SIPA Pays Tribute to President Jimmy Carter

Together with the rest of the Columbia University community, SIPA mourns the loss of the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, who passed away Sunday at the age of 100. From advancing human rights to curbing US dependency on fossil fuels, Carter’s legacy impacts so much of what  we do at SIPA.  

A number of Carter’s staff—including his national security advisor, the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, and his principal White House aide for Iran, Gary Sick—would go on to teach at Columbia (Sick also earned his PhD in political science from Columbia in the early 1970s). As such, Carter’s vision and values have by extension influenced generations of Columbia students.

From a foreign policy perspective, Carter started his presidency in 1977 with a belief in détente and a commitment  to work with the Soviet Union to reduce tensions. But his administration ended in 1980 with the US mired in  the collapse of détente, the hostage crisis in Iran, and the war in Afghanistan. 

“Carter will go down in history as one of the great conservation presidents of all time, alongside Teddy Roosevelt.”

–Jason Bordoff, Center on Global Energy Policy

Still, he does not get the credit he deserves for how he handled his Soviet counterparts, says SIPA Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, whose own research looks at White House decision-making of the late 1970s. 

“During this time of changing assessments of Soviet intentions, Carter’s administration was the model for a ‘team of rivals’ approach as they wrestled with the question of Soviet intentions,” she says. “He rejected arguments that he had to escalate tensions to show resolve and stayed true to his beliefs and the policies that mattered most to him. But he also showed a willingness to change his beliefs.” 

A case in point was Carter’s decision for the United States to become more involved in supporting Afghanistan’s resistance after the 1979 Soviet invasion. 

His foreign policy was instrumental to achieving peace in other parts of the globe beyond the Soviet Union. 

“President Jimmy Carter will be remembered as a peacemaker,” says Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and senior research scholar at SIPA. “Without his personal intervention, an agreement would not have been brokered between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Carter was also proud of the fact that the US didn’t start or continue any hot wars in his presidency.”

He also made progress in other key areas, including arms control and energy conservation, having created the country’s first national energy policy. 

“Carter will also go down in history as one of the great conservation presidents of all time, alongside Teddy Roosevelt,” says Jason Bordoff, founding director of SIPA’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “He more than doubled the size of the National Park System. His commitment to the greater good was rooted in a deep love for his fellow man and for the planet, and as the historical record comes into greater clarity, Carter’s presidency will increasingly serve to inspire future generations to careers in environmentalism, energy and public service.” 

Another central legacy of Carter’s life in public service was the promotion of human rights and advancement of free and fair democratic elections. He championed both long after he left the White House—most visibly as the co-founder, with his wife Rosalynn, of The Carter Center.

Jacob Lew, a professor of international and public affairs at SIPA and current US ambassador to Israel, recalls his engagement with the Carter White House as an aide to the former House speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Jr., and sees parallels from that tumultuous time to today’s seemingly intractable politics. 

“Even though so much remains to be achieved, from clean energy to resolving seemingly unsolvable conflicts, there is a key lesson here: Leaders must have the courage to take aim at addressing big challenges, even when success is far from certain, and not settle for the inevitability of a highly flawed status quo,” says Lew. “That kind of leadership takes vision, courage, and character.”

SIPA Faculty Remember Jimmy Carter

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Professor of the Practice of International and Public Affairs, Columbia SIPA
67th US Secretary of State
Former Senator for the State of New York 

I first met Jimmy Carter in 1975 in Arkansas when he was campaigning for president, and I was excited to work on his campaign. Once elected, he appointed me to the Legal Services Corporation, my first Senate-confirmed position, where I served as chair of the board until 1981. I got to know the president and Mrs. Carter during their four years in the White House and admired their commitment to productive public service, which led to major achievements, from the Camp David Accords to creating the Department of Education, shoring up Social Security, promoting human rights and energy conservation, and so much else. 

He also had a consequential post-presidency through the work of The Carter Center eradicating disease, monitoring elections, and building houses with Habitat for Humanity. I worked on a few houses with him and Rosalynn and came away impressed, as always, with his commitment to doing his best to getting the job done well. That’s who he was, and our country is the better for his efforts.

Gary Sick
Special Research Scholar, Middle East Institute, Columbia University
Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia SIPA

Image

As a young member of the National Security Council, an unexpected perk was to join President Carter’s entourage on official trips. In my case, that was President Carter’s first extended overseas trip from December 29, 1977, through January 6, 1978 (with stops in Warsaw, Tehran, New Delhi, Riyadh, Aswan, Paris, and Brussels). I joined the presidential party in Warsaw and left it in Paris. In Tehran, I tagged along as Carter met the Shah and attended a dinner followed by a spur-of-the-moment New Year’s Eve party in the Shah’s private library in the Niavaran Palace. 

At the dinner, Carter made his famous toast: “Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.” Carter intended this as reassurance that his administration would continue the close relationship forged under his predecessor. Perhaps it was successful temporary reassurance, but it was poor prophecy: the Iranian revolution ousted the Shah almost exactly a year later.

I had no duties in New Delhi, so I took advantage of the free day to pay a visit to the Taj Mahal, a site I had idealized from the dashing adventure stories of Richard Halliburton that I had devoured as a child in bland and dusty Kansas. On the following day, somewhere over the Indian Ocean, I was in the back cabin of Air Force One, preparing for the upcoming visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Carter was also making his preparations, and without warning he strolled back from his cabin and sat down on the arm of my chair. He was due to address a group of Saudi royals in a few hours, and he wanted to greet them in Arabic. I was no linguist, but I had studied Arabic for several years, and we had a short session in which he drilled repeatedly on his opening line.

I was pleased when Carter addressed the group with great confidence, but with his distinctively Georgian Southern accent: es-salaamu alaikum.They roared back with a smile wa alaikumu salaam. The visit was off to a rousing start. I was unaware of it, but the White House photographer caught our little Arabic drill session, and a week or so later I received a copy of a photo on which the president had inscribed in his precise script in the upper right corner, now dimmed by age, To my teacher, Gary Sick. I wasn’t really a teacher then, but I cherished the photo and the sentiments when I began my 30-year teaching career at SIPA.

Jason Bordoff
Founding Director of the Center on Global Energy Policy and Professor of Professional Practice in International and Public Affairs, Columbia SIPA
Cofounding Dean, Columbia Climate School 

Stuart Eizenstat, President Carter’s domestic policy advisor and the author of a recent biography about his presidency, gave me my first job in government and has been a longtime friend and mentor. As such, I keenly felt Carter’s influence on policy. In fact, his influence continues to reverberate throughout the field of energy and climate policy in ways not often appreciated by people who think of a cardigan-clad Carter sitting by the fire and calling for sacrifice. The 1970s marked major oil crises and the birth of the modern environmental movement, and the Carter administration played a key role in responses to both. Carter introduced a series of important reforms, including measures to boost energy efficiency, protect tens of millions of acres of wildlands in Alaska, and reduce oil dependency. He moved for deregulation of energy markets and famously had solar panels put on the roof of the White House. He also delivered several major (and prescient) energy policy speeches, describing the 1970s oil crisis as the “moral equivalent of war” and calling for national conservation as part of a collective, patriotic response to what he famously deemed our nation’s “crisis of confidence.”

Carter’s often courageous—albeit often unpopular—energy policy efforts have been highly consequential for policymakers trying to address challenges to the energy system in the decades since. Carter will also go down in history as one of the great conservation presidents of all time, alongside Teddy Roosevelt. He more than doubled the size of the National Park System. Carter’s commitment to the greater good was rooted in a deep love for his fellow man and for the planet, and as the historical record comes into greater clarity, Carter’s presidency will increasingly serve to inspire future generations to careers in environmentalism, energy, and public service.

Steven Cohen
Professor in the Practice of Public Affairs and Director of the MPA in Environmental Science and Policy, Columbia SIPA
Director of the Research Program on Sustainability Policy and Management, Columbia Climate School

I worked in the Environmental Protection Agency twice during the Carter administration. One of my graduate school mentors was on President Carter’s transition team and was assigned to EPA; that’s how I landed at EPA. In 1977 I staffed a working group on public participation in the water pollution control program and in 1980 and 1981 I developed Superfund’s community relations program and conducted organizational analysis for the Superfund policy office. Carter’s appointments at EPA were wonderful. The people I worked for were dedicated and brilliant public servants. 

Carter’s commitment to environmental protection was profound. All of us felt a deep sense of commitment and support from the president and his top people. He was America’s first environmental president since Teddy Roosevelt. When he left office and was replaced by Ronald Reagan, all the top people I admired left and were replaced by anti-environmental extremists. All of the work I was doing was stopped which directly led to my arrival at SIPA in July 1981. When Carter was running for president he often said: “I’ll never lie to you.” And he never did. He was a far greater president than he was given credit for being and his post-presidency was inspiring to anyone who cares about public service.

Jacob Lew
Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia SIPA
76th US Secretary of the Treasury
United States ambassador to Israel, Former White House Chief of Staff and Former Director, Office of Management and Budget

I engaged with the Carter White House as an aide to Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., when he was speaker of the US House of Representatives. I believe there are important lessons to draw from these years. My first years in DC were marked by the Yom Kippur War and the oil embargo. I returned in 1979, the year after the Camp David Accords were signed, which proved that leaders like President Carter with vision and courage could do better.

I worked on the second round of energy policy at the time, which was not a great success, but it foreshadowed the importance of investing in renewable energy resources—an aspiration we are only now seeing come to fruition.

Even though so much remains to be achieved, from clean energy to resolving seemingly unsolvable conflicts, there is a key lesson here. Leaders must have the courage to take aim at addressing big challenges, even when success is far from certain, and not settle for the inevitability of a highly flawed status quo. That kind of leadership takes vision, courage and character.

Timothy Naftali
Senior Research Scholar, Columbia SIPA

President Carter will be remembered as a peacemaker. Without his personal intervention, an agreement would not have been brokered between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Carter was also proud of the fact that the US didn’t start or continue any hot wars in his presidency.

Much will be, and should be, made of his post-presidential years of global humanitarian service. In 2007 President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter gave a personal tour of their new museum at the Carter Library to presidential library directors. I was fortunate to be among them. Although President Carter patiently took questions about his political and presidential years, he clearly preferred to discuss current puzzles yet to solve. It was hard not to marvel at the determination that Carter, then 86, had to eliminate Guinea worm in Africa. And that determination paid off. When The Carter Center began its campaign in 1986, 3.5 million people were afflicted with the debilitating disease caused by the Guinea worm in 21 countries in Africa and Asia. As of 2023, the number was down to 14 individuals spread across five African countries. 

But Carter should also be remembered for his political courage as president. He took significant political risks in foreign and domestic policy to do what he was sure was right for the country. Despite lacking, as he later noted in his oral history for the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, a “groundswell of support,” Carter pushed successfully for recognition of Panama’s sovereignty over the Canal and for the normalization of relations with China, both difficult achievements despite being rooted in bipartisan presidential efforts. When the country faced double-digit inflation in 1979, he nominated Paul Volcker to be Fed Chair, even though he knew Volcker was resolutely independent and would raise interest rates in an election year to tame prices. In the same spirit, he took on some members of his own party in Congress to achieve the deregulation of the trucking, communications, energy, and airline industries to make the US economy more efficient and bring down costs to consumers. And in 1980 he approved a risky and ultimately ill-fated rescue mission to free Americans held hostage in Iran. 

Carter’s willingness to fight for what he believed was not always matched by political agility. In the White House, his inflexibility and his iron will were sources of both tremendous achievement and disappointment. Shaped by these characteristics and fueled by a deep faith, self-confidence, and intelligence, he was as human as he was consequential for the United States and the world.