Jimmy Carter, 39th US president, Nobel winner, dies at 100

Jimmy Carter,the peanut farmer who tried to restore virtue to the White House after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, then rebounded from a landslide defeat to become a global advocate of human rights and democracy, has died.He was 100 years old.

The Carter Center said the 39th president died Sunday,more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife,Rosalynn,who died in November 2023, lived most of their lives.

A moderate Democrat,Carter ran for president in 1976as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad grin, effusive Baptist faith and technocratic plans for efficient government. His promise to never deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia.

“If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter said.

Carter’s victory over Republican Gerald Ford, whose fortunes fell after pardoning Nixon, came amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over race, women’s rights and America’s role in the world. His achievements included brokering Mideast peace by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David for 13 days in 1978.

But his coalition splintered under double-digit inflation and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His negotiations ultimately brought all the hostages home alive, but in a final insult, Iran didn’t release them until the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, who had trounced him in the 1980 election.

Humbled and back home in Georgia, Carter said his faith demanded that he keep doing whatever he could, for as long as he could, to try to make a difference. He and Rosalynn co-foundedThe Carter Centerin 1982 and spent the next 40 years traveling the world as peacemakers, human rights advocates and champions of democracy and public health.

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, Carter helped ease nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti andnegotiate cease-fires in Bosniaand Sudan. By 2022, the center had monitored at least 113 elections around the world. Carter was determined toeradicate guinea worm infectionsas one of many health initiatives.Swinging hammers into their 90s,the Carters built homes with Habitat for Humanity.

The common observation that he was better as an ex-president rankled Carter. His allies were pleased that he lived long enough to see biographers and historiansrevisit his presidencyand declare it more impactful than many understood at the time.

Propelled in 1976 by voters in Iowa and then across the South, Carter ran a no-frills campaign. Americans were captivated by the earnest engineer, and while an election-year Playboy interview drew snickers when he said he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times,” voters tired of political cynicism found it endearing.

The first family set an informal tone in the White House, carrying their own luggage, trying to silence the Marine Band’s traditional “Hail to the Chief" and enrolling daughter, Amy, in public schools. Carter was lampooned for wearing a cardigan and urging Americans to turn down their thermostats.

But Carter set the stage for an economic revival and sharply reduced America's dependence on foreign oil by deregulating the energy industry along with airlines, trains and trucking. He established the departments of Energy and Education, appointed record numbers of women and nonwhites to federal posts, preserved millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness and pardoned most Vietnam draft evaders.

Emphasizing human rights, he ended most support for military dictators and took on bribery by multinational corporations by signing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He persuaded the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties and normalized relations with China, an outgrowth of Nixon’s outreach to Beijing