polls against the telegenic and charismatic Reagan.

The irony of fate was that none of this was to be blamed entirely on Carter, who was largely the victim of a confluence of circumstances. He became the only Democratic President since 1800 to be given only one term by the electorate.

Fully committed to the enormous responsibilities of the presidency, yet honest, hard-working, fair and tough, Carter was a complex personality and the most pious of all American presidents.

He did not have the natural magnetism to attract people. Often arrogant and reclusive, he gave the impression of being aware that he was often the smartest man in the room.

But these personality flaws have always been balanced by his life companion, Rosalynn. Jimmy Carter is lucky in a way that few people are. For more than 75 years, Rosalynn has stood firmly by his side as an equal partner in all his endeavours. More than any predecessor, and even more than the famous Eleanor Roosevelt, she has revolutionised the role of the First Lady and, in addition to her own political and programmatic priorities, has had a crucial influence on her husband’s.

Jimmy Carter, who at the venerable age of ninety-seven is the longest living former US President, was never content with his past achievements. His most fruitful period thus came after a relatively short stay in the White House. He became a philanthropist of world renown, an immensely prolific and successful writer, and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

His post-presidency has raised the standards and expectations for ex-presidents and, to date, no member of this elite club has even come close.

Youth in the shadow of his father

James Earl Carter was the first son born to a socially active local farmer, James Carter Sr., and a nurse, Lillian Gordy Carter, in 1924 in Georgia. He spent his childhood under his father’s iron hand. The man mostly gave orders and instructions and disciplined his son, rarely a kind word, let alone praise. Nevertheless, his father was his role model, and Jimmy spent his life trying to prove himself to him and to measure up to him, for they were both fiercely competitive.

He also credited his father for always finishing what he started. Like him, he never tolerated lying, but later his directness and often innocent honesty cost him many political points. And like his father, he was unyielding towards his sons, demanding perfection and personal integrity from them.

The darkest side of Carter senior’s personality, however, was his open racism and his support for the segregationist policies of the time and the infamous Jim Crow laws of the American South. Jimmy, who at the beginning of his political career did not publicly come out in support of black people, a fact for which he and Rosalynn later repeatedly repaid with their work, never publicly denounced his father.

His mother also had a significant influence on her son. An eccentric and opinionated woman for her time, she spent more time as a nurse in the homes of her poor and black neighbours than in the traditional household chores at home. It was through her dedication that Carter became aware of the importance of basic health for the underprivileged members of the community and always put health at the forefront of his political struggles.

During her son’s presidential campaign, Lillian Carter was beloved by all of America, as she loved to speak and promoted him enthusiastically. Almost 70 years old, she later joined the US peacekeeping forces in India.

The Carters’ obsession with books was also passed down through the generations and, like Lillian, Carter and later his daughter Amy, among others, were bookworms. The family had a habit of reading right through dinner. First they would be lost in their own worlds and then they would argue loudly about what they had read. Jimmy, for example, first read War and Peace in the fifth grade.

At school, where, as later in life, the budding country boy often felt like an outsider, he was most influenced by his teacher, Julia Coleman. Among other things, she encouraged her pupils with prizes for the most books read, a competitiveness that was right up Jimmy Carter’s street.

He imbibed her wisdom so much that she became the only teacher ever mentioned by any President in his inaugural address. He quoted her: “We must adapt to changing times while maintaining unchanging principles.”

This mindset became the cornerstone of his pragmatic but principled approach to public life. His deepening faith also contributed to his principled approach. Carter was a Baptist, and over the years he became more and more religious. He was even a missionary for a time, and after his presidency he became a regular Sunday School preacher.

Another key stage in his life was his time at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he was educated under the authoritarian Captain and nuclear submarine pioneer Rickover, in the austerity and authoritarianism that had been his father’s hallmark. “Have you always given your best so far?” he was asked in the entrance exam. “No,” replies the honest Carter.

It was a burden not to be able to explain why not, so from that moment on, giving his all became his life’s guiding principle. And from that moment on, no one could ever accuse him of not doing it.

Physically and mentally, the gruelling academy and, afterwards, his service on US Navy submarines prepared him perfectly for life under the watchful eye of the public. He trained himself in relentless discipline, obedience, loyalty, self-control, initiative and a warrior’s spirit. Above all, lying was punished there and many were expelled for the smallest and most innocent lie.

He also learned anger management, which irritated many a close colleague in the White House. Even after many sleepless nights, he never raised his voice or kicked his chair. His ice-blue eyes always looked only forward.

A loner by nature with no close friends, he preferred reading to socialising in his spare time. He was sufficiently himself, a common trait of self-confident people with plenty of self-esteem and no need for validation from those around them. But he had great success with girls and his heart was stolen forever by his sister’s best friend, Rosalynn, a shy and handsome brunette three years his junior.

After their marriage, they lived the typical life of an American military couple. He served on submarines, including America’s first experimental nuclear submarine, and even led worship on them, while she looked after their home and their fast-growing young family. Their love and attachment to each other grew stronger despite his long absences.

But his career in the navy was cut short by his father’s untimely death, and Jimmy, although disappointed, did not hesitate to accept the responsibility of eldest son and take over his father’s farm. The Carters returned to remote Plains, Georgia, in 1953, Rosalynn more than reluctantly and Jimmy with a head full of new ideas for the future.

Peanut farmer, senator and governor

He took up farming with vigour, became a successful preacher in the local church, and above all, became socially active in many areas, serving on the boards of libraries, schools and hospitals. It was never enough for him, he was interested in everything and his family had to put up with his hyperactivity.

He brought up his three sons – his daughter Amy was not born until much later – strictly, reading serious books to them from an early age, being miserly with others and modest with himself. The family was hierarchical, with Jimmy often barking at the children, who would only respond with “Yes, sir”. (Even then, there was a joke that it was harder to be Jimmy Carter’s son than the President of the United States.

Rosalynn quickly accepted that her husband could not relax, but she was also very active. They read a lot and became increasingly political, liberal in their beliefs and intolerant of the prevailing racism.

This was often disturbing for the local community, where blacks and whites still did not mix and socialise in public or private life. They were particularly eye-opened by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was fiercely advocated by former First Lady and well-known political activist Eleanor Roosevelt. Human rights slowly rose to the top of Carter’s list of lifelong aspirations.

Soon, the family business was no longer enough for Jimmy, and at the age of thirty-eight he was successful in his state’s Senate election. Over two terms (1963-1967), he earned a reputation as a relentless and independent politician, attacking wasteful government habits and focusing on health and education policies.

It was also a period of growing struggle against racial segregation and the civil rights movement. But Jimmy was reluctant to give himself much exposure in this period, aware that such activism could too quickly ruin his political career in the conservative South.

And when he first ran for Governor of Georgia in 1966, he did lose to a well-known segregationist. The previously strong-willed Jimmy was deeply depressed, and convinced that his lack of faith had not made him a God-fearer, he became even more devout – for a while he was even a missionary, going door to door.

But Jimmy never knew how to put the gun to the corn. Firmly committed to his goal of becoming Governor, he began preparing his next campaign immediately after his defeat. Despite his principles, he acted opportunistically, deliberately promising enough to white supremacists and racists during the recruitment drive to help get him elected next time.

Thus, from 1971 to 1975, he was Governor of Georgia. He was never proud of that campaign and always avoided talking about it afterwards.

On taking office, he quickly became aware of the appalling inequality between whites and blacks, which bordered on apartheid, and this was particularly evident in the schools, which did not even hire white teachers who were opposed to segregation. Also, the authorities still looked the other way at the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, and monuments honouring Confederate heroes of the Civil War were springing up like mushrooms after the rain.

In the classroom of one of Carter’s sons, for example, a teacher shouted “Good!” at Kennedy’s death. (Good!) and when the son slammed his chair in his direction in anger, the Carters did not punish him, and the teacher later reluctantly apologised.

In addition to the important steps towards desegregation, Carter had thoroughly cleaned up and restructured the Georgian state apparatus, which until then had so many agencies and offices that no one had any control over them. Most of all, he focused on protecting the environment, rivers and natural habitats.

It quickly became apparent that his abilities went beyond the borders of the state, and he was aware of this himself. He was an excellent organiser and meticulous planner with enviable work habits. He was up before five, on the job before seven and, with the help of a speed-reading course, read every last letter of thousands and thousands of pages of all legislative proposals.

Just a few months after taking office as Governor, he decided to make a big throw. After twenty years of living in Georgia, it was time to enter the national stage. A brave feat, but the moment was right – after Watergate, Americans were more than ready for an outsider without Washington experience.

Presidential beginnings

For Carter, the presidential race was, on the one hand, an engineering project – everything was planned down to the last detail – and, on the other, his subsequent political career also became a family craft.

First, he had to learn about foreign affairs, about which he knew the least. Already in 1973, he became a member of the non-governmental Trilateral Commission under David Rockefeller. The Commission brought together politicians, businessmen and academics from North America, Europe and Japan, and through it Carter made important contacts.

Its chairman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a diplomat and professor with Polish roots, later served as Carter’s national security adviser, and he also met his future Secretary of State, Cy Vance, and Vice President Walter Mondale.

Because he prepared in detail, in his own style, on all the subjects he dealt with, he quickly acquired a feel for global issues. He was most attracted by the open issues of the Middle East, especially Israel and Palestine. He and Rosalynn visited the Holy Land, where the then Prime Minister Golda Meir arranged a VIP visit to win them over to the Israeli side.

Although he did not meet any official representative of the Palestinians, he immediately got a real picture of the suffering and betrayal of the Palestinian people. To this day, he devotes a great deal of time to relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

The same applies to human and civil rights, which he also began to focus on at an accelerated pace during the campaign, in an attempt to atone for his past bitterness in his native Georgia. He talked to members of the black community, learning in detail about their problems and making himself publicly visible for their interests. Of course, he needed their votes, among other things.

He worked his way through the Democratic Party’s favourites for the nomination in a cunning and deliberate way, and very quickly at the same time. The first Democratic Senator to publicly support him was Joe Biden. When the Democrats nominated him as their candidate out of thirteen rivals, he already had his campaign clearly mapped out. It was indicative of his later presidential style – travelling without a security escort, carrying his own luggage and, to avoid unnecessary waste, sleeping rough with supporters.

The slip-up that almost cost him the victory was the Playboy magazine interview. Wanting to show that he was a man of the people, open and forgiving, and that he too was flawed, he agreed to an interview during which he honestly zinged: “Yes, of course, I have often looked at other women with lust.” All he meant to say was that he was not judging anyone, and at that moment he was being made fun of by all of America and all of the media, and his public support temporarily dropped dramatically. The unfortunate statement has followed him throughout his life.

Rosalynn viewed the affair in a very good light, knowing that she could trust her husband completely. And indeed he was one of the few candidates who did not cheat during the long and arduous campaign. His wife, or Steel Magnolia as she was later called, was already his secret weapon – charming, well-informed, smart, tireless. In 18 months, she visited 42 states and successfully converted undecided voters.

Carter succeeded in his big throw, defeating the Republican candidate Gerald Ford, making him the only President never to be re-elected. Carter was, however, the first President from the American Deep South since 1848, the first evangelical Christian in the White House and one of the most devout Presidents ever, the first without national political experience since Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921).

For the first time since Kennedy, Washington felt a new energy, and thousands poured into the streets on Inauguration Day in anticipation of something new and more promising. Carter did not disappoint, walking two kilometres down Pennsylvania Avenue, to the horror of the security services, with Rosalynn and Amy, then just nine years old, signalling that he wanted to be close to the people and that he did not see his position as an imperial privilege.

He sent Amy to a public school where her best friend was the daughter of a Chilean chef. Even the inaugural ball, traditionally an elitist highlight of the inauguration, was affordable for ordinary people and supporters who campaigned.

In general, the private life of the Carters was similar to that of average Americans, and they appreciated it very much. In keeping with family tradition, Amy was allowed to read at the table, which raised many an eyebrow among the foreign guests. They often watched films in the evenings, and over the course of four years, at least four hundred of them were shown in the Carter living room. They hosted many popular artists and musicians and Jimmy, to general disapproval, liked to sing. But he never spent taxpayers’ money unnecessarily, especially not on public events, travel expenses, his own clothes and the like.

But if he managed to establish a good relationship with the citizens at first, he has not managed to do so with the media. He took umbrage with them within hours of his election, when a busload of influential journalists was late for the presidential plane and Carter refused to wait for them. His manic obsession with punctuality immediately compromised one of the key relationships of any President. This signalled that the newcomer to Washington would not have an easy start.

Although his administration was one of the most open, especially in terms of consultation with the people and various representatives of all interests, Carter was very reluctant to associate with influencers. He hated sucking up to the media and only attended the traditional annual Correspondents’ Dinner twice. This came back to haunt him years later when he sought a second term.

The first black clouds

One of Carter’s first moves was to redefine the role of Vice-President. While this is still extremely limited today, before Carter the Vice-President was solely a tongue-in-cheek in the Senate in the event of a tie vote, otherwise his presence merely served to remind the President of his mortality.

Carter, however, integrated Walter Mondale into the day-to-day work of the government as no one had ever done before, assigning him an office in the West Wing of the White House. They had a working lunch at least once a week – a tradition that has endured – and he was consulted before all major decisions were taken.

Then he also revolutionised the role of the First Lady. The couple had always consulted on everything, but now Rosalynn even got a place in Carter’s cabinet meetings, an office in the East Wing of the White House and her own professional staff. They also had regular working lunches, where they never talked about private matters. A skilful and professional diplomat, she was able to negotiate with any world leader, but her role was particularly crucial in the area of human rights, which she convinced South American leaders in particular to respect.

She got her husband to take in many more refugees in the US after the Vietnam war and during the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia than he had originally intended. Her priorities also included child health and the rise in vaccinations, and equal opportunities for women in the workplace. It was because of Rosalynn that her husband hired as his chief legal adviser a lawyer who was involved in the now-reversed Supreme Court ruling on the right to abortion, Roe v. Wade.

Proverbially hard-working and impatient, he immediately wanted to take on as many cases as possible, just as his closest colleagues had predicted. After the run, he liked to spin a globe in the Oval Office in the morning, stop at the Soviet Union and pray that there would be no war. Carter never prayed as often as he did in the White House.

Right from the start, he was given many opportunities to satisfy his overflowing work zeal. America was freezing during an extremely cold winter and energy prices were soaring. Indeed, the effects of the OPEC embargo of four years earlier over American arms supplies to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War were still being felt with intermittent interruptions in the delivery of oil and petroleum products. The US had to become more self-sufficient in energy supplies.

Energy became a major domestic policy issue and, as it had always been close to Carter’s heart, he immediately created the first Department of Energy, responsible for national energy strategy, price controls and new technologies. It was his efforts that curbed the excessive dependence on foreign sources, the limited transition to some sources of green energy, measures to promote energy efficiency and, in general, the concern for environmental protection and the fight against climate change.

His administration has also promoted austerity measures, which have not met with the approval of consumer Americans obsessed with big cars. Already Congress has severely curtailed the government’s ambitious proposals. It soon found that its powers were much more limited on the domestic scene, and it began to flirt more and more with many of the problems that plagued international relations during the heated period of the Cold War.

Foreign policy

As mentioned, human rights had a special place on Carter’s priority list. It was his religious belief that God had created the USA also as an example to the rest of the world and that it should therefore uphold the high moral principles on which it was founded.

Critical of Nixon’s and Kissinger’s support for dictators in return for their support in the fight against the communists, he immediately announced zero tolerance for human rights violations by these brutal and authoritarian regimes, especially those in South America and Asia. An articulate but not particularly listenable communicator, who often seemed indifferent, he transformed himself into a passionate and sensitive speaker during his speeches on human rights.

But even he had to come to terms with political realities and the protection of vital American interests, which often took precedence over idealism. So, with some forced hypocrisy, he had to be selective and less harsh with key allies. But for many leaders of the far-right regimes of South and Latin America, Carter’s threats to stop trade, lending, economic and military aid and his emphasis on human rights came as a real shock.

He was particularly strong towards Argentina, Chile and Nicaragua, where huge numbers of people suspected of far-left terrorism have disappeared. He bravely broke with the cruel Nicaraguan leader Somoza, even though the so-called Marxist Sandinistas were on the verge of taking power.

He was also the first US President to visit sub-Saharan Africa and to regularly invite African leaders to the White House, finally showing them some respect from the West. He advocated an end to apartheid in Rhodesia and South Africa, while he was much more conciliatory with the long-standing Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who intervened on the side of the US in neighbouring Angola against its Marxist regime, supported by Cuba.

Pragmatism also prevailed in Asia, where the Americans supported the brutal but anti-communist Suharto regime in Indonesia and the regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.

At the same time, he had already imagined a post-Cold War world and could not afford to be too tough with the Chinese and the Soviets. And when the latter invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the fight against communism again took centre stage and the Americans supported the mujahedin, or later the Taliban.

So, while the concept of human rights was forever embedded in the vocabulary of international relations policy, the risks of a potential escalation of the Cold War were simply too great for it to become a structured policy in any way. But there was no going back. Already in 1981, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay, and later Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Costa Rica were moving away from dictatorship. Much of the credit for this goes to Carter’s policies.

The next item on Carter’s list was the decision to return the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. This decision was also based on his moral convictions and almost certainly prevented a war between the USA and Panama.

The 82-kilometre Panama Canal, which provided a maritime passage between the eastern and southern coasts of the Americas, replacing the passage around stormy Cape Horn, was opened in 1914. It was built by the Americans, who promised the Panamanians independence from Colombia in return for a permanent lease. But the Americans quickly saw that this solution was not sustainable in the long term, and all the presidents before Carter tried in their own way to take steps towards the return of the canal.

It was Carter, however, who successfully brought about the return by concluding two treaties, the first providing for the joint management of the canal until the end of the 20th century and the second guaranteeing the Panamanians that the canal would always be open and that the US had no right to intervene militarily there.

This was the first of Carter’s great triumphs, but the next one took him much more time and energy. It was time to turn his attention to the Middle East.

Camp David

The situation in the Middle East had been critical for years. Between 1948 and 1973, four wars took place between Israel and its Arab neighbours, the most shocking of which was the one in 1967. Then, in a mere six days, Israel managed to capture the Egyptian Sinai and the occupied Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Jordanian West Bank (including East Jerusalem), home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

After the war, the United Nations Security Council unanimously voted in favour of Resolution 242, probably the most famous UN resolution of all time, which demanded the return of the occupied territories to Israel in exchange for peace.

In the absence of progress in enforcing the resolution, the Arabs, led by Egypt, launched the 1973 Yom Kippur War (so called because it began on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur) to try to recover the lost territories.

The war ended in a stalemate and attempts to resolve the situation led to Carter’s efforts to find a lasting solution. At Camp David, negotiations began between Israel and Egypt, the strongest and only Arab power capable of defeating Israel at the time. Such an example of self-sacrificing personal diplomacy and single-issue focus as Carter’s during the two-week summit is almost unknown in international relations.

The stay at the idyllic presidential retreat, where the Carters generally preferred to spend their time, should have contributed to a friendly and constructive atmosphere between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the new Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin.

But while there was chemistry between Carter and the charismatic Sadat, the extremist Begin was a much tougher nut to crack. For he was formerly the leader of Irgun, an underground right-wing paramilitary organisation that sought to rid the British of terrorists, including the bombing of Jerusalem’s famous King David Hotel, which killed 91 people.

With Begin, Israel has only recently for the first time got a conservative leader from the right-wing Likud party, which has championed the idea of a Greater Israel. His deep conviction that Jews had a historic right to the West Bank, where settlements had already begun to be built in the occupied territories in total contravention of Resolution 242, did not bode optimistically for negotiations.

Carter too soon realised that Begin would do little, if anything, for peace. At the same time, he was concerned about the tragic situation of the Palestinians trapped in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Camp David Summit of 5-17 September 1978 was the central event of the Arab-Israeli conflict and of American diplomacy. The talks, which were supposed to last a few days, stretched over two weeks. The atmosphere was extremely tense and relations between the stubborn and suspicious Begin and the hot-blooded but compromising Sadat were strained to say the least.

Neither had much support at home, but Sadat had more room for manoeuvre because of the authoritarian regime he headed, while Begin had to think all the time about what he could achieve within a democratic Israel.

Carter negotiated with each of them for long hours, while he himself kept revising the text of a potential deal. This was the so-called one-text technique, a new mediator-led negotiating technique that was only then being introduced by a Harvard professor.

The basis of the negotiations was Resolution 242, and in particular the terms of the return of the Sinai to Egypt and of the Israeli presence there and the withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza were to be agreed. As in the negotiations on the return of the Panama Canal, the two topics were separated in order to facilitate agreement.

While the talks on Sinai were somewhat easier, those on the West Bank and Gaza broke down several times as one delegation or the other packed their bags. Without Carter’s persistence and his literal running between the Israeli and Egyptian residences and pleading with both leaders and their deputies, there would never have been an agreement.

Despite the fact that Sadat and Begin did not see each other for ten days, as they initially just jostled each other and were later deliberately kept apart by the Americans, the atmosphere was toxic.

Begin was the main culprit of the situation, basically only prepared to agree to talk from now on. Sadat, on the other hand, was roughly offering Israel diplomatic recognition in the event of a full Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. The Israelis, however, initially refused to hear of a withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza anyway.

However, after 23 drafts, they finally agreed to sign two framework documents, which were not peace treaties, but only the basis for them. The first was on the Sinai, and the second on Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza, where Israel would also withdraw, and the precise agreement would be reached after Camp David during the three-month negotiations involving Palestine and Jordan. The Palestinians were promised a form of autonomy after five years. During this period, Israel was not to build any settlements there.

So Camp David was saved, but the problems did not and would not end. All the Arab countries were against the agreement, and Begin, too, had problems at home. It looked as if there would be no definitive signing of the peace treaties. Carter did not give up again and went to Israel and managed to mollify the Israelis. Sadat was again easier to deal with, but with the general Arab discontent, many predicted that Sadat would sooner or later pay for this action with his life.

On 26 March 1979, on the White House lawn, Carter, Begin and Sadat signed the most important peace treaty since the surrender of Japan after the Second World War, for which Sadat and Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize. While peace between Israel and Egypt has held ever since, Begin has made promises on the West Bank and Gaza with a fig in his pocket. Not only has Israel never withdrawn from there, it has begun to build settlements even more aggressively.

Thus, while Carter succeeded in negotiating a very important peace between the two Middle East powers, which is still in place today, his dream of a wider peace in the region and a home for the Palestinians was not realised. And in 1981, as predicted, the world was shocked by the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

China

If Camp David was only partially successful, the normalisation of relations with China was a great success. Carter wanted to build on Nixon’s historic opening of the early 1970s and the result was a different future for all humanity. For it is hard to imagine how poor and underdeveloped China was before it opened up to capitalism, and what damage Mao did to it with his policies, especially the Cultural Revolution. Its per capita income was similar to that of sub-Saharan Africa, and few Chinese had ever even seen a Westerner before.

After Mao’s death, the pragmatic but authoritarian Deng Xiaoping, one of the most influential leaders in China’s entire three-thousand-year history, took over. When, for the sake of China’s economic progress, he decided to open up to capitalism while preserving Chinese communism with a touch of the old traditional values, he uttered one of the most famous phrases since the Second World War: “It does not matter whether the cat is black or white, the main thing is that it catches mice”.

The US thus decided to establish diplomatic relations with China and to recognise it, because its huge market was crucial to American economic progress and, above all, to its agricultural and technological sectors. In January 1980, Carter and Deng signed a series of cooperation agreements, which required the sacrifice of the two-China policy. This, of course, infuriated the Taiwanese.

Despite the economic progress, in the long term this decision was a double-edged sword and, as we see today, it did not lead to more democracy and respect for human rights. Although China has modernised in an incredibly rapid time and at least 350 000 Chinese students have been educated in the US, dark stains remain – the repression of the Uighurs, the trampling of Hong Kong and the escalation with Taiwan are just some of them.

Carter was snubbed by Iran

When Jimmy Carter started preparing for his re-election campaign, the outlook was quite good. He had enjoyed a number of foreign policy successes, and at home, despite inflation, unemployment had fallen and there was moderate optimism.

Then his luck completely deserted him. 1979 began with the Iranian revolution and ended with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The Iranian revolution completely transformed the Middle East geopolitically, led to the Iran-Iraq war, exported Shiite fundamentalism and increased tensions in the region. At the same time, it has further fuelled inflation and interest rates, and so wounded American pride that it sent Carter into premature retirement.

Iran was not even on Carter’s radar until it was too late. Led by the relatively moderate Shah Reza Pahlavi, America’s biggest ally in the region and a major oil supplier, who had largely put the country on the path of Western modernisation, the Americans did not care about the state of the country. Therefore, with so many other foreign policy priorities, intelligence activity there was at a standstill, and everyone missed the threat posed by the Islamist cleric Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Shah’s popularity was only illusory, as the Iranians were brutally repressed by his notorious secret police, SAVAK, and he was seen as an American puppet. Khomeini took great advantage of this, promising to return the country to the Iranians and to end the hated American influence with his mystical Islamism. For almost 15 years, he built his ideology from exile and plotted his takeover, while the US looked the other way as it fought many other international crises.

Dissatisfaction among the Iranian people, under Khomeini’s skilful leadership, led to the Iranian revolution in early 1978 and the Carter administration finally realised the gravity of the situation. But they could not agree on how to deal with the Shah, who was in danger at home and had to leave the country as soon as possible.

Despite Khomeini’s opposition to the Shah’s admission to the US, the US eventually did admit him, partly because of his visibly failing health (he was about to die of cancer). The Carter inner circle was also unable to agree on what kind of relationship to establish with Khomeini.

Ayatollah, who for a long time had maintained a semblance of friendship with the Americans, returned to his home turf in February 1979 amid general enthusiasm and soon showed his true colours. In April of that year, the Islamic Republic was proclaimed. Its number one mortal enemy was the USA.

The US acceptance of the Shah was a major mistake that led to a number of small attacks on the US embassy in Tehran. On 4 November 1979, however, when the embassy was attacked again, some four hundred students took more than sixty hostages and one of the worst crises in modern US history began. The occupation of the embassy lasted for 444 days, although it was originally intended as another signal of disagreement with US support for the Shah.

The Ayatollah cleverly used the naive students for his own ends, supporting and directing them. Under his instructions, they demanded the handing over of the Shah and an end to US interference in Iranian affairs.

Carter devoted his full attention to resolving the hostage crisis, leaving all other pressing matters, including preparations for his re-election campaign, on the back burner. He was driven by one thing and one thing only: to bring the hostages home alive and well. He did not want to risk a war over the still vivid and painful memories of the Vietnam debacle, so Khomeini was in no hurry to release them. And although they all returned alive in the end, Carter was branded as the epitome of incompetent American leadership.

For the crisis, which Americans watched daily as if spellbound on their television screens, completely destroyed the national psyche and pride. The images of hostages with their hands tied and blindfolded and their captors burning American flags while shouting “Death to America!” heralded the end of America as a global superpower.

Then there was the failed Eagle Claws hostage rescue attempt, during which, in an unfortunate combination of circumstances, several American soldiers lost their lives.

Support for Carter fell dramatically and in the November 1980 elections he was convincingly defeated in 44 states by the charismatic and telegenic Ronald Reagan, whose “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” wing-wagger further destroyed his rival’s already tarnished reputation.

This was preceded by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the US boycott of the Moscow Olympics, which Carter resented very much. Afghanistan also brought to an inglorious end his efforts to sign the SALT II nuclear arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.

And when Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980, and Khomeini was in desperate need of funds frozen in US banks, and Shah Pahlavi died in the meantime, Iran no longer had any interest in holding hostages. Ironically, they were released just hours after Reagan’s presidential swearing-in. But the credit for bringing them all back alive goes solely to the indefatigable Jimmy Carter.

He remained indefatigable even after leaving office. He and Rosalynn, through the now highly respected Carter Center, continued to work in the areas that have always interested them most, namely the struggle for human rights, global health, education and environmentalism. The couple makes a living from Carter’s prolific book output and lives a modest, charitable and committed life.

He has also continued his work in the Middle East, often uninvited, advising all the US Presidents after him. Many have resented this, as it is against the unwritten rules of the office of ex-President. But Jimmy always gives his best. No matter what the consequences.