Hugh Carter Jr., the cousin who helped organize Jimmy Carter's 'Peanut Brigade,' has died

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July 26th, 2023

Hugh Carter, Jr., special presidential assistant for President Jimmy Carter's administration, is pictured in his White House office in Washington, Feb. 21, 1977. The 34-year-old former businessman and the President's second cousin is in charge of making the White House more efficient. President Carter, voicing determination to cut the costs of government, is finding there is no easier target for economies than the mansion where he lives and works.(AP Photo/Peter Bregg)

Hugh “Sonny” Carter Jr., who helped organize the “Peanut Brigade” that helped elect his cousin Jimmy to the White House and later enforced the president’s frugal ways in the West Wing, has died. He was 80.

The Carter Center, the 39th president’s post-White House organization for advocating democracy and fighting disease in the developing world, did not release a cause of death.

Hugh Carter was among the many extended family members who campaigned alongside Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and their children early in the 1976 presidential campaign, when the Georgia Democrat was considered a longshot candidate. After Jimmy Carter won, he assigned Hugh Carter the task of curtailing waste among White House staffers. The job earned him the nickname “Cousin Cheap.”

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