A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety (32 page)

I received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 and shared my acceptance
speech with Simon & Schuster in advance, so they were able to publish the small book at the same time as the award. Because of the subject and the relatively low price, this book has sold more copies than any others I have written.

I had always been concerned about the lack of history texts or historical novels that presented a balanced and accurate account of major military actions during the Revolutionary War. Knowing of my own ancestors’ histories, I did extensive research for seven years, using personal accounts of participants in the American and British military forces. This was in pre-Google years, and I sometimes had dozens of library books on my shelf at a time. Readers of
The Hornet’s Nest
from around the world have let me know how they have been surprised and pleased at this view from the Southland, where almost all the major battles were fought.

Many people asked if Rosalynn and I worked all the time or if we ever had time for fun and relaxation, so I wrote
Sharing Good Times
in 2004. I described the many things we have taken up together for the first time at a relatively advanced age, including downhill skiing, mountain climbing, bird watching, and fly-fishing in many countries.

I was especially concerned about some of the policies of our government and wanted an opportunity to discuss them publicly, so I wrote
Our Endangered Values
in 2005 to express my views on unnecessary wars, derogation of women and girls, excessive incarceration and the death penalty, unwarranted intrusion on citizens’ privacy, the rise of fundamentalism in government, and the intrusion of religion and excessive money into politics. It was critical of some federal government policies and disturbing violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva principles concerning warfare, and other international standards that we claim to honor.

Palestine Peace Not Apartheid,
published in 2006, has been my most controversial book, not because of its content but because of its title. The next year I finished writing a book about the work we had done at The Carter Center entitled
Beyond the White House.
In 2008, I wrote a book about my mother, who was a registered nurse, a dedicated political activist, and a Peace Corps volunteer in India at the age of seventy. She never
observed the principle of white supremacy when I was growing up in the Deep South, which helped shape my commitment to the protection of human rights.

We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land,
which proposed a specific plan for peace between Israel and its neighbors, was published in 2009.

I compiled a fairly complete volume of highly personal comments from the day-to-day diary I kept while serving as president. Entitled
White House Diary,
and published in 2010, it included many observations that had been too sensitive or personal to include in
Keeping Faith
several decades earlier.

By 2011 I had taught more than six hundred Bible lessons, which had been recorded in audio and video form and stored in a refrigerated space in my presidential library. I selected 366 of them, and an editor from Zondervan summarized each of the recordings. I edited them down to page-length versions for
Through the Year with Jimmy Carter
with a religious statement for each day. I also provided about two hundred comments to be included throughout a New International Version of the scriptures entitled
NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter,
published in 2012.

My most recent book,
A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power
(2014), is, I think, the most important. We have held two Human Rights Defenders Forums on the subject at The Carter Center, and a third will take place before this book is released. In my book I described in some detail the horrendous abuse of women and girls that is occurring in almost every nation and made twenty-three recommendations of action that can be taken to alleviate this abuse.

Writing and promoting the sale of these books has given me an opportunity to study a wide range of subjects in great detail, to analyze what I have learned, and to present my views to the general public in America and many foreign countries. This has also provided my best opportunities for interviews with the media, and to answer questions from students and others who hear my presentations. As I write this, in November 2014, I have made recent speeches to overflow crowds at the Kennedy Presidential Library, in San Diego to ten thousand members of the American
Academy of Religion, to a larger assembly sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America in Denver, and to students and faculty at Harvard Divinity School, Yale, and Princeton. All the universities are dealing with alleged excessive sexual assaults on campus, with relative impunity to the rapists. I have summarized
A Call to Action,
answered questions from the audience, and then signed copies of the book.

Most of my family’s income since leaving the White House has come from the books I have written. Although my time in Plains is limited because of active involvement in the affairs of The Carter Center, Emory University, and Habitat for Humanity, I try to take full advantage of my days at home. I visit our farms regularly, consult with our forester and the farmers who grow the row crops, and take care of routine matters around our house. I teach Bible lessons every Sunday I am at home, and Rosalynn and I are active in the affairs of the local community. On a relatively free day, I get up quite early in the morning and spend as many hours as possible writing on the computer. When I get tired of composing paragraphs and looking at the screen, I walk a few steps out to my workshop to design and build furniture or to paint pictures.

I found a nice wood shop at Camp David, which I used a lot on the weekends, mostly to make small items as presents for friends and members of my family. Many people knew about this interest, and my going-away present from the White House staff and cabinet members was an order to Sears, Roebuck for all the power tools needed to build furniture. Since we no longer owned an automobile, I installed the equipment in our former garage, and during the past thirty-five years I have updated the lathes, jointers, drill presses, planers, and various saws as needed. I also have a complete set of hand tools, and have enjoyed shopping for them in foreign countries, especially Japan.

I restricted my travels during our first year at home, other than to a transition office in Atlanta, where our presidential library and The Carter Center were being planned. Our house and lot had deteriorated badly during our four years in Washington, and this gave us a lot to do. We acquired a half interest in twenty-one acres in the North Georgia mountains and had a small log cabin built alongside Turniptown Creek. I designed and built all the beds, chairs, tables, storage cabinets, and smaller fixtures needed to furnish our “second home.” I made stools and dining room chairs out of green wood, using Colonial-era techniques that required only hand tools and did not include nails, screws, or glue to hold the pieces together. I built four ladder–back hickory chairs that were auctioned at Sotheby’s in October 1983 for $21,000 each to help fund The Carter Center.

The woodworking and artwork have been personal pleasures for me, and I expect that an expanding part of my life will be devoted to them as I grow older and have fewer activities away from home.

This began a long process of my contributing a piece of furniture almost every year to our Center to be sold at auction. During recent years I have donated one of my original paintings, or a copy, for the same purpose. Winning bids have ranged from $50,000 to $1 million. In addition, I have given much of my furniture to my children and grandchildren, with cradles being used several times. I realized many years ago that I do not have any special talent as an artist or craftsman, but with a lot of study and practice I have become fairly proficient. More recently, I have written an explanation of techniques and materials used and my reasons for painting particular subjects, and these texts will accompany about sixty-five of my paintings in a high-quality coffee table book, to be sold at an elevated price with the proceeds going to The Carter Center.

The woodworking and artwork have been personal pleasures for me, and I expect that an expanding part of my life will be devoted to them as I grow older and have fewer activities away from home.

Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were the two living presidents when I was elected, and I was determined to treat them with respect, to keep them as thoroughly briefed on current events as possible, and to call on them to help me with challenging issues when bipartisan cooperation would be important. President Nixon was in a state of partial disrepute as a result of the Watergate scandals and his forced resignation from office, and he was maintaining a high degree of family privacy. I admired him for his accomplishments while in office, especially regarding environmental issues and his opening relations with China. I knew President Ford to be a formidable political adversary from our contested campaign, exceptionally knowledgeable about congressional affairs, and a completely honorable and dedicated public servant.

Ronald Reagan Library Dedication, November 4, 1991, at Simi Valley, California. Lady Bird Johnson, the Carters, the Fords, the Nixons, the Reagans, and the Bushes.

I began giving both of them regular briefings on domestic and international affairs, from either National Security Adviser Brzezinski or one of my other top assistants. They responded by offering to help me on controversial issues and did so throughout my term. This is a diary entry I made on March 24, 1977:

“President Ford came by and our scheduled thirty-minute meeting lasted three times as long. He expressed concerns about deficits, which I share. He also met Dr. Brzezinski and arranged for continuing briefings concerning international affairs.”

After about six months, Nixon sent me word that the briefings were excessive and asked that they be provided only when he requested more information on specific subjects. President Ford relished the visits, and he and I had an agreement that he would spend some time with me in the Oval Office whenever he was near Washington.

Anwar Sadat was assassinated in October 1981 by militant terrorists, and President Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush decided not to attend the funeral. Instead, we three former presidents were given this honor, and we traveled to Cairo on a government plane. Nixon stayed in the region, and Ford and I returned together. We shared a small compartment and spent most of the trip in an increasingly personal conversation. Somewhat to our surprise, we formed an intimate friendship that extended to our wives and children. I remember that when we assembled at the White House in 2000 to celebrate its two-hundredth year as the president’s home, the historians commented that the relationship between Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter was closer than any other presidents, at least in recent history, who had served there. During the summer of
2006 I received a regular call from Jerry, and after an exchange of good wishes he said he had a special favor to ask of me. I agreed in advance. He asked if I would give the eulogy at his funeral. After stammering for a few moments, I responded that I would do so if he would make me the same commitment. A few months later, I was grieved but honored to fulfill my promise.

Unfortunately, my relationship with President Ronald Reagan was strained, and on several early trips abroad during his administration I learned that the U.S. ambassadors had been instructed not to give me any assistance or even to acknowledge my presence. This happened in Turkey, Argentina, and several African nations. My early requests to the president for briefings on key issues were declined or ignored, and when I threatened to call a press conference on the subject, I received a briefing that was largely extracted from current news reports. However, I got along well with Reagan’s five national security advisers and with Secretary of State George Shultz. Especially on my frequent visits to the Middle East region, I would be requested to deliver messages or questions to leaders and was often invited to come to the State Department to make a personal report on my observations.