Broadly unpopular after losing to Ronald Reagan in 1980, Carter went on to have one of the most distinguished post-presidential careers. He was awarded the Nobel peace prize for “decades of untiring effort” for human rights and peacemaking. His humanitarian work was conducted under the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which he founded in the early 1980s, with his wife Rosalynn.
Carter traveled the world as a peace emissary, election observer and public health advocate. He made visits to North Korea in 1994 and Cuba in 2002. The Carter Center is credited with helping to cure river blindness, trachoma and Guinea worm disease, which went from millions of cases in Africa and Asia in 1986 to a handful today.
Carter was a critic of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, drone warfare, warrantless government surveillance and the prison at Guantánamo Bay. He won admiration, and loathing, for his involvement in efforts for Middle East peace, urging a two-state solution in speeches and books including Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
Carter took office in 1977 after serving just one term as governor of Georgia. His unfamiliarity with Washington was seen as a virtue after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam war years. And his time in office started off with some early successes. In 1977 Carter completed a treaty that returned control of the Panama Canal to Panama – an agreement that had eluded his predecessors.
