| James Earl
Carter, Jr.
(born October 1, 1924), is a retired American politician who was the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. Prior to becoming president, Carter served two terms in the Georgia Senate followed by the governorship of the state of Georgia, from 1971 to 1975 [1], and was a peanut farmer and naval officer.
As president, Carter created two new cabinet-level departments: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II). Carter sought to put a stronger emphasis on human rights; he negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. His return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama was seen as a major concession of US influence in Latin America, and Carter came under heavy criticism for it. The final year of his presidential tenure was marked by several major crises, including the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Iran and holding of hostages by Iranian students, an unsuccessful rescue attempt of the hostages, serious fuel shortages, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. By 1980, Carter's disapproval ratings were significantly higher than his approval, and he was challenged by Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1980 election. Carter defeated Kennedy for the nomination, but lost the election to Republican Ronald Reagan.
After leaving office, in 1982 [2] Carter and his wife Rosalynn founded The Carter Center, a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization that works to advance human rights. He has traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project, [3] and also remains particularly vocal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. s of }} 2009 [], Carter is the second-oldest living former president, three months and 19 days younger than George H. W. Bush.
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JAMES CARTER TICKETS
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Early life
Jimmy Carter is a native
Georgian, born and raised in the tiny southwest Georgia hamlet of
Plains near the larger town of
Americus. The Carter family originated from southern England, and Jimmy Carter's paternal ancestor arrived in the American Colonies in 1635
[4] had lived in the state of Georgia for several generations, and his great-grandfather Private L.B. Walker Carter (1832–1874) served in the
Confederate States Army.
The first president born in a hospital,
[5] he was the eldest of four children of
James Earl Carter and
Bessie Lillian Gordy. Carter's father was a prominent business owner in the community and his mother was a
registered nurse. He was a gifted student from an early age who always had a fondness for reading. By the time he attended Plains High School, he was also a star in basketball. He was greatly influenced by one of his high school teachers, Julia Coleman (1889–1973). While he was in high school he participated in the
Future Farmers of America, which later changed its name to the
National FFA Organization.
[6]
Carter had three younger siblings: his brother,
William Alton "Billy" Carter (1937–1988), and sisters
Gloria Carter Spann (1926–1990) and
Ruth Carter Stapleton (1929–1983). During Carter's Presidency, his brother Billy was often in the news, often in an unflattering light.
He married
Rosalynn Smith in 1946. They had four children:
John William "Jack" Carter (born 1947);
James Earl "Chip" Carter III (born 1950);
Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter, (born 1952) and
Amy Lynn Carter (born 1967).
He's related to Motown founder
Berry Gordy Jr. on his mother's side.
Education
After high school, Carter enrolled at
Georgia Southwestern College, in Americus. He would later apply to the
United States Naval Academy and, after taking additional mathematics courses at
Georgia Tech, he was admitted in 1943. Carter performed well at the academy, and graduated 59th out of 820 midshipmen.
[7]
Naval career
Carter served on surface ships and on diesel-electric submarines in the
Atlantic and
Pacific fleets. As a junior officer, he completed qualification for command of a diesel-electric submarine. He applied for the
US Navy's fledgling
nuclear submarine program run by then Captain
Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover's demands on his men and machines were legendary, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on him.
Carter has said that he loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become
Chief of Naval Operations. Carter felt the best route for promotion was with submarine duty since he felt that nuclear power would be increasingly used in submarines. During service on the diesel-electric submarine SS-391}}, Carter was almost washed overboard.
[8] After six years of military service, Carter trained for the position of engineering officer in submarine SSN-575}}, then under construction.
[9] Carter completed a non-credit introductory course in nuclear reactor power at
Union College starting in March 1953. This followed Carter's first-hand experience as part of a group of American and Canadian servicemen who took part in cleaning up after a partial
nuclear meltdown at Canada's
Chalk River Laboratories reactor in 1952.
[10] [11]
Upon the death of his father, James Earl Carter, Sr., in July 1953,
Lieutenant Carter immediately resigned his
commission, and he was discharged from the Navy on October 9, 1953.
[12] [13] This cut short his nuclear powerplant operator training, and he was never able to serve on a
nuclear submarine, since the first boat of that fleet, the
USS Nautilus
(SSN-571), was launched on January 17, 1955, over a year after his discharge from the Navy.
[14]
Farming and teachings
He then took over and expanded his family business in Plains. There he was involved in a peanut farming accident that left him with a permanently bent finger. His farming business was successful, and during the 1970 gubernatorial campaign, he was considered a wealthy
peanut farmer.
[15]
From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to
Christianity, serving as a
Sunday School teacher throughout his life. Even as President, Carter prayed several times a day, and professed that
Jesus Christ was the driving force in his life. Carter had been greatly influenced by a sermon he had heard as a young man, called, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"
[16]
Early political career
State Senate
Jimmy Carter started his career by serving on various local boards, governing such entities as the schools, hospitals, and libraries, among others. In the 1960s, he served two terms in the
Georgia Senate from the fourteenth district of Georgia.
His 1961 election to the state Senate, which followed the end of Georgia's
County Unit System (per the
Supreme Court case of
Gray v. Sanders
), was chronicled in his book
Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age
. The election involved corruption led by Joe Hurst, the sheriff of
Quitman County; system abuses included votes from deceased persons and tallies filled with people who supposedly voted in alphabetical order. It took a challenge of the fraudulent results for Carter to win the election. Carter was reelected in 1964, to serve a second two-year term.
For a time in State Senate he chaired its Education Committee.
[17]
In 1966, Carter declined running for re-election as a state senator to pursue a gubernatorial run. His first cousin, Hugh Carter, was elected as a Democrat and took over his seat in the Senate.
Campaigns for Governor
In 1966, during the end of his career as a state senator, he flirted with the idea of running for the
United States House of Representatives. His Republican opponent dropped out and decided to run for Governor of Georgia. Carter did not want to see a Republican Governor of his state, and, in turn, dropped out of the race for Congress and joined the race to become Governor. Carter lost the Democratic primary, but drew enough votes as a third place candidate to force the favorite,
Ellis Arnall, into a
runoff election, setting off a chain of events which resulted in the election of
Lester Maddox. During this race Carter ran as a moderate alternative to both liberal Arnall and conservative Maddox.
[17] Although he lost, his strong third place finish was viewed as a success for a little-known state senator.
[17]
For the next four years, Carter returned to his agriculture business and carefully planned for his next campaign for Governor in 1970, making over 1,800 speeches throughout the state.
During his 1970 campaign, he ran an uphill
populist campaign in the Democratic primary against former Governor
Carl Sanders, labeling his opponent "Cufflinks Carl". Carter was never a
segregationist, and refused to join the segregationist
White Citizens' Council, prompting a boycott of his peanut warehouse. He also had been one of only two families which voted to admit blacks to the Plains Baptist Church.
[20] However, he "said things the segregationists wanted to hear", according to historian
E. Stanly Godbold.
[21] Also, Carter's campaign aides handed out a photograph of his opponent celebrating with black basketball players.
[22] [23] Following his close victory over Sanders in the primary, he was elected Governor over Republican
Hal Suit.
Governor of Georgia
Carter was sworn-in as the 76th Governor of Georgia on January 12, 1971 and held this post for one term, until January 14, 1975. Governors of Georgia were not allowed to succeed themselves at the time. His predecessor as Governor,
Lester Maddox, became the
Lieutenant Governor. However, Carter and Maddox found little common ground during their four years of service, often publicly feuding with each other.
[24] [25]
Civil rights politics
Carter declared in his inaugural speech that the time of racial segregation was over, and that racial discrimination had no place in the future of the state. He was the first statewide office holder in the
Deep South to say this in public. Afterwards, Carter appointed many
African Americans to statewide boards and offices. He was often called one of the "New Southern Governors" – much more moderate than their predecessors, and supportive of racial desegregation and expanding African-Americans' rights.
Abortion
Although "personally opposed" to abortion, subsequent to the landmark
US Supreme Court decision
Roe v. Wade
, 410 US 113 (1973) Carter supported legalized abortion. He did not support increased federal funding for abortion services as president and was criticized by the
ACLU for not doing enough to find alternatives to abortion.
[26]
State government reforms
Carter improved government efficiency by merging about 300 state agencies into 30 agencies. One of his aides recalled that Governor Carter "was right there with us, working just as hard, digging just as deep into every little problem. It was his program and he worked on it as hard as anybody, and the final product was distinctly his." He also pushed reforms through the legislature, providing equal state aid to schools in the wealthy and poor areas of Georgia, set up community centers for mentally handicapped children, and increased educational programs for convicts. Carter took pride in a program he introduced for the appointment of judges and state government officials. Under this program, all such appointments were based on merit, rather than political influence.
Vice-Presidential aspirations in 1972
In 1972, as
US Senator George McGovern of
South Dakota was marching toward the Democratic nomination for President, Carter called a news conference in
Atlanta to warn that McGovern was unelectable. Carter criticized McGovern as too liberal on both foreign and domestic policy, yet when McGovern's nomination became a foregone conclusion, Carter lobbied to become his vice-presidential running mate. The remarks attracted little national attention, and after McGovern's huge loss in the general election, Carter's attitude was not held against him within the Democratic Party.
During the
1972 Democratic National Convention he endorsed the candidacy of Senator
Henry M. Jackson of
Washington.
[27] However, Carter received 30 votes at the
Democratic National Convention in the chaotic ballot for Vice President. McGovern offered the second spot to
Reubin Askew, from next door Florida and one of the "new southern governors", but he declined.
Death penalty and crime
After the US Supreme Court overturned Georgia's
death penalty law in 1972, Carter quickly proposed state legislation to replace the death penalty with
life in prison (an option which previously didn't exist).
[28]
When the legislature passed a new death penalty statute, Carter signed new legislation on March 28, 1973
[29] to authorize the death penalty for murder, rape and other offenses, and to implement trial procedures which would conform to the newly-announced constitutional requirements. In 1976, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's new death penalty for murder; in the case of
Coker v. Georgia
, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional as applied to rape.
Many in America were outraged by
William Calley's life sentence at
Fort Benning for his role in the
My Lai Massacre; Carter instituted "American Fighting Man's Day" and asked Georgians to drive for a week with their lights on in support of Calley.
[30] Indiana's governor asked all state flags to be flown at half-staff for Calley, and Utah's and Mississippi's governors also disagreed with the verdict.
Despite his earlier support, Carter soon became a death penalty opponent, and during Presidential campaigns (like previous nominee George McGovern and two successive nominees,
Walter Mondale and
Michael Dukakis), this was noted.
[31] Currently, Carter is known for his outspoken opposition to the death penalty in all forms; in his
Nobel Prize lecture, he urged "prohibition of the death penalty".
[32]
United States Senate appointment
Richard Russell, Jr., then-
President pro tempore of the United States Senate, died in office on January 21, 1971. Carter, only nine days into his governorship, appointed state Democratic Party chair
David H. Gambrell to fill an unexpired Russell term in the Senate on February 1.
[33] Gambrell was defeated in the next Democratic
primary by the more
conservative Sam Nunn.
Other activities
In 1973, while Governor of Georgia, Carter filed a report on his
1969 UFO sighting with the International UFO Bureau in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
[34] [35] [36] However, in 2007, Carter stated that he did not remember why he filed the report and that he believes he probably only did it at the request of one of his children. He also stated he does not believe it was an alien spacecraft, but rather believes it was likely some sort of military experiment being conducted from a nearby military base.
[37]
Carter made an appearance as the first guest of the evening on an episode of the game show
What's My Line
in 1974, signing in as "X", lest his name give away his occupation. After his job was identified on question seven of ten by
Gene Shalit, he talked about having brought movie production to the state of Georgia, citing
Deliverance
, and the then-unreleased
The Longest Yard
.
In 1974, Carter was chairman of the
Democratic National Committee's congressional, as well as gubernatorial, campaigns.
1976 presidential campaign
When Carter entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries in 1976, he was considered to have little chance against nationally better-known politicians. He had a
name recognition of only two percent. When he told his family of his intention to run for President, his mother asked, "President of what?" However, the
Watergate scandal was still fresh in the voters' minds, and so his position as an outsider, distant from
Washington, D.C., became an asset. The centerpiece of his campaign platform was government reorganization.
File:ElectoralCollege1976.svg|thumb|300px|right
|The electoral map of the 1976 election
Carter became the front-runner early on by winning the
Iowa caucuses and the
New Hampshire primary. He used a two-prong strategy: In the South, which most had tacitly conceded to Alabama's George Wallace, Carter ran as a
moderate favorite son. When Wallace proved to be a spent force, Carter swept the region. In the North, Carter appealed largely to conservative Christian and rural voters and had little chance of winning a majority in most states. He won several Northern states by building the largest single bloc. Carter's strategy involved reaching a region before another candidate could extend influence there. He traveled over 50,000 miles, visited 37 states, and delivered over 200 speeches before any other candidates even announced that they were in the race.
[38] Initially dismissed as a regional candidate, Carter proved to be the only Democrat with a truly national strategy, and he eventually clinched the nomination.
The media discovered and promoted Carter, as Lawrence Shoup noted in his 1980 book
The Carter Presidency and Beyond
:
| “
| What Carter had that his opponents did not was the acceptance and support of elite sectors of the mass communications media. It was their favorable coverage of Carter and his campaign that gave him an edge, propelling him rocket-like to the top of the opinion polls. This helped Carter win key primary election victories, enabling him to rise from an obscure public figure to President-elect in the short space of 9 months.
| ”
|
Carter was interviewed by
Robert Scheer of
Playboy
for its November 1976 issue, which hit the newsstands a couple of weeks before the election. It was here that in the course of a digression on his religion's view of pride, Carter admitted: "I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed
adultery in my heart many times."
[39] He remains the only American president to be interviewed by this magazine.
As late as January 26, 1976, Carter was the first choice of only four percent of Democratic voters, according to a
Gallup poll. Yet "by mid-March 1976 Carter was not only far ahead of the active contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, he also led President
Ford by a few percentage points", according to Shoup.
He chose Senator
Walter F. Mondale as his running mate. He attacked Washington in his speeches, and offered a religious salve for the nation's wounds.
[40]
Carter began the race with a sizable lead over Ford, who was able to narrow the gap over the course of the campaign, but was unable to prevent Carter from narrowly defeating him on November 2, 1976. Carter won the popular vote by 50.1 percent to 48.0 percent for Ford and received 297
electoral votes to Ford's 240. He became the first contender from the
Deep South to be elected President since the
1848 election.
Presidency - 1977–1981
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