A biographer reflects on the Carter administration's 'enormous legislative agenda'

Caption

Jimmy and Rosalynn​ Carter hold hands of their daughter Amy, as they walk down ​Pennsylvania Avenue. Inauguration, January 20, 1977.

Credit: Jimmy Carter Presidential Library

Historian Kai Bird says the four years Jimmy Carter spent as president of the United States were more consequential than most Americans acknowledge. As we remember Carter, who died Sunday, Dec. 29 at the age of 100, GPB’s Peter Biello spoke with Bird about Carter’s legacy. Bird is the author of The Outlier: the Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Peter Biello: You've had a chance to interview former President Carter many times over the years. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like to interview him? What was he like as an interviewee?

Kai Bird: He was a tough interview. People might be surprised to hear that. But ... in my book, he was certainly the most hardworking and decent and most intelligent man to have occupied the White House in the 20th century. And he was also very tough to interview, because he was so intelligent and so well-read and he was sharp and he was impatient with foolish or tired or old questions. And I had to really be on my toes. And furthermore ... here I was interviewing him about his four years in the White House, in large part, and it was 40 years later. And, you know, he really wasn't interested. What he was interested in was the activities of the Carter Center, wiping out Guinea worm disease in Africa and bringing peace to the Middle East and ending the Syrian civil war. And he was impatient with my questions about ancient history. So he was a difficult interview.

Peter Biello: What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about the Carter presidency?

Kai Bird: The biggest misunderstanding is that people seem to think it was a failure. In fact, in those four years, he accomplished an enormous legislative agenda. Let me just run down a sort of short list of things that he did on the domestic front. He eventually mandated seatbelts and airbags for car manufacturers. And this eventually saved 9,000 to 10,000 American lives every year. He deregulated the airlines, making it possible for the first time for middle class Americans to fly in large numbers. He deregulated much of the natural gas industry, opening up the way for what we now have as an energy-independent economy. In foreign policy, he passed the Panama Canal Treaty, negotiated the SALT II arms control regime. He normalized relations with China. And most prominently, he negotiated the Camp David Peace Accords, taking Egypt off the battlefield for Israel and bringing at least a cold peace that still exists to this day between Israel and Egypt.

Peter Biello: Certainly a long list of accomplishments as president. He was also an effective campaigner. My understanding is that he helped put the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire presidential primary on the map. What can you tell us about his skill at campaigning?

Kai Bird: Sure. Yeah, he actually transformed the Iowa caucuses into a major campaign event. And it was a brilliant strategy, because up until 1976, no presidential aspirant had taken the Iowa caucuses very seriously. But Carter did, and he did so very early on. And he went there repeatedly and slept on people's sofas and campaigned in every county and scored an upset surprise victory in the caucuses. And then that allowed him to go on to New Hampshire with his "Peanut Brigade" of Georgians who turned out in large numbers and in buses to go all over New Hampshire and again do door-to-door. He was very good at campaigning on a one-to-one basis and in small crowds and — and talking in an authentic fashion to small numbers of voters. He was— he was good at it. He was relentless.

Peter Biello: You've spoken about how you wanted to be comfortable with your understanding of the American South before writing about Carter. Can you tell us a little more about that, about Carter as a Southerner and why that's important when it comes to understanding who he was?

Kai Bird: You know, Carter is very much a white Southern man, but very unusually so. He was a man, a Southern white man who understood race and felt entirely comfortable in Black culture. He was raised as a child in Archer, just down the road from Plains, a tiny little hamlet where he was virtually the only white kid. All his playmates were African-Americans, and he was comfortable. There wasn't a racist bone in his body. On the other hand, his father was a white supremacist who held all the conventional attitudes of a southern white man at the turn of the century. And yet Jimmy Carter didn't come out that way. And I think the reason is his mother, Miss Lillian, who represented a different Southern tradition: the tradition of the eccentric Southern woman who could speak her mind and say what she thought. And she imparted these values to her — her son, Jimmy. And he became a politician who is important to this day as a president who attempted to heal the racial divide in this country.

Peter Biello: You've said recently that his presidency is particularly relevant today. Why would you say his presidency is particularly relevant now?

Kai Bird: Well, all the issues that he was grappling with in the 1970s are relevant today: Energy, race, religion, climate change, health care. And in the world at large, you know, we're still grappling with that issue. He devoted a lot of his time to Israel, Palestine and bringing peace to that terribly difficult conflict. We're also to this day grappling with revolutionary Iran and this xenophobic religious regime in Iran that, of course, was the nemesis of the Carter presidency because of the hostage crisis. So all these issues are things that he dealt with on a day-to-day basis and was sort of prophetic about. And he was very prescient in dealing with energy and race and climate change. He put solar panels, famously, on top of the White House. And yet in 1980 — partly because he was sort of ahead of his times and was unwilling to sort of do the politically correct thing and was always trying to do the right thing — in 1980 he lost the election and America sort of essentially rejected his vision. And in retrospect, 40 years later, you know, he's actually looking pretty good.

Peter Biello: I would be remiss if we didn't talk about Rosalynn because that relationship has been so important to him. I was wondering what you can tell us about that relationship and how it influenced not just his presidency, but — but everything he's done over the years.

Kai Bird: Oh, it was essential. She grew up in Plains like he did. And they knew each other from a very young age, but he didn't first begin to pay attention to her until she was 18, 19 years old and he was in the Naval Academy. And he fell for her quickly. And they got married. She was only 19. She was very shy. She had no idea that she was going to become the wife of a politician. But she, in fact, became over the years his closest political adviser. And she was very astute in her political judgments, perhaps more astute than Jimmy. And they had famously a wonderful marriage. I last saw them both in July of 2021 in Plains, when they gathered 350 friends and colleagues to celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. And, you know, it was a touching, a very touching and emotional event.