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Jimmy Carter, the model of a democratic president. A personal testimony
Emil Constantinescu
Following the 1992 presidential elections, in which I qualified to the run-off and was nominated as the sole candidate of the democratic opposition for the next elections, I was often asked overseas what my model of a democratic president was. I had no hesitation in answering: it was Jimmy Carter, because of his moral rectitude before his presidency, during his time in office and especially after his term.
However, no one in Romania asked me this question, and the elections that preceded and succeeded those of 1996 showed quite clearly that, in fact, the majority of voters often cast their ballots in favor of people who were proposed to them precisely because they were susceptible to blackmail, and later re-elected them in full knowledge of that fact. There are also plenty of heads of state who have no need of a role model, regarding themselves as a deserving model for others to emulate.
As we live at a time when the model of authoritarian presidents seems to be prevailing over that of a democratic leader - not only in dictatorial regimes, in shopfront democracies, but even in established democracies such as the United States, I have decided to forgo my own disengagement from domestic politics, which I have observed for over two decades, and to draw upon the all too fleeting emotional impact of President Carter's recent passing to evoke why, and since when, he had become my model of a truly democratic president, who was driven throughout his life by moral principles and by the national interest, rather than by personal, political or financial gain.
That first impetus arrived in 1991, when I was a visiting professor of mineralogy at Duke University. Like any intellectual in the East, I had been a fan of the Republican Party, and I had just been visited by David Funderburk, a Republican hawk and former American ambassador to Ceaușescu's Romania, when I received an invitation from Zbigniew Brzeziński, a Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, to attend the anniversary of the former Institute of Soviet Studies, which had recently been transformed into the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Brzeziński had been President Carter's National Security Adviser from 1977 to 1981, a position often considered more important than that of Vice-president or Secretary of State when it comes to international policy decisions. Alongside Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's Secretary of State, whom I met at Harvard, Brzeziński is considered to have been the chief strategist of American foreign policy. In 1989, in his book "The Grand Failure," he predicted the birth and death of communism in the twentieth century, the dissolution of the USSR and the global repercussions that would follow. Today, when former communist propagandists have flooded the internet with Carter's eulogizing address given during Ceaușescu's 1975 visit to the White House, I remember how Brzeziński explained to me the political context of the Cold War, the considerations behind the deployment of the Romanian dictator in the interests of American global policy, as well as his subsequent rejection when he became the last Stalinist-type communist dictator in the Gorbachev era.
As a Warsaw-born Pole, Zbigniew Brzeziński was keenly interested in the direction Romania would take. We kept in touch over the years, and he gave me much sound counsel. First of all, regarding Romania's relationship with Poland, in order to act as a bulwark against any future westward expansion from Russia. Then, his suggestion of establishing a trilateral between Poland - Romania - Ukraine, upon whose launch in Bucharest, alongside Presidents Kwaśniewski and Kuchma, I received his sincere congratulations. In 1998, he offered me his newly-published book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, which bore a heartfelt dedication to Romania's continued success on its road to EU and NATO accession.
In 1997, during the first year of my presidential term, I had followed Brzeziński's advice to preserve our relationship with China, following Carter's model, and also to initiate, in conjunction with Turkey, closer relations with the newly independent countries of Central Asia, to whom he had dedicated two chapters in his book: "The Eurasia Chessboard," and "The Eurasian Balkans."
After I, alongside Presidents Shevardnadze, Demirel and Aliyev, launched the project for a "Rebirth of the Silk Road", he invited me to present the project at Georgetown University in Washington, in the presence of the former national security advisers of the last presidents, after I had pledged to ensure the attendance of the presidents of the Central Asian republics. For this event, I received President Carter's personal congratulations.
A man of religious beliefs steers a global superpower
In 1997, five months into my presidential term, I would receive Peter Bourne, President Carter's Special White House Counsel, an anthropologist, medical doctor and Professor of psychiatry, at the Cotroceni Palace. He had arrived in Bucharest to present me with his book, Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography from Plains to Post-Presidency, which was accompanied by a warm dedication: “To President Emil Constantinescu. I hope this story of President Carter will help to inspire you as you work to create democracy. With best wishes." I have read it over and again with rapt attention, and it has greatly inspired me in the decisions I have made over the past three decades.
By the time my term of office ended and I was able to pursue a closer personal relationship, I knew almost everything there was to know about President Carter publicly; and I believe that, at this present conjuncture, it would be useful for many Romanians to come to know the course of his life that spanned an entire century. Our rapprochement deepened over the last 17 years, framed by President Carter’s patronage of the Habitat for Humanity project which drew me in not only because of its noble aim – building houses for the needy or victims of natural disasters – but, above all, because of its underlying philosophy. Only those who have a job, pay a small, symbolic contribution over the years, and also work alongside volunteers to build the houses that the Foundation sponsors and furnishes with everything needed for a new start in life, qualify for this aid.
As an elected member of Habitat for Humanity’s Steering Committee, I have taken part in construction sites in countries on every continent, including in Romania and the United States, as well as in the annual meetings held in Atlanta and Americus that usually coincided with President Carter's birthday. For me, among the most significant of these events was the "Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter 2008 Work Project" held in Pascagoula, Biloxi and Gulf Port to help families that had been gravely affected by Hurricane Katrina. In just five days, a total of 108 hurricane-damaged homes were rebuilt and rehabilitated by volunteers. For those five days, I worked alongside Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, on one of the homes being built for a widow of colour; and was afforded the honour of giving the keynote address at the President’s closing dinner.
Outside of the United States, Romania was the only country in the world to participate in this project with both volunteers and money graciously provided by OMV Bucharest. This was a dignified response to the prior actions funded by the American Foundation, where American volunteers took part in construction efforts in the Romanian cities of Rădăuți, Băltești, Băiceș and Oarja.
In 2009, President Carter gifted me his 20th published work, Our Endangered Values, a meditation on the rare situation wherein a man of religious beliefs comes to steer a global superpower. One year later, on the occasion of his birthday he celebrated in the Dominican Republic, I had the opportunity to present him the English-language version of my memoir, "A Time of Tearing Down, A Time of Building Up," in which he found many shared personal convictions.
In December 2013, we met again in Johannesburg for the funeral of President Nelson Mandela, a man who, after a long life spent in prison, had become a president of interracial reconciliation. In July 2017, at the during the 5th World Justice Forum whose co-founder and board member I was, I, Jimmy Carter and the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, were awarded the titles of Honorary Chairs of the World Justice Project Foundation. I cannot conclude this review of our long and fruitful cooperation without also mentioning the pivotal role that President Carter’s wife, companion and soulmate, Rosalynn, with whom he shared a 77-year marriage, played in President Carter's life.
Jimmy Carter, surprisingly well informed on developments in Romania
I found both Jimmy Carter and his wife to be surprisingly well-informed about developments in Romania, and one of their recurring questions was: how could I, as Romania’s third President (according to American terminology) build a democratic society and move towards Euro-Atlantic integration when our first President had been sentenced to death and summarily executed for ordering the murders of participants attending a peaceful anti-communist revolt, while our second was under investigation for allegedly having committed crimes against humanity? They were somewhat obsessed by the relationship with the Ceaușescus.
In October 2011, I had the opportunity to talk at length with Rosalynn Carter, over the course of several days she spent in Tunis as part of a delegation from the National Democratic Institute for the Supervision of the First Free Elections in Tunisia that marked the beginning of the Arab Spring following uprisings against the dictator Bourguiba. The delegation, led by a US governor, had initially rejected by the country’s interim Prime minister on the grounds that, having already escaped French colonial rule, their presence could be interpreted as tacit approval for becoming an American colony. However, when I was put forward to become its co-president, the delegation was accepted and received by the Prime-minister precisely because of the close relationship between Bourguiba and Ceaușescu coupled with the good reputation that the Romanian specialists who had worked in Tunisia following the agreement they signed enjoyed, as well as the many Tunisian students trained in Romanian universities, some of whom even had diplomas that I, as Rector of the University of Bucharest, had personally signed.
The first question Rosalynn asked me was: how was my wife? In 1997, my wife, who had been advancing her legal career at the Ministry of Justice and the European Commission on Human Rights since 1991, had received a personal invitation to attend a conference organized by Rosalynn Carter. We decided, together, that it would be best for her not to attend, precisely because it was too early for the position of First Lady after Elena Ceaușescu's visit to Washington during the Carter administration, and I have come to understand that she would have wanted to make a comparison between them.
Now, at the close of this lengthy confession, what lessons could we draw from President Carter's extensive life experience? First, I want to add that I was not the only one to choose him as the model of a moral president. As one of the few survivors from among the first democratic presidents of the former communist dictatorships of Central and Eastern Europe, who formed a true family in the final decade of the 20th century, I remember that we often evoked President Carter’s figure during our private meetings – above all, because he appeared, somehow, to be strikingly similar to us. He had authored of dozens of books, memoirs, novels, poems, political and economic studies, as well as travel literature, and was also a passionate painter. He was a tenured professor at Emory University in Atlanta, with a teaching career that had begun with Baptist Sunday School classes and continued for 37 years, until 2019.
For those who have forgotten, or those who do not know, I would like to issue a reminder that the first democratic presidents of former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe also came from among the ranks of the academic elite: Czech President Vacłav Havel was a prolific author; Hungarian President Arpad Göntz – the President of the Writers' Union; Bulgarian President Jelio Jelev was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sofia; Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis was the Rector of the Vilnius University of Music; Estonian President Lennart Meri was a playwright, director and university Rector; the President of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich, was a renowned scholar in nuclear physics; the President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosian was a celebrated author; the President of Slovakia, Ivan Gašparovič was the co-author of the Slovakian Constitution; the President of Croatia, Stjepan Mesić was a renowned jurist; the President of Albania, Sali Berisha, was a cardiologist; the President of Latvia, Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga was a trained psychologist and a Professor at the University of Montreal. Nor could I fail to mention the group of distinguished intellectuals around the President of Poland, President Lech Wałęsa.
We shared common beliefs and common values. We were not interested in extending our term in presidential office. Indeed – very much like President Carter himself – the majority of us only ever served one term, during which paid the price of painful political, social, and economic reforms domestically, and faced difficult geopolitical events internationally. Another similarity between us is that none of us were ever interested in material gain. We left behind libraries and nonprofit organizations modelled after the Carter Centre.
Authoritarian, populist and often corrupt leaders vs. honest leaders dedicated to the public good
Beyond these personal affinities, which perhaps offered us a greater appreciation of President Carter than his fellow countrymen who could have learned from the legacy Jimmy Carter left to posterity and why it should be known and analysed, in this period of a global crisis of democracy marked by the rift created between contemporary Western civilization and the European culture that underpinned it on the one hand, and by the supplanting of a society based on humanist ideals with a society based on interests and profit on the other, the first question which we must answer is: why do people, today, prefer authoritarian, populist and often corrupt leaders to honest leaders dedicated to the public good?
We can draw the first answer from the life of President Carter himself – a life that spanned 100 years, for only 4 of which he was president. The conclusion we might draw is that it is no misfortune to be a “former president”; the graver issue is to be a “former citizen,” a form of political dispassion that carries with it the consequence that underpins the issue of all democracies today: it is not only a question of the poor quality of their leaders, but also one of the poor quality of a majority of their citizens, who elect leaders in their own image and likeness, instead on grounds of their intellectual or moral superiority. It is no less obvious that this is a result of our generalized wellbeing, since hard times foster strength and easy ones, weakness.
A history personally lived can itself provide an overview of the history of an entire people. Jimmy Carter's life spanned the Great Depression of the 1930s; the tragedy of World War II; racial segregation in the United States; as well as his early failures as an enterprising farmer. President Carter’s destiny was shaped by his choice of a difficult path, pursuing undergraduate studies in engineering at an institute of technology.
In 1943, at the height of World War II, Carter enrolled in the US Naval Academy to prepare for a military career. After graduation, he stayed on as a ship officer on a vessel tasked with patrolling the Pacific west coast. He later joined the American nuclear submarine programme.
In 1952, when an accident flooded the basement of a nuclear reactor building with millions of gallons of radioactive water, Carter led a crew tasked with shutting the reactor down. He himself went down into that basement to disassemble the crippled reactor, his protective gear nevertheless exposing himself to great levels of radioactivity. As I often remark in my interactions with young people today, courage can only be talked about in the past tense, and can only refer to the risks you personally faced. Empathy is, in turn, limited to what we have experienced, not to what we can imagine. I know this because, despite being 15 years younger than Carter, as a child I too experienced first-hand the horrors of war with its countless dead and wounded; taking refuge from the Soviet army in Bessarabia; my grandparents' house in Ploiesti being destroyed by US air raids; the Red Army’s occupation; the drought and famine that followed the war; the polio pandemic; the terror unleashed by the communist dictatorship in the 1950s, with the arrest of numerous family members, suspicion and betrayals; the penury and shortages that characterized the final period of the Communist dictatorship; the death, injury and torture of my close relatives during the popular uprising in December 1989; as well as the senseless aggression of the Mineriads of 1990. This all prepared my generation, like Jimmy Carter's own, to ever better face the vicissitudes that followed.
Any account of Jimmy Carter's life marks his evolution from being a simple individual, through emerging as a personality endowed with assumed convictions and beliefs that is capable of passing them on to those around them, to becoming a historical figure making decisions that influence the life of not only his nation, but also of the world at large.
His self-confidence and tenacity gradually built his political career from Senator and then Governor of Georgia to Candidate and then President of the United States. Through little fault of his own, Carter's tenure was marked by a stagnant economy, bad inflation, severe recession, an energy crisis, oil shortages and job losses. Despite all this, Carter nevertheless initiated and spearheaded US healthcare reform, and also created the State Department for Education. Internationally, he responded to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, brokered the Camp David Accords between Israel and Palestine, and promoted closer relations with the People's Republic of China by establishing diplomatic relations in 1979, which led to an explosion in trade between the US and a China that was implementing economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping.
Jimmy Carter will also go down in history for ratifying the SALT 2 treaty with the Soviet Union, limiting nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Indeed he has often been more profusely appreciated for his post-presidential work and his diplomatic, humanitarian and cultural achievements, which were crowned, in 2002, with the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, I believe that, with the passage of time, President Carter’s presidential term will also come to be more positively re-evaluated. In this regard, I have been impressed by two positions the former American president adopted: his refusal to greenlight development of neutron bombs, for reasons of religious conscience; and his determination not to conceal the failure of the operation to rescue American hostages in Iran, in which eight soldiers died in the crash of two American airplanes, from the broader American people – despite this playing a major role in his re-election chances collapsing dramatically.
When I was born, Hitler and Stalin, two of the greatest criminals of modern history, were still in power, adored by their peoples. Since, dozens of dictators have ended up assassinated, their statues demolished and their graves desecrated. Why do other leaders who follow this path always find supporters? In terms of understanding the character of a dictator, I was reminded of a meeting I had with Eduard Shevardnadze, who architected the Cold War’s end. He told me that he had met Ceaușescu many times, and that the latter had always avoided his gaze whenever they had spoken face to face; yet, like other dictators, he did not tremble in the face of death. I came to realize that the only thing dictators are afraid to face is Truth; the truth about themselves, about the world around them, and the truth of the merciless future that awaited whatever grandiose posterity they had worked so hard to build, for a fleeting eternity, over the course of their lifetimes.
For me, Jimmy Carter’s warm gaze, and the bright smile of a man at peace with himself, remain fondly cherished memories. In these turbulent times, I believe this is also the message he leaves to future generations, underscoring the respect we owe to those who have dedicated their lives to the service of truth, justice, and greater understanding among people.
