Geoff Bennett:
And, Jonathan, on that point, I know you say that Mrs. Carter’s political instincts actually surpassed those of her husband. In what ways?
Jonathan Alter, Author, “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life”: Well, I think even Jimmy Carter acknowledged that she was just shrewder in the way she read people and political situations.
And she was always trying to steer him out of political trouble, with mixed levels of success. She urged him to delay certain controversial decisions he made as president until a second term. And when he said, “I don’t want to do the politically expedient thing, I will do that in a second term,” she would say, “Well, there might not be a second term.”
And there wasn’t. So — but what I think what is not recognized among a lot of people who assume that their accomplishments were only in the post-presidency is that they got major things done together when he was president on mental health, on ending or curtailing discrimination by age.
And she got rid of a lot of mandatory retirement provisions that were in the federal code. And one that stands out for me that she accomplished that almost nobody remembers is that, when she was first lady, she and Betty Bumpers, the wife of Senator Dale Bumpers, they convinced 33 state legislatures to require vaccination before children could enter school.
This had a huge impact on the public health of the United States, and yet it’s almost a footnote. So, what I’m hoping is that her death will kick off a new appreciation of her in the first rank of American first ladies.
