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- [Carter] The fact that a person
has deep religious convictions doesn't necessarily mean
that person always thinks that he's right,
that God's ordained him to take a dominant position.
Although I have prayed a good bit, and do,
I've never asked God to let me be President.
- [Moyers] Just to win the nomination? (laughter)
- [Carter] I've never asked God to let me
win a single nomination.
Never.
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- [Moyers] Why not be a pastor or a bishop,
and not a President?
- [Carter] (laughs) You've read my book.
This came up early in my life.
You know, I got home from the Navy,
and I was thinking about running for the Georgia Senate.
We had a visiting pastor, and he was giving me
a hard time about going into politics.
He said, "It's a disgraceful profession, stay out of it."
I got angry, and I turned to him and kind of lashed back.
I said, "How would you like to be a pastor
"of a church with 80,000 members?"
Because there were 80,000 people
in this state Senate district.
I don't look on the Presidency as a pastorate.
- [Moyer] I was going to ask you if the President
was a pastor of 230 million.
- [Carter] No, although Teddy Roosevelt said
that it's a bully-pulpit.
But, no, I don't look on it with religious connotations.
But it gives me a chance to serve,
and it also gives me a chance to magnify
whatever influence I have, either for good or bad,
and I hope it will be for the good.
- [Moyer] Gives you power, too.
- [Carter] And power.
- [Moyer] You have been searching for power
for the last ten years.
- [Carter] Well, I can't deny it.
- [Moyer] Do you need power?
- [Carter] Well, I think so.
Not as an unfulfilled, all-obsessive hunger, no.
I feel powerful enough now, and secure enough now,
wealthy enough now.
I have a good family life now.
But I like to have a chance to
change things that I don't like,
and to correct inequities as I discern them,
and to be a strong spokesman for those that are not strong.
So, I can't deny that one of the purposes
that I want to be President is to have power, yes.
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I remember that when I was a small child,
my life was spent in a fairly isolated way,
out in the woods and in the streams and swamps and fields.
Plains was the nearest town, population of 600.
We didn't have electricity or running water,
but we didn't suffer.
I led a sheltered life.
My mom and my daddy were always there.
Home was always a haven.
I didn't have but one desire,
or aspiration that I can remember,
and that is going to the Naval Academy.
Nobody in my father's family had ever
finished high school before I did.
I put into commission, as a pre-commission crew chief,
the first ship the Navy built after the Second War
and then I went in the first nuclear submarine program.
You know, the choice jobs in the whole Navy.
Then my father had terminal cancer,
and I had to go home to be with him
about the last month of his life.
I hadn't seen him since I was about 17 years old.
This was ten, twelve years later.
- [Moyer] Did you regret that those last eleven years
of your father's life you had really
not been in close touch with him?
- [Carter] Well, I would like, obviously, in retrospect,
to have been more with my father.
I never thought he would die so young,
but I've never regretted a day that I served in the Navy.
That was an opportunity for me that paid off
and I had a chance to travel extensively.
I read and studied everything
from music, drama, art, and so forth.
I stretched my mind, had a great challenge,
and I never had any regret.
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- [Moyer] Do you think this is a just society?
- [Carter] No, no, I don't.
I think one of the major responsibilities I have
as a leader and as a potential leader
is to try to establish justice
and that applies to a broad gamut of things:
international affairs, peace, equality,
elimination of injustice in tax programs,
in our criminal justice system and so forth.
It's not a crusade.
It's just common sense.
There's only one person in this nation
that can speak with a clear voice to the American people.
There's only one person that can set a standard
of ethics and morality and excellence and greatness
or call on the American people to make a sacrifice,
or answer difficult questions,
or propose and carry out bold programs,
or to provide for a defense posture
that would make us feel secure,
a foreign policy that would make us proud once again,
and that's the President.
In the absence of that leadership, there is no leadership,
and the country drifts.
So strong President, yes, but an autocratic President,
or an imperial Presidency, no.
- [Moyer] You think that day's over?
- [Carter] Yes, it's over.
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- [Moyer] What do you want for your children
that you didn't have?
- [Carter] Well, I have to say that I had
almost everything that I could have needed.
I worked hard when I was a little child,
but I'm proud of It.
I lived in an isolated area when I was a little child,
but I’m proud of it.
I had a stability there.
When things started going wrong in my own life,
my mother and father were there,
and my sisters and brothers were there,
my church was there and my community was there.
That never did change.
Never has changed, yet.
In the modern day world, you don't have that.
It's a mobile world and things to cling to
are kind of scarce and few and far between.
I wouldn't swap the life I had
for the new, modern, fast-moving,
open, non-structured, minimal family life.
Which Is best, I don't know.
We can keep the advantages of the modern world,
but going back to those principles that give stability
are things that we're still searching for.
We haven't found them yet.
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