really enlightening segment. thanks. >> thank you. [applause] okay -- booktv is on twitter twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you tweet us twitter.com/booktv, or post a comment on our facebook, facebook.com/booktv. [silence]

good morning. >> good morning. thank you for braving the security. which protects us all more will be coming in the back if some of you would like to move forward that would be easier for us to accommodate the crowd that i'm sure is still standing in line. i'm jane harman president of the center and absolutely delighted to preside over this event entitled president carter the white house years. i have been carrying this book around as workout once you finish this you can cancel your gym membership and walk around carrying. jim-free understand that measured against other biographies two wins. on size alone. but this isn't just a book party although we're all thrilled that stew has written this book. this is a deep dive into what a

presidency means written by someone who was there to see it all. certainly i was there too. but stew remembers a far more details than i ever could which is why i was so excited to get the book and to have this discussion and we're talking about a discussion. in-depth today -- every time i saw in the white house over 40 years ago, he was carrying a yellow pad everyone will remember this everywhere -- all the time 5,000 pages worth of notes on a yellow pad. i doubt that any presidential biography was ever prepared by someone so well prepared. but i'm not surprised i met stew in the summer of 1964 when we sat next it each other at the young democrats of america. here in washington, i won't reveal our ages but i'll just tell you he's older. [laughter]

we overlapped at law school, had sons named brian who are friends. and then worked across hall from each other in the carter white house on second or floor of the west wing. most of our panelists were also there, so this is a loverly reunion and -- a number of others from the carter administration are in the audience so i just thought i would ask all of our friends to stand up for a moment. look at this. pretty impressive -- [applause] yep. ask the audience -- sue currently is senior counsel where he heads the firms international practice and focussings on resolving international trade problems and business disputes with the u.s. and foreign governments. he has a lot of work to do with the u.s. these days. he was a chief white house domestic policy advisor to president jiminy carter u.s. ambassador to e. ument and deputy secretary during the carter administration but, of

course, most important stew, was your time as a scholar at the wilson center. in 2001, when you researched and wrote what later bill a book called imperfect justice lewd asset and unfinished business of world war ii was a blockbuster and we thank you for coming here to write it seriously on a very important topic union joining stew on the panel former deputy national president to carte earn u.s. ambassador to the oec drgs and form or deputy for domestic affairs to president carter former legislative counsel to walter when he was senator and form fire department for turner and broadcasting i guess you're still affiliated with turner broadcasting bob hunter member of the nfc stach for president carter who worked on west european and middle eastern affairs u.s. ambassador to nato foreign policy airs to ted kennedy historian doug,

professor at the university of yanked and first director of the u.s. national center on child abuse and neglect so in reading blurb about this book i want to note before we get along al a opinion greenspan said, quote -- president carter anticipated many of the programs that his successor ronald reagan embraced he fostered many -- major major deredlation of communication and banking and most importantly appointed paul one of the most committed and inflation fighters to the chairmanship of the federal reserve. stew skdzs in offering balanced view of the carter presidency and splendid read and david said this, and i know this thing will come up he called carter a smart decent but unlucky man in the white house. secretary of the cabinet and i

had a second row seat first half of the carter presidency i left the white house at the end of 1978 and stayed in touch my late husband sidney and i met in the west wing and president carter credits himself with over 30 years of hearnlg. sydney served for a time on board of the carter center played a big role in the carter post presidency eni'll just note the post presidency is not covered inned book to it is lasted four decades so stew when you write it has to be minimum 8,000 pages. [laughter] this morning stew will give opening comments followed by our panel which i moderate and then we will go to your questions our goal is to tease out he's getting up. the successes and disappointments of an extraordinarily hard working and principle president and i just want to echo, by saying --

what madeleine albright says in prologue to this book she also was -- a colleague from those days -- and she says that she hopes this book will help reframe the carter presidency. so do i -- so please welcome wilson centers scholar stewart. [applause] thank you vsm and thank you for your long friendship and for hosting this and thank you all for coming jimmy carter political idle was harry truman and he placed truman's famous slogan on his oval us a desk the buck stops here. both presidents left office highly unpopular. now truman is remembered much more for his achievements than for his faults. and i hope my book will lead to a similar reassessment of jiminy carter as president not simply as a widely admired former president.

my thesis is that he was one of the most successful one-term presidents in american history and indeed accomplished more than many in two terms. two object ifer surveys indicate that more than almost 70% of all of his legislative proposals were passed by congress just under the percentage of the legendary lyndon johnson. as vice president walter summed up his presidency by saying -- we told the truth. we obeyed the law and we kept the peace. the wrap on the carter presidency is summed up by several for as a i say eyes -- inflation, inexperienced by he and his georgia mafia. and interparty warfare with the

kennedy wing of the democratic party. i do not gloss over in my book any of these problems. i address them directly. but with no eyewitnesses likely to be around in next 20 years and with the danger that they'll be an image of his administration as a failure, i wanted to write a book that demonstrated that these problems should not obscure the very major successes that he achieve ones that are long lasting that have made the country and the world a better place. the authenticity of the book as jane indicates is based on fact that i wrote -- over 5,000 pages of contemporaneous notes housed in library of congress of every meeting every phone call -- amplified by 350 interviews,

five with him and i was not selective i interviewed people who were favorable and people who are unfavorable republicans and democrats to give a complete picture. but because of this contemporaneous nature of my note is provides a unique view of this president and i believe of any presidency and of the hot house atmosphere of working in the white house. so let me briefly share some of the accomplishments just a few stories of how they occurred. on domestic side, he laid the foundation through three major energy bills in four years. of the energy security we e enjoyed today, he regulating the price of natural gas and crude oil to permit maximum production putting conservation on the nation's agenda for the first time and --

inaugurating the clean energy with solar and wind power. and the final compromises were appropriately hammered out with two conservative republican senators and two liberal democratic house members in the map room of the white house where fdr followed the course of world war ii. he was a great consumer champion appointing consumer advocates to oversee industry not as today trying to oversee their own industries. and he charged them with a very clear charge backed up by heart legislation mainly to transform our overregulated transportation system. he deregulated trucking -- railroads and airline as and in the airline industry, he permitted cheaper prices, more

competition, he brought air a travel to the middle class and demomtized it. i dare say we would not have jet blues in southwest that we have today were it not for regulation and it didn't stop there. he began the deregulation of telecommunications which opened up the whole industry as we know it today. he deregulated bank deposits so people can get full interest rates and perhaps laughingly but importantly -- he repealed the prohibition era limitations. and the beer industry which prevented flow of the local craft beers which now proliferate so widely. he was the greatest environmental president since theodore roosevelt doubling the size of the whole national park system that pr created by alaska lands bill and by doing so over fearest on decision of the

alaska delegation who did not want to prevent any inch from being developed for oil and gas. he made the last compromise in a uniquely carter way -- he laid a map, a giant map of alaska on the oval office rug that down to hands and knees senator stevens a veteran of 25 years representing him, and pointed out every river and every mountain ridge that would go into the protected area amazing senator stevens who said later he knew more about my state than i did. he also inaugurated something that is of absolute lasting value. we won the election and large part because of watergate and he put in place a whole series of post "watergate" reform and good government for example the 1978 regulated then and now

disclosure for all public officials of their assets coming in, limiting gifts when they are in office, and restricting their lobbying or for rolfing door when they left. he created inspectors general there's not a weak week that goes by that there's not an article about their reports to route out fraud and abuse in agencies and created office of special counsel to investigate wrong doing and have public office. sound topical? and in addition, he is sign intoodz law foreign corrupt practices act which barred american company pas from bribing foreign officials to get -- contracts made going form of a system since creation i was caught up distinctly in one of these reforms to $25 gift rule when a magazine did a profile of me saying that i had a great

love of tootsy rolls and i got a giant sized lifetime supply of tootsy rolls from the tootsy roll company when we determinedded not by counting every one of them that it might have exceeded the $25 gift rule we returned it wrote a nice letter explaining why and the irate chairman said later -- try to have it both ways. but box was empty when we got it back. [laughter] i'm stl trying to find the secret service agent who stole my tootsy rolls. [laughter] this southern president appointed more women including this wonderful lady to have public office, minorities to judgeships and senior positions than all 38 presidents put together before him. all 38 ruth gader ginsberg said how did you become a judge she was it was because of jimmy

carter and said chrysler and new york city from certain bankruptcy and he created with walter mondale look repute and made it office that it is today a full partner with the president. at the election monodale submitted a whole rafter or request access to secret documents, all meetings, one-on-one lunches, all of them were accepted carte added one other on his own he moved the vice president now permanent into west wing and we know no politics in real estate everything is location, location, and location. just yards from the oval office. and made him a full partner almost overstepped because he had one of his a's get original architectural plan and found that his new office actually had

originally had a private bathroom which he very much wanted and found later that -- in a reare modeling of the west wing -- that bathroom had been moved into the national security counsel's office and henry and he decided to fight over a bathroom and did just fine without it. but more seriously -- you'll read in some detail that this fully engaged vice president came within an eyelash and this was the first time it is reported it and confirmed of resigning or of at least deciding not to be on the reelection ticket because of his concern with the so-called speech and the cabinet resignations. and that's one of the biggest surprises. inflation, obviously, was an enormous problem we inherit haded it. carter tried multiple plans to deal with it. nothing worked. and so he decided to take tough medicine in an election year

including opposition of many of us in the white house. he appointed paul volcker to head fed knowing because volker told him that he was going to choke the economy, squeeze inflation out, raise interest rates, and a lead to higher unemployment but eventually lower inflation. the meeting that they had in oval office is really a classic. volker is full taller than carter 6'7" a giant man, bald, glasses scowl and carter describes vividly in the book how -- he was over a couch and in oval office carter said i felt like he was in a interviewing me for a job the not other way around but he did appoint him and let him do his job and supported that tough monetary policy without any complaint. even during an election year. he was not the ultimate beneficiary because the tough medicine only worked during the reagan administration.

and for the nation thereafter and this is em l blemmatic of so much of what carter did, tough decisions which had payoffs only later. his foreign policy achievements were even more significant. camp david will stand as landmark of personal dloam city he poured over intelligence reports to understand. he took them to gettyburg battlefield to demonstrate to them the cost of continued war they had already been five between them. he barred the press so that will be no leaks during the negotiations. after 13 agonizing days and nights over 20 drafts which he wrote and he negotiated separately with each because therm like two scorpions they hardly met at all. we came close to an agreements on the sunday the 13th but didn't reach it in -- literally it wasn't a bluff had bags packed a car ordered to

take himg back to washington and back to israel carter came up with a personal touch that changed history. he learned had eight grandchildren and got each of their names wrote personal encryptions to each them a picture of himself, and at camp david and personally walked them over to the cabin. and as bag began to look to them carter described what he saw the lips quiver and eyes teared he said mr. president i'm the putting my bags down, i'm going to give it one last try. and the rest indeed is history. that is a treaty that has lasted now for almost 40 years. no violations, central to israel's security and to our national interest. he was the first president to put human rights at the center of foreign policy. he applied it to the right wing

dictators in latin america reaching out to democratic movements cutting off their arms, and and tied it that to show that there was going to be a new era in u.s. relations one fast story -- the hardest fight we had in congress was beside energy was the panama canal treaty it was bloody. one cost free vote turnout was republican senator ikala deadset against we learned through mondale to consider switching his vote if carter would see him every two weeks to get his foreign policy advice. carter said oh, no senator i wouldn't want to limit you to just two weeks and flattered he voted for the treaty carter never saw him. [laughter] he also on the left embraced the soviet movement and the soviet jury movement.

and back the movement by saying during the trial that you are not a u.s. spy this hit at the soft underbelly of the soviet union but was joined with hard power as well it was carter not reagan who began the buildup after a vietnam certainly reagan built on it but he built on carter's foundation. and together with the two arm treaty and with a remarkably tough response to the afghan invasion, carter doctrine and so forth that conservatives applaud carter played a significant role with reagan building on it for the unraveling of a soviet union. and nixon they deserve all of the credit for outreach but they

would not take on the lobby they did not an took lobby on and he won. again another very tough fight. one other acute story all 4 foote 11 them came and what he wants now being thankful for diplomatic relations and if this sounds familiar, it should. he wants lowest possible goods that we offer to our most valued trading partners he knew there was a law precluding that if there were limits on immigration and he said to the president mr. president, we don't limit immigration. and he pushed a white house note pad over to the president he said mr. president do you put on this pad the number of chinese you would like us to send each year a million -- ten million, and a the president with a twinkle in his eye said -- ill tell you what, with i'll take ten million if you'll take 10,000 american journalism response.

[applause] the kudagraw was administered by iran's cruel radical itola -- who was top by the way i interviewed. he held americans hostage for 444 days and in violation of every inner national norm while carter support dissipated. now i'm very frank in this chapter. we made a lot of mistakes. and the most significant were our intelligence failures. the cia had put the shaw become on throne in 1953. six presidents had lavished tens of billions of dollars of most sophisticated military equipment on him and yet -- the cia did not realize that his domestic support was resting on quick sand. they did not know that for five years he had been getting cancer

treatment. they didn't know that exile and paris would send provocative cassettes become to tyrann to stimulate a revolve against asia. carter most difficult decision was what to do when the hostages were taken and he made a decision telling the families i'm going to get your lot loveds back and that's my number one priority now frankly i disagreed with that. i suggested that we man the harbor and blockade harbors to prevent them to export oil. but carter was afraid that would risk having the hostages come back and cough a tough choice i don't agree with it but i understand it. but nevertheless we negotiated for 444 days unsuccessfully and another decision made which again i think, in retrospect was a mistake was holding himself up in the white house. during that entire time not traveling not meeting to show he

was spending poling time on the hostage crisis but what that did was gave the press the opportunity to make this the story for the whole last year. the night program of ted was born. cronkite ended every cbs program saying, they 150 day -- 250 -- it was a disaster. biggest disaster became metaphor for those posed to carter presidency that was aborted rescue effort in iran. it was highly complex. there was a lot of bad luck involved. but the destruction of those and los of life of eight americans became really a signature of what happened and it happened largely not because thrrm not enough helicopters. it happened because we had not had -- intermilitary service corporation at that pont but it was only later that we created

that -- form which then took osama bin laden and others. if there was one positive thing to come out of iran other than the hostages coming safely, it is that through means that i described we got 50,000 iranian jews out of iran kept those who were in the united states studying from being exiled through a very clever reinterpretation of the laws. thatthat's a lesson for daca anr dreamers to cook -- conclude in this way we lost overwhelmly in 1980 and carter did not brew from the very first day after the election he said let's make this the most successful outgoing transition ever and it was. negotiated the superlands and chemical cleanup he negotiated the release of the hostages.

and in one last gesture of reconciliation with ted kennedy who he had no reason to reck kennedy wanted steve who happened and his aid appointed to vacancy in first circuit i went in to see karster knowing he wouldn't do it and he said no steve is first rate it will be a tribute to you dish area and us and that is what got him on the first circuit and ultimately in the supreme court. my book is not just about policy it's about people. i have very interesting profiles i'll mention only two in the interest of time. ms. lilian was his inspiration from the beginning a registered nurse she tended to black and white patients in the rule south when it was highly unpopular. ...

she said, certainly you know that your son must have lied? this certainly was and she said yes, you are right he told white lies all the time. do you mean what do you mean by a white lie and she said do you remember when i said how wonderful it was to have you here, that was a white lie. [laughter] i saw roseline carter go from being a shy campaigner who could really speak on the stump to an accomplished first lady. one last story. that is the powerful chairman of the senate finance committee, son of the famous kingfish, governor of louisiana and later chief of staff to huey's brother, earl, counted the story as follows. uncle earl called all the leaders in just before tough

reelection and said boys, you've got to get the vote out for me and promised lavishly buildings and bridges and roads and when he won they all came lining up waiting to be paid and russell knew there was not enough money in the treasury to even begin to pay them. he went to see uncle earl and said what must i tell these parish leaders? russell, he said, just tell them your uncle earl lied. russell was a transformational figure but he was a transactional cousin who would treat his mother for a vote and cannot understand why the moralistic southerner what not do the same. >> jimmy carter is the principal player and i describe him in great detail coming from a net invested five 100% hamlet to the oval office. by understanding the mood of the times and warning honest

government after the watergate and being a new face that a smile is as broad as the mississippi river he was all things to all people put together an improbable and ultimately unstable coalition of conservatives, southern, whites, anxious to have one of their own in the white house, african-americans, labor, working-class people in the middle west and it was an inherently unstable, although successful, coalition for he was, in many ways, the first new democrat. physically conservative -- i wish we had more -- socially liberal on poverty and race issues, real internationalist, a mild populist and he was criticized for being -- jane mentioned it with looking at the notes from the cabinet but he was criticized for being over attention to detail and reading too many appendices and yet, over the years, i began to wonder is that the worst way to govern then by three by five

cards or angry treats? he had an odd view of politics and he was a ferocious campaigner and he did what he needed to get elected and then he parked politics at the overall office door. if you wanted him to take a recommendation, the one of the worst things you could do was say that the -- it also was forgetting that the president is not only the commander-in-chief but has to be the politician in chief. in a sense, carter was a centrist, too liberal for conservatives, too conservative for liberals. last point. my book will take you deeper into the white house than any other presidential history you will understand the pressures that conflicting demands to make decisions for which there are often no good options. i am not recommending him for a

place on mount rushmore in this book. but i am suggesting that i am suggesting he belongs in the foothills of mount rushmore with presidents who have done great things for their country and the world and that is the principal argument of my book. thank you. [applause] >> well done, my friend. at the reference, by the way, to correcting typos was to minutes that i took of the cabinet meeting and that was one of my jobs as deputy cabinet secretary in the two years i spent in the white house. carter would read them and correct my spelling mistakes and brag in addition to that that he read at least 300 pages a day which is an astounding amount of work when you think about it given the other pressures. stuart, i want to ask everyone on this panel about desperately

for this record if the goal of your book, this gigantic and well researched and well explained book, is to reframe carter's presidency and to help people who didn't know him or did not understand him think about the successes that he had how do you go about doing that? putting information out won't necessarily make the sale especially in written form and i just want to ask going down the line based on and ending with our historian based on the experience that each of our panelists had in the white house working on some of the issues you mentioned what suggestions they have for how, looking back on their time and time since they would help you and madeleine albright and the rest of us achieve this goal of reframing the president. let's start with david and

foreign policy. you were on the nic with big who continued active as we all know until six months ago and made many appearances here and was a fascinating choice for carter as national security advisor. taking a couple of the hard issues and depict the ones want to pick but looking back how do you think they can be explained in the context of then and now in a way to make the sale that carter did the right thing and was a very good president? >> well, i like to focus on the iranian hostage rescue. it was, as you point out, the dénouement. it's not really understood why it failed. it was a big study by the pentagon but i would like to take you back to the last meeting we had and i guess it was the second to last but we had a meeting in big's office with secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs and

they said what i want you to do is ask stupid questions and that seemed to be my principal qualification for my job. [laughter] and i am in the process of asking stupid questions and i get a note handed to me by a guy named general willy smith was deputy chief of staff in the note said the real operational uncertainty is the helicopters. i did not know what that meant but i said what about the helicopters and harold said, we have taken care of that problem -- >> defense secretary. >> yes, and i said well what was the problem and he said as it turned out the problem was this, the navy refused to put any aircraft carriers into the gulf. as a result, we had to try to mount the hostage rescue from the indian ocean. unfortunately we do not have any attack helicopters that apply

that far. we decided to use the anti- summary warfare helicopters that would go around and had tremendous range because all they did was drop [inaudible] but the problem was several fold, one, the pilots of these helicopters were lifers. they were 40, 50 years old and had families and they had not signed up for an assault and apparently as harold described it they were drinking and smoking dope and having real morale problems and we said we brought in marine helicopter pilots and they will be great. the problem was they really did not know how to fly these helicopters. as a result, one of them with a

little light went and turned off and came back and another got lost in the sandstorm. the third through his flapjack on top of the air conditioner for the engine and burnt it up. finally, in a very sad case one of them decided to abort the mission flew into one of the c-130s that was full of ammunition and a lot of people will suffice. now, the reason i mention this is twofold. on one hand this was a doomed operation because the navy refused to park their aircraft carriers in the gulf. you would say maybe it was prudent and it could've been dangerous and of course, absolutely, except one thing when we first gulf war took place in the air force started

flying out of the emirates to go to iraq and kuwait they drove those aircraft carriers right into the gulf and they weren't going to get be why the air force. and that is important for one very overriding reason which has not really been exploited very much but the navy was, and is, deathly afraid of having an aircraft carrier sunk particularly by a cheap torpedo or a cheap off missile of some kind because there are extremely vulnerable in the know if that ever happens we won't build another $5 million aircraft carrier. >> thank you. fascinating. third, domestic policy. i was thinking as a student

spoke that woodrow wilson was president 100 years ago had a really good first term based on his success on domestic policy and it wasn't as long as jimmy carter's was but the federal reserve and the income tax and the federal trade commission and so forth all passed on whistle to wilson's watch. few people remember that but they remember what many think is the idealistic and unfocused international policy and some of us think it was successful but many don't and they also remember that at the end of his presidency wilson was totally incapacitated and that he had a pretty terrible record on race and wasn't much good on women, either. the memory of wilson is mixed and he's our only phd president by the way and i love that we celebrate his machine of scholarship and policy here. looking at domestic policy's and

students sketched many of them, what insights do you have and how would you -- david, that was fascinated some of that was not carter at all but circumstances and how would you frame is domestic record now in a way that people will notice? >> i'm not sure that can be done. american politics is almost completely tied up with winning and losing. i think the short-term view so jerry ford lost even though there's a lot to be said for the ford presidency, i think. hw bush lost and we lost and someday in the future as we have seen recently that president grant presidency being interpreted here people in your business will return to this and this will be an enormous contribution. one of the contributions of the carter administration people ask

me what happened in terms of our domestic relations with congress and jim has been an suit they have been smarter than this and i am but it might have been a failure of leadership on our part but a failure of followership on the part of our comrades in arms in the house and senate. they thought president carter was too conservative while the country was getting ready to elect ronald reagan. carter was not wrong and they were. i worked for ten years in the senate in the previous ten years and i can tell you that united senators did not believe that their political fortunes were tied in any way to what happened to the presidents of either political party. in their experience [inaudible] we had a bloodbath in the senate in 1980 and we lost titans of

the senate like gaylord nelson, frank church and a ton of people and none of them until the last minute thought they were in any particular degree of trouble. we did every succeeding president the biggest favor the could be done. they all believed that their political fortunes are closely tied to what happens to the present. ronald reagan had a degree of followership that jimmy carter could only have dreamed that he would have and that has been true of every succeeding president. maybe students of congress will appreciate that contribution we made. >> thank you. bob, let me nudge you a little because it still mentioned carter's human rights record and he was the first president to put human rights on the map as a tenet of foreign policy and it

something everybody, i think in this room, cares about. could you make comments about that and think about ways in which people have forgotten his role there or maybe that is a bright spot in the carter presidency where it has been for four decades. >> first we speak to your original question but what will help reframe carter's presidency? single word, time. already mentioned president grants but time plus memoirs like this and this is an important critical building block and historians will be important and you just touched on something we talk about human rights which is people looking back and looking at today and understanding a couple things as we go forward about presidents and the presidency and number one is a character and jimmy carter was a person of genuine

character. it's impossible to look at what is happened today if one is going to have any historical perspective without seeing the great glow that comes from jimmy carter and you cannot separate the post presidency from the presidency because this is a man of integrity who lived his life as president and lived his life post president and he writes and carter, i think, got a bum rap on that in the beginning and the irony is that henry kissinger was pilloried at the time of the helsinki final act for being willing or for not taking human rights seriously enough well how come you are being worrying about this and surely this is important. carter comes in and the european who had been [bleep] that the

previous demonstration did not care about human rights but all the president does is care about human rights. in america's role in the world there are two overwhelming qualities. one, what are the interests of the united states in the other what is the character and the values of the united states in the world and today in particular in the post-cold war era the united states stayed involved in the world not so much because we had things immediately interfere but because we had things we believed in and if we have had a president in modern times since lincoln, i was a, in the abortive effort of wilson it was jimmy carter who said these things we stand for. interestingly, when he saw the unraveling of the soviet union a lot of it happened because carter was working on human rights country by country and he

separated the euro communist in italy and turned to the hungarians and said let's return [inaudible] and let's do those things we can for solidarity. then, in the middle east as well and we're still fighting with this his great strategic achievement think how much worse it would be today if it were not for the egypt, israel peace treaty which took egypt out of the military balance against israel and ended the rift of the us soviet commendation. think of how much worse it will be today but for that. then, for carter to say part of human rights and part of pays for israel i has to be a resolution of the palestinian

and it still hasn't happened but working on the security of the middle east began seriously under carter and for that i think it he will be remembered after the fluff of the nonsense of the current era is consigned to the rubber sheep of history. >> on that happy note, doug, some thing bob just said prompt me to ask the question of our historian this way and bob just mentioned the robust post presidency of carter, much longer, ten times lighter in his presidency, when we look at carter's record can we isolate the white house and we can learn about the white house and 800 pages but does it all meshed together and when people look back on him -- he is still alive and kicking but when people consider him is the post presidency helping him and how do you put all this together?

>> is this on? >> i think so. >> i think your question raises an important point that stu made at the end. i think stu's book is not trying to persuade us that jimmy carter was a [inaudible] but trying to persuade us that he was a pretty good president. i think the way we want to address carter successes and lack of success is on his presidency and i think to answer your other question about what will make this book being noticed i think the next six months is very important and stu said that carter was the first new democrat and that he was too liberal for the conservatives and too conservative for the

liberals but i want to make a friendly amendment to that. stu was talking about the congress and it's not as if he was too liberal for the conservatives in the country and it's not as if he was too conservative for the liberals in the country but that he had this congress he had to deal with. i'm one of the people that have the luxury of reading the whole book into the book you sense what stu mentioned which is the members of congress especially in the senate but the house, as well, they thought they were there forever. they do not feel a need to compromise with the president in two things. the last point i make about this is you read stu's book and it feels as if ted kennedy really was perfectly happy to see a failed presidency and up resident ronald reagan and the stubbornness becomes through in the book about kennedy on that

is shocking for a fellow like me who does not study that part of this so i think between now and election days the democrats have a real challenge which is do they recognize the value of someone with the political positions of carter and that's why you want to stay away from personality or do they go all the way left and i think we talked to members of congress they are worried about whether the candidates go far left. >> let me come back to stu for a final question and then we have a half an hour for your questions and i know i recognize half of the audience and you better ask good questions. get ready. stu, one of the eyes that you listed, inflation, iran, inexperience and interparty warfare is one i want to focus on and that is inexperience. i think congress was a problem but i served nine terms as a new democrat in congress and it

wasn't pretty every moment and i was slammed from both sides but i took that as a badge of honor. was part of the problem with congress carter's fault? he brought an inexperienced team and you said that and his assistant for congress was a guy from georgia who did not have experience with her congress and you had experience in the vice president who had experience but he did not use those people. he is mostly an inexperienced georgia team and he did not spend a lot of time that i noticed anyway with congress and in fact, one story i would tell is robert burton who called me and i knew him because i had worked for a california senator who sat immediately next to bert on the senate judiciary committee and it's a horse shoe and so you're all jammed together so i spent was hours

sitting within 2 feet of robert burton and he called me to complain that a lot of the letters to congress were signed by otto penn and he held them up to the light and he would do that and he was offended that jimmy carter cannot personally sign his letter so my question to you reflecting on what has been said is inexperience with carter's fault and part of this unlucky presidency to quote david ignatius wasn't his fault? >> i don't certainly spare criticism of congress but let me take your question and be direct and blunt about it. december 9, 1926 during a transition for the inauguration without any consultation the president makes two fundamental decisions. the first was to attack popular water projects meet many of which were boondoggles but ended up diverting our attention and draining support for more important things and announces that he will have a comprehensive energy plan within 90 days of his inauguration.

almost absolutely impossible and as a result we had to scramble and we do not have the economic data for impacts and while we did get the energy bill passed through the map room it took 18 months to get that done. that was one of the in experiences. number two, he made the decision of not having a chief of staff at the beginning. it was a horrific decision. why? because we are running against watergate and the problem was not that nixon had a chief of staff but the chief of staff was a quick. [laughter] we had no traffic cop and no one to create priorities and in the first months he threw out a major energy bill in the hit list for water and welfare reform and tax form and all sorts of things and plus panama canal and try to deal with the

middle east and it overloaded the circuits and the winds that we got all we seem to pale in comparison. one true story on the chief of staff is that when ford came into office he also in reaction to nixon decided he did not want a chief of staff and for the first couple of months it was chaotic in the disaster. at the going away party after we beat them for dick change became his chief of staff later when he realized he had to have one he had adopted the model that carter did called this folks of the wheel that the presidents at the center in six or eight aides have equal access with no one like a chief of staff in between. that is the way for had done it. at the going away party they gave cheney a mounted bicycle wheel with broken spurs and he left it in the office saying him, don't adopt the spokes wheel theory. you need a chief of staff and

they weren't a lot of good advice coming from cheney but this was certainly one of them. that inexperience made a huge difference. we caught up with it and initial images are hard to reverse. >> thirty minutes, folks. ray shorthand print their mics and please identify yourself even if i know you, everyone does not yet know you. right there, microphone. it is probably better to stand up. >> thank you very much. benjamin, retired diplomat. how do the panelist reconcile president carter's legendary attention to detail with his apparent lack or insufficient detection to detail in the iran hostage rescue operation? i thank you mentioned equipment,

logistic, personal, and not to mention the obstinacy of the navy. >> everyone does not need to answer every question. david and stu, why don't you take that one. >> i think the way the whole thing was put together was that there was a special working group and they came up with some pretty bizarre ideas from time to time in one of them that was that they would seize an airfield outside of toronto and which was only a few miles from a major city and they would keep it for two or three days and still keep secrecy and not let people come and go. it was such a crazy idea. it was difficult to say but, you know, he also had a lot of respect for the military. a lot of respect and therefore i think there was not a big book

of a plan and it wasn't like that. that is not the way that the pentagon puts together these work plans. i don't know, i think it was difficult for him to even do that. >> your question is very important and it's one i deal with in the book. i think it resulted from several things and number one was as david said, this is one instance in which he felt look, they are the military experts and i may have gone to the naval academy and the summary officer but they are the ones who are the military experts and i have to depend on them. number two, at a critical meeting he asked the military and asked the people including dave jones head of the joint chief of staff do we have enough helicopters and suppose some do not work. do we have enough? and they said we do and we have one in redundancy and he added and he, carter, ordered another

one. there were actually eight and when six was the number. he built that in. third, is that vance was dubious from the start and vance had been secretary of the army in the kennedy johnson administration and carter turned to vance oftentimes during this and vance said mr. president, the military will never say they can't do something. i thought in vietnam and they never will say they can't do something. i think he relied on the details for the military and did not want to micromanage and he was accused of micromanaging in one place he did was to add another helicopter. >> could i add one word? i was doing middle east at the time but i do not know about the rescue mission and was held very tightly. i think there were at least two problems and number one instead

of assigning all of the military wanted to get engaged because it was the only thing that could happen in the administration and instead of assigning it to one service you do it and pull another thing that would be one thing but secondly when my colleague and i found out what was done we both had concluded it was a pretty dumb idea from the beginning. >> one other critical thing. it was less the number of helicopters and the lack of practice and why did they not practice and they were afraid if they did so in california that the press would learn about it so there had been no -- unit four different military would never work together on any kind of project like this. >> question over here. no, because we are going to -- >> i want to tell you to help -- pbs is doing a major documentary and it will be coming out. >> okay. thank you very much.

>> this question is for the ambassador. as an american there is a huge disagreement among iranian diaspora regarding the president carter's decide to support the shot enough and do you think the fact that he was ill the aredia public did not know anything about it that the downfall of inevitable the present carter -- >> good question. i think the question i mentioned all the mistakes that were made in iran was the prime mistake not supporting the shot enough. the answer is no. ...

>> anymore than i blame or castro took over cuba i have an economic question. i wrote a book that give carter credit that gives credit to open the composition i don't call that deregulation. i think that is what broke the back of inflation and i wonder why you get so much credit. i wouldn't give that much credit. >> first of all, paul, and to have the back will that did

not allow a truck full cargo to return loaded it was crazy stuff like that. so the regulation injected more competition and lower prices in airfares for airline and so forth i guess for credit that only materialized again much later but second i do believe that even with that we would not have broken the inflation psychology of poker had not totally transformed monetary policy. the psychological impact of wage and price power was so built-in that point and one last thing people don't understand, surely we did not do a good job with inflation but it was 8% at the time of

the iranian revolution. and before the hostages were taken before that occurred we lost $5 million for day oil production in the world and the stock market went crazy in a 12 month period. the price of oil double and that is what sent relation into double-digit range and nixon had the same thing after the first thing exactly. how did he deal with that with wage and price controls knowing with the election that he released that natural inflation took over yes that was important but someone had to change that psychology that is what poker did in carter let him do. >> that is a fabulous answer. >> as a classmate and partner

to have the leaders of france and germany seems appropriate to ask about relations with nato and you haven't said much about that so maybe you could talk perhaps about that. >> also with the nato ambassador here. >> certainly what carter did was with nato's transformational in several respects. number one is familiar, it should, he got them to pledge to increase defense spending% per year. number two, in a real blow to the soviet union and they said later this was what broke our back to get schmidt to accept the first time intermediate nuclear weapons in europe

without long-range capabilities that they never had the capabilities he got schmidt to return to that so the summit was by bob putnam at harvard almost successful summit ever with the deregulation of oil on -- crude to stimulate the economies with attack. long -- a tax cut. bob strauss was there. this was going on and paul was here five years. at the g7 summit, strauss, was

bragging about it and he had no royalty but he thought he was said famous pictures said if you've done it it ain't bragging. [laughter] so he called over his military aid and said who is this? and jim callahan that everybody should know he was the picture for the st. louis cardinals and strauss is right if you've done it you ain't bragging. [laughter] >> carter took the alliance seriously at the time when the soviet union was ramping up its opposition to american presence in europe.

not just the way that we have heard that was split very well but also working on arms contro control. got the agreement and incidentally he had to bargain between his two key advisors one who hated the russian and believed in the use diplomacy there is another item that i mentioned that do users in the book that carter was going to give a major speech on the soviet union and then i had seen them both but then they had both speech and so i could tell he stapled them to gather with alternative paragraph but they were more coherent than they would have been. think of a neutron bomb i won't go through all the details but it was inaccurate and a failure but not carter

but on the part of schmidt because carter said i will not build it if you will not deploy it he said i will only deploy if the dutch do it they will not so i will not. and schmidt was a straight the from hamburg didn't tell the truth. that gave us the experiment when we got to the missile crisis to know how to do that accurately and adequately so the soviet union understood that the president of the united states would be firm in his support while at the same time doing things that eventually led. >> remember western europe and to put that down payment the

second row right here. the neck i served in the commerce department and also international trade. my question is more personal i would like to know what you believe jimmy carter's relationship was with you for free? it evolved during his presidency as you recall from 76 and then it ends of course with the fellowship program. >> and so glad you asked that question because i have a very touching description. humphrey was the traditional liberal but yet became one of carter's big supporters in his death really left a void it is a beautiful story. carter reschedule the times of her weekly leadership

conference which by the way they were re- scheduled so he could get his cancer treatment. he also took them in the oval office and asked him behind the chair and said you belong here. number three remarkably, he helicoptered him to camp david bentley with him and humphrey told me do what you believe that is the first time i had ever been to camp david even as vice president for four years so to that liberal before i do see if he had a, he would be much more difficult for kennedy to. >> very, very interesting. i russian bureau. >> i have more of a common.

six years ago i wrote a book about the last great senate and incidentally those years were the carter years and i was surprised to find at the relationship between carter and switch started off rather badly, actually changed in the three years, the last year so carter did not like congress or the charge of the legislature but he grew to understand that wasn't the case but at the same time he had members of congress and the senate who were capable of stepping up to important domestic and foreign policy issues. so briefly 40 years ago in 1978 justin one year more accomplishments and domestic and foreign policy, one after the other that sam the test of

time from the panama city now treaty to saving your the energy package. and another thing about congress which is a little unusual people like scoop jackson did not like carter in fact him in a lot of ways but he worked with him on energy to make your book is a great book i will disagree because following the old notion somehow they didn't but after that we did in a number of things that was so difficult and they want to tell you something in terms of the spirit, why did we win the panama city now?

you cannot believe how difficult it was to get two thirds of the senate to support something when the american people who were giving away something that we own. tomorrow mom -- to panama. and to contact every single one of those 100 senators that this would never happen today. we won that because bird ported as the majority leader but also a man very short in stature but the great man in terms of his accomplishment. howard baker the minority view peter in the senate as a republican supported the treaty knowing it would undo his run for the presidency. because he thought it was right for the country. we never would have one without him and in this era of

the pre-polarization howard baker stands to me as one of kennedy's profiles in courage. >> and you remember. >> i would just add that why should we give back the canal actually we stole it from them. [laughter] and baker said mr. president you only get one of these. he wanted him on salt is that i boarded going to the well 11 -- one. >> with a congressional liaison to lead the team and the senate we had a lot of experience. obviously going on to the chief of staff later in

history never comes back to that profile in courage in coming into the oval office you are right. i think about the idea of putting the country first and those parties i thought i would say that. in the back we will get to a few more questions. you are a very pushy panel. [laughter] >> there is no question everybody was surprised to see why the full legislative record he had that while we did have a reasonably successful legislative program , very low level of political support will never forget giving a speech in detroit at that time had a bunch of

suburban newspapers. i was with the reporters and i said how are we doing? they said they come back here and they tell us that you suck. we had the most reductive lame-duck session in american history where we passed a lot of great things and a very good example for legislation for democratic control of congress would not give carter the reelection. so while i completely agree we had a successful legislator program we do not have a politically successful relationship. >> from u.s. naval academy, in

the memoirs it is recounted the argument in october 79 whether to admit a shock to the lesson and discount he has jimmy carter predicting what will happen so were you cast some light on that with his thought process he foresaw what would happen but yet he went ahead and took the decision anyway? we make absolutely my deputy said i should call the book if only he listen to me. that isn't true but for anyone no april of 77 just after the inflation beach shah wanted to be in for medical treatment

finally said he had cancer in they said you cannot turn your back on the now liable years. outside kissinger and rockefeller organized a real pr effort. carter sat there the last holdout and he said to them, to everyone i think if i let him in they will take over our embassy. what do we do then? in the end he finally conceded and it turned out he could have been treated by doctors in houston in mexico. so he was the last holdout in think and we understood that and also one other thing, when reagan came in from the root hundred 41 troops our

ambassador megan full everybody out why didn't carter do that? with the ayatollah took over? i will tell you why. because in february of 79, there wasn't an effort to take over the embassy and the secular government although appointed had the police immediately take them back. so carter thought they will do that again. so he did prophesied this would happen and he was right. >> i know there are more questions that i think the panel will want a few more minutes and hear is the final question so aside from iran, if there is one issue in the carter presidency that you think has been misunderstood

what is the one issue? how would you like that to be seen now with the benefit of hindsight? we will take the glass as the historian so let's start with david. >> i think his entire record of foreign policy is misunderstood and overshadowed that is what i talk about the most but the fact of the matter is panama or china human rights in afghanistan invasion, all of this in only four years. this is an extraordinary record and of course when you tell us about the domestic record i think your book will

be very, very helpful i am still looking through your book but i think his foreign policy record was outstanding and not rivaled by anybody. >> be met i think the overwhelming domestic achievement of the carter presidency was to help this country get over nixon and before that, johnson, we may have been conditional figures, i think his commitment to cabinet government needs to be studied more in really where cabinet officers and white house staff couldn't give the

cabinet officers order but it worked that to that degree it worked largely because of personality was absolutely respected and trusted by the people is stuart had not been there taking everybody's note down to pay attention with hours and hours and conditions that would be a completely different administration. but a detailed thing is that carter created the basis for the end of the cold war which was later done and in fact i believe making delayed the end of the cold war with his certain activities that he did

and the larger thing i have already mentioned to demonstrate the intersection of american values especially human rights and interests that they blend absolutely necessary for america's place in the world and to hear american support to be involved in the world. >> you can't do anything if you do anything wrong when you lose you do everything wrong so i think winning the election made a big difference it was a close election until the end ever decisions made about the debate over the last two weeks with a giant mistake but i think pushing for somebody should credit him for that everybody has already done that he put in place paul volcker there were a series of

other decisions and reagan gets credit for sticking with paul volcker but somebody had to put in there in the first place. i think one argument is the fight against inflation started with carter putting everything in place and the rest is history them again before stew closes just one other issue on the table it has been an important part of my life, don't think it was the focus of the carter presidency but the foreign intelligence surveillance act passed based on the recommendations of the church commission to correct the abuses of the administration by using intelligence improperly. not only did that set up a legal framework which survives but also the intelligence committee in the house and senate one of the huge tragedy the house of the intelligence community license eight years

as ranking member i was adam schiff before there was an adam schiff that an important piece of history pass on the large bipartisan vote and many people don't remember. so to close this conversation. >> thank you so much for putting together a fascinating discussion. three quick points is the totality of the accomplishments overwhelming on domestic and foreign policy to be recognized. number two, the degree to which with inflation, robertson and who is a terrific reporter and columnist for the post carter may have appointed him that vacant stuff with him what do you mean? he had a long-term.

not only that reagan was running for reelection at the time we were in the middle of an election cycle in new that. and third i'm staggered with testimony to the democratic party he lost kennedy we lost labor after we raise the minimum wage for the first time in years and pot for reform saving hundreds of thousands of you jobs with chrysler he ends up endorsing kennedy? women's groups. we extended the time of the era record numbers of appointment in those that felt he would not liberal enough for them the jewish community, my community bring the first piece to israel from an arab neighbor he sends the boycott bill the father of the

holocaust museum in phase the life and embraces the soviet jewish but yet the lowest percentage of support in the jewish and modern times. the thing lost contact for help the book will refrain this the credibility of this book with on on the spot and citing what happened and what was said at all times but also have to lead to a broader reassessment to put this into context to look at the remarkable record along the mistakes and problems made it if you do that on that net basis. maybe not on mount rushmore but surely in the foothills to make in the tradition of the

wilson center have produced a second book that is a candid assessment of the hugely important piece of history in on a personal note as your long friend in this room is fair but remember our younger. [laughter] want to express my affection and admiration to the whole panel, thank you for coming. [applause] speefive speefive [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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