The

The When Jimmy Carter, the governor of Georgia, announced he was running in the 1976 presidential election, Atlanta's biggest newspaper ran a headline that read, Jimmy Who is running for what?

Virtually nobody outside of Georgia knew who he was. His polling numbers barely cracked 1%.

And yet, on January 20, 1977, he took the oath of office and became the 39th president of the United

States. Carter's presidency ended a few

years before I was born. I've only known Carter as an ex-president. And I've heard from others about

what it was like to live during the Carter presidency. Like most of our recent presidents,

he's had his share of controversy, some admire him a great deal, some don't admire him

that much. And I've heard many people talk about Carter and say that he's a decent man, but

maybe not the most effective president, while others view him as a visionary who transformed

American foreign policy by focusing on human rights.

Now, rather than focus on the politics, what I want to do today is to learn about Jimmy

Carter, the man. And regardless how you feel about him, he was a president. So that means there's

an interesting story to tell. It's the story of a man from Georgia who attended the Naval Academy,

who was headed for a career on the cutting edge of military technology working on nuclear submarines, and who was on pace to become maybe even an admiral.

But when his father died, he quit it all to become a peanut farmer.

And yet somehow rose from there as a peanut farmer to a state legislator,

to governor, and then to president of the United States. And like most presidents, there's more than meets the eye. Our guest today is Jonathan Alter. He is the author of a biography on

Jimmy Carter titled His Very Best, Jimmy Carter, A Life. He's the

author of numerous books on presidents. He's written books on President Franklin Roosevelt and he's written

a couple books on President Obama. And he's well known as a journalist and correspondent on Newsweek and

NBC. He's produced multiple documentaries and hosts the

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