1. September 1978: Thinking time amid thirteen grueling days trying to secure the Camp David Accords.
1. September 1978: Thinking time amid thirteen grueling days trying to secure the Camp David Accords.
2. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (left) plays chess with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.
3.During emotional day trip to Gettysburg, flanked by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Begin, with Moshe Dayan (with eye patch) on right. Carter’s much-maligned attention to detail saved the historic deal after each side repeatedly threatened to walk out.
4. Gas lines in 1979 sent Carter’s popularity plummeting.
5. Paul Volcker, Carter’s choice as chairman of the Federal Reserve, jacked up interest rates to end double-digit inflation.
6. As Carter sunk lower in the polls, a peculiar incident with a swamp rabbit approaching his fishing boat made him seem hapless.
7. Heavily favored Ted Kennedy—at odds with the president over health care—blew a famous interview the same day as the US embassy takeover in Iran.
8. The shah of Iran, tear-gassed at the White House, was deposed in a major revolution. Carter got duped into letting him into the United States for medical attention, which precipitated the embassy seizure.
9. Mural of the Ayatollah Khomeini on outer wall of the former US embassy in Tehran. Khomeini essentially held Carter hostage—and America, too.
10. Remains of a burned-out US helicopter at Desert One. The abortive Delta Force raid to free the fifty-two hostages was a disaster from the start.
11. With (from near right) Vice President Walter Mondale, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown. Besieged by the hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter looked swamped.
12. Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev kissing Carter after they signed the doomed SALT II treaty. “Uh-oh. It looks like he got taken in by the Russians,” a US official fretted, though he hadn’t been.
13. Carter led a successful if ultimately unpopular boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow.
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15. On the podium of the 1980 Democratic Convention at Madison Square Garden with House Speaker Tip O’Neill, party chairman Bob Strauss and a chilly Kennedy. At right, Amy and Rosalynn. Carter said later that he thought Kennedy was drunk.
16. Signing the 1980 Alaska Lands Bill, which made Carter the greatest environmental president since Theodore Roosevelt. (Inset map of Alaska.) Carter signed more major legislation than any postwar president except President Lyndon Johnson.
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18. Long underestimated, Ronald Reagan won the only 1980 debate, in part by asking voters “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” The answer was no.
19. White House all-nighter: Catching a little rest during the final hours of his presidency after successfully negotiating an end to the 444-day hostage crisis.
20. Iran tried to humiliate Carter by freeing the hostages moments after Reagan was sworn in. But he was elated they came home safely.
21. Rosalynn (left) and Jimmy empathize as a worm emerges from the foot of a Ghanaian child. The Carter Center saved millions from Guinea worm disease, among other global health successes.
22. Ship ahoy with Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s brutal founder, 1994. Carter made no apologies for his peace talks with dictators.
23. Handing the keys to a new homeowner. Each year, the Carters spend a week building houses for Habitat for Humanity.
24. January 2009: Outgoing President George W. Bush hosts President-Elect Barack Obama and ex-presidents. Carter’s barbed comments about his successors ensured that he would remain outside their club.
25. Renaissance man: A master woodworker with one of his cabinets, Plains home office, 2015.
26. The longest-living and longest-married American president.