Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: Power and

Human Rights, 1975-2020 E. Stanly

Godbold
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Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter
 Jimmy and Rosalynn
Carter
POWER AND HUMAN RIGHTS, 1975–2020

E. Stanly Godbold, Jr.

 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© E. Stanly Godbold, Jr. 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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condition on any acquirer.
CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress
ISBN 978–0–19–758156–8
eISBN 978–0–19–758158–2
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197581568.001.0001
 TO JEANNIE

IN MEMORY OF MARTIN I. ELZY

FOR MY FATHER AND MY SON

 Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction
ONE Candidate from the South, 1975
TWO “It’s Going to Happen”
THREE Mini-Juggernaut
FOUR The Carters Take New York
FIVE Jimmy, and Rosalynn, Won
SIX The Shadow Presidency
SEVEN A Different Presidency
EIGHT One Hundred Days
NINE Governing Carter Style
TEN Rosalynn Steps Out
ELEVEN Religion, Race, and Politics
TWELVE Quests for Justice: Panama, Israel, Iran
THIRTEEN The Revolutionaries
FOURTEEN The Perils of Political Courage
FIFTEEN The Tightrope to Peace
SIXTEEN Quiet Path to Camp David
SEVENTEEN Miracle at Camp David
EIGHTEEN “A Great and Beautiful Job”
 NINETEEN Carter’s Coup: China
TWENTY Khomeini, Bella, and Rosalynn
TWENTY ONE A White House Signing
TWENTY TWO Dangerous Rhetoric and a Harmless Rabbit
TWENTY THREE SALT II, Enemies, and Allies
TWENTY FOUR Crisis of Confidence
TWENTY FIVE Kennedys and Terrorists
TWENTY SIX In the Name of God, Iran!
TWENTY SEVEN The Soviet Union Makes a Move
TWENTY EIGHT Hostages and Politics
TWENTY NINE Delta Force
THIRTY Keeping the Faith
THIRTY ONE An Uphill Battle
THIRTY TWO A Surprise in October
THIRTY THREE The Agony of Defeat
THIRTY FOUR Welcome Home
THIRTY FIVE A Place in the World
THIRTY SIX The Carter Center
THIRTY SEVEN Humanitarians Adrift
THIRTY EIGHT Navigating Troubled Waters
THIRTY NINE Servant of Peace
FORTY Tyrants, Books, and Mr. Earl
FORTY ONE The Nobel Prize
FORTY TWO Tuned to the World
FORTY THREE Endangered Values and Apartheid in Palestine
FORTY FOUR “Cootie Man” among The Elders
FORTY FIVE Journey into Eternity
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
 Acknowledgments

My family comes first. When Jeannie married me on that rainy day in

Starkville, Mississippi, December 30, 1988, neither she nor I
imagined the life we had ahead. Eighteen months later I was
spending long days, weeks, and months in the Carter Library in
Atlanta. She helped with the research, made many a trip to Atlanta,
kept the rest of our lives afloat, and always believed that we could
do it. My stepdaughter Heidi, during her high school years, helped
process the voluminous number of photocopies I brought home from
the Carter Library. My son Kran, a scholar himself, gave help,
encouragement, and plenty of advice. In time, they gave the most
precious gift of all in the persons of four beautiful grandchildren:
Samuel, Thomas, Maya, and Neha. My parents, Ed and Louise
Godbold, would have moved mountains, and almost did, to make
certain I would not be tied forever to that cotton farm in Sumter
County, South Carolina. At both Duke University and Southern
Methodist University, I was fortunate to have excellent professors
and intelligent fellow students who stimulated my interest in learning
and writing. My mentor at Duke, Robert H. Woody, became a close
companion and co-author on one of my earlier books.
Many people, famous and less so, kindly granted me interviews.
Their names are listed in the bibliography, but special credit should
go to Tip O’Neill, Edmund Muskie, Cyrus Vance, and Stansfield
Turner, all of whom granted me extensive amounts of time under
what must have been difficult circumstances for them. Steven
Hochman, a highly accomplished historian who is a special assistant
to Jimmy Carter, had many conversations with me and helped
arrange my interviews with the Carters. He read many of the
chapters in the final draft and offered excellent corrections and
suggstions. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter granted me interviews,
access to papers and photographs, and respected the distance I
tried to maintain in order to create a detached work of scholarship.
Nevertheless, they deserve the credit for living such incredible and
productive lives, creating and preserving the evidence that will serve
many generations, and despite human foibles, being both servant
and beacon for humankind.
Because this project has spanned more than three decades, to
acknowledge properly all the people, institutions, and pets who
helped is a task at which this account falls short. Since this volume is
a sequel to my Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter: The Georgia Years, 1924–
1974 (2010), those people and institutions acknowledged in that
earlier volume deserve equal credit for their contributions to this
one. At the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta, my home
away from home for many years, the following administrators and
archivists served me patiently and brilliantly: Don Schewe, Martin
Elzy, David Alsobrook, Jay Hakes, Robert Bohannan, Susan Ament,
Bettie Joe Brown, Betty Egwinike, Gary Foulk, Jim Herring, Yolanda
Logan, Shelia Mayo, Ceri McCarron, Mary Anne McSweeney, Sylvia
Naguib, Bert Nason, Sonia Robinson, Keith Shuler, Sara Saunders
Mitchell, David Stanhope, Chuck Stokely, Jim Yancey, Polly Nodine,
and others. Sara Mitchell was particularly helpful in acquiring and
processing much of the art work. The staffs of the Georgia
Department of Archives and History and the Woodruff Library at
Emory University helped in many important ways.
The Gerald Ford Foundation awarded me a grant to research in
the Gerald R. Ford Library. The staffs of the presidential libraries of
John F. Kennedy, Ronald R. Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George
W. Bush welcomed me and guided my research in their collections.
Other libraries where I found collections and able assistance include:
Library of Congress, the Oral History Collection at Columbia
University, the James Earl Carter Library at Southwestern State
University, Lake Blackshear Regional Library, and the Lander
University Library.
My home university, Mississippi State, supported me with a job,
sabbatical leaves, and occasional research assistance. The staff of
Mitchell Memorial Library, especially reference librarian Amanda Clay
Powers, guided me through baffling technology as well as assisting
with collections, interlibrary loans, and fast responses to my
numerous “ask a librarian” questions. The John C. Stennis Oral
History Project assisted with my interviews and travel budget.
Former students who worked as research assistants include: David
Gleeson, Richard Haydel, Kevin Hall, Qiming Han, Todd Herring,
David Hirsch, Todd Holden, Tony Iacono, Craig Piper, John Selman,
Ryan Semmes, Tommy Upchurch, Kenneth Vickers, and others.
Kenneth Vickers and Tommy Upchurch read and critiqued many of
the chapters in the first volume, and much of their research
contributed to this volume. Non-student volunteer helpers include
George Robson, Scott McMurry, Russell Motter, Louise Godbold, John
Glass, and Susan Wansbrough.
Two special colleagues who shared many hours in the Carter
Library, lunches, visits with families, meetings at professional
meetings, lengthy discussions, and exchanges of information
deserve my great appreciation. They are Carl Biven of Georgia Tech
University and Leo Ribuffo of George Washington University.
Although I worked from primary sources as thoroughly as
possible, this book is built upon those of many others who have
written about the Carters. They include the excellent studies by the
scholars, journalists, biographers, and memoirists whose works are
cited in the notes and bibliography. Special thanks go to the
distinguished television journalist Mary Beth Durkin of
Yellowbrickroad Productions, who jumpstarted my work on Rosalynn
Carter and brought me into conversation with others who were
helpful, namely, Peter Bourne, Scott Kaufman, Allida Black, and
Susan Hartman.
Scholars and friends who read all or parts of the current volume
include Martin Elzy, Richard McMurry, Fred Smith, Phil Chase, Kranti
Dugar, and Jeannie Godbold. Martin Elzy, the retired assistant
director of the Carter Library, gave bibliographical advice as well as
suggestions for corrections in the first two chapters. Fred Smith, an
accomplished and well-published scholar of twentieth-century
America, gave much of his retirement time to helping correct factual
errors and put this manuscript into good English and proper
scholarly form. Richard McMurry, a much-published and prize-
winning Civil War historian, as well as friend for many years, was the
kind of sharp, quick, and detailed critic I needed. Kranti Dugar, my
son and a fine scholar in his own right, helped with both research
and technology questions. Jeri Weiser, a high-tech specialist, solved
technical problems quickly and speeded the manuscript to
conclusion.
Special thanks go to Phil Chase, editor emeritus of the papers of
George Washington and associate professor of history emeritus at
the University of Virginia. One of the renowned documentary editors
in the country, Phil contributed many days of his time and the
advantage of his skill and experience to reading the entire
manuscript, making suggestions and corrections, adding research,
and editing it. He brought his talent and experience as an historian
to discovering and correcting numerous errors that might have
otherwise been overlooked. My debt to him is very great. His wife,
Jeanne, an enthusiastic cheering squad of one, lifted my spirits when
I often needed it, and I believe she is the most positive and
optimistic human being I have ever known.
My wife Jeannie was there from start to finish, reading the final
manuscript as if it were a book that might be appropriate for her
book club and commenting accordingly. All remaining errors remain
the sole responsibility of the author.
During the making of this book, a group of wonderful pets gave
unconditional love and support and staged frequent interruptions.
Most of them were our cats—Baby Mange, Maurice, Houdini, and
Tommicat. A couple of fine dogs, Sparkplug and Misty, did their bit to
help.
Susan Ferber, executive editor at Oxford University Press, knows
how to deal with a wide variety of authors. She has the ability to size
up each individual author and give him exactly the right amount of
space, advice, and push that is necessary to complete the book. She
became a good friend. As an editor she was kind, patient, efficient,
and extraordinarily skilled. I would place her a few levels above
Maxwell Perkins and suggest that she deserves a biography of her
own. I am particularly grateful to her and her colleagues for bringing
this book into being.
Coming full circle back to Jeannie, when she made outrageous
promises on that chilly, rainy day in 1988, she never dreamed what a
wild ride a girl from Chicago, a preschool teacher, was about to take
across the South and into the exciting world of research and
biography. Always smiling, she is a tower of strength whose
dedication helped bring this project to completion. She deserves so
much more than a mere dedication.
 Introduction

When Rosalynn Carter told a reporter in 1975 that “it’s going to

happen,” she meant that her husband Jimmy would get the
Democratic nomination for president in 1976 and that he would win
the election. Born three years and three miles apart, theirs is a story
of hard work, good luck, and incredible personal and political drama
that ultimately sent them to the White House in 1977.
Jimmy Carter grew up on a prosperous farm in Archery, Georgia,
where his playmates, nanny, and most of his neighbors were African
American. The oldest of four children, his father nicknamed him
“Hotshot” and expected him to excel in all that he did. His mother,
who became the nation’s beloved “Miss Lillian,” was a nurse who
openly practiced kindness to both blacks and whites and instilled in
her son a sense of caring for others. Jimmy’s father, “Mr. Earl,”
became the more formative parent, the model and teacher for
Jimmy, whose concern and help for needy neighbors he kept secret.
Both parents practiced Christianity, although Mr. Earl took it more
seriously. Financially successful, despite the Great Depression, they
expected Jimmy and his siblings to become well educated and to
make their way in the world.
Rosalynn, also the oldest of four children, was the daughter of a
schoolteacher and a bus driver. Petite, pretty, inquisitive, and very
intelligent, her childhood changed with the death of her father when
she was only fourteen, and her mother had to work at the post
office to support herself and four children. Imbued with the
missionary spirit typical of Methodists, Rosalynn grew up to be the
valedictorian of her class at Plains High School and to attend a junior
college in nearby Americus, Georgia. She was still in her teens when
Jimmy saw her on the steps of the Methodist Church, fell in love
with her immediately, and asked her to marry him. By then, he was
a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy, handsome, she
thought, in his dress white uniform, and possibly a ticket out of
Plains. They were married on July 7, 1946, in a simple ceremony at
that Methodist Church. As a young Navy wife, she had to manage
the household finances and care for three young sons who were
born to her and Jimmy during the early years of their marriage. She
traveled from one coast to the other, spent time in Hawaii, met
people from all over the country and the world, and generally
enjoyed that lifestyle. An honors graduate of the Naval Academy,
Jimmy had joined Admiral Hyman Rickover’s elite atomic submarine
group and had risen rapidly through the ranks until he was ready to
command his own submarine.
When Mr. Earl died of pancreatic cancer in 1953, and Miss Lillian
told Jimmy that he must come home to run the family business,
Rosalynn balked at the idea of moving back to Plains and threatened
divorce. She went, however, with her husband, and soon she
became his successful business partner in their tiny hometown.
When he entered state politics in 1962, Rosalynn discovered that she
could be a good campaigner and politician. Helping him to negotiate
the labyrinth of changing race relations in the South during the Civil
Rights Era, she was as crushed as he in 1966 when he lost the
governorship to segregationist Lester Maddox. After adding a
daughter, Amy, to their middle-aged lives, and developing their farms
and warehouse into a lucrative agribusiness, they vowed never to be
defeated again. When, with Rosalynn’s help, Carter won the Georgia
governorship in 1970, he announced that the time for racial
discrimination in Georgia was over, shocking some people who had
voted for him but attracting national attention. He and Rosalynn took
an unusual interest in international trade and foreign policy, traveled
extensively, and set their sights on the presidency. Jimmy had
developed a governing style that he would carry to the White House
with him, and Rosalynn emerged as a woman with a mind of her
own who could plan strategy and grasp complex economic and
political issues as well as sew and cook. They believed that they
could make a difference in the world and that the best way for them
to do it would be through the power of the presidency.
 In both their private and public worlds, Jimmy and Rosalynn
Carter lived a life of conflict and resolution, triumph and defeat,
sickness and health, fame and disgrace, power and helplessness.
Married almost thirty years by the time he ran for president, they
had reared three sons and were the parents of a nine-year-old
daughter. Jimmy was strict and demanding like his father, practicing
the tough love that the younger generation did not always
understand. Rosalynn was forgiving, kind, helpful, and
nonjudgmental, while often balancing domestic life with her public
career. Their relationships with siblings, especially Jimmy’s brother
Billy, and in-laws, especially the powerful Miss Lillian, were often
challenging and even maddening. They sometimes disagreed about
whether to be Baptists or Methodists and often found themselves
too liberal to be completely at ease in their church, but they both
remained steadfastly grounded in the Christian faith. In business,
beginning with a large inheritance of property, they worked together
to become so financially successful that by 1975 they could afford to
devote themselves full time to campaigning for the presidency. As
the primary business manager, Rosalynn kept the books and often
served sandwiches to the clients. Jimmy excelled at marketing and
public relations. Although caring for the family, developing their
business, involving themselves in church and missionary activities,
and enjoying fishing and other outdoor activities dominated their
lives, both Carters remained firmly grounded in humanitarian
concerns and advancing their knowledge of the humanities. They
studied Spanish, read novels and poetry, and became well versed in
the commonality of humanity as well as its diversity.
The world stage the Carters proposed to occupy and shape was
crowded with problems and challenges. The United States was
reeling from the economic and social problems related to the ending
of the Vietnam War, the longest in its history at that time. The
Watergate scandal in the executive office of the government had
forced the first resignation ever of a president, in order for him to
escape impeachment, and placed an unelected president in office.
The people seemed to have lost faith in their government and to
have concluded that all politicians were liars. A major energy crisis
caused in large part by US dependency upon foreign oil affected
practically every household. The arms race between the United
States and the Soviet Union had caused both superpowers to amass
huge nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the planet. Emerging
nations, if they wished to survive and prosper, were forced to choose
one side or the other. Civil wars and political and religious
revolutions raged—especially in Iran; persecuted Jews in the Soviet
Union, Palestinians in Israel, impoverished blacks in apartheid
African countries, and women almost everywhere cried out for help.
Rich, comfortable, powerful world citizens as well as religious and
government leaders often showed little interest in those who were
hungry, homeless, diseased, illiterate, and deprived of basic human
rights by tyrants and dictators or governments that placed power
and wealth ahead of human needs.
When Jimmy Carter had announced formally on December 12,
1974, that he was a candidate for president of the United States, he
believed that he and Rosalynn could bring stability and peace to
their country and to the world. As governor and first lady of Georgia,
the largest state east of the Mississippi River, they had weathered
many a political and personal battle as they practiced what they
hoped to accomplish for the country and the world. Ambitious to
create “a more caring society,” as Rosalynn put it, they were starry-
eyed and determined to succeed as they packed up to leave the
Georgia governor’s mansion in January 1975 and aim for the White
House.
 ONE

Candidate from the South, 1975

Two men loaded a truck parked behind the Georgia governor’s

mansion in Atlanta. Casually dressed in blue jeans and flannel shirts,
and wearing gloves for protection against the December chill and
their rough work, they could have passed for hired helpers. The
younger one, Billy, was stout, jovial, and eager to help his older
brother. Taller, leaner, and thirteen years older than Billy, Jimmy was
in impeccable physical condition at age fifty, grinning, hurried,
happy, determined. He was so confident that within two years’ time
he would be elected president of the United States that, in
Washington, DC, on December 12, 1974, he had declared, “I will be
the next President.”1
No ordinary workers, the Carter brothers were well known in
Georgia and beyond, because Jimmy was completing his term as
governor. What the public did not know, however, was that Jimmy
and Rosalynn Carter, with the help of their closest allies, had been
campaigning for the Democratic nomination for the presidency since
the fall of 1972. They had invited the leading Democratic candidates
for the nomination one by one, to the Georgia governor’s mansion
and, over drinks, secretly studied them. Some of their drink
preferences, especially Edmund Muskie’s Scotch and milk, amazed
Carter. After meeting his potential rivals, Carter concluded that he
was better than any of them. Meeting with the Carters at the
governor’s mansion, Hamilton “Ham” Jordan, Carter’s political
adviser since 1966, had outlined a detailed seventy-page plan for
victory. Carter had begun to follow it to the letter as early as 1972.
If Carter won the White House, however, it would not be by
accident or luck. He and Rosalynn had been executing Jordan’s plan
subtly for almost two years. Extremely intelligent and willing to work
hard, Carter had shrewdly volunteered to be the Democrats’ national
leader for the off-year elections in 1974, thus quietly placing them in
his debt when they won. Rosalynn’s political skills and ability to size
up candidates had already emerged, perhaps to the amazement of
both of them.2
In the wake of the Watergate scandal and President Nixon’s
resignation in August 1974, Carter wisely promised never to tell a lie,
to operate an open government in touch with the people, and to
deliver fair and compassionate treatment for all Americans. He
presented himself as an honest father and husband, businessman
and politician, whose experience in the military and in government
qualified him for national office. In preparation, as governor he had
made trips to Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe. Using the
offices of the internationally active Coca-Cola Company, he had
created a shadow state department. Running for president, he later
said, was his “best way to be myself.” He expected to win, but he
intended to run if he “only got my vote and Rosalynn’s vote.”3
Hamilton Jordan said that “All you ever had to do for Jimmy Carter
was to tell him something was impossible and he would usually do
it.”4
Carter labored under the last politically acceptable prejudice, that
against Southern White men, but he had already proved that he was
an exceptional member of his class. The outgoing governor of
Georgia, he had won that office in a tough trek through the tangled
web of changing racial relations in the South and the miasma of
Georgia politics. On the day of his inauguration, January 12, 1971,
he had stunned the audience with his announcement that the day
for racial discrimination in Georgia was over, and he had used the
power of his office to try to make it so.
An honors graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Carter
had worked with the tough-minded and controversial Admiral Hyman
G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy, who demanded
perfection from his juniors and insisted upon intense education for
all who would enter the navy. Carter’s career in the post–World War
II navy ended abruptly in 1953 at the moment when he was ready
to assume command of his own submarine, because his father in
Plains was terminally ill. After Mr. Earl’s death, Jimmy was surprised
to learn about his father’s charitable nature. He took upon himself
Mr. Earl’s mantle of social consciousness, business success, and
political involvement. As his father lay dying, however, Jimmy
yearned to hear his father’s approval and feel his embrace, a need
that would be a driving force for the rest of his life.
As Jimmy and Billy loaded the truck in late December 1974,
Rosalynn Carter cheerfully packed the family’s personal belongings
inside the governor’s mansion for their return to Plains. Her mood
was precisely the opposite of what it had been in 1953 when she
had vigorously protested her husband’s dragging her back to that
remote South Georgia town. She had overcome her shyness, learned
to give public speeches, and emerged as a quiet but determined
feminist. She relished her role as the mother of three grown sons
and an eight-year-old daughter. She had learned to manage the staff
of a mansion, converse with celebrities of all kinds, deal with the
press and security guards, and champion the cause of care for the
mentally ill. The skills that she had acquired as a businesswoman
who had helped transform the family’s farms and warehouse into a
multi-million-dollar agribusiness she now applied to her and her
husband’s expanding political ambition. Much to her amazement, she
discovered that she loved being a politician, planning strategy,
organizing rallies, and advising her husband on policy statements
and the wording of his speeches. Motivated by a strong sense of
social justice, intensely devoted to her husband’s success, she
immersed herself in the campaign.
Those days before and after Christmas 1974 were filled with
hope, anticipation, and image-making. The railroad depot in Plains
would provide a homey and attractive setting for a presidential
campaign, but the serious work would be done in Atlanta, where a
large motel at 1795 Peachtree Street NE provided the space and
communication facilities necessary for such an enormous campaign.
The heart and soul of the campaign, however, were on Woodland
Drive in Plains, where the family gathered for Christmas and on
many weekends thereafter to plan political strategy. Since they
hoped to give as many voters as possible personal contact with an
immediate Carter family member, Rosalynn, the three sons and their
wives—Jack and Judy, Chip and Caron, Jeff and Annette—would
campaign separately from Jimmy and from each other. Lillian Carter’s
sister, Aunt Sissy Dolvin, and Jimmy’s sisters, Ruth and Gloria,
promised to help. Jimmy’s mother, “Miss Lillian,” attracted more
attention that the others with her humor and homespun wisdom,
and she also took care of Amy when she did not feel like traveling.
Brother Billy remained in Plains where he granted colorful, country-
boy interviews and operated the family business while the others
scoured the nation for votes.5
The Carters had promised incoming governor George S. Busbee
and his wife that they would vacate the mansion early in order to
give the state’s new first family time to settle in before the official
inauguration. Busbee, who as a member of the assembly had
supported Governor Carter, had defeated both Carter’s best friend
Bert Lance and worst enemy Lester Maddox to win the Democratic
nomination and the governorship. Carter liked Busbee, and he and
Rosalynn had no regrets about decamping before the end of his
term. Rosalynn returned to Plains to unpack boxes and enroll Amy in
the second grade. Carter moved into a hotel in Atlanta where he
completed his responsibilities to the state while continuing to pursue
the presidency as vigorously as a lame-duck governor could.6
From the time Carter formally announced his run for the
presidency on December 12, 1974, until he left the governorship on
January 13, 1975, his days were filled with media attention and
frenzied activities that he hoped would catapult him into the White
House. Using letterhead paper that announced “Jimmy Carter
Presidential Campaign for America’s Third Century, Why Not the
Best?,” he spelled out his gubernatorial accomplishments that had
brought positive social, political, economic, and judicial changes, as
well as international attention and investment, to Georgia. Two days
after his big announcement, with Rosalynn at his side, Carter gave a
short humorous speech to some of the nation’s most prestigious
journalists at the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington’s Statler
Hilton Hotel. He poked fun at the media that had ignored him and at
members of Congress who also might want to run for president.7
That same day, Patrick Anderson, writing for the New York Times
Magazine, declared Carter to be “a peanut farmer,” who “cheerfully
put the knife to his Southern archrival” George Wallace. Carter,
Anderson reported, was “a deceptively mild-looking man,” whose
aides described as being “aloof” and enjoying “neither giving nor
receiving compliments.” He was, his intimates said, a “cool, self-
critical and very private politician.”8
Carter was no ordinary peanut farmer, but it was a political image
he cultivated. He was a wealthy agribusiness man who had made
more money in the cotton industry than peanuts, but peanuts
recalled the image of the African-American scientist George
Washington Carver, whereas cotton reminded one of slavery.
Although he, and especially Miss Lillian, did not deny the family’s
wealth, for purposes of the campaign, he downplayed it.9
Private Carter was, but to win the office he sought, he had to
create an extroverted public persona. Two days after he joked with
journalists at the Gridiron Club, he appeared on the television
program Meet the Press, watched by seven million viewers and
listened to by two and a half million more on the radio. Carter
portrayed himself as a liberal on civil rights and environmental issues
and conservative on government management. He believed that the
government should not waste taxpayer money and that it should be
run like a well-organized business. He attacked two of his rivals,
Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas and Henry M. Jackson of
Washington, for their attempts to collect campaign contributions
before the law restricting such gifts to a maximum of one thousand
dollars went into effect.10
Zbigniew Brzezinski, an academic expert on international affairs,
wrote Carter that he had done “extremely well” on Meet the Press
and offered to continue helping with foreign policy, an area where he
thought Carter was weak. “I do think that a serious discussion of
foreign policy alternatives to present foreign policy is increasingly
needed,” Brzezinski continued, knowing that he would strike a
sympathetic chord with the candidate. Brzezinski had co-founded the
Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, to study economies in
Europe, North America, and Japan, and invited Governor Carter to
join it in 1974. Through this group, Carter had met the leading
liberal international and national leaders of the day. Brzezinski had
been sending Carter position papers during his unannounced
campaign. Once Carter’s campaign was open and heated, the two
men formed a close personal and professional alliance. Jimmy began
to address him affectionately by his nickname “Zbig.”11
Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who had grown up in
Cherokee County, Georgia, and South Georgia native and prominent
Jewish scholar Morris Abram also offered to help. Rusk’s suggestions
mostly encouraged the Carter team, but Morris Abram, who had
become president of Brandeis University, wanted a position in a
presidential administration and volunteered to help with the
campaign.12
Before Christmas, Carter dashed off to San Francisco to give a
speech to the North American Congress on Alcohol and Drug
Problems, an area where as governor he had created a model for
the nation with the help of psychiatrist Peter Bourne. Back in Atlanta
a few days later, he taught Sunday School at the Northside Drive
Baptist Church, and with Rosalynn he hosted a Christmas Open
House at the governor’s mansion. After spending Christmas in Plains,
he returned to Atlanta and wrote notes to many who had
complimented him on his job as governor, saying repeatedly that he
cherished the comments that compared him to John Kennedy and
that he was proudest of his achievements in race relations. He
thanked the top officials in his state government and wished them
well.13
Media coverage of Carter’s candidacy routinely mentioned that he
was from the South. Many journalists seemed incredulous that a
president might come from a region that had not sent a native and
contemporary resident of the South to the nation’s top office since
1848. Others speculated that the South had changed and might
indeed send a Southerner to the White House. Carl Rowan, in the
Chicago Daily News, noted that Carter might win over black voters in
the South as well as liberal whites, a phenomenon that would be
good for both the South and the Democrats. A Republican
newspaper in Minnesota conceded that Carter’s belief in racial
integration and high ethical standards made him an attractive
candidate.14
Praise for his integrity and success in streamlining the
government of Georgia became a common theme, and even the
New York Times granted that his “high personal quality and
authentic liberal credentials” might surmount the disadvantages of
being from the South. On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Times
with its syndicate of 175 papers found the reputed humble peanut
farmer to be an intellectual and sophisticated man, sincerely
committed to the elimination of nuclear weapons and convinced that
the impossible dream of a stable world could become a reality.
Columnist Garry Wills of the Universal Press Syndicate begrudgingly
conceded that Carter had a quick mind, considerable wealth, a love
of the longshot, and a resemblance to John F. Kennedy that, despite
his being “a loner,” enhanced his chances to leap from Plains to the
White House.15
The political climate in early 1975 favored Carter’s run for the
Democratic nomination, and he had positioned himself well to take
full advantage of it. When Nixon resigned the presidency in August
1974 to escape impeachment, and the unelected Gerald Ford
ascended to the office and pardoned Nixon, the Republicans
unwillingly gave a major gift to any candidate the Democrats might
choose. Carter’s work as campaign chairman for the election or
reelection of all Democrats running in 1974 had given him national
exposure and subtle influence within the party. Edward (Ted)
Kennedy’s withdrawal from the race in September 1974, resulting in
the proliferation of possible liberal candidates, could only benefit
Carter. Carter’s military career and native son status would help him
in the South, while his liberal stand on race relations and other social
issues would bolster his appeal elsewhere. Carter learned quickly,
read widely, and absorbed complicated information that he could use
in his speeches. Although he had several good advisers in addition to
Rosalynn, he basically had a brain trust of two. Stuart Eizenstat, a
savvy attorney who understood domestic policy and economics like
few others, gave him practical, political, and substantive advice.
Brzezinski, an astute student of foreign policy with hawkish
tendencies and a burning ambition for a top spot in a presidential
administration, sent Carter some of his recent writings about specific
policies.16
So confident was Carter that he would win that he informed the
majority leader of the House of Representatives, Massachusetts
Congressman Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, that he would be the 1976
nominee of the Democratic Party. O’Neill, a devout party man almost
certain to become the next Speaker of the House in 1976, was
shocked that an upstart peanut farmer from Georgia could even
entertain such an idea. No Southerner had risen to the presidency
during O’Neill’s lifetime, and he never thought any would. The
popular cliché about Carter being just a rustic peanut farmer
obscured the fact that he was a prosperous businessman, had had a
distinguished military career, and as governor had acquired extensive
knowledge and skills in domestic and international politics.17
Although Carter reached out to large contributors who sometimes
helped, money remained a problem. In mid-January, Carter and Jody
Powell, his press secretary and close friend, began a low-budget trip
across the nation to win votes and acquire funds. Wherever they
went, Jody handed out flyers and collected names of those who
showed interest. They accepted invitations from families to stay or
rented cheap motel rooms. From Georgia, they flew to Louisiana,
Texas, New Mexico, and California, states where they might face
competition from Democrats George Wallace and Henry “Scoop”
Jackson and Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter resisted organizing a
large paid staff. Since he had limited funds, he collected volunteers
and sought to make appearances that would not cost him anything.
In San Francisco, for example, he held a news conference and
declared that liberals need not be prejudiced against a candidate
from the South. A short time later, at the state Democratic
convention in Sacramento, he made the same argument, but the
audience ignored him.
After that speech, however, Carter walked the aisles of the
convention hall greeting delegates who would surely remember his
unusual approach. From the convention hall, he took his campaign
to the people. He walked the rows of crops in rural areas, presenting
himself as a fellow farmer and hard worker. The next day, he flew to
Washington, DC, where again he emphasized his liberal credentials
at a meeting of the Wildlife Management Institute. He took a stand
in favor of conservation, which piqued the interest of a nearby liberal
think tank, the Brookings Institute.18
Carter returned home to Plains to attend a fundraiser dinner but
soon headed to Nebraska, Iowa, and New Mexico, states where he
thought he could win early victories and collect volunteers who could
help him in the Midwest. He addressed high school assemblies,
legislatures, and laborers’ luncheons. His national name recognition
skyrocketed from 7% to 50% in seven months. His message that he
would reduce atomic weapons, create a simple and fair tax
structure, decline to punish draft dodgers, and give the nation an
adequate defense system attracted good press coverage. Addressing
a nation facing an energy shortage, he told them that he had written
to President Ford and Congress urging the conservation of fuel by
imposing import quotas and standby rationing. Always emphasizing
the personal touch, he told them that he was a good Christian family
man who would keep the country free and strong.19
The campaign was moving so rapidly that Carter had to hire a
larger paid staff for research and scheduling. He became adept at
handling people, fundraising, and presenting himself as a savvy but
honest politician. Wherever appropriate, he reminded his audiences
that he had visited that state in 1974 to help their Democratic
candidates win elections. Despite his special appeal for African-
American voters, many of them did not trust him; Georgia civil rights
leader Hosea Williams doubted Carter’s avowed commitment to help
Blacks, for he had not participated in the civil rights movement.
Likewise, many doubtful Jews and Catholics struggled to understand
a born-again Baptist whose rural Georgia background seemed very
strange to them. Jewish friends, especially prominent members of
the Atlanta Jewish community, defended him against charges of anti-
Semitism as they attempted to convince Northern voters that Jimmy
was really “a good guy.”20
The Carter campaign’s first significant success came in Iowa, but
only after many months of hard work in overcoming the voter
apathy that it initially encountered there. In February 1975, almost a
year before the state’s first-in-nation presidential caucuses, Jimmy
and Jody Powell drove into a small town near Sioux City, Iowa,
where Carter was to give a speech to a group of local Democrats
gathered to honor the retiring recorder of Plymouth County. Only a
few people came to listen. Unfazed, Carter graciously accepted the
proffered remuneration of a free pizza, a movie ticket, and a car
wash. He circulated through the small crowd, shaking hands,
memorizing names, and directing Jody to record names and contact
information. Upon leaving, he had no more money for his campaign
coffers than when he arrived, but he had a list of people who would
remember him when Rosalynn and others in his campaign contacted
them. He also had perfected a person-to-person contact technique
that would help him to become known and trusted. Practicing the
tenacity he had learned from his father, Carter would return to Iowa
again and again in the coming months until he eventually carried the
caucuses.21
That same month, February 1975, as Carter’s name became more
familiar to grassroots America, the better known Senator Scoop
Jackson of Washington State officially announced his candidacy. An
experienced insider with a conservative reputation, especially his
past support of the war in Vietnam, Jackson had the potential to
become a formidable contestant. Likewise, Senator Lloyd Bentsen of
Texas declared his candidacy on February 17, 1975. Bentsen had
served four years in the Senate and six in the House. Wealthy from
his career in the insurance business, he had defeated Ralph
Yarborough in the Democratic primary and George H. W. Bush in the
1970 general election. Like Carter, Bentsen cast himself as a
successful businessman who could solve the nation’s problems, but
Carter’s social and economic agenda would likely have a greater
appeal than Bentsen’s more conservative proposals.22
During their life on the road, Jimmy and Jody Powell got plenty of
support from helpers back in Atlanta. Tim Kraft, Ham Jordan, and
Rosalynn helped plan their schedule, and they provided lists of
people to ask for financial contributions. Brzezinski sent Carter
speeches about the dangers of military intervention and importance
of nonpartisanship in foreign policy, as well as numerous notes about
the importance of a Middle East settlement. He included an article by
former United Nations Ambassador Charles W. Yost on how quiet
diplomacy would promote détente with the Soviet Union and benefit
Jewish emigration.23
When Carter talked about balancing the budget, Democratic
traditions, and making government work more efficiently, members
of the crowd sometimes booed him as an “unrealistic” liberal. It was,
however, a message, Ham Jordan thought, “in tune with what the
American people wanted.”24
In late January 1975, Carter addressed an audience at Princeton
University where he shifted his focus to serious foreign policy issues.
He declared that the nation’s foreign policy goals should be
coordinated with its defense policy and that foreign policy should
mirror domestic goals. The cost of defense needed to be reduced,
the white elephant B-1 bomber scrapped in favor of a more efficient
aircraft, the Soviet Union boldly confronted to reduce nuclear
arsenals, and US troops withdrawn from South Korea.25
Carter had the ability to incorporate vast amounts of facts and
ideas into his speeches, which he often wrote himself. But he also
understood that his personal touch might be more important than
what he said. After every stop, he wrote letters thanking those who
had greeted, helped, or just casually met him. By so doing, he gave
them his name written in his own hand to help them remember his
face and hopefully vote for him. He wrote to top Democratic Party
officials, leading politicians, religious leaders, academic
administrators, and others in leadership positions who might keep
his name before the public. He mined his Baptist connections,
accepted honors from prestigious academic institutions, and even
courted “Ann Landers,” an extremely popular syndicated personal
advice columnist. In real life, Ann Landers was Eppie Lederer, a
wealthy, active Democrat who had supported Hubert Humphrey.
After visiting with her in Chicago, Carter wrote for her “advice &
active political & financial support.” Their friendship gave him
exposure to the millions who read her daily advice column, Jewish
voters, women, and liberal members of his party.26
Those aides who worked closely with him in the campaign quickly
learned that the public Carter was quite different from the man who
was their boss. He was a highly intelligent, self-disciplined, Spartan
man who kept his problems to himself, but he drove himself and his
staff mercilessly. He quoted time and again Admiral Hyman Rickover,
who had once asked him “Why not the best?” Having worked on his
campaigns in twenty-one states by the first of March, one staffer
complained, “we’re all getting to hate Rickover. Jimmy thinks he’s
Rickover but none of us think we’re Jimmy Carter.”27
At a fundraising dinner in Baltimore on April 2, 1975, Carter
declared that since the presidency of the United States was the most
important job in the world, he was fortunate to be able to take time
from his business in order to campaign full time. He knew that
Americans wanted a person of integrity and competence who would
not lie to them. He seemed a bit ill at ease when discussing the war
in Vietnam, which was a thorny issue for him, because he had earlier
supported US involvement. By 1975 he evaded the controversial
issue and attempted to correct his earlier unpopular stand by saying
he favored withdrawal because the United States was losing. Later
that month, the government of South Vietnam collapsed.28
More than a week later at a news conference in Little Rock,
Arkansas, Carter confronted head-on the question of whether a
Southern governor could be elected president. He declared that the
South had solved its race issue and removed that millstone from
around its neck. “I honestly have not detected any prejudice against
me because I am a Southerner,” he said. “I’ve always been liberal on
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