Jimmy Carter was the compassionate, honourable, peacemaker America needed
In the late 1970s, America was not in a good place; reeling from a war and from Watergate.
Then came a man called Jimmy.
“Jimmy who?” the nation asked.
And so it was that the nation was somewhat dismissive when a peanut farmer called Jimmy Carter announced a run for the White House.
Beyond his home state of Georgia, where he had served as governor, James Earl Carter Jr was not well known.
But it would turn out, Jimmy Carter was just what 1970s America needed.
After the political turmoil of Nixon and Watergate and the quagmire of the Vietnam War, America craved stability, calm and integrity.
The 39th president of the United States did not provide the drama of those who came before him or those who would follow him.
Yet over a remarkably long life, punctuated by a short presidency, Jimmy Carter built a considerable legacy deserving of considerable reflection.
Carter the healer
“Compassionate”, “honourable”, a “peacemaker”, a “healer”.
They are words so often used to describe the American leader who lived a life longer than any other.
Late 1970s America was a nation reeling from the Watergate scandal and the disgraced presidency of Richard Nixon followed by the accidental presidency of Gerald Ford.
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An estimated crowd of over 30,000 people greeted the then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter in downtown Philadelphia in 1976.
File pic: AP
Jimmy Carter pictured in New York in 1976.
File pic: AP
The wider backdrop was a long war in Vietnam, ending in a humiliating defeat and a fresh blot in a proud nation’s history.
Enter Jimmy Carter, 52-years-old; five feet seven inches – unassuming and unimposing both physically and in character.
Peanut farmer, turned submariner, turned politician; he was a man of the people whose core instinct was that a government is only as good as its people.
His healing qualities, clearly threaded through his life, were displayed on day one of his presidency.
In a bold move he granted unconditional pardons to hundreds of thousands of men who evaded the Vietnam War draft.
He had said the pardon was needed “to heal our country after the Vietnam War”.
Of the bitter divisions sparked by the war, he said: “We can now agree to respect those differences and to forget them.”
He pioneered a bold vision for compassionate centre-left politics which would, many years later, be emulated by presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden.
Yet Jimmy Carter would survive only one term as president.
In those four years he faced huge challenges – an energy crisis, Soviet aggression and Iran – themes which, it turns out, endure.
A childhood which shaped a presidency
Jimmy Carter was born where he died, in the town of Plains, Georgia on 1 October 1924.
His childhood unquestionably moulded the person and politician he would become.
1930s Georgia was a place of segregation. Two Americas existed side by side, separated by racism.
But Carter’s mother, a nurse, boldly ignored the state’s segregation laws, and so young Jimmy’s upbringing was one of coexistence in a place where there was none.
Decades later Carter would tell American talk show host Oprah Winfrey how every one of his childhood friends was black.
It was an experience which moulded his mind and would allow him to help change history decades later.
Young Jimmy Carter joined the Navy, serving as a submariner – a role that surely takes a particular type of character.
His father’s death in 1953 brought him back to Georgia where he ran the family peanut farm.
But politics beckoned. It was race and racism which lured Carter to activism with the Democratic Party.
By the 1960s it would propel him to the state senate and, by 1970, to the top job in Georgia – governor.
Jimmy Carter as Georgia’s 76th governor.
Pic: Jimmy Carter Library
The long-shot president
He was the dark horse for president; a long-shot candidate who made it all the way.
His childhood experiences of coexistence over division were threaded through his term in office and led to significant yet oft-forgotten achievements.
President Carter recognised and valued the power of American leadership in the protection of human rights.
Global achievements
It was his blunt message to the white rulers in South Africa which helped to precipitate the end of Apartheid and a peaceful coexistence many years later.
His influence in the Middle East was profound, but controversial too.
The Camp David accords represented Carter’s greatest foreign policy achievement. He brought together Israel and its greatest enemy of the time, Egypt.
The image of Carter cupping the clasped hands of Egyptian president Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin on the north lawn of the White House in September 1978 is iconic. It represented the framework on which coexistence in the Middle East continues to be built.
With the deal he did more for Israeli security than any American president since, and yet he maintained a compassion for the Palestinian cause that no other American president has come close to.
Years later, out of office, he was among the first to accuse Israel of its own apartheid regime against the Palestinians.
Jimmy Carter in Washington DC in 1978.
File pic: AP
A presidency dominated by “events”
Under his presidency, the Cold War got hotter. A wary Carter ditched a key arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union. It would raise tensions but eventually help precipitate the collapse of the USSR.
With Britain, he fostered the so-called “special relationship”; he and British prime minister James Callaghan were close.
But “events” overtook his vision and his presidency unravelled.
In Iran, revolution came and US hostages were taken. American diplomats were held hostage for more than a year. A risky rescue ordered by president Carter went wrong, eight US servicemen were killed and Carter was blamed.
After just one term, Carter was out. The American people, struggling economically, chose the Republican showman Ronald Reagan and an optimism they could no longer find in Carter.
Misjudged by history?
History is so often cruel and distorted. It would hand many achievements built by Carter to Reagan instead.
It was Carter who laid the foundations for Middle East coexistence, and though he would be let down by partners later, and coexistence seems at times to be very far off, his vision remains at the core of the solution. He has arguably done more to fix the Middle East conundrum than any other American president since.
On the Cold War, it was Carter’s decision to ditch the detente with the Soviet Union which would eventually seal its demise. Reagan would not have been able to demand Gorbachev “tear down this wall” without Carter’s leadership in the years before.
The Democrat presidents since have often borrowed Carter’s core principles and yet the party orphaned him.
In November, as the nation chose between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, his spokespeople confirmed that he had cast his vote.
It was not revealed who he had voted for but was widely assumed that his final democratic act was to vote for Kamala Harris.
His son Chip said his father had not voted Republican in his life.
A legacy beyond politics
This “involuntary retirement”, as Carter would later put it, left much undone and it was really only after leaving office that he began to build the legacy he’d want to be remembered for.
With his wife, Rosalynn, he founded The Carter Center, a charity with his principle of healing at its heart.
The charity’s work – conflict resolution, disease prevention and the promotion of democracy – continues to this day. It represents president Carter’s legacy in 80 nations around the world.
In 2002, it was this work which earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.
Since then, under his leadership, its work has helped to nearly eradicate Guinea Worm Disease. As of 2021 there were just 15 cases reported globally. An extraordinary achievement.
At home in America, the charity Habitat for Humanity was a central part of the Carters’ fundraising efforts. Over many years, Jimmy and his wife were seen building and renovating homes for some of the nation’s poorest.
The former president used to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity to build, renovate and repair homes.
Pic: Habitat for Humanity
And away from this spotlight at his lifelong home in Plains, Georgia, president Carter was a painter, a furniture maker, a winemaker, and an author of a remarkable 32 books.
The death of his wife Rosalynn last year must have been an enormous blow for Carter.
She had been at his side always, and so often hand in hand. His best friend, his counsel, his “chief advisor”, his wife since 1946.
So often over the years, he’s been asked to reveal the magic of their bond. His answer: “Never go to bed angry.”
“Always make peace,” he said.
In much more than just marriage, that was president Carter’s defining principle.
He’s survived by his four children Jack, James (Chip), Donnel (Jeff) and Amy, 11 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has accused the US of a coup attempt after Donald Trump approved CIA operations in the country to tackle alleged drug trafficking.
Mr Trump confirmed his decision, first revealed by The New York Times, as he said large amounts of drugs were entering the US from Venezuela – much of it trafficked by sea.
“We are looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” he said.
When asked why the coastguard wasn’t asked to intercept suspected drug trafficking boats, which has been a longstanding US practice, Mr Trump said the approach had been ineffective.
“I think Venezuela is feeling heat,” he said.
Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday evening. Pic: Reuters
Maduro hits back
He declined to answer whether the CIA has the authority to execute Mr Maduro, who denies accusations from Washington that he has connections to drug trafficking and organised crime.
The US has offered a $50m (£37m) reward for information leading to his arrest.
“How long will the CIA continue to carry on with its coups?” he asked after Mr Trump’s comments on Wednesday evening, saying calls for regime change harkened back to “failed eternal wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In a message to the American people, he said in English: “Not war, yes peace. The people of the US, please.”
President Nicolas Maduro. Pic: Reuters
US targets ‘drug boats’
Mr Trump also alleged Venezuela had sent a significant number of prisoners, including individuals from mental health facilities, into the US, though he did not specify the border through which they reportedly entered.
On Tuesday, he announced America had targeted a small boat suspected of drug trafficking in waters off the Venezuelan coast, resulting in the deaths of six people.
According to the president’s post on social media, all those killed were aboard the vessel.
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Footage of the strike was released by Donald Trump on social media. Pic: Truth Social
The incident marked the fifth such fatal strike in the Caribbean, as the Trump administration continues to classify suspected drug traffickers as unlawful combatants to be confronted with military force.
War secretary Pete Hegseth authorised the strike, according to Mr Trump, who released a video of the operation.
The black-and-white footage showed a small boat seemingly stationary on the water. It is struck by a projectile from above and explodes, then drifts while burning for several seconds.
Mr Trump said the “lethal kinetic strike” was in international waters and targeted a boat travelling along a well-known smuggling route.
There has also been a significant increase in US military presence in the southern Caribbean, with at least eight warships, a submarine, and F-35 jets stationed in Puerto Rico.
A 39-year-old man died in hospital alone, miles from his family, after being detained by US immigration officials.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe, who had lived in the US since he was four, fell ill while in an immigration detention centre in California.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe was well known in the local Latino community
He complained of a fever and had a persistent cough in the weeks before he died, according to his mother Lucia.
She said he was initially treated by medical staff inside the detention centre but was returned to his cell.
He was eventually taken to hospital for a scheduled surgery to remove an abscess on his buttocks, but died before he was able to have the operation.
His family were never told he was in hospital, learning of his death via a knock on the door from police.
“They’re the ones that notified us that he had passed,” his brother, Jose Ayala, told Sky News.
“We were not even aware that he was in the hospital or even had a scheduled surgery. Then we got a knock on our door a little after 5.30 one morning.
“I believe he would still be alive today if he was never detained. He got sick while in detention, and they did not seem to take care of him.”
Ismael’s brother Jose speaks to Sky News
Why was he detained?
Mr Ayala-Uribe’s death raises questions about the conditions inside the centre he was held in, and if a sudden surge of immigrants being detained by this administration has left the system stretched beyond breaking point.
He had moved to the US from Mexico with his family as a child.
He did have DACA – deferred action for childhood arrivals – status, granted to those who have arrived while under the age of 18. But this was removed in 2016, after he was convicted of drink-driving.
In August, he was arrested by immigration agents at a car wash in California where he had worked for 15 years.
He was held for five weeks at Adelanto, a privately owned, run-for-profit, immigrant detention centre. A lawyer for his family said he was, as far as they are aware, a healthy man before he was detained and had no medical need.
But Mr Ayala-Uribe’s mother, who was visiting him every eight days and speaking to him on the phone a couple of times a day, said she noticed him getting progressively unwell.
Ismael’s brother and mother, Lucia
“He started with lots of fever,” Ms Ayala said. “He said they weren’t listening to him. The last time I saw him his face was drained, he told me he was not OK, he told me he couldn’t take it any more.”
Beginning to cry, wiping away tears, she added: “I feel powerless that I couldn’t do anything to help my son.
“I never imagined I was going to bury one of my sons. It feels terrible, they took a piece of my heart away.
“I would like something to change. If we cannot save him, at least we can save others that are still inside.”
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Inside Trump’s immigration raids
ICE defends detention treatment
The cause of Mr Ayala-Uribe’s death is still under investigation.
Sky News requested comment from the company which owns the detention centre where he was held, and they deferred to ICE, the US immigration and customs enforcement agency.
In a statement, ICE said: “Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay.
“At no time during detention is a detained illegal alien denied emergency care.”
The Trump administration says it’s targeting criminals and people in the US illegally. But campaigners say Mr Ayala-Uribe’s death should not be viewed in isolation.
Images from Ismael’s funeral service
Since Donald Trump took office, at least 15 people have died in immigration detention.
Democrat senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock wrote a letter to the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, asking for more information about these deaths.
The senators claimed 10 people had died between January and June, and that it was the highest rate in the first six months of any year publicly available.
Sarah Houston, a lawyer for the Immigrant Defenders Law Centre, claims immigrants are being mistreated in custody.
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ICE raids: ‘This is like Vietnam’
“This administration’s main goal is to harm, to torture individuals and to try to force them out,” she said.
“The great increase we see in human rights abuses, in deaths, is a direct result of the administration’s decision to pack these detention centres as much as they can.”
Mr Ayala-Uribe’s funeral was held this week. Dozens of extended family and friends wore t-shirts bearing his face. A mariachi band played as his casket was lowered into the ground and his mother heaved with sobs.
As they absorb their loss, the effort to carry out the biggest mass deportation operation in US history continues.
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