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Jimmy Carter, the former Georgia peanut farmer who as US president brokered a historic and lasting peace accord between Israel and Egypt in a single term marred by soaring inflation, an oil shortage and Iran’s holding of American hostages, has died. He was 100.
Carter died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family, the Carter Center said Sunday in a statement. Public observances are planned in Atlanta and Washington, followed by a private interment in Plains.
The longest-living former US president ever, Carter had opted in early 2023 to spend his remaining time at his home in Plains receiving hospice care.
A Democrat who rose from running his family’s peanut-farming and seed-supply businesses to serving as Georgia governor, Carter won the White House in 1976 over incumbent Gerald Ford by promising to bring honesty to an office tainted two years earlier by the resignation of Richard Nixon in the culmination of the Watergate scandal.
Ascetic, humble and deeply religious, Carter was skeptical of the pomp surrounding the presidency and came to Washington with fewer allies and fixed positions than most who hold the job.
Carter “assembled a new front line on nearly every issue, with no inherited party game plan or ideological playbook to fall back on,” Jonathan Alter wrote in a 2020 biography that painted him as often right in his instincts but flawed in executing government responses. The book was among several in recent years that offered a revised and sunnier view of Carter’s crisis-plagued tenure.
In a statement on Sunday, President Joe Biden eulogized Carter as “an extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” who touched the lives of people around the world with “his compassion and moral clarity.” Biden said he’ll be ordering a state funeral for Carter in Washington, and he designated Jan. 9 as a national day of mourning.
President-elect Donald Trump, said Carter faced challenges at a pivotal time in US history. He “did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.”
The signature achievement of the Carter presidency, the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, led to peaceful co-existence between the Middle East neighbors even as it fell short of resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
That was overshadowed by the plight of American hostages held in Iran during the last 444 days of his presidency. They were finally released the day Carter turned over the Oval Office to Republican Ronald Reagan.
On the domestic front, the Carter presidency was dogged by economic woes. Inflation reached 13.3% at the end of 1979 compared with 5.2% when he took office in January 1977.
The Federal Reserve’s actions to stem price increases pushed home-mortgage rates to almost 15%, and Carter had to take emergency action to stem a slide in the dollar. There were energy shortages, and oil prices more than doubled.
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