The carter way

Jimmy Carter will be remembered at home and abroad as the best ex-president the US has ever had. He was the only one of four US presidential recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize to win the award for his humane and humanitarian work after he left office.

It was completely in character that the ailing 98-year-old opted for hospice care at home with his family rather than in a sterile hospital suite where secret servicemen mounted guard duty. The Carter home, a sprawling 1960s ranch residence in the hamlet of Plains in the state of Georgia, is the first and only house he and his wife Rosalynn, ever owned. Surrounded by a scrappy lawn and leafy trees, this house looks more like a children’s summer camp than the modest repos of a man who was once the most powerful on earth.

But then, the presidency did not turn Jimmy Carter into a “swell,” drive him to deliver speeches at tens of thousands of dollars an event, or propel him into the ranks of the country’s social elite. He actively cultivated his image as a former peanut farmer from a southern backwater, born-again Christian, Sunday school teacher, and plain speaker.

As a politician, Carter operated in line with the maxim: “the end justifies the means.” In 1966, during his first race for the Georgia governorship, he described his ideology as “Conservative, moderate, liberal and middle-of-the-road” but also said he was “a more complicated person than that.” Which he was. He was a pro-John Kennedy liberal who was against racial discrimination and segregation but, as a politician from Georgia, he opposed bussing black children from poor schools in deprived neighbourhoods to better schools in middle class white districts. Carter lost this contest, went home to Plains and plotted his 1970 campaign and won. Once in office, he criticised the state’s racist policies, established a human rights organisation with the aim of pre-empting violence, proposed equal funding for schools and prison reform, and founded community centres for mentally handicapped children. He was a “progressive” well before his time.

Although not well known nationally, Carter carefully plotted his 1976 presidential bid and began campaigning two years before the vote. Unlike his rivals, he courted the media and won primary after primary until he had secured the Democratic nomination. He defeated by a narrow margin Republican incumbent Gerald Ford. A methodical man, Carter planned a smooth transition to his administration, setting a precedent for his successors. Following his inauguration on Jan.20, 1977, he signed a controversial decree for an unconditional amnesty for Vietnam War-era draft dodgers.  However, he entered office during a period of economic slow-down and an energy crisis. He was far ahead of legislators when he made energy reform and conservation of resources major issues. Carter installed solar panels for heating water on the White House roof and created the Department of Energy. As an outsider, he refused to play by Washington’s rules and alienated legislators, undermining his own presidency.

On the foreign plane, Carter brokered the 1978 Camp David Accords which led to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel but failed to relaunch the regional peace process. While delivering on Cairo’s demand for withdrawal from all Egyptian territory, Israel refused to budge from East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and, instead, continued colonisation of these territories. Carter returned the Panama Canal to Panama and signed along with Russia the Salt II agreement to reduce nuclear arms. The ouster of Iran’s pro-US monarchy by revolutionary clerics followed by the November 1979 take over of the US embassy in Tehran and detention of US diplomats destroyed Carter’s ambition for a second term.

With the founding of the Carter Centre in 1982, he launched his career as a humanitarian, advocate of democracy, and promoter of justice. After attracting millions of dollars in funds, the Centre partnered the World Health Organisation in eradicating the sub-Saharan African Guinea worm infection spread by contaminated water. This parasite — which used to infect 3.5 million people a year — was found in only 12 victims last year. On Jan.24 this year, Carter prouodly announced that this will be only the second disease in history to be eradicated — after smallpox.

Since 1989, the Carter Centre has dispatched observers to monitor 100 elections in 39 countries, including three in Palestine: the 1996 presidential and legislative elections, the 2005 presidential poll and the 2006 legislative election. Ahead the 2006 vote, the US government and Carter personally urged Palestinians not to vote for Hamas. I asked him during his post-election press conference if this intervention was inappropriate. He shrugged off my question. AS we journalists were leaving, one of his aides tapped me on the shoulder to ask if I would like to meet Carter in an adjoining room. Two other journalists were invited as well. When I entered the room, Carter said, “You’re right, it was inappropriate.” During the 20 minutes we had with him he was critical of Israel for failing to honour its obligations under the Oslo peace process.

Carter has braved angry abuse from Israel and its acolytes since his publication in 2006 of “Peace Not Apartheid” — 15 years before Israeli rights organisation B’Tselem branded Israel an apartheid state in its seminal report. This led to the belated adoption of the term by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and UN officials.

Carter first demonstrated great courage in 1952 when, as a 28-year-old lieutenant in the US navy, he was dispatched to Ontario in Canada to lead a team to remove the damaged core of a nuclear reactor. Radioactive steam and material had escaped into the atmosphere and a flood of radioactive water had flown into the reactor’s basement. The effort took time and infinite patients as team members could only risk 90 seconds in the affected area. The reactor was saved and back in service after two years. Carter was chosen for this deadly and dangerous job because he had trained to lead a team in the construction and operation of the USS Seawolf, a nuclear submarine. He never took command. His father died and Carter went home to Plains to rescue the family business.

Photo: TNS