While most other occupants of the position served two consecutive terms, Jimmy Carter won only one US presidential election, in 1976. After four complicated years in the White House, he spent more than three decades traveling the world and to work for peace. This maverick, champion of human rights and keen critic of the foreign policy of his successors, both Democrats and Republicans, died on December 29, at the age of 100.
“ We have always believed in this something called “progress”. » In his speech of unease (“ Malay speech “), Jimmy Carter wants to tell the truth to the citizens of his country, who elected him with a narrow head three years earlier. Narrowly victorious, Jimmy Carter then promised never to lie to them. This July 15, 1979, on television, he faces a country which is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the crash of 1929. We have always had this conviction that our children’s lives would be more beautiful than ours. Today we are losing this belief. »
A few months later, Jimmy Carter lost the election to Ronald Reagan. The former actor is confident and promises to make America strong, while the Democrat does not hesitate to talk about the mistakes of the Americans. A weak president according to his detractors, idealist according to his supporters, Jimmy Carter may have missed out on his years in the White House.
If we can credit the Camp David agreements of September 1978, synonymous with peace between Israel and Egypt, the rapprochement of the United States with communist China or the Salt II non-proliferation treaty negotiated with the Soviets, the country will also remember him for his failures as president. Hostage taking at the Tehran embassy for fourteen months after the Islamic revolution, difficulties in stemming the crisis following the oil shock of 1979, invasion by the USSR of Afghanistan… His legacy, however, goes far beyond his four years of presidency.
“ He showed what all presidents should: humility »
Carter’s story is that of an underdog. When he declared himself a candidate for the supreme office in 1974, the context was favorable to him. Richard Nixon resigned over the scandal Watergate and the probity of the country’s political leaders, particularly Republicans, is called into question. The fifty-year-old, who only served one term in the Georgia Senate (1963 – 1967) and another as governor of the state (1977 – 1981), was then virtually unknown in American political life.
This did not prevent him from beating Gerald Ford, vice-president and successor to Richard Nixon, with a little more than a million votes in advance. Jimmy Carter wants to do politics differently. Unlike his predecessors, on the day he took office, he did not cross Washington by car, but on foot. “ He demonstrated what all presidents should : humility “, comments Mel Elfin, head of the weekly’s office at the time. Newsweek in Washington, in a History Channel documentary.
Coming to power, he created a state department of Energy and another for Education. He reforms administration and taxation. It deregulates the transport sector and extends the territory of national parks. But his measures to combat inflation (12% in 1979) and unemployment did not bear fruit. At least, they did not convince his fellow citizens: his popularity flirted with 20% at the end of his mandate and he was swept away by the Reagan tornado.
After his defeat, the Democrat spent his last days and nights as president negotiating with the Islamic Republic of Iran to obtain the release of the 52 hostages from the American embassy in Tehran. They were finally allowed to return to the United States, after more than a year of talks. Their plane leaves Iran as Ronald Reagan takes the oath of office and becomes the 40th president of the United States. Jimmy Carter takes no credit for this, especially since he is blamed for the death of eight American soldiers in April 1980 during an operation to rescue the hostages. “ I could have destroyed Iran “, he declared afterwards. This was the solution advocated by many officials at the time. But Jimmy Carter always preferred negotiations to cannons.
150 countries visited, a Nobel Peace Prize
A great consumer of summary notes and reports on subjects that concern him, President Jimmy Carter is a worker. But observers agree that his good will and his frankness have been shattered by the realities of American political life. “ He was an idealist, he wanted to do good things. But I felt he never had enough pragmatism to be able to negotiate, which is inevitable in Washington if you want to get something done. “, recalled former Congressman and future CIA Director and then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to the History Channel in 2005.
He who promised, upon his election to the post of governor of Georgia (a southern state, long segregated) that “ the time of racial discrimination [était] finished » wanted to place human rights at the heart of American diplomacy. But it was only after he left the White House that he actually achieved this. In 1982, he became a teacher at Emory University in Atlanta and created the Carter Center with his wife.
“ Reward peace. Fight against illness. Building hope. » The objectives of the foundation are carried out in a hundred countries. The eponymous center of the former presidential couple has supervised around forty elections since its creation: Venezuela, Nigeria, China… Jimmy Carter, who became a champion of peace, has also led delegations through several crises: in Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1989. Five years later, he met North Korean leader Kim Il Sung to calm his nuclear ardor, then went, still in 1994, to Haiti, on the orders of President Bill Clinton, and convinced the military to leave power before the UN military intervened.
In all, the former president traveled to around 150 countries. In 2002, he was notably the first former American head of state to visit Cuba since Fidel Castro’s coup d’état of 1959: he then gave a speech on state television, live and without interruption, and advocates rapprochement between Washington and Havana.
He was rewarded for his peaceful wanderings with multiple decorations: the United Nations Human Rights Prize in 1998, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest American civilian distinction, in 1999. And above all, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He pronounces, at the time of the ceremony, a vibrant tribute to the UN: “ We must confront these global challenges by insisting on peace, on harmony with others, with strong alliances and international consensus. […] However imperfect it may be, the United Nations is the best way to achieve this. »
THE ” deacon »
Unlike many other American presidents, Jimmy Carter never held back from putting obstacles in the way of his successors, including Democrats. In 1992, he refused to support Bill Clinton in the race for the White House. “ People are looking for someone honest who tells the truth. » In 2008, he supported Barack Obama, and in 2016, he admitted to voting for Bernie Sanders – in both cases against Hillary Clinton. This did not prevent him, during the Obama years, from criticizing the policies of the first black president of the United States, particularly on the question of Guantanamo, or the combat drones used in Yemen and Pakistan.
Obviously, the Republicans are not left out either. Bush Jr.? “ The worst president of the United States. » The war in Iraq? “ A tragic and costly mistake. » The conservative Fox News channel? “ Many naive people in the United States actually believe what Fox News presents as facts when they are just distortions. » To Donald Trump, however, he will offer his assistance and that of his foundation, to help him manage sensitive issues. He is also one of the only tenors of the Democratic Party to be present during his inauguration. Which does not prevent him from criticizing Donald Trump’s “serious errors” on the Iranian issue or from accusing him of transforming the United States into ” oligarchy “.
Jimmy Carter always criticizes something, but never has anything positive to say », President Bill Clinton is said to have said about him. Others criticized the 39th president of the United States for his naivety. Many, including in the Democratic camp, also held him against his positions against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, or his meetings with representatives of Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Washington.
This father of four children, devout Baptist Christian (nicknamed “ Deacon “, ” deacon “, by the “secret service” responsible for the close protection of the president) who gives classes on Sundays in his parish in Plains, Georgia, has plowed his furrow. When he announced, in 2015, that he had liver cancer, the entire American political class wished him well. In 2018, he claims to have recovered.
The first American president in history to reach the age of 100, he still appeared regularly on humanitarian projects. He recently advised Donald Trump to “ tell the truth » and… of “ tweet less ”, while criticizing the impeachment proceedings launched against the latter. “ I think this is not in line with what Americans expect “, he explained. This unclassifiable populist with strong words and deep-rooted democratic values was for nearly forty years a thorn in the side of successive administrations at the head of the country. One of those that pushes you forward.