Public Radio's Diane Rehm reflects on Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday

It’s former President Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday.

Carter has been in hospice care since February 2023 at his home in Plains, Georgia. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, died last year.

WAMU’s Diane Rehm interviewed the one-term Democratic president a dozen times over the years.

“The Diane Rehm Show” aired from the 1970s to 2016, but Rehm hasn’t taken a break from the news. A week after her daily show ended, she launched the podcast “On My Mind.”

“Who would want to step away from the news right now, for heaven's sake?,” Rehm says. “When historians look back at what this campaign has been and what it has done to the psyche of the American people, I think it's going to be extraordinary. So of course I'm still involved. I want to be involved.”

Carter was the first former president Rehm ever spoke with — and she says they hit it off.

“I think the first thing that struck me was his gentlemanliness, his warmth and his kindness,” Rehm says.

How did Carter view the crises of his presidency, such as the 1979 Iran hostage crisis?

“I think Jimmy Carter acknowledged to himself the mistakes he made during his presidency.

“Jimmy Carter had been working and working and working to get those hostages freed. And then [former President] Ronald Reagan gets elected, and on the day he's sworn in, those hostages are freed. So my question is, what kinds of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran were going on during that period? I am not suggesting anything other than, in my mind, it was a very curious coincidence.”

In one interview, Carter said that he might have won a second term had he bombed Iran to show his strength and the power of the American president, but that pursuing peace actually took more courage for him. That’s certainly still applicable today, isn't it?

“Absolutely. What's happening today is we have an ex-president who says his first day in office he would end the fighting between Russia and Ukraine. He would send 200,000 immigrants back to their homes in South and Latin America. And indeed, some people want to believe that that's exactly what [former President] Donald Trump can do.”

In 1993, he spoke to you about segregation. He said that society at the time is divided between poor people and rich people, and the rich people have homes, education, good jobs, etc. It's common to hear a Democrat say something like that today. Do you think Carter was ahead of his time on the issues of race and inequality?

“I think that what Jimmy Carter was talking about regarding Atlanta has actually occurred throughout the United States.

“I think Jimmy Carter was an enormously well-educated man who knew exactly what he was saying and he did speak the truth. One time, when he paused, and that was when he told me that he had not even spoken to his wife before he decided to run for governor of Georgia.  Hmm. I was shocked. I said, ‘Mr. President, I wonder whether you and Rosalynn Carter ever considered divorce?’

“And honestly, there were 10 seconds of silence, and he finally said, ‘Yes, Diane, we did.’

“I was stunned when he said that. But as much as he as a peanut farmer and as governor of Georgia led the way without making any comments first to his wife, he did include her in the policy making in the White House.”

Carter is known as a man of deep faith. In 1996, he told you about the role that it played when he was in the White House. Is that the real Carter? Is he actually as humble as he sounds?

“That is the real Jimmy Carter in my mind. He was a man who believed in God, who believed that he was doing the right things. And he was truthful about that and about his own flaws and  his hopes for the people of this country.”

If you had one more chance to ask him a question, what would it be? 

“I don't think I'd have a question. I think I would want to hug him once more as he hugged me many times.

“As I saw him brought in on a rolling stretcher to his wife Rosalynn’s memorial service, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to reach out and hug him for all of his bravery and everything.  His wisdom, his courage, his understanding that during his one term in office, he gave to the people of the United States.”

Jill Ryan produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.