Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you missed in History class from
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. In celebration of the reopening
Speaker 1: at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum and the
Speaker 1: former president's eighty fifth birthday, we sat down with Nobel
Speaker 1: Laureate Jimmy Carter to talk about the highlights of his
Speaker 1: presidency and his hopes for the Carter Center m How
Speaker 1: did your post presidential career emerge? Well, my post presidential
Speaker 1: career was forced on me because I was involuntarily retired
Speaker 1: as a result of the elections when I was not
Speaker 1: re elected. And at the time that happened, I was
Speaker 1: one of the few, one of the youngest survivors of
Speaker 1: the White House, and I realized just from you know, statistics,
Speaker 1: that I had twenty five more years of active life
Speaker 1: in prospect. What am I going to do with twenty
Speaker 1: five more years. I didn't want to be involved in
Speaker 1: commercial affairs. I didn't want to go on a lecture
Speaker 1: circuit and just make a lot of money making speeches.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to work on for corporate boards. So
Speaker 1: what I am I going to do? And I knew
Speaker 1: that both I and my wife had a great potential
Speaker 1: influence around the world. Having been president of the Greenist
Speaker 1: Nation on the War Earth, we obviously add access to
Speaker 1: everybody we wanted to meet, famous scientists, famous doctors, political leaders,
Speaker 1: educational leaders. So we had a potential of really helping
Speaker 1: in many parts of the world in ways that were
Speaker 1: I would say unpredictable and adventurous and exciting, uh, sometimes disappointing,
Speaker 1: but most of the time gratifying. And we decided to
Speaker 1: start with by helping people end or prevent wars. That
Speaker 1: was the original concept of the Court of Center. We're
Speaker 1: going to form a place here where people that had
Speaker 1: a conflict going on in the country, or they were
Speaker 1: threatened with the with the conflict or war could come
Speaker 1: here and I would help negotiate between them and maybe
Speaker 1: prevent a war. And that was the original idea. And
Speaker 1: so when we got started with that idea, it soon
Speaker 1: became clear to us that a much greater and more
Speaker 1: all pervasive need was helped people with combating diseases. And
Speaker 1: these are diseases that are not known anymore in the
Speaker 1: United States or in Europe or Japan or any rich country.
Speaker 1: They've been gone for a long time. Diseases that with
Speaker 1: which you probably never have heard dracune collissis, uncle psychisis
Speaker 1: and fathic for aris. It's just so surmises tracoma. But
Speaker 1: these are diseases we don't know about anymore, but they
Speaker 1: afflict hundreds of millions of people still throughout Africa and
Speaker 1: in Latin America and in the poorest and most isolated
Speaker 1: country in Asia. So that's what we found was the
Speaker 1: greatest need that existed among the first and most neglected
Speaker 1: and suffering people in the world. And nowadays three fourths
Speaker 1: of the Quarter Center's work, in both money spent and
Speaker 1: personnel effort, is in the dealing with what we call
Speaker 1: neglected tropical diseases. That's the name that the World Health
Speaker 1: Organization has given these diseases because they have before the
Speaker 1: Quarters sound been neglected. They're not any more elected neglected
Speaker 1: because we vote had time to try and to address them.
Speaker 1: What about the carters that are worked with free elections.
Speaker 1: You know, when we started trying to end wars and
Speaker 1: prevent wars, we found it quite often inside countries where
Speaker 1: the civil war is about to emerge, that you would
Speaker 1: have maybe two armies headed by two generals fighting each
Speaker 1: other in the same nation and so we soon discovered
Speaker 1: that having an election was better than negotiating because I
Speaker 1: could go to both presidents, both of the generals, they say, look,
Speaker 1: why don't you let the people of this country decide
Speaker 1: who should be their next leader instead of you fighting
Speaker 1: for it, because we believe that the people will choose
Speaker 1: the best person to be the president. And this is
Speaker 1: a part of politics, it's kind of politics of self delusion.
Speaker 1: Both of those generals would think, well, I'm certainly the
Speaker 1: best person, and if you let the people vote, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they will choose me. So the Carter Center began
Speaker 1: to go in and put together a system whereby the
Speaker 1: people could have their first democratic election in history. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, one of those generals was disappointed in the election,
Speaker 1: so we had to get other people to help us,
Speaker 1: the United Nations and so forth, to make sure that
Speaker 1: the loser would accept the results of election graciously, and
Speaker 1: also the winner would accept the results of election graciously
Speaker 1: and not try to punish once in office their opponents
Speaker 1: that used to be their battlefield adversaries. So that's the
Speaker 1: way we got involved in the election process. And after
Speaker 1: that we got involved too in countries that have already
Speaker 1: had democracy. But had a real problem on their hands.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the ruling party who was in office would so
Speaker 1: dominate the whole process and put their own people in
Speaker 1: to run the election that the opposition parties would say,
Speaker 1: we don't have a chance to win, why should we
Speaker 1: get involved. So quite often those opposition parties we come
Speaker 1: to the court of Center and say, will you come
Speaker 1: into our country and make sure the election is honest,
Speaker 1: and we would agree to do so, and they let
Speaker 1: the people stir up such a fual The ruling party
Speaker 1: would all so agreed to let us come in. Being Finnish,
Speaker 1: sure they were gonna win. But quite often the ruling
Speaker 1: party doesn't win. So we've now been through I believe
Speaker 1: seventy five elections throughout the world, in Asia and Africa
Speaker 1: and that American and so forth all over the world.
Speaker 1: Every one of them difficult challenge, but everyone very important
Speaker 1: to the people in the country involved, and we've been
Speaker 1: able to promote democracy and freedom and the right of
Speaker 1: people to make to make their own choice about who
Speaker 1: should be there political leader. Be shorter to tune in
Speaker 1: every Wednesday in September for more of our interview with
Speaker 1: President Carter to learn more about the Carter Center and
Speaker 1: its mission of waging peace, fighting disease, and building help
Speaker 1: visit www dot Carter Center dot org and, as always,
Speaker 1: for moral myths than thousands of other topics. Is it
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com