Ex-president Jimmy Carter remains a peacemaker
At 90, Jimmy Carter says his post-White House years have been more rewarding than his presidential tenure .
Jimmy Carter, the political outsider who seized the Democratic nomination for president and then out-campaigned Gerald Ford to win the White House in November 1976, can pinpoint the moment four years later when his re-election hopes were dashed.
It was when, in April 1980, a mission to rescue 52 hostages held at the US embassy in Tehran was abandoned after three of the eight helicopters failed. The tragedy was followed by humiliation. The hostages were freed — after 444 days in captivity — minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president in January 1981.
“Had I sent one more helicopter … then the rescue operation would have been successful and I personally believe I would have been re-elected without any problem,” Carter, 90, tells The Weekend Australian in an exclusive interview. “I had to accept responsibility for the failure. Of course the American people were deeply involved with those 50 or more hostages who were being held.
“So that was the No 1 issue, in my opinion, in the 1980 election to my detriment.”
The crushing lows of the Carter presidency were coupled with incredible highs. The “most momentous” initiative of his one-term presidency, Carter says, was brokering the historic peace agreement between Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in September 1978. But it came close to being an unmitigated failure.
After 13 days of talks at Camp David — the sprawling presidential retreat near Maryland — negotiations had broken down. Participants on both sides decided to return home. Begin asked Carter to sign photographs of the three leaders for his grandchildren as a souvenir. Carter obtained their names and “inscribed them, with love, to each child”.
“I gave him the photographs,” Carter recalls, “(and) he turned away to examine them, and then began to read the names aloud, one by one.
“He had a choked voice, and tears were running down his cheeks. I was also emotional, and he asked me to have a seat. After a few minutes, we agreed to try once more, and after some intense discussions we were successful.”
History can turn on the smallest things.
In a wide-ranging interview marking the publication of his new book, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety (Simon & Schuster), Carter reflects on his presidential years, makes pointed comments about his successors, discusses his enduring passions since leaving the White House and talks about his relationship with Australia.
The book provides a window into his journey through nine decades: growing up in rural Georgia and working as a farmer, navy engineer and submariner, state senator, Georgia governor and president, and his subsequent life as the longest serving ex-president. It is filled with interesting anecdotes and arguments, and leavened with selections of his poetry and paintings.
Meetings of the “ex-presidents club” are always “harmonious”, Carter says. They see each other at the opening of a new presidential library or the inauguration of a new president.
“I’ve had a friendly and polite and proper relationship with all the presidents, but I haven’t had a warm relationship in recent years,” he concedes.
Although Carter developed respectful relationships with presidents from across the political divide who at times sought out his thoughts on issues — he was closest to Republican George HW Bush — he has faced a chilly reception from Barack Obama, a fellow Democrat.
“We go to places where the United States government doesn’t want to go,” Carter says of his travels as peacemaker, humanitarian and advocate. “We deal with leaders who are international pariahs in that they are the cause of unnecessary wars or they are perpetrators of human rights abuses.”
Visits to places such as North Korea, Palestinian occupied territories and Sudan sometimes rankle in the corridors of Washington, DC. But Carter is unapologetic. “The Carter Centre sees those people as crucial to improving situations that involve unnecessary conflict or human rights violations,” he says.
They are a personal crusade for peace rather than the pursuit of political objectives.
When James Earl Carter Jr announced he was running for president in December 1974, he barely registered on the political Richter scale. He was outshone by Democrats who were household names, from Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern and Ted Kennedy — who declined to run — to George Wallace, Jerry Brown and Sargent Shriver. Could a Carter — who seemingly came from nowhere 40 years ago to challenge the political establishment — mount a winning campaign for president today? Carter’s answer underscores how US politics has become degraded by money, special interests and dumbed-down policy debates.
“It wouldn’t be possible because, unfortunately, the American political system has been turned over to the influence of money,” Carter says. “We now have a massive influx of hundreds of millions of dollars into presidential campaigns … This would not permit me to have even been a contender. You can’t expect to get into the presidential campaign without being able to raise several hundred million dollars, and I could not have done that.”
As the 39th US president, from 1977 to 1981, Carter was courageous on domestic policy and pursued an idealistic foreign policy. He was not afraid to take risks and challenge existing orthodoxies. His vice-president, Walter Mondale, summed up their four years: “We told the truth, we obeyed the law, we kept the peace.” Carter adds: “We championed human rights.”
He took the oath of office in the wake of the Watergate scandal that claimed Richard Nixon’s presidency. He was a cleanskin with a sunny personality and a toothy smile who promised to restore integrity to the Oval Office. He was a moral leader. He pledged to lead a new era of honest, accountable and transparent government. There would be no more dirty tricks.
But he was ill-equipped to govern at a time of diminished US prestige abroad, restlessness at home, a global energy crisis and spiralling inflation and unemployment — stagflation. Carter struggled to define his presidency with rhetoric and could not articulate a clear direction.
He was also a micromanager — down to running the booking sheet for the White House tennis courts — and is remembered by his colleagues for sometimes being stubborn, impatient and naive. He led a crisis-prone administration.
Carter acknowledges he should have been more conciliatory in dealing with congress and mindful of how voters perceived his policies. He had a poor relationship with the media, which caricatured him as a hick peanut farmer. Despite his intelligence, Carter was seen as weak and incompetent. Losing the November 1980 election to Reagan sealed this image in historical memory.
Carter says his presidency was probably better appreciated by voters than the media. “I was the first person to be elected to the White House from the deep south in more than 150 years,” he says. “A lot of people in the news media thought that I was inherently, or secretly, a racist.
“Also it was the aftermath of the Watergate revelations. A lot of the newspaper reporters thought they were going to uncover something I did that was unsavoury or embarrassing in my past or in my administration. So I had a very difficult time (with) the news media.”
Carter recognises his faults and is honest about his mistakes. He does not feel the need to over-polish his successes, even though some were considerable, including the Panama Canal treaties, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) with the Soviets, an ambitious energy policy, creating the Department of Education and leading a regulatory overhaul.
A born-again Christian, he still teaches Sunday school. In his Emory University lectures, Carter encourages young people to pursue a career in an area where they feel they can best make a difference. He preaches the virtues of public service.
“When young people do consult with me, or I meet with a political science class or history class, I encourage them to take whatever talent or ability they may have been given and to utilise that talent and ability to the best interests of themselves and other people.,” he says. “That quite often does involve a political life.”
It is no surprise that Carter’s favourite president is Harry Truman. “I admired him for his humility and his honesty and his political courage,” he says. “He was my commander-in-chief when I was in the navy. He eliminated racial discrimination in the military services and also in the government civil service.”
When Truman left office in January 1953, he was regarded as one of the worst US presidents. In subsequent decades his legacy was reassessed and he is now rated highly by historians. Carter also languished in presidential rankings. Recent biographers such as Julian Zelizer argue it is time for Carter to be re-evaluated.
His approval among voters and ranking among historians are also on the rise. Carter left office with a 34 per cent approval rating. At his peak, in March 1977, he enjoyed an approval rating of 75 per cent. In some surveys today Carter is ranked higher than Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Ford, the two Bushes and Obama. Carter is regarded as one of the best ex-presidents alongside William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover — also one-term presidents. His comments on local and global issues can sometimes be jarring for voters and irritate his successors. But few doubt his sincerity, integrity or dedication to public service.
After serving as president, Carter did not beat a path to the corporate world or line his pockets with highly paid endorsements and speeches. He was not interested in “profit-making”. He returned home to Plains, Georgia, with wife Rosalynn. He founded the Carter Centre, established his presidential library and museum, taught, wrote, and continued to advocate for principled causes.
Carter says his post-presidential years probably have been more rewarding than his presidential years. He has worked as a mediator trying to resolve conflicts and bring peace to dark corners of the world — with varying success. He has overseen elections in countries previously hostile to democracy. In October 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
His aid work has made a difference to millions of people. Few presidents have had such an impact. Through his leadership, the crippling guinea worm disease — there were 3.5 million reported cases in 1986 — is close to being eradicated. He has built homes for the homeless. And he is fighting for women living in servitude, forced into child marriage or facing violence, genital mutilation and other unspeakable horrors.
“There were other, more notable things I did when I had the full authority of the American government behind me that I couldn’t do now,” Carter says, “(but) my time since the White House has been best for me.
“We’ve promoted human rights (and) monitored 100 elections. This year we’ll treat about 70 million people for terrible diseases … So I think we’ve done more to help individual people than ever before. These people we’ve helped almost invariably are the poorest and most deprived folks in the world, mostly in Africa.”
A Full Life is Carter’s 29th book. Another is on the way. “I’ve just about finished a book that comprises about 65 of my paintings,” Carter says. “I’ve been painting pictures since I was in the navy. So I’ve collected those into a book which I have given to the Carter Centre to use to raise funds.”
He has not lost faith in humanity, but the extent of the challenges facing the world has sapped his confidence. In A Full Life, he writes about dozens of policy and political issues, neatly divided into “mostly solved” and “still pending”. It is yet another call to action.
“I’m a religious person and I believe that potentially we will see the finest aspects of humanity forthcoming,” Carter says. “But I don’t see much evidence of this at this moment. We reached the high point of human ambition and commitment at the end of the second world war with the formation of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I think it’s gone downhill since that time.”
Carter sees an opportunity for the US to continue to “lead by example” around the world but cautions that its hegemonic power is no longer assured. Other nations will also influence the economics, politics and culture of this new century. “I don’t think there’s any doubt we will be the No 1 military power for a number of years in the future, but other countries like China and India and Brazil will assume increasing influence in the world’s cultural and political environment,” he says.
“What the United States ought to do is use its tremendous influence to be the champion of peace instead of war, to be the champion of human rights and the environment and the alleviation of suffering among people in need. Those kinds of things are my definition of what a superpower ought to be and I believe that the American people are capable of that ambition and that realisation.”
One area where Carter wants the US, and Obama in particular, to play a bigger role is in working to bring peace to the Middle East. It was Carter’s clever negotiating skills that delivered the landmark Camp David peace accords in 1978, which have held to this day. Should Obama invite Middle East leaders to Camp David and try to engineer a new peace agreement?
“Well, I certainly would,” Carter says. “At this time of my life, my political life, the United States has reached the lowest point in its involvement and its influence between the Palestinians and the Israelis. We have had no active role to play there for the first time in recent history.
“I would like very much to see the United States get re-involved because at this point at least the European governments who could play a role are still deferring to the potential of America getting reinvolved.
“I can’t predict what success he would have, but I don’t have any doubt if the President invited the leaders of the Palestinians and the leaders of Israel to come to Camp David, or some other isolated place, it would be almost impossible for them to refuse.”
In A Full Life, Carter writes about his connections with Australia. He participated in military exercises with Australian ships when he was in the navy. He remembers his uncle sending him souvenirs from a tour of duty in the Pacific during World War II.
The day before Carter spoke to The Weekend Australian on the phone from the US, he met his granddaughter’s husband, an Australian who recently became a US citizen. Carter says the US and Australia have always enjoyed good relations. He says we remain a valuable and admired ally.
“I’ve visited Australia,” he says, “and I have a great affinity for the people of Australia. I think it’s an almost universal characteristic of American citizens to be friendly towards people from Australia.”
Jimmy Carter’s A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety is published by Simon & Schuster ($59.99).
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