Former US President Jimmy Carter has died at the age of 100. This was reported on Sunday by the American media, which was referred to by the AFP agency, writes TASR. Democrat Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. On March 22, 2019, he became the longest-living president in US history.
During his era, the United States brokered agreements between Israel and Egypt in 1978, and a year later the US and the Soviet Union signed the SALT II treaty, which limited the development of some types of missiles with nuclear warheads. For a significant contribution to the peaceful resolution of international conflicts won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
James (Jimmy) Earl Carter Jr. was born on October 1, 1924 in Plains, Georgia, USA. His father was a farmer, a successful businessman and a Georgia congressman. The mother worked as a nurse in a local hospital. He graduated from the Annapolis Naval Academy in 1946 and joined the Navy. After seven years of service, he returned to his hometown of Plains.
In 1962, he entered politics as a member of the Democratic Party. He gradually became a senator and in January 1971 the governor of Georgia. He focused on ecology, streamlining state administration and removing racial barriers.
He announced his presidential candidacy in December 1974. In the November 2, 1976 election, he narrowly won over Republican Gerald Ford (50.1%: 48%). Jimmy Carter’s term in office lasted from January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981, when Republican Ronald Reagan succeeded him in the White House.
Carter’s greatest achievements in the presidency on the domestic political scene are considered to be the creation of a national energy policy and government reform. Within its framework, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Education were created. He also pushed for stronger legislation aimed at protecting the environment.
In international politics, his greatest achievements were the conclusion of the Panama Canal Agreement (1977), the signing of the Camp David Agreements between Egypt and Israel (1978), the establishment of diplomatic relations with China (1979) and the continuation of strategic arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks).
The SALT II treaty was signed on June 18, 1979 in Vienna with Carter by Leonid Brezhnev, the highest Soviet representative at the time. However, after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in the same year, the US Senate refused to ratify the SALT II treaty. Carter also ran for the presidency in the November 4, 1980 election, but was unsuccessful. He was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan by a vote ratio of 50.8% to 41%.
After leaving the White House, Carter founded the Carter Center in 1982 together with his wife, Rosalynn Carter, which has been involved in human rights support, conflict resolution, election monitoring, and health care for more than four decades. In March 2019, he became the longest-living president in the history of the United States. George HW Bush, the former “record holder”, died on November 30, 2018 at the age of 94.
In recent years, Jimmy Carter has had several health problems. In 2015, he was diagnosed with brain and liver cancer and underwent successful surgery and radiotherapy. In May 2019, he fell at his home in Georgia and suffered a fractured hip. A few weeks before, he had injured his head in a fall at home.
On February 18, 2023, the Carter Center announced that the former US president had switched to the so-called home hospice care. He made this decision after a series of short stays in the hospital because he wants to “spend the remaining time at home with his family and undergo hospice (or palliative) care instead of further medical interventions.”
Since then, former President Carter has appeared in public very rarely. On November 28, 2023, he attended a final farewell to his late wife, Rosalynn Carter, at the Glenn Memorial Church in Atlanta. The former first lady of the USA died on November 19, 2023 at the age of 96, and she and Carter were married for 77 years.
