Jimmy Carter 'happiest' on missions

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By Greg Bluestein ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jimmy Carter strides through an impoverished neighborhood of the Dominican town of Dajabon, where cattle mope behind a tangle of barbed wires, the heat suffocates and the air is thick with mosquitoes.

He marches to a bluff overlooking a river, the sun glinting off his "JC" belt buckle, followed by a pack of barefoot children and their sun-drenched parents. He clutches each hand that comes his way, occasionally dropping a "muchas gracias" laced with his Southern twang.

When he gets to a hovel owned by Juan Taveres, a weathered grandfather whose family once was afflicted by malaria, he eases into a rocking chair. Roosters crow, reporters shuffle, but it seems they could talk all day if not for the waiting convoy rumbling up the hill.

"There's no malaria here, right?" Mr. Carter asks.

No, Mr. Taveres responds eagerly.

"And none in the future," Mr. Carter declares.

He flashes that smile — the megawatt grin beloved of editorial cartoonists, an incongruous trademark of a disappointing one-term presidency.

Nearly three decades have passed since Mr. Carter left office. He is 85 years old. Yet here he is, in a torrid, desolate corner of the world pushing two reluctant Caribbean neighbors to fight malaria, a disease long eradicated from richer countries.

And he is smiling, because this is what he does. Since leaving the White House, he has logged millions of miles and visited dozens of countries on missions to wipe out diseases, mediate conflicts, advocate for human rights and monitor elections. He has built a legacy that few, if any, American ex-presidents can match.

"I would say that this life, for the last 25 or 30 years since we left the White House, has been the most enjoyable and the most gratifying," he says.