Carter Center marks 20 years
ATLANTA -- Jimmy Carter didn't know what to do when he left office, but he knew that he wasn't ready for a quiet retirement.
''When I left the White House, four years earlier than I had anticipated, I realized that I had 25 more years of active life,'' Carter told The Associated Press in a recent interview. ''What was I going to do with the rest of my life? I was a defeated candidate. I never was going to run for office again.''
Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, decided to join with Emory University and form the Carter Center, an Atlanta-based agency devoted to -- well, at first, they weren't exactly sure what it was devoted to.
''There had never been an organization like the Carter Center in history,'' he said. ''There was a lot of skepticism about whether we could be effective or not.''
As the agency turns 20 this year, the Carters and others believe it has evolved into one of the more successful nonprofit agencies, providing poor countries with help in health care, agriculture and conflict resolution. Among the center's biggest triumphs: helping avoid military confrontations in Korea and Haiti, eliminating Guinea worm in several African countries and helping monitor elections around the world.
But Carter's original vision for the center was more simple. He saw a place to expand on perhaps the greatest success of his administration, negotiating a peace accord between Israel and Egypt.
''I had been the leader of the greatest nation in the world. I had access to almost any person on earth with whom I wanted to consult,'' said Carter, 77. ''I first thought just to establish the Carter Center as a place, like a small version of Camp David, so I could invite people here who had a conflict, either an existing war or a prospective war, and I would negotiate a peace agreement.''
But Rosalynn had ideas for a broader agency.
''I wanted to continue my mental health work and Jimmy was focused on human rights and resolving conflicts,'' she said. ''In the beginning, it seemed a little disconnected but the way it evolved just seemed kind of natural to us.''
Says Emory University President William Chace, ''President Carter has been very proud of the fact that it is not a think tank,'' said Chace, who also sits on the center's board of trustees.
William Ury, director of the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard University, has been on peacekeeping missions in the Sudan and Ethiopia with the center.
''President Carter and his team have helped prevent major wars, whether it's in Korea, a conflict that actually had nuclear implications, or in Haiti, where they staved off a potentially violent conflict,'' Ury said. ''They pay attention to problems that no one else is paying attention to, whether they are health problems in Africa or whether they're long-forgotten conflicts in some other part of the world.''
You can't make changes just through politics, Carter says.
''You can't separate peace from democracy from human rights from environmental quality from alleviation of suffering -- they're all tied together,'' he said. ''That's something that we've come to realize much more clearly since I've left the White House.''
The Carters make time for themselves and their family. They fly-fish and hike. They volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization unaffiliated with the center. He also teaches Sunday school and is a deacon of the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, his home town.
''Over the last 10 years, Rosa and I have withdrawn substantially from the operation,'' Carter said. ''We go to the high-profile places like Cuba and Venezuela, but the work of the Carter Center goes on everyday.''
''I laid down, in the very beginning, several basic premises,'' Carter said. ''The most important one is that we don't duplicate what anyone else does. If the United Nations or the World Bank, or the U.S. government or Harvard University is meeting a need effectively, we don't compete with them. The Carter Center just goes to fill vacuums.''
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On the Net:
The Carter Center: http://www.cartercenter.org
CREDIT:AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera, File
CAPTION:Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, left, shakes hands with Cuban President Fidel Castro as former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, right, looks on upon the Carter's arrival to Havana, Cuba, in this May 12 photo.
HEAD:Carter Center marks 20 years
BYLINE1:By TANIA FUENTEZ
BYLINE2:Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA -- Jimmy Carter didn't know what to do when he left office, but he knew that he wasn't ready for a quiet retirement.
''When I left the White House, four years earlier than I had anticipated, I realized that I had 25 more years of active life,'' Carter told The Associated Press in a recent interview. ''What was I going to do with the rest of my life? I was a defeated candidate. I never was going to run for office again.''
Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, decided to join with Emory University and form the Carter Center, an Atlanta-based agency devoted to -- well, at first, they weren't exactly sure what it was devoted to.
''There had never been an organization like the Carter Center in history,'' he said. ''There was a lot of skepticism about whether we could be effective or not.''
As the agency turns 20 this year, the Carters and others believe it has evolved into one of the more successful nonprofit agencies, providing poor countries with help in health care, agriculture and conflict resolution. Among the center's biggest triumphs: helping avoid military confrontations in Korea and Haiti, eliminating Guinea worm in several African countries and helping monitor elections around the world.
But Carter's original vision for the center was more simple. He saw a place to expand on perhaps the greatest success of his administration, negotiating a peace accord between Israel and Egypt.
''I had been the leader of the greatest nation in the world. I had access to almost any person on earth with whom I wanted to consult,'' said Carter, 77. ''I first thought just to establish the Carter Center as a place, like a small version of Camp David, so I could invite people here who had a conflict, either an existing war or a prospective war, and I would negotiate a peace agreement.''
But Rosalynn had ideas for a broader agency.
''I wanted to continue my mental health work and Jimmy was focused on human rights and resolving conflicts,'' she said. ''In the beginning, it seemed a little disconnected but the way it evolved just seemed kind of natural to us.''
Says Emory University President William Chace, ''President Carter has been very proud of the fact that it is not a think tank,'' said Chace, who also sits on the center's board of trustees.
William Ury, director of the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard University, has been on peacekeeping missions in the Sudan and Ethiopia with the center.
''President Carter and his team have helped prevent major wars, whether it's in Korea, a conflict that actually had nuclear implications, or in Haiti, where they staved off a potentially violent conflict,'' Ury said. ''They pay attention to problems that no one else is paying attention to, whether they are health problems in Africa or whether they're long-forgotten conflicts in some other part of the world.''
You can't make changes just through politics, Carter says.
''You can't separate peace from democracy from human rights from environmental quality from alleviation of suffering -- they're all tied together,'' he said. ''That's something that we've come to realize much more clearly since I've left the White House.''
The Carters make time for themselves and their family. They fly-fish and hike. They volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization unaffiliated with the center. He also teaches Sunday school and is a deacon of the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, his home town.
''Over the last 10 years, Rosa and I have withdrawn substantially from the operation,'' Carter said. ''We go to the high-profile places like Cuba and Venezuela, but the work of the Carter Center goes on everyday.''
''I laid down, in the very beginning, several basic premises,'' Carter said. ''The most important one is that we don't duplicate what anyone else does. If the United Nations or the World Bank, or the U.S. government or Harvard University is meeting a need effectively, we don't compete with them. The Carter Center just goes to fill vacuums.''
------
On the Net:
The Carter Center: http://www.cartercenter.org