The Active Ex-President

While the President of the United States, George W. Bush, was planning war on Iraq in the autumn of 2002, former President Jimmy Carter was awarded the Peace Prize for undertaking peace negotiations, campaigning for human rights, and working for social welfare. According to the Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Carter ought to have been awarded the Prize as early as in 1978, when he successfully mediated a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.

Jimmy Carter was born in Georgia. In 1953, after a military career, he took over his parents' farm near the town of Plains. He went into politics as a Democrat, and was elected Governor of Georgia. In 1976 Carter won the presidential election, partly thanks to his reputation as an honest born-again Christian.

The high-point of his presidential term was the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. Thereafter, he experienced several setbacks in his foreign policy, such as the conflict with Iran after the fall of the Shah and a new cold war with the Soviet Union after that country's invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. In the following year Carter lost the presidential election to Ronald Reagan. As ex-President, Carter conducted an active peace and mediation campaign which sometimes seemed to run counter to official US policy.