Plains, Georgia — When former President Jimmy Carter When he left the White House in 1981, few expected that his humble hometown of Plains, Georgia – population 557 – would become his launching pad to the world – including his U.S. Secret Service representative.

“We flew from the middle of nowhere Africa all the way back to nearby Americus, Georgia,” recalled Alex Parker, the longtime special agent in charge of Carter, who traveled with the 39th president to more than 140 countries.

Carter, a peanut farmer turned Navy submariner, governor, president and humanitarian, earned another title as he lived to be 100 years old on October 1. The US Secret Service’s longest protective mission.

A dangerous assignment

Special Agent in Charge Bill Bush became one of the first Americans to enter North Korea after the Korean War ended when he accompanied Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter to the DMZ.

“We have been told by our State Department and many other agencies that you cannot carry weapons into North Korea – you cannot do this, you cannot do that,” Bush said as he narrated. cutting through the bureaucratic red tape. “My question to them is always, ‘Tell me how many times you’ve been to North Korea and what it’s like?’ And of course no one had ever been there before.”

Bush chuckled as he explained the U.S. Secret Service’s surprisingly pleasant coordination with North Korean security forces. “We have never been treated so nicely anywhere, in any country,” added Bush, who has been to 127 countries with the Carters.

The lead Secret Service agent also secured Carter’s dangerous 1994 mission to Haiti, ordered by President Bill Clinton and aimed at averting a full-scale U.S. invasion.

“President Carter called me at home and said, ‘You need to pack a bag, we’re going to Haiti tomorrow morning,’” Bush said. Just before he departed Andrews Air Force Base, he learned he would also be charged with protecting two other high-profile envoys: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell and Senator Sam Nunn.

Peace in the Middle East

During his mission as chief peacekeeper, Carter routinely ignored warnings from intelligence officials but pushed his protective bubble toward war zones and humanitarian crises.

“Sometimes when we had bad information, I would bring it to him and have him read it,” Parker said. “He sat there and read it, and finally put his initials on it – to sign it.”

In 2008, Carter planned an ambitious tour of the Middle East, including meetings with Hamas leaders in Gaza. The US Secret Service had been warned to abandon the trip after threatening intelligence emerged in the region.

“He handed me (the information) and said, ‘Alex, we’re still going.’”

On the flight home from Egypt, Parker said the former president’s words stuck with him. “Alex,” he said, “I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to bring peace to Israel and bring peace to the Palestinians.”

A precious detail

The dangerous assignment of traveling the world with Carter was not without its perks.

On the night Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, he called Parker – his lead agent at the time – with a strange request.

“Alex, let’s have a little get-together so we can take a picture,” Parker said, recalling the former president’s request. Carter wanted him to summon all his Secret Service agents.

“We took a picture of all of us holding him, surrounded by him and Mrs. Carter on the stairs… He said to me – he said, ‘You’re part of this too. I want you to share (the price ) with us, so let’s take a photo.”

Protecting Rosalynn Carter

Another reward for agents assigned to the Carter detail was protecting the former first lady, Rosalynn Carter.

“She was such a gentle person – there was nothing about her that didn’t make you feel comfortable or welcome,” said Nick Steen, who led Carter’s team from 2017 to 2019.

And while the former president’s obsession with punctuality rarely waited for his details, current and former agents described Rosalynn Carter as patient and understanding.

While officers recounted the occasional bickering, the more lasting impression was the couple’s continued affection. Officers may catch them holding hands in the backseat.

Even in the late 1990s, the Carters took part in the occasional joyride. During their final appearance at Plains’ annual Peanut Festival Parade, the two ventured out in a red 1946 convertible. Special Agent Don Witham piloted the four-wheeled gift from country singers Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, which marked the year the Carters married , while the Carters beamed in the backseat.

“It was a light in his eyes that reminded me of the days we used to hire him for peanut butter ice cream,” Witham said.

A president’s pastime

Fly fishing wasn’t the only hobby overseen by Carter’s detail. When Carter, then in his late 50s, started skiing, Secret Service members were sent to a ski school in Colorado.

“The president had never done snow skiing,” Bill Bush explained. “And so he and Mrs. Carter took classes in Colorado. I selected a group of agents and went to school in Colorado. It was a tough school… but we became pretty good skiers.”

Alex Parker walked by the former president’s side for 21 years, often traversing the country roads around Carter’s native Plains, Georgia, or jogging in foreign cities.

“He was competitive and tried to wear me down,” Parker said. “I was much younger, but he persisted.”

The special agent would occasionally run backwards so he could speak face-to-face with the president midway through the training. “And it would make President Carter angry,” he chuckled.

After a particularly grueling nine-mile run in Hawaii, Parker was warned not to pressure the president, a message relayed by the first lady.

An efficient traveler, Carter gained a reputation for taking power naps in the car as officers drove him from point A to point B.

“He had a special pillow for our rides, and you better have had that pillow,” joked Nick Steen, former Special Agent in Charge from 2017 to 2019.

“It’s 10 miles from Plains to Americus,” Parker said of the commute to the nearest airport. “He’d be snoring by the time we got there.”

“One day I said, ‘Mr. President, why, how can you go to sleep so quickly?'” Parker continued. “He looked at me and said, ‘Alex, my conscience is clear.'”

An aging mission

As the Carters grew older, so did the mission, with agents consistently planning for worse-case scenarios: medical evacuations. “We always had a doctor with us,” Steen said, “which is not always the case for a former president.”

EMT teams would travel to remote places with the former president’s details. Even in his 90s, Steen remembered Carter’s very active life. “I took him on two Habitat for Humanity projects. We went fishing in Mexico. That was tough for me, so I imagine he was exhausted by it too, but he still did it.”

Don Witham recalled that even at age 98, Carter often asked to drive a car, although former presidents are not allowed to drive vehicles on a public road.

“He definitely knew what he wanted and he would make it clear to you,” Witham said. “I tried to approach it in a logical way to explain that he doesn’t have a driver’s license. And he said, ‘Where’s the nearest driver’s license office?'”

Last Fourth of July, agents briefly whisked the former president away to nearby Americus so he could watch the fireworks. The former Navy veteran who has been there hospice care since February 2023sat in a hidden location for 45 minutes and enjoyed the display with a few officers.

“When he was 99 and nine months old, he wanted to go see the fireworks. That’s how patriotic he is,” Witham said.

Sunday school and life lessons

Codenamed “Deacon” by his agents because of his love of Scripture and devotion to his faith, Carter rarely missed an opportunity to teach Sunday school at his local church. The former president appeared almost weekly at Maranatha Baptist Church — a modest, one-story place of worship filled with wooden pews and surrounded by mint-green walls and olive-colored carpets.

“No matter where we were or what we were doing, he would be home Saturday night so he could prepare his lesson for Sunday morning,” Nick Steen said.

Even after he was no longer fit to teach, Carter regularly attended services, with his wheelchair next to the front seat while his lead officer sat behind him in a folding chair.

“On one Sunday in particular, the sermon was about making the world a better place,” Don Witham remembers. “And (the former president) very gently laid down his head and said to himself, ‘I tried.’ And I stretched out both my hands and laid them on his shoulders, and I said, ‘And sir, it is you succeeded.”

“That moment was special to me because as a 98-year-old man he still wonders if he did enough,” Witham continued. “Even though he has been to Africa and eradicated disease. He built houses for people who didn’t have them. He has fed those who need food. He has done all this – and yet at the age of 98 he still wonders if he is.” enough done.”

“He was so convicted,” Steen said. “In his faith and in his desire to make the world a better place.”

Together, Bush, Parker, Steen and Witham represent 46 years of service to former President Jimmy Carter, but only a fraction of the hours spent protecting the 39th president 24 hours a day since 1976.

“He will be remembered as a humanitarian who tried to help the world,” Bush said with a smile.

“I have to say,” Parker added of his former boss, “mission accomplished.”