Why Flawed President Jimmy Carter Became One of the Greatest of All

Former President Jimmy Carter, a champion for humanity who lost the White House after one term, died Sunday. He was 100.

Carter, who was the longest-living U.S. president, died at his home at 3:45 p.m. in Plains, Georgia after entering hospice care in February 2023, his son, Chip, confirmed to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

No cause was given for his death, though he had suffered a series of hospital stays in recent years and had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of melanoma skin cancer, with tumors that spread to his liver and brain.

From the Archives: Read the Daily Beast’s Brilliant Jimmy Carter Stories

A Moral Politician

“My name is Jimmy Carter and I’m running for president.” That is how Carter began his speech accepting the Democratic nomination in July 1976 in New York’s Madison Square Garden. It was a line he had spoken thousands of times during his long-shot quest for the presidency as an almost unknown former governor of Georgia.

Carter’s dogged determination got him to the White House, where he served one term as the nation’s 39th president before losing re-election in a landslide in 1980. Rather than fade into the mists of history after such a searing defeat, however Carter created a new genre: The purposeful post-president, endearing himself to generations unfamiliar with his time in office, but who admired the character and leadership he displayed over four decades afterwards.

Jimmy Carter ran for president on a promise to never lie, and he pledged to restore a government “as good as the people,” words that resonated in the post-Watergate era when voters didn’t trust conventional politicians. He spoke softly and infused his policies with a moral dimension. He made advocacy for human rights abroad a cornerstone of his foreign policy, and he called his proposal to curb America’s use of energy “the moral equivalent of war.”

How Carter Gave Reagan the Fodder to Win

On his first full day in office, Jan. 21, 1977, he issued a blanket pardon for all Vietnam draft resisters in an effort to close the book on the divisive war. But like so much of what Carter did that was well-intentioned, granting amnesty to draft dodgers stirred controversy, especially among veterans’ groups. Carter further inflamed a growing conservative opposition by forging ahead with negotiations to turn the Panama Canal back over to Panama, as he’d promised in the campaign. That decision later provided rich political fodder for Ronald Reagan.

Carter prided himself on his principled refusal to bow to political expedience, and this character trait led to an early clash with Congress over federally funded water projects that Carter thought were wasteful. He had to back off, bowing to the titans of his own party. Still, the incident foreshadowed a contentious relationship with lawmakers; Carter’s inability to navigate the politics of the dominantly liberal Democratic Party, which at the time controlled both the House and the Senate, led to a primary challenge from Democratic senator—and heir to the Kennedy legacy—Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy, also a factor contributing to Carter’s defeat after a single term.

He lost in a landslide to Reagan in 1980, a blow that his late wife Rosalynn—who died in 2023 at the age of 96—attributed to Reagan’s ability as a smooth-talking former actor to “make us comfortable with our prejudices.”

Man Who Remade The Post-Presidency

Still a relatively young man at 56, Carter returned to Plains, Georgia, to find his peanut business in disrepair and no obvious source of income. He didn’t want to give speeches for money to corporate groups, and he wasn’t a golfer, so he turned to writing to make a living. At the time of his death Sunday at age 100, he had published 32 books (including a novel) about an array of topics ranging from reflections on his faith to his view of the Middle East conflict (Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid) and Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life, co-authored with Rosalynn.

“That was a terrible experience,” Rosalynn Carter told CNN in 2012 of their writing process, and her husband agreed, calling it “the worst problem we’ve ever had since we’ve been married.” (They had been married 65 years at the time of the interview.)

No one disputes that Carter had the most productive and meritorious post-presidency in history. He gained much appreciation and stature in the more than 40 years since he left the White House. While that was surely a source of pride, it was also a frustration of Carter’s that his achievements in office did not get the attention that he and his friends and allies thought they deserved.

The Prophet of Climate Change

His domestic adviser in the White House, Stuart Eizenstat, sought to rectify that with his book, President Carter: The White House Years, published in 2018. Based on notes that Eizenstat recorded on more than 100 legal pads, it is an inside account of an ambitious presidency that set down important and enduring markers in foreign policy and was ahead of its time in recognizing the impact of an oil-based economy on the planet.

Carter plunged right in to address that crisis, one he believed the country needed to confront. He addressed the nation from the White House in April 1977, wearing a cardigan sweater that became his trademark in urging Americans to conserve energy. “With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge that our country will face during our lifetime,” he declared.

He named former Nixon Defense Secretary James Schlesinger to head a newly created Department of Energy, and in November 1978 signed the National Energy Act, which was greatly watered down from what he proposed after various special interests had their way. It did deregulate natural gas and encourage conservation and the development of renewable energy through tax credits. Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House to set an example for the country. His successor had them removed.

Carter’s attempts to get ahead of the looming energy crisis did not avert another series of oil shocks in 1978 and 1979 that led to gas rationing. In June 1973, a gallon of regular gas was less than 40 cents. By 1980, it was $1.19. Unhappy motorists directed much of their ire at Carter.

The Cure That Killed a Presidency

But Carter had taken office with the economy already in the grip of stagflation, a twin scourge in which inflation is high and economic growth stagnant. In July 1979, in the midst of that sobering summer of gas lines, Carter nominated Paul Volcker to be chairman of the Federal Reserve. Volcker is credited with freeing the nation from the grip of inflation, but his tight-money policies brought down inflation chiefly by increasing interest rates, which rose to double digits and hurt Carter politically.

On the foreign-policy front, Carter is most remembered for securing a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, which he personally negotiated and which endures to this day. He took a huge risk inviting Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Camp David, hoping that the rustic retreat away from all distractions would allow the two leaders to find common ground.

But there was so much historical and personal animosity between them that they only met formally on the first day of the 13-day summit, Sept. 5, 1978, while Carter acted as the go-between the rest of the time, shielding them from each other.

It was only on the last day, after 12 days of negotiations, when Carter thought they had failed, and everyone had packed their bags, that Begin had a change of heart. He had asked Carter to sign pictures of the three leaders together for his eight grandchildren, and when Carter arrived with the photos, each personally inscribed “with love and best wishes” to each of the children by name, Begin teared up and suggested they try one more time. The result was the Camp David Accords, signed by Begin and Sadat at the White House on Sept. 17, 1978.

It was a major achievement and likely cushioned Carter and the Democrats from significant losses in the 1978 midterms. The party lost 15 House seats and 3 Senate seats, but kept control of Congress.

Speech Which Made Him Look Unhinged

In July 1979, with his legislative momentum stalled and his job approval tumbling, Carter secluded himself at Camp David with just a few top advisers to reconsider his presidency and what he might do to reinvigorate his government. Among those advisers was pollster Pat Caddell, who persuaded Carter that the real problem was the country’s “crisis of confidence.”

Carter emerged from the retreat with a nationally televised evening address to the nation that came to be known as “the malaise speech” though he never actually used the word. He reinforced his call for limits on oil imports and his belief that synthetic fuels were the future, but the headline was his statement that “all the legislation in the world can’t fix what’s wrong with America. What is lacking is confidence and a sense of community.”

That might have worked to get the country reflecting on the future if Carter hadn’t followed by demanding the resignation of every Cabinet secretary, an action that made him look a bit unhinged. Several were forced out, including Energy Secretary Schlesinger.

That same year, the Soviets marched into Afghanistan over the Christmas holidays, and Carter said publicly that he couldn’t believe that Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko had sat across from him in the Oval Office and lied about his country’s intentions. The admission made him look weak and naïve in the face of foreign aggression.

He retaliated by announcing the United States would boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, and that there would be an embargo on all grain shipments to the Soviet Union. These steps were not popular, angering farmers in critical Midwest states dependent on those sales, and disappointing athletes who had trained for months, if not years, along with sports enthusiasts across the country.

Presidency Literally Crashed and Burned

Carter’s presidency crashed and burned in the Iranian desert in April 1980 when an attempted hostage rescue mission had to be aborted after a U.S. helicopter collided with a U.S. transport plane, killing eight servicemen. Iranian students had stormed the U.S. embassy the year before, on Nov. 4, 1979, taking 66 hostages and enraging U.S. television audiences who watched them burn the American flag and shout “death to America” as the cameras rolled.

Carter at first used the plight of the hostages to avoid campaigning in the upcoming primaries, where he faced a serious challenge from Ted Kennedy. This strategy worked for a time, but left Carter a hobbled winner by the time he arrived in Madison Square Garden to claim the nomination. Carter had the delegates, but Kennedy had staked an emotional claim that Carter couldn’t overcome.

Carter likely would have lost re-election to Reagan even if Kennedy’s challenge hadn’t further weakened him. In a tentpole ‘gotcha’ moment, Carter didn’t have a good answer to Reagan’s question, posed in their single debate on Oct. 28, just days before the November election: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

(Adding to the poignancy of Carter’s presidency ending, 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days were freed and airborne just as Reagan concluded his inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1981. Carter had spent a sleepless night in the Oval Office wrapping up the deal with the Iranians, hoping to welcome home the 50 men and 2 women while he was still president.)

Tested By Time

So then, Carter was followed by Reagan, with the country seeming to want a bigger personality. Humility had been Carter’s calling card. As a candidate in 1976, he had ostentatiously carried his own garment bag; as president, for a time, Carter had banned the playing of “Hail to the Chief” when he entered a room. He didn’t dominate the public stage as much as the job needed. But his quiet leadership wore well over a very long time, and a fair assessment of his presidency reveals a substantial body of accomplishments that will continue to stand the test of time.