Eizenstat worked as the issues director of Jimmy Carter's 1970 gubernatorial campaign.[4]
Eizenstat worked on Carter's 1976 presidential campaign. He served as his point man in the drafting of the 1976 party platform and headed the issues operations of Carter's campaign.[4]
From 1977 to 1981,he was President Carter's Chief Domestic Policy Adviser,and Executive Director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff.[2][5]
Jimmy Carter hosts budget meeting with Eizenstat,Jack Watson,James McIntyre and other White House aides.
On January 9,Eizenstat gave a eulogy for Carter upon the event of his 2025 state funeral. His stated purpose was to dispel the myth that Carter was an unsuccessful president but was successful in the years of his post-presidency.[10]
Holocaust restitution
Eizenstat has devoted much effort to various aspects of Holocaust restitution.[11] This has included partial recompense for slave and forced labor,and most recently in 2018 for the trauma suffered by Kindertransport. It has also included restitution of Holocaust-era assets to their original owners or their heirs. Initially,he did this as President Clinton's "Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State on Holocaust-Era Issues." In this position,he took a leadership role for many nations. In this role,he was approached by Turkish ambassador ŞükrüElekdağ who told him that "Turkey could no longer guarantee the safety of the Jews in Turkey" if there was any mention of the Armenian genocide in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[12] Eizenstat has continued this role as a private citizen.[citation needed] In 1998,he organized the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets,resulting in the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.[13]
Eizenstat acted on many occasions as a negotiator to gain payments by the current German government to Holocaust survivors,or their heirs.[14] He also negotiated major agreements with the Swiss,Austrian,French,and other European governments,concerning slave and forced labor,which included life insurance policy payments to heirs of victims of the Holocaust;and restitution of Holocaust victim bank account assets,as well as of artworks which had been looted by the Nazis to their original owners,or their heirs. (Many such artworks had been acquired at a later date by National museums or important private museums.) One such piece is Gustav Klimt's Lady in Gold which was returned to Maria Altmann.[citation needed]
In 2018,he helped negotiate a symbolic payment of 2,500 euros to those who had survived the Holocaust by having escaped it through the Kindertransport program,which had been assisted by the British government. This followed the precedent established in 2014 when Child Survivors negotiated a symbolic payment of 2,500 euros to child Holocaust survivors. The Kindertransport survivors were also Holocaust survivors,since they had been separated from their parents,often as very young children,and nearly all of them later discovered that their parents had died as victims of the Nazis. Eizenstat wrote about his restitution efforts in his book Imperfect Justice:Looted Assets,Slave Labor,and the Unfinished Business of World War II (2009).
In 2013 Eizenstat was appointed "Special Advisor for Holocaust Issues" to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.[15] He served as Expert Advisor on Holocaust Issues during the first Trump administration,and in 2021 he was appointed by the Biden administration to serve as Special Advisor on Holocaust Issues.[16]
Personal life
He was married to the late Frances Eizenstat and has two sons and eight grandchildren.
↑ Baer, Marc D. (2020). Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Writing Ottoman Jewish History, Denying the Armenian Genocide. Indiana University Press. p.124. ISBN978-0-253-04542-3.
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