Remembering Jimmy Carter (Part II)

Summary

Fresh Air: Remembering Jimmy Carter (Part II) Hosted by Terry Gross, NPR Release Date: January 9, 2025

On January 9, 2025, NPR's Fresh Air pays tribute to the late Jimmy Carter, the longest-lived former U.S. president, reflecting on his extensive public service and personal endeavors post-presidency. This detailed summary encapsulates key discussions, insights, and memorable moments from the episode titled "Remembering Jimmy Carter (Part II)."

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1. Jimmy Carter’s Literary Pursuits and Poetry

Exploring a Presidential Poet (00:13 - 15:55)

Jimmy Carter, renowned for his engineering and political career, also harbored a profound love for poetry. In 1995, he became the first former president to publish a collection of poems, "Always a Reckoning." Carter delves into the challenges and inspirations behind his literary journey.

• Perceived Incompatibility: Carter addresses the skepticism surrounding a president being a poet. He reflects, “I think the general reaction would be, well, they'll be extremely amateurish or they'll just be frivolous or inspirational or calls to patriotism” (02:35).

• Poetic Themes and Personal Reflections: He shares his poem, "Of My Father's Cancer and His Dreams," which poignantly captures his father's final days and his own emotional turmoil. Carter explains the meticulous process of refining his poetry, emphasizing simplicity and personal significance over grandeur.

• Family and Personal Impact: Reading his poems to his wife Rosalynn and the influence of family losses on his work underscores the deeply personal nature of his poetry. Carter notes, “We're now approaching our 49th wedding anniversary, so yes, it did” (15:48).

2. Intersection of Faith and Politics

Navigating Religious Identity (15:55 - 25:17)

Carter candidly discusses his declaration of being "born again" during his presidential campaign, a statement that had significant repercussions.

• Impact of Being "Born Again": “It was a very negative reaction to what I had to say,” Carter admits (16:38), highlighting the misunderstanding of his religious affirmation and its negative impact on his political image.

• Separation of Church and State: Emphasizing his belief in maintaining a boundary between religion and governance, Carter states, “I believe in both of them, the science and religion. The two are completely separate” (24:31).

• Policy Conflicts: He reflects on the moral dilemmas faced during his presidency, particularly concerning abortion and the death penalty. Carter explains, “I have never believed that Jesus Christ, whom I worship, would approve abortions unless the mother's health or life was threatened...” (17:46), illustrating the tension between personal faith and public duty.

3. Family Life in the White House

Behind the Scenes with Amy Carter (25:17 - 44:37)

An intimate conversation unfolds between Jimmy Carter and his daughter, Amy Carter, shedding light on the dynamics of living in the White House.

• Collaborative Creativity: The duo discusses their joint project, "The Little Baby Snooglefleger," a children’s book blending Jimmy's storytelling with Amy’s illustrations. Amy explains, “I think there's no doubt that having an undersea creature become a startling hero came from my experiences underneath the water...” (27:35).

• Balancing Public and Private Life: Amy recounts the challenges of growing up in the public eye, including interactions with celebrities and world leaders. She shares, “Cher... she was very sweet to me, too,” highlighting memorable encounters (39:54).

• Family Time and Sacrifices: Reflecting on limited family interactions during his presidency, Jimmy notes, “This interview has helped me overcome some of my concerns,” expressing his desire for deeper familial connections (35:23). Amy counters with her own positive memories, emphasizing frequent dinners and protected family activities despite the surrounding pressures (37:24).

4. Reflections on Legacy and Personal Growth

Evolving Beliefs and Public Perception (44:37 - 47:03)

In later reflections, Carter contrasts his experiences with those of subsequent presidents, notably George W. Bush.

• Changing Political Climate: Carter observes, “the rise of fundamentalism has affected both politics... and also has affected the religious community much more than it ever did...” (21:29), critiquing the merging of religious zeal with political agendas.

• Science and Faith: Addressing debates like evolution versus creationism, Carter maintains a harmonious view between scientific inquiry and religious belief, asserting, “I think that science is just a revelation of God's creation” (23:19).

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “We're still approaching our 49th wedding anniversary, so yes, it did.” — Unnamed Interviewee (15:48)
• “I have never believed that Jesus Christ, whom I worship, would approve abortions unless the mother's health or life was threatened...” — Jimmy Carter (17:46)
• “I think that science is just a revelation of God's creation.” — Jimmy Carter (23:19)
• “We have carved out for ourselves the week after Christmas.” — Amy Carter (42:31)

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5. Concluding Thoughts

Fresh Air's two-part series on Jimmy Carter offers a comprehensive look into the multifaceted life of America's 39th president. From his unexpected foray into poetry to his steadfast commitment to separating faith from governance, and the nuanced portrayal of his family's life in the White House, Carter's legacy is portrayed with depth and empathy. Through personal anecdotes and reflective discussions, the episode honors Carter's enduring influence on public service, literature, and personal integrity.

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For listeners who wish to explore further, the first part of this series, "Remembering Jimmy Carter," is available on the Fresh Air podcast and streamable at freshair.npr.org.

Transcript

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[Terry Gross]

This is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. On this day of Jimmy Carter's funeral, which has also been declared a national day of mourning, we listened back to more excerpts of the interviews I recorded with him over the years. At 100 years old, Carter was the oldest living former president in American history with one of the longest and most productive public lives after leaving the White House. Those post presidency years were devoted to public service. He and his wife Rosalynn, teamed up with Habitat for Humanity, building or repairing thousands of homes in the US and other countries around the world, including Mexico, South Africa, Haiti, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. He flew around the world to war zones to mediate violent conflicts and monitor elections and fledgling democracies. And Carter wrote several memoirs about his presidency, his childhood, his deep religious faith, his reflections on getting older and life after leaving office. That gave me the opportunity to interview him several times. We'll start with a side of Jimmy Carter most Americans were unaware of when he was in the White House, his lifelong interest in and love of poetry. When we spoke in 1995, he just published a collection of his poems titled Always a Reckoning. Carter was the first former president to publish a book of poems.

[Jimmy Carter]

What do you think the assumptions are that people make when they hear a former president is also a poet?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, I think it's been a rare.

Thing in history to have a president who was a published poet. I think I imagine a lot of folks that have been in the White House have written a poem or two and hid them. And hid them, yes, or shared them with maybe a wife on Mother's Day or something of that kind. But I think to write poetry seriously is probably considered to be incompatible with being a politician who's been in the White House.

[Jimmy Carter]

Why? Why incompatible?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, it's just not something that's been done in the past except a couple of times in ancient history. And my own background, of course, is in engineering and nuclear physics and not in literature. But I've been a poetry lover all my life and I'm kind of an expert on some poets works. I think the general reaction would be, well, they'll be extremely amateurish or they'll.

[Jimmy Carter]

Just be frivolous or inspirational or calls to patriotism.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

I think so. But I think in this particular book I put together about 45 poems and tried to make them as diverse as I could in their character I'd like.

[Jimmy Carter]

You to read a poem called. Of My Father's Cancer and His Dreams. And you're welcome to introduce this if you'd like, or to just begin the poem. But I think it would be nice for you to tell us first when you wrote it.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

I've written most of these poems in the last five years. And what I've done ordinarily is revise each poem maybe a dozen or 20 times, trying to simplify them, make sure we had the right word and that the words were juxtaposed properly and that the lines either rhymed or didn't rhyme. In this particular poem, there are kind of slant rhymes. They're not direct rhymes. This one is a poem about my father's last days. I was a submarine officer working under Admiral Rickover. Developing the second nuclear submarine in history. And my father, I discovered, I found, I learned, was dying. And I went home to be with him. And I've tried to put myself in the position of someone who is in his or her last days on a deathbed. And how they might react to the world around them. The name of this poem is. Of My Father's Cancer and His Dreams. With those who love him near his bed seldom speaking anymore he lies too weak to raise his head but dreams from time to time. In one, he says he sees his wife so proud in her white uniform with other nurses trooping by. Their girlish voices aimed to charm the young men lounging there. Then her eyes met his and hold. A country courtship has begun. They've been together 30 years now she watches over him as she tries to hide her tears. All his children are at home but wonder what they ought to say or do either when he is awake or when he seems to fade away. They can't always be on guard and sometimes if his mind is clear he can grasp a whispered phrase never meant for him to hear. He just seems weaker all the time. I don't know what else to cook. He can't keep down anything. He hears a knocking on. On the door. Voices of his friends who bring a special cake or fresh killed quail they mumble out some words of love Try to learn how he might feel and then go back to spread the word. They say he may have faded some he'll soon give in to the rising pain and crave the needle that will numb his knowledge of a passing world and bring the consummating sleep he knows will come.

[Jimmy Carter]

Have you read that poem? Did you read that poem to your family before publishing it?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

All my family I Did I read it to Rosalynn?

[Jimmy Carter]

Yeah, I was thinking of Rosalynn.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

But my father and my mother and both my sisters and my brother have all died with cancer. And so I don't have anyone to read it to, except my wife is a very good editor and who is familiar with all these poems in your.

[Jimmy Carter]

Dedications in this book. You dedicate the book in part to your father, who. Let me turn to the page, actually, so I can quote it. You write, to my father, Earl, who labored all his life but also loved the good times. His innate goodness curbed by the Southern mores he observed a man who relished this discipline, who reached out to his son with love always tempered with restraint.

[Terry Gross]

What were the Southern mores he observed.

[Jimmy Carter]

That you were referring to there?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Of separate but equal, of discrimination against African American neighbors. Although he wouldn't have put it in those terms. He would not have thought it was discrimination.

[Jimmy Carter]

Did you ever try to change him on that? Do you think it's possible for a son to change a father?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, those were times. My Daddy died in 1953.

[Jimmy Carter]

So you were still pretty young.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, I was in the Navy. And I remember once I came home from a submarine cruise and I was bragging on the fact that we had been to Jamaica, and the governor general of Jamaica had invited our submarine crew to come to a ball, a party where young Jamaican women would be there. And then he discovered that one of our crew members was black. And the governor general sent word back that everyone could come except that one crew member. And the crew took great pride in telling the governor General to go to hell. And when I came home and told my father that story with some pride, he was embarrassed by it. And my mother said that I shouldn't discuss race issues with my daddy. But those were times. It's hard to remember now, historically, when there was really not much question in the south of the advisability of a totally separate but equal society. And I don't think it's proper to condemn my father in ancient history because he complied with the mores of the time.

[Jimmy Carter]

Okay, it's time for another poem. I have another request. This is called Itinerant Songsters Visit Our Village. And it's really a poem about poetry and writing poetry and learning to write poetry.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

This is really what precipitated my getting serious about writing poems. Some famous poems came down to Plains to do a reading along with country music singer Tom T. Hall. One of these poets was Miller Williams, who wrote the textbook used in most colleges called How Does a Poem mean.

[Jimmy Carter]

Do you know, by the way, let me stop you here, that his daughter, Lucinda Williams, is a wonderful singer and songs.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

That's great.

[Jimmy Carter]

Yeah. I was wondering if you liked her music.

[Amy Carter]

I do.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

I have two CDs by her. And I was very pleased when she won one of the top Grammy Awards this past year.

[Jimmy Carter]

Yeah, right.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

I'm very pleased with her saying.

I'm glad you know that.

But Miller Williams has been a lot of help to me. But this is a poem about their coming to plains. It's called Itinerant Songsters Visit Our Village. When some poets came to plains one night too with guitars, Their poems taught us how to look and maybe laugh at what we were and felt and thought. After that, I rushed to write in fumbling lines why we should care about a distant starving child. I asked how we might love the fear and death of war, rejecting peace as weakness. How a poet can dare to bring forth out of memory the troubled visions buried there. And why we barely comprehend what happens out in space. I found my words would seldom flow. And then I turned to closer, simpler themes. A pony, mama as a nurse. The sight of geese, the songs of whales, a pasture gate, a racist curse, a possum hunt, a battle prayer. I learned from poetry that art is best derived from artless things, that mysteries might be explored and understood from that which springs most freely from my mind and heart.

[Jimmy Carter]

I like this poem a lot. And I like how you describe in the poem you trying to, you know, write about great themes, war and peace and troubling visions. And then you turn to specific details and very specific things that happened to you. Tell me more about how you learned to do that in your poems.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, I was fumbling around, trying to say great things and try to emulate famous poem poets, and I was having a lot of difficulty. The poems didn't quite come together. And then kind of a breakthrough occurred. And I found, as I said in the poem, that my words would seldom flow. And then I turned to simpler things about matters that really meant a lot to me. One of the poems that's my favorite is the sighting of a flock of geese that flew over the the White House when I was living there. And how in a submerged submarine we would hear the song of whales on our sonar. And how a visit to a pasture gate behind our barn was a turning point in my life on the race issue. Those simple things that meant so much to me. It became possible for me to express perhaps profound ideas and feelings and thoughts using a simple theme as a vehicle rather than a Complicated theme.

[Jimmy Carter]

Did Miller Williams give you advice about that, too?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Yes, he did. Most of my poems are factual, and Miller used to kind of make fun of me because I would be factual in my poems. He said, forget about exactness. It's a word and a thought that means more. But I was. He used to tease me because the poems about myself are pretty, well, factual.

[Terry Gross]

When you're President of the United States.

[Jimmy Carter]

You'Re the most important person in the country, and you have the most power, and so on. And then when fairly late in life, you start writing poetry more seriously than you ever wrote it before.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Yes.

[Jimmy Carter]

I mean, you're getting started pretty late with that and everything. There might be this feeling, well, how could I possibly be any good? And as former president, I'm only allowed to do things that I can really excel in. Did you ever go through a crisis about that and think like, if you wrote poems, they'd better be the best poems, otherwise you wouldn't be able to measure up to your own standards?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, I did, and I have to.

Say that I approached it fairly tentatively. I didn't just all of a sudden decide, I'm going to write a book of poems. I wrote a few poems, and then I submitted them to magazines and to quarterlies around the country anonymously. Well, I would put Jay Carter on them, and they would ask the publishers not to reveal the fact that they came from a former president, not to mention that at all. And then there were very helpful critical reviews, most of them, by the way, favorable, I have to say. And so I increased in my confidence with experience. And finally I decided to take about 45 of my poems and to put them together in this book.

[Jimmy Carter]

Well, did you get rejection slips from anybody?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Yes, a few.

[Jimmy Carter]

Now, did that hurt a lot?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Not really, because I didn't expect very much at the beginning. I expected to be rejected. And when I did get an acceptance, it was a very pleasant surprise. I submitted a few poems to some of the more prominent magazines. And the first time I sent a few poems to my present publisher, he said that he didn't think that a poetry book was appropriate for me. And I took one of the poems out of the New Yorker magazine that I could not comprehend at all. And I sent it to him, Peter Osnos.

[Amy Carter]

He says he has it on his.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Wall in his office, but it's a totally incomprehensible, ugly collection of words that has no meaning to me. No rhythm, no rhyme. The words are not even good. But it was published in a New Yorker magazine, and I don't understand that kind of poetry. So I went through a laborious process of finally saying, okay, I'm going to publish the poems that I like. I'm going to let them be truly expressive of my inner feelings. And if people like them, fine. If they don't, okay. So far, their reviews have been quite favorable.

[Jimmy Carter]

There's another poem I'm going to ask you to read called Difficult Times.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

It's a very brief poem. That's the title of Difficult Times. I try to understand. I've seen you draw away and show the pain. It's hard to know what I can say to turn things right again. To have the coolness melt, to share once more the warmth we've felt.

[Jimmy Carter]

Was that a poem to Rosalind?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Yes. When we were having some difficult times.

And.

That first version of the poem is not this one. I rewrote it several times to simplify it and to abbreviate it. But I think we all go through those things and there's a reaching out to someone else that can be expressed in poetry, that can be expressed at least by me in prose or verbally.

[Jimmy Carter]

So did you give her the poem after you wrote it?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Yes.

[Jimmy Carter]

Did that help?

[Amy Carter]

Well, we got along.

[Terry Gross]

Warm things up.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, we're still.

[Jimmy Carter]

We're still together.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

We're now approaching our 49th wedding anniversary, so, yes, it did.

[Terry Gross]

Jimmy Carter, recorded in 1995 after the publication of his poetry collection Always a reckoning. In 2005, I spoke with him about his book Endangered America's Moral Crisis. Carter was the first American president to tell the public that he was born again. But he believed in the separation of church and state. And in this memoir, he focused on his concerns about the intertwining of politics and religion.

[Jimmy Carter]

You were the first president to say that you were born again. And you said that during the election when you were asked by a reporter, yes. After you proclaimed that you were born again, how did that change perceptions of you?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

It was a very serious mistake for me to make. I was actually in the backyard of a friend in North Carolina, and I was asked, are you a born again Christian? And I answered, truthfully, yes, I am. I had always assumed that that phrase was completely acceptable, at least among. And there were news reporters there. It was kind of late in the 76 campaign, and it was reported, and the reaction was very severe and negative because the people who were not familiar with that phrase assumed that I was claiming to have some special endowment from God in visions, and that I also tended to elevate myself above all other human beings. In my moral standards, which was not the case at all. Being a born again Christian had been a phrase I used since I was probably three or four years old, as used regularly in Christian churches in my area. So it was a very negative reaction to what I had to say. And I was very careful from then on to separate openly and ostentatiously my religious faith from any responsibilities that I assumed when I became president.

[Jimmy Carter]

When you were president, did you ever find that your political position and your religious views ever came into conflict?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Yes, There was one issue in particular that was a very serious problem for me, and that was abortion. I have never believed that Jesus Christ, whom I worship, would approve abortions unless the mother's health or life was threatened or perhaps if the pregnancy was from rape or incest. This is hard for me to accept. And at the same time, I was sworn by oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court had ruled that abortions in the first semester of pregnancy were completely acceptable. So I tried to do everything I could within the bounds of the law to minimize and discourage abortions. One of the easily understood principles is that two thirds of the women who have abortions claim that the reason is that they cannot financially support another child. So I developed what's known as the Women Infant Children's Program, WIC program, to give special benefits to pregnant women and infant children. Also, I promoted the proposition that adoption should be easier, and I tried to promulgate training in high school on ways to avoid unwanted pregnancy. But I had to uphold the law. So that particular one was troublesome for me. Another that was legally troublesome for me that didn't really ever come into effect was the Supreme Court's ruling shortly before I became president that authorized a death penalty. But when the Supreme Court ruled, luckily I went through my entire term as governor and my entire term as president, and no one was executed under my administrations. And I have never felt that Jesus Christ again would approve the death penalty as it's presently supported so strongly by some of the conservative Christians and others in this country.

[Terry Gross]

Those are the two issues Jimmy Carter recorded in 2005. Our remembrance of Jimmy Carter will continue with more of that conversation and another interview I recorded with him and his daughter Amy, when she was 25, about family life in the White House after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH air.

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[Terry Gross]

Carter with excerpts of interviews I recorded with him over the years. Let's get back to the one we recorded in 2005, 30 years after Carter's successful campaign for the presidency. George W. Bush was president at the time.

[Jimmy Carter]

Now, you mentioned that when you publicly stated that you were born again when you were running for president, that it worked against you. People misunderstood what you meant by that, and you thought it hurt you in the election. It's funny because, you know, President Bush is born again. He discussed that when he was running for office. And, you know, it seemed to help him very much in his campaign. So would you reflect a little bit about what's changed?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, what's changed is what I described earlier. That is, the rise of fundamentalism has affected both politics, including national policy in domestic and foreign affairs, and also has affected the religious community much more than it ever did when I was in politics, and the two have now merged. So there is an ostentatious and very aggressive effort among the, you might say, the religious right leaders. And I don't criticize them because of their beliefs publicly to align themselves with the Republican Party, provided the Republican Party members whom they support are adequately conservative. So that marriage has been a radical departure, in my opinion, from the ancient values of our country, as espoused most clearly by Thomas Jefferson, who advocated a wall between church and state.

[Jimmy Carter]

Let me ask you about evolution, since, you know, intelligent design is before the courts now. How do you deal with the fact that science tells us different things than the Bible does about the creation of men and women and the earth?

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, in our Endangered Values book, I describe my feelings about this quite thoroughly. I studied nuclear physics when I was a young man. I was one of the originators of a nuclear submarine program. I worked under Admiral Hyman Rickover at the same time as you've already mentioned I'm a devout I don't see any incompatibility at all between the two. My belief is that God created the universe. My belief is that God permits us to understand the new developments that we can witness in universal matters. When the Bible was written, we didn't have the Hubble telescope. We didn't have microscopes so we could look at small items. We didn't have a way to test the age of rocks and so forth. Now we have these scientific capabilities. And so I think that science is just a revelation of God's creation. And so the two are completely separate, and we can't prove the existence of.

[Amy Carter]

Things in our faith.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

As a matter of fact, the definition of faith in the Bible is that we know things that cannot be proven. Well, we don't have to have faith to believe that the moon is out there. That's something that we can see for ourselves. And we can't have science prove the existence of God or all of the things that we know about Jesus Christ as a Christian. So the two are separate. I don't believe there's any place in a scientific classroom to try to prove to the students that God exists. I think the two ought to be completely separate. So I believe in both of them, the science and religion. The two are completely separate. One should not be imposed on the other.

[Terry Gross]

Jimmy Carter recorded in 2005 after he'd written his book Endangered America's Moral Crisis. Coming up, family life in the White House. We'll listen to an excerpt of an interview I did with Carter and his daughter amy when she 25. This is FRESH AIR. This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering Jimmy Carter by listening back to excerpts of interviews I recorded with him after he left the White House in 1995. I spoke with Carter and his daughter amy. She was 9 when her father was elected president. She was 25 at the time of this interview. She and her father had just finished a children's book. Jimmy did the writing and and Amy did the illustrations. Their book, the Little Baby Snooglefleger, was based on stories Carter used to tell his children. It was about a lonely boy who is befriended by an intimidating underwater creature known as a snooglefleger.

[Amy Carter]

Well, this was a hero of a.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Lot of stories that I told my.

[Amy Carter]

Children beginning maybe 40, 45 years ago. And this is a monster, but a young one, but still very large and extremely ugly. And he comes out of the ocean on occasion to become involved in adventures with little children who were about the same age as my children when I told them the stories. And he interrelates very in a very exciting and dramatic way to help resolve some of their problems or to deal with crises that affect their lives. And so the little baby snoogle fleech is always fearsome to all the other kids. And usually in the stories, the hero of that particular story, the little child, is the only one who can relate to the little baby snoogle fleeger because he is so ugly and formidable looking. He's a very lonely little creature, and he's always searching for friends, but rarely finds any. Spends his time underneath the ocean, underneath the waters, but he can come up to the top on occasion. And amazingly, he's able to speak different languages. In this particular case, he speaks English.

[Jimmy Carter]

Jimmy Carter, do you think you invented an undersea creature in part because you were stationed on a submarine in your military days?

[Amy Carter]

Well, I think so.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Actually.

[Amy Carter]

I probably began telling these stories when I was still on a surface ship. But I always had submarines in the back of my mind, and one of the submarines I was on was a killer submarine designed exclusively to hunt and destroy Soviet submarines if we should have had gone to war before they could hear us. It was extremely quiet and very small and specially designed, so we would stay submerged for sometimes days at the time and listen to the sound of shrimp and whales and dolphins on our very elaborate sonar equipment. And I think there's no doubt that having an undersea creature become a startling hero came from my experiences underneath the water for sometimes days or even months at a time.

[Jimmy Carter]

Amy Carter, your father describes the little baby snoogle fleeger as an ugly creature. How did you decide to draw it? The colors you used, the shape you gave it? Where did you get your visual impression from? How did you come up with it?

[I]

I actually looked at a lot of fish and old National Geographics, and I wanted to have his skin be sort of modeled. And I guess the only perhaps I didn't really try to make him as ugly as I could have, but I added his big teeth sort of in that way, and just sort of green, moldy colors.

[Jimmy Carter]

I should say for our listeners who are hearing unusual sounds in the background, that that is not the Snugelfleger. That's actually the sounds of construction near the NPR studio in New York.

[Terry Gross]

What was it like for the two.

[Jimmy Carter]

Of you to collaborate on something? You know, sometimes it's very hard for family members to work together, particularly to learn to drive from each other. But what was it like to work on a book Together. I mean, Jimmy Carter, you're the father, and therefore are used to being in control or wanting to have control. But that's not the attitude to have when you're collaborating with somebody.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Well, I had.

[Amy Carter]

I had been through a horrible experience writing a book together with my wife a few years ago called Everything to Gain. It almost destroyed a marriage of 48 years because it was about a traumatic experience in our life, having been defeated for reelection as president, having lost all our money, having gone back home to an empty house with all our kids gone. And the book was advice on how other people might deal with these unexpected and difficult events. Rosa and I could agree on 97% of the text, but the 3% became paramount. And we had a horrible experience, literally. I'm not exaggerating. We could only communicate by writing ugly messages back and forth on our word processors. And it was only a very enlightened editor who saved our book and saved our marriage by finally taking those 3% of paragraphs and dividing them half and half. Half of Jimmy's, half of Rosalind's. And you can put a J on your paragraphs. Rosalind doesn't have to agree. And she can put an R on her paragraphs, and you don't have to agree. So we saved our book. So I went into this event with Amy, with that as a historical background. This time, though, Amy was off at graduate school. I was in Plains, and I felt that it was my story and my image of a Snugelfledger, and Amy just had to fill in the gaps. But it turned out that Amy has an artist's temperament. When she decides on how something should look, how it should be presented, there's very little opportunity to change her mind. And I think not only did I. Did I discover this, but the art editor, Times Books, found this out. So there wasn't any chance for argument much.

[Jimmy Carter]

Amy, I know that there was a period when you were at Brown University when you engaged in a student protest against CIA recruiting on campus that ended up in a big court case. You spent a lot of time away from your actual schoolwork and ended up, I believe, being expelled. I'm wondering if that was a turning point in you deciding what you wanted to do. I mean, what you wanted to study and what you wanted to be. I mean, were you. Were you pursuing art then? Or did that kind of little crisis get you onto a different and ultimately maybe more satisfying course?

[I]

Oh, I definitely think so. I was actually pursuing art to some degree at Brown, but I guess it really made me Consider what kind of environment I really felt comfortable in, instead of, like, the idea that I had been set up for, particularly by going to a prep school in Georgia that was sort of geared towards the Ivy League. So I think that that came to a head, and I also returned to the south at that point and went to Memphis, which. Which was really, I think, probably an important step for me, just in terms of the fact that moving so much, I needed some or I felt like it was time to sort of deal with what area of the country was really my home and, like, explore Georgia to a fuller extent and be close to family and friends.

[Jimmy Carter]

You went to Memphis College of Art?

[I]

Yep, I did.

[Amy Carter]

Another thing was that Amy had been very active in demonstrations against apartheid in South Africa.

[Jimmy Carter]

Right.

[Amy Carter]

And she had already been arrested or detained three times before that. She was very active in college as a leader in that respect.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

But at the same time, I think.

[Amy Carter]

A very withdrawn, and if Amy will excuse my saying the word shy person, she didn't want to be confronting TV cameras and news reporters, but she felt very deeply about these kinds of things.

[Jimmy Carter]

Amy, it sounds like you're a mix of very shy and defiant.

[I]

I think that's exactly right.

[Amy Carter]

That's one reason that we don't really argue with Amy when she tells us that she decided to do something. The defiant part.

[Jimmy Carter]

So, Jimmy Carter, you were governor and president. Was there much time when you were in those positions to actually tell stories to Amy?

[Amy Carter]

I think never enough. You know, this is something that you always find to be startling when you look back and maybe tabulate how many hours you actually spend with your sons or daughter whom you really love. And then you can go a year or so and all of a sudden realize, gee, I haven't spent but two or three days actually with my kids. Nowadays, we have a fixed habit of going off for at least a week with the whole family together. There are 18 of us, and we do that every year so that we can kind of get to know each other better and become acquainted. But this is a particularly exciting and unpredictable experience in my life. Spending a few days with Amy on, you know, talking about this book, because I don't think I've ever had a real partnership before, even with my three sons. So I have approached it with some degree of trepidation. I have to say. This interview has helped me overcome some of my concerns.

[Jimmy Carter]

How does a first family put aside time as family time? What family time did you actually have together in the White House?

[Amy Carter]

Well, I'll let Amy answer that, too, but I Stayed in the Oval Office and worked pretty hard. And we had three grown sons and Rosalynn who were out a lot, who would meet with elderly people, meet with those who were interested in abortions, meet with those who were interested in education and health and welfare and so forth. And Amy was going to a public school in Washington. So around our dinner tables and so forth, supper tables, we had these intense discussions of what's going on in the world, what's going on out in the public school system or in the welfare lines. And it was a very wonderful education for me. Amy went to school the first morning as a nine year old child and she was inundated with TV cameras and radio microphones being thrust in her face. And that evening on the television, they showed this little child struggling up the walkway with a large sack of books, abused really by dozens of eager reporters. All the reporters that were at the White House at that time, I think There were only 1200 then. There are more now, got together after seeing this television display and pledged to one another they would leave Amy alone. So for the rest of the four years we were in the White House, she led a kind of a protected life. And she would bring her classmates to the White House to go swimming or to watch movies. And so I think she had a fairly normal life as a child within the bounds of living in the White House. Maybe Amy would disagree with me, but that was my impression.

[Jimmy Carter]

Amy, how much family time did you actually have in the White House years?

[I]

I actually think from discussions with both my parents that they feel are more concerned about that than I remember or than I was at the time, because I really remember it as being very frequent. Like there was never a time when I could not walk into anyone's office and speak to them. I remember having dinners together.

[Jimmy Carter]

And how often would you have dinner together?

[I]

I think we had. Well, my memory might be shaky, but I think we had dinner together very regularly, almost every night.

[Amy Carter]

The only exception was when we had a state banquet and some king or president would come from a foreign country to have an official banquet. On a few occasions, Amy went to the official banquets and she was severely criticized for reading.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

For reading at the table.

[Jimmy Carter]

I completely identify. I completely identify. I used to bring a book with me to a lot of family events and be roundly chastised for it. But, you know, I used to be really bored, to be honest, with a lot of adult events when I was a kid. I was like, they're talking about adult things and you know, I don't care. I'd rather watch tv. But, Amy, when you were surrounded by adult events, it was, you know, like presidents from other countries and, you know, probably famous performers who were doing White House performances and things like that. Were you interested in these very famous adults or were they uninteresting to you also?

[I]

There's several that I remember meeting that I was really drawn to and happy to have known, just kind of mixed group. But Sadat I remember very vividly. He's one of the people that I met that I think I was most thrilled to meet because he was so kind and would come and say goodnight to me before he left, which. And I think maybe it was the people who went out of the way to treat me, who went out of the way to say hello to the one who was young that I remember. Cher is actually another person. I remember I was completely overwhelmed really by meeting Cher and John Travolta. There were some really, you know, I was young and I really admired.

[Amy Carter]

That was when she was married to one of the Allman Brothers, right. And they both came.

[I]

And her fingernails, I still remember her fingernails because I thought they were so beautiful.

[Jimmy Carter]

They were really long. They were probably fake.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

They were very long.

[I]

But she was very sweet to me, too.

[Jimmy Carter]

Oh, that's nice.

[I]

Yeah, she spoke to me. I feel like she spoke to me about an hour alone. I think it made me feel adult probably.

[Amy Carter]

I remember when King Hussein came to the White House the first or second time with his sons. And we had I think Rosen had briefed Amy, you know, very carefully about your royal highness and so forth. And so as they approached each other, Amy said, hi, how you doing? And they relaxed very quickly and became friends.

[Terry Gross]

Jimmy Carter and his daughter Amy, recorded in 1995, will conclude our tribute to him after a break. This is FRESH AIR. When I interviewed Jimmy Carter in December 2001 about his memoir, Christmas in Plains, he grew up in Plains, Georgia. It was at the beginning of a somber holiday season when the country was still mourning the losses of the September 11 attacks.

[Jimmy Carter]

I would like to wish you a merry Christmas, but it strikes me as not exactly as a merry Christmas period. And I'm wondering what language you're using when you're sending your best sentiments about Christmas this year. Are you using the word merry?

[Amy Carter]

Well, we're sending message of a peaceful Christmas, a Christmas filled with love, wishing for harmony among people and families or who have different faiths. So I think this year is more of a wish for peace and love than it is for happiness or merriment. One of the things that I have described in Christmas in Plains is how we have to accommodate those times of sadness or distress or sometimes maybe even fear or sorrow when we've lost a loved one right before Christmas. We can't be expecting happiness or merriment or celebration, except the celebration of things, as I said earlier in the program, that never change, that are precious to us. One of the things that Rosa and I do nowadays, since we've got, I think, 23 members in our family, is to try to bring together all the members of our family at least once a year. So over a period of years, as I describe in the book, we've carved out for ourselves the week after Christmas. So on the 27th of December each year, we gather our whole family together and we go somewhere that's attractive enough to bring the grandkids along with us. And our children and grandchildren who have jobs save up their vacation time for those few days, and we all go to some interesting place. Rosen and I generally try to pay all the bills. We save up our frequent flyer miles to pay the transportation, and we just get reacquainted. So I think in that respect, no.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Matter what the outside world is doing.

[Amy Carter]

The Carter center still preserves the essence of Christmas.

[Jimmy Carter]

Boy, I bet you get a lot of frequent flyer miles through your work with the Carter center.

[Amy Carter]

Traveling around the world. You'd be amazed at how many.

[Jimmy Carter]

You're a member of all the VIP clubs.

[Amy Carter]

Yes.

[Jimmy Carter]

Do you fly first class with the miles most of the time?

[Amy Carter]

Well, we actually buy tickets of tourist class, but Delta Airlines is nice enough to me and Rosen so that when they have a vacant seat, two vacant seats, they don't have first class. They have business class. They sometimes, most of the time, elevate us to a higher status. But one of the things that I have done ever since I left the White House is every time I get on a plane to travel anywhere, a commercial plane, as you know, I don't have an Air Force One anymore. I go back and shake hands with.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Everybody on the plane before we take.

[Amy Carter]

Off, and it's a very pleasant thing.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

For me, and I meet a lot.

[Amy Carter]

Of old friends there and people that share experiences with me and the flights that I took immediately after the September 11th tragedy. When I did this, there were four rounds of applause that I did it. I think at first when I told.

[Unnamed Interviewee]

Rosalind about it, she said, I thought.

[Amy Carter]

That they were just glad to see me. And she said, jimmy, what they were glad to see was a Secret Service on the plane with you. But I enjoy doing that, and I think that kind of brings out maybe something of the spirit of Christmas.

[Terry Gross]

Jimmy Carter recorded in 2001. If you missed the first program in our two part series, remembering Carter, you can listen to it on our podcast or Stream it@fresh air.NPR.org we're grateful to have had him on our show several times and to be able to reflect on his years of service to our country and his commitment to working for affordable housing, democracy and peace around the world. Rest in peace. Today's edition was produced by our executive producer, Danny Miller, and our director, Roberto Shorrock. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Reboldonado, Sam Brugger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Some of these earlier interviews were produced by Amy Sallitt. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

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