U. S. Presidents

U. S. Presidents
Jimmy Carter

James Earl Carter, Jr. (b. Oct. 1, 1924, Plains, Ga.), president of the United States (1977-81).

The Democrat won election to the Georgia state Senate in 1962 and was reelected in 1964. He won the governorship of Georgia in 1970. In his inaugural address he announced that "the time for racial discrimination is over" and proceeded to open Georgia's government offices to blacks and women.

He announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 1974, just before his term as governor ended. Though lacking a national political base or major backing, he managed through tireless and systematic campaigning to assemble a broad constituency whose votes enabled him to win the Democratic nomination in July 1976. He chose the liberal U.S. senator Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota as his running mate and defeated the incumbent Republican president, Gerald R. Ford, in November 1976, winning 51% of the popular vote and garnering 297 electoral votes to Ford's 240.

In foreign affairs, although Carter's championship of international human rights received prominent attention, his major achievements were on the more pragmatic level of patient diplomacy. Despite the apparent failure of his domestic policies and the ongoing Iran hostage crisis, Carter won the Democratic nomination in 1980. But public confidence in Carter's executive abilities had fallen to an irretrievable low, and in the elections held that November he was overwhelmingly defeated by Republican nominee Ronald Reagan, winning only 41% of the popular vote.

Carter later served as a sort of diplomat-without-portfolio in various conflicts in a number of countries - including Nicaragua, Panama, Ethiopia, and Haiti. He was awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

Heads of State