As the remains of Jimmy Carter arrive in Washington, D.C., as part of a weeklong state funeral, we speak with historian Greg Grandin about the former U.S. president’s legacy. Carter, who served a single term from 1977 to 1981, promised to restore faith in government after the twin traumas of Watergate and the Vietnam War and to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward upholding human rights. “He came to power promising … a new kind of doctrine, that the United States was moving away from both the ideological excess and the support for dictatorships that led to wars like Vietnam or coups in Chile,” says Grandin. “Pretty quickly, events got ahead of him.” Carter’s “mixed and confused” legacy was nowhere more apparent than in Latin America, where he moved to limit aid to some right-wing dictatorships while supporting others, especially in Central America. He also began funding the mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan, which ultimately led to the Taliban and the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda. “For all of his decency and humanity, especially compared to the … clown circus that we’re living under now, we have to look at the more unfortunate legacies of Carter’s administration,” says Grandin.
