James Earl Carter served from 1977 to 1981 as the 39th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Born on Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Ga., he attended Georgia Tech and the U.S. Naval Academy, from which he graduated in 1946. He married Rosalynn Smith on July 7, 1946, and they had four children. Carter served in the navy as an engineer working with nuclear-powered submarines. After the death of his father, however, he resigned (1953) his commission to manage the family's peanut-farming business. He was a state senator (1962-66) and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1966. In his second attempt (1970), Carter was elected governor and served one term (1971-75).

Presidential Campaign

In 1972, Carter began a 4-year campaign for the DEMOCRATIC presidential nomination. In 1976 he established a commanding lead over other candidates by winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire PRIMARY. He established a solid base in the South and among black voters and went on to win the Democratic nomination. For his running mate he chose a liberal, Sen. Walter F. MONDALE.

The presidential campaign of 1976 turned chiefly upon the state of the national economy, the personalities of the two candidates, and the desirability of change in the WHITE HOUSE. In three televised debates, Carter appeared to most observers to be at least as "presidential" as the incumbent, Gerald FORD. He won the ELECTION narrowly with 48 percent of the total vote. Although he swept the South, the border states, and some northeastern states, he won only Hawaii in the West. Ford won 27 states against Carter's 23 (plus the District of Columbia), but only 240 ELECTORAL votes to Carter's 297.

Carter arrived in Washington as a virtually unknown political quantity without experience or familiarity with Washington. A Baptist fundamentalist who had been "born again" in the faith, Carter was a deeply and openly religious man. He had focused his campaign on government failures rather than on programs and policies. Nevertheless, Carter had extraordinary ambition and self-confidence. His warm, broad smile contrasted with a brittle rectitude in private and a tough, demanding demeanor with his aides.

Carter was unusual in two other respects. No governor since Franklin ROOSEVELT had gone on to become president, and no Southerner (except the Texan Lyndon JOHNSON) had held the office since Andrew JOHNSON (1865-69). Running in the wake of the WATERGATE scandals and the Vietnam War, Carter appeared to be an outsider, a non-Washington politician; indeed, his emphasis on morality rather than on political issues gave him an advantage.

Early Administration

As he took office in January 1977, Carter appeared to many as a transitional president, a leader wedded to no particular ideological solutions, a politician who might lead through symbolic acts rather than programs. His first act as president was to stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue hand in hand with his wife, Rosalynn, en route to the White House from his swearing-in at the Capitol.

During his first months as president, Carter held biweekly press conferences and attended town meetings across the country. He stressed a commitment to Human Rights and an open foreign policy, discussing issues usually reserved for private diplomatic sessions. Many applauded the change, but his openness sometimes created diplomatic problems abroad. His human rights policy annoyed the leaders of the USSR and was subsequently given less emphasis; he also shocked Moscow by proposing drastic reductions in strategic arms. This policy was also abandoned in order to achieve a more limited but workable Arms Control treaty.

Carter's most serious problems were with CONGRESS, which was less susceptible to party discipline and presidential direction than in the years before the Vietnam War and Watergate. He had little political credit with senators and representatives, having in effect run against them during his campaign. His inexperienced assistants on Capitol Hill failed to confer adequately with congressional leaders. Carter's attempt to establish new national energy policies languished through two congressional sessions and ended in compromise legislation that satisfied nobody. An ambitious plan to overhaul the income-tax system was shunted aside in favor of more-popular tax reductions. A plan to reform the welfare system was also pushed aside by Congress.

Foreign Policies

Public confidence in Carter began to wane during his second year in office, but he was able to secure ratification of treaties to transfer control of the Panama Canal to Panama. The Iranian revolution that toppled the shah early in 1979 surprised the U.S. government and sent Carter's popularity downward. Carter's personal diplomacy led to the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt on Mar. 26, 1979, and he signed the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) with the USSR on June 18, 1979. SALT II, however, aroused a storm of controversy and never achieved ratification by the U.S. Senate.

Foreign policy in 1980 was dominated by Carter's efforts to secure the release of the U.S. citizens taken hostage by Iranian militants on Nov. 4, 1979, and by the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the following month. Carter responded to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with a limited trade embargo and a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. The failure (Apr. 24, 1980) of a mission to rescue the hostages in Iran intensified worries that U.S. military efficacy had been eroded. The mission led to the resignation of Cyrus Vance, who was succeeded as secretary of state by Edmund Muskie.

Domestic Setbacks

Although Carter's prestige suffered from allegations of impropriety in the past financial dealings of his friend and budget director Bert Lance and in his brother Billy's relations with Libya, the main source of difficulty for the Carter administration was the economy. Unemployment decreased during the first half of Carter's term, but inflation rose sharply and was a serious political liability during his second two years. Inflation was reined in somewhat in mid-1980, but at the cost of recession and rising unemployment. The Carter administration created new departments of education and energy. Its energy policy was criticized, however, especially after severe gasoline shortages developed in 1979.

Carter faced serious opposition within his own party, especially when, during his third year, he began to stress military preparedness at the expense of social programs. Sen. Edward Kennedy, starting as the front-runner, challenged Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination. Democratic voters, however, gave Carter a series of primary-election victories, and the party renominated him. The REPUBLICAN nominee, Ronald REAGAN, successfully built inflation and the fear of U.S. military weakness into the major campaign issues, and he easily defeated President Carter in the Nov. 4, 1980, presidential election. In the last month of Carter's administration negotiations with Iran, through Algerian intermediaries, finally produced freedom for the hostages in Tehran. They were released on Jan. 20, 1981, minutes after the inauguration of Reagan.

Post-presidential Years

Carter later devoted himself to writing, teaching at Emory University, and building housing for the poor (through Habitat for Humanity). He established the Carter Center (1986) at Emory, a research and advocacy center active in many areas. Carter's continuing interest in foreign affairs is exemplified by his unofficial diplomatic missions, sometimes negotiating truces, to such countries as Ethiopia (1989), Somalia (1993), North Korea, Haiti, and Bosnia (1994), and Sudan and Rwanda (1995); and by his monitoring of elections throughout the world. On Dec. 14, 1999, he represented the United States at the official ceremonies marking the turnover of the Panama Canal to Panama.