Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr. (1924–2024) served as the 39th President of the United States from January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981. A Georgia peanut farmer, U.S. Navy submarine officer, and former Governor of Georgia (1971–1975), Carter won the 1976 presidential election against incumbent Gerald Ford in the aftermath of Watergate.

Carter's foreign policy emphasized human rights as an explicit criterion in U.S. relations, breaking with the more transactional realism of Henry Kissinger. Key achievements included:

• The Camp David Accords (September 1978), brokered between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, which led to the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty.
• The Torrijos–Carter Treaties (1977), transferring control of the Panama Canal to Panama by 1999.
• Normalization of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (effective January 1, 1979).
• The SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty signed with Leonid Brezhnev in June 1979 (never ratified by the U.S. Senate after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan).

His presidency was severely damaged by the Iran hostage crisis (November 1979 – January 1981), in which 52 American diplomats and citizens were held for 444 days, and by stagflation and an energy crisis. A failed rescue attempt, Operation Eagle Claw, occurred in April 1980. Carter lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan in a landslide.

After leaving office, Carter founded The Carter Center in Atlanta in 1982 with his wife Rosalynn, focusing on election monitoring, disease eradication (notably Guinea worm), and conflict mediation. He observed elections in dozens of countries and negotiated with figures including Kim Il Sung (1994) and the Haitian junta (1994).

In 2002 he received the Nobel Peace Prize "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." Carter died on December 29, 2024, at age 100.