Former US President Jimmy Carter
Human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, tireless traveler, creator of the Camp David Accords, one-term president. Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, has died.
Former President of the United States Jimmy Carterwho died today at the age of 100, was a one-term leader (1977-1981), but some do not hesitate to call the Democratic politician as “a blessing” for the country.
“You are a blessing to our country,” declared the Democratic senator Tina Smithon the day the Carter Foundation announced that the former president of the United States was receiving “palliative care” at home, where he wished to spend the time he had left after several hospitalizations.
“My father was a hero, not just to mebut for all who believe in peace, human rights and altruistic love”, said the son, Chip Carterin a statement.
“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 out these shared beliefs,” adds Chip Carter’s note.
Carter, a man who spoke frequently of his Christian faith, was, after the death of George HW Bush, oldest living US President.
Elected to the White House in 1976beating the then President Gerald Ford by a marginal margin of votes and in an America still marked by scandal “Watergate” that forced President Richard Nixon to resignCarter took office as the 39th President of the United States just for four years.
His only mandate was marked by important events at the international level. In 1977, Carter signed the treaty that guaranteed the United States control of the Panama Canal until 1999.
It is considered the author of two Chords of Camp David which in March 1979 led to the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty and it was during his leadership that the American hostage crisis in Iran occurred in 1979-1980, a situation that earned him strong internal criticism.
Carter would end up lose the dispute with Ronald Reagana former Hollywood actor and Republican senator when he ran for re-election.
After leaving the White House, Jimmy Carter founded the Carter Center in 1982to promote development, health and conflict resolution in the world.
Natural from Georgia, the state that saw him become governorJimmy Carter was characterized as a “tireless traveler” that could be found everywhere: from Mexico to Peru, through Nicaragua and even Timor-Leste.
Em 2002 received the Nobel Peace Prizenamely “for the decades of tireless efforts aimed at finding peaceful solutions to international conflicts”.
“Jimmy Carter will probably not go down in American history as the most effective President, but he is certainly the best ex-President that the country has never had”, declared in December 2002 the president of the Nobel Committee, Gunnar Berge, during the solemn award ceremony.
At that time, the United States intensified preparations for a possible armed intervention against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and Carter did not forget the subject in his Nobel acceptance speech.
“In the case of great powers, adhere to the principle of preventive war could create a precedent that could have catastrophic consequences,” he declared at the time.
In 2019, and faced with a range of health problems and several hospitalizations, he became the first North American President in history to reach the 95 years.
A link between Jimmy Carter and Joe Bidencurrent North American President, spans several decades. In 1976, Joe Biden, then a young senator from Delaware, was one of the first representatives to support Carter in his presidential run.
Due to his health issues, Carter did not attend Biden’s January 2021 inauguration ceremony, which former United States presidents traditionally attend.
A few months later, Jimmy Carter received Joe Biden in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, where he had lived since leaving Washington. At the time, it emerged with the wife Rosalynn, with whom he attended a wedding of more than seven decades, in an image alongside the Biden presidential couple, Jill and Joe Biden.
Biden’s stop in Plains was part of a trip through the state of Georgia to mark his first 100 days in office. “We sat down and talked about the old times“, Biden then said.
Rosalynn died in 2023, aged 96. Jimmy Carter’s last public appearance was precisely at his wife’s funeral in Plains.
