CHAPTER ONE
The Early Days

It was just a week after the 1980 presidential election when the "blind" trustee of our estate, the attorney Charles Kirbo, called from Atlanta and asked to see me. He had become my lawyer when I successfully contested an election stolen from me in 1962, was a close adviser when I later ran for governor of Georgia, and served as chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia. That day in November, Kirbo shared a cool drink with Rosalynn and me on the Truman Balcony of the White House and, after we'd exchanged some family information and a few jokes with a South Georgia flavor, he informed us that he had some good news and some bad news about our family's farm and warehouse business.

The good news was that our land was still there and the pine trees were growing. The bad news was that, after three years of drought and some mismanagement, Carter's Warehouse was a million dollars in debt. Because we had pledged to remove ourselves completely from any involvement in or knowledge of our personal investments or business affairs, this was the first financial accounting that Rosalynn and I had received since we moved to Washington. We were surprised and appalled. We had left a thriving farm-supply business, free of debt, and we'd assumed that it had continued to be a lucrative investment.

We returned home about two months later with two heavy financial burdens, the lesser of which was to pay our accumulated business debts. More burdensome by far was my obligation to select a site and build a presidential library that could house almost 27 million official documents and papers, plus millions of photographs, visual records, and other mementos accumulated during my administration. Always a poor fund-raiser and now a defeated candidate for reelection who had made no plans for this all-too-early eventuality, I dreaded the prospect of raising the necessary funds, which had to come from private contributions. The prolonged holding of our hostages by Iranian militants had not made me the most popular ex-president to survive his White House years.

In a somewhat naïve moment soon after Election Day, I had told the White House press corps that I intended to emulate President Harry Truman and refrain from using my service in office as a means of enriching myself. I had said, "There may be some kinds of benevolent or nonprofit corporations in which I will let my influence and my ability be used, but not in a profit-making way." At that time, I had no other plans to utilize my presidential experiences.

Rosalynn and I were able to sell what remained of our business, and I signed a contract to write my presidential memoir. We were able to salvage our home in Plains and our two tracts of land, one of which had been acquired by our ancestors in 1833 and the other, the "new farm," in 1904.

Working closely with me, Georgia Governor George Busbee had appointed a committee that recommended a place for the presidential library. We ultimately selected a beautiful thirty-acre site about halfway between Atlanta's downtown business area and Emory University. It commanded a good view of the city, having been the headquarters of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, who had stood on one of the site's hilltops in 1864 to watch Atlanta burn.

During the next year, I used the five thousand pages of diary notes I had dictated during my administration to complete Keeping Faith, and I spent most of my other time seeking contributions for the library. It became increasingly obvious that we needed a more attractive reason for potential contributors than just "to store our White House records." This need converged with another question that confronted us: What would we do with the rest of our lives? At the age of fifty-six, I was the youngest presidential survivor since William Howard Taft. I had a statistical life expectancy of twenty-five more years. I pondered this question, apparently even subconsciously.

Although I am generally a sound sleeper, I awoke one night and sat up in bed, surprising Rosalynn. She asked, "What's the matter, Jimmy? Are you ill or did you have a nightmare?"

I replied, "No, but I've just had a thought about what we can do in addition to building the presidential library. We can start an adjacent institution, something like Camp David, where people can come who are involved in a war. I can offer to serve as a mediator, in Atlanta or perhaps in their countries. We might also study and teach how to resolve or prevent conflict." This was the birth of what was to be The Carter Center.

I received several offers in the academic world, including two inquiries about positions as president of universities. Having had enough of politics and already burdened down with fund-raising obligations, I declined. From within Georgia, however, came three attractive offers to assume the role of distinguished professor. One was from the Georgia Board of Regents, to lecture in the thirty-three colleges and universities in the state system; the others came from Mercer University and from Dr. James Laney, president of Emory University. Laney assured me that I would have a chance during each year to lecture in all the schools of the university and that my comments would never be restricted or censored in any way. I chose Emory and announced this decision in April 1982, along with plans to establish an institute that might be associated with the university.

With Dr. Steven Hochman as my assistant, we established an office for our Center on the top floor of the Emory University library and soon expanded the focus of our work to a broad range of issues, still including conflict resolution, especially in the Middle East, but also human rights, nuclear arms control, global health, and the environment, with a special emphasis on Latin America.

In 1984 we began construction of the Presidential Library and Museum, and The Carter Center, partly with borrowed money, and the facilities were dedicated two years later, on October 1 (my birthday), with a speech by President Ronald Reagan. The library and records were delivered for permanent ownership and operation to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. On the other side of two small lakes were the circular buildings that would house The Carter Center.

The Center staff had moved in by the time of the dedication. The library and museum opened on the same day, and the files housed in the Presidential Library were made available to researchers in January 1987. My instructions have always been to expedite the availability of the classified documents, though this process has been subverted by an increasing preoccupation in Washington with tight and unnecessary secrecy. Despite this official impediment, we developed a harmonious relationship between The Carter Center and the National Archives. We have shared responsibility for the exterior grounds and parking areas, as well as an agreement that no substantive changes can be made in the museum exhibits without my approval, and professional archivists have exclusive control over the written and visual records of my political career.

Copyright © 2007 by Jimmy Carter.