Jimmy Carter

by Peter G. Bourne

He is known as the Great Peace Maker, a man whose humanitarian ideals prompt his diplomatic intervention in places like Haiti, North Korea, Bosnia, the Middle East. Whether negotiating a cease-fire in shell-shocked Sarajevo or building houses for the homeless in Appalachia, Jimmy Carter can be found at the helm of a vast array of humanitarian efforts. An annual nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, he embodies the qualities that the American public mourns having lost in its politicians: integrity, honesty, ethics, and dedication. Yet Jimmy Carter, thirty-ninth president of the United States, is curiously apolitical. Despite his two diligent battles for the governorship of Georgia (he succeeded in 1970) and his "coup d'etat" election to the presidency in 1976, his was always less a political agenda than a moral one. He saw the office as a vehicle for constructive change, propelled by firm and very Christian convictions about right and wrong. To understand James Earl Carter, one must unders