American Experience (1988–…): Season 15, Episode 1 - Jimmy Carter (Part I) - full transcript

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I promised you four years ago
that I would never lie to you,



so I can't stand here tonight
and say it doesn't hurt.

About an hour ago, I called
Governor Reagan in California

and I congratulated him
for a fine victory.

I look forward to working
closely with him...

All his life he believed that
if you worked hard enough at it,

understood the issues,
mastered information,

then you would come out first.

I said to him,
"It must have been hard

to turn over the keys
to Ronald Reagan,"

and he said, "You don't know
how hard it was."

On January 20, 1981, after one
of the most humiliating defeats

in American political history,

President Jimmy Carter returned
home to Plains, Georgia,

to what he called,
"An altogether new, unwanted



and potentially empty life."

He really was better than I was
when we came home

because, um,
I was so depressed about it

that he was always trying
to prop me up.

Four years before,
he had stunned the nation.

Going from total anonymity

to being president
of the United States

in less than 12 months

is unprecedented
in American history.

If it weren't for the country
looking for something in '76,

uh, Carter could never
have gotten elected.

He offered a biography
of what we wanted to hear...

A farmer,
Main Street values, Plains...

And he carried
that message through.

It was the right message
at the right time.

Our commitment to human rights
must be absolute.

He had promised a new beginning,

to heal the wounds
of Watergate and Vietnam...

A government as good
and decent and compassionate

as the American people.

But events would overwhelm him...
An energy crisis, inflation,

an Islamic revolution, and 53
Americans held hostage 444 days.

Carter came to be regarded
as a good and decent man

who was in over his head.

He's a very, very smart man,
and very well-intentioned,

but feel... feel is very,
very important in politics,

especially in a president,

and Carter just didn't have
very much of it.

What he had was a moral ideology

and the issues
where he proved successful...

The Panama Canal treaties,
the human rights crusades,

peace in the Middle East...

Those were issues where
his moral ideology guided him.

In a nation
that was proud of hard work...

"Carter was one of
the more exasperating men ever

to claim the White House,"
one journalist said.

"His tenacity, so admirable,
could shift to stubbornness,

"his religious faith
to self-righteousness.

His brilliant mind could be
bound up by intricate details."

Many times the one argument

that I would find
would ruin a person's case

is when he'd say, "This
is good for you, politically."

He didn't want to hear that.

He didn't want to think that way

and he didn't want his staff
to think that way.

He wanted to know what's right.

This is one

of the most highly ambitious
people you'll ever meet.

I mean, you don't make it
from Plains, Georgia,

to the White House
just on charm.

But what makes him complex

is he's got that kind
of hubris and arrogance

and also
this Christian humbleness

and that's the battle he's
constantly finding himself in.

"As a child,
my greatest ambition

was to be valuable around the
farm and to please my father,"

Jimmy Carter wrote
of his boyhood in rural Georgia.

"He was the center of my life
and the focus of my admiration."

I can't believe that
Jimmy Carter ever felt lost,

in the sense that he didn't know

where his place was
in the world.

And a lot of that comes
from his father,

who not only was a
well-respected, powerful figure

in the community, but I think
had a real sense of who he was.

And that certitude
and self-confidence

was something that his son,
I think, absorbed unconsciously.

By the standards
of southwest Georgia,

Earl Carter presided
over a small empire.

A staunch segregationist,
he owned some 350 acres of land

where he planted corn,
cotton and peanuts,

employing more than 200 workers
at harvest time.

Five sharecropper families,

who depended on him
for their survival,

lived year-round
at his farm in Archery.

Earl was the boss in Archery.

The workers were all black,

the maids who did the cooking

and took care of Jimmy
were black

and at the top of the system
was Earl Carter.

From a position of privilege,

Earl's children...
Jimmy, Gloria and Ruth...

Became acquainted with the ways
of the Jim Crow South.

"More than anyone else in my
family... even my own father...

"I understood the plight
of the black families

because I lived so much
among them," Carter later wrote.

He often ate and slept in
the homes of his black neighbors

and played with their children.

The interesting thing
about the South

is that we played together,
black and white,

when we were seven,
eight, nine, ten,

but then when you got
to be a teenager,

all of a sudden, uh,
segregation set in.

"One day, my friends
and I approached a gate,"

Carter would later recall.

"To my surprise,
they stepped back

to let me go through first."

"It was a small act,
but a deeply symbolic one.

Things were never the same
between them and me."

♪ I got a road ♪

♪ You got a road ♪

♪ All of God's children
got a road. ♪

"A strong memory in my mind
is coming home

and my mother not being there,"
he wrote.

There's a very deep tradition
in southern society

of the caretaker mother figure

who is responsible not only
for her family

but outside of it, as well.

Well, those...
those people exist

in almost every southern,
rural community,

but Miss Lillian took it
a step further than that.

Carter's mother, Lillian, was
an avid reader, loved traveling

and was known to enjoy
a sip of bourbon.

She put in long hours
as a nurse at a nearby hospital,

and devoted much of her free
time to helping sick neighbors,

regardless of race.

She got paid in chickens
and vegetables

and that kind of things
because she really helped

and felt called to help those
that had less than her,

and I think she instilled that
in all of her children.

She was the only person
in Plains

who would take up
for Abraham Lincoln

if he was ever brought up.

Today it's unbelievable
to think about that,

but back then it
was just a way of life,

and we never thought anything...

we never thought it
was really wrong.

Lillian set for Jimmy the
example of service to others.

Earl put the steel
in his character.

He was very demanding.

He expected his, uh, children
to be the very best,

and, um, and in some ways they
all had that built into them.

"I never remember him
saying 'good job'

when I did my best to fulfill
his orders," Jimmy later said.

"The punishments he administered
remain vivid in my memory."

A short distance
from the Carter farm

was Plains, Georgia...
Population 600...

The only place for miles
to get a cup of coffee,

a haircut, buy or sell goods.

It is the place Jimmy Carter
always called home,

where as a child he went

to the all-white Baptist church
on Sundays

and where he attended
the all-white public school.

Everybody knew
that he was special.

He was somebody different,
smarter than,

worked harder than,
did more than,

ceaselessly working at improving
himself, even as a child.

Jimmy made all "A" s.

He played basketball and joined
the book lover's club,

read Shakespeare's King Lear,

Ben-Hur,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

He dreamed of joining the navy.

His uncle Tom Gordy
had excited his imagination

with tales of adventures,

and postcards and gifts
from exotic, faraway places.

Earl encouraged Jimmy
to pursue his dream.

It was a way
that many young southern men

got the polish,
got the education

that would make them a part
of either the local elite

or the national elite.

Jimmy reviewed
the strict requirements

of the U.S. Naval Academy
at Annapolis

and worried
he wasn't good enough.

He thought his feet were flat

and rolled them over
Coke bottles

to strengthen the arches.

He thought he was too thin,
and went on a banana diet.

He even went to a local college
for two years

to study the required courses.

"He just wouldn't quit,"

Jimmy's uncle Alton
would later say.

"That boy just wouldn't give up
on anything."

In June 1943, at age 18,
the farm boy from Plains

was admitted to the U.S.
Naval Academy at Annapolis...

The first Carter ever
to leave Georgia

to pursue a higher education.

Jimmy's sister Ruth
was my best friend

and she had a picture of him
on the wall in her bedroom.

I just thought he was

the most handsome young man
I had ever seen.

One day I confessed to her

that I wished she would let me
take that photograph home,

because I just thought
I had fallen in love

with Jimmy Carter.

Rosalynn Smith was shy,
a dedicated student,

read the Bible daily
and went to church on Sundays.

Her mother once described her

as a girl who could wear
a white dress all day

and keep it clean.

She was very bright.

She was a reader.

She liked to look at maps.

She was always interested
in seeing the world

and, uh, she always wanted
to get away.

I went to a meeting
at the church

and I was standing outside

and Jimmy drove up with Ruth
and her boyfriend,

got out of the car and came up
and asked me to go to the movie.

He kissed me good-bye.

I was thrilled to death, and
then we started corresponding

and, uh, by the time Christmas
came, I was swept off my feet.

One month after his graduation
from Annapolis,

Jimmy and Rosalynn were married.

She was 18, he was 21.

The Carters began married life
in Norfolk, Virginia,

where the navy lieutenant
first reported for duty.

The children arrived
in quick succession...

Jack one year after
their wedding,

James Earl, or Chip, less
than three years later in Hawaii

and a third, Jeff, born
in New London, Connecticut.

With her husband away at sea,
Rosalynn found herself alone

and in charge of all the affairs
of the Carter household.

"I felt inadequate and
very lonely," she later said.

"Sometimes I cried,
though I didn't let Jimmy know.

"He has no patience with tears,

"thinking instead that one makes
the best of whatever situation,

and with a smile."

I learned to be
very independent.

I could take care of myself and
the baby and... and do things

that I never dreamed
I would be able to do alone.

Two years
after joining the navy,

Ensign Carter was accepted
into the submarine service.

It was a way to advance rapidly

in a highly competitive
environment.

The military was everything
for Jimmy Carter.

It's his training.

He's never a minute late
for anything.

Punctuality means everything.

His sense of order...

There's no sense of a mess
around Jimmy Carter.

It's a certain kind of person
that works in a submarine.

It takes a kind
of mental discipline.

While the rest of the officers
lingered after dinner

or settled in for a long game
of bridge or poker,

his shipmates remembered
Carter would read a book,

solve a sonar problem...
Always something constructive.

"I mastered the assignments
that I had,"

Carter would say
of his naval career.

"Got the best fitness reports

and I never put in for anything
that I did not get."

She's coming up out
of the deep... the Seawolf.

After six years in the service,

Lieutenant Carter earned one
of the most coveted posts

in the navy... senior officer
of the USS Seawolf,

on the vanguard of America's
nuclear defense program.

He always had one of
the best positions in the navy,

and I think it gave him
a lot of confidence

that he could do
whatever he wanted to do.

In 1953, less than a year after
he began duty on the Seawolf,

Carter received a message
from home.

His father had cancer and
was not expected to live long.

Ten years had passed
since Carter left Plains

for a career in the navy.

Visits home had been rare.

Father and son
had grown distant.

As he sat by Earl's bedside,

Jimmy discovered a side of his
father he'd never seen before.

"Our long conversations
were interrupted

by a stream of visitors, black
and white," Carter later wrote.

"A surprising number wanted
to recount

"how my father's
personal influence

"and many secret acts
of generosity

had affected their lives."

He saw that he had really built
a community around himself.

A lot of people liked him

and, uh, came to see him
when he was sick

and when he died,
came to his funeral.

And what Jimmy realized,

he didn't have a community
for himself.

He's actually said to me,
"You know," he said,

"I wondered at that time,
if I died,

"how many people would come
to my funeral

or how many people would care
if I died."

And I think it made him,

at a fairly fundamental level,
examine what life is all about.

Duty also weighed on Carter.

Miss Lillian had no interest
in the business

and Ruth and Gloria had married.

His brother, Billy, just 16,
was mad as hell

when told his older brother
would be stepping in.

He was a shining star
in the U.S. Navy

who could have gone
very, very far.

He dropped all that

to emulate his father, to take
over his father's business.

I don't think there's any
higher tribute a son could make

to his father than to say,
"Now that you're dead, Daddy,

I want to stand in your shoes."

When Jimmy told Rosalynn,
she was furious.

"She almost quit me,"
he later said.

Mom was kind of disappointed
to be going back to Plains,

and she had worked a good bit
of her life to get out of there

and, uh, they were going back
to take over a... a business

that wasn't doing very well.

Rosalynn had finally got out
of that flyspeck village,

and had gotten to see the
bright lights and big cities.

Imagine being based in Hawaii,

where you get a Pacific breeze
and palm trees

and the smell of the Orient
in the air,

and now you're back

in the suffocating,
mosquito-plagued humidity

of Plains, Georgia.

She pleaded with him not to go.

She had seen
a very nice life ahead of them,

and then he wanted
to give that all up, and go back

and become a peanut farmer
and she was just really angry.

And she literally
did not talk to him

the whole way back to Plains.

I pouted for about year.

Not really, but I was just
the total mother and wife.

It was tough for a while.

We loved it.

Plains is a place where at six
or seven, eight years old,

you can go off by yourself.

We spent every afternoon
after school in the woods

playing hide-and-seek
and building forts

and fishing and hiking
and that kind of thing.

It was just a great way
to grow up.

Only a year after their return
home, the Carters were thrust

into the turmoil sweeping
across the South.

In 1954,

the Supreme Court outlawed
segregation in public schools.

White Southerners, organized
into white citizens' councils,

vowed to resist.

Jimmy was approached

by one of the prominent
businessmen asking him

to join
the White Citizens' Council

and he told him that it only
cost five dollars to join

and that he would be glad
to pay his dues.

I think Jimmy told him he could
flush his money down the john.

But anyway, Jimmy refused to do
that and we lost some customers.

I won't say it was
a profile in full courage,

but it was not an act
of discretion.

You had to carefully think
about it

and it required,
at the very least,

a kind of independence
of thought

and in some respects
a kind of, uh, courage

to say "No. This I won't do."

Carter applied
all his energies to peanuts.

"He was always experimenting,"
Rosalynn later wrote.

"Trying new things, dreaming up
something else he wanted to do."

As the business expanded,
he turned to Rosalynn for help.

Mom is not really the type
to join the stitch-and-chat

and to sit around
and be content with that.

Part of their uniqueness

is that they're partners
in everything

and I think a lot of that
started back then,

to make her a part
of what was happening

so that she would really
have something to be proud of.

He asked me to come
and keep the office.

And I had a friend who taught
an accounting course

in a vocational-technical
school,

and she gave me a set
of accounting books.

I began to study accounting.

I began to keep the books,

and it was not too long
before I knew...

actually... as much or more

about the... the business, uh,
on paper, uh, than he did.

I started working there
when I was nine.

We worked in the warehouse
during peanut season.

Peanut season
was a very heavy time.

Sometimes we worked
50 hours straight.

I think that he worked hard.

Um, he tried to instill it
in his children.

He obeyed his father,
jumped when he spoke.

We did the same thing.

"I had to admit I was enjoying
life," Rosalynn later said.

The Carters went fishing,

played golf,
took frequent vacations.

Jimmy served on the Sumter
County Board of Education,

taught Sunday School
at the Plains Baptist Church,

was scoutmaster, vice president
of the Lions Club.

"But he had come to the point of
boredom," Rosalynn remembered.

"And one weekday morning
in 1962, he got up

and put on his Sunday pants."

I was really shocked.

I had no idea he was thinking

about running
for the state senate.

The campaign that launched
Jimmy Carter's political career

lasted all of 15 days.

There was no money
and no staff...

Only family and friends
and his own determination.

Though he would always play
the reluctant politician,

even by his first campaign,

Carter was no stranger
to politics.

Politics was something
he lived and breathed

from the time he was a child...

A kind of weekly, daily,

even during election season
interaction, barbecues.

You gathered on the county
courthouse grounds for speeches.

He talks about going
to rallies with his father

and remembering them very well.

And I think he came
to see politics

as something not alien,

not something he had
to make a decision to do,

but was almost natural.

"I received
a startling education," he said,

"One that set the tone
for my future career."

Quitman County, historically,

had been run
by a man named Joe Hurst

and Joe was not atypical

for many, many small counties in
the state... the poorer counties.

You had one person
who was a political power,

who just in effect
kind of ran the county.

Hurst was used
to getting what he wanted,

and in 1962, he wanted
another democrat,

Homer Moore,
to be elected senator.

The ballot box was a liquor box,
that had been taken

and, uh, a hole cut
in the top of it

so that you put your ballot
over in there after you,

and was set up on the counter,
and you had to come up

and... and mark your ballot
right next to it

with Joe and a bunch
of his crowd watching, you know,

while you're doing it.

Fraud was rampant.

Voters were threatened,
ballots destroyed.

Joe Hurst even stuffed ballots
of dead voters

into the Old Crow box.

That evening when the votes were
counted, Jimmy Carter had lost.

He decided
to contest the election.

By all accounts, even allowing

for a certain hyperbole
in the memory of Mr. Carter,

this required an extraordinary
kind of doggedness

in just keeping at it and
keeping at it and not giving up.

Carter appealed to newspapers,
filed for injunctions,

took affidavits from voters.

Miss Lillian kept saying, "Jimmy
is so naive... so naive."

There were threats
against the Carters.

Jimmy was followed.

A stranger came by the Carter
warehouse and warned Rosalynn

that the last time anyone
had crossed Joe Hurst,

their business had burned down.

"I was constantly scared,"
she later said.

"Jimmy was frightened, too."

Two weeks later, a local judge
agreed to hear Carter's case.

When it came time
to open that box and recount it,

right there, rolled up into
a ball, were all these ballots,

and Judge Crow
was a... a funny fellow.

He chewed tobacco,

and he had just cut off
a little piece of tobacco

and put it in his mouth, and he
was kind of putting it around,

and I was... I saw that

and I saw him cut his eyes,
stop chewing,

and then go back to chewing
and sit back,

and right then is when I knew
we had that thing won.

On January 14, 1963,

the morning after
the traditional whiskey

and barbecued wild hog dinner,

Jimmy Carter was sworn in as
a member of the Georgia Senate.

He was one of 89 new legislators
joining the Georgia Assembly,

many of them determined
to change the old ways

of Georgia politics.

I had the good fortune of being
the first black to be elected

to the General Assembly
of Georgia in 100 years.

Carter was one of those persons

who came to the Senate
at that time,

and he was not
a leader of the Senate.

He was quiet.

He was effective.

He was deliberate...

and he made no waves.

Carter opposed special interests
and sweetheart deals.

He worked hard
and read every bill,

staying away from
drinking sprees and poker games.

In the last session of the state
senate in his last year there,

I was standing in the back
of the senate chamber with him

and the lieutenant governor
was going on and on and on,

and it was bedlam,
like the last day.

And Jimmy said, "If I were
lieutenant governor,

this wouldn't be happening."

And I thought, "Uh-oh,
he's really enjoying this."

In 1966, after two terms
in the Georgia Senate,

Jimmy Carter jumped into the
race for governor of Georgia.

He ran well behind arch-
segregationist Lester Maddox,

famous for wielding an ax handle

to keep blacks away
from his chicken restaurant.

Carter left
his younger brother, Billy,

in charge of the business,

while the rest of the family
went on the road.

I think I had $25 a week

for expenses to eat on,
and I had a gas credit card.

And we came
in every Saturday night

and told what we'd been doing.

It was a real education
for all of us

and we were doing it
as a family.

I would come home
and ask him questions

that people asked me
while I was campaigning

and that I didn't know
the answers to.

And he would give me the answers

so I could go back out
and talk about issues.

He had confidence in me to do
the things that I needed to do.

Carter promised better schools,
better hospitals, better roads,

and a more competent government.

"It is hard to hear

"Senator Carter talk
about state government

and not be impressed by his
integrity," one reporter wrote.

You're not going to turn
the applecart upside down,

but you're going
to bring changes,

you're going to bring
improvements in the South

and you're going to do it

by applying good, sound business
techniques to everything...

From the way you run
your public institutions

to the way you run
your government.

Carter took his message
to every corner of Georgia.

"We never stopped," Rosalynn
recalled, "no matter what."

By election day,
he was closing in on the lead.

We went to bed thinking
we were going to win.

I'd gotten up and gone
to school the next day,

being congratulated about
my father winning the primary,

and then Billy came to the...
about 2:00 in the afternoon

and told us that
Lester Maddox had beat us

by less than a half
of a percentage point.

So, it was very disheartening.

"We all felt sick,"
Rosalynn recalled.

"We were $66,000 in debt,
and Jimmy had lost 22 pounds."

After all the miles traveled,
the handshakes, the long days,

Jimmy Carter was
right back where he started

when he first ran
for the Senate in 1962.

Weeks later, with the loss
still fresh in his mind,

Jimmy went for a walk
with his sister Ruth,

an evangelical Christian
and a spiritual healer.

All of his life he had been
a churchgoing Christian,

but now felt that his faith
had been superficial.

"We are both Baptists," he said,

"but what is it that you have
that I haven't got?"

"Total commitment," she replied.

"I belong to Jesus...
Everything I am."

"Ruth," he answered,
"that's what I want."

At that point he decided

that he'd always put
Christ in his life first

and politics second.

But that's been
a struggle for him,

because politics is the ego,
and Christ is the humbleness.

The born-again Christian
traveled north

to blighted neighborhoods

in Pennsylvania
and Massachusetts

as a "personal witness"
for Jesus Christ.

He would go door to door,

getting people
to witness Christ,

take Jesus into their lives.

I mean, can you imagine?

Ten years later this man is
president of the United States,

and he's banging on doors,

asking people,
"Do you want a bible?

Will you take God in your life?"

He wanted to understand theology

and so he began reading
a lot of theologians

and began to craft for himself
a political theology

that was compatible
with his own personality.

Carter found guidance

in the writings of theologian
Reinhold Niebuhr.

Niebuhr said,
"The sad duty of politics

is to bring justice
to a sinful world."

A Christian has to get
involved in politics.

He has to soil his hands
as a politician

or in an immoral society,

in order to improve it.

Niebuhr taught him that there is
good and evil in the world,

and that politics is corrupt,
but it's honorable,

as long as you kept
your heart pure

and your sense of morality pure.

"I believe God wants me to be
the best politician I can be,"

he said.

I'm Jimmy Carter,
I'm running for governor.

How are you?

In 1970, with renewed fervor,

Carter ran for governor
of Georgia a second time.

I have been campaigning

almost 18 hours a day
without stopping

for eight months.

I've seen almost every
factory shift in Georgia,

been in almost every store...

It was just

kind of an obsession.

He had lost, so he had to win.

And we worked as hard
as we could.

Bye.

Hi, y'all.

It would not be
the amateur run of 1966,

but a well-coordinated effort.

Carter brought in two
Southwest Georgia boys:

Jody Powell
as his personal assistant,

and Hamilton Jordan
to manage the campaign.

Advertising man Gerald Rafshoon
would handle the media.

Bert Lance,
a banker from Calhoun,

played the role of advisor.

Though it was
a tough, tough campaign

and there were many

who thought that Carter
could not possibly win.

Carter's rival
for the Democratic nomination...

Carl Sanders... enjoyed
a commanding 20% lead.

He had the backing of the
Atlanta business establishment,

and the support
of African Americans,

voting in greater numbers since
the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Carter went after Sanders
with a vengeance.

Some candidates in this
governor's race have

large campaign contributions
behind them.

Big money asking big favors.

Jimmy Carter only has
the people of Georgia...

Carter portrayed Sanders

as a tool of the Atlanta
business establishment

and himself
as a hard-working Everyman.

No wonder Jimmy Carter has
a special understanding

of the problems facing everyone
who works for a living.

Isn't it time
somebody spoke up for you?

He wanted to appeal
to the large middle-class,

blue-collar type,
predominantly white,

and most of these people are
going to be segregationists.

He courted the racist vote.

There were some radio ads
that he ran in 1970.

He said that "Unlike Sanders,
I am not trying to get the..."

and he sort of slid over

whether it was "block"
or "black" vote.

But it sort of meant
the same thing.

Carter himself was not
a segregationist in 1970.

But he did say things that the
segregationists wanted to hear.

He was opposed to busing.

He was in favor
of private schools.

He said that he would invite

segregationist
Governor George Wallace

to come to Georgia
to give a speech.

The only solace

that we got and received was the
fact that, in private meetings,

he convinced us that
if he was given an opportunity,

he would make things better.

He'd always come up
with this question of trust.

"Trust me.

I believe in doing
the right thing."

If you are really trying
to accomplish good moral ends,

you may have to be a low-life
politician to get there.

And he didn't probably like
doing it that much,

but he was willing to do it.

At the end of a long campaign,
I believe I know our people...

On January 12, 1971,

Jimmy Carter, age 46, was
sworn in as Governor of Georgia.

North and South,
rural and urban...

In his inaugural address,

he revealed
his true feelings on race.

I say to you quite frankly,

that the time for racial
discrimination is over.

No poor, rural, weak or black
person should ever have to bear

the additional burden of being
deprived of the opportunity

of an education, a job
or simple justice.

We were extremely pleased.

Many of the white
segregationists were displeased.

And I'm convinced that those
people that supported him

would not have supported him

if they had thought that he
would have made that statement.

I do remember reading
his inaugural address

and thinking,
"This is wonderful."

We've got a governor
in a Deep South state

who is stating emphatically

not just that it's time
to accept change,

but that it's time
to really move far beyond that

and end all forms
of discrimination.

I suddenly saw him

as part of this new generation
of Southern politicians

who were moving beyond
the divisions of racial politics

in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Carters moved into the
brand-new governor's mansion,

on 18 acres
in Atlanta's poshest district.

This is the first time our
family has really been together

for the last four years.

Our oldest boy has just gotten
back from the Navy

and I've been campaigning
for four years,

so we're looking forward
to living as a family again.

Mrs. Carter,

have you had any
special problems?

No, not really.

We packed the clothes
in the car last night.

And really, the only furniture
we had to bring was one sofa,

which is just a favorite, old
sofa that my children love.

Going from Plains, Georgia,

to the governor's mansion
was much harder for me

than going from the governor's
mansion to the White House.

I had never, ever been
in the governor's mansion.

Um, when Jimmy was
in the state senate,

I didn't come to Atlanta,
because I was working at home.

I was not part of the Atlanta
political community.

It was a really difficult
experience.

She had to learn her own voice,

how to project, how to make a
speech, how to win people over,

how to deal with legislators
on her issues.

She had to learn
how to do all that.

The people of Georgia came
to meet the new first family,

and fell in love with Amy,

the Carters'
three-year-old daughter.

The public identifies
with a small child,

and Carter understood that, and
they kept Amy in the limelight.

It made him human.

He could be
a successful politician,

a successful governor
and a successful father

all at the same time.

Carter appointed

an unprecedented number of women
and African Americans,

stimulated foreign investment,

reformed the state's
criminal justice

and mental health systems.

I see unfair taxes
and government waste

and I see runaway spending...

The centerpiece of his agenda
was a radical plan

to streamline state government
with savings at every level.

Everybody had to pay
for their own lunch.

You know, we had to put
two dollars into the kitty.

Mary Beasley, who was
his secretary at the time,

would ask you want you wanted,

so you felt honored to be able
to go ahead and spend money

for a dried-out sandwich.

The governor's proposal to slash

the number of government
agencies provoked outrage.

I welcome

the confrontation
with heads of departments.

You know, I'm willing
to fight with anybody

who opposes a recommendation
that would be helpful to...

I saw a completely
different side of Carter.

In the Senate,
he was not assertive.

As governor, he was assertive.

He knew where he wanted to go,

and he knew the direction
he wanted to go in.

And he wanted
complete compliance.

He's fighting
for total submission

and total control
of the legislators,

and he's willing to use
100 million or 200 million

or whatever it is...

Jimmy's character is such

that he wants
to get things done.

He wants them done.

And he has a tendency, I think,

to run roughshod over anything
that stands in his way.

We need to remember who pays the
taxes and who pays our salaries.

He had a tendency to take
his case to the people

and then try to force
the legislature to follow him.

Or the welfare recipient...

He never, as governor, broke

what I think was
an unfortunate habit

of seeing personal politics,
as a kind of...

That is,
with other politicians...

As a kind of nuisance,
something that had to be done

because you had to talk
to these people.

He never developed
the interest in...

Or really particularly
good skills...

At working with individuals
who may have disagreed with him.

Where you pay more
than $312.50 a month.

By the time his reorganization
bill reached the Senate floor,

Carter had alienated
most of the assembly.

But his bill squeaked through
by a handful of votes.

As I told the committee
up there,

he reminds me
of a South Georgia turtle

who's been blocked by a log.

And he just keeps pushing,
pushing, pushing straight ahead.

He doesn't go around here

until he finally gets
a soft spot in the log,

and right on through he goes.

He is a man of great
determination and steel.

Election season 1972, Jimmy
Carter extended his hospitality

to Democratic hopefuls.

Barely two years
in the governor's mansion,

he already had his eye
on the White House.

Every Democrat running
for office came to Georgia.

And every single one of them,
Dad would ask to come

and stay with him
at the governor's mansion,

and realize that they were
just people like him.

That July, Carter led
the Georgia delegation

to the Democratic
National Convention,

hoping for the second spot
on the ticket.

I'm over here in the box

and I really can't tell
what's going on so much.

But Jimmy comes over
from the floor

and briefs me
every once in a while.

As you said, it's the first time
I've ever been to a convention

and I'm just so excited
about it.

I remember at the end
of the McGovern speech,

at 3:00 in the morning,

Hamilton Jordan and I
were walking away

from the convention hall.

I said, "You know...

"if Ed Muskie, Hubert Humphrey,
Terry Sanford,

"Scoop Jackson, George Wallace,

"Ted Kennedy can run
for president,

Jimmy could run for president."

And then of course we said,

"If these guys who are running
these campaigns"...

Like we met the people
in the McGovern campaign...

"can run a campaign
for president,

hell, we could do that."

I called Ruth.

I said, "Jimmy's going
to run for p-p-..."

I couldn't even say the word,
it was so... unreal to me.

I'm one of about 15 or 20 people
in the country who...

active in the Democratic party

who have been mentioned for
a place on the ticket next year.

Carter's timing was perfect.

For the next two years,

Americans would be gripped
by the Watergate scandal.

Disillusioned with politics,
they were ready for a change.

Until after
the November election.

It was 1970...

early '74.

I went over to see him
one night.

Rosalynn was out of town.

I went over to the governor's
mansion and I said,

Let's just talk about
what the themes would be.

And he took a yellow pad
and he wrote:

fairness, not from Washington,

not a lawyer,
Southerner, religious.

These things
that were coming from Carter

were the themes of the campaign.

Jimmy who?

Jimmy Carter?

I don't know who he is.

Carter is a basketball player,
isn't he?

Carter officially announced
his candidacy in December 1974.

The one-term southern governor,
was a long shot.

Nobody knew him.

It was like picking a name
out of the phone book.

I mean, it takes a bit of hubris
to think you're the best person

to be the president of the
United States because you were

a one-term governor of Georgia.

♪ Once and for all,
why not the best? ♪

It's a kind of arrogance
run amuck.

♪ You see his name was
Jimmy Carter... ♪

I want to see us
once again have a nation

that's as good and honest
and decent and truthful

and competent
and compassionate...

and as filled with love
as are the American people.

At that time

character was
a monumental issue.

The country had been
through a horrible time

and Jimmy Carter represented
honesty and decency.

I'll never tell a lie.

I'll never make
a misleading statement.

I'll never betray the confidence
that any of you has in me.

Lyndon Johnson lied to us
about Vietnam.

Richard Nixon lied to us
about Watergate.

He's saying, you know,
I'm not one of those turkeys

who's messing things up
up there.

♪ Lord, I was born
a ramblin' man... ♪

Carter's campaign strategy
was simple:

run early and run hard.

Before any other candidates
even announced,

Carter had traveled
more than 50,000 miles,

visited 37 states and delivered
more than 200 speeches.

He was a wonderful speaker
before small groups.

He would get up
and talk, without notes,

with extraordinary passion.

Almost like a preacher, really
having the spirit with him.

It was a grassroots effort
financed on a shoestring.

We had all these stepping stones
we had to do.

We had to qualify
for federal matching funds

by a certain point.

And we accomplished
every one of them.

Every time you accomplished one,

it gave you more and more
confidence.

We had our boys out,

we had Aunt Sissy out,
we had his mother...

All going
in different directions.

At one point
in the presidential campaign

we had 11 family members
in 11 different states

at the same time.

The first test came
in January 1976.

With no delegates at stake,

other candidates wrote off
the Iowa caucuses,

but Carter saw them
as a way to surface early

and gain the attention
of the press.

Iowa put Carter
on the political map,

and gave him momentum

heading into a field
of better-known Democrats...

♪ On my way to New Orleans
this mornin'... ♪

Mo Udall, Birch Bayh,
Sargent Shriver...

In the all-important
New Hampshire primary.

We had almost a month

between the Iowa caucuses
and the New Hampshire primary,

which gave us time
to build on the win,

both in terms of recognition
and coverage

and in terms of raising
just enough money

to make it through New Hampshire
and have a bit left over.

Campaign volunteers from
Georgia... the "Peanut Brigade"...

Descended on the Granite State.

We were out every day,
knocking on doors.

We knocked on 60,000 doors
in New Hampshire.

That was probably almost
every Democratic household

that we could identify
in the whole state.

Hello. Are you
Mrs. Cobb?

Yes, yes.

I'm Dot Padgett...

You'd say, "Mrs. Smith?

My name is Betty Pope,
and I'm from Americus, Georgia.

And if Mrs. Smith was there
with her dog,

I would remember

that this beautiful lab
came to the door with her.

So I'd make a note and I'd talk
to her a little bit about Jimmy,

and often it was,
"Have you ever met him?"

And of course,
that's why we were there.

So we did get our name out.

And I think that we surprised
America when he won.

Jimmy Carter took
a long lead tonight

in the race for the Democratic
presidential nomination.

He won the New Hampshire
primary handily.

I remember when we couldn't
find a microphone.

The next crucial contest
was Florida.

The leading contender,
George Wallace,

the former governor of Alabama,
was an outspoken segregationist

who had become a liability
to the Democratic Party.

We'd run a Northerner
that was right on civil rights,

and George Wallace would steal
a third of our vote

and we couldn't get elected.

Here came along a man
from the South,

with very good
civil rights credentials,

who just might be able
to handle George Wallace.

As a native son, Carter
could appeal to white voters.

He also had the support
of African-American leaders.

Martin Luther King, Sr.,
had endorsed us.

Andy Young was on our team.

Great civil rights leaders here
in Atlanta were behind us,

others that got to know us.

It was a real asset to us.

All of the liberals
that I had worked with

got nervous in a room
full of black people.

And Jimmy Carter didn't.

He was very comfortable,
very relaxed.

When I talked with him
I realized that he read more,

he was more disciplined,
more organized,

his personal life was
more meaningful,

his religion was really way down
deep in the marrow of his bones.

And... and I said, you know,
"That's the kind of guy

that ought to be running
this country."

Most candidates stayed away
from Florida... confident

the little-known Georgian
could be dealt with later.

There really was
an underestimation of Carter

from the beginning
in that '76 campaign.

And he took advantage
of that repeatedly.

Carter in no way played
the Southern rube,

but there was a little bit of
this sneaking up on everybody.

By decisively defeating George
Wallace, he not only succeeded

in doing what the liberals
wanted him to do,

but transforming himself

into a really powerful,
major candidate.

What the liberals
had not realized

is that by the time of Florida,

Jimmy Carter
would have won Iowa,

would have won New Hampshire,

and would have this huge retinue
of press following him around

and he was the man to beat.

Carter's stamina
seemed superhuman.

"Behind that Huckleberry Finn
grin," one reporter observed,

"there is a perfectionist
campaign machine

that shuts down
only six hours out of 24."

State by state,
the delegates kept adding up.

By the time the Democrats
convened in New York,

in July 1976, Carter had
a lock on the nomination.

The fact that Carter could unite
the nation, North and South,

and give us a clean shot
for the presidency...

This was the culmination
of my dreams.

My name is Jimmy Carter

and I'm running for president.

And now I've come here
to accept your nomination.

He'd pulled off a miracle.

In the fall of 1975, he was
barely visible as a candidate,

below five percent
in all the polls.

And suddenly, six months later,

he has the Democratic
presidential nomination,

and he is running 70%
in the public opinion polls.

That is a miracle.

Now, the problem was
that he had his vulnerabilities,

and they showed in the fall.

Okay, gang, let's go around.

In the summer of 1976,
with a huge lead in the polls,

the Democratic candidate
could relax.

The press descended on Plains,

eager to learn
about the peanut farmer

who might become president,

and the remote Southern town
he called home.

It was thought out
and carefully planned

by the campaign committee.

As Jody Powell said,

our campaign was not
really about issues.

It was about blue skies,

where everybody knew each other,
and no pollution.

That was it all the way.

And so going into Plains
you see blue skies,

you see everybody in town
seemed to love Jimmy.

Everybody was enthusiastic
about him.

So it was perfect.

This was who he was.

This is where he came from.

The people in that town
clearly saw him as one of them.

That was a tremendous asset.

When you're campaigning,

every little picture
in the paper,

every little something,
is free publicity.

So we were trying
to impress the people

and trying to let them know
what the real Plains was like.

We went and took this empty
depot and steam-cleaned it

and we brought furniture
from our homes

and pictures off the walls.

Everybody just cooperated
and wanted to help.

Back home, surrounded
by family and friends,

Carter would display
his best qualities.

You would go to the church on
Sunday, and there would be Jimmy

and he'd have the lesson
for the day

and he'd outline something.

One time, he came out
and he had underlined

"The Baptists believe in the
separation of church and state."

So he was safe on church issues.

You might go out
to the pond house

and hear Jimmy Carter come out

and say what he just heard
from a group of experts,

and like an "A" student
in a seminar,

tell you what everybody said
with great clarity.

Following that up,
are you saying that...

And if you asked him
a tough question,

he got those cold blue eyes,

and reporters would just
shudder with delight:

that look!

And so you...
what you could see,

he'd be a tough son of a bitch.

So not only was he moral,

and did he have all these people
love him, but he would be tough.

Carter's eccentric family
provided color.

Sister Gloria rode
a Harley Davidson

and was a born-again Christian.

Sister Ruth was
a Charismatic Christian

and popular faith healer.

And holding forth at his filling
station across from the depot

was Billy,
Carter's hard-drinking brother.

My big advantage?

Sam Donaldson was against me.

Brother Billy... he was a sport.

He was a very good businessman,
and he was extremely colorful.

And he was much brighter,
much more learned and well read

than most people think.

He read a book every day

and had over 20,000
in his library

stashed up in his attic
when he died.

Smile, Billy.

Billy ended up with a reputation

and then he tried
to live up to it.

All right.

Of all the Carters, it was
the irrepressible Miss Lillian

who best reflected on Jimmy.

Since her husband's death,

she had lived life
on her own terms.

Always committed
to helping the poor,

she had joined the Peace Corps
and spent two years in India.

There's that wonderful story
of Miss Lillian

when one reporter woman from
New York came down to Plains

and Miss Lillian greeted her

and said, you know,
"Welcome to Plains."

You know,
"It's so nice to see you.

"Would you like some lemonade?

"How was your journey?

Your dress is beautiful."

You know, pouring
on the Southern hospitality.

And the reporter jumped right
in on Miss Lillian and said,

"Now, Miss Lillian, your son
is running for president

"saying he'll never tell a lie.

As a mother, are you telling me
he's never told a lie?"

She goes, "Oh, well, Jimmy tells
white lies all the time."

And the reporter said, "Well,
tell me, what do you mean?

What is a white lie?"

And Miss Lillian said,
"Remember when I said,

"'Welcome to Plains, ' and
'How good it is to see you'?

That's a white lie."

Well, now, it's sometimes said

that parents are
never really satisfied

with what their
children accomplish...

I won't be satisfied until
he gets in the White House.

You think he will?

I know he will.

And then what are
you going to do?

I'm going to stay
at the pond house and fish.

This election means
a lot to our country.

Carter began the fall campaign

against incumbent
President Gerald Ford

with a 15-point lead.

We've been disappointed,

disillusioned.

We've been kept
out of government.

We've been embarrassed.

Sometimes we've been ashamed...

He returned to the themes
of honesty and trust

that had defined
his primary campaign.

Jimmy Carter will say
anything, anywhere,

to be president
of the United States.

But as election day approached,

he was pressured
to take a stand on the issues.

He wanders, he wavers,

he waffles and he wiggles.

He isn't the man...

He was a moderate
to the moderates.

He was a conservative
to the conservatives.

He was a liberal
to the liberals.

And in fact he was
all of those things.

We're going to have
a fair government once again.

We're going a government that's
open and not secret, once again.

His standard line when asked
about his foreign policy

was that he wanted
to provide a foreign policy

as good as the American people.

Well, gee, that's great

but what in the world
does it mean?

You can depend on it.

You help me, I'll help you.

Thank you very much.

The gist of what
he presented was

that he would be
a centrist Democrat

who had liberal values
in his heart,

as well as the desire
for frugality and thrift

and efficiency in government.

And so he could appeal to people

from all parts
of the Democratic party.

But as Julian Bond said
at one point,

"The problem with this is

that his support was
an inch deep and a mile wide."

Alarmed that support among
liberal Democrats was eroding,

Carter's young staff made
a bold move.

We did the Playboy interview

to show that being
a born-again Christian

was not a threat to more secular
Democrats and young people.

For five hours, Carter
tried to explain his views

on culture, politics and faith.

Toward the end of the interview,

exasperated
at not being understood,

he said, "I've looked
on a lot of women with lust.

I've committed adultery
in my heart many times."

If you read the interview,

the "lust in your heart" line
was to try to explain

that he, too, was a sinner,
that...

But the language was...

And I would see this
all the time...

Carter used language that was
germane to his world, to his...

like we all do...
To our own cultural context.

Here's a guy who is so moral,

but on the one hand
he talks about

he's lusted after women
in his heart,

and he talks about shacking up

and he uses language
that's going to really enrage

and turn off a lot of people.

Do not underestimate

what a crisis that interview
and the "lust in my heart"

caused Carter.

It almost derailed
the entire Carter campaign.

They were in havoc over it.

In retrospect,
it was kind of amusing.

It wasn't very funny
at the time,

trying to explain to people

that Jimmy Carter was not
some child molester,

you know, I mean, or pervert.

The Playboy thing has been
of very great concern to me.

I don't know how
to deal with it exactly.

By the time Jimmy Carter
and Gerald Ford met

in the first of two
presidential debates,

Carter's lead had evaporated.

The momentum belonged to Ford.

Two weeks later, he blundered.

There is no Soviet domination
of Eastern Europe

and there never will be
under a Ford administration.

Uh, I'm sorry,
could I just follow...

Did I understand
you to say, sir,

that the Russians are
not using Eastern Europe

as their own sphere
of influence...

We knew that this
was going to hurt,

that a lot of people
couldn't see

how a president would say that.

It gave us about a week, as I
recall, to pound away on this.

And you could just feel people
moving on that question.

So what it did, I think,

was rather than electing us,
it stopped our slide.

By election day,
the polls showed a dead heat.

It was not until 3:00 a.m.

that the networks announced
the winner...

By one of the closest margins
in American history.

I look back now,
and I just... I'm amazed.

Going from total anonymity

to being president of the United
States, in less than 12 months,

is unprecedented
in American history.

If it weren't for the country
looking for something in '76,

Carter could never
have gotten elected.

He'd never have been allowed
out of the box.

He offered a biography
of what we wanted to hear:

farmer, Main Street values,
Plains.

It was the right message
at the right time

and it didn't happen
by accident.

Carter created that message,

knowing that
that's what would win the day.

I came all the way through.

Took 22 months,

and I didn't get...
choked up until I...

This was not planned,
it was not scheduled

and whether this is Carter's
surprise for his inaugural,

by golly, Bob, how about that?

The morning of January 20, 1977,

Jimmy Carter surprised
the nation.

I remember I was
out there walking

and you could hear Walter
Cronkite over the loudspeaker

saying, "The president
is walking down the street!"

It was a major moment of the
Carter presidency symbolically.

It was great theater.

Here was this tremendous breath
of fresh air.

He was going to bring
something new to Washington,

bring new people and new ideas.

Our commitment to human rights
must be absolute,

our laws fair...

It was so different
from what had come before.

People were looking
for something that was simple,

something that was pure,

and it just struck a chord
in the American people.

More is not necessarily better.

Jimmy Carter was exactly

what the American people
always say they want:

above politics,
determined to do the right thing

regardless of political
consequences,

a simple person who doesn't lie,

a modest man, not somebody with
a lot of imperial pretenses.

That's what people say they want

and that's what they got
with Jimmy Carter.

The Carter team arrived in
Washington full of confidence,

ready to take on the Washington
insiders they had run against.

I felt like the advance wave
of the German army

arriving in Paris in 1940.

I mean, this is
a democratic city,

and they were terrified...
I mean, terrified.

You could feel it in the air.

They did not have
a lot in common

with the national
political party.

They did not have a lot
in common with the Congress.

They were a very close-knit
band of brothers

and they were intensely loyal
to Jimmy Carter.

And they were
pretty cocky guys as well.

There was clearly
some degree of suspicion

and maybe even a little bit
of resentment that...

"Here come these folks
riding in here

"that didn't really pay
their dues.

"They're not us.

"They're not our kind of folks

and all of a sudden
they're in the White House,"

and "We'll show them

that this town is tougher
than they think."

His top people had
no experience in Washington.

And they were sort of
contemptuous of Washington.

Well, it's one thing to sort
of run against Washington,

but you have to live there
and you have to govern there

and you have to work
with the people who are there,

and it really doesn't
get you anywhere

to have this attitude if you
want to get anything done.

You get things done by power.

You get power
from having public support.

My argument was that
in order to maintain power

we would have
to reinforce constantly

the message
of what we were doing.

Good evening.

Tomorrow will be two weeks
since I became president...

On February 2,

Carter addressed the nation
in a fireside chat on energy.

The country had been
through an oil scare in 1973.

To head off a new crisis, Carter
appealed directly to Americans

to rally around a new program.

All of us must learn
to waste less energy.

Simply by keeping
our thermostats, for instance,

at 65 degrees in the daytime
and 55 degrees at night,

we can save half the current
shortage of natural gas.

If we learn to live thriftily

and remember the importance
of helping our neighbors,

then we can find ways to adjust.

Carter led by example.

He curtailed
the use of limousines,

canceled magazine subscriptions,
unplugged television sets,

and put the presidential yacht,
Sequoia, on the auction block.

He turned off
the air conditioners

and it was so hot
in the White House,

people would come in there...

It was unbelievable.

It would be a hundred above
in there.

To save on staff overtime,

all White House functions
would end at midnight.

No hard liquor would be served.

Jimmy Carter is
a Low Church Protestant,

where it's a sin

not to have a hard wooden bench
to sit on in church.

And he brought that simplicity
to the White House.

We were all invited down to the
White House every other Tuesday.

We walked into
the private dining room

on the first floor
off the East Room.

We looked at the table

and there were these
little fingertip cookies,

and... Tip O'Neill looked at me
and he said, "What's this?"

I said, "I guess
that's breakfast."

So the president walked in,

you know, walked around the room
and shook hands with everybody.

And O'Neill looked
at the president, and he says,

"Mr. President, you know,
we won the election."

That's the last time
you were here?

That's the last time
I was in the Oval Office.

Carter presented his agenda

to the speaker of the house,
Tip O'Neill.

Energy was Carter's
number-one priority,

but it was competing with his
long list of other legislation...

Bills on hospital cost
containment, urban policy,

ethics in government.

You brought enough
for four years' work.

I understand that.

There was nothing in the package

to grease
the wheels of government.

Some are of more
priority than others.

When Carter struck
from his budget

19 multimillion-dollar
water projects

that had been approved
by President Ford,

congressmen were furious.

He was absolutely right
to take it on...

These sort of boondoggles

and unnecessary, really,
pork-barrel things...

But he didn't know
how to take it on.

You have to build
political capital,

you have to build alliances,
you have to make deals.

The quid pro quo was not in him.

If you came to him and said,

"Look, we can get so-and-so
to vote for us,"

he would turn a deaf ear.

"He never understood
how the system worked,"

Tip O'Neill
would later complain.

"And although this was out
of character for Jimmy Carter,

he didn't want
to learn about it either."

If your job is to find

the public good, to arrive
at what the public good is

and then to articulate it,

and then you become
the voice of the people.

And when you do that, it becomes
very difficult to compromise.

On one occasion when I was
talking to President Carter

I said, "Mr. President,

"you know, I've had
three presidents before you

"and I'll have several
after you.

"I'm telling you,
from the vantage point

"of what I see
in the legislative process,

"you will be able to do and what
you won't be able to do.

Now, you can accept that
or not accept it."

But Carter's attitude

was members of the House
and Senate are bad guys.

Carter put O'Neill
and the others like him

in the same category with the
corrupt Georgia courthouse pols

that he had been fighting
for much of his life.

The same kind
of back-scratching,

featherbedding pol, worrying
about the next election,

worrying about
their public opinion polls,

coming in and not doing
what was right.

Often, he wouldn't

return phone calls
of leading senators.

There was a kind of an abrasive
attitude he had towards them.

He never showed them
the respect.

So they all eventually
got bitter and turned on him.

Even if he had had
a personality transplant

and he had spent
three hours a night

playing poker with Tip O'Neill,

I don't think that would
have made the difference.

I mean, he was...
he was faced with

an extraordinarily difficult
set of circumstances,

which in part sprang not only
from the political situation,

but from his... the...
the lack of a connection

between his own views
and those of his party.

"There will be
no new programs implemented

"unless they are compatible

"with my goal
of having a balanced budget

by the end of my first term,"
he pledged.

But liberal Democrats, eager
to resume the social agenda

of Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society,

would not back away.

There had been
an eight-year period

when there had been
no Democratic president.

There were a lot of pent-up
and legitimate desires

by constituency groups

for more investment
in a whole range of programs.

Although he sympathized
with much of it,

all of his instincts
were to cut budgets,

reduce the deficit dramatically.

But he was always under pressure
from the Left

to have more spending.

At a breakfast meeting,

Carter berated the congressional
Democratic leadership

for adding $61 billion
in new programs to his budget.

"The Democratic Party
needs to remove the stigma

of unjustified spending,"
he said.

"Mr. President,"
Tip O'Neill reminded Carter,

"the Democrats are the champions
of the poor and the indigent."

Carter thought
that big social programs

and large amounts
of federal spending

would bankrupt the country.

He could see,
I think, very clearly,

the way the world was going,

and he knew that old era
had to be phased out.

Carter, looking back,

was being very long-sighted
in saying, you know,

"We just don't have
an open-ended,

"never-ending
amount of money to spend.

We have to get things
in balance."

Carter's commitment
to fiscal restraint

appealed to
a growing number of Americans.

"He brings to the office

a refreshing habit of plain
words and simple manners,"

wrote Newsweek.

"A mind and discipline
of tempered steel

and an insatiable appetite
for work."

Jimmy Carter
had entered the presidency

with only 51% of the vote.

By June, he enjoyed
an approval rating of over 70%.

Then came an event

that rocked the foundation
of the Carter presidency.

It was called the Lance Affair.

In July 1977,

Carter's budget director,
Bert Lance,

was accused
of financial improprieties

at his bank in Calhoun, Georgia.

A federal investigation cleared
Lance of all illegal activity,

but concluded
that he had engaged

in "unsafe and unsound
banking practices."

Bert Lance
is a man of competence

and a man of integrity,
and that his services...

Believing the affair was behind
him, Carter stood by his friend.

Bert Lance enjoys my
complete confidence

and support.

I'm proud to have him

as part of my administration.

Carter had miscalculated.

To the press, the issue
was ethics, not the law.

Sensing a scandal,
they went on the attack.

There were a lot of journalists
who very much wanted to prove

that they could be as tough
on a Democratic president

as they had been on...
on a Richard Nixon.

There was a... a real desire
to make sure that it was clear

that they were going to pursue
this every bit as aggressively.

One of the things people like to
go after more than anything else

is what they perceive
as hypocrisy.

So that you're judged
by the standards

that you set for yourself.

And certainly,

Carter's talking about,
"I'll never tell you a lie,"

and emphasizing honesty,
provides an easy opportunity.

Carter's inner circle
urged him to get rid of Lance.

But he was torn

between loyalty to his friend
and his own reputation.

For weeks, he allowed
the Lance Affair to fester.

Do you feel
you were drummed out?

My statement speaks for itself.

I have no comment
about being drummed out.

I said in my statement

that I had to analyze
and question what...

The day that I resigned,
I came home, and I was spent.

I lay down on the bed
crying about the situation,

just from the standpoint

of just having run out
of any adrenaline

or emotion or anything else,

and so we had all that horde
of media out on the front yard

that had been there constantly.

I guess it was a suicide watch.

Any comment at all?

Looking back,
it wasn't that big a deal.

But what it did do
at the time...

was give the first blow

to the image that Carter
was trying to project

that his was a squeaky-clean
administration.

Whether my own credibility
has been damaged, I can't say.

I would guess to some degree.

An unpleasant
situation like this...

Carter's approval rating
plunged 25 points.

It would have been better
for the president

if we had brought that
to an end sooner.

It threw us off our stride.

It made it harder for us
to talk about other things

and sort of played
into questions

about whether we could lead
and run the country.

Until that moment,
we had been driving the agenda.

Everyone danced to our tune.

After that, we danced
to everybody else's tune.

And that hurt us
with the public,

because now Jimmy Carter
is not in charge.

Only nine months in office,

Jimmy Carter was
a wounded leader...

struggling
to regain the confidence

of the American people.

He would succeed
where others had failed...

and face challenges
no one could have imagined.

Find out more
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