The death of Jimmy Carter, president of the United States of America between 1977 and 1981, is also the death of one of the most ethical presidents in U.S. history. Although I didn’t agree with some of his policies, I felt a great admiration for Carter. A series of problems marked his tenure, among them a failed invasion of Iran. On November 4, 1979, fundamentalist Iranian students forcibly invaded the United States embassy in Teheran, and took 66 Americans hostage. The Iranian students’ actions were in response to what they perceived was the U.S. attempt to undermine the Iranian Revolution and because of the U.S. continued support for the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The crisis paralyzed the administration of President Carter, who was unable to achieve their release.

Carter supported an effort to rescue the hostages proposed by his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. On April 24, 1980, a group of 118 soldiers from the prestigious Delta Force landed in a desert area south of Teheran, with the aim of releasing them. The operation, called Eagle Claw, failed disastrously. Three of the helicopters had serious failures and their mission was canceled. Another helicopter, that took off from their desert base, crashed. Eight soldiers died in that attempt.

The Delta Force had to be evacuated leaving the dead soldiers abandoned in place. The Iran mission made evident serious deficiencies within the U.S. military command structure, and led to the creation of the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM.) The Iranians celebrated the disaster and, although the popularity of President Carter increased momentarily for his determination to put an end to the crisis, the rise in inflation and the problems of the U.S. economy had a disastrous effect on his presidency, which never recovered.

Carter's failure in this incident does not at all eliminate my admiration for his human rights policy, which he made a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. He achieved important goals during his presidency, such as the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel that are still valid, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II (SALT II,) an arms control agreement signed in 1979 in Vienna between Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev, the normalization of diplomatic and trade relations with China, and immigration reform, among many other actions aimed at improving Americans’ quality of life.

In the health area, the almost total eradication of guinea worm disease was possible thanks to Jimmy Carter, whose Foundation, the Carter Center, led eradication efforts since 1986. Guinea worm disease, although seldom fatal, causes tremendous suffering to those affected, many of them children. The work of the Carter Center alongside other organizations led to a 99.9% reduction of guinea worm disease in just 40 years, and is on track to becoming the second human disease in history to be eradicated. In addition, through disease surveillance, low-cost prevention and treatment methods, and health delivery systems, the Center has been active in the fight against malaria and other neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as malaria, river blindness, trachoma, schistosomiasis, and lymphatic filariasis.

Carter named human rights activist Patricia Derian as his Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights from 1977 to 1981. The Times of London called her, “a courageous champion of civil rights who took on some of the world's most brutal dictators in her role as a senior American diplomat.” Carter called her, “a champion of oppressed people around the world.”

In 1979, Derian headed an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights delegation to Argentina to investigate widespread abuses by the military junta in which tens of thousands of Argentines were made “to disappear,” a brutal euphemism for their murder by the military ruling the country. At a meeting in Argentina in 1977, she openly accused military leaders of torturing prisoners. As a native Argentinian, I am thankful to Derian for her role in bringing the Argentine military to task for their abuses. Although they were brave against the powerless, they were terrified when Patricia Derian confronted them.

During a visit to New York, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, a Nobel Peace Laureate from Argentina, invited me to a meeting with President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. I would help as a translator for Pérez Esquivel. The meeting took place in historical Grace Church, located on the corner of 10th Street and Broadway. This Episcopal church belongs to the Diocese of New York. During the meeting, the conflicts in Central America, and the role of the United States in those conflicts, were discussed. I still remember when, although more than 40 years of this event passed, with amazing humility, President Carter asked Pérez Esquivel: “And what do you think, Adolfo, that the United States should do in Central America?” Pérez Esquivel thought for a few seconds and said: “Mr. President, I think that the United States should stop its policy of intervention in those countries.”

Both the question and the answer seemed to me an amazing lesson of democracy, so beaten these days in our continent. And it showed Carter in all its majestic decency.