existed back in the 70s. which doesn't exist anymore. .. so he kind of took away a lot of the very liberal democrats to, you know, support him. they didn't much want me to

succeed on the issues and so after an interest of the moderate and conservative democrats and moderate and conservative republicans and this is how we had such a good batting average for the congress. >> host: what about sam nunn, how important has he been -- >> guest: sam nunn was important. he was a young senator then, and he was kind of my floor leader on some of the key issues like -- things that reports of nuclear power, and he was very knowledgeable about it and he was working his we get to be the chairman leader on of the defense committee in the senate. but sam, being a friend in the legislature when i was governor of georgia, worked very closely with me. and i have to say, by the way, of governor talmadge may be very difficult choice to vote for the panama canal treaties which was the most courageous vote, i believe, that the u.s. senate has ever cast.

there were 20 senators who voted for the panama canal treaties in 1978 and we were up for reelection that here, and of the only seven came back and sam nunn and herman talmadge were to of the senators who voted with me. herman talmadge although he was very popular the time was later defeated in the next election. i would say one of the main reasons was because he voted for the panama canal treaties, which was a very right to vote and proper vote but very unpopular at the time. >> host: and walter mondale had to be the deciding vote? >> guest: it required a two-thirds vote so we actually got 60 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 it. in spite of the fact that 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 it, but enough of them date -- >> host: why do you feel reagan and john wayne and some of the conservative leaders were so vehemently opposed -- >> guest: john wayne was for the panama canal treaty. one reason was he disliked reagan very much. john wayne did. and another thing was he had been to panama several times, and he knew the leader of panama had the time. so john wayne what we know quite early that he would be in favor of the panama canal 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, just what you're saying. do you feel you pushed the canal issue to quickly? >> guest: no. >> host: if you feel you had --

>> guest: if it had dragged -- even during the late stages of dwight eisenhower's term there had become an increasing amount of dissatisfaction, not only in panama but throughout the latin american hemisphere against the unfair treaty that we had formulated back 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 southern hemisphere organized a third world powers, and so all of the world there was opposition to the united states because we were violating panel's himeno writes. as you may or may not remember, panama canal treaty was signed in the middle of the night. i think john hay was the secretary of state in washington

and no one ever saw the treaty. was negotiated by frenchman who hadn't been to panama for 18 years but claim to be speaking for panama, so it was an unfair treaty from the very beginning. in almost every would be recognized, including as i said, two-thirds of the u.s. senators. >> host: he went back to panama, get back to the panama's ex-president to monitor the election and called noriega out as winning a essentially a fraudulent election. >> guest: that's right. >> host: do you think the security architect of the panama canal treaties gave you a credibility in panel, the rest of central america, latin america that otherwise wouldn't have been there? >> guest: there is no doubt about that. after i left office, one of our first very important elections that was monitored was in panama, and noriega, who was ahead of the so-called military, the national guard, was a crook and tried to steal the election

and stuffed the ballot box. and since the carter center was monitoring the election and i knew the ballot box was stuffed, publicly announced the whole election was fraudulent, and there were rocks thrown at us called by the national guardsmen on noriega's orders. and although his candidates with a stuffed ballot box 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 re-election was held at the carter center and monitored the election and it was an honest and fair election and now one of panama is one of the democracies in this hemisphere. >> host: do you feel noriega should still be in prison? >> guest: well he served his term. he was sentenced originally for 40 years and if he qualified for a pardon. but he has been rearrested, as you may know, because of some abuses that he perpetrated

against citizens of france. so he was extradited to france to be tried on another crime after he was finally serve his term. >> host: had he ever reach out 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 and monitoring elections front side, and now we just finished i think over 81st election this past -- this month in many or before that in sierra leone, as we have the major elections and also elections in the palestinian area, and we did first to the elections and indonesia when they changed from 50 years of dictatorship into a democracy. so we've had a very exciting

time holding elections, and i have to get noriega credit he got me started on the election monitoring. [laughter] i had to denounce him as a crook. >> host: tell me about you were mentioning looking at the white house and jogging and in the "white house diary" whether you are on the campaign trail going to texas, you kind of often sneak in their like you're going on a jog. and then when you were inaugurated you did the famous walk on your inauguration. how did the idea of walking for your inaugural, about? >> guest: well, some of the center -- one of the senators from wisconsin was talking about physical fitness and he suggested that 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

with the tea party and so forth. there was a lot of disillusionment with washington. so we discussed it and finally decided that we would walk just to show that we trusted the american people. you have to remember that 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 in the senate had a bill that the president's and the cia had perpetrated crimes for the murder against elected leaders in foreign countries who didn't approve of that policy, once in chile and one was in iran as a matter of fact, so all of these things cause americans to serve doubt the integrity of the government and confidence of the government. so i wanted to walk down pennsylvania avenue just to show the american people that i was one of them and hope they could

have trusted me. >> host: it used to be you mention william o. douglas in the canal. he used to do walks along the canal and used to jog around the canal. did you ever run around d.c. and the park or was it too hard for the secret service to keep one jogging route? >> guest: we were able to keep it secret. sometimes i would draw in other areas. for instance, we laid out the seven 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 on weekends we would all get candidate. 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 canal

is adjacent to and sometimes in the potomac region was very important trade route back in those early days. but they had about a 12-foot long and, very smooth path to that the horses used to walk on to throw the largest on the canal and that is where my job. so it was a wonderful and isolated place. >> host: of all aspects of your presidency that i think history is going to treat well, but people don't seem to knowññ about it right now, is jimmy carter's conservationist, and working with creating the department of energy but also, you know, putting solar panel on the white house. with the solar panel -- and then i want to talk about alaska -- solar panel part, were you upset that regan took them down? >> guest: i was. >> host: why did he do that? >> guest: there was a total difference of philosophy between me and reagan.

i thought the american people should pay attention to our excessive dependence on foreign oil. so all four years i worked to get a comprehensive energy package passed, and i did before i went out of office. in fact, when i was inaugurated, we were importing 8.6 million barrels of oil per day. and within five years, because of my energy package, we reduced that by half, down to 4.3 million 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 these 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 through the white house. but also as a symbolic proof to the american people thought i

was willing to do something as well as for them to do it. as soon as reagan was in office he ostentatiously and with great publicity removed the solar panels and said this is a waste of money and waste of time. as a matter of fact, i believe in me and they purchased the 36 panels to and of the white house and the start the crusade about a year ago and finally convinced president obama to put solar panels that on the white house. and last year, welcome this year earlier i was in china and the major producer of the world now brought one of the panels that used to be on the white house. but when i was over there, they showed me the panel and told me about it. >> host: are you still high on the idea of solar or are you studying wind power? where do you think we need to go? >> guest: well, i think i would say what we used to call as often as sources of energy is

and we'll primarily, but to use coal seams in america as good as you can make it can't make it clean burning but to reduce the dependence on certain foreign sources of oil was a major purpose of my role. sweden to the law some things the first permanent. we required for instance electric motors and refrigerators and stoves be made highly efficient. and a stamp be put on every one about the degree of efficiency we passed laws that require houses 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 reagan came into office he backed out of it, and so when obama came in to be

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 it president would do that reagan and his successors did to waste energy. but the laws are still on the books. so we still have an efficient refrigerators, stoves, electric motors and homes. >> host: do you worry about eisenhower, had the industrial military complex in his farewell speech, are you worried about big oil and 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 of extremely rich, almost unbelievably rich, and influence in the congress and even in the national elections books present. and they have always put as much money as they possibly could

into campaigns, and this includes others not related directly to energy like the health industry. and i think one of the most stupid things that the supreme court has ever done was a ruling last january that took off all limits on the corporations and making contributions to the political campaigns and even remove the requirement that they had to identify themselves with. so now even in this election in 2010, they're has been a massive influx of money for corporations to we secret and the donors being identified and almost all of it goes to the republicans of course to defend oil companies and other major interests of that kind. so that is what's happened with the election, and it's 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 my distinguished opponent. and i think the reason for the escalation and almost universal use now of negative advertising on television radio has become because of enormous influx of money into the campaign. so if a candidate for congress gets a $500,000 from the oil companies and so forth, then they spend a lot of the $500,000 on destroying the character and reputation of their opponent. and so, and it happens on both sides. i don't mean just to blame republicans, but democrats do it, too. and although the american people disagree with the procedure, it works to the user by the time 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 we get to washington, they still carry over that highly partisan animosity almost the 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 than, and cooperation. now there is no such thing. the congress is much more polarized now has any time in history. i would say even in the months preceding the civil war if that's possible because as you know, on some of the major programs that president obama put forth, he didn't get a single republican vote in the house or the senate, so the republicans had 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 they now control the

house of representatives which will be an improvement over what it has been until now. >> host: 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 or when others were 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 the republicans are against president obama, and the avowed purpose of implementing and reelecting in 2012 he is going to be lucky to get enough republican votes to put it over the s.t.a.r.t. treaty certainly should be passed. >> host: what should president obama dewitt despite? should he go alone, to us executive power or or does he somehow have to try to find a way to work with congress?

if you were president in this political climate, what card would you play? >> guest: i think what he is likely to the next two years is to be much more resolved, much more determined to stick with what he wants to get done and to stop trying to induce very few republicans to support his position. for instance, he has said 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. what he said he was going to do. and maybe have one vote in the senate to grant an extension of the bush tax reductions to people that make less than 250 koza dollars a year. that's what he said he was going

to do on the campaign. and just that one vote only and not permit any possibility of extending the the tax reductions for the very rich people. if he does things like that i think that he would have a good bit of success. it was only when he used, as you know, a very well-known techniques that george w. bush had used many times, reconciliation, that he was able to get the health bill passed. well, that's playing tough and i think that most of the democrats now say they will do better in 2012 and speaking as a democrat of the president does hang tough, and i think he will. >> host: back to conservation can you tell 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 what else is your name in conservation you're going to be on that short list with fdr and

maybe -- fdr, tiahrt, 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 all that took me four years to do it, almost four years, and i practically memorized the map of alaska. and about halfway through, i saw that we were not going to get any support from the to alaska senators, one a democrat, and the alaska members of the house of representatives as one. so my secretary of interior came up with a idea of using a bill that passed the congress in the area of the 1900's, i think 1907. it was called -- it was designed to save monuments, and highly valuable things for the future that should be preserved and

gave the president almost unilateral right to do so. we used that legislation on large areas of land to desiccate them as national monuments to be preserved and it's nothing the congress could do to override my decisions and eventually the amount of land we set aside as national monuments in alaska and other places was as large as the state of michigan i mean an enormous amount of property to get so i had that to reduce. >> host: do you have a map of alaska to start learning -- >> guest: absolutely i did. and senator udall in the house of representatives was a 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 and say this is very precious, so i would set it aside just by the struggle of in

to save. and set aside permanently as a national monument, although we think the original bill referred to just one specific building of something like that and vast areas of precious land and was that leverage that i used on the members of congress from alaska and also others who were reluctant about alaska lands bill to prevail. >> host: >> guest: so after i was defeated on the election in november, 1980 and that is on the alaska lands bill passed, and we actually set aside an area almost as large as the state of california, the total. we doubled the size of the national park service and tripled the size of the wilderness area in america under one bill and also i was very unpopular then in alaska because the senator's already convinced the my was taking away alaska land, this has now become one of

the most popular things i did even with alaska people because they see how much it has meant to them to their state. >> host: what about with sarah palin and the drill, the become natural, and the arctic refuge or in more as some people call it, but with the arctic refuge to you think it should ever be allowed to have leal -- >> guest: never. >> host: have you ever been -- >> guest: absolutely. >> host: what was it like living there and would you say never? would you say to people that say that it's empty tundra and nothing there? >> guest: well i have stood in front of the so-called porcupine herd and this is a herd of about 140,000 animals and care abu -- carow, and they split and go by. we have actually flown over an area there was a wolf in that had 30 wolves, and we went just off the coast of northern alaska

on the same trip where we observed a group of oxen and when they were disturbed the form a circle of males facing outward to protect the females and their calves in the middle, so we go fishing in alaska quite often, fly-fishing, so i've become quite familiar with alaska and many of the state of the national parks that there. in 1980, and i think that they will be preserved but there is a tremendous pressure from the oil companies to i would say to legally buy the members of congress to take in more, this beautiful area up there and to get available for exploration from oil. this was an area that was first set aside and it's only alaskan natural wilderness region by president eisenhower in the 1950's, and i just preserved what eisenhower first set aside.

that is when alaska became a state. and when i left office, the only way you could do that is of the president and both houses of congress voted to let the oil exploration be done in anwar and i never believed we would have the president and two houses do so but the president and george h. w. bush and president george w. bush tried and sometimes came within two or three votes of getting a required legislative support. i hope it never happens. and over a period of time, i think more and more americans and more and more alaskans are realizing we need to preserve this special area. >> host: what about offshore drilling? i believe shell wants to drill off of the refuge. would you agree with offshore or do you -- >> guest: i don't think so. i think we need it because that's where some of the islands are and actually on the peninsula that went out on that region. when we passed the alaska lands

bill and in late 1980 we opened up 95% of all of the coastal areas of alaska for oil drilling. we only preserve 5% which is a special area we are talking about. where we prohibited the oil drilling and i think we -- the five per cent is not too much to save because it is just like five me did and i hope it will be there for my grand children to enjoy. >> host: why do you feel sarah palin alaska is becoming so much of the public discourse as her personality and have you ever met her or do you have any views about what she is contributing for not contributing in american life? >> guest: i've never met her but obviously i watched her on television many times and if she's one of the most dynamic and attractive speakers we've ever seen. she knows how to appeal to the crowd and she's 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 fink within the republican party and within the two-party element of the republican party choose when to be a formidable candidate if she decides to run in 2012. and there 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 a majority of the 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: do you see any connection to yourself, she was the governor from a state and you were the governor in georgia and the odds seemed a very odd and kind of came out of nowhere and you went into audio and new hampshire and the peanut brigade. do you feel very is a -- although you are coming from the democratic side of the kind of

populism do you see any connection with what she's trying to do or not at all? >> guest: i finished my term as governor. [laughter] >> host: to you think quitting will hurt her? you never quit, ronald reagan never quit. >> guest: i think that on the particular large group of supporters will hold that against her. i think she has already proven that. so no, i don't see any parallel between me and her but i do see a parallel between the times that i ran for president in 1976 and this past year for the cheaper the movement because it is primarily a group of well-meaning people in my opinion who were just completely dissatisfied with what was happening in washington. and i have to admit i had the same kind of benefit when i ran for office. a wonderful group of other candidates who were my opponents, most of whom were u.s. senators, three distinguished, and i was able to prevent, to prevail, primarily

because i capsule was that the satisfaction that is one of the driving forces for the tea party this past year. >> host: what me shift gears to the middle east with the iranian hostage crisis. they eventually all came home. do you ever hear from any of them? >> guest: quite often. when i go on a book tour, usually one of two of the hostages on the book tour will send word ahead of time they want to meet me behind the scenes and always i will give them a free book and have photographs made and i am very proud of the fact they are doing quite well. this is not as much as it used to be after i left office. a good many of them will drive to planes and let me know in advance and spend a few minutes with me and thank me for the fact they did become home. it is come home safe and free. so i have had a good friendly relationship i would say with all of them so far as i know.

>> host: how, with iran with so much part of your administration in the white house diaries and your book and you talk about the two white house. there's the carter white house and in dealing with the hostage crisis white house. in the retrospect is their something you would have done different throughout the course? i know you have set an extra helicopter on the mission but can you withdraw back and look at that whole situation and wish you would have done something differently? >> guest: not really. not knowing if i had known completely what was happening what happened in the future i might have done something different but i don't think so under the circumstances because i was the last on my top management team and letting the shah come to new york for treatment of his terminal cancer. and henry kissinger and dr. brzezinski and vance and all of my advisers were saying let

him come, it's a humanitarian thing to do, and so i contacted the president and the prime minister of iran, and i told them i was contemplating having the shah come to have treatment and i wanted assurance from them that they would protect americans who were over there. at that time there were about 8,000 americans in iran working in different forces, including 56 members of the embassy, the staff. and they sent me word that they would guarantee that nothing would happen to the americans if the shah came to new york, provided the shah would pledge to make not any sort of political statement while he was in america. and thus be 13 did give me that assurance -- the shah did give me that assurance. get to the surprise of me and i think to the surprise of the president and prime investor of

iran, i think it was yazi and and [inaudible] if i remember the names right to two hostages and when the ayatollah after three days supported detector and holding of hostages, then both the president and pamela starr resigned in protest. but that was just the beginning of a long ordeal where they held the hostages, so i don't really believe that i would have done anything different. the main advice i got was to attack iran, to bomb iran and so forth, but i was convinced then and still am convinced that had i done so i would have killed me the 10,000 innocent by iranians, and they would immediately have executed hostages, so i'm glad i held out on that. >> host: did your religion, your love of christ, did it ever come in to making the decisions like -- that's a very profound thing i think that you can take

out 10,000 people's lives, but do you think it informed your judgment that you made your faith? >> guest: i think so. i worship jesus christ as a prince of peace, so i was resolved as president within the bounds of defending my nation's security and integrity and honor the 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 launched a missile, we never fired a bullet, and we protected our own integrity, our own security, and we not only brought peace between us and potential lover series, but also brought peace to others around

the world. one of the things i wanted to do was to start the process of eliminating apartheid in south africa and rhodesia. we were successful with mahtesian and related ground work later on for progress towards the end of 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. we normalized diplomatic relations with china. the result of potential conflict panel and some of the south american countries. we brought peace between israel and egypt and so forth, need not go on the list of things but that's what we tried to do. >> host: would you ever at this point in your life you've 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 a rested 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 wine from something like that? >> guest: well, i would say is an issue came up that i felwas a matter of moral conflict with me that had been done would certainly consider being arrested because i wouldn't be hurt. i might just be arrested as a pro forma thing and it would get a lot of publicity, so that would magnify on the ability to bring publicity to him on savory act i might do it. but amy, she felt very deeply on her own. we didn't have to inspire a me to protest against the apartheid. she felt deeply like i did. >> host: in your diaries in the white house, there is a little section about you reading the bible at might in spanish,

and also getting your hair cut with a port rican border and you would practice spanish. was it because -- do you believe that being bilingual is important in today's america? >> guest: when i was a young person i sat at the naval academy and would study spanish. and when rose and i have a chance to go on vacation we often go to a spanish speaking country, quite often spain, which is our favorite place to take vacation, and we still -- in fact, last night i read part of the bible in spanish, while rose listened, and the next time we are together she would read a portion of the bible in spanish, and this just gives us a chance to practice in between times. and so she's got an ipod and she has got i think 85 spanish lessons on the ipod and practices, so i think that being bilingual is a great advantage and it turned out of

spanish-speaking is important not only in plants georgia where we have 85 hispanics live and they don't speak spanish, so we are kind of a interpreter on occasion and when our church does something for them, so it is a wonderful second language and also just to have a second language is important. >> host: do you use a laptop and write your own letters to people? >> guest: you know i never have dictated a letter in my life. i never have dictated any of my books. this is my 26 the book. i do all my writing myself. >> host: and why is that? is it because you want to have the control over it? >> guest: no, it's not that. >> host: tiahrt and roosevelt used to dictate to people, but you really kind of keep a personal -- >> guest: in my childhood when i was in plains high school in the eighth grade, i took typing and i took shorthand, so all the

way through college years it took all my college notes in shorthand. so i became, you might say, a good stenographer on my own. i'm not bragging about it. there's nothing wrong with dictating letters. 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 it and assigned its final version. so i didn't can't write everything from the very beginning. for instance, when i wanted reagan and sought to come to camp david for negotiation, i can't wrote a letter to each and had them delivered to them so they would know it can from me, and maybe that is one of the reasons they both accepted the invitation. >> host: and you have had written letters to people around the world for people that are political prisoners, asking world leaders to release people. do you still keyed in on on that

like amnesty international? >> guest: absolutely. the president has a strong human rights program, and i have a staff full time executors of the human rights called charon ryan, and she and the staff of the carter center monitor the most egregious abuses of human rights, and quite often they would draft a letter for me to send to a foreign leader who is of using people in his or her country. and i will send them a personal letter. we get the law students at emory university to double check the legality of what i am doing so we don't do something foolish. and then i send the letter and i say i have heard that you are doing this to such and such people in my name them in prison without a proper trial. they might be ill and need to be released. i know this is contrary to your patients constitution and

commitments, and i would like to have a report from you just on a personal basis about what can be done the alleviate their suffering, and i would just hope this particular matter doesn't have to go further to the public news rum, and it's surprising how many times the dictator will send me a letter back and say i have looked into this and people have been released from prison, something like that, so we still do that and we have an annual meeting at the carter center. we call a meeting of the human rights defenders. we have people in about 40 nations to come to the carter center. human rights abuses take place in their country, and there or he rose -- he goes of their own countries fighting against human-rights abuses, and sometimes the dictators or the abusers meant that the out of the country, won't give them a visa, but then we meet with them and discuss their problems and

then the journey of about seven or eight of them who are the most eloquent sitter on the table with me and an interlocutor from cnn and ask questions about these, and in that same group, travels to washington without me and they meet with the leaders, human rights specialists in the administration. so we do 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 are very much -- you have the second longest military career the and any president of the 20th century after dwight eisenhower, and you are very punctual and very -- but when we got to a village where most of the people had hiv were hiv-positive, on saw the whole tough jimmy carter saw a -- side kind of milk in an emotional way the way that you are touching people and hugging the children.

do you have to -- you seem to feel the suffering of people like your mother did who took people's leprosy. is it hard to have that much compassion for the poor but then having to keep a hard shell in order to get things done? >> guest: i don't feel it difficult, and actually vote carter center, which was organized after i came home, has a commitment to eradicate or controlling the most terrible disease on earth. the world health organization calls them neglected disease because they no longer exist in the rich world and they afflict hundreds of millions of people still primarily in africa but sometimes latin america. so that is what we dedicated to the carter center has its primary purpose was to control

and eradicate this neglected disease. so she and my, my wife and i, go to latin america or criminally to africa often to deal with those kind of diseases. so they are not even known in america. [inaudible] and so forth, and these are diseases that can be eliminated. we have already proven that because they don't exist and the rich world and we also deal with one major disease called malaria which everybody knows about and we no longer have it here, for instance in ethiopia the carter center helped to a remarkable new insecticide bed nets in every home in ethiopia that had malaria mosquitoes. this was 20 million nets, and

the government of ethiopia raised $70 million. i raised $3 million to buy the other nets we needed for the 3 million nets and we put them in homes. so that's the kind of thing that we do around the world now. so it is a matter of you might say a professional commitment of the carter center to help poor people, and i guess it comes natural to me and all of those that work with us. >> host: i know when you were a younger man that you 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 and the people that have been in the white house, is there a president that you draw inspiration to that might be different over the years you have more biographies and thought about american history more, is their somebody that you think boy, there was a president that i can truly respect? >> guest: i haven't changed my mind. when i'm asked that -- still it is a common question i get and i say harry truman in my lifetime.

i don't remember -- i am not derogating abraham lincoln and others, i'm just in my lifetime. but harry truman affected me personally. when roosevelt was killed i was a midshipman at annapolis and i cried when i realized that this unknown vice president would not be my commander-in-chief, harry s. truman, and later when i was on the submarine, submarine officer, harry truman in 1948 decided to do away with racial segregation in the military forces. and the army and navy marines and air force and coast guard. and it was an extremely unpopular thing for him to do. and the congress warned him to not do. a lot of his own military leaders, i say 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 became famous, so i still give harry truman credit for being a pioneer this country of doing away with almost 100 years of racial segregation. so that changed my mind, my life, so i always felt he was an honest and courageous and very intelligent -- >> host: would you identify as a navy man, do you identify yourself with the korean war at all? >> guest: i was a submarine officer during the korean war and the latter part of the world war. i was in the pacific when the korean war started, and until 1950, and then i was transferred back to the east coast. so yes, i still feel personally involved in korea in fact i just came back from north korea recently. >> host: i wanted to ask you in the white house by urey's you write about visiting korea and you have a huge crowd there like

a million or more people. why did you have that kind of crowd in south korea? [laughter] it was an extraordinary -- estimates of 2 million people in south korea. you'd think closer to a million in the book. and tell me about what you've learned. i know when you microstudy please let alaska or the middle east, korea has been a big part of your life. what is going on there now and what you today, jimmy carter, be willing to go to north korea to might, tomorrow, the next week, and try to negotiate a some kind of settlement after this recent, you know, back-and-forth going on? >> guest: well, in a way i hate to say this, but the north koreans trust me. 15 years ago we were faced with the prospect of victory in more -- dockery in war because kim il-sung who is were shipped to north korea, i am of the setting is a combination of jesus christ did george washington for the north koreans because of the

various reasons little time to go into, he decided that he would expel the international atomic energy inspectors and start reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods from their ancient atomic reactor for electricity, and the united states started trying to impose much more severe sanctions on north korea than they had since the 1950's when the korean war was over. kim il-sung announced that 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 of south korea, because it is close to the border. i decided to go over and try to resolve the issue. and lagat reluctance approval from president bill clinton. i went over and negotiated with kim il-sung successfully and to

arrange to put it into an official in granite by negotiating in geneva and that is what bill clinton did. leader kim il-sung stopped the nuclear process and we were well on the way to a peace treaty with north korea. when president bush came into office, that in tiger process was undone and in his inaugural address, president bush declared that north korea was an axis of evil, and to make a long story short, north korea began to reprocessed nuclear fuel rods and now we have got six or seven people 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 that again, they wanted to negotiate and do away with their nuclear weapons and to have a permanent peace treaty to replace the ceasefire that existed now in the united states and north korea. so that is what i have done but

if president obama asked me to go over i would certainly do so but i wouldn't presume to go. >> host: of the carter center at all or at this point of 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: i would go but only if i got permission from the white house. i never have been on a foreign trip into a troubled area without getting proper mission approval from the white house and always make a report to the white house when i get back. sometimes i have to say the president was not enthusiastic about my going but it is just a matter of my commitment. but i don't go unless i get permission to go, and this past time and i went over in august and got permission from the white house but they made it clear that i was going to represent the carter center and not represent the white house.

they didn't have anything to do with the trip. 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's so because at that time north korea and the united states had good relations will literally 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 2000. but he had to cancel his visit because the standoff between bush and gore. nobody knew who was going to be the president said the president said he couldn't leave. so that was the situation of a lot of accommodation for certain communication between pyongyang and washington then. but when president bush made his speech classifying 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 the president clinton had concluded with the north koreans. >> host: china commodores administration, with them zhou ping was the first to recognize the china the republic. are you treated as a special person when you go to china or do they greatly respect to? >> guest: i am. >> host: do you have any plans on trying to work on u.s.-china relations to somehow -- >> guest: no, i work on the carter center china relationship, and we have major projects in china, endorsed by the chinese government. for instance, if they have 600,000 small villages in china the are not part of the communist party system. and the carter center has been asked by the government of china to monitor the elections held in this 600,000 little villages and we do that and we've done that

now for about i think maybe 12 years and all. so rose, my wife, go 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 when the 18-years-old, men and women. the candidates don't have to be a member of the communist party and most of the hoover and are not members of the communist party. there's a secret ballot. and it's completely a space process. and i have been hoping that it would move from the little village of to the high levels for the communist party takes over. to become in china takes of the township with little cities and counties and provinces. and the provincial people go to the nationals congress every five years. so that entire governmental process is involves the carter

center as a major monitor of the chinese government is doing to bring democracy at least on the local level. >> host: final question because 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. you are longtime conservative about getting off of fossil fuels. are you concerned there seems to be this global warming for a while seemed to be this concern and now people don't mention it? a midterm election of both democrats and republicans are staying away from it. or do deeply concerned about global warming? >> guest: ibm, it's certainly happening. it's like i read an article today american cities are beginning to suffer through it norfolk virginia, where my wife and i went when we were first married. they have had an increase in sea level, i think they say 16 inches already come and people that have lived on dry land are now having to leave their homes and enter communities and norfolk. and even though we are in alaska these abandoned several of the

native villages along the coast that has now become inundated and in particular ways like washington the ice is melting that used to protect them. so every concerned about it. all over latin america and i say bolivia is going to be the first major country that will suffer from the global warming because they have gotten their fresh water supplies for people to drink from the melting glaciers with the snow in the wintertime, now the glaciers are melting and probably the first major country that will have a direct adverse effect on the lives of their people. so i am very deeply worried about it. and it's something another thing that i hope president obama will be steering on and supportive of the global warming issue and put into effect some way to reduce the were unnecessary production of carbon dioxide and so forth

that goes into the air. >> host: well i enjoy speaking to you. you've got "white house diary" out now which has hit the bestseller's list and it has done incredibly well. are you planning on writing another book or are you working on one now book is going to be in 2011. it's really a collection of my bible lessons. i teach sunday school in my church every sunday. i'm home about 35, 40 times a year and all of them are recorded and biggest religious publisher in the world live signed contract with so they've got an editor to take 365 of might recordings of some the school lessons and reduce them down to one page each and that will be my next book. it will be held in the fall of 2011. >> host: look forward to it. merry christmas to you, v0v0r mr. president. >> guest: thank you very much.

for the next three hours award winning author salman rushdie the acclaimed indian war novelist discusses his less publicized nonfiction works including the jaguar smile his first hand impression of nicaragua sandinista government when it came to power and imaginary homeland, a book of critical essays on the evolution of the indian and british government. the author by queen elizabeth in 2007 is perhaps best known for the novel the satanic verses. ..