Tabla de contenidos para PEOPLE Jimmy Carter en People

JIMMY CARTER WAGED one of the longest campaigns in history to win the Presidency, shaking thousands of hands, speaking on TV and in person to millions of Americans. And yet the feeling persists that he is largely an unknown man who escaped the years of public scrutiny in Washington that his predecessors underwent before they moved into the White House. Carter’s first few months in office will tell volumes about his style and vision. For a preview, People managing editor Richard B. Stolley and Washington correspondent Clare Crawford spoke recently to the President-elect about his hopes and plans. The interview took place as Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter flew home from Washington to Georgia. Do you feel like a President? I’m beginning to. It feels sobering, but [I am] confident…

OH, PLEASE DON’T. IT’S A MESS BACK THERE,” Rosalynn Carter gently protests as her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, beckons a reporter to have a look at the four-poster bed he built by hand. The bedroom is hardly a mess; some blazers are on hangers over the door as the couple unpack from a trip to China and repack for Atlanta, where they’ll host a mental health conference at the Carter Center and spend the week sleeping on a Murphy bed in their office there. (Their suitcases are rarely stored: The center has programs in 80 nations—not to mention those where they have built homes for Habitat for Humanity.) But first a tour of their Plains, Ga., home, where Jimmy Carter pauses at the artwork in the floral-wallpapered hallway. “This…

HE WAS NEARING his hundredth year of life with his mind sharp and his hands and spirit as eager as ever to help. Some snapshots: Here is Jimmy Carter in 2015, at age 91, monitoring elections in Guyana. And here, at 95, is Carter engaging a hefty power drill at a Habitat for Humanity construction site. In September 2023, a week before his 99th birthday, he and wife Rosalynn rode together at the Plains, Ga., Peanut Festival. Frequently asked the secret to his stamina, Carter might divulge details of his exercise regimen—he ran until age 80, then took up swimming, which was easier on his knees—but more often gave this advice: “Marry the best spouse.” The couple were each other’s support until Nov. 19, 2023, when his beloved wife…

On Dec. 12, 1974, Jimmy Carter announced he would run for the Presidency. People caught up with the candidate in the fall of 1975, well before he became the Democratic nominee. This archival story appears here as it originally did in the magazine. IT WAS MIDNIGHT as the white DC-3 lifted off the runway in Orlando and headed north to Americus, Ga. Secret Service agents sat shivering in the unheated cabin while the stewardess huddled under a blanket. Only the presidential candidate, poring over editorials about himself, seemed oblivious to either cold or fatigue. Jimmy Carter was going home. For Carter, Georgia’s former governor and once the Mr. Midnight of political dark horses, it was a week to justify his brimming self-confidence. Amid reports of growing organizational strength in Iowa,…

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“I SAW THE POSSIBILITY WHILE I WAS PRESIDENT OF EMPHASIZING HUMAN RIGHTS”—JIMMY CARTER, TO THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 2012 “ONE OF THE THINGS THAT HAS HELD AMERICA TOGETHER, WHEN WE’VE BEEN TOGETHER, HAS BEEN THE MUSIC THAT WE SHARE AND LOVE”—CARTER, IN THE DOCUMENTARY ROCK & ROLL PRESIDENT…

ADIXIELAND BAND played and green-and-white “Jimmy Carter for President” balloons floated above as Carter entered the Atlanta Civic Center on Dec. 12, 1974. There he was greeted by supporters munching on peanuts, small sandwiches and enjoying alcohol-free punch. With his wife, Rosalynn, mother Lillian and children at his side, Carter made his way to the podium. One guest yelled out, “Give ’em hell, Governor.” A smiling Carter then threw his hat in the ring, telling the crowd, “I intend to be your next President.” A staff member afterward came up to him and said, “We’re going to win, Governor,” to which Carter said, “I know.” It proved to be a low-key political launch, and few took his quest seriously. Carter possessed minimal name recognition, with the term “dark horse candidate”…

I WOULD HAVE LIKED a second term, I can say that now,” Carter told The Washington Post in 2013, at age 88. So many years later, and with all he would accomplish, he was still thinking about the loss. In January 1981 he, Rosalynn and Amy returned to his hometown of Plains, Ga. After a period of feeling depressed, he had a revelation, one of Carter’s biographers, Kai Bird, told The New York Times. “One night, in January 1982, Mrs. Carter was startled to see him sitting up in bed, wide-awake. She asked him if he was feeling ill. ‘I know what we can do,’ he replied. ‘We can develop a place to help people who want to resolve disputes.’” From that idea came the Carter Center, the Atlanta-based nonprofit…