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Jimmy Carter (b. 1924)
Jimmy Carter, the only Georgian elected president of the United States,
held the office for one term, 1977-81. His previous public service included a stint in the U.S. Navy, two senate terms in
the
Georgia General Assembly
, and one term as
governor
of Georgia (1971-75). After being defeated in the presidential election of 1980, he founded the Carter Center, a nonpartisan
public policy center in
Atlanta
.
During his years of public service at the local, state, and federal levels, Carter's policies contained a unique blend of
liberal social values and fiscal conservatism. He emphasized comprehensive reform and stressed efficiency and economy, advance
planning, and rational organization. He also championed equal rights for all Americans, especially women and minorities, and
basic human rights for all people. In 2002 Carter won the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian efforts.
Early Years and Education
Jimmy Carter's journey to the nation's highest office began in the small
Sumter County
town of
Plains
. Born on October 1, 1924, James Earl Carter Jr. later adopted the more informal "Jimmy" as his official designation. His
father, a farmer and small-town merchant, was one of the area's leading citizens.
Although a supporter of the Democratic Party by southern tradition, James Earl Carter Sr. rejected most of the liberal
New Deal
tenets endorsed by the national party. His political conservatism had its counterpart in social arrangements. Among other
local customs, he never questioned the prevailing southern racial doctrine that stamped his African American neighbors as
inferior. Conversely, the future president's mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, instilled in her son a decidedly more enlightened
view of race. A registered nurse by training and voracious reader by habit, she surprised her family when at age sixty-eight
she volunteered for the Peace Corps and served in India.
After attending public school in Plains, Carter matriculated at Georgia Southwestern College (later,
Georgia Southwestern State University
) in
Americus
and the
Georgia Institute of Technology
in Atlanta before receiving a coveted appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He graduated with a baccalaureate
degree and a naval commission in 1946 and eventually became senior officer of the precommissioning crew of the
Seawolf
, the second nuclear submarine. His superior officer in the program was Admiral Hyman Rickover, the architect of the U.S.
nuclear submarine program. The renowned naval officer's relentless quest of excellence made a lasting impression on the young
Carter, who later claimed the austere Rickover as a mentor and role model.
Family, Business, and Community
Carter married
Rosalynn Smith
, also from Plains, shortly after leaving the Naval Academy.
They had three sons, John William, James Earl III, and Donnel Jeffrey, and a daughter, Amy Lynn. After the death of Carter
Sr. in 1953, the younger Carter resigned his naval commission, forgoing a promising military career, and returned to Plains.
He spent the next several years reviving the family-owned
peanut
warehouse business, farming, and generally assuming the patriarchal and paternalistic responsibilities previously exercised
by his father.
The family businesses thrived under Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter's adroit management. Consequently, with more time to devote
to community affairs, Carter took an active interest in a variety of local concerns. He served on Sumter County's library
and school boards and on its hospital authority. He held leadership roles in regional and state planning associations and
eventually became president of the Georgia Planning Association. He also served as state president of the Certified Seed Organization
and as district governor of Lions International. In a few short years Carter had comfortably assumed his father's community
leadership position.
State Politics
Politics increasingly attracted Carter's attention. His father had represented Sumter County in the state legislature at the
time of his death, and now, with family business affairs in order, Carter prepared to make his own entry into state politics.
He overcame the unlawful machinations of a political boss in
Quitman County
to win election to the state senate from the Fourteenth District in 1962. Carter devoted much time and attention to educational
affairs during his two senate terms. While serving on the Sumter County School Board, he vigorously promoted efficiency and
educational opportunity through school reorganization and consolidation. But fearing such reforms would be the first step
in school integration, a predominantly white county electorate voted them down in a referendum election. Later, as chair of
the Senate Education Committee, Carter continued to advocate such policies on a statewide level.
After briefly flirting with a run for the U.S. Congress in 1966, Carter instead joined the race for the Democratic gubernatorial
nomination. For a little-known state senator, he ran a surprisingly strong race but missed the runoff, finishing third to
former governor
Ellis Arnall
and flamboyant restaurateur
Lester Maddox
. Although deeply disappointed by the election results, Carter soon began laying plans for a second gubernatorial campaign
in 1970. In the first race Carter had positioned himself as a moderate progressive alternative to the more liberal Arnall
and the staunchly conservative-
segregationist
Maddox. During his second campaign Carter subtly appealed to class antagonisms, running as the representative of the ordinary
people. It was a successful campaign strategy wherein Carter projected himself as a traditional southern conservative. He
associated his chief opponent, former governor
Carl Sanders
, with Atlanta's social and economic elite and chastised him for failing, during his governorship, to invite Alabama's outspoken
segregationist governor, George C. Wallace, to address the Georgia General Assembly.
Governor of Georgia
After easily defeating his Republican opponent, Carter surprised most of his Georgia supporters and attracted national attention
during a short, twelve-minute inaugural address when he proclaimed that the time for segregation had ended. "No poor, rural,
weak, or black person," he declared, "should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity
of an education, a job, or simple justice." He soon revealed himself as a moderate business progressive with an extensive
reform agenda designed to make state government operate more efficiently and to be more responsive to the needs of its citizens.
The reorganization of state government served as the cornerstone of Carter's gubernatorial program. This massive reform effort,
which continued through much of his four-year term, produced large-scale structural reform. Sixty-five budgeted and 200 unbudgeted
agencies, boards, bureaus, and commissions were consolidated into 20 line agencies. The objective was to group similar functions
into a single jurisdictional body, thus saving money by avoiding duplication while improving the delivery of services. The
most controversial aspect of the reorganization plan involved the creation of three super agencies—the departments of administrative
services, natural resources, and human resources—that absorbed the functions and responsibilities of 62 existing state agencies.
An effort to improve management efficiency and reduce the costs of services accompanied the larger, more dramatic endeavor
to restructure the administrative organization of state government. One of his more controversial proposals concerned budget
reform. Under Carter's "zero-based budgeting" plan, state departments and agencies, rather than submitting an aggregate budget
figure, supposedly started from scratch each year, evaluating and justifying every dollar they requested.
In addition to reorganization, Carter continued his earlier efforts to upgrade the state's notoriously weak educational system.
The "Adequate Program for Education in Georgia," the governor's educational reform package, provided funds to support vocational
education, reduce class size, and equalize funding among districts. At the same time, Carter increased the state's commitment
to preschool education and launched a campaign that eventually led to the adoption of a statewide kindergarten program.
Substantial reform in the operation of the state's criminal justice system also occurred during Carter's governorship. These
revisions included significant movement toward the creation of a unified court system, the systematic use of a merit system
in the selection of judges, a constitutional method of regulating judicial conduct, and much needed penal reform.
Carter also initiated significant new mental health programs and took a variety of actions, both substantive and symbolic,
to promote civil rights and equal opportunity for women and minorities. The governor reflected his commitment to fairness
and justice most obviously in his appointment policy. He appointed more women and minorities to his own staff, to major state
policy
boards
and agencies, and to the judiciary than all of his predecessors combined.
President of the United States
Still a relatively young man of fifty at the end of his term and ineligible to run for reelection under the state constitution
(later changed),
Carter had begun to explore possibilities for higher office well before leaving the gubernatorial office. During the summer
of 1974 he agreed to direct the Democratic National Committee's nationwide midterm campaign to elect Democratic governors,
senators, and congressmen. The position allowed him to meet state party officials, political consultants, constituency leaders,
and other party functionaries. This exposure proved invaluable when Carter officially declared his candidacy for the 1976
Democratic presidential nomination. Meanwhile, the slow, agonizing unraveling of the Watergate scandal that eventually drove
U.S. president Richard Nixon from office greatly enhanced the Democratic Party's electoral prospects in the upcoming general
elections.
Carter prevailed during the presidential primaries and then narrowly defeated Nixon's successor, incumbent Republican president
Gerald R. Ford, in the general election. In office Carter emphasized high moral standards, ethical behavior, and democratic
principles. He often projected himself in populist terms, dressed casually, and sharply reduced the level of pomp and ceremony
that had come to be associated with the modern American presidency.
Stagflation
An unpretentious, egalitarian demeanor, however, did little to offset the severity of the national and international problems
that Carter inherited. In 1973 the Arab oil-producing nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (known
as OPEC) had sharply reduced oil production, driving up prices and creating selective gasoline shortages. In addition to higher
fuel costs, escalating health and food prices spurred a tenacious inflationary surge. The combination of rising prices, persistent
unemployment, and a stagnant economy had by 1977, when Carter took office, been dubbed "stagflation." The Carter administration
sought to slow inflation by raising interest rates and restraining federal spending.
Along with other measures, the program of federal fiscal austerity that Carter followed eventually brought inflation under
control but at considerable political cost. Wage workers, a core Democratic Party constituency, fared poorly under Carter's
economic prescriptions. In the battle to control inflation, administration policies encouraged reduced employment, and for
those employed, it advocated pay restraints that had the effect of decreasing real wages. Disillusioned, many traditional
Democratic supporters either deserted the party or abandoned politics altogether.
Domestic Record
Despite rocky relations with Congress, Carter created two new cabinet-level departments (Energy and Education), developed
a national energy policy, and deregulated the trucking and airline industries. Particularly sensitive to conservationist and
environmental concerns, he successfully pushed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act through Congress, more
than doubling the acreage in the national park and wildlife refuge system. Continuing the practice he had followed in the
Georgia governor's mansion, Carter also appointed a record number of women and minorities to federal government offices.
International Affairs
In addition to continuing domestic problems, international crises, over which Carter had little control, further undermined
his leadership. Two events that occurred late in Carter's term proved particularly ill-starred: the Soviet Union's invasion
of Afghanistan and the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, Iran, following the expulsion of the Shah by the followers
of the Ayatollah Khomeini, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric. Ultimately, Carter managed these two crises judiciously, but the
incidents embarrassed the nation, and Carter's measured response to them won him little public applause. Nonetheless, Carter
survived Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy's forceful challenge in the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries, but he decisively
lost his bid for reelection to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan.
Although at the time he departed office his presidency was widely perceived as a failure, Jimmy Carter left behind a solid
record of accomplishment in both domestic and international affairs. He firmly established human rights as an essential component
of foreign policy both at home and abroad, opened diplomatic relations with China, and helped to negotiate the Panama Canal
Treaties, the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, and SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) with the Soviet
Union.
The Carter Center
Shortly after returning to Georgia following his reelection defeat, the former president founded the
Carter Center
in Atlanta and became the University Distinguished Professor at
Emory University
. Under Carter's direction,
center associates have not only examined and analyzed national and international policy issues but also actively engaged in
efforts to promote democratic practices, advance human rights, and resolve conflicts. The Carter Center has monitored more
than forty elections in twenty-one countries, including Venezuela, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. It worked
to resolve conflicts in Haiti, Bosnia, Ethiopia, North Korea, Sudan, and other countries. The first president to visit Cuba
since Calvin Coolidge in 1928, Carter spent time during his May 2002 visit with Fidel Castro and political dissidents alike.
Carter visited the AIDS sanitarium and a school for disabled children, and threw a pitch for an all-star baseball game in
Havana. With Castro and National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon in attendance, he delivered a live and uncensored speech
on Cuban TV and radio, in Spanish, in which he opened up communication on free trade and democracy.
Through its Global 2000 programs, the center has sought to eradicate or control such debilitating diseases as river blindness,
guinea worm, and trachoma, which have devastated the populations of many poorer countries. It also has striven to relieve
hunger through agricultural reform, especially in drought-plagued sub-Saharan Africa. Along with his support of Carter Center
projects, Carter continues to champion
Habitat for Humanity
, a Georgia-based philanthropy that helps needy people build new homes or renovate older ones.
In 2002 Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his continuing effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts
and to advance democracy and human rights. Carter is the third American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt and
Woodrow Wilson
both received the prize while still in office. Carter shares with
Martin Luther King Jr.
the distinction of being the only native Georgians to be so honored. In 1999 Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, along with the Carter
Center, received the inaugural
Delta Prize for Global Understanding
, an award administered by the
University of Georgia
.
Author
At the time of his presidential candidacy, Carter published
Why Not the Best?
(1975), a biographical introduction of his political stance and viability as a candidate. In his postpresidential career,
Carter has written numerous books, including one he cowrote with his wife, Rosalynn, and a children's book (illustrated by
daughter Amy). Covering a variety of topics, from postpresidency activity to aging/retirement, faith, human rights, and even
poetry, Carter has made a point in his publications to be not only informative but also forthright about his life and political
philosophy.
In
A Government as Good as Its People
(1977), Carter discusses government policy on crime, poverty, nuclear energy, foreign policy, and human rights, and with
The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East
(1993) he breaks down the history of that region. Carter's collection of essays entitled
Our
Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis
(2005) spent several weeks at the top of the
New York Times
best-seller list and won an award from the
Georgia Writers Association
. A sharp critique of the religious right and the administration of U.S. president George W. Bush, the book addresses a wide
range of topics, including global warming, gun control, human rights abuses, and the war in Iraq (2003- ). The following year
he published
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
, an analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The best-selling book's criticisms of Israel generated controversy soon
after its release.
In a book coauthored with his wife,
Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life
(1987), Carter discusses their experiences with Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Center. In
Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age
(1992), Carter relates the story of his first campaign for public office, a seat in the Georgia state senate in 1962. He
recounts the difficulties of resisting segregationist groups in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that stated "one
man, one vote."
In addition to two memoirs published in 2001,
Christmas in Plains: Memories
and
An Hour before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood
, Carter has written an autobiography,
Living Faith
(1996), which focuses on his spiritual faith in service to the country. His semiautobiographical poetry appears in
Always a Reckoning, and Other Poems
(1995). With the 2003 publication of
The Hornet's Nest
, a work of historical fiction about the
Revolutionary War
(1775-83) in the South, Carter became the first U.S. president to write a novel.
In 2007 Carter won a Grammy Award for the audio version of his book
Our Endangered Values
. Honored in the category of spoken word album, Carter's recording tied for the award with
Ossie Davis
and Ruby Dee's
With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together
. Also in 2007 Carter published
Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope
, in which he discusses his postpresidential career and the accomplishments of the Carter Center during its first twenty-five
years.
Suggested Reading
Peter G. Bourne,
Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography from Plains to Post-Presidency
(New York: Scribner, 1997).
Douglas Brinkley,
The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey beyond the White House
(New York: Viking, 1998).
Gary M. Fink,
Prelude to the Presidency: The Political Character and Legislative Leadership Style of Governor Jimmy Carter
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980).
Erwin C. Hargrove,
Jimmy Carter as President: Leadership and the Politics of the Public Good
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988).
Burton Ira Kaufman,
The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr.
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993).
Kenneth E. Morris,
Jimmy Carter, American Moralist
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996).
David Skidmore,
Reversing Course: Carter's Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics, and the Failure of Reform
(Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 1996).
Gary M. Fink, Georgia State University
Updated 10/12/2007
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