Jimmy Carter, A Man of Uncommon Decency

My personal memories of Jimmy Carter are very much tied to China, partly because that’s where I met him, introduced by my graduate school adviser, Mike Oksenberg. My political understanding of the soft-spoken president was also influenced by Oksenberg’s fascination with power politics, and all things Chinese, as I was Oksenberg’s graduate teaching assistant at the University of Michigan after he left the White House National Security Council. 

Jimmy Carter, who, as Professor Oksenberg liked to remind his students, was never called “Jimmy” in the White House, but rather “Mister President,” made a personal visit to China in 1987. Press reports from the time show him being warmly hugged Deng Xiaoping. 

The optics of the two men in deep embrace, while then very much in tune with the generally optimistic tenor of U.S.-China diplomacy, took on another hue after 1989 due to Deng’s use of force during the Tiananmen crackdown. 

The same image would be subject to ruthless ridicule today, for unrelated reasons, namely because outing people for the perception of being “soft” on communism is again all the rage. 

For better or worse, Carter and his China advisor Oksenberg were key players in the formal establishment of U.S.-China relations, and their careers remain emblematic of the forward-looking optimism marked by mutual respect that characterized the golden age of U.S.-China relations. 

Of his China advisor, Carter said for the record: "Mike Oksenberg changed my life—and changed the life of this country, and to some degree changed the life of every citizen of China.” 

A polite exaggeration perhaps, and a way of showing respect for the recently deceased Oksenberg, but there is some truth in that broad statement. 

It’s hard to imagine what China would be like today had the two countries not normalized. It’s easy to forget that normalization was not an easy feat to pull off given the grandstanding of politicians running interference, the deep historical reservoir of distrust, and the many skeptics on both sides. 

Over a long and productive life, Jimmy Carter set a quiet standard for diplomacy and decency that is hard to match in the rough and tumble politics of the current age. His broad appeal in his run for presidency in 1976 was not so much his projection of folksy southern charm, his sharp mind or his conciliatory, eager-to-please attitude but his common decency in a country still waking up from the nightmare of the Nixon years.  

Bill Kovach, former Washington, D.C. bureau chief for The New York Times and later the curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, once described Jimmy Carter’s pick for Vice-President, Walter Mondale, as “a man you would trust with the keys to your house,” and I think that is an apt description of Jimmy Carter as well. 

Whether Carter was tough enough for the contact sport of U.S. politics is another question, and one that has dogged Carter throughout his record-breaking tenure as the longest-lived President. 

The media wasn’t always easy on Carter, and he didn’t always make things easy for himself, but his Republican opponents who constituted the Reagan juggernaut were mean-spirited, full of dirty tricks and eventually effective foils to his guileless self-presentation. 

But decency, like Carter himself, is an under-rated virtue, and even though it is easily eclipsed or quashed, it has a staying power that outlasts the braggadocio of indecent men. 

Consider the famous quip that clipped the wings of the right-wing fanatic, red-baiting Joe McCarthy. 

Responding to McCarthy’s reckless tendency to insult others and characterize anyone who he wanted to destroy politically as a communist, U.S. Army lawyer Joseph Welch snapped back, with a stinging line worth quoting in full: 

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” 

It is worth noting that McCarthy’s counsel at the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings was a ruthless, predatory lawyer named Roy Cohn, whose claim to fame was prosecuting both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying (of which he was guilty and she was not). Cohn’s unrelenting prosecution led to the conviction and controversial execution of the couple. 

It might be added that Cohn later became a close mentor of the young Donald Trump, who was frequently criticized in the press and up to his neck in lawsuits. Among other things, Cohn, who was nationally known for his attack-dog tactics, taught his protégé that the best defense was to go on the offense, with prejudice. 

Cohn’s unethical behavior eventually led to him being disbarred and Trump was impeached and convicted for using the kind of tactics Cohn would have approved of. 

Which serves as a reminder that while indecency may trump decency in the short term, it rarely ends up with a good outcome. 

There is much about President Carter’s one-term in office that can be criticized, including his sometimes overly earnest and self-reflective public persona, to the more serious shortcomings of his handling of the Iran crisis, though the latter cannot be fairly appraised without taking the underhanded intrigue of Republican operatives into account. Perhaps the truest test to judge a president’s character, though, is not just a day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of tenure in office, but how the incumbent conducts himself when out of power. 

In this respect, Jimmy Carter has given historians a rich lode of information for character evaluation because he continued to be active as a citizen for four and a half decades after relinquishing power. Out of office, he dedicated his life to what he saw as the public good, including his affordable housing initiatives, and repeated visits to China, even after the blush went off the rose of U.S.-China relations. 

There is a sense that Carter, like many American politicians, never stopped running for president, even though he’d been there and done that in what he characterized as an adventurous and interesting life. When I met him, he had a way of looking you straight in the eye, making a point to remember your name and talk in kind and courteous terms. 

In his old age, he could still be seen pressing the flesh, greeting travellers in the economy section of the Delta jet he was travelling on, shaking hands with all takers as a secret service man quietly trailed behind. 

Indeed it is tempting to dodge the question of Carter’s presidential legacy by noting that he was likely the best ex-president in American history.