The Imperfect World Of A Rubber Stamp

A few days ago, this blog featured a savage review of the late Tim Russert of NBC News and "Meet The Press." Chuck Todd of NBC News is a Russert protégé who is another rubber stamp. Todd's public stance against prosecution of Bush administration officials for war crimes merited both a savage review from Stephen Colbert and a 30-minute grilling by Salon's Glen Greenwald. If this is a (fair & balanced) exposé of the lightness of being, so be it.

[x Comedy Central]
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[x Salon]
Salon Radio: Glenn Greenwald Interviews Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director

To listen to this 07/16/09 discussion, click on this link.

Glenn Greenwald: My guest today on Salon Radio is NBC News political director Chuck Todd, who participated in a discussion on the MSNBC show Morning Joe earlier this week regarding potential torture investigations and prosecutions by the Obama Justice Department. Chuck, thanks very much for taking the time to talk to me today.

Chuck Todd: You got it, Glenn.

GG: Now, I want to begin by asking you this: discussions of torture prosecutions in the media typically focus on waterboarding, and that was true of the television segment that I just mentioned. The reality, though, is that there have been at least 100 detainees who have died in US custody, many that died during or as a result of interrogations, and many of those are deaths that the US government itself classifies as homicides. There have been a lot of other cases where detainees didn't die but were brutalized severely during interrogation. Eric Holder said that reading the reports of what happened there, quote "sickens" him.

Do you think that investigations by the Justice Department to determine if there were crimes committed, violations of our laws — either by individuals interrogators or high-level policy makers in the Bush administration — is nothing but a petty, unimportant distraction from what really matters?

CT: Well, let me first of all clarify for how you described the discussion on Morning Joe. I was asked a specific question about where the White House stood on this. And where the White House stands on this is my reporting. And that is what the conversation was based on. And then I was asked: why would they, what is their thinking behind this, and I was describing their thinking, and the thinking behind the political thinking on this — which is, that politically, these things can turn into a distraction.

That doesn't mean that this stuff shouldn't be investigated, that doesn't mean whether I believe whether these things should be investigated. But as far as the discussion you're quoting - and this is where I took some issue with it, and maybe I was inartful - I wasn't trying to downplay the morality of this, okay? What I was trying to talk about, and what the question was formed to me and what I was trying to answer it, was: why is the Obama administration so hesitant.

GG: Okay, but that isn't actually —

CT: Let me just finish the point.

GG: Go ahead.

CT: And that is what I was trying to explain. I think if you kept going in the transcript, there was another part of it where I said, look, there is going to be a greater discussion, whether it's an investigation or an examination, over the future role of where the CIA sits, how this stuff should be carried out in the future, and this seems to be what this policy review is, going on between Eric Holder and between what the president ordered with his executive order on this.

Now, are you saying, should there be an investigation? There's an argument to be made, and in my observation, special prosecutors have become political footballs. But when you do these investigations through the normal means of how investigations should work in government, they're less likely to become political footballs. So that is, look, in my experience of watching the special prosecutor situation go on over the last 20 years, that I've been covering politics, that's my observation.
GG: But when government officials are accused of violating the law, of committing crimes -- typically if American citizens face accusations like that, what happens is prosecutors investigate the accusations, and if they determine that there's evidence that suggests crimes were committed, they're indicted and then prosecuted.
Do you think that government officials, when they're accused of committing crimes and there's evidence to suggest that they've done so, ought to be treated differently?

CT: Nobody's suggesting they should be treated differently.

GG: I thought—

CT: Hang on. A special prosecutor, by appointing a special prosecutor, you actually are automatically then treating government officials differently.

GG: The report from Newsweek was that Eric Holder was considering having a standard Justice Department prosecutor, like they did when having Patrick Fitzgerald investigate the Valerie Plame matter — one of the investigators the prosecutors mentioned was John Durham, who's currently investigating whether crimes were committed by the CIA in destroying videotapes — that would be a standard prosecutor who would investigate whether or not crimes were committed, and then have an indictment if one is warranted.

There's no more special prosecutor statute that exists in the United States; we're just talking about having a standard prosecutor investigate to determine if crimes were committed. Why isn't that perfectly appropriate when accusations of this kind are made?

CT: Nobody is saying it's not appropriate legally, but there is a political side. You can't sit here and take away the political conversation and pretend it doesn't exist in this, and pretend that it isn't a part of this. And then other question, what I've never understood on this—

GG: Well, what is that conversation, what is that political conversation that you're...

CT: The political conversation is whether...

GG: Do you think political considerations should be...

CT: Hang on, hang on.

GG: Go ahead.

CT: The political conversation is this: What message does that send if we have this political trial, and how do you know this won't turn into a political trial? In fact, we know it's going to turn into a political trial. I'll take that back - we don't know whether it's going to turn into a political trial. That is the experience of how these things have worked in the past, that end up getting turned into a political trial. And then....

GG: What do you mean by that? What is a political trial?

CT: Let's take this a step further. I want to ask you — I do respect your legal mind on this — what happens when there is a - 'cause one of the reasonings that I hear about going through with these prosecutions is that you need to send a message to the world, and to the future administrations, that this is not the way that the American government should conduct itself.

If you have this trial, and there is, inevitably, some appeals and some, where we have a back-and-forth, where there is some sort of, where it becomes a legal debate about whether so-and-so can go on trial, or not go on trial, what was allowed - they were, they thought that they were following the law, that they, you know, what message does that end up sending? Does that end up harming us down the road? Do you worry about that, if it's not a clean cut as it feels to you right now?

GG: I don't know what you mean. Here's what I think about this: here's how our system of government is supposed to work. We have laws that are enacted by the United States Congress, by the American people through their Congress, that say that if you do certain things — if you do X, Y, and Z — those are crimes. We have laws in place that say that anyone who engages in torture, or who authorizes torture, is committing a felony.

If people do that, and the prosecutor concludes that there's evidence to suggest that they've done it, there's one of two things to do. You either apply the rule of law to those government officials, the way that American citizens have the law applied to them when they commit crimes, or you announce a policy, the way that I think you were suggesting on this show — and I think the transcript's pretty clear that you weren't only talking about what the Obama White House thinks, but you were describing this as being your view; that's certainly how both Mika Brzezinski and Pat Buchanan understood what you were saying —

But leave that aside. The other alternative is to say that when government officials break the law, because we're afraid of political controversy, or disharmony, we're not going to apply the rule of law to them. And what I don't understand is, if that's the route that you take, why would future presidents ever feel compelled to obey the law if they know that there's going to be this great media voice saying that it's too political, too controversial to prosecute them? Why would any political official ever abide by the law?

CT: But you're assuming a black and white. I mean, the whole point of those OLC memos was showing that they were getting a set of, that the interrogators were potentially getting legal advice to, and in fact what the Bush administration was trying to do, was trying to find a legal way. They were trying to find a legal way, they were trying whatever, which is, of course, my - as a non-lawyer - my frustration with the law sometimes - is that the law isn't clear cut. And instead, what do lawyers get paid to do? They get paid, in many ways, to find a legal way around to do something, to prove that some way is legal and to stretch what the law —

GG: But that's not the role of Justice Department lawyers to stretch the law. The president is not the client of the Justice Department lawyers —

CT: I understand that that's—

GG: They're not there for that purpose, and if they're doing that, then they're bastardizing their duties. They're distorting the law, they're not applying the law.
CT: So then—

GG: Let me ask you about that, then. If a president can find, as a president always will be able to find, some low-level functionary in the Justice Department — a John Yoo — to write a memo authorizing whatever it is the president wants to do, and to say that it's legal, then you think the president ought to be immune from prosecution whenever he breaks the law, as long as he has a permission slip from the Justice Department? I mean, that's the argument that's being made. Don't you think that's extremely dangerous?

CT: That could be dangerous, but let me tell you this: Is it healthy for our reputation around the world — and this I think is that we have to do what other countries do more often than not, so-called democracies that struggle with their democracy, and sit there and always PUT the previous administration on trial - you don't think that we start having retributions on this going forward?

Look, I am no way excusing torture. I'm not excusing torture, and I bristle at the attack when it comes on this specific issue. But I think the political reality in this, and, I understand where you're coming from, you're just saying, just because something's politically tough doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. That's, I don't disagree with you from 30,000 feet. And that is an idealistic view of this thing. Then you have the realistic view of how this town works, and what would happen, and is it good for our reputation around the world if we're essentially putting on trial the previous administration? We would look at another country doing that, and say, geez, boy, this is—

GG: So what do you think happens — I think what has destroyed our reputation is announcing to the world that we tolerate torture, and telling the world we don't—

CT: We have elections, we also had an election where this was an issue. A new president, who came in there, and has said, we're not going to torture, we're going to do this, and we're going to do this—

GG: What do you think should happen when presidents—

CT: Is that not enough? Isn't that enough?

GG: When, generally, if I go out and rob a bank tomorrow, what happens to me is not that I lose an election. What happens is to me is that I go to prison. So, what do you think should happen when presidents get caught committing crimes in office? What do you think ought to happen?

CT: You see, this is where, this is not — you cannot sit here and say this is as legally black and white as a bank robbery because this was an ideological, legal —

GG: A hundred people died in detention. A hundred people. The United States Government admits that there are homicides that took place during interrogations. Waterboarding and these other techniques are things that the United States has always prosecuted as torture.

Until John Yoo wrote that memo, where was the lack of clarity about whether or not these things were illegal? Where did that lack of clarity or debate exist? They found some right-wing ideologues in the Justice Department to say that this was okay, that's what you're endorsing. As long the president can do that, he's above the law. And I don't see how you can say that you're doing anything other than endorsing a system of lawlessness where the president is free to break the law?

CT: Well, look, I don't believe I'm endorsing a system of lawlessness; I'm trying to put in the reality that as much that there is a legal black and white here, there is a political reality that clouds this, and you know it does too.

GG: But I'm trying - please explain that—

CT: What I'm saying is—

GG: How can a political controversy — I thought the whole point of having a Justice Department in a civilized country, was that it's supposed to be immune from political considerations. Wasn't that the whole lesson of the Alberto Gonzales era? That when Eric Holder sits down as the Attorney General, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, he makes decisions based on legal factors, as to whether crimes are committed, not based on political factors of the kind that MSNBC likes to talk about. Isn't that how our justice system is supposed to work?
CT: Of course, on the 30,000 feet level, it is supposed to work that way. But have you ever taken a look at, let's just look at what this Justice Department is saying here, because, the president just nominated himself — political — the minute you are a political appointee, it is hard to sit here and say that there is somehow eliminated politics from the equation.

Look at the US attorney thing. What did we find out during this whole US attorney scandal? There was no doubt the White House, the previous White House was trying to play politics with US attorney selections. That has been proven. Except what did we also find out — it was perfectly legal. Now, this is a case of where you're mixing the politics and, and look, President Obama now is nominating US attorneys, some of whom are political favors.

GG: Well, what was perfectly legal, to fire prosecutors who either prosecuted Republicans or refused to prosecute Democrats? It turned out it was legal?

CT: Unfortunately, it turned out it was perfectly legal.

GG: Who said that? Who said that?

CT: Because they serve at the pleasure of the president.

GG: There's lawsuits—

CT: They serve at the pleasure of the president.

GG: Chuck. First of all, the question of whether or not crimes were committed in the US attorneys case is still a pending matter before several federal courts.

CT: And I believe it should be investigated—

GG: There are laws in place that say, it is a crime to obstruct prosecutions for political reasons. If Karl Rove is in the White House directing that prosecutors who prosecute Republicans, or who refuse to prosecute Democrats, be fired, that is a crime. That's not—

CT: Wait, now you conflating what I said. What I'm saying is that the aspect that he could just, the White House could just fire US attorneys at will — that was perfectly legal.

GG: But the question is whether the—

CT: The question is whether they fired them at a time when it actually, that is what is being investigated and should be investigated.

GG: And if there are crimes that were committed, they should be prosecuted?

CT: And I think - and this is something see more from the legal community — this issue of US attorneys being political appointees, is probably something that needs to be taken up, because I think it's fraught with peril, and fraught with the potential for abuse.

GG: Let me ask you this question: The United States is a party to a treaty — I don't know if you ever read it or not, it's called the Convention Against Torture — and one of the things it does is it obligates all signatories to the treaty to prosecute any acts of torture. And it was signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988, and when he transmitted that treaty to the Senate, explaining what that treaty does, he wrote, quote, "Each state party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory, or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."
Do you think the U.S. should be bound, is bound by that treaty? And, I want to ask you: with regard to the question of whether or not we follow that treaty, why do you describe that as nothing more than, quote "cable catnip".

CT: Alright. The "cable catnip" comment was this. This issue, whenever you see the words Cheney and intelligence pop up, and when I use the phrase 'cable catnip', it is when something becomes, whether the two polarized parts of our political society, are very entrenched in their views on this, and believe the other side is completely irrational on it. And so, that's, whenever you have an issue like that, that's what I describe as 'cable catnip'. Because it becomes something that is easy to put on television, because you can find a left versus right, which is something that cable embraces to a fault, and I'm in this business but I'm, I work my butt off trying to stay out of the left versus right fights and try to stay analytical and stay on the reporting end of things.

And so, that's when I describe an issue as cable catnip. I am not sitting here and saying — and I respect the passion on this, and I don't want to somehow sit here saying that on the right I've been accused of somehow just assuming that our national security is nothing more than cable catnip, or that torture of detainees is somehow relegated to cable catnip. That is not what I'm describing when I say cable catnip, but I want to put that aside.

To go back to your question, of course, any treaty we sign, the United States government is obligated to stand by it. Now, the controversy has been, and what we're trying to figure out — and what I think where the Justice Department is trying to figure out, and where this whole debate has been about — is whether they found a legal way to somehow abide by this treaty or not.
GG: And isn't that—

CT: ...abiding by the treaty—

GG: And isn't the best thing to do to immunize that question from political considerations is to say to a prosecutor, the way that we do with every other accusation of crime: take a look at the pure legal issues here, ask: "were crimes committed; is this the kind of case that indictments are appropriate for, where people should be put on trial," and then just have this be treated like every other accusation of crime, which is the prosecutor taking a look?

CT: I agree, in a perfect world — Glenn, in a perfect world, yes. And if you could also guarantee me, that this wouldn't become a show trial, and wouldn't be put, and created so that we had nightly debates about it, that is the ideal way to handle this.

GG: Why not? What's wrong with nightly debate about whether our government committed crimes?

CT: Because then it becomes, then you do politicize the issue, to the point of where you won't - the fact is, public opinion was on the opposite side of the argument as you. That doesn't mean public opinion should—

GG: That's not really true. The polls are very mixed and lots of polls show more than 50% of the people want investigations—

CT: It depends on how you ask the question.

GG: Exactly. But obviously—

CT: It depends on how you ask the question because—

GG: The question of whether you prosecute crimes isn't dependent in any way on whether or not public opinion thinks that you ought to.

CT: Public opinion has been, the way I think I've been able to interpret this is that the public is against torture, the public doesn't want the US reputation shattered around the world, and they also want to sweep it under the rug.

GG: Well, there's polls—

CT: Whether that's the right thing or not, that's what polls—

GG: I have never seen a poll where less than 40% of the American public say they want investigations and prosecutions. Many polls, including ones by The Washington Post and The New York Times and others, show that more than 50% want investigations and prosecutions.

But let me ask you this question — and I just have a couple more questions, and I appreciate this time. You just referenced earlier that you think that this has become cable catnip because it's an entrenched partisan debate between the left and the right. And about a month ago you created a little controversy because you said about the question about whether there should be investigations, about the release of the OLC memos, you said, quote, "Frankly, this feels like a political food fight right now: the hard left, the hard right fighting over this in the blogosphere."
Some of the people who have called for investigations and prosecutions of Bush-era torture crimes include people like Jesse Ventura, the former independent governor of Minnesota; Philip Zelikow, the former aide to Condoleezza Rice; four-star general Barry McCaffrey, who said, on MSNBC, actually, that numerous detainees were, quote, "murdered" in custody, and that there's no way that we can not have criminal investigations. General Antonio Tabuga, who investigated the Abu Ghraib crimes, said: quote, "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes; the only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." Same with Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief-of-staff to Colin Powell; Thomas Pickering and Williams Sessions, former Reagan administration officials, on and on, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for investigations.

The idea that this is something that, the idea that the rule of law, that holding our high government officials to accountability when they commit crimes, is a "hard left versus a hard right" or a partisan debate - isn't that really just an invention of cable news, for exactly the reason that you said, which is that's how cable news typically understands things, even when that's not really what the debate is?

CT: Well, look - and that is my frustration on this very issue, that I don't think — and this is why, when I said, how should this be handled, and how should this be investigated — if you could guarantee me that we could keep this debate off of television, and keep it off of being an ideological — because, this was an ideological, when you read those OLC memos, I was struck by this fact, and that is that the Bush White House was looking for a legal way to do this. They were trying to legally justify what they were doing, and what their policy was. Which then, if that is the case, then, things are going to have an ideological split, and frankly, you, you and I both know you're going find judges that end up falling on both sides of this issue.

Now, does that mean that there shouldn't be investigations as to how these detainees died in custody? Of course there should be investigations. That's what makes the American form of justice held to a higher standard.

GG: And what should be done about investigations that reveal that there were crimes that were committed?

CT: Well, look, that's up to the Justice Department. I know you have strong feelings about this. I am trying, honestly, very hard, not to put my personal feelings on this specific issue into it. I am trying to deal in the analysis of why, for instance, the Obama White House doesn't want this. They don't want to have this debate even if they passionately feel, as many do, about what might have happened.

GG: It's not surprising—

CT: They worry—

GG: It's not surprising, is it, that current presidents would like to keep in place this prohibition that we have against presidents and high government officials being prosecuted for crimes. That would make sense, right? I mean, if I were a White House official, I would love that rule, that White House officials don't get prosecuted for crimes that—

CT: Now you're getting — this has always been something that I've been — not to go off on a sidebar here — but I've been waiting for somebody, during the campaign, to ask both candidates. Because both of them, in the general elections, and frankly even during the primary with then Senator Clinton, all said that the Bush administration tried too hard to expand executive powers. And then you would say, which executive powers are you willing to give up? And none of them would actually say which executive powers, because once you're president you don't want to give up any of your powers. Sorry.

GG: Well, that's true. Now, let me ask you this last question. If you read the Founders, especially Thomas Jefferson, who was the principal advocate for the First Amendment, but others as well, talk about the reason why a free press was important: What they say is that the reason why a free press was so important was because it was going to be one of the most important adversarial checks against government and political power. That, specifically, they would lead the way in demanding that there be investigations and accountability for wrongdoing in political office. Not that they would be the spokespeople for why government officials didn't want investigations—

CT: This is what's frustrating. Because I offer political analysis explaining the White House political decisions, and why they're hesitant on calling for more investigations on this issue, doesn't — then you can't sit there and make me a spokesperson for this. And this is where I get—

GG: But you did, Chuck, but that's. Chuck, seriously. This is what you said: you said, "The only important thing the president has to focus on is getting the public's trust on the economy. Cheney, the CIA, and in some respects Sotomayor are cable catnip."

And then, Mika asked you this question: "Is this much ado about nothing, to get the attention off what needs to be done?" She didn't ask you, does Obama think that, she asked you: "Is this much ado about nothing, to get the attention off what needs to be done?"

And Pat Buchanan said, "Well, that's exactly what Chuck said. It's a massive distraction." And then you then said, "I think that the problem here is that lawyers are meant to stretch things; this would be a dangerous slope, this a very dangerous aspect to go after." And then you ended by saying, "I'm sure there are legal minds that will fight and say, I don't know what I'm talking about here, but it seems to me this is a legal and political slippery slope." You were describing your opinion. You even described it that way. You said, I'm sure there are legal minds that will say, I, Chuck Todd, don't know what I'm talking about. You were clearly advocating the idea that this would a distraction from the things that matter, not that just that Obama and Rahm Emanuel think that, but that you—

CT: Fine. But I was also explaining what that was. And so I should have, I absolutely should have framed it differently and explained, but I was trying to explain why this is something that they don't want eating up the public's time on this.

GG: Right, but it is your job as a journalist — who cares what they want, that's fine for you to report what they want, that makes sense — but in addition to simply repeating what it is, or describing what it is that they want, is it your job as a journalist — as Thomas Jefferson and the Founders said — to lead the way in demanding that there be transparency, accountability and investigations of government officials when they're accused of wrongdoing? Is that your role?

CT: Look, I believe I have a couple of roles as a journalist. Of course, number one is to hold government officials accountable, but also report on what they're trying to do, what the motivations are behind what they're trying to do, why they're doing certain things. I mean, the question that I ask every day is, why, on something. Why are they proposing X, or why are they doing this? And I also think part of my job is to explain the why, to the best of my ability.

In this case, obviously, you don't like, you object to the why there, and maybe I did a poor job in explaining the why. But I will continue to explain the situation in this respect. And that is, the political climate makes it very difficult for this White House to want to call for this, because I think that they worry about this turning into an ideological fight that distracts their own supporters' attentions from what they want them to be focused on, which is health care and the economy and other things going forward.

GG: Fair enough. I think that the major problem that a lot of people had, I know that I had with that discussion, was that everybody was on board with the idea — certainly Pat Buchanan and Mika were on board with the idea — that investigations are distractions from what really matters. You were at the White House—

CT: Well, I'll tell you this—

GG: Let me just finish. I think the problem was that if you read the entire discussion — and the part that you said about reforming the CIA didn't actually happen in that discussion, I think you're thinking about another one — but be that as it may—

CT: Fair enough.

GG: The principal argument of those of us who want investigations and prosecutions, is that our justice system ends up being perverted, and it's a very dangerous thing if we have this idea that presidents can break the law, and then for political reasons, shouldn't be treated like everybody else. That is a very dangerous idea that we've accepted since Ford pardoned Nixon, and since the Iran-Contra criminals were pardoned. That if there's an accusation, a credible accusation that laws were broken, it's vital that the prosecutors and the Justice Department treat it like any other case, and indict if indictments are warranted, because it's so dangerous to create this two-tiered system of justice.

That view wasn't included anywhere in the discussion you had. And I just think that — I'm not saying you should be an advocate for that view, although I think the Founders thought journalists should be — but even if you don't think so, that that view has to be articulated every time there's a discussion about whether or not prosecutions are warranted.

CT: Glenn, you get to a bigger problem here. I don't disagree with you with this issue, that ever since the Nixon situation, that we have gotten into this situation where investigations in the government of officials have become politicized, in some for or another. Either the investigators are politicized in what they're doing, or it gets politicized from the outside by—

GG: Well, I don't agree with that. That's your point. My point is there have been prosecutions—

CT: And the problem is, there is a department, and you can't, whether this, you can sit here and say, you know what, that's exactly what's wrong with the Beltway. But there has been this fatigue about it because the use of prosecutions has been too politicized, to the point where I think it has made it where it's just unfortunately too easy to dismiss an investigation.

GG: And as a result, powerful politicians know that they can break the law and get away it.

CT: I don't disagree with your conclusion here.

GG: Politicians know that they can break the law and get away it because there is that quote-unquote "fatigue," that dislike, that contempt for holding political officials accountable in Washington, because these are the people you go to work and see every day, and it's unpleasant when they're having to respond to subpoenas—

CT: That's not—

GG: ... and go to court and be accused of criminal wrongdoing. And that's why the political class typically insists that politicians not be subjected to the criminal process. And they know that they can break the law and get away with it for exactly that reason. And I think that's a huge problem.

CT: Well, look, I think the problem, though, sits not with the media in this respect. And this is what frustrates me a little bit, is that the problem, the people we should be upset with are the folks on the Hill, folks in the White House, folks at the Justice Department. Those are the ones who have the power of the subpoena, and the power to do these things, not the media. And I know we get beaten up about it. But the power does lie in Congress. And the power does lie in the Justice Department.

GG: Agreed. And that's why I think that's the appropriate place for these investigations and prosecutions to take place, is in the Justice Department. That's why I'm in favor of what Eric Holder's about to do.

Anyway, Chuck, unless you want to add something, I honestly think it's been an interesting discussion.

CT: I agree. No, I wish you had called me first. I mean, I hear you on where that's not where you want to go, but, I wish you had called me first on that front. But beyond that, because I respect your work so much, that's why I reached out—

GG: I appreciate your taking the time, Chuck.

CT: ... and I appreciate you doing the podcast about it.

GG: Thanks very much. Ω


[Glenn Greenwald is an attorney, best-selling author of How Would A Patriot Act?, political and legal blogger, and a columnist at Salon Magazine. Greenwald is a graduate of George Washington University and received a J.D. from New York University Law School.

Charles D. (Chuck) Todd is the political director and chief White House correspondent for NBC News, and contributing editor to "Meet the Press." He attended George Washington University from 1990 to 1994; he left GW University without a degree. Todd is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University.]

Copyright © 2009 Salon Media Group, Inc.

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Copyright © 2009 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves

Mr. Peanut Then (1976) And Now (2009)

An old (and that means old) chum here in the Heart of Weirdness reminded me that Mr. Peanut had announced his repudiation of his former brethren in the Southern Baptist Convention for their misogyny. More than thirty years ago, Mr. Peanut was mocked by the Dumbos for his admission of human fallibility in a Playboy interview while those same Dumbos were fornicating with whatever men, women, and children they encountered then and now. If this is a (fair & balanced) denunciation of hypocrisy, so be it.

{x Playboy]
Playboy Inteview: Jimmy Carter (November 1976)
Interviewer: Robert Scheer

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PLAYBOY: After nearly two years on the campaign trail, don't you feel a little numbed by the routine—for instance, having to give the same speech over and over?

CARTER: Sometimes. Once, when I was campaigning in the Florida primary, I made 12 speeches in one day. It was the worst day I ever had. But I generally have tried to change the order of the speech and emphasize different things. Sometimes I abbreviate and sometimes I elaborate. Of 20 different parts in a speech, I might take seven or eight and change them around. It depends on the audience—black people, Jewish people, chicanos—and that gives me the ability to make speeches that aren't boring to myself.

PLAYBOY: Every politician probably emphasizes different things to different audiences, but in your case, there's been a common criticism that you seem to have several faces, that you try to be all things to all people. How do you respond to that?

CARTER: I can't make myself believe these are contrivances and subterfuges I've adopted to get votes. It may be, and I can't get myself to admit it, but what I want to do is to let people know how I stand on the issues as honestly as I can.

PLAYBOY: If you feel you've been fully honest, why has the charge persisted that you're "fuzzy" on the issues?

CARTER: It started during the primaries, when most of my opponents were members of Congress. When any question on an issue came up, they would say, "I'm for the Kennedy-Corman bill on health care, period, no matter what's in it." If the question was on employment, they would say, "I'm for the Humphrey-Hawkins bill, no matter what's in it." But those bills were constantly being amended!

I'm just not able to do that. I have to understand what I'm talking about, and simplistic answers identifying my position with such-and-such a House bill are something I can't put forward. That's one reason I've been seen as fuzzy.

Another is that I'm not an ideolog and my positions are not predictable. Without any criticism of McGovern, if the question had ever come up on abortion, you could pretty well anticipate what he was going to say. If it were amnesty, you could predict what McGovern was going to say about that. But I've tried to analyze each question individually; I've taken positions that to me are fair and rational, and sometimes my answers are complicated.

The third reason is that I wasn't a very vulnerable opponent for those who ran against me. Fuzziness was the only issue Congressman Udall, Senator Church—and others that are hard to remember now—could adopt in their campaigns against me. I think the drumming of that factor into the consciousness of the American voter obviously had some impact.

PLAYBOY: Still, not everybody's sure whether you're a conservative in liberal clothing or vice versa. F.D.R., for instance, turned out to be something of a surprise to people who'd voted for him, because he hadn't seemed as progressive before he was elected as he turned out to be. Could you be a surprise that way?

CARTER: I don't believe that's going to be the case. If you analyze the Democratic Party platform, you'll see that it's a very progressive, very liberal, very socially motivated platform. What sometimes surprises people is that I carry out my promises. People ask how a peanut farmer from the South who believes in balanced budgets and tough management of Government can possibly give the country tax and welfare reform, or a national health program, or insist on equal rights for blacks and women. Well, I'm going to do those things. I've promised them during the campaign, so I don't think there will be many people disappointed—or surprised—when I carry out those commitments as President.

PLAYBOY: But isn't it true that you turned out to be more liberal as governor of Georgia than people who voted for you had any reason to suspect?

CARTER: I don't really think so. No, The Atlanta Constitution, which was the source of all information about me, categorized me during the gubernatorial campaign as an ignorant, racist, backward, ultraconservative, rednecked South Georgia peanut farmer. Its candidate, Carl Sanders, the former governor, was characterized as an enlightened, progressive, well-educated, urbane, forceful, competent public official. I never agreed with the categorization that was made of me during the campaign. I was the same person before and after I became governor. I remember keeping a check list and every time I made a promise during the campaign. I wrote it down in a notebook. I believe I carried out every promise I made. I told several people during the campaign that one of the phrases I was going to use in my inaugural speech was that the time for racial discrimination was over. I wrote and made that speech.

The ultraconservatives in Georgia—who aren't supporting me now, by the way—voted for me because of their animosity toward Carl Sanders. I was the alternative to him. They never asked me, "Are you a racist or have you been a member of the Ku Klux Klan?" because they knew I wasn't and hadn't been. And yet, despite predictions early this year by The Atlanta Constitution that I couldn't get a majority of the primary vote in Georgia against Wallace, I received about 85 percent of the votes. So I don't think the Georgia people have the feeling I betrayed them.

PLAYBOY: Considering what you've just said about The Atlanta Constitution, how do you feel about the media in general and about the job they do in covering the election issues?

CARTER: There's still a tendency on the part of some members of the press to treat the South, you know, as a suspect nation. There are a few who think that since I am a Southern governor. I must be a secret racist or there's something in a closet somewhere that's going to be revealed to show my true colors. There's been a constant probing back ten, twelve years in my background, even as early as the first primaries. Nobody probed like that into the background of Udall or Bayh or other people. But I don't object to it particularly, I just recognize it.

(The answer was broken off and, at a later session, Carter returned to the question of the press and its coverage of issues. This time he was tired, his head sunk far back into his airplane seat. The exchange occurred during one of the late primaries.)

Issues? The local media are interested, all right, but the national news media have absolutely no interest in issues at all. Sometimes we freeze out the national media so we can open up press conferences to local people. At least we get questions from them—on timber management, on health care, on education. But the traveling press have zero interest in any issue unless it's a matter of making a mistake. What they're looking for is a 47-second argument between me and another candidate or something like that. There's nobody in the back of this plane who would ask an issue question unless he thought he could trick me into some crazy statement.

PLAYBOY: One crazy statement you were supposed to have made was reported by Robert Shrum after he quit as your speechwriter earlier this year. He said he'd been in conversations with you when you made some slighting references to Jewish voters. What's your version of what happened?

CARTER: Shrum dreamed up eight or ten conversations that never took place and nobody in the press ever asked me if they had occurred. The press just assumed that they had. I never talked to Shrum in private except for maybe a couple of minutes. If he had told the truth, if I had said all the things he claimed I had said, I wouldn't vote for myself.

When a poll came out early in the primaries that said I had a small proportion of the Jewish vote, I said, "Well, this is really a disappointment to me—we've worked so hard with the Jewish voters. But my pro-Israel stand won't change, even if I don't get a single Jewish vote; I guess we'll have to depend on non-Jews to put me in office." But Shrum treated it as if it were some kind of racist disavowal of Jews. Well, that's a kind of sleazy twisting of a conversation.

PLAYBOY: While we're on the subject of the press, how do you feel about an issue that concerns the press itself—the right of journalists to keep their sources secret?

CARTER: I would do everything I could to protect the secrecy of sources for the news media.

PLAYBOY: Both the press and the public seem to have made an issue out of your Baptist beliefs. Why do you think this has happened?

CARTER: I'm not unique. There are a lot of people in this country who have the same religious faith. It's not a mysterious or mystical or magical thing. But for those who don't know the feeling of someone who believes in Christ, who is aware of the presence of God, there is, I presume, a quizzical attitude toward it. But it's always been something I've discussed very frankly throughout my adult life.

PLAYBOY: We've heard that you pray 25 times a day. Is that true?

CARTER: I've never counted. I've forgotten who asked me that, but I'd say that on an eventful day, you know, it's something like that.

PLAYBOY: When you say an eventful day, do you mean you pray as a kind of pause, to control your blood pressure and relax?

CARTER: Well, yes. If something happens to me that is a little disconcerting, if I feel a trepidation, if a thought comes into my head of animosity or hatred toward someone, then I just kind of say a brief silent prayer. I don't ask for myself but just to let me understand what another's feelings might be. Going through a crowd, quite often people bring me a problem, and I pray that their needs might be met. A lot of times, I'll be in the back seat of a car and not know what kind of audience I'm going to face. I don't mean I'm terror-stricken, just that I don't know what to expect next. I'll pray then, but it's not something that's conscious or formal. It's just a part of my life.

PLAYBOY: One reason some people might be quizzical is that you have a sister. Ruth, who is a faith healer. The association of politics with faith healing is an idea many find disconcerting.

CARTER: I don't even know what political ideas Ruth has had, and for people to suggest I'm under the hold of a sister—or any other person—is a complete distortion of fact. I don't have any idea whether Ruth has supported Democrats or not, whereas the political views of my other sister, Gloria, are remarkably harmonious with mine.

PLAYBOY: So you're closer to Gloria, who has described herself as a McGovern Democrat and rides motorcycles as a hobby?

CARTER: I like them both. But in the past 20 or 25 years, I've been much closer to Gloria, because she lives next door to me and Ruth lives in North Carolina. We hardly saw Ruth more than once a year at family get-togethers. What political attitudes Ruth has had, I have not the slightest idea. But my mother and Gloria and I have been very compatible. We supported Lyndon Johnson openly during the 1964 campaign and my mother worked at the Johnson county headquarters, which was courageous, not an easy thing to do politically. She would come out of the Johnson headquarters and find her car smeared with soap and the antenna tied in a knot and ugly messages left on the front seat. When my young boys went to school, they were beaten. So Mother and Gloria and I, along with my Rosalynn, have had the same attitudes even when we were in a minority in Plains. But Ruth lives in a different world in North Carolina.

PLAYBOY: Granting that you're not as close to your religious sister as is assumed, we still wonder how your religious beliefs would translate into political action. For instance, would you appoint judges who would be harsh or lenient toward victimless crimes—offenses such as drug use, adultery, sodomy and homosexuality?

CARTER: Committing adultery, according to the Bible—which I believe in—is a sin. For us to hate one another, for us to have sexual intercourse outside marriage, for us to engage in homosexual activities, for us to steal, for us to lie—all these are sins. But Jesus teaches us not to judge other people. We don't assume the role of judge and say to another human being, "You're condemned because you commit sins." All Christians, all of us, acknowledge that we are sinful and the judgment comes from God, not from another human being.

As governor of Georgia. I tried to shift the emphasis of law enforcement away from victimless crimes. We lessened the penalties on the use of marijuana. We removed alcoholism as a crime, and so forth. Victimless crimes, in my opinion, should have a very low priority in terms of enforcing the laws on the books. But as to appointing judges, that would not be the basis on which I'd appoint them. I would choose people who were competent, whose judgment and integrity were sound. I think it would be inappropriate to ask them how they were going to rule on a particular question before I appointed them.

PLAYBOY: What about those laws on the books that govern personal behavior? Should they be enforced?

CARTER: Almost every state in the Union has laws against adultery and many of them have laws against homosexuality and sodomy. But they're often considered by police officers as not worthy of enforcing to the extent of disturbing consenting adults or breaking into a person's private home.

PLAYBOY: But, of course, that gives the police a lot of leeway to enforce them selectively. Do you think such laws should be on the books at all?

CARTER: That's a judgment for the individual states to make. I think the laws are on the books quite often because of their relationship to the Bible. Early in the nation's development, the Judaeo-Christian moral standards were accepted as a basis for civil law. But I don't think it hurts to have this kind of standard maintained as a goal. I also think it's an area that's been interpreted by the Supreme Court as one that can rightfully be retained by the individual states.

PLAYBOY: Do you think liberalization of the laws over the past decade by factors as diverse as the pill and Playboy—an effect some people would term permissiveness—has been a harmful development?

CARTER: Liberalization of some of the laws has been good. You can't legislate morality. We tried to outlaw consumption of alcoholic beverages. We found that violation of the law led to bigger crimes and bred disrespect for the law.

PLAYBOY: We're confused. You say morality can't be legislated, yet you support certain laws because they preserve old moral standards. How do you reconcile the two positions?

CARTER: I believe people should honor civil laws. If there is a conflict between God's law and civil law, we should honor God's law. But we should be willing to accept civil punishment. Most of Christ's original followers were killed because of their belief in Christ; they violated the civil law in following God's law. Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian who has dealt with this problem at length, says that the framework of law is a balancing of forces in a society; the law itself tends to alleviate tensions brought about by these forces. But the laws on the books are not a measure of this balance nearly as much as the degree to which the laws are enforced. So when a law is anachronistic and is carried over from a previous age, it's just not observed.

PLAYBOY: What we're getting at is how much you'd tolerate behavior that your religion considers wrong. For instance, in San Francisco, you said you considered homosexuality a sin. What does that mean in political terms?

CARTER: The issue of homosexuality always makes me nervous. It's obviously one of the major issues in San Francisco. I don't have any, you know, personal knowledge about homosexuality and I guess being a Baptist, that would contribute to a sense of being uneasy.

PLAYBOY: Does it make you uneasy to discuss it simply as a political question?

CARTER: No, it's more complicated than that. It's political, it's moral and it's strange territory for me. At home in Plains, we've had homosexuals in our community, our church. There's never been any sort of discrimination—some embarrassment but no animosity, no harassment. But to inject it into a public discussion on politics and how it conflicts with morality is a new experience for me. I've thought about it a lot, but I don't see how to handle it differently from the way I look on other sexual acts outside marriage.

PLAYBOY: We'd like to ask you a blunt question: Isn't it just these views about what's "sinful" and what's "immoral" that contribute to the feeling that you might get a call from God, or get inspired and push the wrong button? More realistically, wouldn't we expect a puritanical tone to be set in the White House if you were elected?

CARTER: Harry Truman was a Baptist. Some people get very abusive about the Baptist faith. If people want to know about it, they can read the New Testament. The main thing is that we don't think we're better than anyone else. We are taught not to judge other people. But as to some of the behavior you've mentioned, I can't change the teachings of Christ. I can't change the teachings of Christ! I believe in them, and a lot of people in this country do as well. Jews believe in the Bible. They have the same commandments.

PLAYBOY: Then you as President, in appointing Supreme Court Justices—

CARTER: I think we've pursued this conversation long enough—if you have another question. . . . Look, I'll try to express my views. It's not a matter of condemnation, it's not a matter of persecution. I've been a governor for four years. Anybody can come and look at my record. I didn't run around breaking down people's doors to see if they were fornicating. This is something that's ridiculous.

PLAYBOY: We know you didn't, but we're being so persistent because of this matter of self-righteousness, because of the moral certainty of so many of your statements. People wonder if Jimmy Carter ever is unsure. Has he ever been wrong, has he ever had a failure of moral nerve?

CARTER: Well, there are a lot of things I could have done differently had I known during my early life what I now know. I would certainly have spoken out more clearly and loudly on the civil rights issue. I would have demanded that our nation never get involved initially in the Vietnam war. I would have told the country in 1972 that Watergate was a much more horrible crime than we thought at the time. It's easy to say in hindsight what you would have done if you had had information you now have.

PLAYBOY: We were asking not so much about hindsight as about being fallible. Aren't there any examples of things you did that weren't absolutely right?

CARTER: I don't mind repeating myself. There are a lot of those in my life. Not speaking out for the cessation of the war in Vietnam. The fact that I didn't crusade at a very early stage for civil rights in the South, for the one-man, one-vote ruling. It might be that now I should drop my campaign for President and start a crusade for black-majority rule in South Africa or Rhodesia. It might be that later on, we'll discover there were opportunities in our lives to do wonderful things and we didn't take advantage of them.

The fact that in 1954 I sat back and required the Warren Court to make this ruling without having crusaded myself—that was obviously a mistake on my part. But these are things you have to judge under the circumstances that prevailed when the decisions were being made. Back then, the Congress, the President, the newspaper editors, the civil libertarians all said that separate-but-equal facilities were adequate. These are opportunities over-looked, or maybe they could be characterized as absence of courage.

PLAYBOY: Since you still seem to be saying you'd have done the right thing if you'd known what you know now, is it realistic to conclude that a person running for the highest office in the land can't admit many mistakes or moments of self-doubt?

CARTER: I think that's a human circumstance. But if there are issues I'm avoiding because of a lack of courage, either I don't recognize them or I can't make myself recognize them.

PLAYBOY: You mentioned Vietnam. Do you feel you spoke out at an early enough stage against the war?

CARTER: No, I did not. I never spoke out publicly about withdrawing completely from Vietnam until March of 1971.

PLAYBOY: Why?

CARTER: It was the first time anybody had asked me about it. I was a farmer before then and wasn't asked about the war until I took office. There was a general feeling in this country that we ought not to be in Vietnam to start with. The American people were tremendously misled about the immediate prospects for victory, about the level of our involvement, about the relative cost in American lives. If I had known in the Sixties what I knew in the early Seventies. I think I would have spoken out more strongly. I was not in public office. When I took office as governor in 1970, I began to speak out about complete withdrawal. It was late compared with what many others had done, but I think it's accurate to say that the Congress and the people—with the exception of very small numbers of people—shared the belief that we were protecting our democratic allies.

PLAYBOY: Even without holding office, you must have had some feelings about the war. When do you recall first feeling it was wrong?

CARTER: There was an accepted feeling by me and everybody else that we ought not to be there, that we should never have gotten involved, we ought to get out.

PLAYBOY: You felt that way all through the Sixties?

CARTER: Yeah, that's right, and I might hasten to say that it was the same feeling expressed by Senators Russell and Talmadge—very conservative Southern political figures. They thought it was a serious mistake to be in Vietnam.

PLAYBOY: Your son Jack fought in that war. Did you have any qualms about it at the time?

CARTER: Well, yes, I had problems about my son fighting in the war, period. But I never make my sons' decisions for them. Jack went to war feeling it was foolish, a waste of time, much more deeply than I did. He also felt it would have been grossly unfair for him not to go when other, poorer kids had to.

PLAYBOY: You were in favor of allocating funds for the South Vietnamese in 1975 as the war was coming to a close, weren't you?

CARTER: That was when we were getting ready to evacuate our troops. The purpose of the money was to get our people out and maintain harmony between us and our Vietnamese allies, who had fought with us for 25 years. And I said yes, I would do that. But it was not a permanent thing, not to continue the war but to let us get our troops out in an orderly fashion.

PLAYBOY: How do you respond to the argument that it was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who got us into the Vietnam war?

CARTER: I think it started originally, maybe, with Eisenhower, then Kennedy, Johnson and then Nixon. It's not a partisan matter. I think Eisenhower probably first got us in there thinking that since France had failed, our country might slip in there and succeed. Kennedy thought he could escalate involvement by going beyond the mere advisory role. I guess if there was one President who made the most determined effort, conceivably, to end the war by massive force, it was certainly Johnson. And Nixon went into Cambodia and bombed it, and so forth.

It's not partisan—it's just a matter that evolved as a habit over several administrations. There was a governmental consciousness to deal in secrecy, to exclude the American people, to mislead them with false statements and sometimes outright lies. Had the American people been told the facts from the beginning by Eisenhower, Kennedy, McNamara, Johnson, Kissinger and Nixon, I think there would have been different decisions made in our Government.

PLAYBOY: At the Democratic Convention, you praised Johnson as a President who had vastly extended human rights. Were you simply omitting any mention of Vietnam?

CARTER: It was obviously the factor that destroyed his political career and damaged his whole life. But as far as what I said at the convention, there hasn't been another President in our history—with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln—who did so much to advance the cause of human rights.

PLAYBOY: Except for the human rights of the Vietnamese and the Americans who fought there.

CARTER: Well, I really believe that Johnson's motives were good. I think he tried to end the war even while the fighting was going on, and he was speaking about massive rehabilitation efforts, financed by our Government, to help people. I don't think he ever had any desire for permanent entrenchment of our forces in Vietnam. I think he had a mistaken notion that he was defending democracy and that what he was doing was compatible with the desires of the South Vietnamese.

PLAYBOY: Then what about the administration that ended the war? Don't you have to give credit to Kissinger, the Secretary of State of a Republican President, for ending a war that a Democratic President escalated?

CARTER: I think the statistics show that more bombs were dropped in Vietnam and Cambodia under Nixon and Kissinger than under Johnson. Both administrations were at fault: but I don't think the end came about as a result of Kissinger's superior diplomacy. It was the result of several factors that built up in an inexorable way: the demonstrated strength of the Viet Cong, the tremendous pressure to withdraw that came from the American people and an aroused Congress. I think Nixon and Kissinger did the proper thing in starting a phased withdrawal, but I don't consider that to be a notable diplomatic achievement by Kissinger. As we've now learned, he promised the Vietnamese things that cannot be delivered—reparations, payments, economic advantages, and so forth. Getting out of Vietnam was very good, but whether Kissinger deserved substantial diplomatic credit for it is something I doubt.

PLAYBOY: You've said you'll pardon men who refused military service because of the Vietnam war but not necessarily those who deserted while they were in the Armed Forces. Is that right?

CARTER: That's right. I would not include them. Deserters ought to be handled on a separate-case basis. There's a difference to me. I was in the Navy for a long time. Somebody who goes into the military joins a kind of mutual partnership arrangement, you know what I mean? Your life depends on other people, their lives depend on you. So I don't intend to pardon the deserters. As far as the other categories of war resisters go, to me the ones who stayed in this country and let their opposition to the war be known publicly are more heroic than those who went and hid in Sweden. But I'm not capable of judging motives, so I'm just going to declare a blanket pardon.

PLAYBOY: When?

CARTER: The first week I'm in office.

PLAYBOY: You've avoided the word amnesty and chosen to use the word pardon, but there doesn't seem to be much difference between the two in the dictionary. Could it be because amnesty is more emotionally charged and pardon a word more people will accept?

CARTER: You know I can't deny that. But my reason for distinguishing between the two is that I think that all of those poor, and often black, young men who went to Vietnam are more worthy of recognition than those who defected, and the word pardon includes those who simply avoided the war completely. But I just want to bring the defectors back to this country without punishment and, in doing so, I would like to have the support of the American people. I haven't been able to devise for private or public presentation a better way to do it.

PLAYBOY: Earlier this year, there was a report that as governor of Georgia, you had issued a resolution that seemed to support William Calley after his trial for the My Lai massacre and that you'd referred to him as a scapegoat. Was that a misreading of your position?

CARTER: Yes. There was no reason for me to mislead anybody on the Calley thing. I thought when I first read about him that Calley was a murderer. He was tried in Georgia and found to be a murderer. I said two things: One, that Calley was not typical of our American Servicemen and, two, that he was a scapegoat because his superiors should have been tried, too. The resolution I made as governor didn't have anything to do with Calley. The purpose of it, calling for solidarity with our boys in Vietnam, was to distinguish American Servicemen fighting an unpopular war. They weren't murderers, but they were equated, unfortunately, with a murderer in people's minds.

PLAYBOY: In preparing for this interview, we spoke with your mother, your son Chip and your sister Gloria. We asked them what single action would most disappoint them in a Carter Presidency. They all replied that it would be if you ever sent troops to intervene in a foreign war. In fact, Miss Lillian said she would picket the White House.

CARTER: They share my views completely.

PLAYBOY: What about more limited military action? Would you have handled the Mayaguez incident the same way President Ford did?

CARTER: Let me assess that in retrospect. It's obvious we didn't have adequate intelligence; we attacked an island when the Mayaguez crew was no longer there. There was a desire, I think, on the part of President Ford to extract maximum publicity from our effort, so that about 23 minutes after our crew was released, we went ahead and bombed the island airport. I hope I would have been capable of getting adequate intelligence, surrounded the island more quickly and isolated the crew so we wouldn't have had to attack the airport after the crew was released. These are some of the differences in the way I would have done it.

PLAYBOY: So it's a matter of degree; you would have intervened militarily, too.

CARTER: I would have done everything necessary to keep the crew from being taken to the mainland, yes.

PLAYBOY: Then would you summarize your position on foreign intervention?

CARTER: I would never intervene for the purpose of overthrowing a government. If enough were at stake for our national interest. I would use prestige, legitimate diplomatic leverage, trade mechanisms. But it would be the sort of effort that would not be embarrassing to this nation if revealed completely. I don't ever want to do anything as President that would be a contravention of the moral and ethical standards that I would exemplify in my own life as an individual or that would violate the principles or character of the American people.

PLAYBOY: Do you feel it's fair criticism that you seem to be going back to some familiar faces—such as Paul Warnke and Cyrus Vance—for foreign-policy advice? Isn't there a danger of history's repeating itself when you seek out those who were involved in our Vietnam decisions?

CARTER: I haven't heard that criticism. If you're raising it, then I respond to the new critic. These people contribute to foreign-affairs journals, they individually explore different concepts of foreign policy. I have 15 or 20 people who work with me very closely on foreign affairs. Their views are quite divergent. The fact that they may or may not have been involved in foreign-policy decisions in the past is certainly no detriment to their ability to help me now.

PLAYBOY: In some respects, your foreign policy seems similar to that established by Kissinger, Nixon and Ford. In fact, Kissinger stated that he didn't think your differences were substantial. How, precisely, does your view differ from theirs?

CARTER: As I've said in my speeches, I feel the policy of dètente has given up too much to the Russians and gotten too little in return. I also feel Kissinger has equated his own popularity with the so-called advantages of dètente. As I've traveled and spoken with world leaders—Helmut Schmidt of West Germany, Yitzhak Rabin of Israel, various leaders in Japan—I've discerned a deep concern on their part that the United States has abandoned a long-standing principle: to consult mutually, to share responsibility for problems. This has been a damaging thing. In addition, I believe we should have stronger bilateral relations with developing nations.

PLAYBOY: What do you mean when you say we've given up too much to the Russians?

CARTER: One example I've mentioned often is the Helsinki agreement. I never saw any reason we should be involved in the Helsinki meetings at all. We added the stature of our presence and signature to an agreement that, in effect, ratified the take-over of eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. We got very little, if anything, in return. The Russians promised they would honor democratic principles and permit the free movement of their citizens, including those who want to emigrate. The Soviet Union has not lived up to those promises and Mr. Brezhnev was able to celebrate the major achievement of his diplomatic life.

PLAYBOY: Are you charging that Kissinger was too soft on the Russians?

CARTER: Kissinger has been in the position of being almost uniquely a spokesman for our nation. I think that is a legitimate role and a proper responsibility of the President himself. Kissinger has had a kind of Lone Ranger, secret foreign-policy attitude, which almost ensures that there cannot be adequate consultation with our allies; there cannot be a long-range commitment to unchanging principles; there cannot be a coherent evolution on foreign policy; there cannot be a bipartisan approach with support and advice from Congress. This is what I would avoid as President and is one of the major defects in the Nixon-Ford foreign policy as expressed by Kissinger.

PLAYBOY: Say, do you always do your own sewing? (This portion of the interview also took place aboard a plane. As he answered the interviewer's questions, Carter had been sewing a rip in his jacket with a needle and thread he carried with him.)

CARTER: Uh-huh. (He bit off the thread with his teeth.)

PLAYBOY: Anyway, you said earlier that your foreign policy would exemplify your moral and ethical standards. Isn't there as much danger in an overly moralistic policy as in the kind that is too pragmatic?

CARTER: I've said I don't think we should intervene militarily, but I see no reason not to express our approval, at least verbally, with those nations that develop democratically. When Kissinger says, as he did recently in a speech, that Brazil is the sort of government that is most compatible with ours—well, that's the kind of thing we want to change. Brazil is not a democratic government; it's a military dictatorship. In many instances, it's highly repressive to political prisoners. Our Government should justify the character and moral principles of the American people, and our foreign policy should not short-circuit that for temporary advantage. I think in every instance we've done that it's been counterproductive. When the CIA undertakes covert activities that might be justified if they were peaceful, we always suffer when they're revealed—it always seems as if we're trying to tell other people how to act. When Kissinger and Ford warned Italy she would be excluded from NATO if the Communists assumed power, that was the best way to make sure Communists were elected. The Italian voters resent it. A proper posture for our country in this sort of situation is to show, through demonstration, that our own Government works properly, that democracy is advantageous, and let the Italian people make their own decisions.

PLAYBOY: And what if the Communists in Italy had been elected in greater numbers than they were? What if they had actually become a key part of the Italian government?

CARTER: I think it would be a mechanism for subversion of the strength of NATO and the cohesiveness that ought to bind European countries together. The proper posture was the one taken by Helmut Schmidt, who said that German aid to Italy would be endangered.

PLAYBOY: Don't you think that constitutes a form of intervention in the democratic processes of another nation?

CARTER: No, I don't. I think that when the democratic nations of the world express themselves frankly and forcefully and openly, that's a proper exertion of influence. We did the same thing in Portugal. Instead of going in through surreptitious means and trying to overthrow the government when it looked like the minority Communist Party was going to assume power, the NATO countries as a group made it clear to Portugal what it would lose in the way of friendship, trade opportunities, and so forth. And the Portuguese people, recognizing that possibility, decided that the Communists should not lead their government. Well, that was legitimate exertion of influence, in my opinion. It was done openly and it was a mere statement of fact.

PLAYBOY: You used the word subversion referring to communism. Hasn't the world changed since we used to throw words like that around? Aren't the west European Communist parties more independent of Moscow and more willing to respect democracy?

CARTER: Yes, the world's changed. In my speeches, I've made it clear that as far as Communist leaders in such countries as Italy, France and Portugal are concerned, I would not want to close the doors of communication, consultation and friendship to them. That would be an almost automatic forcing of the Communist leaders into the Soviet sphere of influence. I also think we should keep open our opportunities for the east European nations—even those that are completely Communist—to trade with us, understand us, have tourist exchange and give them an option from complete domination by the Soviet Union.

But again, I don't think you could expect West Germany to lend Poland two billion dollars—which was the figure in the case of Italy—when Poland is part of the Soviet government's satellite and supportive-nation group. So I think the best way to minimize totalitarian influence within the governments of Europe is to make sure the democratic forces perform properly. The major shift toward the Communists in Italy was in the local elections, when the Christian Democrats destroyed their reputation by graft and corruption. If we can make our own Government work, if we can avoid future Watergates and avoid the activities of the CIA that have been revealed, if we can minimize joblessness and inflation, this will be a good way to lessen the inclination of people in other countries to turn away from our form of government.

PLAYBOY: What about Chile? Would you agree that that was a case of the United States', through the CIA, intervening improperly?

CARTER: Yes. There's no doubt about it. Sure

PLAYBOY: And you would stop that sort of thing?

CARTER: Absolutely. Yes, sir.

PLAYBOY: What about economic sanctions? Do you feel we should have punished the Allende government the way we did?

CARTER: That's a complicated question, because we don't know what caused the fall of the Allende government, the murder of perhaps thousands of people, the incarceration of many others. I don't have any facts as to how deeply involved we were, but my impression is that we were involved quite deeply. As I said, I wouldn't have done that if I were President. But as to whether or not we ought to have an option on the terms of our loans, repayment schedules, interest charges, the kinds of materials we sell to them—those are options I would retain depending upon the compatibility of a foreign government with our own.

PLAYBOY: To what do you attribute all those deceptions and secret maneuverings through the years? Why were they allowed to happen?

CARTER: It was a matter of people's just saying, Well, that's politics; we don't have a right to know what our Government is doing; secrecy is OK; accepting gifts is OK; excluding the American people is OK. These are the kinds of things I want to change.

PLAYBOY: It sounds as if you're saying Americans accepted indecency and lies in their Government all too easily. Doesn't that make your constant campaign theme, invoking the decency and honesty of the American people, somewhat naive and ingenuous?

CARTER: I say that the American people are basically decent and honest and want a truthful Government. Obviously, I know there are people in this country, out of 214,000,000, who are murderers. There are people, maybe, who don't want a decent Government. Maybe there are people who prefer lies to truth. But I don't think it's simplistic to say that our Government hasn't measured up to the ethical and moral standards of the people of this country. We've had better governments in the past and I think our people, as I've said many times, are just as strong, courageous and intelligent as they were 200 years ago. I think we still have the same inner strength they had then.

PLAYBOY: Even though a lot of people support that feeling, many others think it makes you sound like an evangelist. And that makes it all the more confusing when they read about your hanging out with people so different from you in lifestyle and beliefs. Your publicized friendship with journalist Hunter Thompson, who makes no secret of his affinity for drugs and other craziness, is a good example.

CARTER: Well, in the first place. I'm a human being. I'm not a packaged article that you can put in a little box and say, "Here's a Southern Baptist, an ignorant Georgia peanut farmer who doesn't have the right to enjoy music, who has no flexibility in his mind, who can't understand the sensitiveness of an interpersonal relationship. He's gotta be predictable. He's gotta be for Calley and for the war. He's gotta be a liar. He's gotta be a racist."

You know, that's the sort of stereotype people tend to assume, and I hope it doesn't apply to me. And I don't see any mystery about having a friendship with Hunter Thompson. I guess it's something that's part of my character and it becomes a curiosity for those who see some mystery about someone of my background being elected President. I'm just a human being like everybody else. I have different interests, different understandings of the world around me, different relationships with different kinds of people. I have a broad range of friends: sometimes very serious, sometimes very formal, sometimes lighthearted, sometimes intense, sometimes casual.

PLAYBOY: So when you find yourself at a rock concert or in some other situation that seems at odds with your rural, religious background, you never feel a sense of estrangement?

CARTER: None. No. I feel at home with 'em.

PLAYBOY: How did you get to feel this way without going through culture shock?

CARTER: I have three sons, who now range from 23 to 29, and the oldest of them were very influenced by Bob Dylan in their attitudes toward civil rights, criminal justice and the Vietnam war. This was about the period of time I was entering politics. I've been fairly close to my sons and their taste in music influenced my taste, and I was able to see the impact of Bob Dylan's attitudes on young people. And I was both gratified by and involved emotionally in those changes of attitudes.

Later, when I became governor. I was acquainted with some of the people at Capricorn Records in Macon—Otis Redding and others. It was they who began to meld the white and black music industries, and that was quite a sociological change for our region. So as I began to travel around Georgia, I made contact a few days every month or two with Capricorn Records, just to stay in touch with people in the state, and got to know all the Allman Brothers, Dicky Betts and others. Later on, I met Charlie Daniels and the Marshall Tucker Band.

Then I decided to run for President. I didn't have any money and didn't have any political base, so I had to depend substantially on the friends I already had. One of my potential sources for fund raising and for recruiting young volunteers was the group of recording stars I already knew. So we began to have concerts and I got to know them even better.

Of course, I've also been close to the country-music folks in Georgia, as well as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. The first large contribution I got—$1000—was from Robert Shaw, the music director of the orchestra. We've been over at the Grand Ole Opry a few times and gotten to know people like Chubby Jackson and Tom T. Hall.

PLAYBOY: There's been a lot of publicity about your relationship with Dylan, whom you quoted in your acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. How did that come about?

CARTER: A number of years ago, my second son, Chip, who was working full time in our farming business, took a week off during Christmas. He and a couple of his friends drove all the way to New York—just to see Bob Dylan. There had been a heavy snowstorm and the boys had to park several miles from Dylan's home. It was after Dylan was injured, when he was in seclusion. Apparently, Dylan came to the door with two of his kids and shook hands with Chip. By the time Chip got to the nearest phone, a couple of miles away, and called us at home, he was nearly incoherent. Rosalynn couldn't understand what Chip was talking about, so she screamed, "Jimmy, come here quick! Something's happened to Chip!"

We finally deciphered that he had shaken Dylan's hand and was just, you know, very carried away with it. So when I read that Dylan was going on tour again, I wrote him a little personal note and asked him to come visit me at the governor's mansion. I think he checked with Phil Walden of Capricorn Records and Bill Graham to find out what kind of guy is this, and he was assured I didn't want to use him, I was just interested in his music.

The night he came, we had a chance to talk about his music and about changing times and pent-up emotions in young people. He said he didn't have any inclination to change the world, that he wasn't crusading and that his personal feelings were apparently compatible with the yearnings of an entire generation. We also discussed Israel, which he had a strong interest in. But that's my only contact with Bob Dylan, that night.

PLAYBOY: That brings us back to the reason so many people find it hard to get a handle on you: On the one hand, your association with youth culture, civil rights and other liberal movements; and on the other, your apparent conservatism on many issues. Would you care to put it in a nutshell for us?

CARTER: I'll try. On human rights, civil rights, environmental quality, I consider myself to be very liberal. On the management of government, on openness of government, on strengthening individual liberties and local levels of government, I consider myself a conservative. And I don't see that the two attitudes are incompatible.

PLAYBOY: Then let's explore a few more issues. Not everyone is sure, for instance, what you mean by your call for tax reform. Does it mean that the burden will shift to corporations and upper-income groups and away from the middle- and lower-income groups, or are you talking merely about a simplified tax code?

CARTER: It would involve both. One change I'm calling for is simplification, and the other involves shifting the income-tax burden away from the lower-income families. But what I'm really talking about is total, comprehensive tax reform for the first time since the income tax was approved back in 1913, I think it was.

It's not possible to give you a definitive statement on tax reform any time soon. It's going to take at least a year before we can come up with a new tax structure. But there are some general provisions that would be instituted that aren't there now. The income-tax code, which now comprises 40,000 pages, will be greatly simplified. Income should be taxed only once. We should have a true progressive income tax, so that the higher the income, the higher the percentage of taxation. I see no reason why capital gains should be taxed at half the rate of income from manual labor. I would be committed to a great reduction in tax incentives, loopholes or whatever you want to call them, which are used as mechanisms to solve transient economic problems: they ought to be on a basis of annual appropriation or a time limit, rather than be built into the tax structure.

In any case, these are five or six things that would be dramatic departures from what we presently have and they should tell you what side of the issue I stand on.

PLAYBOY: Would one of those be increasing taxes for corporations, especially the overseas and domestic profits of multinational corporations?

CARTER: No, I don't think so. Obviously, there have been provisions written into the law that favor certain corporations, including those that have overseas investments: I would remove those incentives. Tax laws also benefit those who have the best lobbying efforts, those who have the most influence in Washington, and the larger the corporations are, on the average, the smaller proportion they pay in taxes. Small businesses quite often pay the flat maximum rate, 48 percent, while some larger corporations pay as little as five or six percent. That ought to be changed.

But as far as increasing over-all corporate taxes above the 50 percent level. I wouldn't favor that. We also have the circumstance of multinational corporations' depending on bribery as a mechanism for determining the outcome of a sale. I think bribery in international affairs ought to be considered a crime and punishable by imprisonment.

PLAYBOY: Would you sympathize with the anticorporate attitude that many voters feel?

CARTER: Well, I'm not particularly anti-corporate, but I'd say I'm more oriented to consumer protection. One of the things I've established throughout the campaign is the need to break up the sweetheart arrangement between regulatory agencies and the industries they regulate. Another is the need for rigid and enthusiastic enforcement of the antitrust laws.

PLAYBOY: To take another issue, you favor a comprehensive Federal health-care system. Why don't you just support the Kennedy-Corman bill, which provides for precisely that?

CARTER: As a general philosophy, wherever the private sector can perform a function as effectively and efficiently as the Government, I would prefer to keep it within the private sector. So I would like the insurance aspect of the health program to be carried out by employer/employee contribution. There would be contributions from the general fund for those who are indigent. I would also have a very heavy emphasis on preventive health care, since I believe most of the major afflictions that beset people can be prevented or minimized. And I favor the use to a greater degree of nonphysicians, such as nurses, physicians' assistants, and so forth. Some of these things are in conflict with the provisions of the Kennedy-Corman bill.

PLAYBOY: Let us ask you about one last stand: abortion.

CARTER: I think abortion is wrong and I will do everything I can as President to minimize the need for abortions—within the framework of the decision of the Supreme Court, which I can't change. Georgia had a more conservative approach to abortion, which I personally favored, but the Supreme Court ruling suits me all right. I signed a Georgia law as governor that was compatible with the Supreme Court decision.

PLAYBOY: You think it's wrong, but the ruling suits you? What would we tell a woman who said her vote would depend on how you stood on abortion?

CARTER: If a woman's major purpose in life is to have unrestricted abortions, then she ought not to vote for me. But she wouldn't have anyone to vote for.

PLAYBOY: There seem to have been relatively few women in important staff positions in your campaign. Is that accurate?

CARTER: Women have been in charge of our entire campaign effort in Georgia and in New York State outside New York City. Also in Nebraska. Kansas, a third of the state of Florida and other areas.

PLAYBOY: But whenever we hear about a meeting of top staff members, they almost always seem to be white males. Is that a failing in your organization?

CARTER: I don't know about a failing. The three people with whom I consult regularly—in addition to my wife—are white males: Hamilton Jordan, Jody Powell and Charles Kirbo. But we do have a lot of women involved in the campaign. We are now setting up a policy committee to run a nationwide effort to coordinate Democratic races and 50 percent of the members of this committee will be women. But Jody has been my press secretary since 1970, and Hamilton and Kirbo were my major advisors in 1966. It's such an extremely stable staff that there's been no turnover at all in the past five or six years. But we've made a lot of progress, I think, in including women, and I think you'll see more.

PLAYBOY: You mention very frequently how much you count on your wife's advice. Isn't there a strain during the campaign, with the two of you separated so much of the time?

CARTER: Well, when I was in the Navy, I was at sea most of the time and I'd see her maybe one or two nights a week. Now, when I'm home in Plains, I see her almost every night. And if I'm elected President, I'll see her every night. So there is obviously a time to be together and a time to be separated. If you're apart three or four days and then meet again, it's almost—for me, it's a very exciting reunion. I'll have been away from Rosalynn for a few days and if I see her across an airport lobby, or across a street, I get just as excited as I did when I was, you know, 30 years younger.

We have a very close, very intimate sharing of our lives and we've had a tremendous magnification of our life's purposes in politics. Before 1966, she and I were both very shy. It was almost a painful thing to approach a stranger or make a speech. It's been a mutual change we've gone through, because we both felt it was worth while; so no matter what the outcome of the election, the relationship between Rosalynn and me will be very precious.

PLAYBOY: Did you both have the usual share of troubles adjusting to marriage?

CARTER: We did at first. We've come to understand each other much better. I was by far the dominant person in the marriage at the beginning, but not anymore. She's just as strong, if not stronger than I am. She's fully equal to me in every way in our relationship, in making business decisions, and she makes most of the decisions about family affairs. And I think it was a struggle for her to achieve this degree of independence and equality in our personal relationship. So, to summarize, years ago we had a lot of quarrels—none serious, particularly—but now we don't.

PLAYBOY: A lot of marriages are foundering these days. Why is yours so successful?

CARTER: Well, I really love Rosalynn more now than I did when I married her. And I have loved no other women except her. I had gone out with all kinds of girls, sometimes fairly steadily, but I just never cared about them. Rosalynn had been a friend of my sister's and was three years younger than I, which is a tremendous chasm in the high school years. She was just one of those insignificant little girls around the house. Then, when I was 21 and home from the Navy on leave. I took her out to a movie. Nothing extraordinary happened, but the next morning I told my mother, "That's the girl I want to marry." It's the best thing that ever happened to me.

We also share a religious faith, and the two or three times in our married life when we've had a serious crisis, I think that's what sustained our marriage and helped us overcome our difficulty. Our children, too, have been a factor binding Rosalynn and me together. After the boys, Amy came along late and it's been especially delightful for me, maybe because she's a little girl.

PLAYBOY: This is a tough question to ask, but because it's been such a factor in American political life, we wonder if you've ever discussed with Rosalynn the possibility of being assassinated. And, assuming you have, how do you deal with it in your own mind?

CARTER: Well, in the first place, I'm not afraid of death. In the second place, it's the same commitment I made when I volunteered to go into the submarine force. I accepted a certain degree of danger when I made the original decision, then I didn't worry about it anymore. It wasn't something that preyed on my mind; it wasn't something I had to reassess every five minutes. There is a certain element of danger in running for President, borne out by statistics on the number of Presidents who have been attacked, but I have to say frankly that it's something I never worry about.

PLAYBOY: Your first answer was that you don't fear death. Why not?

CARTER: It's part of my religious belief. I just look at death as not a threat. It's inevitable, and I have an assurance of eternal life. There is no feeling on my part that I have to be President, or that I have to live, or that I'm immune to danger. It's just that the termination of my physical life is relatively insignificant in my concept of over-all existence. I don't say that in a mysterious way; I recognize the possibility of assassination. But I guess everybody recognizes the possibility of other forms of death—automobile accidents, airplane accidents, cancer. I just don't worry.

PLAYBOY: There's been some evidence that Johnson and Nixon both seemed to have gone a bit crazy while they were in the White House. Do you ever wonder if the pressures of the office might make anyone mentally unstable?

CARTER: I really don't have the feeling that being in the White House is what caused Nixon's or Johnson's problems. Other Presidents have served without developing mental problems—Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, for instance. As far as I've been able to discern. President Ford approaches—or avoids—the duties of the White House with equanimity and self-assurance.

I think the ability to accept oneself and to feel secure and confident, to avoid any degree of paranoia, to face reality, these factors are fairly independent of whether or not one is President. The same factors would be important if someone were chief of police, or a schoolteacher, or a interviews editor. The pressure is greater on a President, obviously, than some of the jobs I've described, but I think the ability to accommodate pressure is a personal thing.

PLAYBOY: We noticed your crack about President Ford's avoiding the duties of the White House. Do you agree with Senator Mondale's assessment, when he said shortly after the nomination that Ford isn't intelligent enough to be a good President?

CARTER: Well, if you leave Mondale out of it. I personally think that President Ford is adequately intelligent to be President.

PLAYBOY: And what about your Presidency, if you're elected—will you have a dramatic first 1000 days?

CARTER: I would hope that my Administration wouldn't be terminated at the end of 1000 days, as was the case with one administration. I'm beginning to meet with key leaders of Congress to evolve specific legislation to implement the Democratic platform commitment. If I'm elected, there will be no delay in moving aggressively on a broad front to carry out the promises I've made to the American people. I intend to stick to everything I've promised.

PLAYBOY: Thanks for all the time you've given us. Incidentally, do you have any problems with appearing in Playboy? Do you think you'll be criticized?

CARTER: I don't object to that at all. I don't believe I'll be criticized.

(At the final session, which took place in the living room of Carter's home in Plains, the allotted time was up. A press aide indicated that there were other appointments for which Carter was already late, and the aide opened the front door while amenities were exchanged. As the interviewer and the Playboy editor stood at the door, recording equipment in their arms, a final, seemingly casual question was tossed off. Carter then delivered a long, softly spoken monolog that grew in intensity as he made his final points. One of the journalists signaled to Carter that they were still taping, to which Carter nodded his assent.)

PLAYBOY: Do you feel you've reassured people with this interview, people who are uneasy about your religious beliefs, who wonder if you're going to make a rigid, unbending President?

CARTER: I don't know if you've been to Sunday school here yet; some of the press has attended. I teach there about every three or four weeks. It's getting to be a real problem because we don't have room to put everybody now when I teach. I don't know if we're going to have to issue passes or what. It almost destroys the worship aspect of it. But we had a good class last Sunday. It's a good way to learn what I believe and what the Baptists believe.

One thing the Baptists believe in is complete autonomy. I don't accept any domination of my life by the Baptist Church, none. Every Baptist church is individual and autonomous. We don't accept domination of our church from the Southern Baptist Convention. The reason the Baptist Church was formed in this country was because of our belief in absolute and total separation of church and state. These basic tenets make us almost unique. We don't believe in any hierarchy in church. We don't have bishops. Any officers chosen by the church are defined as servants, not bosses. They're supposed to do the dirty work, make sure the church is clean and painted and that sort of thing. So it's a very good, democratic structure.

When my sons were small, we went to church and they went, too. But when they got old enough to make their own decisions, they decided when to go and they varied in their devoutness. Amy really looks forward to going to church, because she gets to see all her cousins at Sunday school. I never knew anything except going to church. My wife and I were born and raised in innocent times. The normal thing to do was to go to church.

What Christ taught about most was pride, that one person should never think he was any better than anybody else. One of the most vivid stories Christ told in one of his parables was about two people who went into a church. One was an official of the church, a Pharisee, and he said, "Lord, I thank you that I'm not like all those other people. I keep all your commandments, I give a tenth of everything I own. I'm here to give thanks for making me more acceptable in your sight." The other guy was despised by the nation, and he went in, prostrated himself on the floor and said. "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. I'm not worthy to lift my eyes to heaven." Christ asked the disciples which of the two had justified his life. The answer was obviously the one who was humble.

The thing that's drummed into us all the time is not to be proud, not to be better than anyone else, not to look down on people but to make ourselves acceptable in God's eyes through our own actions and recognize the simple truth that we're saved by grace. It's just a free gift through faith in Christ. This gives us a mechanism by which we can relate permanently to God. I'm not speaking for other people, but it gives me a sense of peace and equanimity and assurance.

I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I'm going to do it anyhow, because I'm human and I'm tempted. And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said. "I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery."

I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do—and I have done it—and God forgives me for it. But that doesn't mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock.

Christ says, Don't consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife. The guy who's loyal to his wife ought not to be condescending or proud because of the relative degree of sinfulness. One thing that Paul Tillich said was that religion is a search for the truth about man's existence and his relationship with God and his fellow man; and that once you stop searching and think you've got it made—at that point, you lose your religion. Constant reassessment, searching in one's heart—it gives me a feeling of confidence.

I don't inject these beliefs in my answers to your secular questions.

(Carter clenched his fist and gestured sharply.)

But I don't think I would ever take on the same frame of mind that Nixon or Johnson did—lying, cheating and distorting the truth. Not taking into consideration my hope for my strength of character, I think that my religious beliefs alone would prevent that from happening to me. I have that confidence. I hope it's justified. Ω


[Robert Scheer formerly wrote a nationally syndicated liberal op-ed column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He teaches communications as a professor at the University of Southern California and edits the online magazine Truthdig. He graduated from the City College of New York with a degree in economics, studied as a fellow at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, and then did further economics graduate work at the Center for Chinese Studies at UC-Berkeley.]

Copyright © 1976 Playboy
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[x The Age (Australia)]
Losing My Religion For Equality
By Jimmy Carter

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apostle authority belief bible called century challenge children christian church continuing convention crime deacons deprived discrimination educated equality faiths girls health holy human influence invests justify leaders lies major male positive practices provides religion religious responsible rights scriptures served share slavery support teacher teachings tradition unacceptable verses woman women world

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I have been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.

It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices - as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy - and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."

We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasise the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world's major faiths share.

The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn't until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views. Ω

[James E. (Jimmy) Carter, Jr. graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served on Admiral Hyman Rickover's staff in the nuclear submarine construction program. Carter returned to civilian life in his native Georgia and was elected to twice to the State Senate (1963-1967); he was elected governor in 1970 and served until 1975. Carter announced for president in 1974 and was elected in 1976; he was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.]

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