♪♪ next a 2015 conversation between walter mondale and former president jimmy carter who served together in the white house from 1977 to 1981. this program was part of a tribute to the former vice president hosted by the university of minnesota's humphrey school of public affairs. moderating the conversation is richard moe, mr. mondale's former chief of staff.

>> i'm humbled tonight by president carter's presence with us, despite his personal health challenges. i was honored to be his vice president and to be with him at the center of most of his central decisions. who succeeded over our years together where many other president/vice presidential teams have been shattered. what held us together is a deep shared common bond committed to truth and decency. and i never doubted the president's commitment to those values, and i don't doubt it today. we also succeeded because we always lived up to his promise to welcoming -- he lived up to his promise to welcome me into the center of his presidency. and to protect the dignity of my presence.

he always, always kept that promise. we succeeded well for many of the reasons we'll discuss later tonight. we agreed on those issues. so i'm here with you tonight to celebrate the life of this remarkable american. i love the guy. and i know we share -- let's give him a big hand. [ applause ] >> as an observer of this experience, one of the things that so impressed me has been the personal relationship that has developed and grown over the years between the two of you. mr. vice president, i know you went to atlanta a few weeks ago. and you had dinner with president and mrs. carter. is there anything about that dinner you care to share with us tonight? >> well, quite a bit, yeah.

>> the floor is yours. >> i called the president when the news came out, and i watched your remarkable news conference. which was one of the class acts i've ever seen. and i said, you know, mr. president, i can't help you on the health side, but why don't i come down and we'll spend an evening sharing stories about the good ol' days? you said, that's it, and down we went and we had a wonderful, positive evening. and we had a chance to retell some old stories and to remind ourselves of what wonderful years they were. >> mr. president, is there anything about that that you would like to correct the record? [ laughter ] or add to it? >> i think if we had recorded the evening, it would probably be much more entertaining than it's going to be tonight. >> oh, withal. okay, all right.

[ applause ] >> there was no audience. rosalynn was there and she participated. we talked a lot about joan and so forth. i would say the mondale family and the carter family are just about as close as any two families could be. and that's been the case since we first got acquainted with each other. we met for the first time extensively in plains when they came down to stay with me and rosalynn in plains. we had about 600 people in town then, and i think he met as much as he could. he got along well with the peanut farmers. and i figured if anybody could get along that well with peanut farmers, they would make a good vice president. >> very good. thank you. president carter, you have many significant legacies from your time in the white house and we talked about many of them earlier today. we're certainly going to get into more of them this evening. but one of the most important i think is what the two of you did together to shape this obscure,

neglected office of the vice presidency. it has been a remarkable thing to see, and we're very pleased vice president biden is here today. >> absolutely. >> and he -- right. [ applause ] vice president biden. and he spoke eloquently this morning about his and president obama's shaping of the office was really strengthened and shaped by your experience. i can't imagine -- well, let me ask you this. had you thought about the vice presidency beforehand? i mean, what was it that you really wanted in a vice president? >> well, i would say all the way through my political career, i've always said that my favorite president in my lifetime was harry truman. and i was in the navy when harry truman basically ordained the end of the racial discrimination

with an executive order as commander in chief. and i was really shocked to learn later that truman was never informed about the atomic bomb. and when i first began to explore possibilities of becoming president, before i knew i was going to win, i found out that until then, the vice president had never been briefed by the department of defense on how to manage the atomic weapon in case we went to a nuclear war with the soviet union, so that set me back and i began to realize that for all practical purposes, the vice president was still a part of a legislative branch of government. his main duty was to proside over the senate in case of a near tie and that sort of thing and i thought the vice president ought to be an executive branch of government. so when fritz came down to

plains, we had a long talk -- fritz did most of the talking, as you know. [ laughter ] but he had some ideas to explore about how the vice president could become an integral part of an administration. not separate like it always had been. so i suggested to fritz, or he suggested and i accepted it, i don't remember, why don't you go and talk to vice president humphrey and vice president rockefeller, nelson rockefeller, and get some ideas about what might be done to bring the vice president in closer to the president at least. and that was how the whole idea began. i think that's when he turned to you, if i'm not mistaken. >> you pointed him towards two vice presidents that had very unhappy experiences in the office. that was telling. he did give it a lot of thought. mr. vice president, you said what president carter gave you was the most generous gift of any president in american history. do you want to expand on that? tell us what you meant. >> yeah. i would say the thing that

worried me the most was i was going to lose what i knew to be an independent position in the senate and that i might go down that same road that hubert and others went down where they slowly have their dignity taken from them. and they are not really involved in the meaningful role in government and it's kind of pathetic what they went through. so i did not want to do that and i was not going to do it. so when president carter and i talked the first time, we went over that quite a bit, and i became convinced -- it was his idea as much as anybody. i became quite convinced that he was quite aware of this possibility. and he wanted to bring his vice president into the center of his administration. and then we worked out some of these principles, like i didn't

want to be doing other things. i wasn't -- no make work. i wanted to be a general adviser to the president. i wanted to be able to bring to him good news and bad news without going through censors. he agreed with that. in order to do that, i needed to have the information that secret and otherwise that allowed me to be a source of support. and then i was willing -- i wanted to be a troubleshooter, as well. and i wanted to do -- take on chores around the country and around the world. and so we -- i think we agreed on -- when we had that talk, we agreed on that. and i was convinced he meant it. and after four years, i'm persuaded that it worked.

>> i think the best thing with me was as a georgia peanut farmer, i needed a lot of help. [ laughter ] and i felt the vice president would be the best one to give me the help i needed. i never had served in washington before, as you know. fritz was an expert, at least with his help from hubert humphrey and others, about what was going on in washington. so that was the main thing. >> right. >> and so we began really to explore every possibility of moving the vice president close to the president. he never had been in the oval office, never been in the white house before. and i spent one weekend with hubert humphrey because i found out just before he died, and while he had serious cancer, that he had never been permitted to go to camp david. >> that's right. >> and so i invited him to go

and i had a speech to make on the west coast, and came back and picked him up in minneapolis and went and spent the weekend at camp david. just me and him and his medical doctors, as a matter of fact. and he unburdened to me that weekend things that i'm sure he never had said publicly, never have since then and that was the deprivation he experienced as vice president. >> right. >> and the exclusion from any role of an authorityive nature, executive nature, and he was deprived of taking news reporters overseas with him. and he had to get all the press releases from overseas trips approved by the president before it could be issued. and he was never involved in any serious discussion that lind done johnson had with any foreign leader. and he was row stricted severely on his ability to go into congress and have an original conversation with another member of the u.s. senate.

things of that kind were very embarrassing to him as a human being and i think unproductive. so i decided then that i had done the right thing with fritz because all of those things were changed when fritz became vice president. >> thanks to you and thanks to that conversation. [ applause ] >> yes, indeed. thank you. and as you know, hubert humphrey was a mentor to senator mondale and to many of us from minnesota and -- >> and to me. >> and to you. and he suffered in the vice presidency. >> yeah, he did. >> and even though he did, vice president mondale, he urged you to be open to the idea. >> right. >> you want to talk about that? >> yeah. you want to talk about that? >> yeah. i went -- at your suggestion, i went to see hubert. and i said, i think i've got a possibility of joining with mr. carter and running for vice

president. but in light of the experience you had in this office, and the kind of painfulness and humiliation of it all, what do you recommend? and he said, i recommend you take it. if you can get it. he said, it's wonderful. you'll learn more than any other way. you'll have more influence in one day than you'll have all year in the senate. and he said, i hope you'll consider doing it. now, i must say, i was never sure whether he wanted me to vice president or he wanted to be minnesota senior senator. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> well, he gave you the right advice and you did the right thing. >> that's right. >> what did it mean to you to have the office in the west wing

that president carter gave you? no previous vice president had been in the west wing. >> well, that -- i think that was your idea. it meant everything because if you're over in the eob where most of the vice presidents had been, where hubert was, i used to say it was like being in baltimore. it's funny -- >> some of us spent a lot of time in baltimore. >> yeah, i know. it was good for you. i said, i learned i was there for a while and said nothing propink like propinquity and i was in this office. i was maybe five seconds from your office. all the key presidential aides, hamger and jody were right there. we would bump into each other. talk all the time. and i think it's at the center of the white house is that very small west wing.

and if you're there, i think you're a part of a serious effort. if you're outside of there, i don't know. so, it was a big, big advantage to me. >> right. >> and i think it helped me serve you. >> mr. president, the other thing that you did besides coming up with the west wing idea, i know this because i heard you say it, you told your staff and your cabinet, i want you to respond to a request from the vice president as if it came from me. >> exactly. >> and you said because you knew the experience of vice presidents rockefeller and humphrey. you said, if any of you are messing around with this guy, you're out of here, right? and that was the right thing to do. and that message really came through loud and clear. thank you for that. >> well, that was very important because in the past, quite often the chief of staff or someone like that saw the vice president as a challenger to them and their own authority and their own influence. and i knew that could happen with my staff as well. so it was clear to me that everybody that worked in the

white house should look upon me as ultimate voice but along with me, fritz mondale, so they knew that. and also knew you were chief of staff for fritz mondale, and i wanted you to feel you also worked for me and not just him. >> and i did. >> you did, that's right. >> and you make sure of that. >> that's true. that's true. so when hamilton or jody powell got an order from fritz or suggestion from fritz, they knew it was the same as coming from me. >> that's right. >> and i don't think we had any unpleasure or disagreement because of that. simproo it made a huge difference. >> it did. senator humphrey was forbidden as i mentioned earlier to take an initiative and going to even a member of congress and talking about executive affairs. >> right, right. >> i changed that, as well. i never had a meeting with any foreign leader from which fritz mondale was excluded. >> right.

>> and i never had a meeting with a member of congress from which he was excluded. and one of the things i was concerned about is the disharmony then and now among the members of the national security staff. because we had the vice president got in office and the secretary of state, secretary of defense. the national security adviser, sometimes the head of an intelligence agency. we met every friday morning. >> right. >> to discuss every possible issue that might come up the following week in foreign affairs. and then dr. brzezinski would take notes and he would meet wednesday morning with the secretary of defense and the secretary of state to make sure they were doing what we had decided. >> right. >> and fritz mondale was always an integral part of that tiny meeting that shaped all the foreign policy. so, so far as i know, he was

almost like another president. that's what i wanted. >> yeah. he thought that sometimes. >> yeah, i know he did. [ laughter ] there was one thing that fritz did, though, that i think exceeded his authority. [ laughter ] whenever there was a chance for me to go to norway, a country i really admired, i was always excluded from consideration. [ laughter ] and the first thing i knew, fritz would be back, mr. president, i've just rushed from norway. i said, well, i was planning to go to norway myself. but he would give you a thorough report on what was going on in that wonderful country. >> you'll be pleased to know that the foreign minister of norway and the ambassador of norway are here this afternoon and they can arrange the trip. >> please. let's have you stand up. [ applause ] >> you know, if you ask -- if you ask anybody -- >> would you please, can you please stand?

please? there we are. >> if you ask anybody from those ancient days back in the '70s, so forth, they don't know that i was president. >> really? >> yeah. [ laughter ] >> this is a tough evening. >> yeah. >> he can do that to you. >> i know, yeah. >> now, we are going to shift gears here a little bit, mr. president. i think he would welcome that. in the introduction to your marvelous new book, "a full life," and let me just give that a plug. you should all read "a full life" by jimmy carter. this is an extraordinary book. [ applause ] >> you quote in the introduction vice president mondale's fairly

well-known summary of your four years in office. we told the truth. we obeyed the law. and we kept the peace. and you added in the introduction, and we promoted human rights. thank you very much for putting that in there. [ applause ] now, we all remember how you embraced human rights. so firmly and consistently. and we became known in parts of the world in ways that we hadn't before because of that and still true in many parts of the world. what was the motivation that made you make human rights such a priority? and then if you would, please, what do you see as the largest human rights issue in the world today? >> well, to go back to when i was a child, i grew up in a community where my family was the only white family there. so i grew up in a group of about

215 african-americans. so my whole life was shaped by the african-american culture. and as i got older and older, i realized that there was a great deal of discrimination there. they couldn't vote. they couldn't serve on a jury. they had very inferior schools and so forth. that's the origin of it. my mother paid no attention to that racial segregation or discrimination. so i've always been a champion of human rights in small limited way. when i got to be president, of course, i pointed this out as a one of my goals as president. and i saw soon that this resonated in russia with the jewish russians who wanted to come out, and also i'd say just one quick example in latin america. when i became president, almost every country in south america was a military dictatorship. colombia, peru, chile, argentina, paraguay, uruguay, brazil and so forth.

the institution of a human rights policy there and our support for it, our condemnation of oppression, i think made it possible for every country in south america to now become a democracy. and they have done it, they did it within five years after i entered office. so i think the practical, the practical results very much pleased me while i was president but still looked upon by some as a weakness than a strength. and to answer your question i think the worst nation worldwide human rights oppression is against women and girls. there's no doubt about that. [ applause ] including -- including in our own country. and not only do we have -- we don't have some of the problems but we have now more slavery than ever existed in the 18th and 19th century in the world. atlanta happens to be the number one trading post in america for slavery.

>> really? >> we have more than 200 people every month sold into slavery in atlanta. and the reason for this is it has the largest and most busy airport on earth, and a lot of passengers that come into atlanta on delta, in other words, are girls with brown and black skin. and "the new york times" did a very long article last february or march thatle said that a black or brown-skinned girl in atlanta could be bought by a brothel owner for $1,000. and so this is -- female slavery comprises about 80% of the total and a lot of the girls are sold into sexual slavery. so anyway, and this same thing happens in our universities now with oppression, sexual abuse of girls, and also in our military, i think. last year 16,000 cases of sexual abuse took place in the

military. and very seldom is a person prosecuted or punished for rape even in the military or our university system. so, we have a long way to go, not only in this country but around the world. >> well, thank you for your leadership. [ applause ] >> vice president mondale, you were very much a partner in this effort to promote human rights. in the bochi case, meeting with the south african leadership on apartheid, trying to save the vietnamese boat people who were dying at sea. do you to want talk about any of those issues or others? >> these were all issues that you were directly involved in. we talked about them. and i would pick up various of them, and where it particularly required travel the rest,

organization, and tried to add my help to that. both people, horrible scandal of -- particularly in southeastern asia. they had, we thought, clear evidence that the government of south vietnamese was pushing particularly citizens of chinese extraction out to sea. sometimes charging them for the honor of being kicked out. they were often to get into boats that were unsatisfactory-worthy. thousands lost their lives at sea. the -- and the u.n. was saying this was just poverty. there wasn't any of that. and so we decided we needed to make an issue out of this.

we -- the navy didn't want to pick up -- remember, we talked about that. >> the boat sank. >> the navy was hanging back again, as it always does, and we -- but -- but so the navy agreed to pick up people, saved a lot of lives. and we set up a u.n. conference in geneva on the boat people and we were able to get a strong resolution there and we set up an international system. we took most of them, but some 20 or 30 nations also participated in a meaningful way. and i think the whole world felt better about it, and i think the united states looked pretty good at that time. is and i'd like to see us get involved now a little more for it. [ applause ]

>> after the vietnam war, the refugees from vietnam and cambodia were persecuted and even assassinated if they were found to have been loyal to us during the war. so we began to receive these people after they were carefully screened. and just a lesson for europe, we were taking about 12,000 a month. we took them and the vietnamese in cambodia make wonderful citizens for the united states all over. >> absolutely. [ applause ] president carter, one of the most difficult and frustrating experiences in your tenure was when the iranian seized the hostages from the american embassy in tehran. and even though they weren't released until you left office, the release was the work of your administration.

now president obama has secured an agreement with iran to prevent a nuclear weapon for at least a decade. how do you view that agreement in terms of what it means for peace in the middle east and what it might mean for the future of iran itself internally? >> well, what many people don't even realize, unless they think about it a few minutes, is that the shaw was overthrown and the ayatollah khomeini established a new government, immediately we established a relationship with a new government, with a revolutionary government. that was the government to whom i accredited the hostages that were taken. so i believed then and now that we should deal with the countries with whom we disagree and not just build a barrier between us that exacerbates the situation over years. so i've been long awaiting the time when the united states would have -- would at least talks with iran. and i think that what john kerry did -- i met with him to discuss this this afternoon be, among other things, and what president

obama did was the right thing. and i hope and pray that the peace agreement that we worked out with iran about nuclear weapons will prevail and that they will honor their commitments. so, i think it's a wonderful thing. and i hope we will -- the whole country will get behind it and support it and the iranians will comply. [ applause ] >> do you want to add anything to that, mr. vice president? >> no, no, i agree with that. i think that it looks to me like the president is gaining a majority support in the united states and the momentum is flowing to him because he's providing excellent and needed leadership. [ applause ] >> mr. president, you were known to a lot of us in the white house for taking on a lot of tough issues.

no tough issue was safe if it came near your desk. and your achievements have not always been fully recognized, but just to look back on it, you brought peace to the middle east at camp david. you put the country -- [ applause ] >> yes, indeed. you put the country on the path towards energy independence. [ applause ] you brought inflation under control, and it's remained under control for 30-plus years. [ applause ] >> you appointed paul volcker. i remember that very well. and then came panama, which was one of the toughest issues any president -- five of your predecessors had failed to solve that problem of the panama canal, but you took it on. by all accounts, the canal today

is a huge success in terms of our security, economically, in every possible way. do you have any reflections on that and how tough it was? >> it was the most difficult issue i've faced in my life, even more difficult than being elected president. >> wow. >> and i think it was the most courageous decision ever been made by the u.s. congress in history. for instance, there were 20 senators who voted for the canal treaties in 1978, who were up for re-election that year. only seven of them came back the following january, 7 out of 20. the attrition rate was almost as great two years later in 1980, including a president who was not re-elected. and i think this has been one of the best examples on the sincerity and the confidence of the united states in supporting human rights of a tangible nature that i can remember because to give away the canal,

to use ronald reagan's expression, was a crime almost against the united states. but in my opinion, it was the right thing to do. you may remember that reagan almost overthrew gerald ford as a republican nominee in 1976. and a lot of the issue was on reagan's condemnation on any move towards panama canal treaties. but i had bipartisan support and laboriously dealt with an undecided senators, about 11 of them, and finally got enough to get the thing passed. it was good. i might say it's still considered to be an unpopular deal. when the year 2000 came and time for us to turn over the canal to the panamanians, the president decided not to go down there. and the vice president decided not to go down there. and the secretary of state decided not to go down there. for the first time they asked me to go down there.

>> sounds like a job for a vice president to me. >> the vice president didn't want to go. and then a little bit later when they decided to expand the canal, by doubling its capacity, there was a big ceremony down there. once again the incumbent vice president, who happened to be republican, asked me to go and represent the united states. so, i've been honored twice since i left the white house because of -- >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> vice president mondale -- >> i told a story today in an earlier conference about how we were trying to get those hard line senators who had campaigned against the treaty and all. and about senator hiakowa who ran on the grounds that it was ours, we stole it fair and square. and he told me, you know, he said, maybe i could support the treaty, but he said the

president's not very well advised. he doesn't have good advice. and maybe if he would take my advice, i could vote for him. so, i ran for the phone, called you. we got him on the phone right away. we went over the information, and he said, yes, i think i can vote for -- shouldn't we meet about every -- biweekly or something. you said, let's not do that. we'll probably need to meet more often. [ applause ] and i think inciing -- >> any one of them could have been the deciding vote. >> you spent a lot of time up there working on the ratification. as you had put it, that was grinding hard rock, wasn't it? >> right. and it was -- your point of the number of senators who were going to lose the next

elections, many of them knew that. i remember tom mcintyre of new hampshire said, yes, i'll vote for it. he said, this is right. but he said, don't expect me back in the next section. several others told me that. it was not popular. it was a strange issue for me. usually it's a senator wanting to do something that's safe and not right. in this case, they knew to vote against it was wrong. and so even though it affected their own future, they voted right. and it was an inspiring time to be up there. >> president carter, you, ross lynn and your team at the carter center have done an extraordinary job for 35 years. [ applause ] >> exactly.

you set the gold standard for former presidents. there's no question about that. i'd be grateful, i know the audience would, if you could talk about the kinds of issues the center is doing, what your hopes and aspirations are for it. what's the carter center all about? >> well, primary -- three things. one is peace, another is democracy and freedom and the third is alleviation of suffering. the carter center is free to go and meet with leaders around the world with whom the united states won't relate. outcast people, for instance, in khartoum where the president has been indicted and in nepal and they were condemned ahead of time as terrorists.

north korea, i've been there several times to work out deals with the government when i could. and we meet with both fatah and hamas. that's one of the things we try to do. quite often, the outcast in international consideration might be a pariah is quite often the one who's causing an unnecessary war or who's causing a problem with human rights. so, we go right to them and try to try to change their policy. i never do go into a troubled area without getting ahead of time permission from the white house. sometimes reluctant permission. but i always get permission. i always make a report to the white house and the state department. anyway, that's one thing. the second thing is we started the policy of monitoring elections. we found out trying to negotiate peace between two groups, quite often if we say, why don't we have an honest election and i'm sure the people of your country will choose the right person to be the leader. both antagonists know they're

going to be the leader. that's the principle of politics, self-delusion. so we began to monitor elections. so, we just finished our 100th troubled election in ghana and now we're starting on myanmar. about two-thirds of our total budget each year is devoted to what the world health organization calls tropical diseases. we'll treat this year about 71 million people so they won't go blind or die from disease that is no longer known in the public -- in the developed world. health care is our primary way to expend money and to use our people. we started one example, that's guinea, some of you have may have heard. we started out with 20 countries that had guinea worm and 26,300

villages. and 3.6 million cases. at this moment, we have 15 cases in the world. >> wow, wow. [ applause ] >> isn't that extraordinary? >> so, that's what we are looking to do. there we go into a country and work side by side with the people in little villages and it gives us insight quite often into political affairs in that country. that's what we share with our leaders in washington. >> well, it's extraordinary work. one of the things in addition to that that i so admire is you planned ahead. you've endowed the work of the center. your grandson, jason, is now the chairman. >> he's going to be the 1st of november. >> he's going to be chairman but didn't want to rush it. he's going to be the chairman. but you're planning for this work to go on in perpetuity. >> that's right. we have a legal partnership with emory university. we appoint half the board members, they appoint half. so, we have a great institution backing us up. we have organizations around the world with leaders.

we have about 30 leaders in latin america who have been present or prime minister and they work in partnership with us. and so we -- and we have a record of holding good elections, and we have an adequate endowment to tide us over when rosalynn and i are not there to raise money. we have to raise a lot of money. >> you and i were chatting earlier before we started, and you're going to hold the annual meeting of the carter center weekend in annapolis next year. you said i could invite everybody here to attend, right? you and the vice president will be there. it's going to be a great event. we were going to have some questions, but we don't have any microphones. so, that just -- just a little issue there. so, i think what we should probably do is to wrap this up, but, mr. president, i would like to ask you -- invite you to say any final words about the vice president or about anything you

would like at this point. >> well, i think what we -- fritz and i did together was historic. it has changed the basic structure of the executive branch of government to bring the vice president in as a full partner with the president. that had never been done before. and i think the reason it was successful was that every expectation i had for that partnership was never betrayed by fritz mondale. he was a perfect partner. and i don't think we ever had a serious argument during the four years, which was better than relationship between me and my wife. [ applause ] >> fritz, thank you. >> thank you, doug. >> okay. >> mr. vice president, this is your day. you get the last word. >> well, we're just so thrilled to have the president with us. i know this was a great evening for all of us, you can feel it.

the accomplishments of the carter administration -- carter/mondale administration really are an inspiration. we're thrilled that you're here. i'm glad to be a part of it. we love you. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv

programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight we take a look back to when tens of thousands of anti-vietnam war protesters, young people and military veterans alike converged on washington, d.c. in the spring of 1971. more than 7,000 of them were arrested in a single day. american history tv and c-span's washington journal look back 50 years at the forces that collided on the capital streets. our guest is investigative journalist lawrence roberts, author of "mayday 1971: a white house at war, a revolt in the streets and the untold history of america's biggest mass arrest." watch tonight beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern and watch american history tv every weekend on c-span3. ♪♪

♪♪ walter mondale, who served as jimmy carter's vice president, died on april 19th. in 1984 he accepted his party's presidential nomination at the democratic national convention in san francisco. in the november general election, mr. mondale was defeated by incumbent president ronald reagan. ♪♪