James Earl (Jimmy) Carter Jr
Naval Officer, Physicist, Businessman, Politician,
Author, Peace Maker, Humanitarian,
Rotarian
By Norm Winterbottom
New Zealand History co-ordinator, RGHF
Co-Chair, RGHF History Committee, 2007-2008
RGHF Board Member 2007-2008
 “To
be just, a war must represent the last resort. It is obvious
that other alternatives to war exist." - Jimmy Carter
Born in Plains, Georgia on 1 October 1924, Jimmy Carter was the
son of a farmer and businessman, James Earl Carter and Lillian Gordy
Carter, a registered nurse.. Growing up in a religious home
environment, he attended local school in Plains, Georgia South
Western College and Georgia Institute of Technology. Having held the
ambition from age four, to join the Navy, he received an appointment
to the US Annapolis Naval Academy in 1942 and entered it the
following year. He graduated in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science
degree and received a commission in the United States Navy.. In that
year he married Rosalynn Smith of Plains, Georgia. In 1948 he was
accepted for submarine officer training school, at New London,
Connecticut and after graduating was posted to the US Pacific Fleet
In 1951 he returned to New London as senior officer of the
pre-commissioning crew of the K-1, the Navy’s first new ship since
the end of World War II. On 1 June 1952, Carter joined the Navy’s
elite nuclear submarine programme under Admiral Hyman Rickover and
attended the Naval Reactor Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission,
in Washington before returning to New London to work on the Navy’s
second nuclear submarine, “Seawolf.” At that time also he studied
nuclear physics and nuclear reactor design at Union College, New
York.
On the death of his father in 1951, Jimmy Carter received an
honourable discharge from the Navy and returned to Plains to manage
the family business. After serving in state politics between 1963
and 1975 he defeated Gerald Ford for the US presidency on 2 November
1976. It was during this period that he and Rosalynn experienced a
religious reaffirmation and developed a conviction of the need to
promote human rights.
Carter’s presidency occurred at a divisive time in United States
domestic politics resulting from the residual bitterness over the
Viet Nam War, the events leading up to the resignation of President
Nixon and high inflation resulting from high price of oil charged by
the OECD nations in retaliation for the treatment of the
Palestinians by Israel.. At that time, also, the world was divided
into the two opposing camps of Democracy (the West) and Communism
(the East). The threat of a nuclear war was ever present and the
USA, Britain, France on the one hand and Russia and China on the
other, were actively pursuing a nuclear armaments policy The
succession of wars between the Arab states and the state of Israel
made the Middle East highly volatile. US foreign policy during the
Cold War had been one of containment of Communism and President
Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger had sought détente with
the Soviet Union and China. Kissinger’s efforts towards
rapprochement with China failed with the US bombing of North
Vietnam. Carter’s National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, an
expert on Communism and the son of a Polish diplomat held the view
that the Soviet control of the Eastern European states was weakening
and that Communism itself would not survive for too many years. The
United States foreign policy under Carter, Brzezinski and Secretary
of State Cyrus Vance shifted from containment of the Soviet Union
and its satellite nations to emphasis on human rights and peaceful
engagement with Eastern Europe..
US Secretary of Defence and former head of the CIA, Robert Gates in
his book “Out of the Shadows” wrote "I believe the Soviets saw a
very different Jimmy Carter than did most Americans by 1980,
different and more hostile and threatening," Gates wrote. ”His
emphasis on human rights made Carter the first president during the
Cold War to challenge publicly and consistently the legitimacy of
Soviet rule at home." Those were "the first steps" Gates wrote,”
toward the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union,”
A dialogue had developed between Egypt’s president Anwar Sadat and
Israel’s Ytzak Rabin with Sadat travelling to Israel and addressing
the Israeli Knesset pushing for the implementation of United nations
security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. In 1977 in an endeavour to
restart the stalled 1973 Geneva Conference Carter travelled to the
Middle East for meetings with Sadat, Rabin, King Hussein of Jordan
and Hafez Al Assad of Syria. Rabin’s Labour Party government was
defeated by Menachem Begin’s Likud Party in the Israeli election and
Begin refused to consider giving up the West Bank occupied by
Israel. Sadat, Begin and Carter met at the presidential Camp David
retreat from 5 - 17 September, 1978. While Carter and Sadat had
established a rapport, Begin refused to sit down with Sadat. Carter
was forced to discuss a matter first with one and then discuss it
again with the other. Brzezinski recorded that “the President is
driving himself mercilessly, spending most of his time either
debating with the Egyptians or the Israelis or drafting or revising
texts that are being submitted to him. He has single-handedly
written the proposed document on the Sinai formula.”.
On September 17 two agreements were signed; the first, “A Framework
for Peace in the Middle East,” and the second, “A Framework for the
Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel.” The Peace
Treaty was signed on 26 March, 1979, returning the Israeli-occupied
Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and relations between the two nations were
normalised in January, 1980.
During his presidency, Richard Nixon had taken steps to normalise
the relations between the Peoples Republic of China and the United
States. During 1977 – 78 Carter engaged in discussions with Chinese
officials in Washington and Secretary of State Vance travelled to
China for discussions, but without the authority to negotiate any
agreements. On 30 January, 1979 Carter and Chinese leader Deng
Xiaoping signed the Accords which normalised the relations between
the two countries. The simple act of placing two signatures to paper
paved the way for mutual economic and trade advantages for both
nations, and admitted the Peoples Republic of China to the United
Nations Security Council as a permanent member but equally
important, was a major step forward in the pursuit of a peaceful
world.
Throughout the Cold War years, the world lived under the threat of
the nightmare of a nuclear war between the Soviet dominated Eastern
Bloc and the Western powers. Resulting from Carter’s initiatives the
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, (SALT II) limiting the stockpiles
of nuclear weapons to be held by both nations, was signed by Jimmy
Carter and Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev on 30 March 1979 in
Vienna. Although the agreement was never ratified by the United
Sates government, both parties adhered strictly to the agreement.
Following his defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential
election, Jimmy Carter returned to Georgia and has become the most
active ex president in United States history.
In 1982 he accepted the position of Distinguished Professor and
began teaching at Emory University in Atlanta. In association with
the university Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter established the Carter
Centre to undertake humanitarian projects not undertaken by other
organisations.. The Centre’s central principle is “Everyone on Earth
Should be Able to Live in Peace.” Both Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter
joined Habitat for Humanity and give up one week of each year to
physically work on housing projects for the poor and the homeless.
Jimmy Carter is an accomplished woodworker.
Between 1986 and 1991 the Carter Centre assisted the African state
of Ghana to become self-sufficient in food production. In 1987 the
Centre persuaded the pharmaceutical giant Merck to donate the drug
Mectizan.for as long as it may be required in Africa to control
River Blindness. It has undertaken conflict resolution in Ethiopia,
Eritrea, North Korea. Liberia, Haiti, Bosnia, Sudan, Great Lakes
region of Africa, Uganda and Venezuela an Carter himself has been
personally involved in much of this work, in addition to which he
and the Carter Centre have undertaken election monitoring work in
Panama, Nicuragua, Guyana, China, Nigeria, Indonesia, East Timor,
Mexico, Guatumala, Venuzuela, Ethipoia, Liberia and the democratic
Republic of Congo..
In 1962 Ethiopia annexed Eritrea and for thirty years the Eritreans
sought independence in a war causing horrific casualties. Between
September 7-19 the Carter Centre hosted preliminary peace
negotiations between the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean
Peoples Liberation Front. These proved ineffective and the war
continued with huge human suffering until both sides agreed to a
comprehensive peace agreement in June 2000.
At the conclusion of World War II hostilities against Japan, Russian
forces accepted the surrender of the Japanese in Korea above the
38th degree latitude north and the Americans accepted the surrender
of those south of that mark. It proved impossible to unite the
country and on 25 June, 1950 hostilities broke out between North and
South Koreas lasting until an armistice was signed on 27 July 1953.
China had supported North Korea during the hostilities and on 14
June, 1967 exploded its first hydrogen bomb, thus creating an
additional threat to world peace. In June, 1994, Carter met with the
leaders of North and South Korea to discuss nuclear disarmament and
although some success was achieved the death of North Korean leader
Kim Il Sung shortly afterwards aborted the plans.
Following the death of Marshal Tito in 1980, Yugoslavia a nation of
eight disparate states which he had held together by his strength of
will and political cunning began to disintegrate and a series of
civil wars broke out with huge casualties and abuse of human rights.
In December 1994 Carter travelled to the Balkans and negotiated a
four-month cease-fire and resumption of peace talks between Muslim
Bosnia and Catholic Serbia. In 1995, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter
negotiated a two month cease-fire in Sudan to allow for efforts to
eradicate Guinea Worm Disease, prevent River Blindness and
immunisation against the polio virus. ..
A Rotarian, and the author of twenty-two books on human rights, and
the peaceful resolution of conflict, his views have been the subject
of strong criticism by those whose agenda is the continuation of
conflict or status quo.. He has received numerous honours in
recognition of his efforts in those fields; He received the Rotary
International Award for World Understanding in 1984 and was the
first recipient of the United Nations Human Rights Prize in 1998,
On10 December, 2002 received the Nobel Prize for Peace. It is said
that events in history cannot be put in their proper perspective
until fifty years afte the event. When historians analyse the 20th
century, James Earl Carter Jnr of Plains, Georgia, USA will occupy a
respected place as a humanitarian and a peacemaker.. The last words
should be his and they are the conclusion of his address on
receiving the Nobel Peace Prize:-
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how
necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn
how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the
divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the
capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We
can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes
- and we must.
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