'My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights and unselfish love,' says son Chip
Former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at the age of 100, making him the longest-lived president in US history.
He passed away peacefully, surrounded by family in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, where he had been in hospice care since Feb. 18, 2023, according to the Carter Center. He had battled many medical issues over the past decade, including bouts with brain cancer and skin cancer.
"My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love," said Chip Carter, the former president's son, in a statement.
"My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs," he continued. "The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs."
Carter made an improbable political rise from a Georgia peanut farmer to the state's governor's mansion and eventually to the White House in Washington, D.C. as the 39th American president, defeating former President Gerald Ford with 297 electoral votes to 240 in the 1976 presidential election.
Carter, a Democrat, was 52 when he was elected president and served four chaotic years in the Oval Office which were marred by the Iran hostage crisis, crude oil shortages and high inflation.
Considered a Washington outsider, he struggled to build the proper political relationships on Capitol Hill with both lawmakers and lobbyists, and that struggle to find common ground continued to worsen as the American economy tanked due to rising inflation, high unemployment and an oil shortage which led to soaring gas prices due to US dependence on foreign oil and overconsumption. Carter's flailing legacy during his presidency was summed up through television images of long lines at gas stations across the country.
On Nov. 4, 1979, as Carter geared up for his 1980 re-election bid, pro-revolution Iranian students took 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage at the US Embassy in Tehran. It took 444 days for him to negotiate their release, and the drawn-out Iran hostage crisis continued to tank Carter's already-declining approval ratings.
Ultimately, that compounded Carter's woes during his term in office and he never recovered to win a second term, losing to Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. The hostages were not officially freed until after Reagan was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 1981.
Even though Carter's critics viewed his presidency as mostly a failure, he oversaw several important international events that added favorably to his legacy.
Carter negotiated an historic Middle East peace treaty between Egypt and Israel with then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on Sept. 17, 1978 known as the Camp David Accords because the signing of the agreement took place at the US presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their contributions to the peace treaty.
Carter was also responsible for the treaty to transfer control of the Panama Canal from US hands to Panama on Sept. 7, 1977 which placed a date for the full handover to occur on Dec. 31,1999 and guaranteed the neutrality of the 50-mile long and 10-mile wide Isthmus of Panama that had been under American control since 1903. The Panama Canal Treaty avoided what could have been a long-term military conflict between the US and Central America.
In addition, Carter negotiated a nuclear arms control agreement known as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II (SALT II) with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev that they signed in Vienna on June 18, 1979, which was seen as a major breakthrough in stabilizing world peace during the Cold War when military tensions between the US and the Soviet Union were at a boiling point.
Carter also received an abundance of praise for pressing fellow world leaders to be held accountable for overlooking human rights abuses, especially from nations considered to be American allies at the time, including Argentina, South Africa, South Korea and Zimbabwe. He also normalized relations with mainland China and ended 30 years of US political and military support to one of Latin America's most abusive leaders when it came to human rights violations, Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza.
"Our policy is based on an historical vision of America's role. Our policy is derived from a larger view of global change," Carter said during his presidency. "Our policy is rooted in our moral values, which never change. Our policy is reinforced by our material wealth and by our military power. Our policy is designed to serve mankind."
After leaving the White House, Carter became even more involved in humanitarian efforts, including being asked to mediate diplomatic disputes between non-US allies such as North Korea and Libya.
He also travelled the world to help raise money for disaster relief and immersed himself in Habitat for Humanity International, a non-profit organization that builds homes for the needy. It was not uncommon to see media images of Carter getting his hands dirty helping to construct homes both in the US and around the world. Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter donated their time and influence and worked with more than 100,000 volunteers in 14 countries to build, renovate and repair 4,331 homes, according to Habitat for Humanity.
Carter and Rosalynn, who died on Nov. 19, 2023 at the age of 96, also founded the Carter Center in Atlanta and spent four decades advocating for peace, democracy and human rights. That humanitarian effort won Carter the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other's children,” Carter said during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
Even into his 90s, Carter continued to build houses for Habitat for Humanity, worked as an observer of elections in developing countries and taught Sunday school at the Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
In an interview with the USA Today newspaper as he approached his 90th birthday, he reflected on how he would like the world to remember him.
"One is peace. I kept peace when I was president and I try to promote peace between other people and us, and between countries that were potentially at war, between Israel and Egypt, for instance," he said at the time. "And human rights...I think human rights and peace are the two things I'd liked to be remembered for, as well as being a good grandfather."
Carter is survived by his children Chip, Jack, Jeff and Amy, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
