JIMMY CARTER 1924-2024: "To be true to ourselves, we must be true to others.'

AFTER A PRESIDENCY BESET BY CRISIS, A SINGULAR LEADER BECAME AN ICON OF SERVICE

- By Jonathan Alter

JIMMY CARTER WAS NOT A PRESIDENT OF THE first rank, but he managed by dint of unceasing effort to become an iconic world leader, with an inspiring, if often contentious, legacy as a dogged peacemaker. His presidency-beset by a horrible economy, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the seizure of American hostages in Iran-was a stunning political failure but a greater substantive success than was recognized when he was crushed for re-election by Ronald Reagan in 1980. In today's world of perpetual military intervention, it's striking that not a single bomb was dropped or shot fired in combat by American forces on Carter's watch. His leadership helped prevent at least five wars, and the Camp David accords he engineered proved to be the most successful treaty since the end of World War II. Long before he died, on Dec. 29 at 100, his epic journey from barefoot Georgia farm boy to Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian had become a classic American story.

As the longest-lived President, Carter effectively inhabited three centuries: He was born in a rural South little changed from the 19th century. He helped advance the four great movements of the 20th century—civil rights, women's rights, human rights abroad, and the environment. And as an old man in the 21st century, he made sure his Carter Center was on the cutting edge of the new millennium's big challenges: conflict resolution, disease eradication, democracy promotion, and sustainable development. Emory University president James Laney once said, “Jimmy Carter is the only person in history for whom the presidency was a stepping stone.”

There was truth in that line; he reinvented the ex-presidency with a higher purpose that inspired other Presidents to use their stature and convening power on behalf of important causes after leaving office. He was the longest-serving former President in American history and by many accounts the best.