Carter, Jimmy

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    Frank Moore, a Top Aide to Jimmy Carter, Is Dead at 89

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    After serving as chief of staff when Carter was governor of Georgia, he followed him to Washington, where both men encountered a hostile political establishment.Frank Moore, who as President Jimmy Carter’s congressional liaison toiled with mixed results to sell the agenda of a self-professed outsider to veterans of Washington, died on Thursday at his home in St. Simons Island, Ga. He was 89.His son Brian confirmed the death.Mr. Carter was known for having a “Georgia Mafia” around him during his presidency. Mr. Moore was a leading member of that group, and the two men remained close until Mr. Carter’s death. According to the Georgia newspaper The Gainesville Times, Mr. Moore was the last living person to have worked for Mr. Carter for the entirety of his political career: as an aide from his days as a Georgia state senator all the way through his presidency.In Washington, the two men had what might have seemed like an ideal chance for legislative achievements. For all four years of the Carter administration, the Democrats controlled every branch of government, and from January 1977 to January 1979 they had supermajorities in the House and the Senate.Yet it was a less ideologically homogenous era for the party. The Democratic caucus in the Senate, for example, encompassed liberals like Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, staunch anti-Communists like Henry Jackson of Washington and conservative segregationists like John C. Stennis of Mississippi.These separate factions and their wily tacticians were relatively unfamiliar to Mr. Carter and Mr. Moore, who had first met far away from the nation’s capital — on a local planning panel in Georgia in the mid-1960s.In the 1970s, after Mr. Carter had been elected governor, he made Mr. Moore his chief of staff. During Mr. Carter’s presidential run, Mr. Moore, a soft-voiced 40-year-old who held the title of national finance chairman, was one of a few of Mr. Carter’s Georgia allies to set up his campaign office in Washington.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Is Destroying a Core American Value. The World Will Notice.

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      In the late 1980s, Joseph Nye, the Harvard political scientist who died this month, developed the concept of “soft power.” His central premise, that the United States enhances its global influence by promoting values like human rights and democracy, has guided U.S. foreign policy for decades across both Republican and Democratic administrations.Donald Trump has made clear that he fundamentally rejects this vision. As president, he has ordered a sweeping overhaul of the State Department that will cripple its capacity to promote American values abroad. At the center of this effort are drastic cuts to the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor — the State Department’s core institution for advancing soft power, which I led under President Barack Obama. Unless Congress intervenes, the debasement of the bureau’s role will impair America’s ability to challenge authoritarianism, support democratic movements and provide independent analysis to inform U.S. foreign policy. The long-term result will be a United States that is weaker, less principled and increasingly sidelined as authoritarian powers like Russia and China offer their own transactional models of global engagement.The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor was created with bipartisan congressional support in 1977, a time when lawmakers sought greater influence over foreign policy in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and America’s support for authoritarian regimes in countries like Chile and South Korea. President Jimmy Carter’s religious convictions and deep commitment to human rights gave the fledgling bureau early momentum. Still, its purpose was always practical: to ensure U.S. foreign aid and trade decisions were informed by credible assessments of human rights conditions around the world. That’s why every year, the bureau prepares congressionally mandated human rights reports.In its early years, it struggled to defend its existence. Foreign governments resented being called out in its annual reports and attacked its legitimacy. Many State Department traditionalists viewed its focus on human rights as an unhelpful distraction from the realpolitik topics they were much more comfortable addressing. It also drew criticisms of hypocrisy, mostly from the left, for condemning the records of other countries in the face of unresolved human rights problems here in the United States. Others accurately pointed out that even as the State Department’s human rights reports documented serious abuses, the United States continued to provide substantial aid to governments like Ferdinand E. Marcos’s Philippines, Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire, Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt and numerous military regimes across Latin America.These tensions have not disappeared. But over nearly five decades, the bureau has evolved to confront them. Governments, companies, judges and nongovernmental organizations have all come to rely on its annual country reports. It plays the lead role in preventing the United States from funding foreign security forces that violate human rights. And its policy engagement has guided the U.S. approach to international conflicts, repressive regimes and civil wars.That progress is now at risk. The Trump administration’s proposed “reforms” will hamstring my former agency’s capacity to uphold its mission in three major ways.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Dinner That Helped Save Europe

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      In 1979, during John Paul II’s first visit to the United States as pope, he met with President Jimmy Carter at the White House. Shortly after that, he invited Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, to dinner at the Vatican Embassy in Washington. Along with world affairs, Carter wanted to discuss declining morals with the recently elected pope, but Brzezinski had more practical subjects in mind.For the pontiff and the adviser, their mutual obsession was the Soviet Union. Over a simple meal at the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See, they explored how they could together weaken Moscow’s grip over its captive nations. Brzezinski was stunned by the pope’s geopolitical knowledge. He joked that Carter was more like a religious leader while the pope seemed more like a world statesman. The vicar of Christ affirmed the quip with a belly laugh, Brzezinski noted in his personal diary, to which I acquired exclusive access.From that dinner onward, the two Polish-born figures — one the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, the other America’s first (and to date, probably the only) Polish-speaking grand strategist — became intimate allies.Their serendipitous relationship proved critical in late 1980 in dissuading the Soviets from invading Poland, where the Solidarity movement had just emerged as a serious challenge to the Communist government. It was a partnership sustained by a running dialogue conducted during Brzezinski’s visits to the Vatican, in long handwritten correspondence and over the phone. His White House speed dial had P for “pope.”John Paul’s relationship with Brzezinski is a vivid example of how diplomacy works when there is mutual trust. Good chemistry is rare but extremely productive. Sustained dialogue with both friends and adversaries in today’s volatile world is, if anything, even more critical. The ability at a tense moment to pick up the phone and know that you can trust the person on the other end is the fruit of constant gardening.Yet it is increasingly hard to find the time. Technology means that presidential envoys are always within White House reach to respond to the cascade of competing demands. The world is also a more complex place than it was 40 years ago, and U.S. diplomats have rarely been held in lower regard at home. Twenty-four-hour media scrutiny also makes secrecy far harder. Henry Kissinger’s covert visit to Beijing in 1971 to pave the way for U.S. rapprochement with Mao Zedong’s China is hard to imagine today.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jimmy Carter cumple 100 años

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      Diecinueve meses después de ingresar en cuidados paliativos, el presidente número 39 llega al siglo de vida el martes. ¿Su deseo de cumpleaños? Votar una vez más por el Partido Demócrata.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Cuando Jimmy Carter ingresó en cuidados paliativos en su casa de Georgia el año pasado, su familia y amigos pensaron que solo le quedaban unos días de vida. Más de 19 meses después, el martes cumple 100 años y es el primer presidente de la historia de Estados Unidos que alcanza el centenario.El último capítulo de la ya extraordinaria historia de Carter está resultando ser uno de asombrosa resistencia. Este agricultor de maníes convertido en estadista mundial ha superado a lo largo de los años un cáncer cerebral, se ha recuperado de una fractura de cadera y ha sobrevivido a sus adversarios políticos. Y ahora está estableciendo un récord de durabilidad presidencial que puede ser difícil de batir.Aunque frágil y generalmente confinado en su modesta casa de Plains, Georgia, Carter no solo se ha negado a rendirse a la inevitabilidad del tiempo, sino que se ha animado en los últimos meses, según sus familiares. Ha vuelto a fijar su atención un poco más, diciendo a sus hijos y nietos que tiene un nuevo hito que quiere alcanzar: no su cumpleaños, que profesa no importarle mucho, sino el día de las elecciones, para poder votar por la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris.“Es un regalo”, dijo Josh Carter, uno de sus nietos, hablando de los últimos meses. “Es un regalo que no sabía que íbamos a recibir”.Carter ya había superado a todos sus predecesores para convertirse en el presidente más longevo, pero algunos de quienes han experimentado su terca irascibilidad a lo largo de las décadas dijeron que no les sorprendía que se acercara a su segundo siglo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Grandchildren of John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter Help Open DNC Night 2

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      Grandchildren of two Democratic presidents — John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter — helped to open the second night of the Democratic convention on Tuesday by presenting Vice President Kamala Harris as a natural heir to the legacy of both of these former leaders.“Today, J.F.K.’s call for action is now ours to answer,” said Jack Schlossberg, 31. He is the only grandson of Mr. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. “Because once again, the torch has been passed to a new generation.”Jason Carter, a 49-year-old lawyer and politician, said that his grandfather, who is 99 and in hospice care, “can’t wait to vote for Kamala Harris.”“Kamala Harris carries my grandfather’s legacy,” he said. “She knows what is right, and she fights for it.”Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are attending the party’s convention in Chicago. Mr. Carter could not. His grandson said that Mr. Carter was “holding on” and that although the former president’s body was weakening, “his spirit is as strong as ever.”Jason Carter said that Vice President Kamala Harris carried the legacy of his grandfather, Jimmy Carter. “She knows what is right,” he said, “and she fights for it.”Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesThe remarks by Mr. Schlossberg and the younger Mr. Carter reflected the effort by Democrats to wrap the party’s legacy around Ms. Harris, who is 59 years old. Mr. Obama was expected to speak later on Tuesday night, and Mr. Clinton on Wednesday.Mr. Schlossberg portrayed Ms. Harris as a leader who reflected the spirit of his grandfather’s call to the American people.“She believes in America, like my grandfather did,” he said, “that we do things not because they are easy but because they are hard.” More

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      Images of History, From Film to Digital

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      The reporter and photographer David Gonzalez once had to ship his film rolls to The Times’s Manhattan office. But in 1999, he went digital.In the In Times Past column, David W. Dunlap explores New York Times history through artifacts housed in the Museum of The Times.Two notable events in David Gonzalez’s nearly 34-year career at The New York Times occurred in 1999. He was appointed the Central America-Caribbean bureau chief, principally covering Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador and Panama.And he bought his first digital camera.Widely known as a Times reporter and columnist, Mr. Gonzalez is also an accomplished photographer. He served for eight years as co-editor of The Times’s Lens photojournalism blog and is a founding member of the Seis del Sur collective of Puerto Rican and Nuyorican photographers in the Bronx. “The Dancers,” which he took in 1979, depicts an elegant couple swept away by salsa music, rapturously indifferent to the fact that they’re in the middle of a street in the South Bronx.Mr. Gonzalez photographed his first assignments in Central America and the Caribbean on film. He had to ship undeveloped film rolls to The Times’s office in New York for processing, a cumbersome method that gave him no chance to review his work.So he bought a digital Olympus C-2020 in 1999, later upgrading to an Olympus C-4040, which was 4-by-3-by-2 inches and weighed 15 ounces. “I couldn’t afford one of the early Nikon digitals,” Mr. Gonzalez recalled in a recent email. (A Nikon Coolpix 950 cost $999.) “I knew Olympus, and the price was right, about $800. Since correspondents were paid $100 per photo, it paid for itself quickly.”With a digital camera, Mr. Gonzalez was immediately able to see what he’d photographed. He could also transmit his photos to New York with a modem that converted digital files into signals that traveled over telephone lines. Though much slower than a modern internet fiber-optic connection, this method was immensely faster than physical shipping.Mr. Gonzalez used the C-4040 digital camera to photograph the visit of former President Jimmy Carter to Cuba in May 2002.David Gonzalez/The New York TimesMr. Gonzalez used the C-4040 to photograph the visit of former President Jimmy Carter to Cuba in May 2002, a vigil Mass for the martyred Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador in March 2003, and a Three Kings Day celebration in Manhattan.The battery compartment of his C-4040 is now broken and corroded. Otherwise, Mr. Gonzalez might have found an eager buyer among Gen Z influencers who prize digital cameras older than they are.On retiring from The Times last month, Mr. Gonzalez gave the C-4040 to the Museum at The Times. He also offered this reassurance: “I still have lots to say and show.” More

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      Jimmy Carter Said to Have Plans to Vote for Kamala Harris

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      Former President Jimmy Carter, who has been in hospice care for more than 17 months, has said that he has every intention of voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in the fall, according to his family.Mr. Carter, 99, who served as the nation’s 39th president from 1977 to 1981, would turn 100 on Oct. 1. No American president has lived longer than him.Mr. Carter’s son Chip asked his father on Wednesday if he was trying to make it to his 100th birthday, according to the former president’s grandson Jason.“I’m trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris,” Mr. Carter replied, according to the grandson.The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported on the conversation.Ms. Harris did not immediately comment.Mr. Carter appeared gaunt and frail at the funeral ceremony in Atlanta for his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, in November. He has remained at home in Plains, Ga., in hospice care far longer than many would have imagined; most people receive hospice care for less than a month.The early-voting period in Georgia begins on Oct. 15, and Georgia counties are expected to start to mail out absentee ballots about a month before Election Day. Mr. Carter intends to vote by mail, his grandson said.Georgia is one of a handful of battleground states expected to be crucial in the contest between Ms. Harris and Donald J. Trump, who won the state in 2016 but lost it, and the White House, in 2020 to Joseph R. Biden Jr.A CBS News/YouGov poll released on Sunday showed Mr. Trump leading Ms. Harris by three percentage points in the state. But there has been limited public opinion data illuminating the state of the campaign in Georgia since Mr. Biden withdrew and endorsed Ms. Harris last month. More

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      Trump’s Carter Problems vs. Biden’s Reagan Possibilities

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      The low approval rating and various political headwinds for President Biden have invited comparisons with another first-term Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, and the challenges he faced running for re-election in 1980. Many Republicans are thinking about his defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan, bullish that Donald Trump also has what it takes to oust a flagging incumbent.It is true that the 2024 race is shaping up to be a 1980 replay of sorts, but with an important twist. The more significant comparisons could be between Mr. Trump and Mr. Carter and their difficulty in winning over voters and, even more, between Mr. Biden and Mr. Reagan and their attempts to address doubts about their age — which are flaring again for Mr. Biden.To be sure, Carter-Biden comparisons are real: Mr. Biden’s third-year job approval average was the lowest for a sitting president since Mr. Carter’s, and Americans were dissatisfied with the economy and with the direction of the country under both men.But what became increasingly clear throughout 1980 was that there was a ceiling on voter support for Mr. Carter. The electorate had already decided it didn’t want to give him a second term. Mr. Carter’s job approval at the end of March was close to his final 41 percent share of the vote in November.In this year’s race, it is Mr. Trump who closely resembles Mr. Carter in the most important ways, including his ceiling of political support.For one, the most galvanizing and divisive figures in 1980 and today were Mr. Carter and Mr. Trump. As with Mr. Carter, most voters have firm opinions about Mr. Trump. His ability to inspire his base is matched only by his ability to alienate the rest of the electorate — as evidenced by the Republican Party taking beatings in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Picking a Trump V.P.: The Field of Dreams or a Field of Nightmares?

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      Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThis week on “Matter of Opinion,” the hosts do the dirty work of strategizing the best vice-presidential candidate for Donald Trump to campaign with, and break down what goes into consequential (and not so consequential) V.P. picks.Plus, Carlos’s team has a Fightin’ chance next year.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Illustration by The New York Times; Photograph by Olivier Douliery/Getty ImagesMentioned in this episode:“Picking the Vice President,” by Elaine Kamarck“Which Trump Toady Would the MAGA King Pick as His No. 2?” by Michelle Cottle in The Times“The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,” by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser“Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President,” by Jimmy CarterThoughts? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.Follow our hosts on X: Michelle Cottle (@mcottle), Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) and Carlos Lozada (@CarlosNYT).“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Derek Arthur and Sophia Alvarez Boyd. It is edited by Alison Bruzek. Mixing by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Isaac Jones, Efim Shapiro, Carole Sabouraud, Sonia Herrero and Pat McCusker. Our fact-checking team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie-Rose Strasser. More