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20 years later, the Carter White House is all smiles
October 18, 1997
Web posted at: 10:51 p.m. EDT (0251 GMT)ATLANTA (CNN) -- Jimmy Carter's big, toothy grin, his trademark when he was a longshot presidential candidate, was in full force Saturday as he swapped stories and fond memories in a 20-year reunion of his campaign and White House.
"We don't talk all that much about the hostages in Iran, but we talk about successes like the Camp David Accords and the Alaska Lands bill," said Carter, who cultivated an image of honesty when he ran for president in 1976, promising to lead the country out of the shadow of the Watergate scandal.
More than 700 people, from his vice president, Walter Mondale, to members of the "Peanut Brigade" of Georgians who knocked on doors for him in Iowa and New Hampshire, gathered for what the 73-year-old former president called "an emotional reunion."
CNN's Alan Duke reports.
"The other thing that has permeated my consciousness, in a surprising fashion, has been the fun and the laughter and the pleasant reminiscences," Carter said in an interview, that smile spreading again.
Jody Powell, his longtime press secretary, had the crowd laughing as he recalled Carter's first Iowa TV appearance -- on a morning cooking show for which he had to don a chef's hat and apron.
Powell, returning from a late-night tavern visit the night before, told Carter that he had lined up a TV appearance, but saved the details until the drive to the station the next morning.
Carter admitted he almost refused but then came through by frying catfish fingers in an appearance that was frequently replayed around Iowa and probably helped him win the state caucuses.
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Detailed map of the Atlanta area
Carter, who was inaugurated in 1977 after defeating President Ford in the general election, recalled that in his run for the White House he and Powell often shared a double bed to save money.
One of Carter's most-enduring accomplishments was the signing of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978. Mondale said Carter's human rights policies as president ultimately helped topple oppressive governments in the Philippines, South Africa, the Soviet Union and several Latin American countries.
"Partly because of this leadership, every one of those systems are gone. They have been replaced by essentially democratic institutions and all of those leaders -- those oppressors -- are gone," Mondale said.
During his four years in the White House, the president was blamed for double-digit inflation, skyrocketing interest rates, and gasoline shortages.
He was criticized for letting thousands of Cuban and Haitian refugees remain in the United States, and for the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
But it was the November 3, 1979, takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by Iranian student militants that overshadowed Carter's presidency. Fifty-two American citizens were held hostage for 444 days, freed on the day that Carter left the White House.
Mondale added his favorite anecdotes, such as when the president's late mother, Lillian, helped make him feel at home during his first visit to the Carter hometown of Plains by confiding that she had a bottle of bourbon tucked under the kitchen sink.
"Everybody was full of smiles," Mondale said of a Friday night gathering at Manuel's Tavern, a hangout for politicians and journalists.
In a presentation Saturday morning, Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, briefed the group about the activities of The Carter Center, a presidential library and the base for global projects he started in the aftermath of his landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan in 1980.
The center, marking its 15th year, is "an extension of what we did in the White House ... the things we couldn't get done because I just had one term," Carter said.
Among its human rights, health and democracy efforts are mediating conflicts around the world, monitoring elections in emerging democracies, and increasing agriculture and health in Africa.
The Carters have helped build homes for low-income Americans through Habitat for Humanity. Recently, Carter helped persuade Haiti's military regime to step down, traveled to North Korea and helped ease tensions between that communist nation and the United States.
Polls have shown Carter's popularity has grown since he left office in 1981, largely because of his post-presidency activities for peace and human rights.
Carter said in an interview that he thinks more attention is being paid to the accomplishments of his presidency and that time is fading the "stamp of failure just because of the outcome of that (1980) election."
Joking about being called the nation's "greatest ex-president," Carter said: "I kind of like to set aside the term `ex' in brackets."
Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley, who heads the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at University of New Orleans and attended the reunion, said there is growing appreciation among historians of Carter's presidency.
"I don't believe Carter will ever be a face on Mount Rushmore," Brinkley said, but added that Carter's integrity and openness stood out among his peers and that his later work was an outgrowth of his presidency."
CNN Correspondent Alan Duke and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related sites:
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- Jimmy Carter Biography - from the Carter Center Web Page
- Jimmy Carter Thirty-Ninth President 1977-1981 - from the White House Homepage
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