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Former US President Jimmy Carter dies at 100

By Kane Farabaugh December 29, 2024

VOA Correspondent Kane Farabaugh conducted numerous interviews with Jimmy Carter on issues ranging from his time in the White House to his post-presidential career as a promoter of global health and democracy. Highlights of those interviews are contained in this report.

Former President Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer and Georgia state governor before becoming president, has died at the age of 100.

When Carter took the oath of office as president of the United States on January 20, 1977, he promised a "government as good as its people."

He presided over four turbulent years. Rising inflation and growing unemployment marred the domestic priorities of his administration. He scored victories in foreign policy with a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel and the Panama Canal treaty. However, a hostage crisis in Iran dominated his final years in the White House and contributed to his defeat in the 1980 general election.

But Carter liked to say the end of his presidency in 1981 was the beginning of a new life, traveling the world "fighting disease, building hope, and waging peace."

"It has turned out to open up for me and my wife, Rosalynn, a new arena of excitement and unpredictability and adventure and challenge and gratification," he told VOA.

As the head of the Carter Center, the Carters traveled to more than 80 countries monitoring troubled elections, mediating disputes, and fighting diseases. This active post-White House life eventually led to the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

"I look upon the Carter Center work as an extension of what I tried to do as president. You know, we brought peace between Israel and Egypt. We opened up a humongous relationship with Latin America with the Panama Canal treaty," he said. "So what I have done since then has been kind of an extension. But I do not think there is any doubt that when I won the Nobel Peace Prize, for instance, it was because of the work of the Carter Center. So, I would be perfectly satisfied to have a legacy based on peace and human rights. I mean, who would not?"

The White House released a statement from President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden on Sunday: "Over six decades, we had the honor of calling Jimmy Carter a dear friend. But, what's extraordinary about Jimmy Carter, though, is that millions of people throughout America and the world who never met him thought of him as a dear friend as well."

President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: "The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude."

Carter's journey to the White House began in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he was born October 1, 1924.

After serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy, where he helped develop the post-World War II nuclear submarine fleet, Carter returned to his hometown in 1953 to run the family peanut-farming business.

He entered politics in the 1960s, serving two terms as a Georgia legislator before becoming the state's 76th governor from 1971 to 1975.

In the 1976 presidential election, Carter, a Democrat, ran against Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who assumed the presidency after Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Carter narrowly defeated Ford to become president.

The high point of Carter's presidency came in 1978. Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat in rural Maryland to negotiate a peace treaty.

"When I became president, there had been four wars between Arabs and Israelis in the previous 25 years, with the Egyptians in the leadership supported by the Soviet Union," he said. "They were the only country that could really challenge Israel militarily. And we had success in getting a treaty between Israel and Egypt ... not a word of which has ever been violated."

Carter also negotiated a treaty turning control of the Panama Canal over to the Panamanian government and normalized diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.

But in 1979 the primary focus for Carter's administration turned to Iran, where a revolution led by religious clerics toppled the government of the U.S. backed shah, who eventually fled to the United States, where he received treatment for cancer.

On November 4, 1979, militants angry with the U.S. for harboring the deposed shah, stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage, 13 were released weeks later.

Five months into the crisis, in April 1980, Carter authorized a complex military operation to free the remaining hostages. Dubbed Operation Eagle Claw, the plan called for several helicopters and military aircraft to stage at a site in the Iranian desert. Carter, who approved the plan, explained to VOA that the helicopters carrying members of the U.S. military's elite Delta Force, were to fly from there to the U.S. embassy in Tehran, free the hostages and return to the waiting aircraft that would fly them out of Iran.

"The minimum number of helicopters required would be six very large helicopters. So I decided to send eight. One of the helicopters, in an inexplicable way, turned around and went back to the aircraft carrier. Another one went down in a sandstorm in the Iranian desert. The third one developed a hydraulic leak and ran into one of the C-130 airplanes," he said.