when jimmy carter left georgia in 1976 to become president, he returned over 25 years ago. and he is now the house that he and rosalynn built in 1961. here in plains, georgia, book tv is inside this home today? we are in the room where jimmy carter has written the majority his books. this is in depth, our monthly series where we spend 3 hours with the writer talking about their complete body of work. president carter is going to be joining us in a few minutes to take your phone calls. he's going to stay with us until

330 eastern time over hours. but first, we want to you to some of his earlier books. he's currently on a book tour for this book, palestine palestine peace not apartheid. and this book is has become very controversial. you've probably seen him on television programs a lot in the last couple of weeks, but it's over 30 years ago, since carter began his writing career. and that began when he published a book called why not the best. why not the best? published as a way to get the american to know him better as campaigned for the presidency. the second book was published while he was president, with the jacket showing president and rosalynn carter walking down pennsylvania avenue during their inaugural. this book was titled a government as good as its people. then when jimmy carter returned plains, georgia, in 1981, he started on his presidential memoirs.

keeping faith was published by bantam books in 1982. it includes his memories of camp david salter, also three mile island, and much more. two years later, mercer press in macon, georgia, the text of a speech that he gave there and it was entitled negotiate ciation the alternative to history. that was followed a year later by the of abraham. insights into the middle east in 1987. rosalynn carter joined her husband to coauthor everything to gain, making the most of the rest of your life. years later, at a book event in seattle president carter talked about the pressure writing that book put upon his marriage. well, a few years ago, i wrote and i wrote a book together called everything to gain making the most of the rest of your life, which rosen asked me to mention is still on sale. and it's all about a setback.

when i lost the election and reelection for president, i found out i was in bankruptcy. amy left home. it was a very difficult time in lives. so we decided to write a book together and it almost ruined our marriage. we could agree on 97%, but 3% became permanent. we couldn't even communicate with each other the book except by writing up the notes and forth a word and wrote them right very slowly, very carefully. then go to the next part until this one was perfect. all right. we were rapid. and rosen looks on writing as a rough draft. rosen. rosen writing is astonishing had gone to mt. sinai. god had given her the fact.

and any borders, any word to strangers. painful. so we couldn't agree on it. on the book, literally an hour a publisher finally took those 3% of the paragraph. he said, okay, i'm going to divide them up. this paragraph is yours, jimmy. this paragraph is yours, rosen. so if you buy book, you'll notice that some paragraphs have a j, some paragraphs have an r. we never could agree. and we finally set the book after publisher we felt well emerges and after that we could not agree on anything. we'd go to bed at night. i was in one in town, wrote in to say jim is too and rosen is to call. and i probably went off on a trip and thinking our marriage was on the verge of destruction. i came back from the trip. rosen met me the front door with a smile on her face. she said, jimmy, i think we'll solve our problem. we had an electric blanket hooked backwards.

and. this is a picture of rosalynn carter in the president's office where he does of his writing. and that's where we are as we are continuing our look at some the president's books. i'll show you might be interested in knowing that the president and rosalynn carter celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this past summer. back to the books a year after that book he published a book his love of the outdoors in particular hunting and fishing. it was called outdoor journal adventures and reflections. in 1992, jimmy carter stepped back and looked at the year 1962 and his campaign, the state senate in georgia. that book was titled turning point a candidate a state and a nation comes of age. then turned his focus to write for young adults. 1993 from dutton's children's books publisher. they published a book on his thoughts on conflict resolution specific for a younger audience. talking was a it was the name of

the book and the subtitle was a vision the next generation. two years later, he became the first president to publish a book of poetry, always a reckoning and our poems was published in 1995. by that time, he had been out of the presidency for 15 years. in an appearance on book notes that year, president carter talked about his father and he also talked about the struggles of getting his poetry. president jimmy carter what's the origin of the title of your book poems always a reckoning. well, it's extracted from one of the lines of a of a poem about my father and how he ran our farm. and everything had to balance. there was no possibility in his mind to have anything on the farm. as i said in the poem, that you couldn't plow or didn't give milk or you couldn't get eggs or you couldn't or find a rabbit or quail. and so it meant that my father

required a reckoning from all those who worked on the farm or whatever. and i think that's kind of applicable to life. general, is when you put an investment in something, you get back a dividend. so i said it's kind of like an ocean wave going in and out. how long is your father been gone? daddy? he died in 1953. he had cancer. he was 59 years old. he a member of the state legislature and a very fine, very stern disciplinarian who who was honored in his who i think loved me very much. he was quite reticent about indicating his affection and who has always been one of my heroes. have you done differently with your kids? because the way your dad was with you. you know i don't think i did until my children got up a little bit older and began to to be much more verbal in their criticism of the way i treated them. i was a virgin. i was a naval officer for 11

years. and i was a very stern disciplinarian. when i told my three boys to do something, they did it. if i didn't, they suffered the consequences and then we add about 15 years and maybe came along. i never was nearly that stern with him. and my rationalization is that he didn't really need to be chastised and i and another point i wrote, i want to be part of my father's world that that extent of i realized when i was an adult and had sons of my own and was that my father's bedside during his that there was a surprising parallel my father's relationship to me which i very much. on occasion and my relationship with my sons and i saw that my father implanted in me not only habits and attitudes but i guess genetic material that mirrored

himself in, me and that. and i wrote one of my most difficult poems about that. when was the first time you proposed to your publisher that you do a book of poems? oh, it was about four years ago, and said, no, no way that i didn't think. they wanted to publish. a poetry book by me. and they said that my poems i submitted were not suitable for a book result. so i backed away for a while. as a matter of fact, i didn't exactly back. i took a poem out of it. the issue new yorker magazine, which me was completely. garbled. i mean, it was there was no feature that i could see in this poem. it didn't make sense. it didn't have any rhyme. it was beautiful. the choice of words was not notable. so i could poem out and send it

to the publisher of random house times books. and i told him if the yorker publish a poem like that, i no reason why. why they couldn't publish poetry book. but i didn't push it any more. but later i felt that i got three or four poems and final form, and i began to send my poems, different periodicals around the country to quarterlies and to monthly magazines dedicated, to poetry and some of them are rejected and some of them were accepted. i asked them not to comment on the fact that i was a former president, just to put my name and not say who it was and increasingly the poems got favorable reviews from, you know, inside all those places. and i eventually up the nerve to to put about 45 poems together. and then when i resubmitted them to the publisher, they offered a

minuscule advance and decided to take a chance. the book and back in the president's writing room, here is a picture of his mother and his father and lillian carter and. earl carter. continuing with the president's writing that year in 1995, president carter up with his daughter amy for this book. it's called the little baby fletcher. and amy carter illustrated. this book. the next book, the fourth time that president carter was published by, the times books corporation. living faith outlined. his religious beliefs and. in this next video, he talks about challenges of forgiveness forgiveness. i know about your your capacity for intelligent thought and your capacity for for love and affection and things like that.

but what i know about you is i wouldn't want really mad at me. and i wonder why you're you've mentioned this with your son. how do you deal with this very human thing of anger? what do you do? that's not easy for me to do. and that's why i say teaching a lesson on forgiveness. i do every now and then is very difficult. me and usually when i teach a lesson, i try to think of someone against whom i have a grudge doesn't take too long and and then in my sunday school class, i actually use that as an example and telephone school class what i'm going to do is usually write a postcard. i'll give a telephone call and say, you know, we've been estranged. we don't get along well. and let's try to resolve one of the most famous ones involved, involved a reporter and washington. his name was george world and. when i was preparing to have a debate with with ronald reagan,

my only someone in the house stole my book of briefing which which every question that i was going to ask i'll be asking my answers to all the questions and my response to things that i thought reagan might say. they gave to george orwell, who used it to brief reagan against me, and that was very difficult for me to forgive. and one sunday morning, i decided would forgive george orwell. so he had written a book about baseball, a very fine book about baseball, which i had bought on remainder on a cost of a dollar. and i read. i read a book and i wrote george orwell. and i said, i've had this against you ever since the debate with reagan. and i've read your book about baseball. i got lot out of it. and now i feel like we're even. and i hope we can be reconciled. and he wrote back and said he

appreciated all of the letter except the fact that i didn't pay full price for so we will reconcile. but i think quite often it's it's not a difficult thing if we would guess that almost everybody has someone whom they might hold a grudge and to make a telephone call and you know i'd like to work this out i'll write a postcard and say, i'm thinking about you and and hoping we can be friends. just a simple thing. i can really change people's lives after living faith. the president stayed alone on with times books as his publisher, and he did a book called sources of strength meditations on scripture for a living faith. and that was by the virtues of aging in 1998. his next three books would be published simon and schuster. first was called an hour before daylight memories of a rural boyhood. and here what you have is what you can see is. him being on the diane rehm radio show that year.

now you work side by side with black. yes. you with blacks. all of this before, any kind of civil rights movement. you grew up feeling as though they were your friends, your companions, your coworkers. even by as brothers. exactly and yet you had to go to different schools. you took different paths. right. sort of bifurcating your relationship with. people you admired who cared about you. oh, well, this was during the great depression and years, and i chose the years from my fourth birthday up until i went to be in the navy when i was about 17.

and i didn't have any white playmates. all my neighbors on the farm were black kids. and so i fought with them, wrestled with them, played with them, made toys with them, went fishing them, worked in the field with them. there was an intimacy there that's almost indescribable. my mother was a registered nurse. had to be gone a lot. all night long. my father was a hard working man who had his duties so many, many nights, slept on a pallet filled with corn sharks on the floor of all of the house owned by rachel jack clark, whom i mentioned in the book. and during the wintertime, rachel would let me move my pallet close to the open fireplace, but i ate at their table and they helped to shape my basic life, my beliefs, my priorities and this.

one aspect of the legal ruling that didn't really prevailed in the supreme court at that time for all the states in the nation, had ruled that separate but equal acceptable was constitutional and no one questioned it. there were no activists. there were no white liberals who challenged the court ruling until 15 or 20 years after. i the farm. but we were sort of not separate as just described. we were we lived on an incredibly intimate existence with our black neighbors. and it was sort of not equal because, as you say, our black neighbors could not vote. they could not serve on a jury. they could not write in the same court with us the train or they could not go to our schools. they went to severely anambra, vastly inferior schools. so separate and equal doctrine was one that troubled me very

much. now to back on and say why didn't somebody really challenge this system? and it didn't come on until much later. and what about your father and his father, too? well, daddy, like every other adult that ever knew in those days, was a segregationist. and even in our sunday school classes and our men's brotherhood meetings, they were frequent people who would come and speak kind of a professional speakers to emphasize that god's holy word also mandated that people of different should live a life. jimmy carter the author in 2001. well, we've been doing over the past 20 minutes is giving you an idea. president carter's early and in a few minutes, you're to have an opportunity to talk with carter about issues, about his writing. but first, we want show you another video clip of from 1988. this was a book called the virtues of aging and it was an on stage interview he did at the 92nd street y in new york city

with anna quindlen. and he talks with talks with anna quindlen about how and rosalynn consciously decided how to handle their retirement. well, i was filled disappointment and consternation when the results the 1980 election came in. not only had i lost the opportunity to be reelected and to pursue like the camp david accords in the middle east, but discovered, to my amazement that my very fine and profitable business in plains that i had put a blind trust was $1,000,000 in debt. i realized that we would spend the rest of our lives in a little town that had 600 people living in it. i didn't have a job. my last child, amy, was leaving home to go to school, so all the things kind of descended on me at once. and i would guess it. zollo i had been living in white house and had a special category of lifestyle, perhaps in the past. i was in the same boat with millions of americans who are

either retired because of age or involve interrelate retired just because they fired from a job. so i had to assess, in effect, what would i do with the rest of my life. it took me a few to realize after i got home that at my age of 56, i had more than 20 years of life expectancy of me. what in the world was i going to do with 20 years that were left? so i turned to, to some small degree, to gerald ford, who has become one of my closest and most intimate personal friends. we share ideas on, the telephone, and we are together as often as we can. and that was one source of advice. his advice to me was that, you've got the worst few years of your life ahead of you. because one of the duties of a former president was raise money to build a presidential in which are stored all the of the administration and for a

defeated democrat who ever expect to run for office again to raise $25 million to build a library. what a horrible prospect? so, gerald who didn't help me much? my mother, though, was a was an element of stability. planes is a hometown of both me and, my wife. our ancestors who were born in the 1700s are both buried in plains. so our roots were very deep there. that was was very much of a stabilizing factor. i'm an engineer. my graduate work is in nuclear physics. so i began eventually to what i had to offer. what were my talents? what were my abilities? was my background, what was my circle of influence work, which i thought was very small and? how could we spend those years or more? 25, perhaps. and roger and i together began to methodically, methodically to plan, oh, how would we use

abilities? and eventually of that came the carter center. we deal with conflicts in the world. we hold around the world. we immunize the world's children working with many others. we eradicate disease. we 600,000 small farmers growing food grain in africa, those kinds of things. so it was a matter of assessment of what i had and what i wanted to be. and i think that although we have been the first family of the nation, the challenge that we faced and the opportunities that we faced whether we spend the rest of our life in our backyard or whether we spend the rest of our life traveling around the world is basically the same question. and that was president carter in 1998. this is the home in plains, georgia, where jimmy lives and has lived since he returned to plains, georgia it's a house that was built in 1961 by jimmy and rosalynn carter. we're inside that house. we're in the room. president carter writes. and president carter joins us. thank you very much. i've been looking forward this.

thank you. what have you gotten? you wanted from the retirement. what you were just hearing yourself say? i think more than i had anticipated. and i another book later on, sharing good times that emphasizes how they are life that we have has been enormously expanded by doing things together. rosanne i give each other plenty of space. we try to go to sleep at night without reconciling differences, but the main thing is we search out actively for things that we both share. an interest birdwatching become avid bird watchers all over the world. we took up skiing when i was 62 years old. russian was three years younger. we have become avid and very accomplished. very accomplished fly fishers. so, you know, try to find things to do that we both can do together. not only around our farm and walking in the woods and bikes and swimming and things like that. but also, of course, at the carter center, we are equal partners. she and i have long been a cochairman of the carter center.

so everything that that we attempt, it's a it's an attempt, an effort by two people. so do you. do you think that the states does an adequate in this new era of people are your age being so active? i don't think when you say the united states, i presume you're not talking the government, but by individual people. well, august or government is government does government underscore people your age to help them? no, i don't think so. but i really don't feel it ought to be the primary duty of the government. what we try to do express in virtues of aging in this book was the fact that any individual or person, no matter how limited their scope of influence or activity might be, can expect their or interest in life in you can actually search out interesting adventures, unpredictable, gratifying experiences in which they can become. and one of the things i didn't mention earlier that we together

is to build houses for for humanity. we just got a few days ago from india, where we joined 2500 volunteers who to india, most of them with. and we built 100 homes in four days for four very poor families. well, habitat for humanity now has programs in over a thousand communities in america. so anybody, if they want to, can volunteer for a half a day or for an entire week, you know, can devote part of their lives to helping build an entire house. so the point is that the opportunities are there. and in the book is spelled out pretty well of everybody's in range of a junior college. and if you've ever had a long or pent up desire to learn how to speak spanish or play the guitar or to write a an essay or to write a biography of yourself, to pass on down to your children or grandchildren, you can go back to college with minimal expense and do that that the

limits are almost nonexistent on what we can do. bulk of our time today is going to be spent phone calls from our viewers. and i'm they're going to want to talk to you a lot about issues of policy and things that have happened over the years. so am going to do something a little bit different with, my little bit of time with you and talk to you about the writing process when. tell me about this room. well, right behind us is the computer that i now used to write books. my first books were written with pen and ink on loan on a scratch pad while i was traveling around campaigning, doing things like that. and then when i would come home, they would be typed up, and then sent off to my publisher was actually the only one i could find that would take. my first book was a publisher baptist. sunday school books, and they didn't have a very big printing, but they printed a few thousand and didn't have any advance to give me. but they gave me some free books. but then when i became famous on the campaign trail, i became

very much a matter of interest. so eventually bantam took over and more than a million of those books sell. since then since i came back to the white house, i've had a computer. so i sit at the behind me and you notice a good and extensive library around me and what i'm working on say i, a novel about revolutionary war hornet's nest. hornet's nest. i might have 50 books that i've gotten from different libraries, and i purchased about the revolutionary war all about actual events that took place and autobiographies of, say, enlisted men and officers of the british forces, and also forces so that i can immerse myself in it. so. so that's what i want to do. and my my father's name is on the library at the nearby university. so when we are overwhelmed books, we send extra ones over to the james earl carter library at joseph southwest university. i to go into that library for a bit because because in the writing of your most your most

recent book, i presume that you have some books on your shelf that you used during that time. and in fact, in the middle there you do have section of books about the middle east. that's morris. my most recent book. and what did you kind of books did you use in and keeping around while you read this? well, one of the foundations for this was a book i had previously called the blood of abraham. and in that book i describe my conversations with the leaders of, the different nations that surround israel, and also the different political factions in israel and the palestinians and the occupied territories. so i had that as primary reference about what actually had occurred in the past. and then, of course, the bible, i went all the way back to the to the covenant with abraham, gave the people an up to date version of the events that have happened since to last a couple of months. and then in addition that i read books written that had been written about the plight of the palestinians, they essence of the basic wonderful democracy

and and freedom and equality of treatment. israel and the thing that i used was the fact i had been all over the west bank and occupied territories in the last ten years, helping to conduct elections. and we have between 40 and 60 people that we that were sent all the way from lebanon border in the north, all the way down jordan and into the net to the sinai desert of egypt. and in that area, including east jerusalem, we immerse ourselves in understanding what's going on. so that was a basic sources. those were the basic sources of there were a couple of the books i was interested. bruce feiler, you have his up there, also, richard, ben cramer. yes. in his book. well, i got some of them have been published by my machine publisher, simon, and they knew i was writing this book. i signed the contract years ago, as a matter of fact. and so when they when they found a book that they thought would be a partner, they would send me a copy of it. and that helped me a lot as

well. now, i hope you don't mind, but i took a look at your computer and. you have a couple of sayings in the front of your computer that i thought for as a writer, it was somewhat interesting. you have a right. it's something that says vivid and continuous particulars, not generalities. each scene must. it must turn. it must change. characters must want something. where did you come up with these? who? who? who gave you those? well when i started writing poetry, i had two great poetry professors at university of arkansas, and they sent me not only of poetry by poets, but also books about how to write poetry. and i did and that's some of those art of some of those quotes. and then when i decided to write a novel which took me seven and a half years or i had a group of professors from mostly georgia university at georgia state and emory university and the university of georgia.

and i gathered them together with me one day and told them what i was going to do. and they assigned a reading list, which was quite extensive from, different famous authors and off of, you know, creative writing and so i copied some of those out of that book as well to remind myself when i was trying to create dialog between characters or things that i needed to avoid, do they help. yes, they i hope so. if a book turned well, i guess it helped. and then one of the main things i did when i got ready to publish the book, simon schuster, my publishers, to have a copy of a of a painting on, the front by n.c. wyeth and they sent it to me because he was a famous writer and illustrator, magazine covers and things of that kind, but famous white family. and the painting didn't suit at all because it was a but was a painting of a of a black head, a

frontiersman standing beside it. so his and holding a revolutionary war type rifle in the wrong place. and i just did to use it because my character was blind he didn't have a canoe and that sort of thing. so i finally decided i would paint the cover myself and to the constant motion of my publishers. when i first suggested the thing, i actually painted the cover about my character, who is a blond, who's got a pigtail in the back and he's holding a properly and he's actually firing his rifle at. british soldiers across a creek. so i enjoyed getting involved, but that was really what encouraged me to get involved in painting once again, which i had done a number of years ago. is there any significant significance? did you get it in your desk? well, the desk belonged to my father. it was in his office down town where he had a little insurance office. and also so fertilizer to farmers and after he died, that's when i came home from the

navy and resigned from the navy. i had been in a nuclear program and i came back and and inherited that desk in his office. and then when when i converted this room from a garage that we used to drive in automobiles to house them into an office, then i'd move that desk back to use as my desk. speaking of your father, what did you learn about reading from your father? well, he had certain books that he really and he read the newspapers and, magazines avidly. my mother was was almost i say a fanatic reader. she read every minute of a day that she wasn't nursing and a lot of times when she was nursing and on household duty. but anyway my father had a collection of tartan books, all of them, i think you're showing. yeah, well, we have one during ten, so you got the stars, tarzan, the untamed. i got. i inherited. i think i wound up with out of the 11, maybe some the other children got the other of the four. but my dad had written in the

front, they the number the number the of a volume in order. so the so that i wouldn't get confused at his writing until in front the book. and then they had a collection of other books primarily about the outdoors and adventure, elementary physiology and as the other one, that was probably a classic book of one of my parents. and i have few of those left over. and then my godmother was the head nurse in plains, gave me an entire collection of victor hugo's books and the collection of all of wisdom about the world. it was it only was in maine encyclopedia that i was eight years old when i when i inherited victor hugo books. later she gave me a collection of geary, maupassant and. so i was one of the first people in planes that ever read, probably victor hugo and the barber shop. when i was a child, people were if they saw your bookshelf, would see that you have a whole series of a naval man books from

a naval man who's very popular to these days. who is patrick o'brian. yeah, by the way, they are when i let the professors know that my novel was going to be about the revolutionary war period and ask them for some recommendations on what author be the most pertinent for that era? and i wanted to get the right and so forth. they recommended patrick o'brian, of whom i had not, but i had heard of. but if i hadn't read his books, and when i was on the current book tour, i went to the what i consider to be one of the best to be careful bookstores in the that is a tattered cover in denver and i told that i was looking for patrick o'brian books and asked me if i had any of. and so when i got back in my car they had given me a complete collection of his books up to that time. i think they were of them later there were 21. so it was a pretty well mastered. patrick o'brian's book. so it really didn't come from your naval background? no, it didn't. except it precipitated my

interest. but but the language used and historical events which which goes all the way from napoleonic through the revolutionary war years, was quite pertinent to what i was writing about. you said some of your favorite books are about former presidents and biographies of, well, you know, i got a fairly good collection. i do have a fairly good collection whose who's do you think is best? well, i really don't want to say who does best. actually, the best defender biography is by his is about all thomas and my my assistant helped write that that collection who steve and that i think is the most it's a six volume version of thomas jefferson and i've got them all the way from george washington almost every president and in my office at the center in atlanta, i've got a much more definitive collection of those of those

biographies, some a few ottobock offers, and then dylan thomas as my favorite poet and i probably almost chevrolet, i've probably 35 or 40 volumes either about dylan thomas or bob dylan thomas. and up above my desk on my left here that i used to tie flies for fly fishing. i've got a portrait of dylan thomas that was sent to me by for lawn which is his hometown. when i was president, i went to london and visited the westminster abbey. in 1977. i had a big entourage. white house reporters with me and i got an argument with the archbishop because i didn't have a stone to commemorate dylan thomas, whom i the best poet of it of the last century and and so later i sent a long dissertation the committee to ask them to include dylan thomas the day after that. but i went out of office as president in 1941. they decided commemorate dylan

thomas. so i think i had some role to play in that. your bird's. yes. what do you get from them? what wrote an article climbed mount kilimanjaro in 1988. i remember because got to the top on the eighth day of the eighth month of 1988. and we signed a book top and after that we we started looking at watching birds in tanzania, kenya, other east african nations and became began to keep a record of it. and now we were avid birders whenever have a chance in the united states or in any foreign country we go out for a few hours or sometimes a or two to find new species of birds to observe. and so that's been an important addition element of our life that we share. william shakespeare. you have some shakespeare here? well, i do. i think shakespeare more than other writer shaped early life on reading. we were required by ministerial code when my teacher to read shakespeare to memorize portions

of it and so there's no doubt that as a foundation the english language writers no one can pass on the equal. what's your favorite? well, i don't know. i would hate to say i like some of his. i think best of all. and i have one sonnet in my book. it's about planes and. so the sonnet part is something that i enjoyed but but i think most people like the plays of shakespeare verse. i really prefer some of his poems. i go back to this book because it really according to douglas who wrote the introduction was very in your first and your presidential. the whole issue of politics writing books as part is not new but how did you come to the decision to let your that the american people know more about you through writing a book this is a paperback version that came

out in the original version i wrote when i was campaigning beginning in december of 19 seven, 1974, and i announced this candidate in december of 74 and begin to campaign and all during 75 when i was at home or when was on an airplane or train or whatever i would be writing this a kind of an autobiography and telling why i should be considered the president. and then finally had it published and later use the the as kind of a campaign handout would have a small group and increasingly size. and at those rallies would sell one at the best for $5 to raise money. we didn't have money, you can say that. but an important part of a life then and and in as i got famous having prevailed in iowa and new hampshire and florida and so forth, i wouldn't give a reporter or an interview unless

they read one at the very first. they had to read the book, had to read the book before our interview because there wasn't any need for to waste my time with them. said, what's the name of, your father or what time were you born in? you know, thanks to this guy. and so they had to read these rudiments of about my early life before i would talk to them. the there is a memo from this very famous from 19 i think 70 to with that outline to how you could become president was in hamilton jordan's memo or actually dr. peter boyne wrote the first long letter describe. given the fact that i might be president bush immediately the convention in miami in 1972 when george mcgovern was i wanted to be his vice president and so did all the other southern governors, i might say. but we didn't make it. and and so a minute after peter vaughn wrote me a long dissertation saying some page letter, but and then we began to have secret meetings with just four or five of us in the governor's mansion in atlanta,

my wife and just three or four people, including jordan, jody powell, peter bull and so forth, and out of those meetings, hamilton, jordan kept notes and he subsequently prepared a i would say a plot to take over the white house oh, that became the basis for our campaign in technique. and it was a extremely prescient it was far reaching. it was aggressive and ambitious. and it gave us but outside of thought was false sense of confidence, but but we prevailed because of it. and hamilton became my chief of staff and the leader of our group in the white house hamilton jordan. did i ask that? one of the points was they said, you have to read a book. and they said, you should write a book or column on some pertinent or topic with the focus how a problem was confronted by your administration. and i asked that, because that's not the book you came up with.

no, it's not. but that was the original thought, right. did you move from that to more of a biography? to some degree, i describe what i did as governor. so part of that suggestion was included in why not the best, but, you know, i'm my own author. nobody has ever written a word in any of my books. i write every word i don't have ghost writers and so forth, except one that rosa and i wrote together. and but you. i have to make my own mind up once. i get involved in the writing of a book. what want to say and and the priorities are the points to be made and the order to put them in. but then when the book goes into the final stages, obviously the publishers, they provide me with a accomplished editor who proves to be compatible with the psychological and personally so they have been very helpful to me and give me advice on the structure of books and that sort of thing. one of the things that's brought up in the introduction of this first book was that a discussion whether the issue of your religion and your faith would be

included in this first book? yeah. did this make a difference in you presented yourself for the whole campaign? oh, careful as best i not to inject my faith into the campaign and i was and i was successful until one night as after i had become famous and when i had gotten a lot of momentum and was really leading the campaign and i was in somebody's backyard in north carolina, they were having a little fund raiser for me they were devout baptists and some of the guests that being asked to contribute money. the campaign asked me a question, are you a born again christian? and since i was said, kind of like breathing, yes, i am. and they said, we're glad to hear that, governor. and unfortunately, i guess for me, there were, you know, news reporters in the audience and to them that time, a born again christian was a strange and weird character from outer space

somewhere that thought he was endowed by god, some peculiar rights or privileges or or insights from heaven. it quite a stir. and i was distressed by it and. that was i think that was probably the first time in any that anybody has a phrase of born again christian. and then i had to go out of my way to sure people understood it. i was not putting myself above others. i was not having or private come of sessions with god. i was not being ordained to take positions on secular and things of that kind. i had i went on the defensive after that and while i was in the white, i was very careful not to not mix my private faith, worship with my duties as a president, because some have kind of said that you were the one. john dean said it a couple of weeks ago. i think that i was actually you, the one who opened the doors to evangelicals.

well, i guess, you know i consider myself to be an evangelical too. i would never close the door to evangelicals or to -- or to muslims or to nonbelievers, but i never had worship services in white. i never made speeches about my faith except in church. i taught sunday school sometimes in the first baptist church, but my sunday worship was a completely separate from my for my life as a as a president. what was the bible study this morning you taught? well, this morning we have been studying months, 13 weeks on the covenant between god and different elements in the old testament, beginning with abraham. where where abraham has a descendant of his first child, ishmael, was a father of the muslim arab world. his second child, obviously, isaac, the father of the jewish nation. and then where paul explained to the early christians that that all of us gentiles who were not direct descendants abraham

through blood were the senate of abraham in an equal way because abraham had a covenant, not because of his ethnic background, but because of his faith and and god. and since we share that faith, we are children of abraham. justice, much as as --. i'm. so that was we were we left that this morning for the first time after 13 weeks and begin study christ from the new testament for the next five weeks. this morning we had a lesson very interesting lesson galatians describing the the essence of christ what is christ, who is christ. and then next sunday the lesson will be what the gods say about christ and we'll have three more lessons leading up to christmas. i want to invite our viewers to join us by telephone or by email. the numbers will be at the bottom of your screen. are 202737. 111 for democrats, 222 for republicans and 20262802054 in dependents. if you would to email a question

and you can you can do that also is president we got some emails actually before we even began so let me just ask you this first one is would you encourage a young american to volunteer for the military today? yes, i would. if that's the motivation of person, i wouldn't want to order anything. but but when i was six years old, the only thing i ever wanted to do was to go to the naval academy and serve in the military. and i did so 11 years and it was a great boon to my entire life. and i would say, yes, there are other alternatives of course, in volunteer service for instance, the peace corps, my oldest grandson. spent two and a half years in south africa in the peace corps, and my mother, when was 70 years old, was serving in india, the peace corps. so actually the peace corps or the military or. yes, serve to serve your country, to serve others. and it only takes it only takes a short period of your life. and no matter what you do subsequently, you can open the

doors to many wonderful adventures. this emailer asked the questions have nuclear weapons rendered war itself obsolete, particularly with uncontrollable pull or purification taking place? well, obviously important, not obsolete because we're now involved in the war, unfortunately we are involved in the war in iraq and we're not using nuclear weapons. as a matter of fact, the tremendous nuclear arsenals that we had and the soviet union had was probably what prevented us having a world war during cold war region. all of us had nuclear weapons, a new dimension of danger of what be a global holocaust and in massive deaths. but we just i just helped with an election and republic of congo we held helped to hold the carter center did the first election they've ever had after 4 million people were killed in that war civil war in the last eight years. and we helped to bring peace to southern sudan, where 2 million

people were killed over 16 years. so horrible wars go on still. so i wouldn't say that that nuclear weapons have prevented or caused wars first call hey bill massachusetts. yes, yes, it's an honor. jimmy to speak to you and thanks so much for writing this recent book because for so long we had a an honest open and civil debate about israel and and and the palestinians. it just seems like that issue is totally off the table with either with the party and which really should have been an honest broker between the two between israel and the palestinians. i got to ask you, i mean, i don't know whether it's aipac or the lobby or what the fear about having an honest civil debate because you can't even household, because it's just that your you'll be accused of being anti-semitic or what so thanks color. well, you're right. one reason i wrote this book is that there is no debate in this

country they intense debates about the same issue which is of a global importance inside israel. the hot debates in jerusalem every day of the year hot and discussions in europe and everywhere else in the world not in the united states. it's impossible in this country in the present climate to have any of decent or in-depth discussion about this. i would like to point out, though, that the book is not about israel. there's nothing in the book about what goes on inside israel. the whole book is about palestine, and that is occupied territories where a horrible affliction is being perpetrate it on the palestinian people by the israeli occupiers. and the word that i use the apartheid, which has caused a lot of problems, certainly does not apply to the democracy, freedom and equality of treatment of people inside israel, but inside palestine there is a horrible affliction of what i consider extreme apartheid illness or apartheid. and that's what i tried to address this past week.

you've spent a lot of time on television talking to a lot of reporters. i you were interviewed by judy woodruff. i was in time and the bbc has gotten a lot of reaction from that saying, saying that she that it was too strong. she was too strong in the interview. what would you have any reaction to that interview with her? you know, i didn't even think so. you know, like the tough questions that i get because they let me explain things that that are that need to be promulgated in this country and you know it's almost to to expect say a public official to take a of a stand between the palestinians who are suffering horribly and the israelis. there needs to be a two state solution which has been put forward. you can't imagine a member of or candidate for congress. and what if i'm elected, i'm going to take a balanced position between, israel and the palestinians or i'm going to demand that israel withdraw from

palestinian or i'm going to demand that israel comply with international law. you can imagine it's unimaginable. well, i think it's time for people to realize what goes on, not israel, but in palestine. and so when somebody like. judy woodruff or anyone else, larry king, who had years of wars to ask very tough questions. i'm prepared to answer them or in the book is accurate and i think everything in the book is is exactly fair. your book hits the new york times bestseller this week. i think at number 11. any idea how many books have sold so far? no, that those those figures came before when the book was not hard to publish. so i hope that this last week of intense campaigning will boost it up a little bit. which book has sold the most? as a matter of fact, the first book i wrote sold them out. as i mentioned earlier to you. why not? the best the publisher that that had originally couldn't print

them fast enough. when i began to win primary elections. so bantam took it over and they more than a million copies very quickly and just few weeks literally or the last book i wrote last year, endangered values are the week that i started campaigning for it on a book tour. it it hit the new york times for the first time at number one, and it stayed on for for a number of weeks. so really, all my books have done quite well. even the poetry book has been no surprising bestseller. it's been of the bestselling portrait books for the last 50 years of and i've been that's been the main source of income i don't serve on corporate boards you know i'm not on the very lucrative lecture circuit so why don't you serve on corporate boards? well, i just when i got out of it, when was defeated, i started when i got out of the white house, before i got to the white house, i had a press junket and i announce that i was going to emulate harry truman, who didn't

use his former president say, you know, to to earn income. but so i haven't done some of the things that others have done, which is quite all right. but i have to say that don't doubt that my having been president has helped me sell books. so it's not quite a fair claim. aurora, illinois. yes. mr. carter, thank you for making the a republican. because of your incompetence in handling the iranians with stagflation and you're cozying up with every dictator thugs and islamic terrorists there is. but more importantly, i find it to be vile because you're black hard it's hard because you're anti-semite. and let me explain why. think you're a bigot, have a racist and anti-semite? no, i think color the name. the name calling is is another. thank you. but these are the strong questions are coming from people i couldn't quite understand, but i think i can understand. can i come in? sure. please do. well, i think if you look at the

history of my public career, the last 30 years, the preeminent goal that i've had in my mind is to bring peace. the people of israel and i've worked on this without cessation during my adult life in politics, i was the only one, by the way, who ended the series of wars, four wars and 25 years, but israel and israel's major adversary, that is egypt. i sat down with them and negotiated peace agreement in april of 1979, not a word of which has ever been violated. no one else has done that. israel's never had day of war with a with egypt since. and this book is not a cover at all. anything inside israel. as i pointed out earlier in this program, is designed to cover the nation of the palestinians. palestine is the name of the book and the next word and the title is i hope for peace for israel and the palestinians. then the last two words is not apartheid. i don't want to say any

persecution or separation of. israelis and their neighbors inside palestine. and that's what happening now. so i don't have to go any further. you know what? for people to say that i'm against israel when the book doesn't mention anything, it israel or that i'm against and all that i'm an anti-semite so much is something that obviously i reject with with enthusiasm and colors and we're more than welcome to take any debate and any issue up it was just the name calling that was of concern. next is college station, texas. morning, mr. carter. hello. my name is goodwin. i'm a canadian and i'm in college station. and before i ask my two part question, i just wanted to say the it shocks me as a canadian sometimes i'm shocked living here when i hear comments that carry the kind of tone that we just heard. politics here seems to be so more riven by division.

as i say, it's shocking to me that someone can say the kinds of things that we just heard. but let me say before i ask my question that it's such a great honor to talk to you. i've just been thrilled sitting here the last 20 minutes, hoping i might get on to speak to you. and i hope have a question. okay. yes, my question, can you tell me what what was the nature of your relationship with, reinhold niebuhr or? what significance did he play in your life? and also, what was the nature of your relationship with pierre trudeau? thank you very much for taking my call. okay. well, i with pierre three our that pierre trudeau's funeral. i was i mean representative from america. well, i went as a private citizen and i went to pay my homage to him because i liked very much as a statesman or as a personal friend. and in fact, i with him coincidentally on my 50th wedding anniversary, when wife and i went to niagara and he

happened to be there with one of his very, very young children. and so pierre trudeau was one of a group of seven all the four years that i was in the white house. and he and i were almost completely on the major issues the day. so that's my relationship with pierre trudeau on a friendship and admiration. reinhold niebuhr is one of the theologians whose works i have studied for a number of years. it was the first time that somebody gave me a book by a theologian. i first let it be known that i might run for president before the general public did know and and and it covered the relationship between religion and politics. and he pointed out for that the highest goal of a human being was a copy of love is self-sacrificial love. this was not possible for a statesman. you can't have the united states of america self-sacrificial love the highest goal for a nation or

a government or is justice. which is near to love justice. so that's one thing that i really admired reinhold niebuhr. his deep analysis of the proper relationship between the church and state, as we refer to it now, was very beneficial to me. next is portland, oregon. hello, mr. carter. first off, let me say that i do share a love of dylan thomas and fernhill is absolutely one of my favorite forms. but my question is actually what i'm asking you to if you will comment upon past, recent and present debates regarding creation, science being taught in the schools. thank you very much. okay. i cover this to some degree in my book that i wrote year our endangered values. i have a chapter there on separation of church and state. and i point out that i'm a devout christian, i'm a born again christian. i'm an evangelical. i just got through teaching sunday school a few ago. i do that every sunday that i'm

at home and the same time i'm a nuclear physicist. i studied nuclear physics back when was in the navy and america over it would now be called nuclear engineering. but that was what we called it earlier in the day. you know, i don't have any doubt about they are the origin of the universe, the creation of a stars and heavens. many millions of years ago, as a matter of fact. but i still don't doubt the fact that there a creator god. i think they ought to be a separation of church state. i don't think that there should be any teaching in the public school classrooms of the fact of creation. and in fact, the bible, if you interpret back a would let you figure that the entire earth was created in 4004 b.c. or just 6000 or so years ago. i think that's not the fact. the bible describes it. the earth is flat. the bible says stars can fall on the earth. things that, you know,

physically impossible. and some devout christians whom i admire or feel with, feel that those things are true and that this ought to be taught in the classroom. i think that the teaching, a biblical aspect of origin of the universe ought to be kept for people like me and in church and sunday school and the teaching of science ought to be taught in the classroom based on the facts of, physics and and geology. i don't think the two are incompatible. i personally think that there is a great creator about i talk this morning, but i think that that god created the universe in ways that are now being understood based on the sciences that i've already mentioned. loss angeles. hello. president carter did you receive the james bamford pretext for your book i gave you at borders and west was last year? and also did you get a chance to read it about how the iraq war was for israel and also the

emotional wallpaper, what that lady just did to you. so regarding calling you an a.c. man, i believe it's a smear process or tactics used to get away from the question of how much power the pro-israel lobby, aipac similar have on the u.s. political when it comes to talking about the pressure put by israel and the fifth columnists that support israel, the u.s.. and lastly, you would mention that israel, you know, not an apartheid state, yet there's a recent in harrods that mentions that they're not allowing marriage between -- and non---. and the israeli newspaper all haaretz and how many palestinians on the israeli cabinet. president carter, i respect your writing a great deal, but to ignore that israel is practicing apartheid isn't exactly. and lastly, why don't we. one more point. why aren't we hearing j. paul finley, the former republican congressman who wrote the book? they dared to speak out about the pressure of the pro-israel lobby. he's written several books and i've never seen on c-span's book tv once. thank you. caller you have seen i mean, you haven't seen him, but he's been there. go ahead.

well, i don't know how to answer those questions. you know, when somebody gives me a book about about an interesting subject habitually, i get book from my staff who read the handing me books to sign in the bookstore and particularly one that was about israel interrelationships while. i was writing my book i bet they've all the books that i had available to me. so i guess that i did that. well, you know i think that aipac, which is a a lobbying group, just devoted to israeli americans, is not it's not american jewish. it's those who are supporting israel, which and some of the -- don't comply with that. so it's a it's an israeli lobby, and they have a perfect right to represent the policies of israel in the united states. and i don't question that at all. but i think that the thing that is preventing now israel having a chance for the peace that we

all pay for permanent peace in their own borders recognized by every arab country and, the entire world living side side in harmony with the palestinians. that's what this book is designed to accomplish. and i don't think it's going to ever do that as long as there's no debate, discussion and people are intimidated from expressing their views off of even studying that. i've been by professors, for instance, to speak some of the most famous universe cities that deal with primarily students. i have not been permitted to go in those campuses to hold a lecture. and so that the pressures are intense. but i think that the people of israel want peace. the palestinians want peace the jordanians want peace. the lebanese want peace. everybody all the palestinians also share that hope for and i hope that this book will break the ice. and at least people at least

start looking at the facts inside, palestine finding a way israelis to have peace. can give us an example of a recent time which you were not allowed to make a speech because of your ideas and stance. well, i'm really to mention specific places, but i have been given invitations to to speak college campuses about professors who might be more militant on the subject or were open minded on the subject. a better word. but then when i inquired to the leaders of a of a university, i've been told that the that the issue too controversial or maybe we should wait till next year or something that kind. detroit. hello. hello. how are you doing, mr.. i'm doing fine. essentially what i wanted to call and ask you is i guess it's a fairly question, something that's been plaguing me over the years as i've watched politics. just wondering, how do we get to

more intelligence into politics instead of having politics be politics? because the people i've met of all stripes, democrat and have stricken me as liars or just generally in confidence. so, i mean, how do we how do we voters put smarter people in office? thanks. well, first of all, i don't agree with at all with your premise. i would guess that if you took the members of congress or all of the house and senate democrats and republicans or if you took the average governor of, even state representatives, was a state senator one time on average i would say they were well above the average far as education. and and awareness of issues. and i would say even perhaps i.q. that be a british thing for me to claim. so i don't think you ought to underestimate the the character and the integrity of a politician. one thing you have to remember is that when one of them does go wrong or if what i'm as commits

a corrupt act and is caught or one of them commits an indiscretion sexually and is caught, the publicity is overwhelming or is global publicity and it tends put a stigma on all of those others in the house or the u.s. senate, the political office, who really deserve that stigma. but i've served as a member of the state legislature. i've served a governor. i've served as a president. i've dealt with all 535 members of the house and senate when i was there. and in general i would say that they are admirable men, women, very intelligent and most of them are eager serve their constituents. do you think more? there are more of these incidents happening or it the result of something that you did not have, which is the 24 hour news cycle? well, i think the revelations of

improprieties are now much more heavily emphasized in public mind because of the 24 hour news cycle. for one thing. the other thing that's happened, i was in office in ancient days is that when i was running for campaign, there was no such thing as negative advertising. so running for president, i ran against gerald ford, a wonderful man, and later ran against ronald reagan, who was governor at the time. we never referred to each other as anything except my distinguished. we treated each other great respect. and if i had deigned to make any personal allegation against the character of. of my adversaries, it would have been political suicide. me. now, habitually, people get elected, tearing apart the character of, their opponent, mostly on fallacious claims or tried contrived claims or exaggerated claims. and so by the time one of his

finally elected with a narrow margin perhaps his character, his or her character has been severely damaged in the public mind with all the negative advertisements that have been heaped around his neck by his opponent, who just got defeated. so it and then that animosity this affair a new development in our country carries on to washington. and you an almost a very very difficult for democrats and republicans to cooperate and work with each other and to debate the issues openly on the floor of the house and senate. and they were debated that way when i was president, when gerald ford was president, or when ronald was president. that's changed now. and one of the main reasons for it is the enormous amount of money that that flowed to political system, and that permeates the the the campaigns. when i ran against ford to go back again to his old times, he and i both campaigned for

president on on the $26 million that came from the $1 per person check of on the income tax. well, i think this last campaign cost something like $2 billion. and in both john kerry and and president bush rejected the public funds because, they didn't want to be bound by any limits. so enormous amounts of money flooded in from special interest groups and others. and that's been part of the change. speaking of gerald, when was the last time you talked with him? about last month? i called every now and then. sometimes i don't bother him. and and when he calls, he doesn't bother me personally. if we're traveling or something, i talk to his staff members who give a report on his physical condition and. i the last reports i've got have been very good. next call, belgrade, montana. i president carter. my first off, my dad, like a nuclear engineer under admiral

too. i just want to say that right. but i want to thank you for that book our endangered values. what changed my life and how i at things. but my question is in regards to cuba and our future relations with because you know i was watching the united nations general assembly and it seems like only three countries support the embargo the united states israel and sweden or something that. and i just wanted to know your thoughts on the matter would be i think ridiculous. i think it's an adverse reflection on our country to have sustained an embargo against the people of cuba. it doesn't hurt castro. it hurts the 13 million people of cuba to be able to have free trade and commerce, medicine and food that they might need coming from united states. and i think it's an reflection on our country, too, for you and

me not to be to visit cuba. you know, this is a strain on my own freedom. i converted almost any other nation in the world. my government won't let me go to cuba. and so i think this is a very serious problem. when i became, by the way, in 1977, the first thing i did before, i've been in office a month or so was to open up all trade to cuba. i'll travel to cuba. i'll travel, not trade. then i was going to open up trade later we open up what we call interest sections in washington, one in havana, so we can have some kind diplomatic discussions. as you know now, this administration tightened up as much as possible to try to prevent any travel between us and cuba. i think the best way to bring about democracy and freedom in cuba is to let them have unimpeded access to people from a democratic and free country like ours. so i think it's a very serious mistake about

mischief, because mississippi. go ahead. i think you mean misery. oh, go ahead, please. this. i'm very happy to get hands to talk to you. president i wanted to you. back in the early eighties, fred friendly. the late fred friendly did a series on the constitution. that delicate balance. and there were harvard professors that moderated it and all people that were involved in the different hypothesis that were involved. agnew, who was there and, all the dislike anna quindlen, archibald cox, the different things that kind of happened and. it ended up being sort of like a a lesson history, recent history. and i know that you say that you don't make any money off of your presidency or you don't take you know, you don't do, i guess, lectures and things like that. but i found it very helpful to

even understand issues and about the recent past. and i just wondered if you aware of those. i'm not i can't recall of you and i participated or not. i know gerald ford did it and dan rather and all the different. yeah. well, thanks. caller well, yeah, i don't mean that. i've never given lectures. i've given hundreds and hundreds of lectures since i left the white house, including to colleges and so forth. and you're paid for them? yeah, some of them i'm somewhat go in and get an honorary doctorate or, you know, get honored or something like that but i by the way, the the possibilities, my lectures on my new book, i make it clear i didn't want any fee just to come to have a place on the college campus to present my views to the students, answer questions. but anyway, yeah. so i've given lectures and but i've just done it not on the lecture circuit. and sometimes i am paid for those lectures, but so i really have enjoyed going to large and

small colleges since i left the white house more than making speeches, conventions and things and those are quite often oriented toward. the kind of i'd say, academic subjects that you describe. also, i'm in my 25th year as professor at emory university. i teach in all the colleges of the university of political science history law, theology, religion, all of them over a period of a year. then i really enjoy that. in fact, i'll be doing that at emory university next year, so i have a chance to interrelate with students and relate with other professors and scholars. sometimes i bring in famous scholars to to teach with bishop tutu has been for as it has been a long time at the carter center. and he and i taught and and worked together so so this is the kind of thing that i do and really enjoy. our viewers heard earlier you

talking about raising money for, the presidential library, once you had the presidency and it was 26 million for for the library. how's it doing? oh, it's doing fine as a matter of fact, the 26 million not only includes the library, all of its furnishings and air conditioning and all like that. so we finally it paid off many years it was built. is it fair, president, to have to go out and personally that kind of money? well, that's a law now or it wasn't a law when i was there, but it was a custom. and since then, the law's been passed. but do you think it's fair. well, i would presume that if a president didn't want to do it, he wouldn't have to. i think richard nixon decided to do it because there was a big legal about his papers, as you know, that it's only recently been addressed. i wouldn't say it's unfair. it gives us a chance to have a place for all of the photographs and tape recordings and and documents to be stored permanently and examined by scholars who come in there and

also by the public. i'm that i was able to do it and and nowadays they knew enormous presidential libraries are costing. maybe ten times as much. well, president president bush, the father was was 83 million. and bill clinton's, i think, was 165 million. and the new daily news is reported that current president bush is saying he will raise hundred million for it. well, that out of hand, it's up to them. i would want to criticize them, you know, and cost the greater now. and there's been an expensive desire on the part of presidents to distribute or display more of their mementos and things that the in effect, make their administration look good. i don't blame them. carson vale, michigan hi, president carter. my name is tristan bright. i'm a 21 years old and i'm studying richard nixon right now. and what was feeling about

president nixon? well, it turned out be one of my best friends. as a matter of fact. and he was the first president i ever met. also, i went i was governor when he was president. so i went to the white house, was delighted to meet him as i was very obviously disappointed when watergate came along and he and he had to retire or resign in order not to be. i was pleased with his choice. gerald ford, who with whom i formed an intimate, personal friendship for which i'm very grateful when i president, by the way, i called on president nixon to help me with international affairs, both with advice and also support the things that i was doing like a nuclear arms control agreement with with russia, with the soviet then. and also to help me with the panama canal treaties. he decided not to do that, but he did help me a great deal. the peace agreements that i worked out concerning, israel, and how our neighbors and he

finally said that i was giving him too many briefings if i would cut back on. not quite so many. president, our friends, i invited him to the white house when i normalize diplomatic relations with china he came and we had a delightful evening. then he and president ford and i flew over to anwar sadat funeral. on one of the air force planes. and we had chance to get personally acquainted better on that flight. so i had a very wonderful relationship nixon and believe he was one of the best authors and writers of of history and biography that i've ever known. how did it come about that you have his gate or his outside of your circling your house here. oh this was a fence that was used at key biscayne when president nixon used that, uh, that site as a presidential retreat. and so when i moved in two planes, it belonged to the secret service. mm hmm. and as part of the apparatus, they put the fence around part

of our house next to madison is at madison. jimmy, how an admirer of yours from way back. i'm 77. there are two questions. the first is, if not one boy bullet or a bomb had gone to vietnam. considering the geopolitical measure at the time, what do you think the result would have been worldwide? and secondly have you read bridget gabrielle's book called because they hate? it was published in 205. she's originally from lebanon and she's now an american citizen. if you haven't read, i would love to hear what you would say it when the time comes that you do. okay. i have not read, but i'll certainly remember that. and it will be on the record here. as far as vietnam is concerned. had we not involved in vietnam as a as a nation, i think the outcome would have probably been the same with millions of people not killed. as you know, president

eisenhower had a very poor opinion of the french military. and when they were defeated in vietnam and withdrew, there were tremendous pressures in this put on john kennedy to take up the mantle that the french had lost and to protect that part of the world from incursion and domination of and president clinton. i'm sure the president of john got us involved and viet nam and then president johnson had a quagmire on his hands and he finally had a decision to make to basically start withdrawing or massively to escalate our troops. and he increased our troops. about 80000 to 500000. and then after he left office, as you know, decided not to run again, because of the vietnam war being such negative factor, then hubert humphrey was

defeated and then eventually nixon came along and we withdrew from from vietnam. but i think the results have been the same with less loss of life. and i think that although many people deny it, there's a lot of there are a lot of parallels. vietnam experiences and the ones that we are suffering in now in our in iraq. if you've just joined us, we're spending 3 hours today with jimmy carter, the former president of the united states, talking not just his most recent book, but of his books, over 20 of them. and where you can us, if you would like by telephone or, by email. next call for you is from just outside of washington church, virginia. hello. miles church, go ahead, please. yes, i just wanted to thank you very much for writing this book. i think it's long overdue. and i am wondering if you could elaborate a little bit about the wall that is on the cover of your book and i'm wondering if

you can talk a little bit about the palestinian prisoners, the large amount of palestinian prisoners, including women and children that are being held by israel at this point. okay. well, the photograph on the cover is of part of the wall. this particular part as you can judge, by the height of the palestinian on their side, is 25 feet. well, when i was there in january and trying to go from jerusalem to ramallah the home of the of the palestinians. and then down to jericho on the jordan river valley. they were building a wall there that was 40 feet high, concrete wall. that's as high as a four storey building. and the wall, once deep into the of a palestinian territory, deep into the heart of of the west bank, just, i think to take more land away from the palestinians or it was originally conceived

by prime minister rabin, who was assassinated because of he wanted to bring peace. now as a wall to go along the israeli border and international courts and all approve that that was changed later on to make it a wall that doesn't divide israelis from palestinians. it divides palestine from other palestinians as and is a horrible imposition and a breakdown of freedom, speech and travel of against it, against the. this is all typical of what's going on in palestine now. hmm. there's been a furor as you know, or in country and i share part of the grief about the one israeli soldier that was taken out. the other question when palestinians who were locked up inside gaza there's a wall completely around gaza with only two doors in it or but some palestinians dug a tunnel

underneath wall and captured israeli soldier who still had been held a whole safe and alive, at least. and that's a tragedy. but the reason that they did it they claim publicly was because israel is holding. about 9000 palestinian prisoners. and what the palestinians ask for was we'll swap you this one soldier if you'll just some of the hundred women you're about 100 or some of the little children holding. there are about 300 children. some of them as young as 12 years old. and the israeli government refused to swap any of the women children for this one soldier. so the soldiers being held instead, israelis invaded again. and then about 400 palestinians have been killed. i think also about seven israelis have been killed. so it's a terrible problem. these are prisoners that israel

is holding, all of them taken prisoner almost one of them in in the palestinians own land. and they're tried in palestine by military and then they're taken, most of them, into israel and incarcerated there, which is also against international law. the law says the geneva conventions that if any president are taken by an military power, they must be incarcerated within their own territory. but since they are taken into israel, then their families can't visit them because palestinians can't into israel most of the time. and even lawyers can't visit them. it's a terrible situation and it needs to be understood by all americans. it has been over 25 years since you published your memoirs. now, first of all, how did you do it? well, i was defeated in in 1980 and went out of office in 1981. and i decided not to do traveling that first year.

i you would say i wanted to lick my wounds. and i wanted to let the furor of election down. and i had all the time i was in the white. i dictated on a little tiny dictation machine my thoughts and comments that i knew would not be published in the weekly journal. of all the things that the president says publicly. and when i would finish tape i would just throw it in my out basket. and my secretary, susan clough, would those tapes and she would type them up and put them in a book and i never saw any of them. and when i got back home, they arrived here in a closet right over there, 6000 pages of diary note. so that first year and writing memoir, i went through those those memoir notes or of my diary and i bought things that i wanted to say about different subjects and that the origin of this it took me a year to do it

it was published within a year after i left the white house. do tapes still exist? oh, i don't know. i doubt if the tapes still exist. there's one copy of my diary notes here on his cabinets. in print. in print verbatim. and i've sent a duplicate xerox to the presidential library in in atlanta. the corporation to the library, with instructions that, they shouldn't be made public. i authorized them specifically until after my death, because a lot of the references in the diary notes are about members are still serving in the house and senate and maybe a few leaders who are still serving in their nations and some of the comments are quite frank and uncomplimentary, perhaps at 82. are you thinking more about death? oh, yes, i more about it, but i don't i'm concerned about it. i'm a christian and i don't have any fear of death.

but obviously, i think the fact that my life is so is approaching near an end. and it was yesterday than it was 25 years ago. yes. and i and i try to plan my activities and shape my priorities accordingly. how's your health. so far as i know, my health is good. my wife and i both get a lot of exercise. we swim day, we ride bicycle, we hike and do other things. and then rozin is an expert on nutrition. and we try to eat right. we have very good health care at. emory university hospital where i am university where i teach. so as far as i know, i'm in good health. you have a lot of cancer in your family an issue that a lot of people face these days that's a that's a it was a shock i think to the medical world because we have five of us. my father, my oldest sister, my youngest my youngest brother and

my mother all died with four, four of them. all of them ultimately with pancreatic cancer and pancreatic cancer is a fairly disease. only about one person out of all of about 1500 died with pancreatic cancer. and for four people in my family to die with it defies mathematical odds. so when would that happen to two of my family members? after i left the house to begin a study of the familial or inherited traits pancreatic cancer. and it was the first time it had ever been done. they later found a family in japan that had three members who died of pancreatic. so there's a broad study now. and as a result of that, i've been given a fairly thorough test with with mri and cat scans and also with blood tests. quite rightly so that they might detect the first stages of pancreatic cancer if it should develop in my body.

but that there's only one difference between me and the other members of my family. all of them smoked cigarets and i haven't. so maybe that is a difference. i hope. is there a lot of research being done on pancreatic cancer and in general, many cancers are now? people live a long time. yes. in fact, there's a special foundation that's been established about five or six years ago, just to deal with pancreatic cancer uniquely. and i've made a public service telling about my own family experiences, what i just described to you, you know, to raise for this. and they're making good progress. i understand. have you made plans for funeral? yes, we have. i don't do that. rosen does. with my staff and with people at the white house who have that as their assignment. there is an official body at, the white house, outside of the white house, that plans a funeral of all future presidents and begin this as soon as i left the white house. and so all of those plans have been made. they have to be updated, you know, every year or so about who

who should sing the songs or what kind of instruments should be or who would give the sermon. because some of the people that i preferred at the beginning and and consulted with me have passed away before. i did. but, yes, the plans are already made. where will you be buried? in front of the house in plains. plains is special to us. you know, i could be buried in arlington cemetery or wherever i want, but. but my wife was born here and i was born here. and i think it's worth mentioned early on this program. our ancestors who were born in, the 1700s, both and rosen's are born here. in fact, i was four years old in a small town. i lived next door to roseland, who was just one year old, and then i moved out into the country. and so plains is where our heart has always been. do you have do you think you will have a funeral in atlanta or, washington, or do i that is planned a funeral at the

washington and possibly a brief display of my body in atlanta so that people that knew me when i was a governor could come and pay tribute. but i have to admit you that i haven't seen that detail of plans for that for that event. i ask you this partly also of the poetry that you wrote in. always a recording specific about your passing. was it hard for you to write about on the committee of scholars? describe the future without me? that's the title. that's kind of a humorous poem you want. would you mind? i don't don't. i don't think i did. i think we all get that. maybe you have to borrow your. sure you can either bifocals. i don't know if you could give it a try. okay. this was when people at emory were trying to. to plan for my demise demise.

it says a committee of scholars describes future without me. some professors forced to write about a time that's bound come when my earthly life is done. described my ultimate demise. in lovely euphemistic words, invoking pleasant visions of burial sites with undertow, echoes, friends, kinfolk and pastors gathered around my flowery casket. as uplifted, breaking new semantic ground by just but not saying i have passed on joined my maker or gone to the promised land, but making the lamented in the best and grandest terms that are now dead have recently reduced my level of participation. and where did that idea come from? well, as a matter fact, when we were planning relationship

between the carter and emory university, which is kind of a partnership or there was a group of about 50 people who wanted to have an orderly transition and wanted to retain the independence and autonomy of the carter center but have a good relationship with it, with, you know, with a scholarly and research characteristics of, of emory and they headed to say when president carter dies or when president carter goes to join his maker or when he departs this world. they used a euphemism there and of saying all those things i say when he reduces his level of participation. so i, i saw that in one of their memoranda they were circulating among themselves. i decided to write a poem about it. we showed our viewers this, this graphic right here, these sketches. what what it and who. who did them? all those were done in my poetry book by my granddaughter, who is an accomplished artist.

she just did cartoons, illustrate the individual poems. and she's sarah elizabeth, a professional artist who lives in new york. so one more here. yeah, that's a passenger gate, i think. next call is from point pleasant west. hello, mr. president. it's an honor to speak with you today, but i was curious as to where you were on 911, how you heard it, and were you given any input to. the aftermath by president bush and the committee as to what to do from that day forward. and if you could speak on the nuclear affair now that china is bringing forth the possibility of they're attacking the united states states, who are attacking the united states? china. china. well, as a matter of fact, i was in mongolia in the desert area.

mongolia. and i came back to and in jfk in washington and flew to atlanta and then drove home the night before. 911. and next morning i got up early and i had to go back to atlanta to teach emory. i was the way from plains, georgia, back to atlanta in the car the secret service agents were driving the vehicle, and they heard on their radio that a plane had struck the tower and washington i mean, in new. and they told me about it. and we were in the car and couldn't see any tv, anything. but we turned on the radio and listened. and by the time we at the carter center all, the people there had the televisions turned on and we saw repetitive pictures of a car of, a plane hitting the towers and of them collapsing.

of course, we were all horrified and. i went ahead and and and gave a lecture. as a matter of fact, particular lecture was to the students at emory in a town meeting. when i meet with 25 of 2500 or so students, the first of every calendar year, mainly to answer their questions and, they were all distressed about what was going to happen, our nation and if we were going to be hit next. and if nuclear weapons would be exchanged. and i tried to reassure that was it. that was the event. and of course, very shortly after that, president bush was kind enough or gracious enough to invite me to join him and the other former presidents and other dignitaries at the national cathedral in washington to participate in a memorial for the people who were lost in the 911 tragedy. an question asks here about, uh, george herbert bush and the

whole the story that continues that he, along with others responsible for delaying the hostages, release and therefore ensuring not only your defeat, but also the inability for the hostages to be released during your presidency. well, i heard about that at the time. there was quite a heated discussion all over the nation. there were some books written about it alleging that while president reagan was in office or actually when when president reagan was running against me for office, that some representatives of his went to the europe and and persuaded the iranians not to release a hush hostages until after, uh, the election over. well, i never have had any evidence presented to me that that was true, and i never have commented on whether my thinking that was true. or i the only thing i know is that that during the last stages

of my, uh, of my administration, i devoted full time to trying to negotiate with the iranians, to secure the release our hostages. in fact, the last three days i was president. i never went to bed at. all. i had ongoing negotiations through other arab nations and through other governments and through the bank of england and so forth. with a iranians trying to secure the release of our hostages. all of them were safe. i found out about nine or 10:00 on inauguration morning that all hostages were safe and they were all in a plane in the tehran airport ready to take off. so i waited with bated breath, obviously uh, for them to take off and be free and then i got in the car with president reagan and. we drove to the capital for the inauguration ceremonies, and i

had the secret service and state department officials there to give me information immediately. as soon as the hostages took. and it didn't happen until 5 minutes after i was no longer president. and that was one of the most joyous revelations of news i've ever had in my life. every single i came safe and free. but you never had any kind of evidence that there had been any other anyone else in president reagan's circle who had intervened. no evidence was ever presented to me. and i've never made any comment about whether thought they published evidence was accurate or not. next call is baltimore. hello. oh, hello. hello. go ahead, please. hello. good afternoon, mr. president. hello. it's an honor to speak. to you and my family. and i voted for you both times. you ran for. we thought we felt like you were too good for washington. and number one, i just want say

we are contributors to humanity and we know you're great worker for that. building houses for the poor. but you were always in good physical shape when you were sworn in as president. you walk from down the capitol to the white house. you and your beautiful wife. do you remember that? of course i remember it well. and that's your question. i think you're absolutely in opening up relations with cuba. it's really ludicrous not to recognize that nation. thank you. well, thank you. thank you very much. next call goes from to ashton, alabama, to her. is this ashton, alabama? athens, alabama go ahead. oh, this is on a low. i work at one of the prisons in, alabama, in the correctional system. i'm a mental health professional. and what i was wondering, you know, i've been a great admirer of yours and your wife has done

a lot of work in this area on mental health. and i if you knew of any progress that was going to be made or work that was going to be in the specific area of the correctional system, because there's more and more mentally ill who in the correctional system a great many hiv and aids patients who are in the correctional system and are, you know, segregated from all others as well as having mental disorders and and progressing into dementia and things like this. thanks. and i want to. well, i wish my wife was here because she's an expert on this. in fact, rosalynn is, i would say, the one citizen of the entire that promotes mental health and points out mental illness can in most cases be and people can live can well, at least that they can live a normal life.

she also makes many lectures on the subject fact three days ago she was in new york at giving a lecture at columbia university. she points out frequently that about evolution of treatment of people who are mentally ill. when i became governor and rosen became an expert on mental illness it was a custom then in alabama george other places just to incarcerate mental patients in mental institutions where they were kept for the rest their lives and given no treatment, but treated almost as animals or because of that were initiated by me and many others. because of influence of rosen and also by obviously by congress. the trend was to move mental patients out of those major institutions. we had 12,000 patients at millersville georgia to the community institutions. nowadays, though, that trend has been reversed and a major place to incarcerate mental patient is

in prison. the largest mental institution in the world is a prison in los angeles, california. in fact, the governor of california was discussing that national public radio this morning. as a matter of fact, what are we going to do about these? they obviously just imprisoned. they're not given any psychiatric treatment. they're not even given any medical treatment. and this is a terrible on our nation that. we haven't had the insight or the compassion or the wisdom to work out a way to to give those with mental illnesses a proper treatment and proper care. rosen is also a major advocate of equal of treatment about insurance, that they ought to be the same kind of insurance coverage for mental illnesses as are physical. and she's proven without question among major corporations that have done this that the actual total cost of insurance goes down instead of up because many of the later

physical illnesses are bred. the fact that early stages, mental illness are not treated and they can be treated by a psychologist by a psychiatrist, sometimes even by trained medical doctors. and so this something that is sadly being neglected and addressed improperly in our country and i'm very thankful for your answer. and i know my wife is going to be thankful to you for your question and my wife is going to be thankful. well, you what do you do in particular, if anything, to keep a good mental health. well, i've been to start with, we've had a number of people in my own family who have suffered depression or bipolar illnesses. i had one cousin when i grew up who was mentally incapable. and that's that that's something that you're born with? it's not really an illness. it's a mental problem. and was incarcerated and the parole in the state prison, you might say, for mental. and so i grew up with and i've

had two uncle terrible terrible alcoholics and spent most of the last years of life in prison. so i've seen a need for proper treatment for alcoholics and for drug addicts and for who have mental illness. so my has been touched by very deeply in many different ways, different levels of age in our family. and i would guess it every single family in america somehow or another has been affected by mental illness and is still not treated adequately. rosen has written a book, mental illness mastered. i would say the the knowledge that was known by by advanced medical and by trained psychiatry. and she put it in language that her mother could understand or that a peanut farmer could understand. and it's been very helpful to people to read how to care for a mental problem in their own family. does she? and you are a both agree or

disagree with the use of of antidepressants and actual medication to deal with your grief thoroughly provided as properly administered by medical doctors. well she has an annual meeting at the carter center every year where experts from around the world in it's the biggest event in the year to discuss nuances of mental illness and what can be done about it. and she has even gotten the world organization finally to adopt mental health in addition to physical health. so she's been a pioneer in this and it has happened at her conference this year. but on children and health. and one of the problems. to answer your question specific, that is the overtreatment, the overuse of of strong medicines for little children who quite often don't need it. but since they don't, the parents don't get proper sometimes fairly expensive treatment from a trained psychiatrist, they will get medicine from other means.

so that the child is overly treated. obviously, others don't get enough treatment, but the mistreatment outside of in medical terms of little children in school or elementary school and high school is one of the serious problems that rosen trying to address. to massachusetts now, cambridge, hello. yes, it's a it's an honor to speak with you, president carter and i have a request of you, amy. first, it will help president carter with my question in his book, there is a map showing settlement. would you mind holding that up to the screen. i think it will very much assist his answer and the audience. do you have a page you know if it's the it's listed in the table of contents under settlements and it's one with all little dots on it. why don't you go ahead and i going to your question while i look for it. yes it's this i'm a routine participant at the kennedy school of government. in the last week there was a lecture by stephen walt. and many of the concerns that you've expressed, president

carter came up during that lecture and i also watched the two tim russert programs last night on cable here. i cambridge and one this morning on meet the press and a persistent fact strikes me as glaring need of correction and also by way of helping to understand your thesis. and that is the physical reality on, the ground that explains your notion, what you have called spiderwebs and the pass system, which i completely agree with as as as objectionable people, must understand the the implicate portions of what the settlement system with, its roads and interconnection systems and passes, passageways and so on. actually to daily life, as you explained it some length last evening with with tim russert and i, they can't do that without seeing that map. the color i'm going need to ask you for a little bit more help here, because i'm i don't see that in with content in many of the books.

yeah. where it says maps. yeah. and got it. there are several maps listed and there's one that says settlements and the one in the middle of the book with all kinds of little dots on it showing, the dispersion of settlements. what l i just second i'm going to the book has page numbers in you have the page. i've tried i don't i don't it's it's i don't have in front of it i just don't see it any map here that says you have your own plan it is it that's what it is. okay, let me see if i can find. it's the fact i can. okay. and by the way, remember that a path, a as distinct from other kinds of discriminate is essential. it begins as a physical concept. and what's so important about your views, president, is that people understand the physical reality on the ground that supports your thesis of not only hardship in life but. the do you have a question by the way it's asking you to explain that with reference to

the map because there it is and i don't think americans including those i deal with at the kennedy school, have no idea of what we are now looking at on screen. and makes what you're trying to say in. words very vague without actually seeing it. so if you have to say what you said last night on tim russert, that would be very helpful. and leave the map on screen. give it give a chance. okay. keep it keep it on, okay? sure, mr. cameraman. well, what's what happened when israel finally was granted the stages of its. in 1967 or after several wars, israel was granted 77% of all the land. that's israel on on the left hand side of the map and the light brown, light gray color. and that and the west bank was only given 22% of the remaining land, a tiny amount. and and that map is basically of. little 22%. and now or that the brown part,

a gray part inside west bank is what sharon plan was was and that's the one that the prime minister olmert has adopted. and the white part is a part that israel will control you see the entire jordan river valley which is over to the right is to be controlled by and the wall is to go around those gray parts that are left the heart of the west bank and were completely in and or encapsulate or imprison they are the palestinians and those dots are the ones that olmert and sharon intend to retain inside the territory along with the dots that they still have now in their own territory. so you can see the palestinians have practically left and i couldn't show it on this map. it is too complicated between adjacent settlements, the roads built to connect one side to

another and then to connect the settlements to druze land and the palestinians in most places are not permitted to use those roads or even to cross many of the roads. in addition to the wall being built, which i haven't yet describe adequately, but so that's what the palestinians partners or apartheid, if you want to use that word, apartheid a way they pronounced it in south africa. it is. gross in on in palestine. i mean, it's much worse in many ways than apartheid was in south africa and the palestinians all have to have a pass just like the black did in south africa. and when the wall goes. but between families home and it's and families garden or or has or field or it's a gross deprivation because he can't cross and the wall built through

a swath that's 100 meters wide and the israeli jets go in first with chainsaws and they cut down all the olive trees. some of almost a thousand years old. and then they bulldoze that area blank and they dig a six foot deep trench on both sides to install. they're listening. and then they build this horrible wall, the middle of it. and i described it the entire city of bethlehem is in encompassed in the wall where jesus was born. and i described a cathedral that named after martha, very important larger and larger. it was raised from a dirt right outside jerusalem. and bethany. and they had they had a congregation of 2000 christians who were worshiping in this convent. i in the cathedral of us, dedicated martha saint martha. and the israelis a wall 30 feet high, right through. the garden of the of the church

and and the church is now on the jerusalem side, on the israeli side, all the members the church are on the palestinian side. and they can't get to the church because the israelis won't let the palestinians go to jerusalem they can't go through this enormous wall. that's what's happening here. nobody and very few people, the united states know it or will acknowledge what's going on. it is horrendous when we're you. that's why i wrote the book when i last had earlier this year. and we and we go to when we go to the holy land. we obviously whenever i get off the airplane first i meet with the prime minister of israel. i meet with the foreign minister. defense minister. as we're getting prepared to, for an election among the palestinians and then we go into palestine area and as we prepare for the election, we go over the entire area of palestine, not just parts of it. we go all the way from from lebanon down to the sinai desert of egypt.

and we try to cover the entire area. do you with palestinian leaders also? yes. meet with palestinian leaders. i meet with israeli leaders. leaders. all the candidates this this past election because hamas. well, candidate order to get permission to go reluctantly, i agreed that i would meet within a very hamas candidate before the election. so i kept that promise that was the the that's only way who america the american government would let you go the american government and and the israeli government. i couldn't become an observer of the palestinian election unless i agreed not to meet hamas candidate. well, i agree reluctantly, but immediately after the election i did meet with with mahmoud abbas, who's the head of fatah and who's the president of the plo and the government. and i also met with a medical doctor in ramallah at the carter center headquarters, election

headquarters, who is a medical doctor and who was elected as one of the members of the he's in prison now along with with most of the other ones who were elected to serve in the government of the hamas candidates. and the leaders there are israeli prisoners prisons now. but i met with him and one of my main things was why don't you recognize israel and get this stigma away from you all. and why don't you oh, why do you have terrorist activities? and he pointed out to me facts that have not been disputed by anyone that since august of thousand four, hamas has not conducted a terrorist act that resulted in the death of a single israeli citizen. this was a self-imposed ceasefire, which i call a hudna. and he said, we will extend this hudna to years, ten years, 50 years if the israelis will reciprocate. but to repeat myself, not a

single israeli has been killed by a terrorist act by hamas since august of 2004. and when i said, why don't you recognize israel? you said, which is, are you talking about is it the israelis occupying a land? is israel it won't let us get the holy places? is it israelis, our cities with a wall? he said. we can't recognize israel. well, you know, obviously they are terrible, atrocious that have been perpetrated by the palestinians. there are terrible problems that have been created by the israelis. but but it's a matter that needs to be understood and discussed and negotiations need to take place. i might add one other thing, that despite the fact that the palestinians have been for peace talks for the last years and so and when the united states and israel personally endorsed the representative of the palestinian, mahmoud abbas, he

was called by president bush the voice of moderation. he was prime minister three years while arafat was president. he was not permitted to negotiate one day then he was elected president after arafat in january of 2000, five. so i felt when i congratulated him in ramallah, we immediately going to have peace still not a single day of peace talks. albuquerque, hello. hi. go ahead. albuquerque. hi. good morning. mr. president, it's an honor to be able to ask you question. my question is this, is i've noticed that in recent elections seems like religion specific, like a christian based religion is a key factor that a lot of the candidates seem to use as their badge of honor. however, it seems less and less authentic, and they seem to like it seems like they're pushing of a fundamentalist view that's not

as authentic as like yours might have been. and it seems like it was put out a little more mildly. what's your opinion on that type of thing? well well, i would be very reluctant to elevate my christian faith above else's christian faith. that's something that, uh, that i wouldn't think of doing. and i would guess that the, the people to whom you refer fundamentalist or just as devout in their faith as am, are, and i don't criticize. there anything about their christianity or whatever it might be. but but i do express concern in my book last year that i published our endangered values. that was one of the values that i feel endangered, and that is that they are ancient commitment by their own and even by religious leaders to avoid mixing politics with government, on the one hand and religion

churches on the other hand. i think this was ordained by. one of our founding fathers, thomas jefferson, who said need to build a wall between church and state and i think it even goes back to the new testament when jesus said render under caesar the things that are caesar's and the god the things are the gods. well, my own interpretation. but i understand it. other people can have different ones. but but i think it's it's contrary to what i understand. and as ancient moral values of our country observed by all previous present presidents, including george bush, senior in and ronald reagan and dwight eisenhower and gerald ford, as well as democratic presidents that we should not mix it to. and i think that too much, in the last five or six years, those two have been mixed. we are to take a short break and then be back, take another 90 minutes of your phone calls and. but first, we want to show you

just a little montage of all of the books that president carter has published over the years. jimmy carter has written 22 books. here's a look at those 22 books in chronological order. why not the best. his first is a campaign autobiography published during his run for the presidency. it sold nearly a million copies, a government, as good as its people, came out during his first year in the white house. it's a collection of excerpts from stump speeches, campaign trail interviews, the carter ford debates and president carter's inaugural address. keeping faith is jimmy carter's account of his presidency based on the diaries he kept while in office. the book includes, his descriptions of the sought to agreement the panama canal treaty, the camp david accords, three mile island, his decision to boycott the 1980 summer olympic games in moscow and his

struggle to free american hostages in iran. mercer university. free press publishing negotiation. the alternative to hostility. the text of a speech. president carter at mercer university in georgia in 1985. jimmy carter expressed his hope for peace among christians, --, muslims in the blood of abraham. insights into the middle east. jimmy carter's wife rosalynn carter coauthored everything to gain, making the most of the rest of your life. the book describes how the carters coped with losing the 1980 presidential election and the decisions they made about building a new life after the white house. an outdoor journal describes. jimmy carter's hunting and fishing experiences. first as a boy in georgia and later as a world traveler. jimmy carter first ran for public office in. 1962 in a contentious and ultimately successful campaign for the georgia state senate. he writes about the race in turning point. a candidate, a state, a nation

come of age. jimmy carter is the only u.s. who's written a book specifically for young adults talking peace. a primer on conflict resolution. mr. carter is also the only president to publish a book of poetry, always a reckoning and other poems was illustrated by his granddaughter, sarah, who was 16 at the time. jimmy carter's daughter, amy illustrated his picture book for children. little baby snuggle fletcher living faith is, a spiritual biography in which president carter lays out his values and religious beliefs. mr. carter regularly sunday school at the maranatha baptist church in plains, georgia. sources of strength is a collection of 52 of his bible lessons. the virtues of aging provides advice for retired people and describes president carter's own retirement from founding the carter center to taking up downhill skiing at age 62. at age 76, jimmy carter published hour before daylight

memories of a world boyhood about growing in the segregated south during the depression. he continued his hometown reminiscences in christmas and plains published the same year. jimmy carter was awarded the nobel peace prize in 2002 for his work in conflict resolution and human rights, both during and after his presidency. his lecture, delivered in oslo, norway was published in book form by and schuster. the personable fleece of jimmy carter is a compilation of two of president carter's previous books, faith and sources of strength. the hornet's nest is, the first novel by a u.s. president. it tells the story of the deep south struggle and the revolutionary war, featuring characters based on jimmy carter's own ancestors enjoying leisure activities with and family is the subject of 2000 features sharing good times. in our endangered values, president carter decries current political influence of religious fundamentalists and argues for

the of church and state to jimmy carter's palestine peace not apartheid. criticizes israel for occupying arab lands, violation of u.n. resolutions and american policy. it published in november 2006. well, we really felt immersed in the land and following the civil war, the war between the state there was a general and very accurate presumption that the only thing of any lasting value was the land, because a lot of the wealth prior to the civil war had been either in slaves or in confederate money during the war. and at the end of the war, all the slaves were free, of course. and the money was worthless. so the retention of land was looked upon as a preeminent source of prominent wealth. so i think because we were so deeply immersed in it, plowing it, cultivating it, it depended

on it exclusively for our income. and because it was all around, you know, in dry weather, the land was just a powerful factor. our lives. i think one thing that it has increased that awareness in my own case that near plains is land, that our families have owned since 1833, about of it and the other half we my ancestors bought in 1904 and we our family still owns the land now. my grandchildren are seventh generation on the same fields are same would land the same creeks, the same streams, the same springs. so the ties are emotionally between me and the land is very strong. i can see it in your face. it. it is emotional tie that does something. perhaps to the way you feel about land in general and

perhaps our land. yeah. god's world. but several times during a year in every in plains, we had 600 people and we still have 11 churches in place. but there would always be a one or two sermons during the year on stewardship where we were reminded from very carefully chosen and emphasized verses and the holy scriptures that we were stewards of the land and it was our duty as, as believers in god to take care of the land, as environmentalists, although environmental issue was not a word used in those days. this is in depth and are spending 3 hours with former president jimmy carter talking about his over 20 books that he has written over years. do you think that you will match teddy roosevelt's number? i think his is 26. well, i know it depends. had you ever thought about that. well, i'll have to. bush coming out next year. i'm not trying to catch teddy roosevelt, but but one of the

books will be just kind of a coffee table version. photographs of the furniture that i have designed and built in my woodshop and earlier when i was in the navy, even i built this building furniture. i still have some of those pieces. so i'm going to have photographs on one side, very professional. i've done with proper lighting and on the hand side will be my description of how i designed the book, why needed it, i mean, why i designed furniture and why i needed it, what kind of wood. i used the techniques exerted and, how much i learned and things like. i know that there's no way we can get but this is. you made this table right in front of us and and you do this just next. yes. there's about 20 steps over here. when i get down to writing, that's where i go and i may include a few of my paintings. that's one of the books that have come out next fall. and it happens to the 25th anniversary of the carter center. so the other book will be the most vivid and dramatic and

adventurous and i hope interesting events. our life at the carter center are we're showing up the book. we're showing our viewers your woodshop. what what do you get out of of doing the woodworking and how does it connect your writing? well, i began woodworking when i was a high school student, actually, before that one under my daddy's tutelage. and when i was a future farmer and then when i was in the navy, i didn't much money and i was making $300 a month and we were living a unfurnished apartment to save money. so i would go into the hobby shops that the navy provided and make furniture enough for us to live and then when i got out of the white house, my cabinet officers and white house staff wanted to give me a going away. so they raised money enough to buy a jeep. and my secretary told me what

it's going to be is supposed to be a secret. i said i don't want a jeep. so they were in a quandary and i said, what i need to furnish my woodshop with woodworking tools. so they took the same amount of money. it was only 70 $500 at the time and gave it to sears roebuck and said, give president carter everything needs for his wood shop so that has been a turning point in my life so is woodwork in a way. you get away from writing or writing the way you get away from woodworking or i don't have enough days at home. i still am all over the world with the carter center and other things and on the days at home, i get up early. i'm still a farmer at heart and i read the email, the necessary things, and then i start writing a book and. i write my way from plate 730, 8:00 until ten or 11. i get tired of the computer and i can just walk out my woodshop and start working on a piece of furniture that i'm know. and i have built about 100 and maybe hundred and 50 pieces of

furniture since i left the white house. where are they different places. so my children have a lot of them. amy has about eight or ten. i've cradles for to encourage more grandchildren. and in one case my most recent i made a special cradle for my great grandson child. we were we were provided a photo of the new great grandson who's well above average already. he's only two months old, but he's. but i made a cradle for him then. i liked it so much that i make it a duplicate cradle to give to the carter center to auction to raise money for the carter center. and i've done that almost every year. and meanwhile, i'm making my i take photographs of myself for the time delay or my camera. so i make a photograph that goes with furniture so that 100 years from now, there won't a doubt that a former president made this piece of furniture. so we're going to see your books go from to campaign to presidential memoirs to faith,

to values. you're it's really quite how do you decide your next book is going to be? where you're moving? well, it kind of comes along. it kind of seems natural. obviously when i was campaigning, i did. i did. you know. one not the best. just so people get to know me and and then i, i loved my early days about those and that's been expanded version dealing fly fishing and turkey hunting and things like that. and i want to tell about my early childhood that's an hour before daylight from four years old until i was 16 years old. i went off to college in the and then i realized that i had written anything about subsequent so i had kind put that in our christmas and planes to a part of it i wanted write a book of poetry, so i got a lot of professors to help me with that. and then i did the portrait book and then i have always been fascinated with the

revolutionary war. and, and when i was president, they, they leaders of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints, the mormons made an appointment to come and see. and they came the to the white house to, the oval office. and i thought they were coming because the moment when trouble in africa which i work right off and then but they wanted to give me a definitive history of my family about 12 generations and in this country to 1640 or something and i didn't pay much attention to it at the time but later i began to think about my family being involved in the days, and so i decided to write a novel about the revolutionary times and and under pseudonyms i included the members of my own family. and that's that was obviously all that was obviously a hornet's nest. you return the issue of peace, negotiation, diplomacy all the

way through many of your books. this one, i don't remember what year this is for young people that or actually an expansion of a lecture i gave at mercer university. this one was to come and dedicate the special section of mercer. i dedicate former congressmen and they wanted me to make a leather bound version of my lecture so like set it and raise money for mercer university. so i did. this is the one i guess i was talking about. that's one for youth. yes. a publishing company that provides a lot. the textbooks in our country said there was a textbook that was adequate for teaching conflict resolution causes of conflict and how they be avoided or how might be settled for high school and college students. i wrote talking peace based on experiences that i had personally that illustrate those points. and why was it important for you to go back to 1962? this is 30 years later when you

when you published this book to. talk about those early days in politics. that is the best book i've ever seen. to be perfectly objective about it and fair that describes the the change in politics affairs in the south brought about by the one person, one vote ruling and the end of segregation, the end of the one party political system that we had for four generation. and i had never thought about running for office. i was inclined just to be a businessman, to make money and to serve customers. and then they a one person, one vote ruling was passed which which i thought would give me a voice and a brand new georgia senate. and i was a chairman of this of a sumter county school board and the public system was endangered because one of our most prominent governors who

represented who was a democrat said his slogan was no, not one, which meant that there would a not be permitted a black child in a white school or the public school to be shut down in order to prevent that and to deal with it. i just had a last minute to run for the georgia senate. and and that's that's what precipitated the election. the election was stolen from me, 126 people voted alphabetically, many of them dead or in prison. and i lost the election by about 60 votes who was responsible? it was a man named joe hurst, who completely dominated a small county over on the chattahoochee river equipment county. and he physically the ballot box, even when i was watching him, he would fill out ballots and fold them up and put them on the ballot box with my watch. and he was so at that time to any sort of chastisement or

punishment. and i went to long and tedious legal process and eventually the truth of the election was known and i actually did win. and that's how i got to the georgia senate. let's get back to some more phone calls. newton, massachusetts, hello. hello, president carter. good afternoon. it's a privilege to back you. calls for a while and coming wanted to let you know how proud our family is to have a president possesses you know our integrity. your commitment and your intellect. and i want to share with you how i came to that conclusion in the fall of 1975, i had a sabbatical i was 30 years old. i was studying and had an open ended sabbatical to study the city of boston. and at that period of time in 75 was bussing in desegregation, studying the presidential election, was studying education as well. and while i was getting my master's at boston university. it's a beautiful. one afternoon i was walking along commonweal avenue and i

saw that you were speaking at the law school and went over law school and you came up to the front, took off your jacket, you rolled up your and said, hi, i'm jimmy carter, you can call me jimmy. i'm going to be the next president, united states. and that was my introduction to you when the event ended, finished speaking, there was a reception you and jody powell went over to reception. and we spoke we spoke in depth about south africa and what i was struck by was by your curiosity and your listening skills, not just that you didn't hear, but you and you curious and you wanted to know. i had just seen two plays. carl says, we the dead in the island. and both of those people who were in that had won the tony award. and when they went to south africa, a couple of later, they had been arrested and were put in prison and. on one of your press conferences, you actually called for their release from prison,

and it was at that point that i came to see the of your commitment to human rights and to calling for rights. so part of this course is the thanks call. i'm sorry, we need to keep moving. get a lot more callers in south africa. any reflections today? yes, of course. it's been a glorious success with an end to apartheid and also with the fact that now south africa does have a democracy, still a great deal of disparity between rich people and poor people. but white people, black people in south africa today, it's been overcome as a time goes by. in fact, i made a couple of speeches. the first of all, of 2000, the year 2000, when a new dawned on us, i was asked to speak in and scandinavia and in asia. and my subject was what's the greatest challenge that the world faces in this new millennium? and my decision was growing

chasm between people and poor people. and that's still the greatest challenge. and not only a chasm that's increasing every year between rich and poor people in, individual countries, but between the rich nations and the poor nations. and that's overcome slowly in africa. but it was partially as a result of this encounter and others during campaign that i became aware of the fact that as a former president or as a future, that if i might elevate human rights to a high level in government. so by the time i was inaugurated president, i made it that that human rights would be the foundation of our foreign policy. so i want to thank this gentleman for his support, but also for giving me some of the instigation, inspiration to adopt human rights as a major issue 22, the nobel peace prize. yes. and this book that came out of it, which was your speech. how did you write the speech?

well, i was called in an early one morning. i had didn't even know it was a day to announce nobel peace prize winner. and my wife and i would wake up in the bed by. a call from a secret service who said that they had gotten a call from norway and they wanted to talk to me in a half an hour about the nobel peace prize. i didn't know if they were going to have me who wanted or what, but obviously i was upset and so funny. they did called and said i had won a nobel peace prize and it had you ever you had thought of it that you might not i might get it in 1994, when i went to north korea and prevented what i consider a war. and then i went to haiti that same year with sam nunn and colin powell and and thought we might have prevented the war. so i thought if i was ever going to get it made, it would be there. but it was eight years later, and i had forgotten all about. but anyway, i had time to write

the lecture and i read all the previous nobel lectures since 1900, and i wanted to express the i just might be a little bit gauche. i wanted to express the essence of my beliefs and in a very brief lecture. and so i had to my lecture text to the nobel committee in advance. and i also submitted the same exact text to simon schuster, publisher so the day after i made lecture and was given the prize, this book was on sale and all this past week when i've been selling the new book primarily. quite often people will buy 25 or 30 copies of this book, first of all, because it's less expensive than most books, and secondly, because small enough to go out of stock, i guess. so i sell a good seller. newland north, carolina, your next. go ahead. i am so happy to spend sunday afternoon with you present and carter and i still believe that

greatness is in goodness and i want to thank you tell you how grateful i that you have written what you have written for whole world to read and hopefully they'll do that both on our endangered values and now what i've been puzzled about for years. someone of your caliber has spoken out for the palestinians and god bless you for that and i want to tell you in case you don't know that our precious betty ackerman jaffe passed away november 1st and she's loved every time we yours sunday school together and the kids you planted on her cheek was worth more than any go goodbye. thanks, carla mr. president, that's a great question. and i like that.

i'll. the politician. did you remember that woman? well, i can't say for sure. and i couldn't quite understand her name, but i great everyone who comes to our church after they teach sunday school. and then there's an hour church service. and after church service, i everybody individually and and have photographs with them and just special people though do i kiss on the cheek. so she must obviously be precious. los angeles. yes. hi, mr. carter. it's a pleasure speaking with you and great admiration for you ever since you were president. i really am glad that you are trying very hard to bring about peace. i have a question for you. even though i have never read your books, i have to this. i definitely will. regarding the new one, i've noticed many and many people involved in the peace. and very much for the. i really believe in that. but there's blind spot and i

wanted to talk about that. i saw a very disturbing document today about 12 year old girl girls who were talking to writer who was speaking with them and they said a pleasure and how enthusiastically they talked about going to heaven and plot to blow themselves up in the education system in the middle east and throughout palestine. these children are taught hate the --. americans, the israelis, and even the hamas has admitted that they are going to be happy until all the israelis are off the face of the earth. now, when you talk about the and you talk about all those things, it's a bad thing, obviously. but i were living in israel. i wouldn't feel safe. and there's so many people being blown every day. i have cousins in israel and they tell me terrible things and it's a war. all right. and what what the question i have for you is, how do we address the children? how do we address the ignorant poor people there who believe with hamas saying that will never go away and the wall comes

down? i really, really believe that it's not going to change until get to the children. that was my question thank thank you for calling. obviously, any sort of death, any sort of violent acts on either side are a tragedy and concern me very deeply. in the book, which i did not describe now there many more palestinian as killed in palestine itself. israelis in all. and there are some other over 700. of palestinian children that have been killed and 100 and something israeli. but the fact that more palestinians die than israelis is is not important in your mind or even in mind. any death is important, which i really. the fact is that that the actions and beliefs of a father

of hamas have not been described accurately in this country. the prime minister of the of the palestinian national authority, their local government is a man named haniya. and haniya has said that he favors peace talks between. mahmoud abbas, whom they call abu mazen and the prime minister of israel, and hopes those peace talks will commence immediately. as i said earlier, they have it have in peace talks for six years now. and said that if they do reach agreement between the israelis and the palestinians and the palestinians can have a chance to approve that agreement, then hamas will accept the result. so it's not a hopeless case, is a point i'm making. this is not designed at all to excuse the terrorist acts that have place. but nowadays as you can probably know, with rockets that are

fired over the wall around gaza, every every in the last few months that has fallen on a small israeli town, it is a tragedy have been fought over a big wall that's built around gaza. they completely surround gaza. that on a too little doors and they wall through which palestinians sometimes can escape their prison. and it's a tragedy. but the wall doesn't stop rockets and also as you know they are the. the rockets were not stopped when hezbollah tragically launched them against the northern part of israel. so a wall is not designed to stop rocket attacks and so forth between people. and as i pointed out earlier, this wall is not built between palestinian land and israeli land. no place. there's a wall of touch, israel. the wall is entirely inside palestine and the wall is designed as is presently planned

and being built completely inside. palestine not to take to protect the israelis, but to take palestinian land. and all you have to do is look at the map. it's not just in book if you don't want to read my book. but but in periodicals all can look it up on the internet. it shows the the route of the wall. so i deploy sort of violent acts against one or the other. and i would like to see the israeli soldier released. i would like to see just say a couple of hundred other children released out of a lot of a lot more that the israelis are holding. i'd like to see maybe half the women released in exchange for the soldier or maybe even fewer. this kind of things need to be understood and addressed and only, only by having peace talks and a withdrawal. israel from palestinian

territory with modifications to the border can be changed or or can we ever have peace for which is what you and i both want. irving, texas. hello, president carter. it's pleasure to speak with you. i actually have two questions for you. my parents are both in extreme bad health and believe that the government has gone down since he's left office. on. my first question is my father is 77 needs to gotten extremely heart and first question is what what i need to do to get your autograph for him for christmas would make extremely happy. and second why is it so difficult for our government to do the right thing in regard to our senior citizens when it comes to health care and medication? okay. i'll try to answer those

question. i can answer the first one easily. if you send letter to the carter center in atlanta, georgia, that will be for me. then i'll be sure to send your father a personal autograph and, make sure you refer to this program, because on an average, i get about 3000 letters a month and i can't see them all. so people open them for me and make sure you put put. also, i get the letter directly and. i'll send him an autograph. well, obviously the government doesn't enough for, for older people for veterans and even from veterans for veterans coming back from iraq now, i understand there's a delay about 175 days before returning veterans who might be seriously injured can't get approval for full care from the government, including some subsidies for families, income. that kind of thing ought to be

addressed. and as you know, there was a medicare bill passed a couple of years ago that specified easier access for senior citizens with limited means for medicine. and there was a provision in there by the pharmaceutical companies that the government can't bargain for cheaper prices for drugs or you can buy drugs about one half price if you have any way to access the same drugs. exactly from pharmaceutical companies or pharmacies and canada. and but our government has prohibited that negotiation, obviously, with a heavy influence. pharmaceutical companies. another thing that that i should point out is that the better to administer nation does have a law that permits them to bargain for all kinds of medicine and their prices are 35 to 50% as

much as the 100% cost that the pharmaceutical get from the government for medicare. because we can't bargain for price. so those are the kind of things that can changed. so you don't have any problem with americans going across the border to buy? no. if i were, i have plenty money, my books of income and i have income here as a as a professor at emory, i have an adequate income. i can pay for medicine. but if i were in with limited means and i had to have a drug, maybe three pills a day or three pills a week, that was hardly but some of them were. and i could get it half in canada. then i would take the telephone and call and order and that's legal. but but people who get medicare can't get drugs from the same pharmaceutical companies the same price because we prohibit bargaining for on the price. do you get any health care benefits as part of a presidential pension? no, but i benefits from emory university as a professor.

i get a pension from for my service in the white house, the same as all previous presidents. but no no medical but in my professorship at emory, i get a salary and also i get i have a health plan that i help pay for. but yes, i get benefits. and what is the presidential pension amount these days? it's the same as the salary for members of the congress and for cabinet officers, as so their pension is presidents, pensions. next call is san diego. hello. hi, mr. president. it's a pleasure to speak with you. thank. i had two questions for you. the first one is i'm interested in visiting presidential library. could you tell me a little bit about that? and then secondly, what do you think we should do about north korea? i think it's a huge threat to our security, but i'm not really sure that have a grasp of that particular situation. how do you feel about that, sir? okay. well, the presidential is in

atlanta. it's part of the carter center. they're all in the same complex. we have about 30 acres there. and within walking distance of downtown atlanta. in fact, my wife and i jog to downtown atlanta and back. it's about three miles round trip. so just come there and we'd be delighted to have you visit the presidential library. it has about 23 million documents that i had. i was president. it has about 4 million photographs. and news, real tapes and that sort of thing and a very good display of the issues that i faced when i was president. so it's no problem. come. they would be glad to have you. as far as north korea is concerned or as you may remember, you may not. back in 1994, we had a conference with north korea and a war was impending in that kim il sung, the dictator of north korea, whom i had despised because i was on a submarine during the korean war. but he sent me a repeated

request to come to pyongyang to negotiate between him and the united states and the united states then had a policy of not communicating with north koreans, but i finally permission from president clinton. i went to north korea and negotiated with kim. my wife and i did. and we returned to the united states with complete agreement that he would put all his nuclear weapons under international inspection, that the nuclear fuel rods that he had would not be processed into plutonium and make or make explosives, that he would have a summit meeting with the south korean prime minister and a whole bunch of other things, 12 things and all. he confirmed his partial agreements me to president clinton and it was president clinton's policy when the in the last few years of his administration from 1994 until he went out of office for six years when president bush came into office, he reneged.

cancel all those agreements. and as you know, since then north korea has started reprocess those same fuel rods and they've exploded a nuclear device. we think and and i have room for seven others. i think now what to do. i think we ought to have direct talks with the north koreans to sit down across a table with them, with our secretary of state or some official representative the united states and negotiate we as i did in 1994 and as clinton and his staff did after and and reach an agreement, the north koreans let them know what we will do for. them what i know what want i've met with them a few times since they. want an official declaration by the united states that we will not attack north korea militarily so long as north korea has with its neighbors. and they want a declaration that the united will work with north korea to to remove our embargo against their people. have been there more than 50 years and let north korea a normal life. and what want from them is for

them to put their international, put their nuclear program under international control or observation, not produce any more nuclear weapons. and so so that can be done. but refused to do that except under kind of an umbrella hour of six nation talks. and the clear premise is that we will not sit across the table and. nation not a nation with north korea. i this is a mistake. it's the same by the way we have a syria and with iran which i also think is a mistake. but that's a decision for our president to make and commander in chief and i'm sure he has good reasons, which he has explained to the public. so do you think that we should acquiesce to north koreans regarding the issue? and what if you were sitting in the presidential chair right now and were to sign an agreement? we would not bomb any country. could you do that?

well, it depends on what i would say. just blank point. blank. i wouldn't just sign a paper said we will never bomb another country. you know, isn't that what they're asking for, though. i went through four years. we never dropped a bomb on country. we never fired a missile. we never fired a bullet against another country. but i'm not saying that other presidents should do the same thing. and i'm not saying it. i could do the same thing if i was in office now. but what i do think when we have a serious problem, which we have with north korea that are now building atomic weapons with the fuel rods that i negotiated that they would never use, then i think it's time for us to discuss the matter with them and see if they won't agree. we will not process anymore rods. we will not develop any more nuclear explosives. we will let the international inspectors come in and guarantee that we telling the truth in return for which what the north koreans want is a declaration by the united states, we will not attack you military only as long as you remain peaceful with your

neighbors. that seems to be a perfectly legitimate and reasonable request. casagrande, arizona. yes president clinton, i voted you as president and thank for talking to me today. i have an article out of the newspaper that i've got to turn this day that when clinton was in office, you went over to north korea. and then you also went on a trip with madam alba, and you negotiate, dated, and you donated millions and millions of dollars to them. and it was for whom, but it to north korea. uh huh. and it ended up they said, feeding the korean. can you us about that. mr. president, you sound like a

joke in the first place. i've been on a trip like that with madeleine albright. she was president clinton's of state and she go to north korea. after i went and negotiated with the north koreans. and i don't have millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars in fact, i've never given $1 to the north koreans. so don't know who wrote that newspaper article, but it's obviously written someone who's either deliberately misleading readers like you or just doesn't know what the facts are. the email is there any one president that has been more influential to you in your ideas, commitment, in your writings, and as you lead the nation as you the nation? well, i wouldn't say writings. my favorite president in this century and the one one in my lifetime has been harry truman. and harry truman has had more impact my life than any other

particular president. i served under him as a submarine officer. he my commander in chief and i inherited some of his one particularly concerning civil rights. harry truman was a was my preeminent hero on civil rights when i was still in the navy in 1948, i was just a young officer. harry truman ordained over tremendous condemnation that all racial discriminate would be ended in the military service and the submarine force. the navy, army, air force, coast guard and so forth. this was more than ten years, 12 years before rosa parks sat down front of a bus in montgomery before anybody knew who martin luther king junior was, and harry truman was on it. they did it. and obviously later, president johnson was another hero of mine

who signed into law law prohibitions against racial discrimination, the schools and so forth. but harry truman, to ask your question, was the one that had most importance. and so this emailer wants you to look to the future who are you watching? in 2008 democrats watching all of. oh, i don't think that's what they mean. well, i know, but i would say advance. you know whom i prefer, but i don't yet know for whom i will vote, so i wouldn't want to guess. i never have gotten involved among democratic candidates who are running against each other. i'll always the democratic candidate. so. but right now, obviously mrs. clinton is leading the public opinion polls, possibly because of her recognition is greater. but but the thing i'd like to point out is that a year and a half before most elections our republican or democrat, nobody has the slightest who's going to be the next nominee. when i ran for president a year and a half in advance, i remember george had a poll said,

whom do you prefer for president? there were 32 names on it. my name was not on the list. george name was on the list. but water and. and 18 months later, i was elected president. the same thing happened with. michael dukakis. nobody dreamed that michael dukakis, governor of massachusetts, would the nominee for president. nobody dreamed that ahead of time, that that a bill clinton would be nominee or or the successful candidate for president. the only ones that are predictable when you have a vice president as was the case with hubert humphrey under lyndon johnson or with fritz under me then you can pretty well predict what al gore under bill clinton. you can pretty much. then they have best chance to be the nominee. but so i just wouldn't want to guess. do you believe that the country is ready for a woman president? yes, i think so. i think i think the country is now they say that we have had

women presidents and the largest democracies, the world. that is that is india we have visited lately to belgium. honk are also the largest muslim country in the world. had a woman president that is indonesia for the one of the greatest democratic france great britain has had a woman as you know prime minister for many years in this hemisphere we've had not have a woman president just elected in chile. we had a woman who replaced the sandinistas in nicaragua, women have served in the top positions of leadership in countries around the world. we just had a woman elected in a, you know, election that we have president, an election that we held and monitored and west africa and liberia, the first woman president elected in not very. ellen johnson-sirleaf. we were there and help wanted lecturer so the answer to a question is yes i think the united states is at least as enlightened against

discrimination women as, nicaragua or chile or or india or other countries of that name. tucson arizona. hi. good morning. good afternoon. thank you for taking the call. this question for president carter is curious. his relationship with tip o'neill and the congress, you know, leaving georgia and the legislature and also one of his views or when, when or how closely with any former presidents beside president ford. thank you for taking the call. well, i had a relationship with tip o'neill personally when i got to the white house. i had been governor. i dealt with the congress. obviously, it's much more complex for a president to deal with a congress and for me to deal with my legislature in georgia. tip o'neill was helpful to me in many ways for he was committed

to. ted kennedy. when kennedy decided to replace me as a democratic nominee. and so later in my term, i didn't have as close a relationship with the extremely liberal democrat as i did the moderate democrats and the republicans. and so depended heavily on republican support. the house and senate. and so that's maybe the question. but every weeks, regularly, i had breakfast with tip o'neill, worked with him on every possible issue very harmoniously. i admired him very. and and he was a great of the house. and i forgot the other. g uh, any other leaders, any other presidents besides president ford? well, yes, i get along well with the presidents. as a matter of fact, president and i have gotten fairly certainly since he left the white house or he's investigated

thoroughly. what i did in the carter center. and he's creating a wonderful role for himself as a former president, quite different from i do, but that in a very harmonious way. in fact, earlier year, this summer, i went to to new york city during i think it was an or september, october october to to appear with clinton on his annual event that he now has in new york. so i have a very good relationship with him. i was at his dedication of his library, the dedication of all of the libraries for george bush senior and and richard nixon and. ronald reagan. so i have a good relationship with some of my closest and most intimate friend has been gerald ford. he's helped me with a project that the center i've helped him with projects, and he's and it just has happened that we developed a very close personal relationship between the two of us and between his wife betty

and my wife, rosalynn. betty works on drug abuse and alcohol abuse. my wife works on mental illnesses. so they have a lot in common. they even have gone to washington to lobby it together as two former ladies, which was a very effective lobbying team, as you can see. so we have good relationships with former presidents. what's on your bed, stan, right now? what? well, i've been lately the books that that were important in my shaping this one. but since i finished this book, i just read a book called blink malcolm bacharach. and i've gladwell rather. well, i've just read a book called omnivore dilemma. it's about the different chains of food that come down from the farm and the feedlots and pastures to the table, which is a very michael pollan and read the very famous book state of

denial. mr. woodward about mr. woodward and i read the jay curve and i've read oh, that's a couple more i've read. 1% doctrine. ron kind of analysis of the iraqi war. do you read any fiction days? yes, as a matter of fact, i'm not reading of some fiction by a man named james nelson, who's writer who wrote a series of books similar. the one we mentioned earlier about patrick o'brien. that was about the british navy. this is about the american navy during the revolutionary war period. and my my one of my sons who's read the patrick o'brian books, found this series, so he sent it to me and i'm on this trip that i just talked to the new york and washington and to other cities to sell books or get my spare time to read that book. are you still a big fan? yes, i am. i have a good collection of faulkner books, as you probably

noticed in my in my bookshelves and of all of the southern writers, he's by far the best. and obviously i like to read biographies and history as well. next is east haven, connecticut. hello. hello, president carter. thank you for taking my call. my name is joel and i am not jewish. i feel that the -- in the world are hated than any other people. why should the -- who have their own land, the middle east, as almost all arabs except for a sliver of land? why should israel accommodate people who hate them, want their destruction? and that is a fact you make. you know, you tone that down but it is a fact and you do not talk about the fact the -- who live in the rest of the middle east, how they've been treated by the arabs. i'll hang up and listen to your comment. thank you. well, if you want to go back to ancient days. five, 600 years ago or even more

recently, but first, before israel was created as a nation, the muslims have treated -- quite well. they treat christians also as people of the book. and there's a special place in the muslim faith to single out -- and christians, brothers in belief in the same. this was a result of the anointment of god, his covenant. abraham. it's a it's a derived from that. and the muslims. a much closer relationship with -- christians. because the christians were powerful enemies of the muslims and trying to take control of jerusalem during the crusades and very strong in evangelical work that is trying to convert to be christians or to fight them if they didn't. the -- never did that. so in earlier times, the -- were

welcomed and in countries that surround or what we would call the holy, that is a land between the jordan river and the mediterranean sea. and when israel was founded, a nation, there's no doubt that the arabs rose up almost in a unified effort to overthrow the new nation of israel. israel prevailed. the united states and others. subsequent join forces with israel to give israel a powerful military. and there are no remaining arab military forces that would threaten israel. the only possibility is egypt. and as i mentioned earlier, in program, i negotiated a peace agreement with between israel and egypt that has never been violated. when israel was fighting the arabs right after 1948, 49 and prevailed, israel expanded its territory. and when they were attacked or in 1967 in the six-day, israel

occupied much of the territory of the surrounding arabs and and israel was given 77% of all the holy land and 22% went to west bank, 1% to gaza. so israel was given the overwhelming portion of the land between, the jordan river and the mediterranean sea. the palestinians just had a tiny bit in the west bank set 22%. and the fourth is that 22%, though, that the israelis have insisted on colonizing and confiscating and within which the persecution described in my book is described loss. hello. let's secada. yes. i'm a pleasure to meet you. i, you and borders in los angeles. you were selling your book over there and i bought it. i think you are excellent writer and i would like to know one thing. what do you think of most charmer and what's the one on

this subject? i'm sorry, could you repeat could you repeat the question? because neither of us understood you. okay. the question part of, our ask mr.. what? schama and walt sent it to england to be published. we couldn't publish it here and. it was one of the books, and i would like to know what he thought of it. well, i haven't read the whole thing because you say it wasn't published here and i haven't taken the time to call it up on the internet which i presume i could, but i've read it and it's been quite a convert. controversial what they allege it is, there's a powerful and very effective lobbying effort in this country on part of an organization called aipac which is really an american of of israel. and i have no quarrel with the fact i presented with which i'm not thoroughly familiar, but

also have no quarrel with or with any groups. right. this free nation to express their views and to exert their influence and does indeed have a powerful influence. washington and i and i'm sure in even state elections and so forth, there was a major factor when i ran office as president and and when i served as president and still exist. did you receive a lot of money, a pac? i've never received. i never remember receiving any money from a pac but i have to say that when i ran for office in 77, i was running against some very famous people who were deeply committed to israel's rights and scoop jackson was a main one, and he was a darling aipac and deserved to be. and as a matter of fact, had nominated scoop jackson for at the convention in 72. he was a close friend of mine. and when i found and he ran against me in 77 and when was

funny, i got most of the delegates, gave me all his delegates. so i had a good relationship with him. but but the point that whether these professors have had every fact right. not i don't know, since i have not read the entire treatise. but they have a right to express their views and aipac and others has a right as a right as an organization to, use their maximum power. and speaking of views, here's from the incoming speaker of the house who has listened to you on your book tour. and she had this to say. she said, with all due respect to former president carter, he does not speak for the democratic party on israel democrats have been steadfast their support of israel from its birth in part because we recognize to do so is in the national security of the united states. well, as a matter of fact, the incoming speaker made, that comment before my book was ever put out before your book. okay. and she was referring to the title of the book. oh, that's all she knew. and what nancy didn't realize was that the book not about

what's happening in israel at all, not a single sentence in it refers to what's happening in israel. what's what the book refers to is not israel, but what the title says it is. and that is palestine, which is not israel. it's a land of the palestinians and it refers. can you divide two? well, they are divided legally and through everything that we will head there divided by the united nations. but was established that about divided by all the official of every administration in this country that has served every president that served since israel was as a nation. they were divided by agreement that israel is negotiated and honored at camp david. with me and later with the norwegians with oslo. and those agreements israel to withdraw from palestine territory were confirmed by the israeli parliament and the cabinet the official documents that are still there. so it i didn't divide them. they've been divided for years.

and by the way, they also are divided by. the international quartet, which has developed the so-called road map for peace, which is, you know, is strongly endorsed by president bush and in the introduction is quoted in my book, it was given because the united states and the united nations and the european union and russia comprise that quartet. and kofi annan read the which said that israel would withdraw from occupied territories. so the basis for the quartet policy on road map for peace adopts the same boundaries established in 1967. so no argument about the international boundaries and the word apartheid apartheid doesn't refer to in israel because israel is a wonderful democracy, which i acknowledge which i visited many times, and where there is absolute equality legally between arabs who live

in and -- who live in israel. this book is about palestine. fairfax, virginia. you know, the question of mr. carter just referred that muslims treated all minorities as well. and i'm india and as far as i know there used to be dizzy attacks on all the minorities they had to survive by paying poll tax kind of thing. and even today in any muslim country if i'm even saying that i'm a muslim and all i want to change faith from islam to christianity or any of my i will be my law i will be killed, actually. so and i don't see any any reaction from you about this kind of by arabs and muslims

over the world actually. mr. carter. yes, well, i don't mean to say that muslim straight --, christians, the same as they do trade muslims, because obviously in countries like saudi arabia or two proselytize or try to change a muslim into a christian, a -- is a crime and is totally prohibited. no, no, it's all in all. let me finish. if you'll let me finish, then you can. in. and in india, i've just come from india. as a matter of fact. and india is against the law. many places, too, to try to convert a hindu to a different religion. and i and i recognize, the nation's right to have those kind of policies. i deplore them. and i and i condemn them in country. it's not against the law to if you're a christian, to be converted to a muslim or vice versa, or if you are due to be converted to a christian or vice versa, that's okay. but i certainly wouldn't allege

that in or where they have some muslims, mostly hindus or in saudi arabia or in sudan, where i spend a lot of time that christians are treated same or -- are treated the same. obviously they are not. and any persecution, any person in the world because of their religious faith, in my opinion, is a direct violation of human rights, which i condemn. phenix, arizona downright violates the human rights i'm sorry, color can't understand you. could you try again? thank you, president, for taking call. yes, sure, you can try. thank you president, for taking my call. i'm glad. actually, i'm an asylee from the time i stayed in nepal for years. finally came protests two years back. is. i'm sorry. caller i'm going to you're going to have to ask you a question

you don't understand. i've been to nepal and we programs that unfortunately what it is is he has his volume on his television set. we're going to put him on hold and see if we can get him to take that down so that we can hear him better. let's go to cordova, alaska. hello. thank you. cordova call. thank you. can you hear me? yes, i hear you very clearly. great. well thank goodness for c-span and thank goodness for jimmy carter. i hate to change the subject because it is extremely fascinating what you're talking about. but i want i come from a state that has the heavy hand, both good and bad of the oil companies and i would like to hear carter's views. national energy policy, because i can't help but think if we had turned down our thermostat as he requested when he was president to 65, that we would not be in

iraq killing people for oil. what do you think, mr. carter? i appreciate the question. when i became president, we were with terrible problems concerning energy. when i was governor, nixon was in office and opec had just been formed. opec was declaring embargo against the united states because of our relationship with israel. and while i was governor, i saw the long gas lines and so forth and i was determined when i got to be president to try to do something about it. and i spent four years working on it to try to every possible way to conserve energy, but also to develop replaceable, a renewal forms of energy from the sun, indirectly and so forth. well, what i did and we were very successful as a matter of fact, when i became president, we were we were importing about nine millions of barrels of all every day, which i thought was excessive. so ultimately, because of the

programs that i was able to implement, we got down after about five years after i left office, three years after i left office to 5 million barrels a day. that was just about cutting it in half. now we are importing 12 millions of barrels a day. so to summarize from nine down to five and back up to 12, and that puts us in a position of subservience that's maybe too strong a word, it puts us in a position of having foreign policies heavily shaped by our eagerness, our dependance on foreign oil and. some of this all comes from people who just don't agree with us on anything. one of them, the most highly publicized, maybe venezuela, nigeria, which is a very corrupt government of saudi arabia and other gulf states. i did not name them all, but obviously it puts us in a position of their having very heavy influence on the policies of the united states, which i think is a tragedy. they they can also threaten to cut off oil to us again, as they

did under president nixon, that that could bring about serious economic tragedy, our country. the other thing, domestic oil companies. there's no doubt that in the last six years they are domestic oil companies because of the intimate relationship that the vice president, particular has had with oil companies and others that need not mention the oil companies have had a major role in shaping the policies of our government concerning energy. they have not wanted to have of automobiles. and, for instance. and so the efficiency of automobiles manufactured america are much less than automobiles used in other parts of the world. and this has really been one of the causes, in my opinion, of the near bankruptcy. ford and and general motors, who produce american cars because they've been under the umbrella

of can produce hummers that gobble gasoline. you don't have to comply with efficiency standards. so i think it's a very serious problem when we don't impose very strict conservation measures. as i did when i was the white house on automobiles, on trucks, on home insulation, on the efficiency of our electric motors and refrigerators and stoves and the utilization of of solar power or and other things other than oil. did you use electricity? do you feel you've gotten a raw deal from a i guess the short term historians about on energy policies of your administration. well, i very seldom refer to it any more because it it fares well in comparison and they can't deny the figures that i just gave. i mean they official figures of the government, but i had to do a lot of very controversial things to get this done because i in all american automobile

manufacturers to the white house at that time, there were five of them. most of them have not survived. and i told them that that i was going to impose a legislation on them i didn't have authority as president that would mandate greater efficiency of automobiles when i was inaugurated. the average gas mileage in a car was 12 miles per gallon. that was the average for the entire fleet of automobiles. and we sat in law that it would increase very rapidly to 28 and a half miles per gallon. and the congress passed this law. there were a couple of loopholes in it. and i have to say that when i went out of office my successors in office him up need not name right now use some of those loopholes and the efficiency of american automobile didn't go up as rapidly as i hoped. and now there lot of loopholes in, conserving suvs, the weight of automobiles and that sort of thing. but yeah, i feel proud what i

did and and the early criticism of my very strict energy policy is i think you're pretty well down the way. what one more question on energy. with your background as a reader and your background in nuclear, do you support nuclear expanded use of nuclear power? absolutely i do and always have. i've been involved in the early design of the very. first nuclear plant to produce any kind of power. sometimes they would only a light up a few light bulbs. later they became, as you know, producers off of a good bit of our power and other nations have gone into nuclear power with with no danger to the people around them. france japan many others they have been a few accidents. we had an accident at three mile island, as you remember, in terms only when i was president, nobody was nobody was killed. although there were a lot of horrible threats written in the washington post and so forth. the next, my wife and i went to

three mile island and we went the control room with tv cameras just to reassure frightened americans that it was okay and. after that, i appointed a committee headed by america, one of the strictest men i've ever known in my life. and they they prescribed even stricter rules on the monitoring of of, you might say, electric power to have safety precautions. so, yeah, it's perfectly safe. hickory, pennsylvania, hello. how are you doing? my is for femara. for my family. i'm a senior vice for the disabled american veterans organization and i feel a lot of veterans have been discriminated. a lot of veterans from vietnam, especially, been put in jail because of drug problems and stuff that they that occurred from being in vietnam. and they're not were never properly treated.

also, i been trying to figure out why veterans have to pay these co-payments and all this other stuff. i thought when we served our we earned our benefits we could get. what's your question? what's your question? caller well, i want to know why occurred, you know, what veterans could do, but just because i see a lot of waste the va system where you have duplicated services and not only in the va system but a lot of departments and in government. okay. thank you very actually, the question earlier, i think that i have been there, have been a lot of have comments made about this. i just a speech that moyers made, i think, at harvard university at west point and, one of the sections of his speech was concerning the mistreatment of by the president administration and how quickly

veterans could get benefits and how many of their families couldn't get pension until long delays and things of that kind. and i and i deplore that very much and i think one of the best ways to address it is for all the veterans administrations organizations, disabled american veterans and and and others to combine your efforts and to let your members of congress know or send delegations to washington to speak for the veterans affairs when i became president, because at that time, if you're a vietnam veteran, you know that vietnam were were not heroes. they were looked upon as foolish because they had volunteered to, go to vietnam and fight when they didn't need to go in war was condemned and so forth. well, my son, my oldest son went to vietnam and i was very proud of him because of it. but but i knew that the veteran's administration then was not the veterans fairly. so i appointed a vietnam

veteran, a triple amputee named max cleland, to be the director of veterans affairs. and he understood the plight and the need and the neglect of including vietnam veterans. and he brought tremendous reforms to the veterans administration. well that and and i elevated him by the way to a full cabinet post that has now been changed. so in many ways there is a kind of a quiet desire on some type not to acknowledge how costly the iraqi war has been and to kind of not publicize. how many wounded veterans they are physically and mentally, and to keep it kind under wraps. and, you know, the ribbon, i think a law now certainly a directive that no caskets coming

back into the dover dover, maryland dover, delaware can be photographed. and then you rarely see any news of of a veteran being buried. so i think that this is a new era in our country. all the needs of veterans and the plight of veterans and sometimes neglect of veterans is not adequate attention. and i hope because of your comment and maybe this c-span interview and maybe speeches like bill moyers made at west point and just recently as matter of fact, these kind of things will be corrected. an email or ask. we remember fondly reading material written by mattie stepanek, and we understand that you were a hero of his. if you would please talk a bit about mattie, including how his mother has been doing since

passing. well, his mother is getting older, i think, fairly well, although has the same disease that they caused and all of his siblings to die at an early age mattie was just about between 12 and 13 when he died. oh, he was hero as well. i spoke at his funeral i made the main speech at his funeral of, and i said then that i had met leaders around the world i had met famous scientists. i had met nobel laureates. i met famous writers and poets and the most extraordinary human being that i ever met in my life was madison planet, whom i got to know when he was about years old. he was a poet he was a philosopher. he was dedicated to peace. he was extraordinary writer. i was partner with him and in

his last book, just peace, he had a planet, that book together when he was still alive and he left detail instructions with his mother. and with me that after he was dead, he wanted this book published. he wanted me to write the foreword to the book. and he wanted me to write what he called an afterword, which was looking to the future after he died. and he exemplified my opinion the highest possible of moral and every other kind of value of a human being. okemah, michigan. yes, president carter, it's an honor to speak with you and thank i want you to know, i voted republican all my life, except i voted for you. i've never regretted that choice. all right. thank you. here's my question. in a democracy.

it we need a very strong free press and how what is your view on large multinational corporations that own most of our news organizations today? how can the press be free from its master when they spend so much money to influence politics? and today, i think the israeli-palestinian this conflict is a good example of it's always broadcast as a once story in the united states. thank you for my question. thank you. well, i would guess that the of the news media are adequately of. they certainly are influenced by public and they quite often are influenced the owners and publishers of the periodicals or magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and increasingly as you say, they are owned by the same people and this causes me

concern. most are pretty well discussed on both sides. one issue that's not discussed on both sides is the one that i address in this book, and that is what's happening in palestine and what is the only avenue for israelis to have peace in their own territory. i think the best newspaper in the world is the new york times. the the new york times, the washington post, the l.a. times. so in almost of the periodicals, as you say, habitually give one side to the issue. i mentioned earlier the most highly publicized prisoner in the middle is as a one soldier that was captured by the palestinians when they dug a tunnel under the wall and, captured an israeli soldier and brought him in. oh, you won't read anywhere in an objective way that that this

compares to 9200. so prisoners that the israelis are holding including about 100 women and 300 children. some of as young as 12 years old. so it's a subject that needs to be understood and debated and the reason for this bus and this closure opportunity for i would say eager americans citizens citizens to know both. i can't explain those reasons. but your question certainly pertinent and and a partial answer to what can done is to read this book. i'm not just trying to sell books, but if wants to know the facts undisputed about what's going on in in the middle east or palestine peace, not

apartheid. israel has a fact in reading over some of the reviews of all of these books over the years. some reviewers have taken you on quite quite strongly. 1987, jonathan yardley, who's written who's criticized book several times, was talking about everything to gain. he said it was a stuffy self-righteous book, even, you mean. well, and we are both and respectful of you. it remains that everything is to gain is no more to offer than any levelheaded article in a supermarket magazine. how do you deal with the of your writing as we're sitting here this room. the writing product. well, it used to hurt when i read negative reviews like this from dopey reviewers. i don't know him, but i presume he's not quite a bad, you know, objective. some of them make it clear in their views that they despised

me as a politician of something i liked like that. i mean, they they express bias in their view. others don't. and the worst review i had about porter book was from the washington post who liked, who scoffed at the poet poem in there of rosalynn, my. it turned out in balance of all the hundreds of reviews that i got, the favorite poem was the same one about rosen and so you have to roll the punches. and i would say that over a time i've become about as immune to the criticisms of as i as i was when was a candidate. and, you know, people didn't like the prospect that i might be senator or governor or president. staying with the poetry, there was is another poet that you are very that you like very much.

dylan thomas. who's that? well, it's miller williams. miller williams is. it was a poet of the year. i've forgotten exactly what he wrote in the nineties. he gave the inaugural poem when bill clinton was inaugurated the second time he's from arkansas. a personal friend of mine, and he came here to plains, georgia, one night to in a cafe to read some of his poems. and i sat with him during meal and i told him i had written some amateurish poems. and he said, how would you like to write some more adequate poems? i said, i'd like it very much. he said, well, would you be willing to go to the discipline of art, of a rapid college course, a course on porter writing? i said, yes. so he organized it well, another one or two poets at the university of arkansas they put me through a terrible discipline

and and sometimes scoffing at my efforts. the only rule i had was that they couldn't write a single word in a single line of my poems. so i would send my early versions to them and. they would take great pleasure in criticizing what i had written. did it help your writing? oh, yeah, virtually. i wrote poems. i'm very proud of the poems, my book. and as i say, the book's been a good seller and ultimately got good reviews. he wrote a poem for you when you moved back to plains, georgia, as you well know, for president jimmy carter on his homecoming was the name of the poem and part of it says this they have begun to recognize and measure how carefully you watch the hours strike into the future where we and die how carefully you were responsible and seemed of course to be astonished a world outrageous in its vanity world unsurprised by greed so terrible it would desire complete catastrophe. that is the, is the world still

outrageous in its vanity? and do you agree? well, there are elements, the world that still is plagued vanity or our superiority or the derogation of people who are different, which leads to scorn and, criticisms, abuse and in extreme cases to depriving the people of a right to live and vanity is one of the causes of, this attitude toward life, which it obviously to the basic beliefs of every religion on earth and every ethic ethic. i mean ethic, standard earth. so it was quite generous in his poem. he didn't i didn't i didn't know miller williams when i when i was elected presidents. james dickey, another southern poet, wrote a poem for my inauguration. so i've been influenced. i should have mentioned dickey

is another one of my poems, but i've retained a correspondence with miller williams, who, after i left the white house, he became the publisher of books, the university of arkansas press. so now when when my books and hardcover go out of print, we try to get the rights transfer to the university of arkansas press and continue my books out in paperback indefinitely. so now all promise that to you write that he will keep all your books print. he's not long the publisher of my successor done that. so when i when i got ready to write this book about palestine obviously i knew that i would do some things out of out of the older book that i written, the blood of abraham. so i had to i had to let the publisher of a university press know that i would give them for it. and also, i promised, as a quid pro quo, that i would write a new afterword, the paperback version of of blood of