During President Jimmy Carter’s four years in the White House, he sought to be competent, compassionate and honest. After President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, those were the values American voters needed.
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“Along comes Mr. Carter -- James Earl Carter -- and he is just something different for the nation,” said Marcella Washington, a retired political science professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville.
Coming on the heels of the Nixon-Watergate era, followed by Gerald Ford, Americans in 1977 were ready for something different. The plain-talking Georgia governor from Plains rose to the occasion.
But while Carter’s wholesome qualities landed the Georgia peanut farmer in the Oval Office, arriving in the nation’s capital without the connections most presidents had to rely on worked against him.
“There were conflicts almost from the beginning,” Washington said. “His secretary of state and his national security advisor, they were a bit at odds, so he didn’t have that smooth transition going in.”
A staggering energy crisis that caused lines at gas stations, high unemployment and the highest inflation in a generation were challenges the president struggled to address. Then 54 Americans were taken hostage after the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution. After a year with no progress in getting them released, voters were ready to move on to Ronald Reagan, who promised to make America a shining house on the hill.
In his four years, Carter made his mark in international diplomacy, reaching major accords in nuclear disarmament and Middle East peace. Carter also reopened U.S. relations with China.
“President Carter was very engaged in conflict resolution,” said Steve Hochman, research director of The Carter Center. “The Camp David Accords were a great achievement.”
Hochman worked closely with Carter after he left the White House and helped him write his memoirs.
“When I worked with him on the memoirs, the problems and the success were talked about, were written about,” Hochman said. “So when he was talking about the Camp David Accords -- the relationship between Israel and the Egyptians -- he was very upbeat. That was probably the strongest part of the book because he was very personal. He talked about Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat -- the key people from Israel and Egypt that he had to work with.”
Carter’s diagnosis of the nation’s “crisis of confidence” did little to boost his sagging popularity. He was soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980.
One place the president found solace during the rough times was in prayer. On his desk in the Oval Office, Carter kept a plaque given to him by Adm. Hyman Rickover, his mentor during his naval career. On it, “The Sailor’s Prayer.”
Thy sea, O God, so great,
My boat so small.
It cannot be that any happy fate
Will me befall
Save as Thy goodness opens paths for me
Through the consuming vastness of the sea.
Thy winds, O God, so strong,
So slight my sail.
How could I curb and bit them on the long
Andsaltry trail,
Unless Thy love were mightier than the wrath
Of all the tempests that beset my path?
Thy world, O God, so fierce,
And I so frail.
Yet, though its arrows threaten oft to pierce
My fragile mail,
Cities of refuge rise where dangers cease,
Sweet silences abound, and all is peace.
- Winfred Ernest GarrisonIn his memoirs, Carter made it clear that his final days and hours in office spent in round-the-clock negotiations with the Iranians to release the hostages were the most dramatic of his life.
“When I look back on President Carter, I see a man who wanted to embrace the presidency and took it very seriously,” Washington said. “He didn’t take the presidency by the helm and really use the powers of the presidency in a way that could have been very useful for him and very effective for him. But I think his heart was in the right place. I think the office tamed him instead of the other way around.”
Hochman’s years working with Carter gave him insight into how the former commander-in-chief must have handled the difficulties.
“He’s always been able to accept if something doesn’t go well and move on to the next challenge,” Hochman said. “That’s one thing I learned from him -- that if you have a defeat, you can come back and you can do greater things.”
Washington believes Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s marriage was good for the nation. She said that was most apparent on the night Carter lost the election for a second term.
“I remember her standing there with him and I knew they were crushed,” Washington said. “But she was there. They were holding onto each other and you kind of look at them and say, ‘It’s a tremendously sad and painful event right now, but they will continue together.’ And they have.”