Jimmy Carter: From peanut farmer to one-term president and Nobel winner

Dec 30, 2024, BBC

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Jimmy Carter, who has died at the age of 100, swept to power promising never to lie to the American people.

In the turbulent aftermath of Watergate, the former peanut farmer from Georgia pardoned Vietnam draft evaders and became the first US leader to take climate change seriously.

On the international stage, he helped to broker an historic peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, but he struggled to deal with the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

After a single term in office, he was swept aside by Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election, winning just six states.

Having left the White House, Carter did much to restore his reputation: becoming a tireless worker for peace, the environment and human rights, for which he was recognised with a Nobel Peace Prize.

The longest-lived president in US history, he celebrated his 100th birthday in October 2024. He had been treated for cancer and had spent the last 19 months in hospice care.

James Earl Carter Jr was born on 1 October 1924 in the small town of Plains, Georgia, the eldest of four children.

His segregationist father had started the family peanut business, and his mother, Lillian, was a registered nurse.

Carter's experience of the Great Depression and staunch Baptist faith underpinned his political philosophy.

A star basketball player in high school, he went on to spend seven years in the US Navy - during which time he married Rosalynn, a friend of his sister - and became a submarine officer. But on the death of his father in 1953, he returned to run the ailing family farm.

The first year's crop failed through drought, but Carter turned the business around and made himself wealthy in the process.

He entered politics on the ground floor, elected to a series of local school and library boards, before running for the Georgia Senate.

Civil rights campaigner

American politics was ablaze following the Supreme Court's decision to desegregate schools.

With his background as a farmer from a southern state, Carter might have been expected to oppose reform - but he had different views to his father.

While serving two terms in the state Senate, he avoided clashes with segregationists - including many in the Democratic party.

But on becoming Georgia governor in 1970, he became more overt in his support of civil rights.

"I say to you quite frankly," he declared in his inaugural speech, "that the time for racial discrimination is over."

外刊精读234期：吉米.卡特逝世，从花生农到美国总统，到诺贝尔和平奖得主 (选自BBC)

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