“It’s taken some time, but Carter, who died in Plains, Georgia, on Dec. 29, is now being recognised as one of our most consequential presidents,” writes Thomas Higgins, a former US YCS leader, who worked for President Carter’s White House administration.
“Landmark domestic legislation in education, the environment, healthcare reform ‘and energy policy; enshrining human rights as a “constitutive element’ in American foreign policy; securing the Panama Canal Treaty; recognizing China; and almost single-handedly achieving the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Accord.
“But he never forgot where he came from, and it was no surprise that he returned there from the White House,” Higgins noted in an article for the US National Catholic Reporter.
“President Carter was a deeply moral man,” he continued. “At the last meeting of the Cabinet, I remember Vice President Walter Mondale saying, ‘We told the truth. We obeyed the law. And we kept the peace.’ That was hard. The political pressures on Carter to resort to force were immense. But by patient diplomacy, the hostages came home. There were many times when we urged a more politically expedient approach to congressional matters — for example, the timing of the Panama Canal and SALT II treaties. He would not compromise though, and in the end, he was right.
“A good deal of my work was coordinating efforts to deal with various refugee crises. To my knowledge, no other president has had a more principled policy. He never politicized the issue. He was consistently humane and, yes, he took a lot of heat for it.
“I might note that the strongest and most effective partner we had in our resettlement programs were agencies of the Catholic Church. In my mind, they deserve enormous credit. In the Cuban-Haitian refugee crisis alone, within a year more than 100,000 people were resettled and are now contributing to society.
“Carter’s moral compass extended all throughout his post presidency, as most people know. From his Georgia home base, he directed a monumental effort in global health and peacekeeping through the Carter Center. Neither he nor Mrs Carter ever took a dime in personal compensation from the center, and no task was too menial for them in providing assistance.
“Think of all the nails he hammered building homes at Habitat for Humanity!” Higgins concluded.
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Thomas Higgins, Remembering Jimmy Carter: A president with a moral compass (National Catholic Reporter)
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Jimmy Carter Library / Flickr