Wednesday, September 1st, 1976: Lawyer Aparicio Méndez is installed as President of Uruguay by the ruling military junta; though the generals hold the real power, Mendez is committed to the restoration of (some semblance) of democracy in the coming years.
Thursday, September 2nd, 1976: With a strong lead in the polls, the Carter campaign’s top staff led by Hamilton Jordan agree at a meeting in Atlanta to continue to use Reagan’s rhetoric against him, including the insinuation that the former Governor is a racist. While this helps to rally black voters around the candidacy of Governor Carter, it becomes an unexpected hinderance in the south, where Reagan is already undercutting Carter’s candidacy. The Carter campaign team is aware of this possibility, but confident that Senator Mondale’s presence on the ticket will solidify the working class vote in labor heavy midwestern states to offset this.
Friday, September 3rd, 1976: The Viking 2 spacecraft lands on the surface of Mars, taking photos of the red planet and transmitting them back to NASA’s facility in Houston, Texas. The successful landing on Mars by the unmanned spacecraft is widely hailed as a technological milestone by NASA.
Seeing his polling and fundraising decline, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark announces he will be dropping out of the Democratic primary for New York’s Senate seat and will be endorsing Bella Abzug, a progressive and anti-war Congresswoman for the nomination instead. Clark’s endorsement of Abzug sends her polling skyrocketing as she takes the lead over Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the closing days of the campaign. The winner of the primary will face conservative incumbent James Buckley, who is running for a second term as a Republican after getting elected on the Conservative Party ballotine in 1970.
Saturday, September 4th, 1976: Under pressure from his wife and inner-circle, Governor Reagan fires John Sears as his campaign manager and replaces him with William Casey, the former head of the Export-Import Bank who was a key fundraiser and donor to the Reagan campaign. A staunch anti-communist, Casey is well received by the Reagan staff, though Congressman Conable privately voices concerns that Casey might take the campaign too far to the right in order to win the election.
Sunday, September 5th, 1976: In his first major interview on NBC’s “
Meet the Press” since winning the Republican nomination, Governor Reagan turns the tables on Governor Carter when he addresses the fact that Carter has attended a segregated Baptist church in Plains, Georgia, for decades.
Monday, September 6th, 1976: Soviet Air Force pilot Viktor Belenko defects to the United States after taking off in his MiG fighter jet and flying to Hokkaido in Japan, where he surrenders to authorities and is debriefed. The daring defection gains widespread global attention.
Tuesday, September 7th, 1976: Governor Carter responds to growing criticism of his membership of a whites-only church in his hometown, claiming that he has motioned within the church to integrate it several times in the past. “
Ultimately” Carter concludes,
“this is a matter that only the congregation as a whole can resolve. I know where I stand. I hope the rest stand with me.”
Wednesday, September 8th, 1976: Governor Reagan comes under fire from Democrats after he seemingly calls for the partial privatization of social security, forcing the Governor and his campaign to clarify the Republican position. Though Reagan continues to insist on his support for reforms to the Social Security Administration, the former Governor also
Thursday, September 9th, 1976: Chinese state radio announces the death of Mao Zedong, the long time dictator of China and leader of the ruling Communist Party. Mao's demise at 82 comes after a series of heart attacks which had weakened his health significantly in the last year. With "The Great Helmsman" no longer at the top of China's ruling clique, an internal fight within the Communist Party begins as the hardline Maoist and reformist factions prepare to seize control of the party. In the interim, Premier Hua Guofeng emerges as the acting Chairman of the Communist Party, though his position is tenuous, and both major factions distrust him.
Friday, September 10th, 1976: A British Trident jet and a Yugoslav DC-9 collide over Zagreb, Croatia, killing all 176 people on board both flights.
Sunday, September 12th, 1976: Governor Reagan attends a service at the Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, the congregation once pastored by the late Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. In his speech, Reagan commits to ensuring racial equality and speaks candidly about his own faith, though his policy prescriptions for the problems facing black America fail to impress the congregation.
Monday, September 13th, 1976: The Muppets Show premiers on Britain’s ITV; the program will quickly gain popularity worldwide for the satirical nature and lighthearted humor of the show.
Wednesday, September 15th, 1976: In Argentina, “the night of the pencils” commences. Armed soldiers storm dormitories at colleges across the country, taking hundreds of students into custody as part of an effort to crack down on communist activities. Dozens of these suspected dissidents are tortured, raped, and “disappeared” by the military and their associated anti-communist death squads. The military controlled or otherwise aligned media makes no reference to these arrests.
Thursday, September 16th, 1976: The political situation in China is tense in the leadup to Mao's funeral. Hua Guofeng is hesitant to make any drastic moves, fearing the raw emotional outpouring after Mao's death could spark a civil war should he act against the "Gang of Four," and thus relents to pressure from Mao’s widow Jiang Qiang to allow Wang Hongwen, the Second Vice Chairman of the Communist Party, to deliver the eulogy at Mao's funeral the following day.
Friday, September 17th, 1976: 143 miners in Mozambique are killed following a methane gas explosion and subsequent poisoning in a coal mine near the city of Tete.
Saturday, September 18th, 1976: The funeral for Mao Zedong is held in Tiananmen Square, where a crowd of over a million people mourn the loss of "the Great Helmsman." The embalmed body of Mao, which had lied in state in the Great Hall of the People, entered the square on top of a black painted bus while a military band played "The Internationale." Afterwards, Wang Hongwen delivers a fiery speech written by Jiang Qiang and Zhang Chunqiao which castigated the "capitalist roaders" who hindered Mao's mission.
"The Helmsman is dead" cried out Wang in genuine anguish during his emotional address,
"but the revolution marches onwards to the final socialist victory!" The funeral concludes with sirens, bells, and horns going off across Peking as part of a final moment of reflection on the life of China's greatest revolutionary leader.
Sunday, September 19th, 1976: On CBS’s
Face the Nation, independent presidential candidate and former Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy announces he has asked LaDonna Harris, a Native American civil rights activist and spouse of former Senator Fred Harris (D-OK) to join him on the ballot as his Vice Presidential candidate. In a number of states, McCarthy has picked stand-in Vice Presidential candidates, some of whom will likely remain on the ballot with McCarthy instead of Harris due to filing deadlines.
Tuesday, September 21st, 1976: Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier is assassinated along with an aide and her boyfriend when the car they were driving through Washington DC exploded. It is believed by the FBI that agents of the Chilean intelligence service planted a bomb on Letelier’s car as part of an effort to kill international critics of General Pinochet’s regime.
Wednesday, September 22nd, 1976: The night before the first presidential debate,
Playboy Magazine publishes a lengthy article based around several interviews with Democratic presidential nominee Jimmy Carter. In the controversial interview (the Governor sitting down with
Playboy alone caused enough of a stir), Carter candidly speaks about the role his faith plays in his political and personal life, admits to “lusting for other women,” and casually uses the term “screw” to refer to sex. The interview becomes an immediate source of controversy.
The biographical details are all too familiar by now and, indeed, may seem a little pointless this month. If Jimmy Carter is elected President of the United Slates a few weeks from now, the facts about where he spent his youth, how he was educated and the way he came out of nowhere to capture the Democratic nomination will soon enough be available in history books and on cereal boxes.
When Carter agreed to do a
Playboy Interview we decided we’d try our best not to add to all the hype that always gushes forth during a Presidential campaign. We wanted to pit him against an interviewer who would prod him and challenge him and not be afraid to ask irreverent questions. Our choice of interviewer was natural: Robert Scheer, the Bronx-born Berkeley-based journalist who in the past year has done interviews with California governor Jerry Brown for
Playboy (which was widely regarded as the earliest and most thorough exposure of Brown’s curious politics and beliefs) and both William and Emily Harris for New Times (which provided crucial evidence in the trial of Patty Hearst).
For three months, Scheer dogged the footsteps of the peanut farmer who would be President, scrambling aboard press planes, sleeping in motels, hanging out with the pack of journalists that grew in size as the campaign gathered momentum. With the support of Carter’s young aides—notably, press secretary Jody Powell and campaign manager Hamilton Jordan—Scheer and
Playboy managed to log more hours of recorded conversations with the candidate than any other publication or news medium— a fact Carter joked about at the final session. After writing the accompanying article about his experiences and about Carter, a very exhausted Scheer filed this report:
It was the day after the Democratic Convention in New York City Jody Powell was harried.
Jody keeps his sense of humor even when lies harried. I had already logged hours of tape with Carter under conditions that were never less than chaotic. Our conversations had started when his chances were shakier and his time slightly more available. But, as Jody had said, once he became the nominee, it was going to be even tougher. “Some of our sessions were as short as half an hour on board the campaign plane, with the roar of engines and the pilot’s announcements adding to the frenzy.
Playboy and I both hung in there through the months, taking (and paying for) flights halfway across the country on the tentative promise of yet one more hurried chat. After all the baggage searches by the Secret Service and the many times I’d had to lurch up an airplane aisle, fumbling with my tape recorder, I was looking forward to a leisurely conversation with Carter at his home after the nomination. “Earlier this year, when I was working on the interview with Governor Jerry Brown, my
Playboy editor, Barry Golson, had joined me for the final sessions at the governor’s office in Sacramento. It had produced interesting results—I, the aggressive Berkeley radical, Golson the Eastern diplomatic Yalie. We felt the Mutt and Jeff technique would he valuable with Carter as well, so Golson and I traveled to Plains for the final session. “Down in Plains, everything was normal. Brother Billy Carter was in his blue overalls, leaning against a storefront, drawling about this and that to one of the locals who hadn’t been up to New York City for the big show. We drove past the Secret Service barricades, past daughter Amy’s lemonade stand, and parked in front of the Carter home. As we entered the front door, the candidate, dressed in rumpled work clothes and dusty clodhoppers, was ushering out an impeccably dressed six-man contingent from
Reader’s Digest. “As we said hello and sat down in his living room to adjust our tape recorders, I remarked to Carter that he must be in a puckish mood, talking to both the
Digest and
Playboy on the same afternoon. Carter flashed us every one of his teeth: ‘Yeah, but you guys must have some kind of blackmail leverage on Jody. I’ve spent more time with you than with Time, Newsweek and all the others combined.’ “It was a flattering opening shot, but probably more canny and less casual than it sounded. A week earlier, during the Democratic Convention, Golson had bumped into Jordan at a party in New York. Neither of them was entirely sober, and they discussed the interview. Golson said something about all the time Carter had spent with me. Jordan replied, ‘We wouldn’t do it if it weren’t in our interest. It’s your readers who are probably predisposed toward Jimmy—but they may not vote at all if they feel uneasy about him.’
For me, the purpose of the questioning was not to get people to vote for or against the man but to push Carter on some of the vagueness he’s wrapped himself in. We tried to get beyond the campaigner to some of the personal doubts and confusions—as well as the strengths—of the man himself. Throughout my months on the campaign trail, I found Carter impatient with social chitchat and eager for challenging questions. He is thin-skinned, as others have reported, and he’ll glare at you if he doesn’t like something you’ve asked. But he can take it as well as dish it out and, unlike many other politicians I’ve interviewed, he’ll eventually respond directly to a question if you press him hard enough. The best evidence of this is contained in the final portion of the interview, an open and revealing monolog that occurred because we happened to ask him one last question on a topic about which he’d become impatient and frustrated.
Oh, just incidentally, there’s one bit of folklore about Jimmy Carter whose authenticity I can vouch for. When I’ve had a rough day, I’ve been known to toss down a drink or four, and I wondered what Carter did when he needed replenishment. I got my answer during one short session as I slipped into the plane seat next to him after he’d had a miserable day on the hustings. Between answers, he would gobble down handfuls of peanuts at about the same rate at which I drink. Different strokes, I thought."
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.
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: 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: We heard that you pray 25 times a day. Is that true?
CARTER: I don't know where you've heard that, but I don't keep count. So yeah, sure, on an eventful day I can find myself in prayer several times. I wouldn't know how many, though.
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 love 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: It makes you uneasy to discuss it purely in political terms?
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: You talked earlier about your lower than expected share of the Jewish vote. But there’s been a lot of publicity about one Jewish supporter of yours, a lot of chatter and interest in your relationship with Bob 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: What kind of music do you think Governor Reagan listens to?
CARTER: Ha! Now that's a question I never expected! I want to know the answer myself.
PLAYBOY: Do you ever think you'd come under fire for listening to Bob Dylan or appearing in Playboy?
CARTER: On the former, no, on the latter, I don't expect any as well.
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.
Thursday, September 23rd, 1976: Governor Carter and Governor Reagan debate one another in Philadelphia, the first time a televised presidential debate has been hosted in 16 years.
EDWIN NEWMAN: Good evening. I'm Edwin Newman, moderator of this first debate of the 1976 campaign between Ronald Reagan of California, Republican candidate for President, and Jimmy Carter of Georgia, Democratic candidate for President. We thank you both for being with us tonight, gentlemen.
There are to be three debates between the presidential candidates and one between the vice-presidential candidates. All are being arranged by the League of Women Voters Education Fund. Tonight's debate, the first between presidential candidates in sixteen years, is taking place before an audience in the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia, just three blocks from Independence Hall.
The television audience may reach a hundred million in the United States and many millions overseas. With the eyes of the world descending down upon us tonight, we hope to hear from each of the two candidates their solutions for the very pressing issues facing the United States today. Tonight's debate focuses on domestic issues and economic policy. Questions will be put by Frank Reynolds of ABC News, James Gannon of the Wall Street Journal, and Elizabeth Drew of the New Yorker magazine. Under the agreed rules the first question will go to Governor Carter.
Governor Carter will have up to three minutes to answer. One follow-up question will be permitted with up to two minutes to reply. Governor will then have two minutes to respond. The next question will go to Governor Reagan with the same time arrangements, and questions will continue to be alternated between the candidates. Each man will make a three-minute statement at the end, Governor Carter to go first. Governors Reagan and Carter do not have any notes or prepared remarks with them this evening. Mr. Reynolds, your question for Governor Carter.
FRANK REYNOLDS: Governor Carter, in an interview with the Associated Press last week, you said you believed these debates would alleviate a lot of concern that some voters have about you. Well, one of those concerns, not an uncommon one about uh - candidates in any year, is that many voters say they don't really know where you stand. Now, you have made jobs your number one priority and you have said you are committed to a drastic reduction in unemployment. Can you say now, Governor, in specific terms, what your first step would be next January, if you are elected, to achieve that?
JIMMY CARTER: Yes. First of all is to recognize a tremendous economic strength in this country and to set out putting back to work of our people as a top priority. This is uh - an effort that ought to be done primarily by strong leadership in the White House, the inspiration of our people, the tapping of uh - business, agriculture, industry, labor and government at all levels to work on this uh project. We'll never have uh - an end to the inflationary spiral, and we'll never have a balanced budget until we get our people back to work.
There are several things that can be done specifically that are not now being done. First of all, to channel research and development funds into areas that will provide uh large numbers of jobs. Secondly, we need to have a commitment in the uh private sector uh - to cooperate with government in matters like housing. Here a very small investment of taxpayer's money - in the housing field can bring large numbers of extra jobs, and the guarantee of mortgage loans, and the uh - putting forward of uh - two-0-two programs for housing for older people and so forth to cut down the roughly 20 percent unemployment that now exists in the - in the construction industry.
Look into the cities, where you see 40% unemployment among black youth, where housing is becoming more and more unobtainable, where crime and drug abuse is rising. We can work with the state and local governments to create a CCC type program that works hand in hand with the private sector as well to get these kids to work doing something creative that works towards the renewal of our country.
FRANK REYNOLDS: So, Governor Carter, say you are successful in achieving a dramatic reduction in unemployment. What further steps would you take? Would you continue wage and price controls?
JIMMY CARTER: Well - we now have such uh - a low utilization of uh - our productive capacity - uh about 73 percent; I think it's about the lowest since the Great Depression years - and such a high unemployment rate now - uh 7.9 percent - that - uh we have a long way to go in getting people to work before we have the inflationary pressures. It’s important to remember that if we do go about creating all these jobs, uh – we’ll have to make sure to avoid abuse. With job creation programs and tax incentives for the low-income groups we could build up their income levels above the poverty level and not - uh - make welfare more uh - profitable than work.
EDWIN NEWMAN: Governor Reagan, your response?
RONALD REAGAN: Governor Carter’s answer wasn’t any more specific tonight than anything we’ve already heard out of him. The truth is, Governor Carter, government isn’t the solution – government is the problem! The Governor’s proposals are actually not all that original, and most of them have been covered by the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill, which I noticed he did not mention tonight. That legislation, which is a part of the Democratic Party’s platform, would add ten to thirty billion each year in additional government expenditures and would put large portions of our economy under government control.
I might also add that it would create export controls on agricultural output, hurting small farmers across the country including farms like the one owned by Governor Carter.
The best way to create jobs is by allowing the private sector to generate them; we can do this by cutting taxes across the board on all Americans, from the top rate of 70% all the way down to 30%. That is a 40% tax cut, and that is money that will go directly back into our economy. We can create further tax incentives to attract businesses to blighted areas, where they can create steady employment in communities battling joblessness.
EDWIN NEWMAN: Mr. Gannon, your question for Governor Reagan.
JAMES GANNON: I would like to continue for a moment on this - uh - question of taxes which you have just raised. You have said that you favor more tax cuts across the board. That presumably would cost the Treasury quite a bit of money in lost revenue. In view of the very large budget deficits that we have accumulated, how would you go about reducing spending?
RONALD REAGAN: I believe that inflation today is caused by government simply spending more than government takes in, at the same time that government has imposed upon business and industry, from the shopkeeper on the corner to the biggest industrial plant in America, countless harassing regulations and punitive taxes that have reduced productivity at the same time they have increased the cost of production. And when you are reducing productivity at the same time that you are turning out printing-press money in excessive amounts, you're causing inflation. So by reducing federal spending, we not only curb the deficit but also stop the rising inflation that is eating away at our dollar.
And it isn't really higher prices, it's just, you are reducing the value of the money. You are robbing the American people of their savings. And so, the plan that I have proposed - and contrary to what Governor Wallace says, my plan is for a phased-in tax cut over a three-year period, tax increase and depreciation allowances for business and industry to give them the capital to refurbish plant and equipment, research and development, improved technology - all of which we see our foreign competitors having, and we have the greatest percentage of outmoded industrial plant and equipment of any of the industrial nations - produce more, have stable money supply, and give the people of this country a greater share of their own savings.
Now, I know that this has been called inflationary by my opponent. But I don't see where it is inflationary to have people keep more of their earnings and spend it, and it isn't inflationary for government to take that money away from them and spend it on the things it wants to spend it on. I believe we need incentive for the individual, and for business and industry, and I believe the plan that I have submitted, with detailed backing, and which has been approved by a number of our leading economists in the country, is based on projections. Conservative projections out for the next five years, that indicates that this plan would, by 1979, result in a balanced budget.
JAMES GANNON: Governor Carter?
JIMMY CARTER: Our tax system is crooked, make no mistake about it. The odds are stacked against the working man and for the powerful. 25% of tax benefits go to the top 1%, the richest of the rich in our country. Over 50% - 53%, to be exact – of the tax benefits go to the top 14% of the wealthiest people in America. We’ve had a 50% increase in payroll deductions since President Nixon took office eight years ago. My opponent advocates cutting taxes, but if you look at his plan, what he’s really advocating – like what he did in California on a smaller scale is - over $5 billion in reductions for corporations, special interest groups, and the very, very wealthy who derive their income - not from labor - but from investments. That’s welfare for the wealthy, and that's got to be changed.
A few things that can be done: we have now a deferral system so that the multinational corporations who invest overseas - if they make a million dollars in profits overseas - they don't have to pay any of their taxes unless they bring their money back into this country. When they don't pay their taxes, the average American pays the taxes for them. Not only that, but it robs this country of jobs, because instead of coming back with that million dollars and creating a shoe factory, say in New Hampshire or Vermont, if the company takes the money down to Italy and - and builds a shoe factory, they don't have to pay any taxes on the money. Another thing is a system called DISC which was originally designed, proposed by Mr. Nixon, to encourage exports. This permits a company to create uh - a dummy corporation, to export their products, and then not to pay the full amount of taxes on them. This costs our government about $1.4 billion a year. And when those rich corporations don't pay that tax, the average American taxpayer pays it them.
Another one that's uh - that's very important is the business deductions for jet airplanes, first class travel, and the fifty-dollar martini lunch. The average working person can't take advantage of that, but the wealthier people can. Another system is where a dentist can invest money in say, raising cattle and can put in a hundred thousand dollars of his own money, borrow nine hundred thousand dollars - nine hundred thousand dollars - that makes a million - and mark off a great amount of loss through that procedure. There was one example, for instance, where somebody produced pornographic movies. They put in $30 thousand of their own money and got a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in tax savings. Well, these special kinds of programs have - have robbed the average taxpayer and have benefited those who are powerful, and who can employ lobbyists, and who can have their CPAs and their lawyers to help them benefit from the roughly eight thousand pages of the tax code. The average American person can't do it. You can't hire a lobbyist out of unemployment compensation checks.
EDWIN NEWMAN: Mrs. Drew, you have a question for Governor Carter?
ELIZABETH DREW: Governor Carter, you have proposed a number of new or enlarged programs, including jobs, health, welfare reform, child care, aid to education, aid to cities, changes in social security and housing subsidies. You've also said that you want to balance the budget by the end of your first term. Now you haven't put a price tag on those programs, but even if we price them conservatively and we count for full employment by the end of your first term, and we count for the economic growth that would occur during that period, there still isn't enough money to pay for those programs and balance the budget by any - any estimates that I've been able to see. So, in that case what would give?
JIMMY CARTER: Well, if we assume the rate of growth was the same during the Kennedy and Johnson years, before the war in Vietnam, under those circumstances, even assuming no elimination of unnecessary programs and assuming an increase in in the allotment of money to finance programs, taking inflation into account, my budget would still result in a $60 billion dollar surplus by 1981.
ELIZABETH DREW: Governor, according to the budget committees of the Congress, if we get to full employment - what they project at a 4% unemployment - and, as you say, even allowing for the inflation in the programs, there would not be anything more than a surplus of $5 billion by the end of 1981. And conservative estimates of your programs would be that they'd be about eighty-five to a hundred billion dollars. So how - how do you say that you're going to be able to do these things and balance the budget?
JIMMY CARTER: I'm going to institute zero-based budgeting which uh - assesses every program every year, and eliminates those programs that are obsolete or obsolescent. But with these projections, the projections from the Congressional committees, we should have a balanced budget by 1981.
EDWIN NEWMAN: Governor Reagan?
RONALD REAGAN: Well, I hope Governor Carter’s U-turns in his car are smoother than his U-turns in politics. He was for expanding federal employment programs and federal spending before he decided that he was against it. I have always known where I stand. When I took over as Governor in California - 10% of the population of this nation - a state that, if it were a nation, would be the seventh-ranking economic power in the world. And in California we controlled spending. We cut the rate of increase in spending in half. But at the same time, we gave back to the people of California - in tax rebates, tax credits, tax cuts - $5.7 billion. I vetoed 993 measures without having a veto overturned. And among those vetoes, I stopped $16 billion in additional spending. And the funny thing was that California, which is normally above the national average in inflation and unemployment, for those six years for the first time, was below the national average in both inflation and unemployment. We have considered inflation in our figures. We deliberately took figures that we, ourselves, believed were too conservative. I believe the budget can be balanced by 1979.
JAMES GANNON: Governor Reagan; if elected, you’ll be the second oldest American President to take office after the ill-fated William Henry Harrison. What do you say to those who question your physical fitness for the office?
RONALD REAGAN: Well, James, I frankly don’t like that question – I am not
that old! Nor will I use my opponent’s youth and inexperience against him!
EDWIN NEWMAN: Mr. Reynolds, your question?
FRANK REYNOLDS: Governor Carter, I'd like to turn uh - to what we used to call the energy crisis. Yesterday a British uh - government commission on air pollution, but one headed by a nuclear physicist, recommended that any further expansion of nuclear energy be delayed in Britain as long as possible. Now this is a subject that is quite controversial among our own people and there seems to be a clear difference between you and the President on the use of nuclear power plants, which you say you would use as a last priority. Why, sir, are they unsafe?
JIMMY CARTER: Well, among my other past experiences, I have been an atomic engineer. I did graduate work in this field. I think I know the - the uh capabilities and limitations of atomic power. But the energy - uh policy of our nation is one that uh has not yet been established under this administration.
The policy of this current administration does not exist. They do not have an energy policy. I think almost every other developed nation in the world has an energy policy except us. We have seen the Federal Energy Agency established for instance. In the crisis of 1973, it was supposed to be a temporary agency, but now it's permanent, it's enormous, and it's growing every day. I think the Wall Street Journal - uh - reported not too long ago they have a hundred and twelve public relations experts working for the Federal Energy Agency to try to justify to the American people its own existence!
My opponent does have an energy policy, but it is even worse. Not only will Governor Reagan open up vast amounts of land in the United States to drilling, regardless of potential uh, uh, potential hazards, and will at the same time remove price controls and import fees. This means that we’ll be pumping out oil but exporting it, while cheaper Saudi oil gets imported and sold to the public at a higher cost than the oil we’re extracting right here in our own borders would be. Governor Reagan’s energy policy is to fleece you at the pump so his big donor friends can enjoy their windfall.
EDWIN NEWMAN: Governor Reagan?
RONALD REAGAN:
There he goes again…..I’d like to remind Governor Carter that conservation is conservative. Our energy policy will be one of energy independence, and that begins with drilling at home. But I, like most of America, believe in the market. And I know that the last thing a free market needs is the government coming in picking winners and losers. But we will open up large swathes of America – wherever it is safe and feasible to do so – so we can bring down the price for consumers and ensure fair competition for energy in our markets.
EDWIN NEWMAN: Mrs. Drew?
ELIZABETH DREW: Governor Reagan, the real problem with the FBI and in fact, all of the intelligence agencies is there are no real laws governing them. Such laws as there are tend to be vague and open-ended. Now, you have issued some executive orders, but we've learned that leaving these agencies to executive discretion and direction can get them and, in fact, the country in a great deal of trouble. One President may be a decent man, the next one might not be. So, what do you think about trying to write in some more protection by getting some laws governing these agencies?
RONALD REAGAN: You aren’t wrong, Mrs. Drew, to note that there is little oversite in our intelligence community. That is why I am proposing consolidating all intelligence agencies into one federal department, answerable equally to a closed congressional committee and the President. If elected, I’d charge the Vice President – naturally – with establishing a blue ribbon committee to work with Congress to create a plan that allows our intelligence agencies to operate with maximum effectiveness and total accountability. We-
EDWIN NEWMAN: Governor….Governor….we understand we’ve had a broadcasting failure. Bear with us….
(Feed cuts out)
EDWIN NEWMAN: We are back, 27 minutes later, after our broadcast connection failed here in the Walnut Theater. We do have just enough time left for closing statements. By luck of the draw, Governor Reagan has the first chance to make a closing statement.
RONALD REAGAN: We came from a hundred different corners of the Earth. We spoke a multitude of tongues. We landed on this Eastern shore and then went out over the mountains and the prairies and the deserts and the far western mountains to the Pacific, building cities and towns and farms, and schools and churches. If wind, water or fire destroyed them, we built them again. And in so doing, at the same time, we built a new breed of human called an American - a proud, an independent, and a most compassionate individual.
The living Americans today have fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom, and done more to advance the dignity of man than any people who ever lived on this earth. For 200 years, we've lived in the future, believing that tomorrow would be better than today, and today would be better than yesterday. I still believe that. I'm not running for the Presidency because I believe that I can solve the problems we've discussed tonight. I believe the people of this country can, and together, we can begin the world over again. We can meet our destiny - and that destiny to build a land here that will be, for all mankind, a shining city on a hill. I think we ought to get at it.
EDWIN NEWMAN: Governor Carter?
JIMMY CARTER: Well, tonight we've had a chance to talk a lot about the past. But I think it's time to talk about the future. Our nation in the last eight years has been divided as never before. It's a time for unity. It's a time to draw ourselves together: to have a president and a Congress that can work together with mutual respect for a change, cooperating for a change, in the open for a change, so the people can understand their own government. It's time for government, industry, labor, manufacturing, agriculture, education, other entities in our society to cooperate. And it's a time for government to understand and to cooperate with our people. For a long time our American citizens have been excluded, sometimes misled, sometimes have been lied to. This is uh - not compatible with the purpose of our nation.
I believe in our country. It needs to be competent. The government needs to be well-managed, efficient, economical, We need to have a government that's sensitive to our people's needs - to those who are poor, who don't have adequate health care, who have been cheated too long with our tax programs, who've been out of jobs, whose families have been torn apart. We need to restore the faith and the trust of the American people in their own government. In addition to that, we've suffered because we haven't had leadership in this administration. We've got a government of stalemate. We've lost the vision of what our country can and ought to be. This is not the America that we've known in the past. It's not the America that we have to have in the future. I don't claim to know all the answers. But I've got confidence in my country. Our economic strength is still there. Our system of government - in spite of Vietnam, Cambodia, the CIA, Watergate - is still the best system of government on earth.
The greatest resource of all are the two hundred and fifteen million Americans who have within us the strength, the character, the intelligence, the experience, the patriotism, the idealism, the compassion, the sense of brotherhood on which we can rely in the future to restore the greatness to our country We ought not to be excluded from our government anymore. We need a president who can go in - who derives his strength from the people. I owe the special interests nothing. I owe everything to you, the people of this country. And I believe that we can bind our wounds. I believe that we can work together. And I believe that if we can tap the tremendous untapped reservoir of innate strength in this country, that we can once again have a government as good as our people, and let the world know what we still know and hope for - that we still live in the greatest and the strongest and the best country on earth.
EDWIN NEWMAN: And that wraps up our debate tonight. We hope you join us again in San Francisco on October 6th for a second presidential debate, focusing on foreign affairs and defense. Thanks for joining us tonight. Thank you, Governors, for being here. I want to thank my colleagues as well. Thanks for watching, and from Philadelphia’s historic Walnut Theater, good night.
Friday, September 24th, 1976: Patsy Hearst is sentenced to seven years in prison for her role in a bank robbery committed by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, which had kidnapped her.
Saturday, September 25th, 1976: Irish rock band U2 forms after Larry Mullen posts a notice seeking other musicians on a campus billboard.
Sunday, September 26th, 1976: Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith's proposal for a two year transition to black majority rule is rejected by the Presidents of five neighboring southern African nations (Zambia, Zaire, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Angola) at a gathering of the five men hosted by Zambia's President Kenneth Kaunda.
Four Palestinian guerrillas, opposed to Syria's occupation of Lebanon, seized the Hotel Semiramis in Damascus and took 90 guests and workers hostage, before the Syrian Army stormed the building seven hours later and captured three of the four terrorists. Four of the hostages were killed in the gun battle, along with the leader of the guerrilla group, while another 34 hostages were wounded. The three terrorists were captured, then hung from a gallows outside the Hotel the next day.
Monday, September 27th, 1976: The government of Syria carried out the trial, conviction and public execution of the three surviving Palestinian guerrillas who had taken the guests and staff of the Semiramis Hotel the day before in Damascus. In an emergency meeting after midnight, the nation's Supreme State Court of Security tried the three men, found them guilty of "crimes against the security and integrity of our people", and issued a death sentence that was signed by President Hafez Assad. At daybreak, in order to make an example for future terrorists, the three men were driven back to the city square, where a wooden frame had been constructed in front of the hotel for the public execution, then hanged the men. The bodies, with posters attached, were left on display for the rest of the morning
Tuesday, September 28th, 1976: The United States Centers for Disease Control began its nationwide program to vaccinate all Americans against the swine flu, with the first inoculations being administered at a health fair in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Thursday, September 30th, 1976: Polling shows a considerably tightened race between Governor Carter and Governor Reagan as the final month of the campaign is set to begin.
1976 Presidential Election (Gallup - Nationwide)
(D) James Carter: 45%
(R) Ronald Reagan: 39%
Undecided: 15%
Independent/Other: 1%
Mr. President, Mrs. Ford, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Vice President-to-be, the distinguished guests here, you ladies and gentlemen. I was going to say fellow Republicans here but those who are watching from a distance include all those millions of Democrats and independents who I know are looking for a cause around which to rally and which I believe we can give them.
