Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 19
NPR Report: Nearly 44 years after Jimmy Carter left the nation’s capital in humbling defeat, the 39th president returns to Washington for three days of state funeral rites starting on Tuesday.
Carter’s remains, which have been lying in repose at the Carter Presidential Center since Saturday, will leave the Atlanta campus Tuesday morning, accompanied by his children and extended family. Special Air Mission 39 will depart Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Atlanta and arrive at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, with a motorcade into Washington and the Capitol, where members of Congress will pay their respects at an afternoon service.
Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, will then lie in state Tuesday night and again Wednesday. He then receives a state funeral Thursday at Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden will deliver a eulogy.
There will be the familiar rituals that follow a president’s death – the Air Force ride back to the Beltway, a military honor guard carrying a flag-draped casket up the Capitol steps, the Lincoln catafalque in the Rotunda. There also will be symbolism unique to Carter: His hearse will stop at the U.S. Navy Memorial, where his remains will be transferred to a horse-drawn caisson for rest of his trip to the Capitol. The location nods to Carter’s place as the lone U.S. Naval Academy graduate to become commander in chief.
He also never used his full name, James Earl Carter Jr., even taking the oath of office. His full name was printed on memorial cards given to all mourners who paid their respects in Atlanta.
“He was also a complicated man, who took his defeat and did so much good in the world,” said Webb, who voted for Republican Gerald Ford in 1976 and Reagan in 1980. “And, looking back, some of the things in his presidency – the inflation, the Iran hostages, the energy crisis – were really things that no president can actually control. We get to look back with some perspective and understand that he was an excellent former president but also had a presidency we can appreciate more than we did as it was happening.”
