crosses to be cut. we talked about that, and indeed, his writings formed a fundamental basis much my thinking when i was both labor secretary and also in many of my books. ..

guest hosts to interview authors. this week, former president jimmy carter discusses his new book, "white house diaries," and often daily account of the events of his administration as they occurred. the 39th president of the united states and nobel peace prize winner reflects on the players and controversies of the late 1970's more than 40 years after recording his account of the facts. he talks of his time in office with historian douglas brinkley. >> host: welcome to washington, d.c., mr. president. it's wonderful to see you. i was wondering when you fly in here and you go over all these monuments, you go over the potomac river and the tidal basin what do you think when you're flying into this town? >> guest: i always pick out the white house to see if it's still there and think about the wonderful times we had at the white house. we flew over the canal this

afternoon, as you know of william douglas, one of our great justices of the supreme > court. that is where used to run in the afternoon. i was running about 40 miles a week, which is a lot in washington, around here and at camp david on the weekends so i just think about the good times we had and when i fly back to congress and half thankful i am now that i had the super bipartisan support that existed back in the 70's, which doesn't exist anymore, so i think about the similarities and often the difference is. >> host: is there a republican in congress that the senate that you personally learn to enjoy working with the you became friends with? >> guest: senator baker from tennessee was in charge of the republican side and he was a great personal friend of mine and i got wonderful cooperation from the republican side and of

course michael in the house was a minority leader in the house of representatives and michael was also a great supporter of mine, so they're in the last couple of years that i was in the white house, president than senator kennedy was running against me, so he kind of took away a lot of the very liberal democrats to, you know, to support him. they didn't much want me to succeed on how much of the issues, so i turned increasingly to the modern and conservative democrats and the moderate and conservative republicans and that's how we were able to have such a good batting average with the congress. >> host: what about sam nunn? >> guest: sam was very important. he was a young senator then, and he was kind of my floor leader on some of the key issues like the -- things that apply to nuclear power, and he was very knowledgeable about it and he was working his way up to be the

chairman leader ron of the defense committee in the senate. but sam being a friend and the legislature when i was governor of georgia worked very closely with me and i have to say by the way, then herman talmadge, both of them, for instance, made a very difficult choice to vote for the panama canal treaties, which was the most courageous vote ideally of the u.s. senate has ever cast. there were 20 senators for the panama canal treaties in 1978. we were up for reelection that year, and out of the 20, only seven of them came back to the senate the following january. and sam nunn and herman talmadge were two of the senators who voted with me. herman talmadge, although he was very popular at the time, was later defeated in his next election. i would say one of the main reasons is he voted for the panama canal treaties which was a very bright gold and proper but also very unpopular at the

time. >> host: and walter mondale had to be the deciding vote? >> guest: it requires a two-thirds vote, so we actually got 68 votes. we had to get 67. so that is what took so much. i had to get a large number of republicans to vote for aid in spite of the fact at that time ronald reagan was making a nationwide crusade against the panama canal treaties. so, it was not easy for the republicans to vote for but enough of them did. >> host: why do you feel ronald reagan and john wayne and some of the conservative leaders were so vehemently opposed -- >> guest: [inaudible] one reason is he disliked ronald reagan very much, john wayne did, and another thing is he had been to panel several times and he knew the leader of panama at that time, so john wayne what we know quite early that he would

be in favor of the panel cannot treaties and wrote me a letter accordingly which i used with maximum advantage against the opposition of ronald reagan. >> host: i once spoke to talmadge in georgia who felt it burned him out, the canal treaty. do you feel you pushed of the canal issue to quickly? if you feel you had to do it -- >> guest: even during the late stages of dwight eisenhower's term, they're had become an increasing amount of dissatisfaction modeling in panama but throughout the latin american hemisphere against the unfair treaty that we have formulated in the early 1900's and then when johnson was in office, lyndon johnson they had a big altercation and a group of people were killed, and panama broke relations with the united

states and venezuela and other leaders in the sphere organized the third world power, and so all over the world there was opposition to the united states because we were violating panama's busy human rights as you may or may not remember the panama canal treaty was signed in the middle of the night. i think john hay was the secretary of state in washington, and they never saw the treaty. it was negotiated by a frenchman who hadn't been to panel for 18 years but was speaking for panama, so it was him on a fair treaty from the very beginning. and almost everybody recognized, including as i said, two-thirds of the u.s. senators. >> host: do you -- you went back to panama's ex-president to monitor the election, and call noriega out as running such a fraudulent election. do you think the fact that you were the architect of the panama

canal treaties gave you a credibility in panama and the rest of central america, latin america that otherwise wouldn't have been there? >> guest: there's no doubt about that. as i left office, one of our first very important elections was in panama. and noriega, who was the head of the so-called military of the national guard was a crook, and he's tried to steal the election and stuff about. since the carter center was monitoring the election, publicly announced whole election was fraudulent and we did escapes from a panel. there were things thrown at us and under noriega's orders. and the candidates in the stuff the ballot box were declared to be winners they never took office, and eventually of course he was arrested and put in prison for a long time, and the next three election was held at

the carter center in monitoring the election and was an honest and fair election and now panel is one of the democracies in this hemisphere. >> host: do you feel noriega should still be in prison? >> guest: he served his term. he was sentenced for 40 years and was qualified for a pardon, but he has been rearrested, as you may know, because some other use is that he perpetrated against citizens of france. said he was extradited to france to be tried on another crime after he was finally served his term -- >> host: has he ever reached to you in any way? >> guest: no, noriega is not my friend. [laughter] he's not my friend. but he was one of those that got the carter center involved on a worldwide basis monitoring elections, and now -- at that time we were innovators in monitoring elections from outside, and now we've just

finished a think our 81st election this past -- this month in guinea or before that. some of the major e elections and also elections in the palestinian area, and we did the first to the elections in indonesia. we made 50 years of change and democracy dictatorships we had to give noriega credit he got me started on the election [inaudible] i had to denounce him as a crook. [laughter] >> host: you were mentioning looking at the white house, and you're jogging and in the "white house diary" whether you are in the campaign trail of an texas you often sneak in there if you're going on a jog, and then you did a famous walk on your inauguration. how did the idea of the walking for your inaugural come about? >> guest: well, some of the

senator's -- one of the senators, wisconsin was talking about physical fitness and suggested we might walk as a symbolic gesture, and then as the time approached for the inauguration, i could see that there was a great deal of distrust and even animosity between the people of america and the government in washington, very similar to what was the case this past election, you know, with the tea party and so forth, a lot of disillusionment with washington. so rose and i discussed it and we finally decided that we would walk just to show that we entrusted the american people. you have to remember back in those days when i ran for president in 76 we had just experienced the disgrace of watergate and the defeat in vietnam, and it hadn't been too long before that when bobby kennedy and john kennedy were assassinated and martin luther king, jr. was assassinated. and the so-called church committee, when the senate had a

bill that the president's and the cia had perpetrated crimes including murder against elected leaders in foreign countries who would approve of the policies, one was in chile and one was in iran as a matter of fact, so the call for americans to the integrity of the government and the confidence of the government. so i went to walk down pennsylvania avenue just to show the american people i was one of them and they can have trusted me. >> host: it meant he could use to you mentioned william douglas. he used to do walks along the canal and you used to jog around the canal. did you ever wrote that he would run around the park or was it to hard for the secret service to keep one jogging routt? >> guest: we were able to see it speaks to because the six keep it secret. sometimes i would jog in other areas. for instance we laid out a 7-mile jogging area inside the white house grounds making several laps through the rose

garden and the south lawn and that sort of thing and then on the weekends we would jog at camp david. but the canal was the best place to jog. it became a national park, as you may know, sponsored by william o. douglas. it expands 108 miles from downtown washington all the way to west virginia, and this can now -- canal used to be adjacent to and sometimes in the potomac region as was a very important trade route in those early days. we had about a 12-foot wide path that the horses used to walk on to pull the barges down the canal and that is where i jogged, so it was a wonderful and isolated place. >> host: from all aspects of your presidency that i think history is going to treat well, but people don't seem to know

about it right now is jimmy carter's conservationist and, you know, working with the department of energy and also putting solar panels on the white house. with the solar panel -- and then i want to talk about last -- with the solar panel part were you upset that regan took them down? >> guest: i was. >> host: why did he do that? >> guest: the was a total difference of philosophy between me and reagan. i thought the american people should pay attention to work excessive dependence on foreign oil, so our four years i worked to get a comprehensive energy package passed, and i did, before i went out of office. in fact, when inaugurated we were importing 8.6 million barrels of oil per day, and within five years, because of my energy package, we reduced that to have, down to 3.4 billion barrels of oil per day. when reagan came in he said america doesn't have to conserve. we can use as much oil as we

want to. we are a city on the hill, we don't have to defer to anyone else. and so we did away with all of the foolish things that president carter imposed on the american people as constraints. and so i had put these solar panels on the white house. i think there were 36 of them to provide hot water for the white house, but also the symbolic proved to the american people that i was willing to do something. as soon as reagan was in office he ostentatiously with great publicity removed the solar panels and said this is a waste of money, a waste of time. as a matter of fact, i believe in me and they purchased the 36 panels to get off the white house and they started a crusade about a year ago and finally induced president obama to put the solar panels back on the white house. and last year -- will this year earlier i was in china, and a

major producer of [inaudible] they had bought one of the panels that used to be on the white house. so when i was over there, they showed me the panel and told me about it. are you still high on the idea of solar or are you studying wind power? where do you think we need to go? >> guest: i think -- i would say what we used to call is often sources of energy is and we'll primarily. to use coal, clean burning coal in america as good as you may give you can't make it clean burning. but reduce certain sources of oil is a major purpose of my goal. so we put into the law things that were still permanent. we required electric motors and refrigerators and stoves to be made highly efficient and a stamp be put on every one about the degree of efficiency on energy. we passed laws that required

house is to be insulated for the first time. the law was passed for the first time. and we also imposed a very severe restraints on automobile efficiency. but unfortunately we left a loophole in that, so the president could back out of it. and of course, when ronald reagan came into office he backed out of it, and so when obama came into the the president, the efficiency of automobiles was down almost as low as it was when i went into office, so there were some things we never dreamed the president would do that ronald reagan and his successors did to raise the energy, but the laws are still on the books, so we still have a efficient refrigerators, stoves, electric motors and homes. >> host: do you worry about eisenhower had the industrial milk recall plucks as his speech? are you worried that big oil in the government, and what do we do to control the oil industry better? why are they having so much

power? what can americans to? >> guest: well, the arms manufacturing industry and the oil industry and others of that kind are extremely rich, almost unbelievably rich, and influential in the congress. and even in national elections for president. and they have always put as much money as they possibly could into campaigns, and this includes other is not related directly energy like the health industry. and i think one of the most stupid things the supreme court has ever done was the ruling last january that took off the limits on the corporations and making the contributions to political campaigns, and even remove the requirement they had to identify themselves. so now even in this election in 2010 there has been a massive

influx of money from corporations totally secret without it being identified and almost all of it goes to the republicans of course to defend oil companies and the major interest of that kind. so that is what has happened with the election, and it has changed the whole character of american politics. for instance, when i was running for office against incumbent gerald ford, and later, four years later against governor reagan, we never dreamed of using a negative commercial. we just refer to each other as not to become my distinguished opponent. and i think that the reason for the escalation and almost universal now of - five for ties and on television radio has become the us enormous influx of money into the campaign, so a candidate for congress gets a $500,000 from the wheel companies and so forth, then they spend a lot of that

$500,000 on destroying the character and reputation of their opponent. and so, and it happened on both sides. i don't mean just to blame the republicans but democrats do it, too. and although the american people disagree with that procedure it works. so by the time of the election is over, one of the candidates prevails, but both sides have pretty well convinced the public that neither candidate was worthy of holding office, and so by the time they get to washington they still carry over that highly partisan animosity almost that didn't prevail at all when i was president or when president reagan was first elected, certainly when gerald bush was in office. we had a wonderful bipartisan support and cooperation. now there's no such thing. the converse is much more polarized now i believe than any time in history. i would say even in the months preceding the civil war if that is possible because as you know

some of the major programs president obama put forth he didn't get a single republican vote in the house or the senate. so the republicans have acted almost completely irresponsibly during the first few months of president obama's term. i think that after this election at least after assuming some responsibility because the control the house of representatives which will be an improvement over what it has been up until now. >> host: about the s.t.a.r.t. treaty right now? >> guest: we are worried about it. it's a wonderful treaty. it's good for the soviet union, it's good for europe, it's good for the united states. it starts a downward trend in the excessive arsenals of nuclear weapons, and i think in an ordinary time, say when i was in office before, even when george w. bush was in office, it would have been approved by an overwhelming majority of the u.s. senators.

but with this boycott, you might say as republicans are against president obama, and that purpose of preventing me from getting reelected in -- getting reelected in 2012 he will get enough to put over the the s.t.a.r.t. treaty should be passed. >> host: what should president obama do it this point? should he go alone, try using executive power more, or does he have to somehow try to find a way to work with congress? if you were president in this political climate, but card would you play? >> guest: i think what he is likely to do the next two years is to be much more result, much more determined to stick with what he wants to get done, and to stop trying to induce a very few republicans to support his position. for instance, he has said that he is not going to permit an

extension of the george w. bush tax breaks for people that are very rich. then i think he ought to do that. but he said he was going to do. and we have one vote in the senate to grant an extension of the bush tax reductions to people that make less than $250 a year. that's what he said he was going to do during the campaign and on that one vote only and not permit any possibility of extending tax reductions for the very rich people. if he does things like that, i think that he will have a good bit of success. it was only when he joost, as you know, a very well-known technique that george w. bush had used many times, reconciliation, that he was able to get the health bill passed. well, that is played tough, and i think most of the democrats now say that in 2012 when

speaking as a democrat, that the president does hang tough and if he will. >> host: back to the conservation. can you just tell us what -- by december, 1980 you did this remarkable alaska lands conservation act, and it's putting aside over 50 million acres, and it's going to be a legacy of the world gets more populated and there is less wild species, your name and conservation are going to be on that short list with fdr, may be of your -- t.r., fdr and lyndon johnson. what happened in alaska, how were you able to succeed so wildly up there in the conservation field? >> guest: well, first of what took me four years to become almost four years, and i memorized enough of alaska. about halfway through i saw that we were not going to get any support from the two alaska senators, one a democrat and the alaska members of the house of representatives is one.

so my secretary of interior came up with a idea of using bill that passed the congress in the early 1900's. i think 1907. it was called -- it was designed to save monuments and highly soluble things to the future that should be preserved and he gave the president almost unilateral right to do so. we used that legislation on large areas of land to designate them as national monuments to be preserved, and there was nothing that congress could do to override my decisions. and eventually, the amount of land that we set aside as national monuments and alaska and other places was large as the state of michigan. i mean an enormous amount of property. so i had that to use.

and -- >> host: and would you actually have a map of alaska and start learning the -- >> guest: absolutely i did. and the house of representatives or the very famous house member who was my partner and i had others as well in the senate. but we would sit around the table in the president's cabinet room with maps very precious, so i would set it aside by the struggle of ten to save it and set aside permanent as a national monument although i think the original bill referred to just one specific building or something like that. we used for vast areas of precious land, and was that leverage that used on the members of congress from alaska and also others who were about the alaska lands bill to prevail. so after i was defeated in the election of 1980 that is when the alaska lands bill actually

passed, and we actually set aside an area almost as large as the state of california. we doubled the size of the national park service and tripled the size of the wilderness areas in america, and that one bill and also why was very unpopular then in alaska and the convention i was taking away alaska land, this now had become one of the most popular things that i did even with alaska people because they see how much it is meant to them. >> host: what about with sarah palin and the natural baby trial and the arctic refuge or anwar as some people call it, both the arctic refuge do you think it should ever be allowed to have oil? >> guest: never. >> host: have you been? >> guest: absolutely. post cold was it like going there and what is it like to say never and people that say it is nothing but empty tundra? >> guest: i have stood in front of the so-called porcupine

herd, and this is a herd of about 140,000 animals and they have caribou, and my wife and i got in front and when they see us they split and go by. we have actually flown over an area there was able spin that had 30 wolves and we went off the coast of northern alaska in the same trip where we observed a group of oxen and when they were disturbed the form a circle of males. to protect the females. and we go fishing in alaska quite often, fly-fishing so i've become quite familiar with alaska and many of the state national parks like rebate of up there in 1980, and i think that they will be preserved, but there is tremendous pressure from the oil companies to i would say legally drive the

members of congress to take anwar, this beautiful area up there and to make it available for exploration from oil. this was an area that was first set aside and called the alaskan national wilderness region by president eisenhower in the 1950's to date and i just preserve what eisenhower first set aside one alaska became a state. and when i left office the only way you could do that is a president and both houses of congress voted to let oil exploration be done in anwar, and i have never dreamed that we would have a president in both houses of congress that might do so but president reagan and president george h. w. bush and president george w. bush tried and sometimes came within two or three votes of getting the acquired legislative support. i hope it never happens. and over a period of time i

think more and more americans and alaskans are realizing that we need to prefer the special area. >> host: what about offshore drilling? i believe that shell wants to drill off of the arctic refuge up there. would you agree on offshore or -- >> guest: i don't think so. i think we need it. that's where some of the islands are on the peninsula in that region. when we passed the alaska lands bill in late 1980, we opened up 95% of all the coastal areas of alaska for oil drilling. we only preserved 5% which is a special area we are talking about. where we prohibited oil drilling, and i think the 5% is not -- is not too much to save because it's just like god made it and i hope it will be there for my grandchildren to in july. >> host: why do you feel sarah palin and alaska is becoming so much of a public discourses of her personality, and have you

ever met her or do you have any views about what she's come to a bidding war not contributing? >> guest: i've never met her life obviously watched her on television many times and it and she's one of the most dynamic and attracted speakers we have ever seen. she knows how to be extremely eloquent. she has a very clear-cut i would say political philosophy that she expresses, and she appeals highly to an enthusiastic group of supporters. i think within the republican party and within the tea party element of the republican party she is coming to be a formidable candidate if she decides to run in 2012. and i wouldn't be surprised if she could get the republican nomination. however, even within the republican party, as you know from the opinion polls, even the majority of republicans don't think she's qualified to be president.

but she does have the capability in my opinion as an extreme outsider may be to get the nomination. >> host: de you see any connection to yourself? she was a governor from a state. you were a governor of georgia, and nobody -- the odds seemed very odd and kind of came out of nowhere, and he went into iowa, new hampshire, the peanut brigade. do you feel the sort of -- although you are obviously coming from the democratic side of populism, you see any connection with what she's trying to do or not at all? >> guest: not really, i finish my term as governor. [laughter] >> host: do you think quitting will hurt her? you never quit, ronald reagan never quit. >> guest: i feel a particular large group of reporters don't hold that against her. it and she's already proved that. i don't see a parallel between me and her but i see a parallel between the times that i ran for president in 1976 and this past year of the tea party movement,

because it is primarily a group of well-meaning people, in my opinion, who were just completely dissatisfied with what is happening in washington. and i have to admit i had the same kind of democrats when i ran for come condra speed a wonderful group of other candidates who were my opponents. most of whom were u.s. senators, very distinguished, and i was able to prevail primarily because i kept satisfaction that he was one of the terrific forces for the party this year. >> host: let me shift gears a little bit to the middle east with the iranian hostage crisis. they essentially all came home. did you ever hear from them? >> guest: quite often. as a matter of fact when i go on a book tour usually one or two of the hostages on the tour will say ahead of time they want to meet me behind the scenes and i will obviously give them a free book and have photographs made

and i am very proud they were doing quite well. this is not as much as it used to be after i left office in a good many of them would actually drive to planes and let me know in a dance. a bookend come and spend a few minutes with me and thank me for the fact that they did become home, they came home safe and free. so i've had a good and friendly relationship with all of them so far as i know. >> host: how, with iran as so much a part of your administration and have us believe in your book, you talk about things start to white house. there's the carter white house is and then dealing with the hostage crisis white house. in retrospect is their something you would have done different throughout the course? i know you sent in an extra helicopter on the rescue mission. but can you withdraw back and look at that whole situation wish you would have done something differently? >> guest: not really.

if i had known completely what was happening and what happened in the future i might have done something different but i don't think so under the circumstances. i was the last holdout on my top management team letting the shah come to new york for the treatment of his terminal cancer. and henry kissinger and dr. brzezinski and vance and all my advisers let him come with the humanitarian thing to do and so i contacted the president and the prime minister of iran and i told them i was contemplating shah to come to new york for treatment. and i wanted an assurance from them they would protect americans. at that time there were about 8,000 americans in iran working in different forces including 56 members of the embassy staff. and they sent me word that they would guarantee that nothing

would happen to the americans if the shah came to new york five shah would pledge to make not any political statement while he was in america. and the shah did give me that assurance. and then to the surprise of me and i think to the surprise of the president and the prime minister of iran, i think it was zazi if i remember the names right, they took hostages, and when the ayatollah after three days supported the capture and holding of hostages then both the president and prime minister resigned in protest but there was just the beginning of a long ordeal where they held the hostages. so why don't really believe that i would have done anything different. amine at fisa lagat was to

attack iran, to bomb iran and so forth, but i was convinced then and still convinced to have done so. i would have killed me be 10,000 innocent iranians and they would immediately have executed the hostages, so i am glad i held out on that. >> host: does your religion, your love of christ, did it ever come into making the decisions like it's a very profound thing to think that you could take out 10,000 people's lives, but do you think it's informed your judgment that a person of your face? >> guest: i think so. well, i worship jesus christ as a prince of peace. so i was resolved as a president within the bounds of defending my nation's security and integrity and honor that i would try to preserve the peace. so although we went through four years of extreme tension and

sometimes i would say political confrontations, i was able to go through my four years. we never dropped a bomb, we never lost a missile, we never fought a bullet and we protected the roane integrity and security and not only brought peace between us and potential adversaries but also peace to others around the world. one of the things i wanted to do is start the process of eliminating apartheid in south africa and rhodesia and we laid the groundwork leader on for progress towards apartheid in south africa. in fact, my daughter, amy, was arrested three times for demonstrating against the apartheid in south africa. so, we were able to form a peaceful relationship with china for the first time in 35 years,

a normal relations with china and resolve a conflict with panel and some of the south american countries. we brought peace between israel and egypt and so forth. that is what we tried to do. >> host: would you ever, at this point in your life you have broken the mold as an ex-president and are very much an individual and marched to the beat of your own drum. could you ever imagine being arrested like your daughter was? like let's say somebody was going to drill in the arctic refuge, would you be willing to go to a protest and actually be arrested, or do you draw a kind of line from something like that? is it -- >> guest: well, i would say if the issue came up so i thought was a moral conflict with me and it happened i would consider being arrested because i know that i wouldn't be hurt. i might gist be arrested as a pro forma thing and get a lot of publicity sadat would magnify my

vote to in on the savory act i might do it. amy felt very deeply and on her own we didn't have to inspire a me to protest against -- against apartheid. she felt deeply like i did that it was wrong. crusco in your diaries of the white house there is a little section about you reading the bible in spanish and then also getting your hair cut with a poor -- part freakin' barbara and practice spanish. do you believe being bilingual is important in today's america? >> guest: when i was a young person i sit at the naval academy in study spanish and when rose and i have a chance to go on vacation we often got a spanish speaking hundred, quite often span bridges over favorite place to take a vacation, and we still in fact less might lie read part of the bible in

spanish while rose listened, and the next time we were together she would read a portion of the bible in spanish and this gives us a chance to practice in between times. and so she has an ipod and she has i think 85 spanish lessons on the ipod. i think that being bilingual is a great advantage and it turned out the spanish-speaking is important not only in plants georgia where we have 85 hispanics that don't speak english, you're kind of the interpreters of occasion when our church does something for them. so it's a wonderful second language and also just to have a second language is very important. >> host: and do you use a laptop do you write your own of letters to people? >> guest: i never have dictated a letter in my life. i never have dictated my books.

this is my 26 book tv i do all of my riding myself. >> host: why is that? is it because you want to have the control over it? >> guest: it's not like that. >> host: like t.r. -- you cannot keep a personal -- >> guest: even plans high school in the eighth great i took typing and i took great shorthand, so all the way for my college years i took all my college notes in shorthand, so i became you might say a good stenographer, yonah. i'm not bragging about and but i have to say when i was in the white house a lot of people wrote messages like my secretary of state would write a letter, say to a foreign leader and it would come to me and i would edit and approve fit at a sign its final version so why didn't hand write everything from the very beginning that for instance

when i wanted reagan and sought to come to camp david for negotiations on hand wrote a letter to reagan and sadat and delivered to them so they knew it came from me and maybe that is one of the reasons they both accepted the invitation. >> host: you have had written letters to people around the world who are political prisoners asking world leaders to release people. you have like an amnesty international? >> guest: the president has a strong human rights program, and i have a staff full-time executor of the human-rights, karen ryan, and she at the staff of the carter center monitor the most egregious abuses of human rights, and quite often they will take care of a draft letter for me to send to a foreign leader who is abusing people in his or her country and i will send them a personal letter.

we get the university to double check the legality of what i am doing. so why don't do something foolish. i send the letter and i say i have heard that you are doing this to such and such people and i named them. they are in prison without a proper trial. they might be ill and need to be released. i know this is contrary to your nation's constitution and commitments. and i would like to have a report from you on a personal basis about what can be done to ease alleviate their suffering. and i just hope that this particular event doesn't have to go further to the public news from, and it is surprising how much the dictators will send me a letter back and say i've looked at this and people have been living in prison and stuff like that. so we still do that. and we have an annual meeting at the carter center. we called a meeting of the human

rights defenders. people and about 40 nations to come to the carter center for human rights abuses take place in their country and they are heroes in their own country fighting against human rights abuses, and sometimes the dictators or the end users won't let them out of the country, won't give them a visa, but we meet with them and discuss their problems and then about seven or eight of them who are the most eloquent sit and around a table with me and an interlocutor from cnn and the ask questions about these human rights abuses. and in that same group travels to washington without me and they meet with the leaders, human rights specialists in the administration, in the congress. so we did that every year. >> host: i once went with the carter center and kind followed you to haiti and i noticed a characteristic about yourself. you're very much the -- you have

the second longest military career than the president of the tenet century after president dwight eisenhower and you're very punctual, but when we got to a village where most of the people had hiv and were hiv-positive on salles that whole taught jimmy carter signed a kind of milk in a incredibly emotional way in a way that you're touching people and putting the children. did you have to -- you seem to feel the suffering of people like your mother did who took care of people's leprosy. is it hard to have that much compassion for the poor, but then having to keep a hard shell in order just to get things done? >> guest: i don't feel that -- the carter center which was organized when rose and i came home has a commitment to eradicating and consoling the

most terrible disease on earth. the world health organization neglected disease because they no longer exist in the rich world, and the affect hundreds of millions of people still, primarily in africa but sometimes in latin america. so that is what we dedicated the carter center to do as it primary purpose to control, reduce or eradicate those neglected diseases. so she and i, my wife and i come and go to latin america or come to africa often to deal with those kind of diseases. so they are not even known in america. [inaudible] and so forth, and these diseases can be eliminated. we've already proven that because they don't exist in the rich world and we also dealt with one major disease called

malaria, which everybody knows about but we no longer have it here. so for instance, in ethiopia, the carter center helped the government of ethiopia put to remarkable new insecticide treated bed nets in every home in ethiopia that had malaria mosquitoes. this was -- this took 20 million nets, and the government of ethiopia raised $17 million. i raised $3 million to buy the nets that we needed for the 3 million nets and we put them in homes. so that is the kind of thing that we do around the world now. so it's a matter of you might say a professional commitment of the carter center to help people and i guess it comes naturally to me. >> host: i know when you were younger man -- and used to talk about harry truman that you liked him quite a bit. now, as an ex-president at this point in your life thinking

about what you know, but having been one of the few people in the white house, is there a president that you have to launch an inspiration to that might be over the years you've read biographies, you have thought about american history more, is their somebody you really think blake, there was the president that i can truly respect? >> guest: i haven't changed my mind. when i am asked that still has a common question i guess i still say harry truman in my lifetime. i don't remember -- obviously i'm not darrigade and abraham lincoln and others, just during my lifetime but having truman affect me personally. when roosevelt was killed and as a midshipman at annapolis and i cried when i realized that this unknown vice president now be my commander in chief, harriet truman -- peery truman and when i was on the submarine, submarine officer, truman in 1940 decided to do away with racial segregation and the

military forces in the army and navy marines air force and coast guard. and it was an extremely unpopular thing for him to do and the congress warned him to not do it. a lot of his own military leaders, i would say a majority of the military said don't do it. he did it any way, and that affected my life greatly. and it was eight years later that rosa parks sat in front of a bus and martin luther king jr. became famous, so i still give harry truman credit for being a pioneer in his country of doing away with almost 100 years of racial segregation. so that changed my mind, my life, and so i've always felt that he was an honest and courageous and intelligent -- >> host: do you identify as a navy man do you identify yourself as the korean war at all? >> guest: i was a submarine officer during the korean war and a part of the old war.

i was in the pacific when the korean war started a bundle 1950 and then i was transferred back to the east coast so yes, i still feel personally involved in corrina in fact i just came back from north korea recently. >> host: wanted to ask you in the white house by aires you write about visiting curvy and you had a huge crop like 1 million or more people. why did you have that kind crowd in south korea? i mean, it was an extraordinary estimate up to 2 million people in south korea, but using closer to a million in the book, and tell me about what you've learned. i know when you my close to the place like alaska or the middle east, korea has been a big part of your life. what is going on there now, and would you, today, jimmy carter, the willing to go to north korea to might come to marvel, the next week and try to negotiate

some kind of settlement after this recent you know, back-and-forth going on? >> guest: in a way i hate to say this with the north koreans trust me. 16 years ago we were faced with the prospect of a korean war because kim il-sung, who is worshiped in north korea, i'm not exaggerating. he's a combination of jesus christ and george washington for the north koreans. because of various reasons i don't have time to go into. she decided that he would expel the international atomic energy inspectors and start reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from the ancient atomic reactor that produces electricity. and the united states started trying to impose much more severe sanctions on north korea than they had done since the 1950's when the korean war was over. kim il-sung announced if that

happened he was going to attack south korea, and the fact is then and now north korea could almost totally destroyed seóul, the capitol because it is close to the border to real i decided to go over and try to resolve the issue and i got approval from president bill clinton. i went over and negotiated with kim il-sung and we put it into an official agreement by negotiating in geneva. and that is what bill clinton did. leader -- and ken -- kim il-sung stopped the process and we brought a treaty with north korea. when president bush came into office though, that and how your process was undone and president bush declared north korea was an axis of evil and to make a long story short, north korea began to reprocessed nuclear fuel rods and now they have got six or

seven cable nuclear explosives. so, back in july, the north koreans asked me to come over again because they wanted to deliver a message to the u.s. government, but again, they wanted to negotiate and do away with their nuclear weapons and to have a permanent peace treaty to replace the cease-fire that had existed now with the united states and north korea. so, that is what i -- that's what i've done, but if president obama asked me to go over, i would certainly be proud to do so, but i wouldn't presume as a private citizen -- >> host: with the carter center at all or at this point if the tensions get terrible it looks like a war could break out between the north and south, would you go if you were not asked by president obama, simply because you really believe that you could perhaps stop what could be -- >> guest: but only if i got permission from the white house. i never have been on a foreign to been to a trouble area

without cutting proper approval from the white house. and always give report to the white house when i get back. sometimes i have to say the president was not enthusiastic about my dillinger but it's just a matter of my commitment the like don't go unless i get permission to go, and this past time when i went over in august and got permission from the white house but they made it clear that i was going to the present the carter center and not to represent the white house. they didn't have anything to do with the truth. i went on a private plane, and when i got back i made a full report to the secretary of state clinton. >> host: george w. bush's axis of evil speech including north korea, was that a mistake that he included them? >> guest: i think so, because at that time north korea and the united states had very good relations, relatively speaking. secretary of state madeleine albright had already been to pyongyang to visit on an official basis with the north korean leaders. and president clinton had decided to go to north korea in

december of 2000. but he had to cancel his visit because of the standoff between bush and gore. nobody knew who was going to be president so he couldn't leave. so that was the situation of relative accommodation or certainly communication between pyongyang and washington then. well, when president bush made his speech, classifying and north korea as an axis of evil, then that was a signal that the bush administration was abandoning the agreement that i had helped negotiate that president clinton had concluded with the north >> host: your administration with chow ping was first recognized people's republic of china. not nixon, people often get mixed up. are you treated as a special person when you go to china or do they greatly respect to? >> guest: i am. host could you have any plan on trying to work on u.s.-china relations to help --

>> guest: i work on the carter center china relationships and we have major projects in china endorsed by the chinese government. they have 600,000 small villages in china. they are not part of the communist party system. and the carter center has been asked by china to monitor the elections held in those 600,000 little villages, and we do that. we've done that now for i think about 12 years in all. so we go -- rose, my wife, those and represent the carter center full-time to make sure that we help the little villages have honest, fair, open and free elections, and they do. everybody in the village is automatically registered to vote and 18-years-old, men and women, the candidates don't have to be a member of the communist party and many of them are not members of the communist party. there is a secret ballot. and it is completely space process. and i have been hoping that it

would move from the little village of to the higher levels. the communist party in china takes over at the time shipp with the large cities and count as provinces and the provincial people he liked him to go to the national people's conference every five years. so that the entire governmental process involves the carter center has a major monitor for the chinese government is doing to bring democracy at least on the local village level. >> host: final question, of course we are winding down. i could go on for hours with you. but the issue of global warming. we talked about conservation and the department of energy and your long time concern about fossil fuels. are you at all concerned there seems to be this global warming for a while seems to be this concern, and now people don't mention it? is a midterm election and democrats and republicans are staying away from it. or do deeply concerned with our global warming?

>> guest: certainly am. it is happening. in fact i just read an article today that the american cities began to suffer in norfolk virginia where i went with my wife when we were first married. they had an increase in sea level, i think it said 16 inches already and people that have lived on the dry land are now having to leave their homes in the communities in norfolk, and in alaska to have abandoned several of the native villages along the coast that have now become inundated. and in particular ways the ice is melting around but used to protect them. so i am very much concerned about it. we have proven all over latin america and i would say bolivia is going to be the first major country that will suffer from global warming because they have gotten their fresh water supplies from people to drink from the melting glaciers with the snow in the wintertime. now the glaciers are melting and they will be probably th