(upbeat music) - [Announcer] The following is a special presentation of WEDU, Tampa St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Jimmy Carter was elected the 39th president of the US in 1976.

Prior to that, he had been a farmer, a navy officer, a scientist, and governor of Georgia.

In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work promoting peaceful solutions to international conflicts and advancing democracy and human rights.

He's written a novel called "The Hornet's Nest."

It's the first work of fiction written by a former president.

We sit down with Jimmy Carter next on the WEDU interview.

(upbeat music) (people talking) - [Rob] Since stepping down as president, Jimmy Carter has spent much of his time constructing houses for Habitat for Humanity, acting as a monitor for elections across the globe, and has dedicated himself to reviving the Middle East Peace process.

(crowd applauding) More than 1,700 people showed up at Sarasota News & Books to get a glimpse and an autograph from the former president.

(people chatting) He was intent on signing each and every fan's book, but he did take a short break to answer questions from the local news media.

- [Reporter] It's nice to be back in Sarasota?

- (chuckles) Back and forth.

I did quite well here when I ran for president before most of you were born.

- [Reporter] You've been to the top of world.

What message would you give to our children and our grandchildren?

What have you learned in this journey?

- You mean other than read my books?

- Yeah, (both laugh) that too.

- Well, you know, tell the truth, and set your goals high, and don't give up when you have some setbacks.

Don't ever deviate from the truth, even when the truth might seem to hurt for a few days or a few weeks, and if you say something that's absolutely right, stick with it.

I felt a great advantage, when I ran, in not having spent my life in Washington.

You know, I was just a peanut farmer before I ran for the State Senate, and just a short time after that, I was running for president.

But I visited all 50 states, and I think I listened as much as I talked.

So listen, learn from the people's prescience and their advice, and tell the truth.

- [Reporter] So how involved will you be in the Middle East peace process and trying to revive the Middle East peace process?

- We're deeply involved.

In fact, in just about a week, I'll be going to Geneva, Switzerland to announce, along with the Palestinians and the Israelis, what I consider to be a real breakthrough and final solution to the Israeli and Palestinian altercation.

- [Reporter] Is this in any sense, an end run around President Bush and his roadmap for peace?

- Well, - last Saturday it was a week ago, Yossi Beilin called me to say that he'd gotten a congratulatory letter from Secretary of State Powell and I don't think President Bush and others have commented on it yet, but it has not been condemned by the US government.

As a matter of fact, it's exactly what the so-called roadmap spells out as an ultimate goal, but it bypasses a lot of the interim steps that I think are now dead issues.

I'd better get back to signing books.

I've enjoyed talking to you all, - Thank you.

- And thank you - for talking to me.

- Thank you very much.

- Thank you for being so kind.

- Good to see you again.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

- After the impromptu press conference, I had a chance to sit down with President Carter for an exclusive one-on-one interview.

President Carter, welcome to WEDU.

- It's good to be with you, thank you.

- Great to have you here.

I wanna ask you, why did you write a book about the Revolutionary War?

- Well, for one reason, although there've been hundreds of books written about the war between the states, the Civil War, and many dozens about the First and Second World War, and I guess, the Vietnam War, there's been very few books written about the most important war of all to our country, I think, and that's the Revolutionary War, and those that have been written have been written about one battle or one person, and I decided to describe the whole gamut of what did happen during those nine long years.

Most people think it's over, and about the only thing that most people, even historians, know about the Revolutionary War is that Paul Revere rode a horse at night, and they had a few battles around Bunker Hill, and then George Washington crossed the Delaware, and had a bad time at Valley Forge, and that's about it, but I thought I'd tell the whole story of the Revolutionary War, and tell it in a highly personal way.

I could have written a history book, but I thought to describe the actual characters, how they lived, how they grew flax, how they grew rice, how they made shoes, how they traveled without roads, and the interrelationship between the British and the Indians, and the Americans and the Indians, and what a tortuous and difficult decision it was for each British subject, all of us were British subjects then, one by one, to violate a lifetime of oaths before God to be loyal to the king.

It was a very difficult thing.

And this meant that the war was fought, really, between brothers, or between fathers and sons.

There was no geographical division, as you know, like in the Civil War between the Yankees in the North and the Confederates in the South.

This was between people who broke away from the crown, and sometimes in a hopeless cause, and the ones who stayed loyal to the king, so it was a very emotional experience for me to learn about.

It took me seven years to study this war and to write about it.

- How important were the battles fought here in the South to the winning of the war?

- Overwhelmingly, the battles in the South decided the outcome of the war, beginning in St. Augustine, all the way through Georgia to the Carolinas and Virginia, and this is where the greatest losses were suffered by the Americans Like, the greatest loss of life was actually in Savannah So the greatest number of people who surrendered at one time, 5,000, was in Charleston, and the intensity of the hatred and the viciousness or bloodiness of the war was really amazing, much more than any other war the Americans have ever fought.

In many of the battles in the South, which were the major battles, as I've said, the order was given to grant no quarter.

In other words, if an American surrendered to a British army, they were executed on the spot, and the order was to take no prisoners.

And the same thing happened on the other side, I might say.

And one of the intriguing characters that emerged in the book was a guy that was stationed in St. Augustine, Florida, Thomas Brown, who turned out to be perhaps the greatest guerilla fighter in history.

After he was tarred and feathered in Augusta, Georgia, his whole life changed, all he wanted was revenge.

So these characters really evolved in my mind and in the book as I studied more and more about the war.

- But it's also a story of class, in a sense, isn't it?

- There's a great distinction in class because the great plantation owners along the coastal areas that grew rice mostly, with slaves, and the merchants in the big cities, obviously in Savannah, Charleston, and so forth, they were the elite class.

Many of them related very closely, still, to England, to London, to Liverpool and Scotland, and the ones who actually did most of the fighting were the people who were settlers earlier, most of whom, they didn't wanna get involved in a war, they just wanted to be left alone to manage their own affairs.

They were very ambitious to take more land, obviously at the expense of the Indians, but one by one, until about 25% of the total British population were ready to give their lives for freedom.

It's a great emotional story.

- Did you have relatives who fought in the Revolutionary War?

- Yes, I did.

In fact, one of the main characters, Ethan Pratt, is patterned after my own relatives who moved down to Northeast Georgia before the Revolutionary War from North Carolina.

They lived in a settlement of Quakers, although they were not pacifists like the Quakers were.

One of 'em even got a pension for the rest of his life after the Revolutionary War, according to the records, $12 a year, because he participated in some of the battles that took place actually in the western Carolinas, although he lived in Georgia.

So yeah, my ancestors did.

And I knew a lot about my family's history.

You know, I know exactly what land they owned and when they built a house.

In fact, one of the houses built by my ancestors is still standing.

It's the oldest house in Georgia, as a matter of fact.

- Now, you talk a lot about the reasons for the revolution, why people became disaffected from the British government.

What are some of the reasons people in the South became disaffected?

- Well, for one reason, as you know, Florida was owned and controlled all the way through the war by the British, although right after the war, it was given to Spain, and there was an intense battle, always, and a threat of the British coming out of St. Augustine, going across the line into Georgia, the colony, so Georgia was treated with kid gloves by London.

We were only 45 years old as a colony when the war started, so the Georgians were probably the most reluctant to change over because we were treated well, and London, the British officials, saw that Georgians would defend the other northern colonies from possible incursions from the British.

And of course, we were far away from the coast, many of us, and we didn't want to do anything except just to cultivate our own land, raise our own family, worship, if we were religious.

They weren't very religious in those days, as you possibly know.

And so it was a slow process for them to become ready to go to battle.

As a matter of fact, the same thing happened in the North, because even after the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, at the end of that Continental Congress, the leaders of our government then, the representatives of the different colonies, did not express any intention of seeking independence.

All they wanted was a redress of grievances, because Great Britain, in a very insensitive way, had passed laws that were abusive and took away some of the freedoms that the colonies thought they should have.

And we would never have won the war, at least at that time, maybe 50 years later, if the French hadn't come in in a very enthusiastic and staunch way, not because they liked Americans, or not because they wanted to end the revolutions, but because they despised the British so much.

Eventually, even the French Navy triumphed over the British Navy, which left Cornwallis vulnerable at Yorktown, but until then, of course, the British controlled the seas.

- Well, let me bring it up to date then.

Given the sad state of affairs, the poor relations between the US and France these days, how does that make you feel, given our history going back to the Revolutionary War?

- Well, a lot of people now who deny that they eat french fries, (Ron laughs) I think would be impressed by ancient history.

George Washington never won a major battle in his whole life, but he was a great commander in that he held his army together.

But even at Yorktown, when Cornwallis finally surrendered, which was a turning point in the war, the majority of the soldiers who defeated Cornwallis were French, and he was cut off from the ocean by the French Navy.

And of course, at one time, the French invaded and surrounded Savannah, Georgia.

They were unsuccessful.

The Count d'Estaing did that, and he finally had to withdraw.

But the French were deeply involved in the war on our side, and everybody in America, then, before the name was really recognized, knew that that was a turning point and a possibility of our success to achieve our freedom.

It's a very exciting story, and you can tell that I got really intrigued with it.

- I wanna ask you just a few questions about current politics.

How do you think the war in Iraq is going?

- I think it's, I've been terribly surprised as has the White House and the Department of Defense at the lack of progress since the so-called war ended.

I think the suffering of American troops there who are doing courageous work has been amazing, and it seems to get worse every month, and the United States government is still extremely reluctant, apparently, to turn over any real authority to other nations in the economic field, or to the Iraqis themselves, in the political arena.

I think those two things have to be done.

However, I do think that in the case of security or military affairs, the American forces have to stay dominant, and I would certainly not want to see any foreign general put in command of American troops there, but economically and politically, we have got to share responsibilities in Iraq, although, in my opinion, I believe we're gonna be there for many, many years, and I think the situation's gonna get even worse than it is now.

- Do you think we should try harder to bring in the United Nations, or other countries, - Yeah.

- such as France?

- I've thought that ever since the war started, I was strongly against the war, I thought it was an unnecessary and unjust war, and I think America going in there unilaterally with a few British troops tagging along was one of the worst strategic mistakes that our country has ever made.

It was counterproductive, and many people saw that as a mistake, and it's been a very reluctant thing in Washington to admit that that was a mistake.

But my hope is that we'll soon correct the errors that have been made, that our troops can live safely over there and bring freedom as well as democracy to Iraq.

It's not a hopeless case, but I think it's gonna continue to be hopeless as long as we retain all of the controls of the oil, and the political affairs, and everything else close to our breast, refusing to share it with others.

- You're shortly about to leave for a trip to Geneva to help revive the Middle East peace process.

- Yeah.

- What hope do you have that that process can be revived?

- This has been an effort not widely known in the world, but a few dedicated Israelis and a few dedicated Palestinians, some of whom were at Camp David with President Clinton in the last few months of his administration, and after those talks failed, they continued at Taba, and Egypt, and in other places.

They never gave up, and what they have done is to take the ultimate vision that was spelled out at Oslo by the Norwegians with Prime Minister Rabin, and with Peres, and with Arafat, and try to realize that distant dream.

They also have come up with a solution that's completely compatible with the final stages as envisioned by the so-called roadmap which President Bush has endorsed.

And so this is almost a complete potential solution to all the most difficult issues in the Mid East, the exact border between Israel and a future Palestinian state, exactly how to handle the settlers of Israel who own Palestinian territory, over half of them can stay in their homes, how to handle the very sensitive issue of East Jerusalem.

As far as their returnees are concerned, which has also been a sticking point for many years, as you know, these are Palestinians who were displaced from their homes after the '48 and '67 wars, only a tiny number would ever come back into Israel, and each one of them would have to be approved individually by the Israeli government.

So it's a very generous solution on the part of the Palestinians, but it's a difficult one on the part of the Israelis, particularly Prime Minister Sharon, because it does involve the dismantling of the settlements that are scattered, now, all over the distant parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

- Mm-hmm, well, what would you say the biggest mistake the Israelis are making right now in their actions towards the Palestinians?

- Well, I think this has been more accurately described by others, than by me.

As you know, earlier, the head of their total military force, what we would call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has publicly condemned Sharon for being too abusive to the Palestinians and not giving them any hope for a better life, And last week, the last four leaders of Shin Bet, which is their security agencies in Israel, have come out with the same public statement.

So maybe this peace proposal, which I'll be going to help introduce the first day of December, in Switzerland, and the statement of these top military and security leaders in Israel will have an impact.

I think that this is the kind of solution that can be accepted without embarrassment and in good graces, by the Palestinians, and the Israelis, and all the neighboring countries, and I don't have any doubt that if this is done, that all the Arab countries, every one of the Arab countries, will recognize Israel's right to exist and to exist in peace, and it'll be an end to the violence in the Middle East.

- Well, I asked you about the Israeli mistakes.

What's the biggest mistake the Palestinians are making?

- I think the continued violence and terrorist acts on the part of Hamas.

- Do you blame Arafat for this?

- I don't really see how, in good conscience, Arafat can be blamed.

As you know, he's shut up in one room, not even having the ability to go outside or to communicate with his leaders, except through telephone communications, and I think a lot of his authority is not there.

I helped- The Carter Center was in charge of the election that was held when the Palestinian Authority was formed, the Palestinian government was formed.

At the end of that election, I was in Israel, in the West Bank and Gaza, and I really tried to get the Hamas leaders, whom I knew, to accept the results of that election, and Arafat asked me to do this for him.

I was supposed to meet with them in Egypt under the auspices of President Mubarak of Egypt.

The Hamas leaders rejected any semblance of domination of them by Arafat, so he has never had control of the Hamas leaders, but I think, with this peace vision, and with the obvious condemnation of all the Arab world of their violent acts, there's a good chance that Hamas will stop perpetrating these horrible crimes against the Israelis.

- I wanna ask you one question about the elections coming up.

Howard Dean, he said he wants to appeal to the people who have Confederate flags on their pickup trucks.

(Jimmy laughs) When you hear that, what are your thoughts, and is that a good strategy - Well, - by Howard Dean?

- a minute after he said that, he realized it was a mistake.

He called me on the phone and asked me for my advice on how to get out of this mess.

If he had just said he wanted to appeal to everybody in the South that drives a pickup truck, that would've been great, but I don't think he realized the sensitivity of the Confederate flag image.

In Georgia, there's no doubt that in the last governors election, the Republican governor won almost exclusively on the flag issue because the Democratic incumbent had changed the flag, and so it is an issue that's understood by Southerners, but there's no doubt that ever since Goldwater ran back in ancient times, in 1964, the Republicans have been able to capitalize on the race issue, and the latest race issue that's obvious is the Confederate flag.

So I think that now, I helped, a lot of others helped, the flag issue has been put to rest in Georgia.

It's still, you know, kind of an issue in South Carolina, and Mississippi, and Alabama, but I think Howard Dean misunderstood exactly what you could say, you know, particularly up north, and what you ought not to say.

- If you were to advise the candidates of how to appeal to the broad masses in the South and do a better job, the Democratic candidates, that is, what advice would you give?

- Well, I would treat Southerners exactly the same way that they treat, you know, somebody from Vermont, or Wisconsin, or California.

That is, you know, point out that working people, you know, are suffering, and that there's a high unemployment rate, and they can capitalize, possibly, on the Iraqi War mistakes, but there's no telling now what's gonna happen by next November.

You know, the economy may be good, Iraq may look better, so it's hard to tell.

I'm out of politics, and just hope that we'll have a good election next November.

- One last question, and that is, it's often said that you are now more popular now that you are out of the presidency than when you were in.

Do you agree with that?

And if you agree with that, why do you think that is?

- Well, I haven't been involved in any controversial things, you know, in the last couple of decades.

I've been working for peace, and building Habitat houses, and writing popular books, and out of politics altogether, so I think it's almost inevitable.

When Harry Truman went out of office, he had a 23% approval rating, but, you know, after he had been out of office a few years, his popularity and his esteem went way up, and something of the same thing has happened to me, for which I'm very grateful.

- All right, well, President Carter, thank you very much.

- It's been a pleasure.

- Great to see you.

- Thank you.

This was a good interview.

- Well, thanks for watching the WEDU interview with former president and author, Jimmy Carter.

From Sarasota, I'm Rob Lorei.

Thanks for watching.

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