Jimmy Carter Takes A Look At His Final Farewell

Not everyone reaches the age of 99. And fewer and fewer people attend their own funeral services. Jimmy Carter, the oldest president in United States history, will blow out 99 candles on Sunday. The announcement last February that he had decided to stop further medical treatment and devote himself to hospice care gave him the rare privilege of witnessing the preparations for the ceremony with which posterity would remember him.

After Carter’s announcement that he had decided to leave the hospital and spend the rest of his life at home with his wife Rosalynn, 96, the world – including his family and friends – assumed he had only a few days left weeks remained. But the former president (1977-1981) once again defied expectations, just as by leaving the White House he defied writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s notion that “there are no second acts in American life.” After leaving office, the Democrat, who was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan after a single and somewhat frustrating term, began a brilliant post-presidential period marked by the search for conflict resolution and the eradication of diseases such as Guinea worm led to him receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

“Some observers have suggested that Carter used the White House as a springboard to elder statesman status,” wrote presidential historian Douglas Brinkley in his classic “The Unfinished Presidency.” “More accurately, you could say that when he lost badly to Ronald Reagan in 1980, he did not abandon his agenda but chose to continue working on programs and policies he believed in, whether in office or out. That he has attempted to complete his unfinished agenda so vigorously and successfully is a testament to his stubborn will and persistent refusal to ever throw in the towel. Jimmy Carter may be many things, but a quitter is not one of them – so this book, like his presidency, will remain unfinished as long as he lives.”

“Lessons in Dignity”

When the couple received an award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their humanitarian work, Paige Alexander, the director of the Carter Center in Atlanta, said the two had spoken with “complete honesty” about their health problems, as they always do. “They continue to teach us lessons in dignity and grace,” she said. Before this year’s decision, Carter announced in 2015 that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer, which later went into remission. He also successfully survived the operation in 2019 and relieved the hemorrhagic pressure in his head after several falls. Last May, Rosalynn Carter publicly announced that she was suffering from dementia.

In an interview with The New York Times, Alexander said that in his recent conversations with the former president, he “didn’t ask about politics or economics.” “He just wanted to know what the number of Guinea worms was.” She added: “He takes great pleasure in reflecting on his presidency and his post-presidency. In a lot of ways, that’s what keeps him going – along with peanut butter ice cream.” Alexander said he’s also excited about the Atlanta Braves making the playoffs.

The Carter Center asked citizens around the world to send photos and messages to the former president on his birthday. More than 14,000 people responded, including celebrities like Jane Fonda and Larry David. The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum compiled the messages into a giant digital mosaic to celebrate Carter’s birthday, which actually occurred on Saturday. However, the symbolic installation was postponed until Sunday to avoid possible disruption due to a government shutdown. The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum is owned by the National Archives and Records Administration, which means it is dependent on Washington. Had the far-right wing of the Republican Party continued to refuse to pass a spending bill, the United States would have entered a shutdown in which all non-essential activities, such as celebrating the Democrat’s 100th birthday, would have been suspended. In the end, a last-minute emergency solution was decided on just a few hours before the deadline and the crisis warned.

On Saturday, the White House honored his birthday with a three-tiered cake decorated with 39 candles to symbolize his role as the 39th President of the United States. In Atlanta, a 99-cent museum ticket also included a screening of Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men, which was released in April 1976, in the middle of the campaign that put Carter in the White House. The film tells the story of the journalistic investigation that marked the end of Richard Nixon due to the Watergate case. Nixon was succeeded by Gerald Ford, Carter’s rival in his first presidential election.

Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office in 1978.HUM Images (HUM Images/Universal Images Grou)

Carter had been governor of Georgia and a southern senator. He came to Washington as an outsider and promised to restore trust in politics after the traumas of the Vietnam War and Watergate. He sealed the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt and made advances in civil rights at home. But his good intentions were dashed by the oil crisis, the hostage crisis in Iran and rampant inflation, which particularly affected the working class.

In 1979, he gave his famous “Crisis of Confidence Speech,” often referred to as his “Malaise Speech.” And in 1980, U.S. voters showed they no longer had faith in Carter by embracing Ronald Reagan’s burgeoning neoliberal revolution. Joe Biden’s rivals often use Carter’s brief mandate to draw parallels with the current administration in the hope that history repeats itself.

Over time, a strong friendship developed between Carter and Ford. The fact that the United States longs for a time when two political rivals could get along so well also explains why honors for Carter are so high. “Many Americans appreciated the altruism he showed after losing Reagan,” Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University and author of the most comprehensive history of the Democratic Party, told EL PAÍS by email. “Besides, he and his wife never seemed to care about becoming rich or thinking of themselves as anything else. “You could say they are true Christians!”

The Carters continue to live in the house they moved to in 1961 in Plains, a Georgia town of 700 devoted to the peanut industry, an industry in which the Carters’ family also worked. The Washington Post once calculated that the house cost less than the Secret Service cars parked outside its door to ensure the former president’s security. The couple was last seen on September 23rd. They appeared unexpectedly at the XXV. City Peanut Fair aboard a 1946 Ford, a gift from country singer Garth Brooks to congratulate them on their 75th wedding anniversary.