Jimmy Carter, former US president and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, dead at 100
WASHINGTON, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Jimmy Carter, the earnest Georgia peanut farmer who as U.S. president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday. He was 100.
U.S. President Joe Biden directed that Jan. 9 will be a national day of mourning throughout the United States for Carter, the White House said in a statement.
"I call on the American people to assemble on that day in their respective places of worship, there to pay homage to the memory of President James Earl Carter," Biden said.
Carter, a Democrat, became president in January 1977 after defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. His one-term presidency was marked by the highs of the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, bringing some stability to the Middle East.
But it was also dogged by an economic recession, persistent unpopularity and the Iran hostage crisis that consumed his final 444 days in office. Carter ran for re-election in 1980 but was swept from office in a landslide as voters embraced Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, the former actor and California governor.
Carter lived longer than any U.S. president and, after leaving the White House, earned a reputation as a committed humanitarian. He was widely seen as a better former president than he was a president - a status he readily acknowledged.
World leaders and former U.S. presidents paid tribute to a man they praised as compassionate, humble and committed to peace in the Middle East.
"His significant role in achieving the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel will remain etched in the annals of history," said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a post on X.
The Carter Center said there will be public observances in Atlanta and Washington. These events will be followed by a private interment in Plains, it said.
Final arrangements for the former president's state funeral are still pending, according to the center.
In recent years, Carter had experienced several health issues including melanoma that spread to his liver and brain. Carter decided to receive hospice care in February 2023 instead of undergoing additional medical intervention. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, died on Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96. He looked frail when he attended her memorial service and funeral in a wheelchair.
Carter left office profoundly unpopular but worked energetically for decades on humanitarian causes. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 in recognition of his "untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."
On Monday, the body awarding the Nobel Peace Prize repeated its praise for Carter's work.
"Earlier this fall, the Committee had the pleasure of congratulating him on his 100th anniversary, stating that his work in favour of peace, democracy and human rights will be remembered for another 100 years or more," it said.
Carter had been a centrist as governor of Georgia with populist tendencies when he moved into the White House as the 39th U.S. president. He was a Washington outsider at a time when America was still reeling from the Watergate scandal that led Republican Richard Nixon to resign as president in 1974 and elevated Ford from vice president.
"I'm Jimmy Carter and I'm running for president. I will never lie to you," Carter promised with an ear-to-ear smile.
Asked to assess his presidency, Carter said in a 1991 documentary: "The biggest failure we had was a political failure. I never was able to convince the American people that I was a forceful and strong leader."
Despite his difficulties in office, Carter had few rivals for accomplishments as a former president. He gained global acclaim as a tireless human rights advocate, a voice for the disenfranchised and a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty, winning the respect that eluded him in the White House.
Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world, from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Bosnia and Haiti. His Carter Center in Atlanta sent international election-monitoring delegations to polls around the world.
A Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher since his teens, Carter brought a strong sense of morality to the presidency, speaking openly about his religious faith. He also sought to take some pomp out of an increasingly imperial presidency - walking, rather than riding in a limousine, in his 1977 inauguration parade.
The Middle East was the focus of Carter's foreign policy. The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, based on the 1978 Camp David accords, ended a state of war between the two neighbors.
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland for talks. Later, as the accords seemed to be unraveling, Carter saved the day by flying to Cairo and Jerusalem for personal shuttle diplomacy.
The treaty provided for Israeli withdrawal from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and establishment of diplomatic relations. Begin and Sadat each won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.
By the 1980 election, the overriding issues were double-digit inflation, interest rates that exceeded 20% and soaring gas prices, as well as the Iran hostage crisis that brought humiliation to America. These issues marred Carter's presidency and undermined his chances of winning a second term.
On Nov. 4, 1979, revolutionaries devoted to Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seized the Americans present and demanded the return of the ousted shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was backed by the United States and was being treated in a U.S. hospital.
The American public initially rallied behind Carter. But his support faded in April 1980 when a commando raid failed to rescue the hostages, with eight U.S. soldiers killed in an aircraft accident in the Iranian desert.
Carter's final ignominy was that Iran held the 52 hostages until minutes after Reagan took his oath of office on Jan. 20, 1981, to replace Carter, then released the planes carrying them to freedom.
In another crisis, Carter protested the former Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He also asked the U.S. Senate to defer consideration of a major nuclear arms accord with Moscow.
Unswayed, the Soviets remained in Afghanistan for a decade.
Carter won narrow Senate approval in 1978 of a treaty to transfer the Panama Canal to the control of Panama despite critics who argued the waterway was vital to American security. He also completed negotiations on full U.S. ties with China.
Carter created two new U.S. Cabinet departments - education and energy. Amid high gas prices, he said America's "energy crisis" was "the moral equivalent of war" and urged the country to embrace conservation. "Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth," he told Americans in 1977.
In 1979, Carter delivered what became known as his "malaise" speech to the nation, although he never used that word.
"After listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America," he said in his televised address.
"The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America."
As president, the strait-laced Carter was embarrassed by the behavior of his hard-drinking younger brother, Billy Carter, who had boasted: "I got a red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer."
Jimmy Carter withstood a challenge from Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination but was politically diminished heading into his general election battle against a vigorous Republican adversary.
Reagan, the conservative who projected an image of strength, kept Carter off balance during their debates before the November 1980 election.
Reagan dismissively told Carter, "There you go again," when the Republican challenger felt the president had misrepresented Reagan's views during one debate.
Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan, who won 44 of the 50 states and amassed an Electoral College landslide.
James Earl Carter Jr. was born on Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, one of four children of a farmer and shopkeeper. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, served in the nuclear submarine program and left to manage the family peanut farming business.
He married his wife, Rosalynn, in 1946, a union he called "the most important thing in my life." They had three sons and a daughter.
Carter became a millionaire, a Georgia state legislator and Georgia's governor from 1971 to 1975. He mounted an underdog bid for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination, and out-hustled his rivals for the right to face Ford in the general election.
With Walter Mondale as his vice presidential running mate, Carter was given a boost by a major Ford gaffe during one of their debates. Ford said that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration," despite decades of just such domination.
Carter edged Ford in the election, even though Ford actually won more states - 27 to Carter's 23.
Not all of Carter's post-presidential work was appreciated. Former President George W. Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, both Republicans, were said to have been displeased by Carter's freelance diplomacy in Iraq and elsewhere.
In 2004, Carter called the Iraq war launched in 2003 by the younger Bush one of the most "gross and damaging mistakes our nation ever made." He called George W. Bush's administration "the worst in history" and said Vice President Dick Cheney was "a disaster for our country."
In 2019, Carter questioned Republican Donald Trump's legitimacy as president, saying "he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf." Trump responded by calling Carter "a terrible president."
Carter also made trips to communist North Korea. A 1994 visit defused a nuclear crisis, as President Kim Il Sung agreed to freeze his nuclear program in exchange for resumed dialogue with the United States. That led to a deal in which North Korea, in return for aid, promised not to restart its nuclear reactor or reprocess the plant's spent fuel.
But Carter irked Democratic President Bill Clinton's administration by announcing the deal with North Korea's leader without first checking with Washington.
In 2010, Carter won the release of an American sentenced to eight years hard labor for illegally entering North Korea.
Carter wrote more than two dozen books, ranging from a presidential memoir to a children's book and poetry, as well as works about religious faith and diplomacy. His book "Faith: A Journey for All," was published in 2018.
What is a state funeral and who will attend Jimmy Carter's?
A number of ceremonies and services will be held to mourn the passing of US President Jimmy Carter, who has died aged 100.
The former president will be honoured at a state funeral on 9 January in Washington before he is buried in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, alongside his wife, Rosalynn, who died last year at age 96.
Carter passed away on Sunday, two years after entering into hospice care.
Here's what to know about the funeral plans.
A state funeral is a national remembrance event marking the life of Americans who have made a huge contribution to public life.
Most presidents receive the honour if their family agrees.
It usually lasts seven to 10 days and includes ceremonies in the hometown of the deceased, as well as in Washington.
The last president to receive a state funeral was George HW Bush in 2018.
Two years later, former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the first woman to lie in state at the US Capitol.
When astronaut Neil Armstrong died in 2012, there were calls for a state funeral but his family instead chose a private ceremony in Ohio.
The memorial events for Carter - a Democrat who served as president from 1977 to 1981- will be in three parts.
They will start in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, before moving to Washington and then back to the southern state.
On 4 January, a motorcade will drive through Carter's small hometown of Plains and stop by his childhood home before proceeding to Atlanta for a public service at the Carter Presidential Center.
Carter's remains will be at the presidential library on 5 January and 6 January.
He will be transported to the nation's capital on 7 January, where the ceremonies will begin at the US Navy Memorial before a horse-drawn procession to the US Capitol.
For two days he will lie in state at the US Capitol Rotunda, where the public will be able to pay their respects.
His life will be commemorated at Washington National Cathedral on 9 January in a service attended by several former presidents.
Biden will be delivering the eulogy at Carter's Washington DC funeral, after the 39th president asked him to in March 2023, according to Biden.
Former presidents and first ladies typically attend funerals of their predecessors, so First Lady Jill Biden and others like former President Barack Obama could be in attendance. Hillary and Bill Clinton are also expected to attend.
President-elect Donald Trump's plans are unclear. He did not attend Rosalynn Carter's funeral last year, but his wife Melania did, along with other former first ladies.
Trump did, however, attend the Washington service for Republican George HW Bush. There were five living presidents, including Carter, in attendance.
The US federal government will be closed on 9 January for a national day of mourning, President Biden said in an executive order.
Financial markets will be closed that day too, including the New York Stock Exchange.
US flags are flying at half-mast on all federal buildings for 30 days.
'It was destiny': How Jimmy Carter embraced China and changed history
On a bright January morning in 1979, then US president Jimmy Carter greeted a historic guest in Washington: Deng Xiaoping, the man who unlocked China's economy.
The first leader of Communist China to visit the United States, Deng had arrived the previous evening, to light snow and a welcome by the US vice-president, the secretary of state and their spouses.
It was the start of a diplomatic relationship that would forever change the world, setting the stage for China's economic ascent - and later, its rivalry with the US.
Establishing formal ties with China was among Carter's more remarkable legacies, during a turbulent presidency that ended with one term.
Born on 1 October, the same date as the founding of the People's Republic of China, "he liked to say it was destiny that brought him and China together", said Yawei Liu, a close friend of Carter's.
Even after leaving office, he painstakingly cultivated a close bond with the Chinese people - but that was affected as ties between Washington and Beijing cooled.
Yet he remains one of a small group of US statesmen cherished by Beijing for helping to bring Communist China out of isolation in the 1970s.
Beijing has expressed its condolences, calling Carter the "driving force" behind the 1979 agreement. But the Chinese internet has gone much further, referring to him as "Meirenzong" or the "benevolent American", giving him a title that was once reserved for emperors.
Carter's first encounter with China was in 1949, while the country was suffering the final convulsions of a bloody decades-long civil war.
As a young US naval officer, his submarine unit was dispatched to Qingdao in eastern China. They were to aid Kuomintang troops who were fending off a Communist siege by Mao Zedong's army.
Just kilometres away behind enemy lines was a Chinese commander named Deng Xiaoping.
When they finally met decades later, it was as leaders of their respective countries.
It was an earlier US President, Richard Nixon, and his secretary of state Henry Kissinger who had laid the groundwork for wooing what was then Mao's China. With Beijing and Moscow at loggerheads, they had sensed an opportunity to draw away a Soviet ally.
But those efforts culminated under Carter - and Deng - who pushed for deeper ties. For months, the US president dispatched trusted negotiators for secret talks with Beijing.
The breakthrough came in late 1978. In the middle of December, the two countries announced that they would "recognise each other and establish diplomatic relations from January 1, 1979".
The world was surprised and Beijing was elated, but the island of Taiwan, which had long relied on US support against Chinese claims, was crushed. Carter is still a controversial figure there.
Previously, the US had only recognised the government of Taiwan, which China viewed as a renegade province. And for years US support for Taiwan had been the sticking point in negotiations.
Switching recognition to Beijing meant the US had finally acknowledged China's position that there was only one Chinese government - and it was in Beijing. This is the One China policy, which, to this day, forms the cornerstone of US-China relations.
But the pivot raised inevitable questions about US commitment to its allies. Uneasy with Carter's decision, Congress eventually forced through a law codifying its right to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons, thus creating a lasting contradiction in US foreign policy.
Still historians agree that 1979 signalled an extraordinary set of moves that reoriented global power: not only did it unite the US and China against the Soviet Union, but also paved the way for peace and rapid economic growth in East Asia.
But Carter could not have done it without his special relationship with Deng Xiaoping. "It's a pleasure to negotiate with him," Carter wrote in his diary after spending a day with Deng during his January visit, according to Deng's biographer Ezra Vogel.
"The two of them followed common sense, there were actually significant similarities in their no-nonsense personalities," said Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. "There was something really unique between the two men that really established trust."
Deng Xiaoping had survived three political purges under Mao to emerge as one of China's most consequential leaders. Historians credit his vision, self-assurance, frankness and sharp wit in no small part for this crucial diplomatic win.
He sensed the opportunity Carter offered, Vogel writes - to both thwart Soviet power and to kickstart the modernisation that had begun in Japan, Taiwan and even South Korea. He knew it would elude China without US help.
Deng's visit to the US began with a warm first meeting at the White House, where he chuckled while revealing his Qingdao connection to Carter, according to Chinese reports. He was exuberant as the two clasped hands in front of cameras in the Rose Garden, saying: "Now our two countries' peoples are shaking hands."
Over the next few days, Deng staged a whirlwind charm offensive on the Americans as he toured several states with Carter. In one famous image, Deng is seen grinning as he dons a cowboy hat at a Texan rodeo. "Deng avoids politics, goes Texan," read a local newspaper headline.
Carter described Deng as "smart, tough, intelligent, frank, courageous, personable, self-assured, friendly", according to Vogel.
He later wrote in his diary the trip was "one of the delightful experiences of my Presidency… to me, everything went right, and the Chinese leader seemed equally pleased."
"Carter was really a catalytic agent for what was more than a diplomatic rapprochement - it was a dramatic moment of signalling," said Orville Schell, the director of the Asia Society's Centre on US-China Relations who, as a journalist in 1979, covered Deng's trip.
"He introduced Deng to the country and actually to the world. It made what had been a contentious relationship to something very congenial. The way Carter and Deng interacted, these were signals that it was okay to both peoples to set history aside and start a new relationship."
Under Carter, China was granted "most favoured nation" trade status, boosting its economy and creating jobs. Within a year, two-way trade between the two countries doubled.
Throughout the next decade China became an important trade partner not just for the US but also the world, which was "extraordinarily important" for China's growth, noted Prof Yang.
Carter's connection with China endured long after his presidency ended.
In the 1990s his non-profit group The Carter Center played a significant role in China's nascent grassroots democracy where - on the invitation of the Chinese government - it observed village elections, trained officials and educated voters.
Unusually for a former US president, Carter returned several times to China on personal visits. On one trip, he and his wife Rosalynn helped to build shelters for victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
His commitment to humanitarian work, his humble background as the son of a peanut farmer, and "folksy style" - which stood in contrast to the formal public personas of Chinese leaders - endeared him to many Chinese, according to Prof Yang: "He will be seen as a role model of a leader who cares, not just in rhetoric but also in actions."
"Everywhere he travelled in China, people showed their warm feelings for him… The Chinese people really liked him for his courage and his honesty," said Dr Liu, a senior adviser with the Carter Center. He accompanied Carter on several trips, including a 2014 tour where he was fêted by local officials and universities.
In Qingdao, the city put on a surprise fireworks show for his 90th birthday. In Beijing, Deng's daughter hosted a banquet and presented a gift - a copy of the People's Daily front page of the 1979 communique. "Both were moved to tears," Dr Liu recalled.
That was to be his last visit. As the US-China relationship grew rockier, so too did Carter's ties with the Chinese leadership, particularly after Xi Jinping took power.
On the eve of his 2014 visit, top government officials instructed universities not to sponsor his events, prompting a last-minute scramble to change venues, Carter noted.
A state dinner held for him at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was sparsely attended, recalled Mr Schell. Notably, it was hosted by then vice-president Li Yuanchao, while Xi was said to be entertaining another dignitary elsewhere in the complex.
"He wouldn't even come to tip his hat to Carter. That really showed the state of relations," Mr Schell said. "Carter was really very angry. Two of his aides told me he even felt like leaving early because he felt disrespected."
The Carter Center's activities in China were eventually curtailed, and a website they maintained to document the village elections was taken offline. No clear explanation was given at the time, but Dr Liu attributed this to China's growing suspicion of foreign organisations following the 2010 Arab Spring.
Though Carter said little about the snub publicly, it would have been felt no less acutely, given the lengths he had gone to advocate for engagement.
It has also raised questions whether his approach on human rights with China - he characterised it as "patience" but others criticised it as soft-pedalling - was justified in the end.
Carter often "made a tremendous effort… not to stick fingers into China's eyes on the human rights question," Mr Schell noted. "He did temper himself even when he was out of office, as The Carter Center had a real stake in the country."
Some see his decision to engage with Communist China as born out of an American sincerity at the time. Following the violent chaos of the Cultural Revolution, there was "a disbelief among many Americans - how could the Chinese be living in angry isolation?" Prof Yang said. "There was a genuine desire among American leaders to really help."
Others say that in attempting to shore up support against the Soviets, the US set the course for China's rise and ended up creating one of its greatest rivals.
But these actions also benefited millions of Chinese, helping to lift them out of poverty and - for a time - widening political freedom at the local level.
"I think all of us from that generation were children of engagement," Mr Schell said. "We were hoping Carter would find the formula that would slowly bring China into a comfortable relationship with [the] US and the rest of the world."
Toward the end of his life, Carter grew more alarmed about the growing distrust between the US and China, and frequently warned of a possible "modern Cold War".
"In 1979, Deng Xiaoping and I knew we were advancing the cause of peace. While today's leaders face a different world, the cause of peace remains just as important," he wrote on the 40th anniversary of normalisation of relations.
"[Leaders] must accept our conviction that the United States and China need to build their futures together, for themselves and for humanity at large."
