60 Minutes rewind we spent last Monday in Plains Georgia with Jimmy Carter the 39th president of the United States and he was surprisingly candid on the subject of Ronald Reagan he devotes his days now to writing fishing farming and teaching and says that he's happy doing it that he doesn't look wistfully at Washington and the power that resides there his Democratic party has turned its back on him and he acknowledges that the American people were just as soon forget the Carter years this isn't these aren't easy questions to ask sitting in a man's living room
but um the Conor image the political image is that of a loser why well it may be easier to ask a question and just to answer it but I'll be glad to answer it well the last my last political encounter was with Reagan in November of 1980 and I lost and I think that's the image that still remains in people's minds that I was not reelected you must be very jealous in a sense of Ronald Reagan not really I'm jealous of the fact that he is I mean if if his is the Teflon presidency yes
nothing stinks mine was the opposite yours was the fly paper president I think that's true when I was there there was no doubt he was responsible I was responsible now there is a great doubt about who's responsible and Reagan has been extremely successful more than any of his uh 39 predecessors in not being responsible for anything that's unpleasant or completely or not completely successful how did you manage that Mr President all he's blamed me for is 200 billion dollar deficits he's blamed me and and forward and Nixon for his lack of understanding of a Lebanon
crisis saying that this intelligence network was not adequate for him he's blamed the Congress for his withdrawal of the Marines from Lebanon under you know very damaging uh circumstances and and he is uh has never accepted accepted responsibility for a lack of progress in in Middle East peace or a lack of progress on alleviating problems of the poor and so forth and he's been remarkably successful in telling people you know everything's okay at least as far as I'm concerned everything's okay it's okay for for the Marines so to be embarrassed and damaged in Lebanon is
okay to have 200 billion dollar deficits it's okay to have 120 billion dollar trade imbalances and so it's okay Mr President he said it's okay with him and and you know he's not responsible don't associate him as president with any of these problems we have now almost doubled our nation's debt since Reagan has been in office when I left the White House the United States of America was the greatest creditor Nation on Earth by the end of this year will be the greatest debtor Nation on Earth and and we're now seeing a wave of economic
suffering in the agricultural community of our country which is the most evident or first indication of Reagan's policies I think the second indication will be a continued deterioration in the banking and financial institutions of our country so you know what will be the Reagan Heritage is too early to say I cannot think of a single International or diplomatic achievement that's been realized by Ronald Reagan President Carter has written a new book on the Middle East called Blood of Abraham we asked him what bold new moves he might undertake there now if he were president there
is no reason why George Schultz can't sit down with with yasa Arafat if they want to make a bold new stroke if who wants to make a bowl against stroke the United States wants to make a bold new stroke and the people in the Middle East would you recommend that now yeah I think that would be a good move yes what is going to what's going to be the outcry in Israel if such a meeting were to take place we could make well you know there has to be a willingness to face outcries and I
don't see any way for any substantive or progress to be made in the Middle East peace process without the Palestinians being intimately involved in the process but it's not just the Middle East that worries him it's War and Peace you think we're closer to war today than we should be I think we have let the world know that our country is no longer the foremost proponent or user of negotiations and diplomacy and that our country's first reaction to a troubled area on Earth is to try to inject American or military forces or threats as our
nation's policy human rights under Ronald Reagan well Reagan is basically abandoned our nation's commitment to the human rights policy that we espoused why because he's a callous man I think part of it was a natural adverse reaction to my administration's policies one of his first moves for instance was to send Mrs Kirkpatrick to snuggle up to Pinochet and Chile and to the military Junta in Argentina who had been responsible for more than ten thousand deaths to those who disappeared in the middle of the night and this was a clear signal that went all over the
world that the previous human rights policy under my Administration was being changed I don't know what his motivations are but the result has been that the world now sees our country as not being a champion of Human Rights but as being dormant at best in the face of persecution I think this president makes us comfortable with our prejudices that's not very nice what you're saying but it's the way I feel and I think it's true despite rumors that she might run for governor of Georgia Rosalind Carter says she has no political ambition but she is
no less candid about President Reagan than is her husband I think he's been devastating to the country and how how has he devastated the country well I wouldn't trade places with him in history Jimmy and Ronald Reagan fought anything in the world unless I qualify that because he could correct some of those things in this thing but the big budget deficit that I think is going to um that my grandchildren have to pay for that's going to hurt us forever he did not even have a single gesture of Goodwill toward the Soviet Union the whole
first four years the story will continue after this since they left Washington the Carters have returned to a simpler life in planes on Sundays they and their daughter Amy now near College age worship at Baptist services the president teaches Sunday school here frequently attended by large groups of visitors tourists that's my joy fulfilled in themselves how much joy was it where the disciples going to have not much and after church the president patiently poses for pictures and signs autographs for folks who have stopped by to meet planes sold tourist attraction twice a week he travels
to Atlanta where he teaches liberal arts courses as a distinguished professor at Emory University but his roots and his heart he says are in Plains still though he will talk politics when prodded good to see just fine is Hands-On political experience a must for a president could a Lee Iacocca conceivably be as good a president as a Jimmy Carter or a Ronald Reagan well I know he could be as good as one of us yeah whether he could be as good as both of us I really don't know but I think that that sort of
approach to to American life that Lee Iacocca has exemplified would be very beneficial in the uh in the white house but he's never been elected to uh office is that necessarily putting Beyond The Pale for the presidency no because he would have to go through a very torturous and difficult political campaign to get there and so that his absence of experience in the political field would obviously be be filled of while he was running for president sounds like Jimmy Carter's good going to run an Iacocca for president uh campaign I have an admiration for him
you do sure one of the personal low points of his presidential years he acknowledges was his collapse while jogging in a mountain Marathon you remember this Mr President sure do you think that that in the final analysis that episode did you any harm politically it probably did uh I think that that showed that I had tried something I couldn't with it I couldn't finish and that I had attempted something where I didn't succeed and it had nothing whatsoever to do with politics or or governmental Affairs or well you know politics is a matter of image
and the image that I had attempted something that that I didn't accomplish uh I think did have political connotations his mother Miss Lillian died two years ago he took us to the Carter burial plot in Planes you were very very close to your mother yes I was I'm always helped shape my life mother even in a difficult years of of racial segregation down here mother was the I guess was a token liberal the token integrationist around planes and she's always the champion of the underdog and at that time of course the blacks were The Underdogs
so mama was a he was he was really inspirational when after my father died mother kind of blossomed forth Missy yes very much so particularly when I you know early in the mornings I used to go out before Daybreak and uh mom and I would just talk about politics or or sports or family Affairs and kind of watch the sun come up together in the morning even when she was so in her last month she knew she had cancer and she knew that when she wouldn't live very long but she was always an exciting companion
you know I have one memory on television of watching you and Ted Kennedy on the platform back in 1900 and 80. was that a bitter time for you and does any of that bitterness remain toward Ted Kennedy well I don't think right well maybe bitter is the right word we didn't feel and I still don't feel that Kennedy had any reason to challenge me as an incumbent Democratic president and therefore destroy the unity of a party which is so crucial and about the only time the Democratic party has a chance to be unified is when
there's an incumbent Democratic president and uh I think that that the primary season with Kennedy never giving up even until the convention assembled gave us a tremendous obstacle to overcome in in the fall election that I think that it would be highly unlikely that Ted Kennedy would ever be approved as a potential president by the American people he's always done best when he didn't have a chance to win so you think that next time around whatever is the image of Ted Kennedy in the mind of the American people it will not have changed sufficiently for
them for the Democratic party to give him the nomination that's right that's my expectation and also my hope
