This is FRESH air.
I'm Terry Gross.
Today we remember Jimmy Carter and listen back to excerpts of the interviews I recorded with him over the years.
He died at the age of 100 and had been the oldest living former president in American history.
In the New York Times, Peter Baker wrote this summary of Carter's public life.
Mr.
Carter was a political sensation in his day, a new generation Democrat who after a single term as governor of Georgia, shocked the political world by beating a host of better known rivals to capture his party's presidential nomination in 1976, then ousting the incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford, in the fall.
Over the course of four years in office, he sought to restore trust in government following the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, ushering in reforms that were meant to transform politics.
He negotiated the landmark Camp David Accords, making peace between Israel and Egypt.
But a sour economy and a 444 day hostage crisis in Iran in which 52American diplomats were held captive undercut his public support and he lost his bid for re election to former Gov.
Ronald Reagan of California in 1980.
He spent his post presidency, however, on a series of philanthropic causes around the world, like building houses for the poor, combating guinea worm and a parasitic tropical disease, promoting human rights in places of repression, monitoring elections and seeking to end violent conflicts.
His work as a former president in many ways came to eclipse his time in the White House, eventually earning him the Nobel Peace Prize, unquote.
Let's begin with the interview I recorded with Carter in 1993 after the publication of his memoir Turning Point, about his first campaign when he won his seat in the Georgia state Senate.
That was in 1962, the year he decided to enter politics.
Well, I had come home from the NAVY Having been 11 years a full time naval officer, a submarine officer, started a small business and had never run for elective office.
I was a chairman of the Sumter county school board in the heat of the integration years.
I was concerned about the closing down or the subversion of our public school system.
And I was disgusted, in a way.
With the slow pace of the civil.