Originally published in The Voice of San Francisco in December 2024
The day I spoke to President Jimmy Carter was on the 11th of February 2009. I only know this because I was aware that it was the day after the Israeli Legislative Election when Benjamin Netanyahu managed to form a majority coalition government to become prime minister for the second time in his career.
Those election results were on my list of talking points that I’d collected in a hurry. President Carter’s latest book, We Can Have Peace In the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work had just been released the month before, and I was studying the book to submit a review to my editor at the time, Bruce Bellingham.
Bellingham had other plans for me. Little did I know he was working behind the scenes, tirelessly trying to arrange an interview between myself and the former president. The interesting part was that he didn’t fill me in on those plans. Determined as he always was, Bellingham secured the interview. He called me on the morning of the 11th to let me know that an assistant to President Carter would be calling me to conduct an interview in “…about an hour.”
I had an hour. Not wanting to appear ungrateful for the opportunity, I politely mentioned to Bellingham that it would have been nice to have more than an hour’s notice to prepare questions. He responded by saying “Nonsense! Come on, kid! You think on your feet! You’ll be great, just let ‘er RIP!” I expressed my opinion that improvisation was great if we were dealing in jazz or beat poetry, but this… This was a planning thing, surely. He poo-poo’d me and told me I’d better get ready.
I was in my office and didn’t have a voice recorder handy so I got a yellow pad of paper, looking at the empty blue lines wondering what in the world I was going to do. I jotted notes on the recent election, then looked at my notes about President Carter’s book, drawing out some of my observations into questions to sustain a dialogue about We Can Have Peace. I came up with a couple of solid ideas, a good jumping off point. I didn’t get much further before my cell phone rang.
“Are you ready to speak to President Carter?”
“Yes,” I lied.
My mind was racing. I thought this would either turn into one of those stories about how I successfully dealt with a high-pressure situation, or it would go so wrong that I would never speak of it to another living soul.
I thanked President Carter for his call and for making time for me, then went into my questions. I learned a lot in the next half hour or so about communication. President Carter’s mind was clear, sharp and multifaceted like a diamond. He was immaculately mannered and spoke in calm, measured tones. Sensing that I was nervous, he dropped into a lower register, speaking even more slowly and said in a voice like he was reading me a bedtime story, “Now Sharon, many years ago when I was president…” I was writing out his words on my yellow pad and completely forgot that I’d been nervous. I became one with his voice and the story he was relaying to me.
Before I knew it, we exchanged final cordialities and the interview was complete. I had sounded nervous at first, knowing I would run out of questions and President Carter calmed me down, managing me into a space where I could effectively listen to the list of essential points he wanted to make during any interview about his book. He put me where I needed to be so I could be a conduit for his message. Did I do a good job? I was ok. President Carter was great, and anything of quality resulting from our interview was because he guided me gently through the conversation to the points he was interested in making.
Like many of us, I was sad to hear that he had died on the 29th of December though President Carter was in poor health since entering hospice early in 2023. I thought about how much I learned during our brief window of time together over the phone. I thought of my friend and editor Bruce Bellingham who died in 2018. I thought about how he could have conducted the interview himself, and how it would have been a feather in his cap, but instead he passed the opportunity on to me. I thought about generosity.
President Carter’s passing has in a real sense elevated all our thinking. Collectively, we are all reflecting on what a refined human being he was, a leader who did his very best to give as much as he could to his country and the world. His life of radical optimism and hope will be in the news during the coming days. What a great way to start a new year, in this elevated place of contemplation.
I hope we can stay here a while.