Transcripts For CSPAN2 Rosalynn 20240704

Watch book tv every sunday on cspan2 and find a full schedule on your Program Guide or wch online anytime at booktv. Org. Rosalynn carter, do you remember when you and president carter started having conversations about him running for president . Ideal. What was thatve like . What was our conversation . It was very interesting. [laughter] we hadug a friend, he thought he ought toan run for president. Well, we could not even say the word. I did not tell anybody because we kept it very quiet. But then, once he decided that he would do it, that was when i could not, he could hardly say i was going to be president. It was just something that we never ever dreamed would happen. And, itxc was exciting. I was excited about it. I had campaigned the whole last year before the governors race. It was hard. Amy was a baby. I did not like to leave her all the time. But i enjoyed it. I knew the capital of every county. In fact, that is how i got involved in Mental Health issues campaigning for jimmy. Our big Mental Health facility hospital. A big expose. Yeah, 63 and this was 1966 when jimmy first ran for governor, got beat that time. But we got in late because i live in democratic candidate had a heart attack. But um. They were moving people out of the hospital because like 12,000 people where they had room for 3000. It was awful. It was happening all over the country and theyre moving them out before they had any facilities for no services in the communities. And everybody started talking to me about what would your husband do if hes elected governor of georgia . Um, i just learned so much about what was going on, and i after we lost the election, i worked for years to learn a little bit about Mental Health. And then the first month in office, they appointed the Governors Commission to improve services to the mentally and emotionally handicapped. So and so a when he told me about that, this is giving me a chance to two across the whole country and it was so much fun to me. I just dish loved going in peoples homes when we first started campaigning for president , i would i went to iowa a lot, i went to florida and iowa in the beginning but it was two primaries we had and i had been working in the farm supply business at home. When we got home from the navy, jimmy had me. I didnt work the first year, but im i started helping him and he only had seasonal labor. I started working for him and he did why dont you keep the office while i visit the farmers. I might two to iowa and somebodys house and knew the price of fertilizer. We had had a corn mill. I mean, i loved it. I met so many hard but i was so excited. I had been able to learn and georgia and about the country. And i thought he would be a good president. Mrs. Carter, when did you neglect during that campaign that your husband would be elected president . I never touted. We never doubted. I dont think anybody in our in our whole campaign thought we would lose. Maybe you have to have that set of mind to win. We campaigned all of the time that we were going to win. Friem georgia. But being just people from georgia. But then it just grew and grew and grew. Who would campaign over the country for us and it was really wonderful. They paid their own way. In fact, we had no money and everybody who worked in our campaign had to find a house to stay at, like somebody that was a supporter that that would have them spend the let them spend the night with them. Either they had to pay they had to pay for a hotel. Um, that couldnt happen now, but it was really close. No, not with money. Not with the money that you have to have even win the nomination. Rosalynn carter january 20th, 1977. What do you remember about that day . It was Inauguration Day and we walked down pennsylvania avenue in the cold, cold weather. It was exciting. Whose idea was it to walk . It was jimmys idea. He didnt tell me to the night before. Point man didnt tell anybody else except the secret Service Agents, because we didnt. Well, the secret Service Agents didnt want him to for security, but they didnt want him to talk walk at all. But i guess he just thought it was better. Nobody was anticipating him walking down pennsylvania avenue. I think he thought everything would be different if if they believed him, maybe, uh, if we, maybe we shouldnt do it. If everybody knew it, you know . Anyway, it was, it was. It was really wonderful. So, january 20th, 1977, youre the first lady of the united states. How do you prepare to become first lady . Well, becoming first, the hard part for me was going from the farm supply business to the Governors Mansion, a beautiful Governors Mansion. It was new, but the outgoing governor had only lived in it for two years. Columnist dont know for that federal period, authentic federal period, furniture all the way through. And i went to see the outgoing governors wife after we won and ask who did the cooking . And she said, i do. I said, who serves the table . She said, i do everything i ask, as she did it. And i said, id like to see your office. Where is your. She said, i dont have one of is in my staff is in the which is that i have an office in the um governors and the capital with the governors and they handle my and my correspondence. I said, do you make speeches . And she said, no, i let the governors mother do that. I went home and said, what have we done . And the all the help in the house were trust is from the prison and the first thing i do is hire. There was her a housekeeper. And then we we taught the prisoners to cook and to serve tables and and i developed a fairly competent staff. We had her in the music club of atlanta, had invited me to entertain benton harbor, and he was coming to play to perform in atlanta on january 30th. We we actually moved in the Governors Mansion on january the 12th. So jimmy had an aunt in this area, and i called her because she was really wonderful person. And she came to and helped me. And we did a beautiful dinner for him. We we put tuxedos on and the prisoners, which was new and different for them. And, uh, anyway, we, we had a really wonderful meeting and then, as i said, we called it, um, oh, i got her to organize docents who could take people through the Governors Mansion, because when i went the first time, a state patrolman were in the hallway guarding the tool and i thought that didnt seem very homey. So i got the says it had a list of people that came in who came every day to everybody that come at the mansion was open. That was. Anyway, i had to learn everything i had to develop the staff. We learned by trial and error. I had my assistant that helped me. And we, for instance, when we entertained we the one of the first entertainers we had was a man who had sat. We read his biography and his talent and what he did, and it sounded perfect. We had a lot of racecar drivers. Atlanta speedway and and they were coming to eat dinner with us. So we got him. He stood up. When he stood up to sing, he sang light opera, if you can believe. Oh, ill slid under the table. After that, we learned we had to audition everybody. We just learned by. When i got to the white house, everything was already done at a social secretary. I didnt have to worry about the, you know, about what we were going to serve or any of those things. She would make out plans for me and bring them to me and i would decide what i wanted to do. It was really quite wonderful and it was three years old when we moved to the Governors Mansion. Shed never known anything else and she would. And you couldnt. And the governors right. And the only thing i would change is that you couldnt get from upstairs where we lived, to the kitchen, without going through the tourist and amy learned that three years of age to walk through the tourists like this because everybody has the baby that is the baby. And she got to where she would just walk right straight through without even seeing them. And i remember when we got to the white house and she went to school the first day, it was amy going in like this, which she had been doing all her life, going through the dirt. And everybody felt so sorry for. But that was just part of her life. And and actually after that happened, on the first day, the press got together and decided not to bother amy anymore. And so and that was really wonderful to in the white house, we didnt have to worry about that very much. Where did you first meet . Jimmy carter. Well, in plains, georgia has a population of 634. I think i knew everybody in town and there were no girls my age in town. And of course, i knew who he was. I drank some. I knew him, but he was three years older than i am. And but his little sister, who was three years younger than i would stay in town for if we had a basketball game or some event at the school, she would stay with her grandmother, who lived in town, and we became really close friends. She was my best friend growing up. This is ruth. This is ruth and, um. But he graduated from high school at 16. We onl went 11 grades back then and i was 13. Well, there was no way i ever thought i would go with jimmy carter, and i didnt go with him until he came home. The lad before he was the first class, when he came home from the, um, Naval Academy and i went out with him the night before he was going to leave. But ruth and i plotted to get me out there with him because i wanted to. I had fallen in love with his photograph on the wall, in her room at home. And so she would call me and say hes here, and i would go. He had a month leave and i would go out there and hed be gone. And one day we we we had a farmhouse and jimmys parents had a farmhouse not close to but i mean, fairly close to the house and and and everybody in town used it for events, Church Events and School Events and things like that. So when they she called and said that somebody had used the phone as the night before and that they were going out there and clean up jimmy, she and jimmy and want me to come home. So i spent the day with it and that night i was a Church Meeting standing at the door. At the door that was a youth meeting. One night during the week. And ruth, with her boyfriend and jimmy drove up and he got out of the car and asked me to go to the movie with him. So i went to the movie with him and then i went to the railroad station to see him over the next night. And then we started riding in, led us to each other. And at christmas time he asked me to marry and i turned him down. I was young and i had promised my father on his deathbed that i would go to college and i had not finished college well out of i went to annapolis the weekend of the ring dance, but i dont remember what they call the weekend. But yes, again. And i accepted. I was still young and it was july seventh, 1946. Thats all right. You said your father died when you were quite young. 30 . Mm hmm. I was the oldest of four children in my look at two brothers, and then my little sister, who was four years old and, um, my father, uh, developed leukemia. Um, i didnt know he was sick. And id been wanting to go to a church camp in the summer and they told me we didnt have enough money for it. And. And then one day i came home and from school and, and my dad asked me if i would still like to go to the camp as a group, but i didnt know was that he was going up. I was going to the hospital to see what was wrong, and he died. Just maybe that was in maybe may and he died in november. How did that affect your role as the oldest child. Well, everything changed for, um. I was the oldest one. My mother had never written a check. She went she had a she went to college for two years and had a teacher certificate, but she had never taught and back then in plains, you ordered your groceries and i plains Mercantile Company bought your clothes and things and they were all the groceries. They would send the groceries to the house. My daddy paid for it all. And, um, when when when he was on his deathbed, he called us all in and the children and told my mother that she wanted him to sell the farm if she had to, because she wanted to still go to school and i think we. So i dont know. Im well, im sure she sold the farm, but the next year her mother died. She was an only child and. Mama died not even we had no idea she was sick and my grandfather was not living on the farm at a time when to the cows and when he came back in, she was leaning over. She was tying a shoe in, in the chair, and somebody called my mother, 11 months after my daddy died. And weve been depending on them so much. And said, your mother died this morning. I mean, it just and imagine anybody doing that, too. I was getting ready to go to school and i heard a screaming in the hall where the telephone were. Yeah. And it was tough. My mother went to school. She worked in a grocery store, and then she worked in the school lunchroom. And then when i was still in high school, she got a job in the post office and worked there the rest until she had retired and she had to retire at age 70. It was the low and i came, i was campaigning. This was 1975 and christmas because her birthdays Christmas Eve and our birthday she had to retire. And so i was campaigning. I went campaigning after christmas. I came back home and my brother said, call me as soon as i got home and said, go to see mother. She cried all week long. So i went to see and and i said, mother, she had had to get up and be at work every morning at 7 00 and then she had to come back late in the afternoon. But my grandfather that came to live with us when my grandmother died. And so my mother had flexible hours because the postmaster didnt want to get up early and he didnt want to stay late. But anyway and i said, mother, dont you enjoy just being able to sleep in the morning . She says, its not that, its just that nobody thinks i can do good work anymore. So that that made an impression on me. And then so when jimmy was president , i did work with aging. I became interested in them in working with Mental Illnesses too, because there were no doctors to care for people with mental illness. And actually the no director doctors, we pay he passed an age discrimination law and with people in the federal government could work as long as they wanted to and people outside could work until they were 75. So i worked a lot on well, it Rosalynn Carter you of always been a political partner to your husband. Is that is that a fair statement . Ive been a partner. I would call it a part it when we he was in the navy for seven years after we got married, we had three boys and the first two years of the first year had one baby. And he was gone for two years. He was on battleships back then. You had to serve two years before you could go to the air force, a submarine and he was going from monday to thursday every week. And a duty on one night. I had to take care of everything. And and then when we got home and i began working in the farm supply business anymore and books very soon than he did and i think thats when we really developed this really good partnership. I could say, dont buy corn anymore. We make losing money on it. I could devise him and it just developed into a really wonderful partnership. And so when he was when i didnt campaign, when he ran for the senate, i kept the business while the campaign. But then when he i campaigned. When he ran for governor was the first time that campaign. And but then when he got in the governors race that, you know, i learned all the issues and campaign and got it and did the same thing when he was running for president. I think we were it was the first time i know lady bird had come through planes on a train. But i think that the first time people that the women had campaign and well, i know i, i got in the car with a friend when jimmy started to run for president and we just i wanted to know if i could campaign in other states like i did in georgia. So with the florida, we went to florida and stayed ten or 12 days and we would just stop along the way in the towns and pass out brochures and look up the radio stations. And in fact, we started work and we started go into it and tell antennas because they were radio stations and you would go in. This might be just a music, you know, station where they played music and they would have no idea what i would say. My husband driving for president. I would like for you to interview me and Vice President of work. President the united states. You got to be kidding. I said, no, im not kidding. And ive have no idea what to ask me. So before the first day was over, i had the i had a five or six questions that i was the things that i wanted people to know about you, you know, about those things. And i came home and said, i can do it. Everybody is the side. What i learned was everybody is the same. They want good families. The good places, the homes. They want good things for their families. They want a church. Usually they wanted a place to worship. They want to make a living and have a good life. I mean, everybody wants the same thing. But look, regions have different other things, but were just in general, people ought to be happy and have a good home and a good family. In your book, first lady from plains, you write that you are more political than your husband. What do you mean by that . I look, he says what he thinks out of what it is, and sometimes i would get after it because i think you have to be political in a certain way. You have to be honest and you have to say the same things. But still you have to cater to people. Sometimes i think and know what they want and need to be able to influence them to vote for you and its not being dishonest. Its just finding out what they want and letting them know how youre going to help them with those problems that things that they want, the things they want in the government, just being political. And he but jimmy thinks if something needs to be done, it needs to be done. Now. And when he was in office and and world when he was president , i dont thin ever did anything that wa controversial. That bothered me sometimes. But in life i didnt like the war controversy all the time. Rosalynn carter in the white house, you held press conferences, traveled solo, acted as the president s emissary. How did you develop the issues that you wanted to talk about or became expert in . Well, i, i worked on Mental Health. I had the president s commission on Mental Health, toured the country, moved i worked on problems of the elderly. And a lot of that came from seeing what happened. You know, what happened to my mother, because that was in the campaign. And but but also in traveling and campaigning. They took me where there were a lot of democrats. And so i went to a lot of Nursing Homes and facilities for older people and so what great needs that were in that area. So that influenced my work. Work. I had worked on immunization in georgia, had a good Immunization Program and there were bumpers who was a late later a senator while he was senator when jerry was elected. But he was governor the same time jimmy was. And it governors cant resist the wives would get together and Betty Bumpers worked with the centers for Disease Control and and develop a really good Immunization Program. She talked me into doing it at home. And so two weeks after we got the white house, she called me. And of course, i was ready to work on immunization in the white house. That was one of my great victories. Immunization was required, but school age and only 15 states. There was a little bit of an idea about whether its 50 to 70. And the first year we got it and beat it working with betty and the secretary of hhs, we got it in all 50 states. That was exciting. And we had this big meeting in washington. I go from when subject to another, but we had this big meeting in washington to celebrate, had people from all over the country. The next day there was not one word in the paper about it. I was so upset. So i called joe califano, who was a i know there was a camera there. He said it was ours, but nobody was interested in immunization. Nobody was the press. I got upset with the press, too, because they covered my Mental Health where the first few meetings i had and then they never showed up anymore. And one of the things i wanted to do is bring attention to the issue and how terrible it was and what. Few services they were. And but i but im thinking just getting it out in the public. Thats what i did in georgia. I did a good program. They just didnt come. When they were working in the white house, i met this woman. I said, nobody ever covered. And she said, miss carter, Mental Health is not a sexy issue. I never get very much coverage forr it but we toured the country, found out what was needed, developed legislation and passed the Mental Health systems act of 1980. It passed through congress one month before jimmy as he says was involuntarily retired from the white house and incoming president never implemented. One of the greatest disappointments of my life and now we had a Mental Health symposium and now we have a Mental Health Great Program here. And one of the people who worked with me in the white house, the program the subject was he did a comparison of what we did in 1980 with what we it is almost identical. We just passed things dont move very fast in the field. We have Affordable Care act covers parity, and we also have immigration. You and betty ford worked on at together . Thats right. After weef the white house, betty a i would go to washington. She would get republicans and i would get democrats and we made some progress. Your husbands were known as becoming bt friends, are very good friends. Diyou and betty ford have the same relationship . Yeah, we developed a really Good Relationship. Jimmy and gerald ford, showed how much they thought similarly and betty dish started working with betty and we developed a wonderful relationship. Mrs. Carter, are severalal first ladies still living, is there a sorority of first ladies . I had a Good Relationship with betty ford. Theress never been a real we see each other at events and at library dedications with the newer first ladies but theres not a sittown that i had betty ford. When you were first lady, you had a weekly luncheon with your husband and would attend cabinet meetings, what was theurse of that . Well, there were always things igs wanted to ask him and me of it was about the family and finances. Things going on back home. But we also talked about issues. It was i would say it was more family and personal things that were going on. It gave us time to to that. Almost every after we were there until about august. I wanted to get home when amy got home from school. We would jog and exercise, swim and talk about what he had tone tugger the day and what i had tone during the day and we just had the Good Relationship, but what ihe learned theres no way what is happening because of the press. You cant learn from newspapers, you cant learn from two minutes oftv tv. Tv was we didnt have computers. We had the big mainframe in the white house, nobody ever used them but jimmy. They got more. This was long time ago. 30 something years ago. But i couldnt tell. He said every they he stepped off of the elevators i would ask him what did you. Do i had to know. I was campaigning. I was touring the country. I was having press conferences and i needed to know. In february he had been there a year, one day he stepped off the elevator, he said, why dont you come to cabinet meetings and youll know why we do things and i started going to abnet meetings. A lot of people dont know that cabinet meetings and staff, i sat by cleveland and he was in the wheelchair. He was head of veterans affairs. I sat by him next to the door. I went every time i could that the cabinet met because it was dish thought it was necessary for me to know what was going on and why the decisions were made and so far so that i could explain to people in the country as i toured around. Roselyn carter, did you receive criticism for attending the meetings and for being the president s emorsy . There were all kinds of criticism. You know, i learned why jimmy was in the state senate. Thats the hardest because you know everybody that criticizes you. Then you expect it to be governor and jimmy had been governor for four and when i was at the white houseom i knew it s coming. I didnt like it but you have to accept the attitude. But that yo know that what your husband does is what he thinks is the best possible for our country. And what im doing, i think, is the best possible thing for my country. When jimmy was state in the states and i would get so upset, he sat me down. One day he said, if you dont think im doing the best job i can do, then worry about it. And you have to just accept that. But also my feeling was if they didnt, if they reported things in a way we didnt it because i didnt know they would ignorant about what was going and lots of times its true if they have good reason, if they know why youre doing it and so forth. I mean thats why you cant end today with the days that duration. Theres no way to know its happening because its talked about all day, every day. And you get like with a photo book or so confused by the time we had our meeting, um, last week that we had people here who really knew what was in the law, which was so good for us. And then to have the parity regulations that was, we found out the day before Kathleen Sebelius came that she was going to announce the final regulation, which id been talking to pass the law in 2008. And i had been talking to her about it. Shes a good friend. Her father was governor when jimmy was governor. Her mothers a good friend. And ive been talking with regulations that and i sure her hands were tied by the white because i think they voted in the Affordable Care. But then for her to come here and that sort of as soon as i heard it, i started shaking. Oh, i mean, those are 33 years after i got after i wanted it was excited. It was emotional. Was it possible to have a private life in the white house and . Did the white house feel like home. It felt like home to us almost immediately because we had all been campaigning. All our boys had been campaigning and id been campaigning and we were gether. I not all two of my sons and amy, there and we had together we had to make a little room that if you were not going to be there for a meal, you had to check off a little thing so that we could know who would be there. But and. Amy, i was almost everyday sometimes i was not, but both the time i was there when she came home from school and i helped her with the lessons and took it to suzukis violin classes and um. Oh, and then as, as i said earlier, jimmy and i would jog and as well if it was raining, wed go to the Bowling Alley and id be like that. And so we, we had a fairly good family life. It was, i think it was so precious to us as girls were being gone, traveling for two years. Does the white house affect a. I said, i think it could i dont i dont think it didnt affect ours. Um because we just been partners working together for so long. Um, but because, and, and i could see if, if, if the first lady was not particular interested in the different issues, i think it would be very difficult. But jimmy could talk to me about all of it and i think it happens that way more and more with first ladies because its some of the early first ladies were very active, but then the others that were not. And when you look back at previous first ladies before you served, who did you admire . Who did you emulate . Who did you learn from. Well, the closest person i had the closest and the only first lady that had knowledge of was lady bird. When jim was governor, she came to go to georgia and help me with the highway Beautification Program and i just knew her. And she, uh, but the main thing she told me was, if i would ask us on this, its a enjoy. Enjoy, because its not going to last. You know, youll be there. I was just enjoy it. But she did help me a lot. And of course, everybody, i think, looks back at Eleanor Roosevelt, who was quite wonderful and one person that had a big impact on my life was margaret mead. When i decided that i was going to run for that, i was going to work on Mental Health issues. She came to georgia to see me and just we had to we developed this really wonderful relationship and she would give me advice and went to several went to canada for a little help me anyway. I mean, she just she was just to me this to meet her was just emotional for me. So i would like to Eleanor Roosevelt and Rosalynn Carter, your husband in 2010, published his white house diaries. Did you keep a diary or a journal during the white house years . I kept them at different times. I didnt do very much in the beginning, but then i started having my secretary put spaces between events, and i had a desk in our bedroom and i left it then and i would go to the event had what was happening and who was going to be there now. And i would start writing notes about what happened at that event. And i did that pretty regularly for a while. I wrote really good, um, a diary about cant believe it. Like i kept those notes all the time from the first day or those public no, when, if, if and when will they be public . I dont know. I dont know how long it took em. I just went through them and edited them. But i didnt edit anything. I struck out a few passages. Why . Well, why that were you . To know what i called some of them who were not who were not corporate with jimmy out of it. Do you know . It was just just my personal thoughts. Um, along with what was happening and i didnt sit in any of the meetings, but i was there the whole time. And as soon as that would come out of a meeting, i was there. Lets see what it was. Whats going on . It was it was incredible. It was from the heights of excitement that it was going to happen to the depths of despair that it was. Now, i came home one day, for instance. We didnt know were going to be there 13 days. And so the last few days i had to go into town to do some events for jimmy. And so for me and i, something that i had planned and i got back one day and, and this toward the end and jimmy and hamilton jordan, who was and jody powell, who were staff people, were in the Swimming Pool at camp david and they said, its over. And they thought it was and it was a bad evening. But and when jimmy left, when i left on sunday, that the day they came back, um, jimmy said its either today or not. Im just, were just going to have to end it. It not. And that and we had. We opened the white house, i mean, we had pbs, did our events for a while and. I cant remember who was that day. I had to come in. I had to come in and introduce the artist and and i got a call about about halfway through it, i said, no, no. About half through the concert, think and told me he thought they had it. But dont tell anybody, not even mrs. Beck. And she was with me. But they didnt know for sure. But that was that was interesting. And anyway, when they came in that night, that was helicopter landed. It was thought does go dark. Im sure it was dark and they came in and mrs. Big and i was standing by the door of the blue room and they came in, Prime Minister back and went straight to her who was my mama . We going to go down in history for this . It was it was really thrilling. Do you think maybe well see a Rosalynn Carter camp david accords diary book sometime. We might. Theres actually i guess its all right for me to tell. This is actually our party, man. Thats going to be in washington opening a theater in washington on camp david. Early next year, i think. Will you be there for it . Ill be there for. It another issue during your husbands presidency that i want to ask you about, mrs. Carter, the iranian hostage crisis. Did you keep notes. Did you what were your feelings throughout that whole crisis and how did that affect you as a person . It was awful. I look back now i have memories of, um, just waiting for the press conference in iran to say what happened that day. Because we had no idea what was going on. And the only way we knew what was going on was when they would come out and announce it. And so and it was just, you know, thinking about and thinking we met with the families all along and thinking about the people whos whose family members were there and and what it was doing to jimmys presidency. And it was awful. It was awful. But and i would go out. I would go out and campaign. And i had found out earlier that that i could when a president goes out, hes so surrounded that people he speaks to them. He says, hello and so forth. But they didnt get close enough to people to have conversations. You just normally like you would otherwise about what the hopes and dreams of what they thought about what i was doing or what jimmy was doing, anything that could help them. I had learned that earlier when jim was during his presidency, and but i would go out and everybody would say, tell the president to do something and tell him to hes got to do something. I would come home and i would say, why dont you do so . And he said, what do you want me to do . You want me to mind the horribles which that a lot of people were talking about, he said, and then have them bring out one prisoner every day and hang him in public. Well, maybe that the best thing to do and a but you know i wanted it over and of course he did to everybody did i mean the people in the country every night on new tv program started and and nobody got over it at all i mean could get over it i just think about it because it that every day every night it was awful. I kept up with my what i was doing. I never i never stopped doing the things i was doing. But by the time four years were over, how tired were but you know, you lose the election in november and thats depressing. It was depressing. But then you therefore until january the 20th, you live on november, december, january. I just wanted to go home. And then when i got home, i dont know that i was tired. I never i guess i was tired, but i just remember coming home boxes to the ceiling. We lived right in the edge of the woods and. Wed been gone ten years because jim was governor for the campaign, and then it was for the woods had come up around our house. The vines and things, and we both had agreed to write books and and with overwhelming it actually didnt have time to really worry about it. I mean, the really more in it i think im more and it before i left the white house i know i used to walk around that i, i think, um, theres my Mental Health legislation and theres so much i think i realized how important it is for a president to have a second term although jimmy carter would not have changed anyway. He would not have changed anything in your book, first lady from plains, it written in 1984. You close by saying i would be out on the campaign trail today if jimmy carter would run again . I kept all the time right after he lost the election. I kept just knowing he was going to run again, you know, i would have been there. So you have a grandson whos Just Announced for governor of georgia. I know. Im thrilled that youre going to be out on the campaign trail. Ill do whatever you ask me to do. Hes hes a great young man. He graduated from duke university, went to the peace corps for two years, came home and went to law school with a and a law firm that has two terms as a state senator and Rosalynn Carter youve had 33 years post president and see the longest in history now and and president carter have been very active in what do you think your legacy first of all as first lady is or what would you like it to be. Well, i hope my legacy continues. Im more than just first lady because the Carter Center has been an integral part of our lives, i would think. And our motto is waging peace, fighting disease and building hope. And i hope that i have contributed something to Mental Health issues and help improve a little bit. People, the lives of People Living with Mental Illnesses. But i also hope i mean, i have had great opportunities for so long now and to go to africa. Im one of those going to have programs and services that the countries we go to africa and two or three times a year and to go to those villages and now things are coming to fruition. Weve been working on all these years like weve almost eradicated guinea worm. I mean, to go to a village where theres no longer guinea worm, it is a celebration. I mean, one of the good things about the Carter Center is we dont give money to the government. We send people to teach the the Health People in that country how to do something. And we work with the people in the villages with and the Health Department does, too. And we work with them and they do the work. I mean, just to go to a village and explain to them about guinea worm, if you can get the chief to approve, thats what you have to do. But if they see that or hear about it from another country, the so happy youre there. But just to see to go back when its gone from a village almost gone and the hope it gives to them that most of the time its the first thing they have ever seen that was successful. And its just so wonderful just to see the hope of something good is happening now. We made together what was so Rosalynn Carter, were here in atlanta at the Carter Center for this interview. How much time do you spend in in how much time in planes . Well, we schedule one week a month, a year ahead of time to be here. Most of the time, we have to come back more than that. Like my Mental Health conference, i was here three days last week. And yet this is my week here. This week is my week here. And we have to come back than that. But we scheduled that. So we can plan our travels around it and we travel almost to it. And this year ill be interested to see how much weve been going this year with this is maybe not half, but most of the time i guess most of times its i do not half the time, most of the times, but to getting pretty close it the only thing i mean like go to africa something so wonderful happens if you go there and from the Carter Center and it goes everybody and as. One funny story we put global 2000 when i worked in code in africa because we found out that if the heads of state get credit for what they do i mean if somebody has a gets rid of guinea worm for their village or has a that we feel we crop has grown by three what they produce is going but grown three times as much as they used to. So they get so excited. But the head of state does my my agriculture program. So anyway we put but the word gets around that was carter and one time we went this village there was a farmer who had been named the farmer of the year. And we went to this village and this have been a bit north anyway. Were in a village and they were pull these plush chairs, they wore and but really wonderful put some blue tarpaulin over it. Were sitting. The whole village came and there was a little girl that about halfway through what jimmy was saying, she held up the sign and said, go away again anywhere, jimmy. Thats coming. It was so i mean, so the word gets around and people know it and and and so when we get to that village, i have to have i mean, to other countries, maybe the word is already around and its, you know, it just the caller says it just works a magic sometime. But its its a it gives hope to people who have never had any hope of their lives ever being better. Its excellent. And finally, Rosalynn Carter, whats your advice to future first ladies or first husbands . Mm well, in the first place i would say enjoy it, which is what bird told me. But i think i have learned that you can do anything you want to. They used to ask me if i thought first lady out to be paid. If you get paid, then i have to do what first lady are supposed to do. But you can do anything you want to and its such a great. Soapbox. I mean, its just such a great opportunity. So i would i would advise any first lady to do what she wanted do. If she does that. And another thing i learned is youre going to be criticized as no matter what you do, i could have stayed there. White house poverty had receptions and i would have been criticized as much as i was criticized outside for what i did. But i got a lot of criticism. But did you learn to live with it . As i said earlier, i mean, you just live with it. You expect it and you live with it and never let it influence me. But i would just tell her also just to enjoy it and do what she wanted to do and in the process i know she would and i know the first lady will have things that she wants to do because women have changed in this time. You know what women do now is change from what they did when i grew up. I could be a secretary a schoolteacher, a library and a few things, but but now women most women more active and so i just do what you want to do. And dont worry about the criticisms. Thank you. I enjoyed talking to weekend on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. Every sat american tv documents story and on book tv brings you the latest of nonfiction books and authors. Funding from cspan2 comes from these television betweens including media com. We believe that what you live here or right here or in the middle of anywhere you should have access to fast reliable internet. Thats why we are leading the way. Media com along with these Television Companies support cspan2 as a public service. American history tv saturday on cspan2 to tell the american story. Its accomplishments for minorities. Vice president and then president. 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