Jimmy Carter turns 100 on Tuesday. Widely viewed as a good man but an average leader, he is the longest-living president in US history. His one-term rule is remembered more for its crises and failures, although he had great achievements in diplomacy and contributed to the fall of communism in Poland.
On Tuesday (October 1), Jimmy Carter’s hometown of Plains, Georgia, with 500 inhabitants, will celebrate his 100th birthday with great pomp – a concert with a fighter jet flyover and a naturalization ceremony for new US citizens. Back in September, another concert in honor of the birthday boy was recorded in Atlanta, with star performances and recordings prepared by all living presidents except Donald Trump.
These celebrations are proof of how Carter’s status in American history is changing and how much he achieved after his political retirement. Carter is a popular figure today, even though his presidency was widely criticized and considered one of the worst in history.
Carter – the son of peanut growers, a former sailor and farmer – rose to the highest office in the US in 1977 as the governor of Georgia, still relatively unknown to the general public, and opposed to racial segregation. According to Donald Pienkos, a historian at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Carter owed his victory over President Gerald Ford to, among other things, the voices of the Polish community.
As former US ambassador in Warsaw Daniel Fried, who started his diplomatic career in the Carter administration, recalls in an interview with PAP, the 39th US president made great contributions to supporting the democratic opposition in Poland and led to fundamental changes in Washington’s policy towards the Eastern bloc: a departure from a pure realpolitik by Henry Kissinger and a greater focus on human rights, which was later continued by Ronald Reagan. Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzeziński, played a major role in this. As Fried added, if Kissinger remained the main architect of American policy, he would probably not be interested in supporting Solidarity, which he would consider a destabilizing factor.
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In other areas, however, Carter’s presidency was much less successful and marked by many crises, internal and external: stagflation (economic stagnation combined with inflation), the oil crisis, the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, the Islamic revolution in Iran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
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Although as president Carter also had achievements, such as the Camp David agreements, where he led to the recognition of the state of Israel by Egypt, his image was ultimately overshadowed by the crisis in Iran in connection with the attack by students on the US embassy in Tehran and the capture of 55 employees of the facility were held hostage, which lasted until the end of his presidency. The Iranian regime, seeking Carter’s electoral defeat, released them on the first day of Reagan’s presidency, which defeated the incumbent president by a landslide of electoral votes.
After his defeat in the election, Carter returned to his native Plains and resigned from active politics. He devoted himself to social and humanitarian activities, personally engaging in the activities of the Habitat for Humanity organization, which builds houses for the poor. He also founded the Carter Center, an organization dedicated to promoting peace, human rights and combating infectious diseases. For his activities he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Despite his advancing age, Carter remained continually involved in both organizations well into his 90s. In 2014, he published his autobiography, he also lectured at Emory University in Atlanta and taught religion to children at Sunday school at the Plains Baptist Church.
His health deteriorated rapidly in February 2023, after which Carter entered hospice care, and a few months later he was shocked by the death of his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn. However, as the New York Times writes, according to the former president’s grandchildren, his condition has improved in recent months and, despite his still fragile health, he is keenly interested in, among other things, upcoming elections and also receives frequent messages from Vice President Kamala Harris.
Despite the grand anniversary celebrations planned for Tuesday, Carter’s family told the Times that he had recently been looking forward to November more than his 100th birthday, so he could still vote for the Democratic candidate.
From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)
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