Transcript:
The Inside Story: The Life & Legacy of President Jimmy Carter
Episode 178 – January 9, 2025
Show Open:
President Jimmy Carter:
I Jimmy Carter do solemnly swear….
KANE FARABAUGH, VOA Correspondent:
As the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter promised a government as good as its people.
President Jimmy Carter:
There can be no more ambitious tasks for America to undertake on this day of a new beginning and to help shape a just and peaceful world.
KANE FARABAUGH:
A peaceful world he influenced more as a former president and global humanitarian.
President Jimmy Carter:
I would be perfectly satisfied to have a legacy based on peace and human rights. I mean, who wouldn’t?
The life and legacy of Jimmy Carter now on the inside story.
The Inside Story:
KANE FARABAUGH:
Hello and welcome to the Inside Story… I’m VOA Correspondent Kane Farabaugh here in Plains, Georgia the hometown of the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter.
Mourners around the world are remembering, and honoring President Carter, who died December 29th at the age of 100.
On Tuesday, the President’s horse drawn casket made its way through Washington DC, arriving at the U.S. Capitol where – in the highest tribute possible to an American citizen – the late President lay in state in the Rotunda of the US Capital where thousands paid their respects.
From there, the former President’s casket traveled to the National Cathedral on Thursday for a memorial service honoring Carter’s life and legacy. All five living U.S. Presidents attended the ceremonies.
Jason Carter, Jimmy Carter’s Grandson:
Essentially, he eradicated a disease with love and respect. He waged peace with love and respect. He led this nation with love and respect.
To me this life was a love story from the moment that he woke up, until he laid his head.
Conclude with this, as Andy Young told me, He may be gone. But he’s not gone far.
President Joe Biden:
Jimmy Carter’s friendship taught me, and through his life, taught me, strength of character is more than title or the power we hold. It’s the strength to understand that everyone should be treated with dignity, respect. You know, we have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor and to stand up to what my dad used to say is the greatest sin of all, the abuse of power.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Jimmy Carter lived the longest of any President in U.S. history. He saw seventeen different Presidential administrations through which time the U.S. population tripled.
Though he served a single term in the White House from 1977 to 1981, it motivated his life’s work as a global humanitarian as head of his post-presidential non-profit Carter Center.
When Jimmy Carter took the oath of office on January 20, 1977, he promised a “government as good as its people.
President Jimmy Carter, 1977 Inaugural Address:
There can be no nobler nor more ambitious task for America to undertake on this day of a new beginning than to help shape a just and peaceful world.
KANE FARABAUGH:
A world he continued to shape beyond his single term in the White House,
becoming a Nobel Peace Prize laureate heading the global nonprofit, the Carter Center, whose mission is “waging peace, fighting disease, and building hope.”
President Jimmy Carter, 2007:
I look upon the Carter Center work as an extension of what I tried to do as president.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Carter was born in Plains, Georgia in 1924. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, serving as a submarine officer before returning to Plains in 1953 to run the family farm in the wake of his father’s death.
Carter entered politics during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, serving two terms as a Georgia legislator before becoming the state’s governor in 1971.
Jimmy Carter, Inaugural Address as Georgia Governor, 1971:
I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Carter went from being an unknown southern Governor in 1971 to the winning presidential candidate in 1976, narrowly defeating Republican Gerald Ford.
Mediating the 1979 Camp David Accords and the eventual peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was the pinnacle of Carter’s presidency.
President Jimmy Carter, 2009:
When I became president, there had been four wars between Arabs and Israelis in the previous 25 years, with the Egyptians in the leadership supported by the Soviet Union. They were the only country that could really challenge Israel militarily.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Carter also negotiated a treaty returning control of the Panama Canal to Panama and established full diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China.
But the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran would change the course of his presidency. Protests led by Shiite clerics toppled the U.S.-backed Shah, who fled the country. Militants later stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage. In late November 13 hostages were released.
In April 1980, Carter authorized a military operation to free the remaining hostages. It failed, and eight U.S. servicemembers died.
Carter also faced challenges at home. Inflation and rising unemployment hobbled the economy, contributing to his 1980 election defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan.
On January 20, 1981 – Reagan’s inauguration day – Iran finally freed the American hostages. Carter, defeated and depressed, returned to Plains to plan his presidential library.
President Jimmy Carter, 2007:
I envisioned it to be a tiny thing, where I would have an office and some nice buildings in Atlanta.
KANE FARABAUGH:
It became much more. A well-known global nonprofit, the Carter Center has monitored over 100 elections and mediated disputes ranging from a nuclear standoff with North Korea in 1994 to a peace agreement between Uganda and Sudan.
The Center also promotes health and fights illness in the poorest parts of the planet. Eradicating Guinea Worm disease has been a primary goal.
President Jimmy Carter, 2009:
There’s only been one disease in the history of humankind ever eradicated, and that was smallpox, more than 30 years ago, so Guinea Worm is going to soon be the second disease in history, to be wiped off the face of the earth.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Carter’s work helping humanity— led to Oslo, Norway in 2002 —where he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
President Jimmy Carter, 2007:
When I won the Nobel Peace Prize // it was because of the work of the Carter Center. So, I would be perfectly satisfied to have a legacy based on peace and human rights. I mean, who would not?
KANE FARABAUGH:
Carter led an active life into his 90s, surviving brain cancer in 2015.
But declining health kept him mostly confined to his hometown of Plains in his final years. Jimmy Carter last appeared in public during funeral services for his wife, Rosalynn, in November 2023.
In one of his last media interviews, Carter shared with VOA his hopes for the future.
President Jimmy Carter, 2019:
I would like to see the United States in the future strive to be the number one champion in the world of peace and human rights and environmental quality, and I would say treating everyone equal. If we could do that, we would have a real superpower in the country I love very much.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Carter lived the longest of any occupant of the White House, and his marriage to wife Rosalynn is the longest of any president and first lady.
Six days of official funeral ceremonies marking the life and legacy of the 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter were an opportunity for his friends, family, and the public to say goodbye to the man who was more than just a former President.
The sun rises over Plains, Georgia differently these days for shop owner Philip Kurland, as he and others in this rural community of about 700 people mourn the passing of its most famous resident, Jimmy Carter.
Phillip Kurland, Plains Trading Post:
We were hoping we were going to be planning his 101st birthday, but the realization is that he will be with Rosalynn, he’ll be in a far better place, and he’s really done as much as he can for the community and the world at this point.
KANE FARABAUGH:
While he was known by the codename “Deacon” to the Secret Service officers who protected him for nearly five decades through more than 140 different countries, Jimmy Carter is more than a former president and humanitarian to those who lived alongside him in the place he called home for a century.
As Carter’s hearse and motorcade made its way through the town at the beginning of
six days of funeral activities, Kurland reflected on Carter’s personal impact on him.
Phillip Kurland, Plains Trading Post:
There goes my hero.
Jill Stuckey, Jimmy Carter National Historical Park:
It’s the beginning and the end.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Jill Stuckey is a Carter family friend, and superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park which includes his Depression-era boyhood farm outside Plains, where the funeral motorcade paused on its journey through Georgia.
Jilly Stuckey, Jimmy Carter National Historical Park:
A president starts planning their funeral the day after they are elected, so this has been planned for decades.
KANE FARABAUGH:
A plan Stuckey and others are faithfully fulfilling as Carter’s flag draped coffin made its way through Georgia.
Kim Fuller, Jimmy Carter’s Neice:
I haven’t grieved yet. I’ll probably grieve when it’s all over.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Kim Fuller is Jimmy Carter’s niece – the daughter of his well-known brother Billy Carter. She’s also his neighbor in Plains and carries on his legacy at Maranatha Baptist Church where Carter taught Sunday School lessons since leaving the White House in 1981.
While she admits the funeral activities are keeping her busy, there are difficult moments of reflection.
Kim Fuller, Jimmy Carter’s Neice:
Something kind of just flooded over me… we’re doing this because he’s dead… he’s gone… and I had to go outside. So, there are moments when it hits me just overwhelmingly.
KANE FARABAUGH:
As members of the U.S. military stand at attention at Carter’s flag-draped coffin at the Carter Center in Atlanta, thousands of visitors like Atlanta resident Walter Ramsey have one final opportunity to connect with Georgia’s only president.
Walter Ramsey, Atlanta Resident:
I wasn’t alive for his presidency, but this really helps you feel like you know Jimmy.
KANE FARABAUGH:
More than 22,000 people waited in line to pay respects to President Carter over two days at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where I also had an opportunity to offer my own goodbye to a man I came to know well.
As a correspondent for Voice of America, I was fortunate to get to know “Jimmy” personally, although I never was able to call him by his first name. For me, interviewing President Carter for the first time towards the beginning of my career in journalism was also the start of a long relationship that evolved into more than just one between a reporter and a former President.
When we first met in 2006 during one of his book tours, I had not yet interviewed a former president. I was nervous. Jimmy Carter, on the other hand …
It’s not your first time, is it?
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2006:
No, it’s not the first time.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Over the course of nearly two decades and dozens of one-on-one interviews, Carter became more than just the subject of my news reports. He became a friend to me and my family, and even spent time with my children, including my eldest son Lucas.
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2015:
I want to shake hands with you … your father is one of my best friends. You like him too? Is he a good father or not?”
KANE FARABAUGH:
My desire to better understand the 39th president’s life and legacy brought me to events and symposiums around the country organized by the Carter Center, his global nonprofit organization. I came to know a punctual man more interested in concrete results than the optics — or politics — surrounding them, a supremely humble and patient citizen of the world who made time for everyone who sought him out.
I also collected and read books — those he wrote and those written about him — and I often visited Plains, Georgia, to see him teach Sunday school, and participated in events hosted in his hometown.
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2014:
When I teach, Plains prospers!
KANE FARABAUGH:
Initially, I didn’t know anyone in Plains except the former president and his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter. But I was welcomed like a neighbor by those close to him, and through the years forged friendships that endure today.
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2018:
You see what my family was like. Aren’t you all amazed that I became president!
KANE FARABAUGH:
My friendship with Carter led to hosting panel discussions and participating in town hall meetings, personal dinners, fishing trips, and book signings across the country.
Kane Farabaugh, VOA Correspondent, 2017:
I saw the clip about releasing the sea turtles. That must have been exciting, right?
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2017:
I was there with my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
KANE FARABAUGH:
But it was during our semi-regular exclusive interviews that covered everything from neglected tropical diseases to Mideast peace …
Leaving the White House seems to have been the best thing that could have happened to you.
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2007:
I didn’t think so at the time! But it’s turned out to be.
KANE FARABAUGH:
That I came to understand what was important to Carter, and why.
You bring a voice and awareness to people that wouldn’t otherwise have a voice.
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2007:
That is an important part of the Carter Center is to bring publicity the plight of people who would otherwise be ignored.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Some might think my friendship with Carter would prevent me from reporting on him objectively; however, I did not avoid difficult or controversial topics with him.
Kane Farabaugh, VOA Correspondent, 2008:
Their contention is that just by the fact that you visit with Hamas provides legitimacy to the way that they behave and they act.
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2008:
First of all, my visit didn’t legitimize or delegitimize anybody!
KANE FARABAUGH:
Our friendship also didn’t prevent me from covering Carter’s difficult moments … such as his 2015 announcement he was dealing with life-threatening cancer.
What has been the most difficult part about the news for you?
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2015:
The liver surgery was fairly extensive. They removed about one-tenth of my liver, I understand.
KANE FARABAUGH:
President Carter survived his battle with cancer but suffered further health setbacks. Despite falling and fracturing his hip in 2019, Carter did not cancel our interview ahead of his 95th birthday.
((NAT SOUND, President Carter)) ((2019))
Hi, Kane!
KANE FARABAUGH:
Good morning, President Carter. How are you?
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2019:
I’m fine.
KANE FARABAUGH:
It’s so good to see you.
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2019:
You look snazzy this morning.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Well, not as good as you.
In 2011, President Carter’s son Jeff wrote a book documenting the ancestry of his parents. While reading it, I discovered I had an even stronger connection to President Carter. We are related through my 11th great-grandparents, some of the early settlers of Rhode Island, and Jimmy Carter was my ninth cousin three times removed.
But beyond an ancestral connection, while he is remembered as a peanut farmer, submariner, governor, artist, fisherman, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, carpenter, global humanitarian, and …
He’s often referred to as the ‘greatest ex-president?’
Rosalynn Carter, Former First Lady, 2014:
Yeah, and I don’t like that. He was a great President. People are finding it out.”
KANE FARABAUGH:
Jimmy Carter will always be to me, the greatest man I have ever met and will ever have the good fortune to call my friend.
Thanks for giving us so much time.
Jimmy Carter, Former President:
It’s a pleasure. It’s always a pleasure to be with you, Kane.
KANE FARABAUGH:
We always welcome the chance to talk to you, President Carter.
Jimmy Carter, Former President, 2015:
I always like to be with you. You ask some very good questions, and I enjoy being with you, thank you very much.
Jimmy Carter, Former President:
Kane, it’s always good to be with you.
KANE FARABAUGH:
It’s good to be with you, too, President Carter.
Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn had the longest post White House life of any Presidential couple. They spent more than 4 decades working for the Carter Center and other causes like Habitat for Humanity. Volunteers and supporters connected to their many efforts say they leave a lasting legacy.
Volunteers and supporters connected to former President Jimmy Carter’s philanthropic efforts in his long post-presidency mourn his passing. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more.
Suzanne Taylor from Buffalo, New York, admits … she isn’t handy.
Suzanne Taylor, Habitat for Humanity Volunteer:
I have no building skills. I’m terrified of flying.
KANE FARABAUGH:
But when she went online to donate money to help Habitat for Humanity’s recovery efforts after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake in Pakistan, something caught her attention.
Suzanne Taylor, Habitat for Humanity Volunteer:
And the banner ad said now accepting applications for what was then the Jimmy Carter work project in India, and it struck me like a bolt of lightning. That was what I was supposed to do next.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Taylor volunteered with Habitat for Humanity to build houses alongside Jimmy Carter in India in 2006. She participated in a dozen more building projects hosted by the former president and his wife, Rosalynn, around the globe.
Suzanne Taylor, Habitat for Humanity Volunteer:
So, if you ask me if it’s because of the Carters, that is the ONLY reason I got involved.
KANE FARABAUGH:
The Carters spent a week each year building houses for Habitat for Humanity. The other 51 weeks were spent in the service of their nonprofit Carter Center, which “fights disease, builds hope, and wages peace” throughout the world ((end courtesy)) … something Chris Jones of Portland, Oregon, didn’t know when he was looking for an organization to donate money to. Jones and his wife, Barb, were impressed by the center’s financial management.
Chris Jones, Carter Center Volunteer:
It turns out, I didn’t know this at the time, but Jimmy Carter is quite the penny pincher, and he kept a close eye on how funds were spent.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Jones not only sent money to the Carter Center over the years but also participated in one of its key democracy programs – election monitoring.
Chris Jones, Carter Center Volunteer:
There was the Tunisian Arab Spring elections in 2014, and I got the call saying, ‘Hey can you be in Tunisia for the next couple of weeks for this mission,’ and I jumped at the chance.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Jones later joined the center’s election monitoring mission in Liberia in 2017. He’s grateful that the Carters’ global humanitarian work offered him an opportunity that transcended financial support. He says his election monitoring work was “transformative.”
Chris Jones, Carter Center Volunteer:
Monitoring polling stations, watching the counting of ballots really gave me an appreciation of how the democratic process works in these countries.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Jones says Jimmy Carter would welcome being remembered more for what he did beyond his years in the White House.
Chris Jones, Carter Center Volunteer:
I think his proudest accomplishment was the Carter Center, and I really want the world to remember how transformative he was, and how much good he’s accomplished.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Suzanne Taylor plans to continue volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Center. She says among the greatest tributes to the Carters are the many supporters participating today — and in the future — who have never met either Jimmy or Rosalynn Carter in person.
Suzanne Taylor, Habitat for Humanity Volunteer:
There are new people coming on board as donors and followers and builders.
KANE FARABAUGH:
The Carter Center has monitored more than 100 elections and continues to fight neglected tropical diseases globally. The parasitic Guinea worm, which once infected more than 3.5 million people, is down to fewer than 20 cases. The complete eradication of the disease was one of Jimmy Carter’s signature efforts with the Carter Center.
Former President Jimmy Carter lived long enough to enjoy a reevaluation of his accomplishments… and failures… as a one-term U.S. president, a topic we explored earlier this year when he celebrated his history 100th birthday October 1st.
When he returned to Plains, Georgia, in 1981, former Democratic President Jimmy Carter was defeated — rejected by voters in a landslide election to Republican Ronald Reagan. The rain at Carter’s welcome home reception reflected his gloomy mood.
Jonathan Alter, Author and Historian:
In office, he was a political failure. He lost overwhelmingly to Ronald Reagan. But he was a substantive and visionary success.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Author and historian Jonathan Alter recognizes what many know Carter for today –humanitarian work with his Carter Center “waging peace, fighting disease, and building hope” around the world that led to the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.
Jonathan Alter, Author and Historian:
He’s done terrific work supervising elections in more than 100 countries. But former presidents don’t have as much power as presidents, not nearly as much, and the list of his accomplishments as president that were ignored, minimized, or forgotten entirely was very long.
KANE FARABAUGH:
The Iran hostage crisis, rising inflation and oil embargoes of the 1970s
doomed Carter’s White House tenure, casting a long shadow over his legacy.
However, Alter’s Jimmy Carter biography, “His Very Best,” is among several that conclude his four years in the White House were anything but a failure.
Jonathan Alter, Author and Historian:
Not just famously Camp David accords and opening relations with China, but a long string of legislative accomplishments on the environment and many other issues.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Carter signed the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act protecting more than 40.5 million hectares, which Alter says is now considered one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation ever passed.
Joseph Crespino, Emory University:
I think we’ll remember President Carter as a president who served in very enormously difficult times, who had to deal with circumstances that were far beyond his control.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Joe Crespino, the Jimmy Carter professor of history at Emory University, says Carter routinely met with his students in Atlanta to discuss the good and bad decisions he made while president.
Joseph Crespino, Emory University:
Putting human rights front and center in American foreign policy. No president had done that in the way that Jimmy Carter had. And it was important in shifting the balance of power in the Cold War.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Crespino says some of Carter’s overlooked domestic accomplishments include re-organizing the federal government and de-regulating the airline, trucking and beer industries.
Joseph Crespino, Emory University:
We oftentimes associate a kind of freeing up of the free enterprise economy with the conservative turn that came in with Ronald Reagan, when in fact Jimmy Carter before Reagan was already doing a lot of deregulatory work.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Members of Carter’s Cabinet, including former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, are grateful Carter lived long enough to witness kinder interpretations of his legacy.
Andrew Young, UN Ambassador Under Carter:
There’s no place in the world I know where people don’t have some good things to say about him, whether he succeeded or not.
KANE FARABAUGH:
The world continues to benefit from the Carter Center’s work fighting diseases like Guinea worm, which is down to a few cases in Africa and could become only the second disease ever eradicated.
As we near the end of the program, we wanted to invite you to take a journey back with us to 2014, to show you what it was like to visit Plains, Georgia when President Carter was still very much a presence, and a driving force for tourism and the local economy in his hometown.
U.S. Army Sergeant Sudhir Shrestha is a long way from his home country.
Sudhir Shrestha, Sergeant, Us Army:
I came here from Nepal.
KANE FARABAUGH:
On a steamy Sunday morning some thirteen thousand kilometers from his birthplace, this immigrant from a predominately Hindu nation is among hundreds waiting in line to enter a Protestant church in a remote part of the southern U.S. state of Georgia.
This isn’t unusual in the small town of Plains.
((Natural Sound Jan Williams))
Those of us here in this sanctuary are going to put our hands together and thank this soldier for his service.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Jan Williams is a member of Maranatha Baptist Church, which might not be the largest of the eight churches in this town of 766 people, but it is one of the biggest tourist attractions. Sergeant Shrestha was well aware of this before visiting.
Sudhir Shrestha, Sergeant, Us Army:
It’s really rewarding. A life-changing experience. A once in a lifetime opportunity.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Maranatha is more than just a church. It is a forum for live history, and a money-maker for the local economy. The reason: Maranatha’s resident Sunday School teacher also happens to be a former President of the United States.
Jimmy Carter, Former President:
When I teach, Plains prospers.
KANE FARABAUGH:
There are about 150 members on the books here at Maranatha Baptist Church, about 25 to 30 of them can be seen here on any given Sunday. But on weeks when President Carter is scheduled to teach Sunday school, it’s hard to find an empty pew here in the church.
Jimmy Carter, Former President:
A lot of those people tell me they’ve never been in a church before in their life and they just come to hear a politician teach the Bible.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Jimmy Carter’s faith is a central part of his life, both before he entered the White House in 1977 and after he left. He has taught some form of Sunday school since the age of 18. Now 90, his classroom is as big as ever, and more diverse.
Jan Williams says what they get is more than just a recitation of bible verses.
Jan Williams, Maranatha Baptist Church:
You get an up-to-date history lesson sometimes. I had never heard of the ISIS until one of his Sunday school lessons and maybe what action the United States should take.
KANE FARABAUGH:
Though he has traveled to more than 140 countries and continues to lead an active life as head of the Carter Center, Jimmy Carter still lives in the same small town where he was born 90 years ago. Visitors to Plains not only have a chance to see the place that shaped the man, but the man himself.
Sudhir Shrestha, Sergeant, US Army:
I just wanted to the opportunity to see him in person, not just watch him on TV or read his writings or listen to the news, but actually get a chance to see what he has to say in person.
KANE FARABAUGH:
When Sergeant Shrestha visits friends and family in Nepal, he’ll have more than just a postcard or souvenir to help illustrate his visit to Plains. He now has a photograph of himself standing next to the former Commander-in-Chief of the United States, in the one place in the world where such a moment is possible.
Thanks for joining us for this episode of The Inside Story.
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I’m Kane Farabaugh. We will see you next week, for The Inside Story.
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