His rise to the Oval Office was meteoric. But what he did afterwards set the standard for statesmanship and public service
- Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010
Though Jimmy Carter was, at the age of 100, the US president who had lived longer than any of the other 45 occupants of the office, he will be remembered for a more important reason. He is, and will be, mourned in every country and continent where civil liberties are valued and peace has proved elusive; revered as the leader who stood with all those who faced imprisonment, torture or persecution for defending democracy and human rights. Carter gave oppressed people hope. I was proud to learn from him and to count him and his wonderful wife, Rosalynn – who was also his closest adviser – as friends.
How to assess such a life? History will probably see Carter’s second act – his work as a former president – as more momentous than his four years in the Oval Office, from 1977 to 1981. In office, despite his negotiation of the landmark peace deal between Israel and Egypt, he was engulfed by intractable problems – the first oil shock, rampant inflation that was to reach 14% in 1980 – and, with the rise of a militant Iran, the destabilisation of the Middle East, problems that condemned him to a one-term presidency.
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