The Blessing on Knowing Jimmy Carter

By: Bob Hope, Chairman and Co-Founder

I’ve been to dozens of barbecues in my lifetime, but the one on January 15, 1977, was one for the ages.

I was sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck at a place called the Plains Country Club. I was eating barbecued chicken when a thought occurred to me.  The man sitting to my left on the tailgate would be the President of the United States in four days.  It was a surreal moment.

I had known Jimmy Carter for years.  This was my first time in his hometown of Plains.  I was the public relations director of the Atlanta Braves and had what I hoped was the bright idea of bringing the team there to visit for the final weekend before his inauguration.  After all, surely he would spend his last weekend as a private citizen in his hometown.

I was hopeful but there was no guarantee.  I had called the Plains mayor’s office randomly.  A lady named Maureen answered the phone.  I explained to her that our team had an annual Braves Carvan during the winter when a few players would travel to towns throughout Georgia promoting the upcoming baseball season.  We wanted to come to Plains but would need a Plains coordinator to work with us.  She said she would ask around about getting a local civic leader to work with me and would call me back.  She did.  She introduced me to our local coordinator, Billy Carter, brother of the president elect.  Billy set up an event filled weekend for us.  Instead of just going for one day, we would stay the whole weekend.  We had tours, the barbecue, a softball game between the Braves and Billy Carter All-Stars.  We even went to church on Sunday.

Typically, we’d have five or six players on a caravan trip.  However, this time the whole team signed up as well as everyone in our office and some people I didn’t even know.  We had two bus loads heading to Plains.  The only concern was that no one would tell us if Jimmy Carter would be there.  Ted Turner kept asking me if he would be there.  When I told him I really wasn’t sure, he didn’t respond well.  So, I called Billy and told him I really needed to know if we’d meet with his brother, that if we didn’t, I’d probably get fired.  Billy responded that the Secret Service would like him tell us that Jimmy wouldn’t be there, but he went on to say that he could assure me I wouldn’t get fired.

In hindsight, sitting on the back of a pickup in a park was indicative of the man who would be the 39th President of the United States.

While he was President, I got to know his brother Billy and his mother Miss Lillian well.  They would come to games and I would visit them in Plains.  

I met Jimmy Carter when he was governor of Georgia.  It was a high-flying time for the Braves, and I was the public relations director, very inexperienced in my mid-twenties.  However, Hank Aaron was chasing the lifetime home run record of Babe Ruth.  It was a huge national story and about 400 news reporters were traveling to every game for a couple of years.  Jimmy Carter came to a lot of games, as did lots of celebrities and politicians.  I seemed to always be busy making special arrangements for our special guests.  Jimmy Carter just sorta showed up.  I was never quite sure how he got his tickets.  

Occasionally, he would walk into the stadium through the tunnel entrance unannounced before a game.  I’d scramble to get him tickets.  Once I saw him sitting in the grass watching a pregame ceremony.  I thought to myself that I should probably go over and sit by the governor even though no one else seemed to notice he was there.

He met with me once and asked if I would help him run for president.  My response was the typical “president of what?”  I was not a believer.  It just seemed too crazy to waste time helping him try to do something that seemed impossible. We had had some show horse governors.  He was not one of them – he just seemed too quiet and humble.  

I’d see him at events over the years after he served as President.  We, in fact, designed the logo that is used even today for the Carter Center.

I eventually served on the Board of Councilors for the Carter Center and would marvel at his knowledge of global issues as well as his commitment to do good with his life.

Eventually, he invited me to travel to Nepal with him to do election observations there.  He told me we would just go a couple of days over Thanksgiving weekend and fly on the Google jet.  Seemed safe.  However, the election was cancelled because of the civil war in Nepal.  When the election was rescheduled, I was asked if I still wanted to be an observer.  I agreed, but there was no Google jet and I spent two weeks in the Terai, the sub-tropical area along the border of India.  It still wasn’t completely safe.  I was given a “go bag” to escape a couple of days in the jungle if necessary.  It was daunting but the closest I will ever feel to being a James Bond-like character.  There were only 60 of us from around the world, and all had diplomatic backgrounds except me.  On the last night, President Carter hosted everyone for dinner.  I was told I had the seat of honor next to him and asked why.  I joked that he probably wanted to talk about baseball.  When we sat down for dinner, the first thing he said to me was, “How do you think the Braves will do this season?”

Four years later I went back to Nepal with him again.  By then I had been told many times that regardless of how hard the rest of us worked, President Carter would work harder.  That was very obvious.

My favorite line in poetry is in Rudyard Kipling’s “If”, voted the greatest British poem ever written.  It is a guideline to a life well led.  The line that I appreciate most and stands out to me is, “[If you can] walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch.” To me, that line sums up the Jimmy Carter I knew.

I view myself as very lucky to have known a truly great man. 

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