Former President Jimmy Carter, the longest-lived U.S. president at 98, has entered home hospice care in Plains, Georgia, a Carter Center statement confirmed Saturday.
After a series of short hospital stays, Carter “decided to spend the rest of his time at home with his family and receive hospice care in lieu of additional medical intervention.”
The statement said the 39th president has the full support of his medical team and family and “requires privacy at this time and appreciates the concern expressed by his many admirers.”
Carter was a little-known governor of Georgia when he launched his presidential run ahead of the 1976 election. He defeated then-President Gerald R. Ford and used him as an outsider in Washington after the Vietnam War and his Watergate scandal that ousted Richard Nixon in 1974.
Carter served a tumultuous term, losing to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. This landslide defeat ultimately paved the way for Carter’s decades of championing democracy, public health and human rights globally through his Center.
The former president and his wife, Rosalyn, 95, opened the center in 1982. His work there earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Jason Carter, the couple’s grandson and current chairman of the Carter Center Board of Directors, tweeted on Saturday, “I saw both my grandparents yesterday. They are at peace and, as always, their The house is full of love.”
Carter, who spent most of his life in the Plains, spent his 80s and early 90s on annual trips to build a home with Habitat for Humanity and frequent visits as part of the Carter Center’s election monitoring and efforts to eradicate Guinea. I have traveled extensively, including many overseas trips. A parasite that lives in developing countries. But the former president’s health has been declining in his decade. Especially since the coronavirus pandemic has restricted his public appearances, including at his beloved Maranatha his Baptist church.
In August 2015, Carter had a small cancerous mass removed from his liver. The following year, Carter announced that an experimental drug had eliminated all signs of cancer and no further treatment was needed.
Carter celebrated his birthday in October with family and friends in Plains, the small town where he and his wife Rosalyn were born in the years between World War I and the Great Depression.
Last year, the Carter Center celebrated its 40th anniversary of advancing human rights issues.
The Center is a pioneer in election monitoring, having monitored at least 113 elections in Africa, Latin America and Asia since 1989. In perhaps the most widely acclaimed public health effort, the organization recently announced that it is her only 14 human cases of Guinea worm disease. It is the result of years of public health campaigns to improve access to safe drinking water in Africa.
This is a staggering reduction compared to when the parasitic disease infected 3.5 million people when the Carter Center began leading global eradication efforts in 1986. Carter once said that he hopes to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite.
Carter was born on October 1, 1924, into a prominent family in rural southern Georgia. He attended the United States Naval Academy during World War II and pursued a career as a naval officer during the Cold War before, after the death of Earl Carter in the 1950s, the family business Peanuts with Rosalyn and her young family. I moved back to Plains, Georgia to take over the business.
A moderate Democrat, young Carter quickly rose through the ranks of the local school board, the state senate, and the office of the governor of Georgia. He began his bid for the White House as an underdog with outspoken Baptist conventions and technocratic plans that reflected his education as an engineer. He connected with many Americans because he promised not to deceive the American people after Nixon’s disgrace and US defeats in Southeast Asia.
“If I lie to you or make misleading statements, please don’t vote for me. I don’t deserve to be your president.”
Carter, who had matured politically during the Civil Rights Movement, was the last Democratic presidential candidate to sweep the Deep South before the region rapidly transitioned to Reagan and the Republican Party in subsequent elections.
He ruled amidst the pressures of the Cold War, turbulent oil markets, racism, women’s rights, and social turmoil around America’s global role.
Carter’s foreign policy victories included brokering peace in the Middle East in 1978 by bringing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the negotiating table for 13 days. This Camp David experience inspired the Post-Presidential Center where Carter establishes much of his legacy. At his home, Carter partially deregulated the aviation, rail and trucking industries, created the Department of Education and Energy, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He designated millions of acres in Alaska as national parks or wildlife sanctuaries. He appointed a record number of women and non-whites to federal offices at the time. Although he was never nominated to the Supreme Court, he promoted civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to her second-highest court in the country, and promoted her in 1993.
Carter also built on Nixon’s opening to China and pushed Latin America from dictatorship to democracy, although it tolerated dictators in Asia.
But Carter’s electoral coalition split under double-digit inflation, a gasoline line and a 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His toughest time came when eight of his Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping ensure a landslide defeat.
Carter stayed out of electoral politics for years after the war ended. Democrats hesitated to accept him. Republicans made him a punch line and satirized him as an unlucky liberal. In reality, Carter ruled as a technocrat and was more progressive on race and gender equality than he was when he campaigned, but was a budget hawk and often angered more liberal Democrats. . 1980.
After his resignation, Carter said he had underestimated the importance of dealing with power brokers in Washington, including media and lobby groups anchored in the capital. He claimed that he was sound and had achieved his primary objectives of “peacefully protecting the security and interests of our country” and “strengthening human rights at home and abroad.”
And a few years later, when he was diagnosed with cancer in his 90s, he expressed his satisfaction with his longevity.
In 2015, he said, “I’m completely at ease no matter what. I’ve been exciting, adventurous, and content.”
