Lunch With the FT: 52 Classic Interviews (27 page)

Carter and his wife Rosalynn occupy a modest, single-storey home, in two acres of woodland on the edge of Plains, a small southern farming town where they were both born and raised. A Secret Service outpost at the front gate provides the only hint of the residents’ identity.

We are to have lunch at Pharjac Grille, one of the town’s three restaurants, a two-minute drive away. Rosalynn, dressed almost as unpretentiously as her husband in a fawn sweater, explains she will be joining us to eat but must leave early.

The three of us squeeze into the back of a sports utility vehicle, with me nestled between the former president and first lady. In the front are two Secret Service agents.

My sartorial misjudgement becomes even more glaring when we
arrive at the restaurant, a small and homely diner with bottles of Heinz ketchup and a basket of paper napkins on each table. The Carters appear to know all the half-dozen diners and are greeted warmly, without deference.

‘This is Mr Andrew Ward from England,’ announces the former president, as if seeking to explain my strange attire. ‘He’s here to do a story.’

Part of the ‘story’ is well known – a peanut farmer from rural Georgia rises through state politics to the governor’s mansion in Atlanta and then, against all odds, to the White House. The story would be impressive enough if it ended there. But some of his greatest achievements have come since leaving office.

Two years after losing to Ronald Reagan in 1980, he founded the Carter Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting peace, human rights and health around the world. Today, the centre is active in 65 countries – half in Africa – monitoring elections, brokering peace deals, training farmers and tackling disease. In 2002, his efforts were rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize.

It is hard to square such accomplishments with the elderly man bantering with diners in Pharjac Grille. Here, ‘Mr Jimmy’ is respected as much for the 160 years his family has lived in Plains, and the weekly Bible classes he teaches at a local Baptist church, as for his exploits in Washington or Africa. When I learn that the lunch crowd includes the town mayor and a pastor, it strikes me that, in Plains terms, Carter may be only the third-most important person in the room.

We eventually take our seats in a small cubicle, my knees jousting with those of the former president under the narrow table. The Secret Service agents keep watch nearby, perhaps pondering how a career associated with glamour and excitement has brought them here.

‘We’re probably going to eat kind of light,’ says Carter, eventually ordering a green tomato soup, while his wife opts for chilli soup. I choose traditional southern fried chicken and a selection of local pulse vegetables, recommended by Rosalynn. ‘If you want something country then you need some fried chicken,’ she says.

Gradually the conversation shifts from a who’s who of Plains society to weightier matters. I ask Carter how he feels about the frequent description of him as ‘America’s best ex-president’ – a back-handed compliment
used to praise his work with the Carter Center while dismissing his presidency as a failure.

Carter grunts a rueful laugh, understanding that this is my polite way of asking about history’s dim view of his time in the White House.

‘Well, yes,’ he says, accepting the partial praise. ‘But without any degradation of my presidency. You cannot separate the two because there wouldn’t be a Carter Center had I not been president.’

His wife is more insistent. ‘He was a good president,’ she says firmly. ‘He got more legislation passed – 77 per cent – than any president, except Johnson and Kennedy.’

Critics portray the Carter years as a period of malaise for a country still shell-shocked by defeat in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Inflation surged at home while overseas the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis made the US look impotent.

Carter, however, makes no apologies for his restrained use of American power. ‘I kept our nation at peace,’ he says, as if there is no greater success a president can achieve. ‘We never dropped a bomb, we never launched a missile.’

Some advisers urged military action when Iranian militants seized 66 US hostages in 1979. But Carter stands by his patient handling of the crisis, which ended with the hostages’ release on the day he left office. ‘I could have destroyed Iran,’ he says. ‘But it would have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Iranians and they would almost certainly have assassinated our hostages so I think to resolve the crisis peacefully was the right thing.’

Carter’s faith in peaceful diplomacy could hardly be further removed from current US foreign policy. It is no secret that he has a low opinion of George W. Bush. But it is still shocking to hear a former occupant of the Oval Office talk so scathingly about a successor. He accuses Bush of making a ‘radical departure’ from the principles of multilateral co-operation and respect for international law followed by previous presidents.

‘We started a war in Iraq that was unjustified and based on a false premise, we’ve tortured prisoners in secret camps [and] we’ve refused to co-operate with the rest of the world on global warming,’ he says. ‘All these things are startlingly different ideas from what George Bush Snr
or Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton or Gerald Ford or Dwight Eisenhower practised.’

Nothing troubles Carter more than the Bush administration’s attitude towards torture. He says it is ‘beyond dispute’ that some of the coercive techniques used to question prisoners in the war on terror amount to torture, despite White House claims to the contrary.

‘The nuances of trying to define what torture is in order to justify what we have done and what we would like to continue to do are embarrassing to people who believe in human rights,’ he says. ‘When the US does this it makes it easier for abusers in other countries to perpetrate the same crimes.’

While there is no doubting the authenticity of his anger, Carter’s criticism of Bush has the feel of a well-practised spiel. Seeking to steer the conversation on to fresher territory, I ask him about his party’s chances of reclaiming the White House in 2008. To do so, I suggest, the Democrats will have to find a way of reconnecting with the kind of rural, southern voters that surround us in Pharjac Grille.

‘It’s going to be difficult in the south,’ he concedes. ‘The Democrats are going to have to show a compatibility with deeply religious people. We have about 630 people in Plains and about eight churches and they are heavily attended.’

He says the party can win back so-called ‘value voters’ provided it picks the right presidential candidate. Who might that be? ‘I have my own thoughts,’ he says. ‘But not to be shared.’

Rosalynn has by now left and the increasing brevity of her husband’s answers indicates our time is up. Before we part, he invites me back to their home to see the workshop where he paints and makes furniture – skills learned at Plains High School in classes designed to equip boys to be farmers or craftsmen. In the centre of the room is an intricately crafted wooden cabinet made for a Carter Center fundraising auction.

How long does he expect to continue such an active life? ‘Probably not very much longer,’ he says, laughing at the morbid implication of the question. Among his remaining objectives: to complete the eradication of guinea-worm disease in Africa and river blindness in Latin America – two parasitic diseases the Carter Center has helped bring under control.

Carter gives me my cue to leave by mentioning several telephone calls
he has to make. Anxious not to miss the opportunity, I fish a copy of his latest book,
Our Endangered Values
, out of my bag and ask him to sign it. Only as I hand it over do I notice the red sticker on the front declaring ‘40 per cent off’ and the dog-eared page showing how little I had read.

‘I get the same amount per book so I’m glad you got a good deal,’ he says, promising rather pointedly not to lose my page.

As I drive out of Plains, past the peanut silos Carter once owned, it strikes me that I did not tip the waitress in Pharjac Grille – a serious omission in the US where waiting staff draw a large part of their income from gratuities. Returning to rectify the mistake, I find Pharis Short, the owner, clearing up after the lunchtime rush.

With everyone gone, I ask how Carter’s views compare with those of her average customer. She confirms what I suspected: that most broadly support President Bush and the war in Iraq, while illegal Mexican immigration and jobs losses to China are bigger concerns than guinea worm in Africa. But swimming against local opinion is not something new for Carter. During his farming days in segregation-era Plains, he refused to join the town’s whites-only business council, sparking a boycott of his products.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Carter is not that he became president but that he did so with such a progressive brand of politics. ‘Not everyone agrees with Jimmy,’ says Pharis. ‘But everyone respects him.’

3 FEBRUARY 2007

Once known as something of a control freak, the New Zealand prime minister has proved remarkably adept at leading her country’s coalition government

By Beverley Doole

Very sorry but the PM is running about half an hour late. She’s seeing the Queen. Please sit tight.’ That’s not the sort of text message I usually get at 3pm on a Friday. And I don’t mind in the least sitting tight in the elegant surroundings of London’s Sofitel St James hotel, on the corner of Pall Mall, waiting for Helen Clark, the prime minister of New Zealand.

The hotel’s Rose Lounge couldn’t really be called anything else. It is a vision of pink and green, with chintz upholstery and twee lampshades. It is rather like the sitting room of a prim aunt.

I look wistfully at the silver cake-stands being delivered to the other tables, each tier promising tuile biscuits, dainty cakes and finger sandwiches. I hope Clark hasn’t filled up on Battenberg cake with the Queen. Thirty minutes pass. I reach for a book from the shelf –
Tiaras: A History of Splendour.
That couldn’t be less appropriate for the down-to-earth, straight-talking leader of the furthest nation of the Commonwealth. I quickly put it back in case she catches me.

Forty-five minutes pass. A man who pronounces Bev as ‘Biv’ approaches and shakes my hand. He is Clark’s press secretary and assures me the PM isn’t far away – she’s just freshening up in her room. And finally, a few minutes later, a tall, athletic figure walks confidently past the tables of ladies who take tea and businessmen who are talking golf, without a blink of recognition from any of them.

Dressed in a tailored black suit and black boots, Helen Clark smiles, apologizes for the delay, and makes herself comfortable in the rather upright chairs. Despite the newly applied make-up she looks tired, which is perfectly understandable for someone who flew across the world the day before and doesn’t appear to have stopped since. But she is too professional to flag – she gives me another encouraging smile and scans the afternoon tea menu. ‘Orange-blossom tea – that sounds good.’ Tea? Just tea? Can’t I tempt you to some sandwiches or cake? ‘No, no thank you. A pot of tea will be fine.’ We order orange-blossom tea for two, and I silently curse the caterers at Buckingham Palace.

Although Clark’s face isn’t familiar to the other guests in the Rose Lounge, her deep and measured voice may well be. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 she seemed to be regarded by Radio 4’s programme producers as the political voice of reason. New Zealand – unlike its closest neighbour and ally, Australia – did not join the war in Iraq. Clark said she felt that the case for war had not been made – she wanted a UN security council resolution as a basic condition.

She strongly advocates an independent foreign policy for New Zealand, placing her Labour government a long way from the traditional New Zealand position of total loyalty to the motherland. At the start of the Second World War, the then prime minister Michael Savage declared of England: ‘Where she goes, we go. Where she stands, we stand.’

Clark, who is 56, says the greatest influence on her in terms of war was being part of the Vietnam generation and knowing that it was wrong. ‘You have to be very careful about decisions where you commit other people’s children to go and fight a war. Vietnam was not a just cause. And nor was Iraq. They are value judgements, but they happen to be my values.’

Yet Clark has been a driving force behind the unveiling of the New Zealand memorial at Hyde Park Corner, to commemorate those who died fighting for their country. ‘There’s been a lot of unfinished business for New Zealand soldiers – traditionally they came home from war and everybody shut the door on it, they never talked about it again. But I have a great interest in heritage and I think you have to properly commemorate significant events in a country’s history.’