you think this is just a community center? no. it's more than that. comcast is partnering with a thousand centers to create wi-fi lift zones as the students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. rosalynn carter, do you remember when you and president carter started having conversations about him running for president? >> i do. >> what was that like? what was that conversation? >> it was interesting. we had a friend that thought healed to run for president.

we couldn't even say the word that my husband was running. while i didn't tell anybody because we kept it very quiet. but once he decided he would do it, he could hardly say i'm goingg to be president. it was just something that we never, ever dreamed would happen, but it was exciting. i was excited about it. i had campaigned the whole last year before the governor's race for him and it was hard with the baby and i didn't like to leave her all the time, but i enjoyed it. i learned so much about our state. 159 counties. i knew every county and in fact that's how i got involved in

running the campaign, there was a big mental health facility hospital, they had a big exposé and the systems act had been passed i think it was 63 and this was 66 when he first ran for governor, he got beat that time. but they were moving people out of the hospital because there were like 12,000 people and they had room for 3,000. it was awful. happening all over. moving them out before they had any facilities for them, there were no services and everybody startedwo talking to me about wt to go to your husband to do if he was elected governor of georgia. i learned so much about what was going on and after we lost i

worked for years to learn a little about mental health and the first month he appointed the commissions to improve services for the mentally and emotionally handicapped. when he told me about that i thought this is giving me a chance to go across the whole country and it was so much fun to me. i had been working and when we got home from the navy, jimmy had of me. i didn't work the first year, but i started helping him and he only had a seasonal labor. i started working for him and he said why don't you keep the office while we visit. so i would go, there might be

six people. i knew how much they could get. i loved it. i had been able to learn about the country. >> when did you know during that campaign that your husband would be elected president? >> we never doubted it.ou i don't think anybody in the whole campaign thought we would lose. maybe you have to have that stateto w of mind. we campaigned all the time like we were going to win. >> what was the peanut brigade? >> a lot of our friends started out from georgia and then it

just grew and grew. they would campaign all over the country for us. it was really wonderful they paved their own way and fact we had no money. everybody on the campaign had to find a house to stay in, like somebody that would support them or they had to pay for a hotel. that couldn't r happen now. >> rosalynn carter, january 20th, 1977 what do you remember about that today? >> it was inauguration day. wed, walked down pennsylvania avenue in the cold weather and it was exciting. >> who is the idea was it to walk? >> it was his idea. he didn't tell me until the

night before. he didn't tell anybody. the secret service agents didn't want to approve the security. they didn't want him to walk at all but i guess he just thought it was better if nobody was anticipating him walking down pennsylvania avenue. i think he thought everything would be different if everybody knew and maybe we shouldn't do it if everybody knew. anyway, it was really wonderful. >> so january 20, 1977. you're the first lady of the states. how do you prepare to become first lady? >> the hard part for me wass going from supply business to the governor's mansion. a beautiful governor's mansion. it was new. the governor had only lived in itmn for two years.

[inaudible] beautiful furniture all theou wy through and i went to see the outgoing governor's wife after we won and ask her who did the cooking and she said i do. i said who serves the table she said i do. everything i asked her. i said i'd like to see her office. she said i don't have one. my office staff is in the capital. i said to do you make speeches and she said i let the governor's mother do that. i said what have we done. all the help in the house were trusted and the first thing i do is hire a housekeeper and then

we taught the persons to cook and serve tables and i developed a fairly competent staff. i hadon been invited to host clyburn to perform in atlanta. we moved in the governor's mansion january 12th. virginia had an aunt in this area and i called her because she's a wonderful person. she came to help and we had a beautiful dinner. we to put tuxedos on which was new and different for them but we had a wonderful meeting. i got her to organize for the governor's mansion because the

first time the state patrolman were in the hallways and i thought that didn't seem. if there was a list of people that came and help, came every day. the mansion was open. anyway, i had to learn everything. had to develop staff. we learned by trial and error. we have my sister that helped me and we entertained. one of the first entertainers we had was a man who had simply [inaudible] they were coming to eat so we got him. when he stood up to sing he sang like opera. if you can believe i slid under

the table. when i got to the white house everything wasdy already done. i didn't have to worry about what we were going to serve for anyut of those things. she would make the plans for me and bring them to me and it was quite wonderful. amy was 3-years-old when we moved to the governor's mansion. she'd never known anything else. and of the governor's mansion the only thing i would change is you couldn't get upstairs where wewe lived to the kitchen withot going through the tourists and amy learned three years of age to walk through like this because everybody wears the baby, where's the baby and she found she could just walk right through without even seeing them. i remember whene got to the whitete house and she went school the fst day there was amy going inike this what she'd been doing all her life

and everybody felt so sorry for her but that was just part of her life. and after that happened on the first day, the press got together and decided not to bother amy anymore and that was really wonderful. in the white house we didn't have to worry about that. >> where did you first meet jimmy carter? >> there's a population of 634. i think i knew everybody in town, and there were no girls my age in town. of course i knew who he was. i knew him but he was three years older than me. but his little sister would stay

in town if we had a basketball game or some event at the school she would stay with her grandmother that lived in town and we became close friends. she was my best friend growing up.t but he graduated from high school at 16. we only went 11 grades back then. i was 13. there was no way i would go with jimmy carter and i didn't until he came home before he was a first-class man he came home from the naval academy and i went out with him the night before he was going to leave. but i'd fallen in love with his photograph on the wall. i would go out there and he would be gone.

one day, we had a pond house fairly close and everybody in town used it for events, church events, school and so forth. they said somebody used the pond house the night before and they were t going out there to clean up. at nightdi in the church meeting standing at the door there was a youth meeting one night during the week and ruth and her boyfriend and jenny drove up and he got out and asked me to go to the movie with them so i went to the movie with them and went to the railroad station to see him off the next night and we started writing letters to o eah other and at christmas time he asked me to marry him and i

turned him down. i was young and i'd promised my father on his deathbed that i would go to college and i did not finished college. i went to annapolis the weekend of the dance. i don't remember what they call that weekend, but he asked again and i accepted. i was still young. >> july 7, 1946. >> that'sou right. >> you said your father died when you were quite young. >> 13. i was the youngest of four children. i had two brothers and my little sister who was 4-years-old and my father developed leukemia. i didn't know he was sick and i had been wanting to go to a church camp in the summer and they told me we didn't have enough money for it and one day

i came home from school and my dad asked me if i would still like to go to the camp. what i didn't know was he was going to the hospital to see what was wrong and he died just maybe, that was may and he died november. >> how did that affect your role as the child? >> everything changed for us. i was the oldest. my mother had never written a check. she went to college for two years and had a teaching certificate but she'd never taught and back then you ordered your groceries and a company brought your clothes and things and the groceries they would send the groceries to the house. my dad paid for it all. when he was on his deathbed he called us all in and told my

mother she could sell g the farm if she wanted to because she wanted us all to go to school. the next year her mother died. she was an only child and mom died, we had no idea she was sick. she was leaning over tying her shoe and had an attack. eleven months after my dad died and we had been depending on them so much. they said your mother died this morning. i was getting ready to go to school ande heard screaming in the hall through the telephone. it was tough.

when i was still in high school she got a job in the post office and she had to retire at age 70. it was l the law. i was campaigning, this is 1975. herhd birthday is christmas eve and on her birthday she had to retire. >> so i was campaigning after christmas. i came back home and my brother saids call me. she had to come back late in the afternoon with my grandfather came to live with us and my mother had flexible hours.

but i said don't you enjoy being able to sleep in. she said it's not just that but my body doesn't think i can do good work anymore. so that made an impression on me. when jenny was president i became interested in working withth mental illness because there were no doctors to care for people with mental illness and w no geriatric doctors. there was an age discrimination law passed so people in federal government could work as long as they wanted to until 75. >> rosalynn carter, you've always been a political partner to your husband. is that a fair statement? >> after we got married we had

three boys and after the first year had one baby and he was gone for two years. to serve two had years before you could go to the air force and he was gone from monday till thursday every week. then when we got home and i began working in the firm supply business i think that's when we developed this good partnership erand it just developed into a wonderful partnership. i didn't campaign when he ran for the senate. i kept the business while he campaigned. but then i campaign when he ran for governor but then when he got in the governor's race, i

learned all the issues and did the same thing when he was running for president. i know lady bird had come through but i think t it's the first time that the women had campaigned. i got in the car with a friend and i wanted to know if i could campaign and other states like i did with georgia. we were to stop along the way and look up the radio stations. we started going towards their because there were radio stations.

they had no idea. i came home and said i can do it. they wanted to make a living and have a good life. in general people want to be happy and have a good home and family. >> in your book you write that you are more political than your husband. what do you mean by that?

>> i think you have to be political in a certain way. you have to be honest and say the same things but still cater to people sometimes and know what they want and need to be able to influence them to vote for you. it's not being dishonest it's just finding out whatkn they wat and learning how you're going to help them with the things they want. i don't think h ever did anything that was not

controversial. i didn't like the controversy all the time. >> rosalynn carter, in the white house you held press conferences, traveled solo, acted as the president's adversary. how did you develop the issues you wanted to talk about became expert in? >> i worked in mental health. a lot of that came from with what happened to my mother because thatai was in the campan and also in campaigning they took me where there were a lot of democrats and nursing home facilities for older people so the great needs in that area.

i worked on immunization in georgia and had a good immunization program. [inaudible] he was governor at the same time as jenny. there was a really good immunization program and i was talked into doing that so two weeks after the white house she called me and of course that was one of my great victories. immunization was required in 15 states. theth first year we got it with the secretary of hhs in all 50

states. itthat was exciting. we had this big meeting. i go from one subject to another. we had a big meeting in washington and celebrated with people all over the country. the. next day there wasn't one word in the paper about it. i was so upset. i said i know there was a camera there. he said it was ours. nobody was, interested in md immunization. i was upset with the press because they cover my mental healthth work my first few meetings i had and then they never showed up anymore and one of the things i wanted to do is bring attention to the issue. one day i was walking in the

floor at the white house and there was a woman who was one of the press people and i said nobody ever covers my meetings. she said ms. carter, mental health just is not a sexy issue and that i didn't like but i never did get very much coverage for it but we toured the country, found out what was needed, developed legislation and passed the mental health systems act of 1980. it passed congress before in involuntarily retired from the white house. [inaudible] was one of the greatest disappointments. now there's a mental health

symposium. i had a great one last week and one of the people that worked with me in the white house, the subject was the affordabled cae actt and he did a comparison and it's almost identical. we just passed the final regulations. things don't move very fast in mental health care. we also had immigration in the legislationy . >> and you and betty ford worked on that together. >> that's right.

she would get republicans and i get democrats and we made some progress. >> husband's were known as becomit friends, or very good friends. did you and betty ford of the same relationship? >> we developed a very good relationship. we went to a funeral in september after we were not the white house and that's when jenny and gerald fordd began talking a lot. they thought similarly and i started working with betty and we developed a really wonderful relationship. >> mrs. carter there are several first ladies still living. is there a sorority of first ladies in a sense? >> i had a good relationship with betty ford and lady bird as

long as she was alive, but that's about it there's never been a -- we see each other at events and library dedications, with new first ladies but there's never been [inaudible] >> when you were first lady you had a weekly luncheon with your husband and would attend cabinet meetings. what was the purpose of that? >> i had a luncheon -- there were all these things i wanted to ask him. someat of it was about the famiy and finances and things going on back home, but we often talked about issues. i would say it was more family and personal things o going on. but it gave us time to do that.

we were there until about august. jimmy stated that the oval office a good bit in the daytime. in august he started calling about 4:30 in the afternoon. my office was in the east wing and had always been in the white house. but he started calling me and said [inaudible] and i also wantedd to be home when andy got got home from school so we stopped scheduling anything in the afternoon. we would jog and exercise, swim and sit on the balcony and talk about what he had done during the day and what i had done during the day and we just had a good relationship. but what i learned in the white

house was that there's no way to know what is happening because ofyo the press. you can't learnar from newspapes or tv and we didn't have computers and the big mainframe in the white house, nobody ever it. this was a long time ago. but he said every day he stepped off the elevator -- because i had to know. i was touringin the country with press conferences and i had to know. one day when he stepped off o te elevator he said why don't you come with me and you will know why we do things a that's why i started going to cabin meetings. a lot of people i don't know the

staff around the room but i sat by [inaudible] he was in a wheelchair and i sat with him next to the door and went every time i could because i thought it was necessary for me to know what was going on and why the decisions were made and so forth so i could explain to people in the country as i toured around. >> rosalynn carter, did you receive criticism for attending those meetings and for being the president's adversary packs did it because. >> i don't think i received criticisms. they knew how close we were and how interested i was.

but i learned and did you expect it when you become governor. so at the white house i knew itt was coming. but you have to accept that. you have to know that what your husband does is the best possible thing for the country and what i'm doing out there is the best possible thing for the country. he said if i'm not doing the best job i can do then you worry about it and i can just accept that. but also my feeling was if they reported things in a way we didn't like, we were ignorant about what's going on.

if it's good reason to say know nowhy you're doing it and so forth. we found out the day before passing along in 2008. i'm sure her hands were tied by the white house but as soon as

possible herded i started shaking. it was emotional. >> was it possible to have a private life in the white house and did the white house feel that calm? >> we had all been campaigning and we were together. we headed to check all the little thin so we could know who to be there.

i was there almost every day. i took her to violin classes and as i said earlier we would jog and swim and if it was raining we would go too the boat and things like that. we had a fairly good family life. i think it was precious to us because we had been gone from it. >> does the white house affect a marriage?

i think itco would be very m difficult. i think it happens that way more and more. some of the early first ladies werere very active. >> when you look back at previous first ladies, who did you admire and emulate, who did you learn from? >> the closest person and only first lady i had was lady bird. the main thing she told me if i asked her something she would say enjoy.

one person that had a big impact on my life waswa margaret meaddd you keep a diary or journal in the white house years? >> i didn't do very much in the beginning but then i had the

secretary do spaces in between events and a desk in my bedroom and i would start writing notes about what would happen and i did that pretty regularly for a while if and when will they be public? >> i just went through and edited. it's my personal thoughts along with what was happening.

as soon a stay would come out of a meeting it was incredible from the height of excitement that was going to have into the depths of despair i came home one day and we didn't know we were going to be there 13 days so the last few days i had to go intoto town. i got back one day and this was toward the end. they were in the swimming pool in camp david and said it's over, and they thought it was. it was a bad evening. when i left on sunday the day they came back, jenny said we

are just going to have to ended. pbs did our events for a while i can't remember, i had to come in and introduce the artist and got a call about halfway through the concert and he said i thought we had it but don't tell anybody. but they didn't know for sure. but that was interesting. anyway when they came in that night, helicopter landed, it was dark, dust or dark. i'm sure it was dark.

we were standing by the door and they came in and said we are going down in history for this. >> do you think we will see a rosalynn carter camp david accord diary book sometime? >> we might. i guess it's all right for me to tell this [inaudible] a theater on camp david opening next year i think. >> will you be there for it? >> i will be there for it. >> another issue during your husband's presidency that i want to ask about, mrs. carter, the iranian hostage crisis. did you keep notes? what were your feelings throughout thatth whole crisis d how did that affect you as a person? >> it was awful just waiting for

the press conference and aaron on to say what happened that day because we had no idea what was going on and the only way we knew what was going on is when they would come out and answer and thinking, we met with the families, and thinking about the people who whose family members were there and what it was doing to jimmy's presidency. it was awful. i would go out and campaign and i'd found out earlier. he doesn't get close enough to conversations

about their hopes and dreams were what they thought about what i was doing or jimmy was doing. i had to learn that early during the presidency but i would go out and everybody would say tell the president to do something, he's got to do something. he said what do you want meo? to do? and then, while that may not be the best thing to do. i wanted it over and of course he did, tomac. nobody got over it at all. it was every day and every

night. it was awful. i never stopped doing things i was doing. >> by the time the years were over, how tired were you? >> it was depressing then you're down. when i got home i don't know that i was tired, i guess i was tired but i remember coming home, boxes to the ceiling. we'd been gone ten years, the woods would come up around the house and we both agreed to

write books. it was overwhelming. i actually didn't have time to really worry about it. i think i mourned it before i left the i white house. there's my mental health legislation and so much. i think i realized how important it is for a president to have a second term although jimmy carter wouldn't w have changed anything. >> in your book first lady from planes, you close by saying i would be out on the campaign trail today if jimmy carter were to run again? came home

and went to law school with a and a law firm that has two terms as a state senator and rosalynn carter you've had 33 years post president and see the longest in history now and and president carter have been very active in what do you think your legacy first of all as first lady is or what would you like it to be. well, i hope my legacy continues. i'm more than just first lady because the carter center has been an integral part of our lives, i would think. and our motto is waging peace, fighting disease and building hope. and i hope that i have contributed something to mental health issues and help improve a little bit. people, the lives of people living with mental illnesses. but i also hope i mean, i have

had great opportunities for so long now and to go to africa. i'm one of those going to have programs and services that the countries we go to africa and two or three times a year and to go to those villages and now things are coming to fruition. we've been working on all these years like we've almost eradicated guinea worm. i mean, to go to a village where there's no longer guinea worm, it is a celebration. i mean, one of the good things about the carter center is we don't give money to the government. we send people to teach the the health people in that country how to do something. and we work with the people in the villages with and the health department does, too. and we work with them and they do the work. i mean, just to go to a village and explain to them about guinea worm, if you can get the chief

to approve, that's what you have to do. but if they see that or hear about it from another country, the so happy you're there. but just to see to go back when it's gone from a village almost gone and the hope it gives to them that most of the time it's the first thing they have ever seen that was successful. and it's just so wonderful just to see the hope of something good is happening now. we made together what was so rosalynn carter, we're here in atlanta at the carter center for this interview. how much time do you spend in in how much time in planes? well, we schedule one week a month, a year ahead of time to be here. most of the time, we have to come back more than that. like my mental health conference, i was here three days last week. and yet this is my week here. this week is my week here.

and we have to come back than that. but we scheduled that. so we can plan our travels around it and we travel almost to it. and this year i'll be interested to see how much we've been going this year with this is maybe not half, but most of the time i guess most of times it's i do not half the time, most of the times, but to getting pretty close it the only thing i mean like go to africa something so wonderful happens if you go there and from the carter center and it goes everybody and as. one funny story we put global 2000 when i worked in code in africa because we found out that if the heads of state get credit for what they do i mean if somebody has a gets rid of guinea worm for their village or has a that we feel we crop has

grown by three what they produce is going but grown three times as much as they used to. so they get so excited. but the head of state does my my agriculture program. so anyway we put but the word gets around that was carter and one time we went this village there was a farmer who had been named the farmer of the year. and we went to this village and this have been a bit north anyway. we're in a village and they were pull these plush chairs, they wore and but really wonderful put some blue tarpaulin over it. we're sitting. the whole village came and there was a little girl that about halfway through what jimmy was saying, she held up the sign and said, go away again anywhere, jimmy. that's coming. it was so i mean, so the word gets around and people know it and and and so when we get to

that village, i have to have i mean, to other countries, maybe the word is already around and it's, you know, it just the caller says it just works a magic sometime. but it's it's a it gives hope to people who have never had any hope of their lives ever being better. it's excellent. and finally, rosalynn carter, what's your advice to future first ladies or first husbands? mm well, in the first place i would say enjoy it, which is what bird told me. but i think i have learned that you can do anything you want to. they used to ask me if i thought first lady out to be paid. if you get paid, then i have to do what first lady are supposed to do. but you can do anything you want to and it's such a great. soapbox. i mean, it's just such a great

opportunity. so i would i would advise any first lady to do what she wanted do. if she does that. and another thing i learned is you're going to be criticized as no matter what you do, i could have stayed there. white house poverty had receptions and i would have been criticized as much as i was criticized outside for what i did. but i got a lot of criticism. but did you learn to live with it? as i said earlier, i mean, you just live with it. you expect it and you live with it and never let it influence me. but i would just tell her also just to enjoy it and do what she wanted to do and in the process i know she would and i know the first lady will have things that she wants to do because women have changed in this time. you know what women do now is change from what they did when i grew up. i could be a secretary a schoolteacher, a library and a few things, but but now women

most women more active and so i just do what you want to do. and don't worry about the criticisms. thank you. i enjoyed talking to