tavis: i and cap the smiley. per se, a conversation with the 39th president of the united states, jimmy carter, who kept a daily diary, the subject of his latest bestseller. earlier today, he sent a formal letter to the chinese government asking for the release of this year's nobel peace prize winner. we are glad to join us for a conversation with former president jimmy carter. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer,

nationwide is proud to join in working to improve financial literacy, and remove the obstacles to economic empowerment, one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: always honored to welcome former president jimmy carter. he just celebrated his 86th birthday. he continues to work around the world on the issues of rights. during his years in the white house, he kept a personal diary, which is the basis of his latest best seller. a belated happy birthday, and i am honored to have you here. >> always good to be here.

tavis: i literally just got back -- i am still kind of jet lag -- i got back two hours ago from china. so many chinese citizens told me to say hello to president carter. they would ask me about my work on pbs. your name kept coming up. >> i was over there three weeks ago. tavis: they told me. recently, you and 15 nobel laureates sent a letter to leaders of the g-20 asking them, when they see president hu jintao after their summit, to do what specifically with regard to dr. liu, who just received the nobel peace prize? >> we want them to release him from his imprisonment, but also that his wife be free so she can be at liberty to travel the world and talk about her husband and his ministry. he has been an outspoken and courageous human rights

activist, as you know. we think neither she nor he should be punished for his freedom of speech. tavis: the chinese government's position is that his receiving the nobel prize was an insult to their country and to the rule of law inside of china. >> he had been arrested under chinese law and convicted of illegal activities and sentenced as a prisoner would be in our country to a crime. they consider him to be a criminal. i do not think there is any doubt that the nobel committee was trying to promote human rights in china. it was a deliberate attempt by them to publicize the need for recognition of him, as took place in the past with the dali lama, when the nobel committee also gave him the prize. they do this on occasion to try to publicize some activity of which the nobel prize committee approves. tavis: you had relations with

china when you were in the white house. can you compare and contrast our relation with china during the carter administration and where you think we are or are not in our relationship today? >> for 35 years, before i became president, we did not have any diplomatic relations with china. we have diplomatic relations with taiwan only. although president nixon went over in 1972 and said there is only one china, he did not say which one. we continue to recognize the one china as tie 1. i decided to have normal relations with the people's republic of china on the mainland. as president reagan called it, it was red china. that was a turning point in the history of the world. three days after we announced relations, deng xiaoping, the unquestioned leader of china, said there were or to have reform in china, and that is when china began to open up not

only aggressive human rights for their own people but to reach out for the rest of the world. it was a turning point in the history of china and our country. tavis: there is a c 100, a prominent chinese americans who are making sure american journalists have a chance to talk to the people. i was surprised that we get this impression that they do not want to talk openly about issues and cannot "the government publicly, but in private conversations will tell you honestly how they feel. what is your sense of the future of our relationship with china? because this imbalance coming in so many ways, seems to be becoming more critical. >> for more than 12 years, i had a contract with the government of china to promote democracy in little villages in china, over 600,000 villages. they have pure, open, honest,

completely democratic elections for the little villages. we monitor those. we have a website that has more than a million hits every day as chinese go to our website and see what is going on concerning democracy in china. we have a very close relationship with china. i think that china in the future is going to increase their influence, both in the economic world and also in the political world. we have programs now in 73 countries in the world, and know where can you go in africa, south america, or anywhere else, that you do not see the rapidly increasing influence of china in the governments of those small countries. and china is very generous for instance when the were approaching the world cup in africa. china would go into a country and build a stadium and give it to the government. but china is trying to do is amend its access -- what china

is trying to do is amend its access to iron, coal, and other things they will need for their rapidly growing future. we should have as good relations as possible between the united states of america and china to maintain stability in the world. i do not think there is any doubt that the diplomatic relations i formed with china has helped to stabilize the western pacific. tavis: people who have not followed as closely, or who not -- or who have not been there -- you just said democratic elections in these provinces. >> exactly. shortly after we normalized relations, deng xiaoping ordained that little villages would have democratic elections. the little villages are not part of the communist party system. the communist party starts at big cities. the call them townships, counties, and provinces. the provinces and send it to the national assembly. the little villages are outside

the communist party system and he wanted them to have their own governments. he wanted to have an honest selection. there have been various kinds of leaders in china. some have wanted to see this democratic system move up into the communist party, the lower levels of it. other leaders have been very conservative on doing that. hu jintao, i would say, is one of the most conservative. there is a new group of chinese leaders, some of whom we know quite well already, who are going to take over in a year or so, and we do not know yet what they will have as their policy concerning increased political democracy. as you know, they have a completely open, democratic free enterprise system. that is why they can be so aggressive in the global economy. tavis: until you go there and see these numbers, we have 300 million americans, 300 million of us. 1.5 billion chinese people.

that raises the question i was debating every day of whether or not our way of doing business, that is to say the democratic way we do it, necessarily fits their model, their citizenry, their struggle. >> i was involved in the beginning of the breakdown of the soviet union, and they had a disaster in the economy and also in politics. and china has been very cautious. they decided to move with open and free enterprise system, to trade commerce, moving around, competing in business. it is almost free enterprise. but they decided to keep tight control by the communist party of the political system. i think in the future it is inevitable that china is going to have to liberalize their democratic system. as you probably noticed, 23 of the top chinese leaders, some of them out of office now, wrote a letter to who jintao recently,

condemning the chinese government for tightening up on free speech. and so that has been -- that is kind of a burgeoning sort of effort in china to be more a point -- to be more open. they passed last year a law that ensures that some elements of access to information, freedom of information. the senate has been asked by the chinese government to help implement that law. tavis: there are two or three things you talk about in the book that represent mistakes you made, things you think you could have done better. in no particular order -- one, you do not think that your relations with the press were as good as i could have been in retrospect. >> we probably had the worst relationship with the press. tavis: i was trying to be generous. >> if you look at the relationship john kennedy had

with the press, it was beautiful. when ronald reagan came in, it was beautiful. we were kind of on the outside looking in. but i think after the nixon watergate scandal many of the press helped -- felt they could do what bob woodward did and expose something inside my administration, inside my personal life, that might be a scandal. we had a very tense relationship with the press while i was in office. that was a mistake and partially my own fault. but when i was governor of georgia, we did not ever feel we had to participate in the nightlife of atlanta or washington. that kept us on the outside. tavis: that is the second issue you raised, that you and the first lady did not do the social circuit in d.c., and one of the things you have to do in d.c. is the social circuit. >> i would say that was in retrospect a mistake, but that is our lifestyle.

we still live in a town with a total population of 135 people, and 60% are african-american. we live in a tiny place and i still grow peanuts on my farm in georgia. we are not highlife short of people. tavis: does that mean that an outsider cannot govern effectively in washington? >> i think i covered effectively. i do not have doubts about that. i have the benefit when i was in office of having an excellent relationship with the republican party. we had superb bipartisan support and the highest batting average of any president since the second world war, except lyndon johnson, who had a better average than i did. we got along well in washington as far as diplomatic advance and legislation passed. a very good batting average. anyway, i think this relationship with the washington so-called establishment,

diplomatic and i would say the news media and light -- in my life, we did not trade in that, and i did not miss it when i was in office. in retrospect, looking back, i would have been better off if i was closer. tavis: you talk about the good relation that you had as a democrat with republicans in congress. not the case with president obama right now. what the make of the politics of republican and democrat in washington today? >> it is abominable. it is a disgrace to a great democracy to see what is happening in our country. the main reason has been the enormous infusion of high quantities of money to campaigns -- governors, congress, the president, in the u.s. senate. now, with the newcomers to the supreme court ruling, secret money can come in on an unlimited level from corporations. and that distorts the political

situation of our country tremendously. most of that money is spent on negative advertising. it is tearing down the character and reputation of your opponent. it works, although most of america things we do not like negative advertising. by the time the election is over, states are divided up, red and blue states, and when people get to washington, the democrats despise the republicans and vice versa. obama has suffered more than any president has suffered in history in not having any support from the other side, even when he puts forward something that is an idea the republicans put forward two years ago. when he puts it forward, they will not support it. he has two or three votes at the most for some of his most controversial, and also some of his most well advised, proposals. tavis: in that supreme court story talked-about, i was disturbed by that. you called stupid. >> i did. it is a complete transformation

in change of what our country has done ever since it was founded. you have to put some restraint on the massive infusion of money into the political campaign, and perhaps those who do make the contributions legally, they can make its secret now. in the last few weeks of this campaign, hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring in to right-wing republican candidates from unknown and unidentified sources. that is a complete change. when i ran against gerald ford in 1976, he and i used public money. we used a $2 per person checkoff, $36 million total. when i ran against ronald reagan four years later, we did the same thing. we never dreamed of a negative political campaign ad. we only referred to each other as "my distinguished opponent." if i had characterized ronald reagan as being scurrilous or a liar or something like that,

which is common now, it would have been devastating to me personally. we did not ever think about that. that has changed the whole political environment in our country. tavis: how we fix the problem? the supreme court, at the judicial level, you have decisions coming out of them. the congress, mccain-fine goal has become a joke and a mockery. president obama, when he ran, initially said he would take public funding, started raising money like crazy, and did a 180 on his own commitment to the matching funds. if congress has made a mockery of mccain-feingold and the supreme court is making stupid decisions, how do we fix it? >> the only way to do it is to have public financing of all congressional and presidential campaigns. i do not think the republican congress would ever approve that in the future or now, because the republicans benefit from these large sums of money

pouring in. the carter center monitors elections all over the world. we just finished our 80th election recently. we would not dream of coming in to monitor the elections in the united states of america. it would not qualify. we require that there be one central election monitoring organization. in the united states, you might see every county has its own separate system. there is not even one kind of values all over the united states. we require that in a foreign country. we require that any qualified candidate have equal access to television and radio in a foreign country. now, you have to buy elections. the way elections are bought has been better in the past and will be even worse in the future because there is no reason why, say, exxon, or some other corporation, would not give every republican candidate for congress $1 million, which could buy the election in a small,

rural district, where the democrats can raise any money. in the future, it will be much worse than you have ever seen in the past. tavis: as you said a moment ago, your sense of where we are days away from the historic midterm elections, you mentioned republicans may be in power in a couple of days. >> i do not feel good about that as a democrat. i do not think there is any doubt the republicans will take over the house. i hope the democrats can hold on to the senate. in a way, this is a strange thing to say. at least the republicans come up with control of one house of congress, may feel one degree of responsibility, whereas in the past two years they have been totally irresponsible. the have not supported president obama even when they knew he was right. they just wanted to turn around what he was trying to accomplish. i think that is one thing. another thing is i think president obama might be a

little more free now. i think he can go back to what he ran for on his campaign and say, "this is what i am going to do. this is what i propose. i put it to the american people and congress." he can take the same position harry truman took on in 1948. if there is a do-nothing congress that will not support his positions. tavis: i could argue for the sake of argument that he has accomplished everything he wanted to get done in this first term because this obstructionism is only going to get worse. >> that may or may not be true. i am an optimist. i am looking at the possibility of a better relationship, because the republicans will now have to answer to the public as they go through a 2012 election, for what they do in washington. the have gotten away with murder, you might say, political murder, these past two years. in the future, holding the house of representatives, picture

speaker reinhardt -- john maynard -- boehner, is going to have to say this is how republicans are voting in the house. in the past two years, they have just voted against everything obama did. many republicans will have to assert a little more responsibility. tavis: do you think our political system is broken? >> it is worse than it has been in my lifetime, and that is a long time. i think the only way it can be corrected is for the american people to see very vividly that it needs repair. and if things go from now to worse in the future, the american people in every congressional district in the land might demand that reforms take place in the political system. tavis: it is a beautiful thing to sit and listen to your reflections now. the thing i was most impressed with with regard to the white house diary is when and where

you found the time to jot down these elections -- these reflections why you were in the white house. >> eight or nine times every day, i had a little tape recorder on me. i would pick it up and dictate what i was thinking, plans for the future, disappointments, but successes, what i felt about people who had just left my office. personal things that happened to me and my family. dreams for the future concerning international affairs. when i filled up the tape, i would throw it in the out basket. a secretary in her spare time would tie up what i had dictated. when i got home after i left the white house, i was amazed to find i had 5000 pages of diary notes. i have gone through those notes and selected the most interesting and pertinent, and i would say most highly personal, items from the diary. that is what is in the book. it is just an insight into what the president felt every day of his life while he was in the white house, experiencing

pressures and challenges. after about a year, and going to make the entire rough draft of the diary, with talk of tropical errors and everything, available. tavis: even the stuff that is not in here now we will get a chance to see? >> after about a year. tavis: were those things in that manuscript you thought were too loaded to put in the book, too personal? >> economic think of two things in the diary that i'm one to break up for the scholars, and that was some highly personal events in my life that would reflect negatively on people that are still living. that would be my microscopic portion of the total. tavis: in that regard, was there too much made of the ted kennedy comments about the health care issue? quick the things i dictated about ted kennedy were 31 years ago, right on the spot when it actually happened. to give him credit, he probably thought he was going to be the

next president and could put his whole plan into effect. by the way, his plan was very costly, and he could not get five votes for it in his own committee. i think he saw -- first of all, he did not want me to get credit for a big achievement. secondly, he thought he could get it when he became president. tavis: in this book, the things you are most proud of, in no particular order. peace, human rights, and energy? the environment? >> i would say energy and environment are connected. we had an energy policy that cut down our imports of oil by 50% in just five years. when ronald reagan came in, he said we do not need to save energy, we have a great nation on the top of the hill or something like that. we can waste all we want. we do not have to conserve. he undid all he could. a lot of things we passed were embedded in law. they resulted in tremendous

reductions in waste of energy in all types of things. we also started the use of solar energy and windmills and hydroelectric and that sort of thing. we halted with that. china has now taken over and is the number 1 producer. they make advanced windmills and total take cells and so forth. -- photovoltaic cells and so forth. had the energy policy not been abandoned, we would not be in the shape we are now. we had peace. we never dropped a bomb, never fired a missile during the time i was in office, and still upheld the integrity and good faith of our country. in human rights, we were the world champion of human rights.

a lot to be proud of. it has been a good life. tavis: you did give us a scare a few weeks ago. i am glad you're doing well. meet you and jimmy carter. it was good to see you, mr. president. always good to have you. the new book from the 39th president of the united states, jimmy carter, is called "white house diary." until next time, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org tavis: join me next time for a conversation with former cia agent valerie claim wilson and her husband, joe wilson. see you then. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading.

>> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer,tavis and nationwide insurance, working to improve financial literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. one conversation at a time. >> nationwide is on your side >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.