>> beginning at 930 10 a.m. eastern tomorrow morning on c-span2, we bring you live

coverage of president carter's funeral service from national washington cathedral. next, from the c-span archives, 20 11 interview with president carter where he talks about his presidency, his political campaign, and his time after leaving the white house. mr. johnson: good evening, everybody. my name is tom johnson. i'm a friend of the lbj family. 16 years ago, the first harry middleton lecture took place in this auditorium. the next day, lady bird johnson, who had established the lectureship to honor the man who was then library director, wrote to him to express her pride and her gratification that the event

had been -- and these were her words -- a watershed day in the life of the lbj library. she was moved by what she felt was the chemistry that the speaker had created between himself and his audience. which was heavily composed that day by students. contrary to the fog of cynicism and gloom we have seen as a country, to have been wrapped in for some time, she wrote, the atmosphere, the chemistry of that it was so upbeat and soulful. to speaker that day, the creator of that chemistry, was president jimmy carter. president carter returned to this library a few years later in another unforgettable appearance. he and president gerald ford, once foes in a political war

that they had waged, met on this stage and exchanged a very common discourse with the disposition to seek common ground on the issues that were confronting this nation. it was a display of the american political system at its very finest. no one who is here that day will ever forget it. and how we so need that civility and that respect for each other in the politics of today. so it is a great honor for us to welcome this splendid man back here once again. i say it from the memory of the

very rich distinctions that he has already conferred on this library and the school by his visits. 39th president of the united ize for peace, a tireless global traveler for the cause of justice, the provider of homes for the homeless, a man who made lady bird johnson proud of the lectureship she created in the name of harry middleton. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome president jimmy carter. [applause] pres. carter: thank you very much.

thank you. mr. johnson: [inaudible] is the new director of the lgb library, not so new anymore but a person we are delighted to have in that position, certainly a worthy successor to harry middleton. welcome mark updegrove. [applause]

mr. updegrove: thank you so much for being here, mr. president. we are delighted to have you back. you come at a very for two at this time in the sense that all of our minds are on what is going on in the middle east right now. there is no one u.s. president morsi o'shea did with the middle east than you. you of course brokered the historic 1978 peace accord between israel and egypt. i wonder if you could talk a little about how you view the situation currently. pres. carter: thank you. good to be here again and be in a library of a man who helped shape my life and for whom i have the greatest admiration and appreciation. when i was governor, and after lyndon johnson left office, i wrote him a personal handwritten letter, i don't know if you still have it or not but if you don't you might want to look it up. i don't imagine they threw it away, when i am not sure about that. [laughter] but if you find it, i would like a copy of it because i handwrote

it. i think the middle east is still the intention box for the whole world. i say that recognizing that there are other places that are threatening to erupt. and i include the middle east in its totality, all the way in including lebanon of course, but also pakistan. when i think what he referred to primarily is between israel and its neighbors. and when i became president in the ancient days, there was no effort for me to begin trying to negotiate for peace. nobody put pressure on me. there was nothing going on. there had been four major wars in just a previous 25 years. all of them lead on the arab side by egypt who was then in bed with the soviet union and all of egypt's military capabilities including 12,000 advisors were from russia. and of course we were supporting israel.

so when i became president i wanted to try to bring peace to the holy land, about which i taught in my sunday school class that was 18 years old. so i began to met with the major leaguers. the finest person i ever met who was a foreign leader was in war siddat. because of his generosity, we were able to get an agreement between israel and egypt in 1978, that israel would withdraw from the occupied territories and give the palestinians full autonomy and let them run their own affairs. six months later after intense negotiations, we had a peace treaty between israel and egypt into april 1979, not a word of which by the way has ever been violated. after i left office in january, involuntarily retired by the election results of 1980, we were still close friends. i would visit him in egypt and his wife and my wife are friends and even our great grandchildren were friends.

we were very close to each other. in october 8 of that year sadat was assassinated. the vice president immediately took office and he was the anointed successor. since then for 30 years or so, he has chosen not to have a vice president. although he started out as a very enlightened leader following in sadat's footsteps, -- siddat footsteps, after a while he became so infatuated with powerful and his family got more and more powerful in addition to him, and they became very rich and investing in moneymaking schemes in egypt that he decided not to let anybody challenge him for president. so, for 30 years you might say they had no elements of democracy or freedom and became increasingly abusive. then of course came the

demonstrations in tunisia that were successful, and then they began about three weeks ago, i think yesterday, in egypt. not organized by any particular group, not the muslim brotherhood or anyone else, because all the political parties had been kept out of existence. but they grew and eventually he was forced to leave. i do not know what is going to happen now. the carter center has been deeply involved in internal affairs in israel and the west bank and gaza and also see her he as well as egypt. for a number of years. we have full-time offices inis. i have been negotiating primarily with a man who was chosen to weeks ago to be his vice president which he had never had before. he was head of the intelligence services for egypt. when i went to the middle east, which i do several times a year, i always try to have lunch with him because he knows more about the middle east than anyone

else. he did because he has intelligence capabilities in every country there, including spies and others. so what is going to happen now, i don't know. but i hope you all realize the effort by the united states to bring peace between israel and its neighbors is completely at a stalemate. nothing has happened. and that is not an exaggeration. it is completely dead in the water. because what president obama demanded and egypt and cairo shortly after being inaugurated by ending the settlements was completely ignored by the israelis, they are building settlements now in palestine, except for god's of course, and nothing has -- for gaza of course, and nothing has happened. i think in the future we will

see more flexibility in dealing with peace in israel and his neighbors. the carter center will be involved as much as possible in helping to orchestrate another successful election in egypt, which will be their first one since his death. i will be sending a delegation over there to meet with military leaders and the opposition to see how we can help them formulate a new constitution, and also to have successful elections probably next september. that may be more than you wanted to know about it. mr. updegrove: i don't think we know enough yet. the egyptian military currently holds power in egypt. and they said that they would yield to the democratic process. can we trust that the junta, will, in fact, make good on their promise?

they have deep economic interests in egypt and, ostensibly, an interest in protecting the status quo. what are your views on that? pres. carter: as you know, when mubari decided to step down, he said that suleiman would take over, he was in bed with mubarak. and that was not satisfactory to the freedom demonstrators, so they refused. and the military has been very congenial and helpful to the demonstrators in tahrir square and other places. and they protected them against the very abusive police and others. and so i think that many of the young people had confidence in the military in generic terms to protect them. there was -- there is a junta, or a conference that the military has now. they had only met twice in history, and now i think they've met four or five times since mubarak left office. and it was their meeting together after mubarak said he

would stay in office, and they passed word to mubarak, you have to step down, and he did what the military told him. as a matter of fact, the military have been in power for more than 50 years, so that was a product of the military. so the military will be in charge of egypt's security and a lot of other factors in egypt in the future. my guess is that the military leaders don't want to give up their political influence or power, but they have seen what the demonstrators have done, and i think the demands of the demonstrators will not permit the military to keep charge of the political situation. they'll still be in charge of military, they'll still have a lot of financial investments in the various aspects of egyptian life, but i don't have any doubt that the demonstrators will not accept anything except honest and fair and open elections with

the formation of political parties permitted for the first time, and maybe a competitive election both for the parliament of egypt and, also, for the presidency. as you know, yesterday, i believe, the military junta dissolved the parliament which was elected under mubarak's leadership without any real opposition except for his own political party. so i believe there's a good chance now that the military, despite the fact that they would rather stay in power, will give up political power, that is, with honest elections and freedom for the people the rest of this year. mr. updegrove: mr. president, how should we view the muslim brotherhood? pres. carter: i have known members of the muslim brotherhood because when i go to egypt and other places, i try to meet with all the political people. and they have played a small role -- they are well organized. they have ties to hezbollah in lebanon and also to hamas, whose headquarters are in syria and damascus, but who also have ties with gaza, they control gaza. i think that the muslim brother hood are not anything to be afraid of in the upcoming political situation or evolution that i see as most likely, because they will be subsumed in

the overwhelming demonstration of desire for freedom and true democracy. and i would say a secular or nonreligious government that we saw in the demonstrations in the last three weeks. and although the muslim brotherhood might put together a party, public opinion polls that i have seen show that only about 15% of egyptians would support the muslim brotherhood. so they'll be one of many parties to run, and i don't think there's any likelihood at all of them prevailing and establishing sharia or islamic law that would prevent the demonstrators' desire for peace and freedom to be realized. mr. updegrove: there's clearly been a domino effect in the middle east, principally through social media. i'm wondering, what should the u.s.' role be now? how do we balance our security and financial interests with our role in fostering democracy in that part of the world? pres. carter: well, we've come a long way in recent years, and although we have been very close to mubarak, and we've been close

to other dictators in the middle east that don't permit any kind of freedoms as we cherish them, we used to have the same arrangement in south america. for instance, when i became president, the previous presidents including president johnson and others, had been very close to the dictators in south america. most of the countries in south america were military dictatorships. and our business community in america formed partnerships to make sure they got first choice at iron and steel and buxite and pineapples and bananas and

anything that might be attractive coming out of south america. what our business and political leaders on both sides in the congress and in the white house wanted was to have stability. and stability is quite often incompatible with freedom. so whenever any demonstrators like the ones we saw in tunisia and egypt began to rise up in south america, we would say they're communist, they're all communists, and we've got to stamp them out because they might be a threat to us, and we would even send in the marines and army to back up the dictators in holding down any kind of freedom fighters. and a lot of them were

indigenous indians and just poor people looking for better lives. that changed, and i was part of that change when i became president. and by within five years after i left the white house, every country in south america had become a democracy, and they still are, by the way. although some are not quite friendly with us like, for instance, say, venezuela. but anyway, they're democracies. so, i think that this will be a signal to the united states that like we did in south america, to start doing the same thing in the middle east area, particularly in the arab countries and permit freedom of -- increasing freedom of elections. some countries, like jordan which we visit regularly, have something of an election for parliamentary members. and the three elections that we have monitored in palestine in the west bank and gaza and east jerusalem have been completely open, free, democratic and safe. so it's almost a pure democracy although they are not in existence right at this moment. and we had a very good election in lebanon this past april. i was there, and the carter center monitored that election as well.

so i think that there's some kind of brick in the ground work even in some of the arab countries with control from the center of opening up, and i think the united states will be much more cautious in the future of taking sides overtly or openly with the military dictatorships including arab friends who are -- leaders who are friends if there is an honest exhibition of desire for more democracy. even in saudi arabia there have been 10 leaders, most of them professors, by the way, who have formed the political party. that's as far as they've gotten. they've asked the king to approve their party. and i'm sure that if king abdullah says no, then they will disband immediately. but there are glimpses of what freedom means now, and i would guess that in yemen, might be the next crucial area. bahrain.

they had pretty large demonstrations. syria is fairly stable. they have a young, fairly progressive president who inherited the office from his father. but i think that the united states in the future will be much more amenable to democracy taking over even in the arab countries where their leaders are our close friends. mr. updegrove: what about iran, mr. president? we've seen there that there's been a severe reaction against the opposition among the leadership, significantly different than egypt. what do you think will transpire there in the coming days? pres. carter: you remember about eight or nine years ago, there was an honest and fair election in iran and a very moderate president was elected. and he served until netanyahu became president. probably netanyahu was elected fairly the first time when he took office, but then in this last election there's great doubts about whether it was an honest election. the ultimate power in iran is, obviously, religious. the ayatollah in iran makes the ultimate decisions, even vetoing what netanyahu, the elected president, says he would like to do on many occasions.

so i don't really see any prospect at this time as much as we would like to see it of a president being elected that's not approved directly by the religious leaders. as a matter of fact, even in previous elections that i just described in a fairly complementary way, the ayatollah and his religious leaders, they can decide if a candidate can run or not run for the parliament and for president. so they have veto power over any candidate. so they make a very good, careful screening process to make sure no radicals would be elected who might be a danger to the present sharia law and leadership of the ayatollahs.

mr. updegrove: how has president obama done handling the middle eastern situation? pres. carter: i think he's done quite well the last three weeks in handling the egyptian situation. at first, he and the secretary of state and the vice president were saying that mubarak was our friend, that we needed to have stability, and that someday there might be a change there, and we trusted mubarak to make the changes. that was the first series of statements made by the president and all of his subordinates. but as the times changed from one week to another, they became more and more supportive of the dissidents who were demonstrating against mubarak and then, finally, the president announced that he wanted to see the changes made to a democracy and freedom now. and that's when mubarak responded very angrily that he

wouldn't respond to outside pressure. so, i would say that in general that obama has handled egypt very well, about the same way i would have handled it the same way if i were in office. [laughter] i probably would have been loyal to mubarak from the beginning because the united states doesn't want to send signals to all our friends in the middle east that we will abandon you the first time demonstrators go public. and so, we had to show our friends and allies in saudi arabia and other places that we will back you as long as you meet minimal standards on freedom and democracy. but once it became clear that mubarak would not do so, then we did the right thing in giving our support completely to the revolutionaries. and i would say that they didn't

want american support or need it because they didn't want to be branded, accurately, by the allegation that they were being controlled from washington. they wanted the world to know that it was a self-originating effort for freedom, and they didn't depend on washington to let them be successful. mr. updegrove: more broadly, mr. president, how do you think obama has done since stepping into office in january 2009? pres. carter: oh, i think he's done the best he could in domestic affairs. dealing with problems that president johnson and i and none of the predecessors of obama ever had to face. that is, a completely polarized nation and a completely polarized congress. you have to remember that the major things that obama advocated when he came in office after he promised them in his campaign, sometimes on those major issues, that the

republicans had supported earlier, he couldn't get a single vote among republicans in the house or senate. so they made a determination at the beginning, the republicans did, that they wouldn't support obama on anything. i think after the election in november during the so-called lame duck conference, session, they moderated their position a little bit, but he was faced with opposition in the congress that i never experienced. in fact, my main challenge in the congress when i was president was the liberal democrats. [laughter] because after the first year i was in office, ted kennedy decided to run for president against me, and he garnered a lot of support from the more liberal democrats, so i had to turn to the conservative democrats and the moderate republicans to help me, and that's why we were successful. and, in fact, nobody in this last 50 years has been more successful in congress than i was except one, and that was lyndon johnson, as you all know. so i would say on domestic

affairs he's done the best he could, and he's prevailed on a number of issues for which he hasn't got much credit. as far as the middle east is concerned, i was very pleased when president obama made his speech in cairo calling for an end to the settlements, because i and almost all obama's predecessors until recently have said that every settlement built in palestine was both illegal and an obstacle to peace. and when he made his speech in cairo, he said all the settlements had to cease. but under great pressure, which i have experienced myself both before i was president, before i graduated from the presidency and after i left, i know what that pressure can be. and so he's completely backed down. and he's now more recently been more accommodating to the demands of netanyahu and the israelis even than george w. bush was. as a matter of fact, a few months ago the obama administration spokesperson was hillary clinton, made an offer to the israelis of things that no previous president had ever offered them just if they would stop building settlements for

three months. and netanyahu turned him down. and so, as a result of that, i think president obama has basically given up on peace in the middle east. so we don't have anything going on now as far as bringing peace between israel and the the palestinians, or concern over israel and the syrians or between israel and lebanon. nothing's going on. and in the past number of months when omar suleiman who was mubarak's vice president was negotiating between one group of palestinians, fatah and hamas, to bring them together with a reconciliation so they could have another election, the united states basically vetoed that whole process because israel preferred that they not be reunited. so, i don't have any feeling of success in what president obama has done in the middle east. i'm not here to criticize him, but you asked me, and i've told you the truth. my hope is, as i said in passing earlier, that the shake-up in egypt and the potential shake-up

in other countries will cause some new flexibility, at least in addressing the issues with the entire international community agrees, that israel should withdraw from the west bank and east jerusalem except to modify the borders where the main settlements are, and that the palestinians should be given the right to have their own elections and choose their own people, and that palestine and israel should live in peace and harmony with a two-state solution. the impending threat now is a one-state solution, which means just one israel all the way between the jordan river and the

mediterranean sea. and at this moment, jews are in the minority. there's a majority of non-jews living in that one state right now. israelis still have the more number of votes because many of the arabs, a lot of christians and muslims, are not yet old enough to vote. but it's obvious in the future there'll be a majority living that one state who are not jews. so israel will have to make a choice then of persecuting the palestinians so they can't vote, or permitting a vote where the jews might be in the minority, where they would no longer have

control of the whole government. and that's something that nobody wants. so what we want is a two-state solution with israel living in its present country with modification of the borders, and the palestinians living in their country alongside, both deeply committed with international supervision, to live in peace with each other. mr. updegrove: mr. president, you mentioned something that bears repeating, and that is that you had the best legislative battle average among modern presidents with the exception of lyndon johnson. pres. carter: yes. mr. updegrove: you also talked about the divisions in washington. pres. carter: yes. mr. updegrove: can they be repaired, in your view? and if so, how? pres. carter: i don't know. i think one encouraging factor that you might be surprised at this is the taking over of the

house of representatives by the republicans. because, i'm speaking as a completely objective democrat. [laughter] in the last two years, in my opinion, the republicans have been completely irresponsible because they didn't have any responsibility. in the white house, the senate, or the house. and now they do have a major part of the political responsibility. that is how they run the house of representatives. so i see in in the future maybe when there are serious disagreements that obama will make his proposal, it'll go to the house of representatives, they will vote it down or amend it, and then it'll go the senate. maybe it will be a stalemate because of the very frequent filibuster rules, as you know. and then obama can take his position the public of the united states and say this is specifically what i advocate in the field of welfare, health, or education, or budgets, or

military, whatever, and this is what i think is right, and this is what the majority of senators say is right, and this is a specific position that the republicans in the house take. so let the public make a choice, do you approve -- do you agree with me or agree with them? it'll be a new era in the obama administration in presenting two opposing views where both sides have some responsibility. i don't know if you follow me or not. it's kind of complicated. but i think that's what is likely to happen in the future. so i think we'll see more cooperation in the next two years on key issues than we've seen the first two years except for the lame duck session. mr. updegrove: mr. president, the image behind us is, as you pointed out, from the 1976 “time” man of the year cover, a rendering of you by jamie.

and about half of our audience is students here, all of whom were likely not born until after you stepped down from office. pres. carter: much later. [laughter] mr. updegrove: you talk in your most recent book, “white house diary,” you talk about the impossibility of you becoming president in 1976. can you talk a little bit about that race and how you eventually got the nomination and, ultimately, the presidency itself? a, andcarter: well, i was just there hadn't been any person from the deep south -- i'm including lyndon johnson not being from the deep south -- there hadn't been anybody from the deep south since the 1840's. because of the race issue, primarily. because we were looked upon as the primary preservers of

separate but equal, or racial segregation. and our top leaders in the congress and in governorships and so forth were all determined to preserve racial segregation. and so there was a stigma on the deep south that was very deep. because lyndon johnson became president and because he passed the voting rights act and the civil rights act of 1964, it liberated me to overcome that stigma, potentially. and i saw that as an opening, a very small opening that i might fill. so i began to campaign when i left the governor's mansion. and i didn't have any money. and almost all of the democratic party leaders, i don't know of any exceptions, were for some of the nine or 10 candidates running against me. including lloyd benson from texas, as you remember. so i didn't have much of a chance. i campaigned by myself with just one assistant, jodi powell, who later became my press secretary. we never stayed in a hotel or

motel. we couldn't afford it. none of the people that worked for me in the campaign were permitted to stay in a motel unless they paid their own way, and when we went into a town, we would try to find somebody to let us spend the night with them, and i would have to stay up all night listening to their stories or questions. [laughter] but we made an impact, and so when we left, they supported us. so i was kind of -- i hate to say this in a way, but i was kind of like the tea party has

been in the last year, because the people who supported me were so fed up with washington that they were looking for somebody to represent non-washington politics. and we were in the aftermath of the vietnam war, we were in the aftermath of watergate, we were in the aftermath of the assassination of bobby kennedy and john kennedy, and also martin luther king jr., and we were in the aftermath of the church investigating committee in the u.s. senate that showed that the cia, particularly under kennedy's, had committed serious crimes, even of assassination. so, there was a disillusionment on the part of the american people with washington. and that was the main thing that i emphasized. i told them i would never lie to them and so forth, and i emphasized the fact that i was from the deep south. i had been out of politics and all of my predecessors had, that i was a peanut farmer and that sort of thing.

and so, it was because of those volunteers in texas and other places that i never had before that never had been in politics before that i was finally elected. as a matter of fact, amazingly still to me, i ran against one of the best men i've ever known in texas, and that was lloyd benson. i beat lloyd benson 2-1 in texas, which was amazing even now to me. but i had kind of a groundswell of support among people who had not been involved in politics before, and that's really how i was able to prevail. mr. updegrove: but you knew that you would be the first president from the deep south to be elected since zachary taylor. you were a one-term governor from the state of georgia. what made you think you could win? [laughter] pres. carter: well, i wasn't

sure, but i told rosalynn again that if i only got two votes, i was going to say in until the end. this is kind of bragging now, but my tenacity was one thing, i was not about to back down even when i had disappointments. and i had several disappointments and embarrassments where i made some mistakes, but i stuck with it. at first, my only potential opponent that was well known were two. one was ted kennedy, who was running for president, and the other was george wallace from the deep south, a segregationist. and my idea when i first began to think about running was that i would get in between kennedy and wallace as a moderate, and that would be my avenue to the white house. so that's why, that's what happened. but then when ted kennedy withdrew from the campaign after chappaquiddick and so forth, i saw a lot of very wonderful people, most of them out of the

u.s. senate and from the house of representatives like mo udall and two or three governors enter the race against me. so i was disappointed, but i kept going. and the reason i first got in it, to answer your question, i thought it would be between me, kennedy and wallace. mr. updegrove: what's your proudest accomplishment as president? pres. carter: i think the proudest accomplishment in general terms, it's maintaining peace. we never dropped a bomb, we never fired a bullet, we never launched a missile while i was president. and the main thing is that we tried to bring that sort of relationship to other countries. i spent a lot of time negotiating between israel and egypt to prevent another war and to normalize diplomatic relations with the people's republic of china and working in africa with zimbabwe and south africa to try to bring democracy. those kind of things. so, i would say to preserve peace for us and maybe enhance it for others. and then the number one thing of

which i'm most proud, i guess, would be the treaty between israel and egypt, which has been precious even to today and in the future. mr. updegrove: which still remains in effect after all these years. pres. carter: not a single word's ever been violated. mr. updegrove: yeah. you and i have talked at great length about your post-presidency which you have talked about as being your most satisfying chapter in your life. pres. carter: yeah, it is. mr. updegrove: talk a little bit about the work you've done at the carter center and its impetus upon leaving the white house. pres. carter: well, when i left the white house, i was fairly young, i was just 56 years old. i had the life expectancy of 25 years, so my first question was, what am i going to do the next 25 years? and i had already been an accomplished peanut farmer and a good fertilizer salesman. [laughter]

so i didn't want to go back to that. i made a foolish statement right after i was defeated by reagan that i wouldn't serve on corporate boards or spend my life making public speeches for money, which was not a wise thing to say. [laughter] so, i didn't know what i was going to do. and so, i had the horrible responsibility of raising money and building a presidential library. and that was not good for a defeated democrat who has no plans to run for future office. and i had the same problem that gerald ford faced.

and so, as we approached the planning stage of the carter presidential library, i wanted to form a carter center separate. and my first thought was that i would just have a place like camp david where people that had a conflict on their hands, say, from a foreign country could come to the carter center, and i could negotiate between them. i would be glad to go to their country. so that was the whole idea. but later we adopted a policy of filling vacuums in the world. we decided not to ever duplicate what the united states was doing or the united nations or the world bank or harvard university or anywhere else, but just do things that nobody else wanted to do. and that got us more and more deeply involved in health care in africa. so now, 75% of our total budget and personnel and our total cash budget each year is now about $100 million, is devoted to health care in africa and, to some degree, in latin america. so we address diseases that are not any longer known anywhere in

the rich world, diseases like -- and to some degree more lately, malaria. so that is what we do in countries all over africa. we also had a major agricultural program for about 15 years, where we would go into small farmer's operations, they had on aggregate only two acres of land, and we would teach them how to increase their production of basic food grains. nothing of a cash crop like cotton. and we educated 8 million farm families on how to double or triple their production. we looked on that as part of health care, like it would increase nutrition, so everything they grew they can eat or self or surplus.

so that is how we got started in the outside world. as we went in those countries and became involved deeply on the village level of eradicating diseases, teaching them how to do better in agriculture, if they had a conflict like a civil war, threaten, they would ask the carter center to help them resolve it. and i was eager to do it. if they had maybe the first election for a democratic election, the last one they want is for the united states or united nations to come in and since we are already there and we knew the leaders and the people, they asked us to do it. so now we just finished holding our 82nd election that was troubled or uncertain. in southern sudan for a referendum and they voted to become an independent nation. so that is how the carter center has evolved over a period of time. so we still negotiate for peace agreements and we still hold elections and promote democracy

and freedom, but primarily deal with health care. and the most important aspect of our health care is rosalynn's commitment to mental health. she is now the world leader in trying to remove the stigma from mental illness and promote mental health not only in this country but around the world. mr. updegrove: you talked about tenacity as being one of your virtues. anyone who knows your career knows that that is certainly true that no more so than when you took aim at two particularly insidious and little known but pervasive things, river blindness, you talk about how pervasive those diseases were and why you decided to take aim at them? pres. carter: guinea worm, it is called the fire serpent in the bible. you might remember reading about it. it's the symbol for a doctor, two things that most people think are snakes. it is a horrendous disease caused by drinking impure water out of a stagnant pond.

in many places in africa, they just have a pond that fills up during the rainy season, and then they drink the water out of that during the dry season. they don't have any wells or running water. so breeding in those stagnant waters is the guinea worm eggs. and if people drink the water and it has guinea worm eggs in it, a year later they have a guinea worm growing in their body and they get to be about 30 inches long. and when they get ready to emerge, they sting the epidermis or the skin from inside and make a horrible sore that destroys muscle tissue, and the guinea worm emerges from the human body and it takes about 30 days to come out. and while they are coming out, they are females, and they lay eggs.

so if the people don't know what causes the disease and they wade out in theor pond, the -- their pond, the guinea worm just laid hundred of thousands of eggs and that keeps it going around. we found out about this in 1985. nobody wanted to fool with it because it is such a horrible disease and in isolated villages with no running water or deep wells, and they are scattered all over africa and india. i adopted a little eradication of this disease as our first major health project. we started then a survey in every country that had guinea worms, starting in pakistan then in yemen and india and all across sub-saharan africa. we found guinea worms in 23,600 villages. the carter center has been in every village. we had 3.6 million cases of guinea worm. and we began to treat the problem by giving people very fine nets or filter cloths where

they could strain the water through. and we have reduced now from 3.6 million, last year, we had less than 0.1%. we only had 1600 cases in the whole world. [applause] i don't want to take too much time, but river blindness is the most prevalent disease in arab countries or africa. because when you have a rapid strain that bubbles over rocks like a trout stream, those tiny black flies breed in the water and they sting people. we have done tests on it and they find the average young child gets stung 30,000 times a year.

the stings are not very painful. but you can feel them. but anyway, they lay eggs inside the body that become small worms and those worms over period of 12 years travel through the bloodstream and wind up in the eye, and they attack the eye and they cause blindness. it is called river blindness. what has happened over the centuries is that people move away from those little running streams to get away from the flies, and they move up onto the arid steep hillsides and move out of the bottom land. and that has happened all over africa, so we decided to address that. and luckily the ceo of merck & co developed a dog medicine called heart guard. some of you use it. and a turkish scientist found that this heart guard, which is called ivermectin, would also do

away with guinea worms, micro worms. so he came to the carter center and said they would give us the medicine free of charge in a few countries if we would deliver to the people and help control the disease. so, later i went to africa with the ceo and we went on television, we were standing on a dam. i said, roy, you gave us this medicine to us in a few countries. now would you be willing to give it to us on the whole world? and he was on television. [laughter] and he finally said yes. so, last year, the carter center treated 11,300,000 people with free medicine from merck and company and none of those people will have river blindness. the problem is though that the parent worms that live in sores on your back still breathe the tiny little microscopic worms.

so we get rid of the microscopic worms, nobody ever goes blind, but we have to do it every year. and so we have started in south america giving the medicine twice or four times a year and now we are doing away with river blindness in south america. and we are now trying this also in africa, so it is a major thing for us. the problem is, the merck pills, you cannot ask people to give it to each other because if you have river blindness, you would rather have pills on a dime in the same size, so the pills are very valuable, and somebody steals them and sells them, so we have to go into the villages

and deliver the pills directly in the mouth of people, and we have trained people how to do this, so it is very interesting challenge for us. >> i will ask the questions that were rode out and be brought to me at the convenience of my staff, but -- thank you very much. let me go back to -- just leaving office, your post presidency is now considered the most remarkable of any president in american history, but it did not particularly begin auspicious lay. can you tell us about those first days after office and the questions you and this is carter were asking yourselves about your future? pres. carter: we really do not know what i was a debt. i did not make any money when i was in the white house. after i was defeated in november

of 1980, my representative, who was a blind trustee, came and told me i was a million dollars in debt, previous business that i had that my brother had been running, we had four years of drought in georgia in carter's warehouse which was the major source of income was almost in bankruptcy. so i was a million dollars in debt and had to build a presidential library. i didn't know what i was going to do. so luckily, adm decided to go into the peanut business, and they bought my warehouse for enough that i didn't have to lose all of our farms. i started out, you might say, from scratch. you already know about the history of the carter center. this was a challenging time for me and rosalynn.

i was invited -- in fact, i had two offers to be president of universities. are always wanted -- universities, when i always wanted to get out of politics. [laughter] and i do not want to spend the rest of my life raising money, but i found i had to do that now. anyway, i was also invited to be a professor in the university system with georgia. they have 33 universities and i was supposed to go around to different ones and make speeches, but i didn't want to be controlled by the georgia legislature either. every university president at that time was james laney, invited me to teach and promised complete freedom of speech so i'd decided to go and this is my 30th year that i'm finishing this college professor. every month i teach in a different part of the university

and in every major department, in law and history and political science, theology, religion, english, edison, and so on. everyone. i have done that now for 30 years, so i have enjoyed that very much. we have had a very full life in relationships with university teaching, throws's mental health programs. we had a difficult time the first two years getting the carter center started because the reagan administration was determined not to give us any support. sometimes we would arrange to go to a foreign country and not only with the ambassador leave the country but the ambassador would also sabotage our trip until none of his people would even meet with me or rosa, so we had that problem until george shultz became secretary of state and then it changed. we had a hard time at first, but we prevailed and had wonderful relationship with the centers for disease control which was

right next door to us, so we deal with presidents and kings and also ministers of health and agriculture, and so forth, ministers of finance. one of the things that made it possible for the carter center to be successful is with respect in foreign countries, so when i go in, i can meet with the president, and if i come to eradicate any worms, about which the president had never heard if he had not been from the guinea worm village, he does not know what i want, and i say, why don't you invite the cabinet so i can get the president and the whole cabinet is support the carter center and the project to carry out. that has been a portion of our strength and influence. i have never been overseas to a sensitive area without getting permission from the white house. sometimes reluctant. i always manage to get

permission or either not go. i always make a written report to the president and secretary of state and usually the secretary-general of the united nations when i come back from a trip, so when i go to a sensitive area to meet with hamas or syria or north korea i always give a report to the white house. mr. updegrove: ruby asks, what is the funniest thing that happened to you in the white house? pres. carter: well, it was not funny to me, but it was funny to everybody else. [laughter] one time when i was on vacation from the white house, i went fishing at a fish farm. we have four fishpondswe have f. rose and i are avid fissures. while i was fishing, jody powell, my press secretary, was there fishing on the bank and

rose and i were out in the boat. the bunch of dogs were chasing a rabbit. how many of you know about this story? [laughter] pres. carter: the rabbit jumped in the water, and rabbits can swim very well, they have to cross greeks and stuff. the rabbit swam toward my boat. i took my paddle and splashed water on the rabbit and the rabbit turned and went to the bank. that was all there was to it. unfortunately, about two years later jody powell was drinking -- jody powell was with some other people. [laughter] in one of the taverns in washington, and he embellished this story enormously just to get a local appreciation or a free beer or something. [laughter] it was a wild rabbit that tried to attack me in my boat, and i was saved by the skin of my teeth from being bitten and he

thought the rabbit was probably mad -- had rabies. this became the number one story in the whole world. president carter, who is already beleaguered, he can't get everything he wants, is even afraid of rabbits. [laughter] i am not laughing still. [laughter] you can't imagine, i still get about 3000 letters a week, but i don't know how many letters i got about rabbits and people wanted to know that had pet rabbits, if i throw my rabbit in a pond or my swimming pool, can he swim out? i had to write and explain the fortitude and capabilities of rabbits for long time. [laughter] so that is one of the funny things that happened that other people remember. >> infamously the killer rabbit story may be a cautionary tale about the excess of alcohol. [laughter] who is your favorite president?

pres. carter: well, i can't change my story just because i am in this library. i have always said my favorite president in my lifetime was harry truman. i can explain that. i was a submarine officer. i was in the naval academy when franklin roosevelt died and franklin roosevelt became president. almost completely unknown. kind of taken on the ticket by roosevelt just to throw a figleaf at some people who wanted to support him. roosevelt never did confide in harry truman. he was on the outside looking in. when roosevelt died, i was a midshipman and i cried because i had the prospect of harry truman being my commanding officer, my commanding chief.

later when i was in submarines, i began to appreciate what harry truman stood for and what he did. i think he was honest to a t. i doubt if he ever used a $0.03 stamp if he didn't pay for it. he was under tremendous pressure from the same people that tried to prevent president johnson putting in place the civil rights act. he was under pressure of dick russell and strom thurmond and many others. i won't name them. truman, already unpopular. he went out of office the most unpopular president in history. ordained as commander in chief and all racial discrimination in military forces was over. that day. and he was condemned severely by all his generals and admirals and overwhelmingly in the congress and by many other

people in america. but he did it. and so my life on the submarine was changed by that decision, and it affected my whole future. then after truman left office, there wasn't much progress made on civil rights. it was eight years later before rosa parks sat in the bus. and martin luther king became active. it was before president johnson was the ultimate hero in successfully ending legal civil discrimination. truman was my favorite because of that. i would say that the most successful president in my memory was lyndon johnson. who had his great society program. the civil-rights act, only one

part of it, and with medicaid and medicare and a massive program for the war against poverty. i was governor when he put into effect the elementary school act. i went up and testified in favor of that act as a governor. and head start. all those things transformed the life of america. he was courageous enough to control budget deficits even when he was faced with terrible threats to the budget. during the vietnam war, which was very costly, he imposed taxes and other things to make it possible. he has been the most successful president by far, and one of the main reasons i am here. mark: this question comes from one of our students. how can young people be a positive force in the political

process today? pres. carter: well, i'm going to say some things some of you may not like. i don't mean to say this is the first thing you may not like. [laughter] i would like for the young people in coming generations to strive for transcendence in political affairs. four superlatives accomplishments. not just in your own profession, but in the political life of america.

i would like for our country to become a real superpower. and i realize that now our military is larger than the budgets of the next 20 nations in the world. almost equal to all the other defense budgets on earth. and i know that we are still the most powerful economic system on earth, with the dollar prevailing everywhere, and culturally we are still the number one with facebook and twitter and that sort of thing and google. and our music and so forth. so we are still the most powerful and influential country on earth. but superpower, in my opinion for the young people only, ought to be characteristic of a nation that would emulate the highest ideals of a human being. i happen to be a christian.

i talk quite often of the standards of jesus christ. we know him as a prince of peace. we know that he espoused justice and he reached out to people in need. he was forgiving. and so forth. i don't see why the young people of this nation can't set as your goal that our country would be a superpower in every respect. what would this mean? one thing is whenever people in a foreign country were faced with a civil war, i would like for the first thing that come to our mind, why don't we go to the united states?

because the united states is a champion of peace. the united states resorts to conflict in extremely rare occasions. and tries to resolve disputes peacefully. i would like for the people who want democracy and freedom to say the united states has the best democratic electoral system on earth. it's not shaped by how wealthy a candidate is or how much special money can be garnered into a very special campaign, but it would be open to anybody qualified who can present their platform planks on an equal basis.

i would like for the world to say the united states is a champion of the environment. in the forefront of the move to prevent global warming, for instance. i would like to see the united states be the most generous nation on earth, sharing our wealth and resources with other people who are in need. like norway or sweden or denmark or the netherlands. so -- i am not criticizing my country, which i love. as i said to begin with, it is still the greatest nation in the world.

but there are aspects of basic morality based on the principles of christianity and other religions as well, where the united states is not the leader. we are not the leader in preserving peace. the carter center has programs in 73 countries. i would say in most of those countries if you say which is the country on earth most likely to go to war, most of them would say the united states. and we are not in the forefront of environmental issues. but lyndon johnson was commit the elections we had in the year 2000 and your 2004 showed increasingly that the outcome of elections depends on money. it would be impossible now for anybody to be the candidate of the democratic or republican party that couldn't raise i would say $100 million in advance.

o'er $200 million. so we have, not stigma on ourselves, but the point is we have opportunities to improve in the future. it requires some thoughts that are independent and innovative, and i would say idealistic. and it's going to be the next generation that would have to bring this about. mark: one will history say about jimmy carter? pres. carter: i think a lot of people will say he only served one term, he got defeated the first time. that is not my preference. [laughter] i would like for people to remember that i kept the peace and promoted human-rights. almost without hesitation and

without too much equivocation. we have some leaders on earth that were not true democrats but what i explained in south america is one example. i think our human rights policy follows that. i would say peace and human rights. that would be my preference. mark: before we came on stage, tom johnson, my friend tom johnson, said jimmy carter is one of my heroes, and i could say without equivocation that you are truly an american hero. mr. president, this has been our great honor having you here tonight and we very much appreciate you being with us. [applause] pres. carter: thank you all.

[applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]