Jimmy Carter wants to die at home – 02/21/2023 – Elio Gaspari

At the age of 98, former US President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) decided to die on the ranch where his family grew peanuts. He has left the hospital and receives palliative care only. Like George Bush 1 (1989-1993) and Donald Trump (2017-2021), Carter lost re-election and that failure marked him. Despite that, he was a president who put democratic values ​​back on the American foreign policy agenda. Brazilian redemocratization owes him a lot.

In a trick of the times, there are many Brazilian cities with John Kennedy avenues. He radiated youth, was murdered and became an icon. For Brazil, he was a subsidiary architect of the overthrow of João Goulart. In March 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson mobilized a naval force to eventually help the rebellious military, he just followed a script left by Kennedy.

The Brazilian dictatorship had in Presidents Johnson (1963-1969) and Richard Nixon (1969-1974) two faithful allies. In December 1971, when General Emílio Garrastazu Médici went to Washington, Nixon was prophetic: “We know that, wherever Brazil goes, the Latin American continent will go”. In 1973, the democratic regimes of Uruguay and Chile failed. In 1976 it was Argentina’s turn.

Jimmy Carter was an unimpressive governor of Georgia. He was elected defending the values ​​of American democracy, shaken by the scandals of Richard Nixon. During the campaign, with a brief reference to Brazil, he announced that he would prioritize human rights in his diplomacy. He provoked some nervousness, but he seemed like a candidate. (He took a spiteful letter from the former American military attaché in Brasilia.)

Elected, he got into trouble with the Nuclear Agreement that Brazil had signed with Germany. A professor who had been expelled from Brazil was included in his delegation to the United Nations. Worse: A Brazilian general serving in Washington reported that the new ambassador to the UN was Andrew Young, “black”. Another general feared “an infiltration of communist, or at least leftist, elements into the highest levels of government.”

A climate of cordial antipathy was established between Carter’s government and that of General Ernesto Geisel. A report on political violence in Brazil opened a crisis with the United States, and Geisel broke the military cooperation agreement with Washington.

In 1977, Carter sent his wife, Rosalynn, to Brazil. She has two encounters with Geisel (including a brief spat). In addition, she publicly interviewed two American missionaries who lived among the poor in Recife and had been mistreated by the police.

Carter never raised the tone in the mood of cordial dislike. He came to Brazil as president, met with Geisel and, the next day, met representatives of civil society in Rio. Among them, the president of the OAB, Raymundo Faoro, and the cardinal of São Paulo, d. Paulo Evaristo Arns. Slyly, he asked d. Paulo to accompany him in the car to the airport.

(Geisel did not forgive Carter for sending the woman, and years later, when they were both out of power, refused to see him and did not answer the phone when he called.)

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