WEBVTT
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JIMMY CARTER:
I promised you four years ago
that I would never lie to you,
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so I can't stand here tonight
and say it doesn't hurt.
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About an hour ago, I called
Governor Reagan in California
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and I congratulated him
for a fine victory.
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I look forward to working
closely with him...
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DAN CARTER:
All his life he believed that
if you worked hard enough at it,
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understood the issues,
mastered information,
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then you would come out first.
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I said to him,
"It must have been hard
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to turn over the keys
to Ronald Reagan,"
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and he said, "You don't know
how hard it was."
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NARRATOR:
On January 20, 1981, after one
of the most humiliating defeats
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in American political history,
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President Jimmy Carter returned
home to Plains, Georgia,
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to what he called,
"An altogether new, unwanted
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and potentially empty life."
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ROSALYNN CARTER:
He really was better than I was
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when we came home because, um,
I was so depressed about it
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that he was always trying
to prop me up.
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(crowd cheering, applauding)
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NARRATOR:
Four years before,
he had stunned the nation.
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(cheering)
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PATRICK CADDELL:
Going from total anonymity
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to being president
of the United States
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in less than 12 months
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is unprecedented
in American history.
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If it weren't for the country
looking for something in '76,
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Carter could never
have gotten elected.
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DOUGLAS BRINKLEY:
He offered a biography
of what we wanted to hear--
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a farmer,
Main Street values, Plains--
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and he carried
that message through.
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It was the right message
at the right time.
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CARTER:
Our commitment to human rights
must be absolute.
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NARRATOR:
He had promised a new beginning,
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to heal the wounds
of Watergate and Vietnam--
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a government as good
and decent and compassionate
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as the American people.
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(crowd chanting)
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But events would overwhelm him--
an energy crisis, inflation,
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an Islamic revolution, and 53
Americans held hostage 444 days.
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Carter came to be regarded
as a good and decent man
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who was in over his head.
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ELIZABETH DREW:
He's a very, very smart man
and very well-intentioned,
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but feel... feel is very,
very important in politics,
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especially in a president,
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and Carter just didn't have
very much of it.
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What he had was a moral ideology
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and the issues
where he proved successful--
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the Panama Canal treaties,
the human rights crusades,
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peace in the Middle East--
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those were issues where
his moral ideology guided him.
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In a nation
that was proud of hard work...
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NARRATOR:
"Carter was one of
the more exasperating men
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ever to claim the White House,"
one journalist said.
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"His tenacity, so admirable,
could shift to stubbornness,
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"his religious faith
to self-righteousness.
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His brilliant mind could be
bound up by intricate details."
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Many times the one argument
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that I would find
would ruin a person's case
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is when you'd say, "This
is good for you, politically."
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He didn't want to hear that.
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He didn't want to think that way
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and he didn't want his staff
to think that way.
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He wanted to know what's right.
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BRINKLEY:
This is one of the most
highly ambitious people
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you'll ever meet.
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I mean, you don't make it
from Plains, Georgia,
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to the White House
just on charm.
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But what makes him complex
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is he's got that kind
of hubris and arrogance
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and also
this Christian humbleness,
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and that's the battle he's
constantly finding himself in.
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NARRATOR:
"As a child,
my greatest ambition
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was to be valuable around the
farm and to please my father,"
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Jimmy Carter wrote
of his boyhood in rural Georgia.
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"He was the center of my life
and the focus of my admiration."
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DAN CARTER:
I can't believe
that Jimmy Carter
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ever felt lost, in the sense
that he didn't know
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where his place was
in the world.
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And a lot of that comes
from his father,
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who not only was a
well-respected, powerful figure
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in the community, but I think
had a real sense of who he was.
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And that certitude
and self-confidence
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was something that his son,
I think, absorbed unconsciously.
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NARRATOR:
By the standards
of southwest Georgia,
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Earl Carter presided
over a small empire.
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A staunch segregationist,
he owned some 350 acres of land
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where he planted corn,
cotton and peanuts,
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employing more than 200 workers
at harvest time.
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Five sharecropper families,
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who depended on him
for their survival,
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lived year-round
at his farm in Archery.
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Carter's mother, Lillian, was
an avid reader, loved traveling
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and was known to enjoy
a sip of bourbon.
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She put in long hours
as a nurse at a nearby hospital
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and devoted much of her free
time to helping sick neighbors.
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She got paid in chickens
and vegetables
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and that kind of things
because she really helped
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and felt called to help those
that had less than her,
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and I think she instilled that
in all of her children.
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ROSALYNN CARTER:
She was the only person
in Plains
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who would take up
for Abraham Lincoln
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if he was ever brought up.
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Today it's unbelievable
to think about that,
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but back then
it was just a way of life,
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and we never thought anything...
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we never thought it
was really wrong.
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NARRATOR:
Lillian set for Jimmy the
example of service to others.
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Earl put the steel
in his character.
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BETTY GLAD:
He was very demanding.
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He expected his children
to be the very best,
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and, um, in some ways they
all had that built into them.
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NARRATOR:
"I never remember him
saying 'good job'
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when I did my best to fulfill
his orders," Jimmy later said.
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"The punishments he administered
remain vivid in my memory."
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(train whistle blows)
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A short distance
from the Carter farm
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was Plains, Georgia--
population 600--
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the only place for miles
to get a cup of coffee,
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a haircut, buy or sell goods.
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It is the place Jimmy Carter
always called home,
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where as a child he went
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to the all-white Baptist church
on Sundays
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and where he attended
the all-white public school.
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DAN CARTER:
Everybody knew
that he was special.
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He was somebody different,
smarter than,
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worked harder than,
did more than,
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ceaselessly working at improving
himself, even as a child.
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NARRATOR:
Jimmy made all "A"s.
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He played basketball and joined
the book lover's club,
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read Shakespeare's
King Lear,
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Ben-Hur,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
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He dreamed of joining the Navy.
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His uncle Tom Gordy
had excited his imagination
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with tales of adventures,
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and postcards and gifts
from exotic, faraway places.
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In June 1943, at age 18,
the farm boy from Plains
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was admitted to the U.S.
Naval Academy at Annapolis--
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the first Carter ever
to leave Georgia
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to pursue a higher education.
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ROSALYNN CARTER:
Jimmy's sister Ruth
was my best friend
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and she had a picture of him
on the wall in her bedroom.
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I just thought he was
09:22.762 --> 09:26.132 align:left position:15% line:83% size:75%
the most handsome young man
I had ever seen.
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One day I confessed to her
09:28.401 --> 09:31.103 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
that I wished she would let me
take that photograph home,
09:31.103 --> 09:33.139 align:left position:22.5% line:83% size:67.5%
because I just thought
I had fallen in love
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with Jimmy Carter.
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NARRATOR:
Rosalynn Smith was shy,
a dedicated student,
09:40.246 --> 09:44.216 align:left position:25% line:83% size:65%
read the Bible daily
and went to church on Sundays.
09:44.216 --> 09:47.119 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
Her mother once described her
09:47.119 --> 09:50.456 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70%
as a girl who could wear
a white dress all day
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and keep it clean.
09:53.492 --> 09:55.161 align:left position:27.5% line:83% size:62.5%
E. STANLY GODBOLD:
She was very bright.
09:55.161 --> 09:56.329 align:left position:27.5% line:89% size:62.5%
She was a reader.
09:56.329 --> 09:58.164 align:left position:17.5% line:89% size:72.5%
She liked to look at maps.
09:58.164 --> 10:01.000 align:left position:17.5% line:5% size:72.5%
She was always interested
in seeing the world
10:01.000 --> 10:03.402 align:left position:17.5% line:5% size:72.5%
and, uh, she always wanted
to get away.
10:05.905 --> 10:08.774 align:left position:30% line:77% size:60%
ROSALYNN CARTER:
I went to a meeting
at the church
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and I was standing outside
10:10.343 --> 10:13.579 align:left position:15% line:83% size:75%
and Jimmy drove up with Ruth
and her boyfriend,
10:13.579 --> 10:16.882 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
got out of the car and came up
and asked me to go to the movie.
10:16.882 --> 10:18.217 align:left position:22.5% line:89% size:67.5%
He kissed me good-bye.
10:18.217 --> 10:21.487 align:left position:15% line:83% size:75%
I was thrilled to death, and
then we started corresponding
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and, uh, by the time Christmas
came, I was swept off my feet.
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NARRATOR:
One month after his graduation
from Annapolis,
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Jimmy and Rosalynn were married.
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She was 18, he was 21.