[MUSIC] Let's continue now, talking about President Jimmy Carter and his relationship with, not just President Kennedy, but the Kennedy family generally. After having refused to run for President in the three previous elections, Ted Kennedy startled the political world, by announcing his candidacy on November 7, 1979, for the 1980 cycle. He'd chosen to run against an incumbent democratic president. President Carter's popularity had fallen into the 20s, and he was widely seen as an ineffective leader. A little before Kennedy's announcement on October 20, 1979, the John F Kennedy Library was dedicated in Boston, and as tradition dictates at these occasions, the sitting president was the main orator. In rare form, Jimmy Carter rose to the rhetorical challenge in front of a strongly pro Ted Kennedy assemblage. Every inch a President, Carter gave a moving address. [MUSIC] Now listen to a very interesting conversation I had with President Carter, about that very event, the dedication of the JFK Library. >> I was hoping obviously in that in that speech to dedicate the library, I don't know if he expressed my personal feelings toward him, but, but toward the whole Kennedy family. I remember, I think one of Robert Kennedy's sons, before I spoke, had some fairly negative things to say about me. But I, I was President, I just, you know, grinned and, and ignored it, I felt that I, I, I didn't need to respond to that. >> The >> But you probably got a record of that. >> I, we've got, we've got that on the record. I thought it was a master stroke, when you quoted President Kennedy from his press conference, about how he would not recommend the job to others. >> Well that, that's [INAUDIBLE] [LAUGH] but I, I was, I was kind of hoping that Ted Kennedy would listen to that, but he didn't. >> Edward Moore Kennedy formally announced for President, in Boston's Faneuil Hall, on November 7th. Yet despite a lifetime of political experience, Kennedy had forgotten that a candidate looks best, before he becomes a formal contender. The above the phrase statesman, being pursued by partisan admirers, who hope he will run, that's superior to the grubby politician, lusting after high office and soliciting votes in the trenches. Ted Kennedy was also well to the left of the American electorate, that was growing more conservative, throughout the late 1970s. The character issue generated by the Chappaquiddick scandal and many whispered and one must say, accurate reports of Kennedy's extramarital activities, would follow the candidate every day of the campaign, just as he'd always feared. His candidacy was mortally wounded by an event no one could have foreseen however. It wasn't the women, it was a foreign policy crisis. Just three days before Kennedy announced, American hostages were taken in Tehran. Few understood at that moment, how this would work against Kennedy, in combination with the late December Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After the hostages were taken, Jimmy Carter adopted a shrewd campaign strategy. Recognizing that a president out there on the stump, looks like just another candidate, despite Air Force One, despite the Presidential seal, Carter decided to conduct a campaign from the Rose Garden of the White House, with the ultimate presidential symbol in the backdrop, the Oval Office and the White House itself. So while Ted Kennedy was out there, kissing babies and shaking hands and sweating on the campaign trail, Jimmy Carter looked cool calm and collected, dealing with the Iranian hostage crisis. It worked brilliantly, and as usual, American's rallied around the flag, rallied around Jimmy Carter, and it certainly didn't hurt that hundreds of thousands were in the streets of Tehran yelling death to Carter. Carter had garnered 9.6 million votes, in the primary contest. That's 51% of the total, to Kennedy's almost 7 million or 37%. So it was reasonably competitive, but Carter had a clear edge. And Carter had far more than the minimum number of delegates needed to secure the nomination. That didn't deter Edward Kennedy, as we'll discuss in a moment, but Ted Kennedy was hardly the only worry on Carter's plate. The U.S. economy continued to exhibit severe weakness and his efforts to free the hostages in Iran, took a tragic turn. What should have been a celebration of a hard earned nomination for Carter in mid-August, at the Democratic convention in New York, instead became a soap opera about Ted Kennedy. While Kennedy had run an ineffective campaign and had often been an inarticulate candidate, his final effort at the convention, exceeded anything that Carter could possibly deliver in his acceptance address. The electoral damage done by Kennedy's split with Carter was, unfortunately for Carter, lasting. Many Kennedy Democrats defected to the Republican, Ronald Reagan. This is really incredible. Just 61% of Kennedy's voters from the Democratic primaries stayed with the Democratic party, and backed Jimmy Carter in November, that's a high defection rate. Whatever the truth about Ted Kennedy's outlook, it's difficult to dispute that Ted Kennedy, and the Kennedy's generally, had played a role in the destruction of the two Democratic presidencies succeeding JFK. It's not necessarily something to be proud of, for that family. For Jimmy Carter, one nagging question remained, how did Ted Kennedy manage to block key Carter initiatives in the Senate? Listen again to my interview with President Carter and what he had to say about this. this particular suggestion, to my knowledge, has never been made before. >> My, my impression is that he promised Bob Byrd, that if he was elected President, that he would appoint Bob Byrd to the Supreme Court. >> Oh. >> And so, on Saturday mornings, the last couple of years I was in office, Bob Byrd and Kennedy would meet with the news media privately, ostensibly private in Bob Byrd's office and, and I don't know. Almost all of those Saturday mornings private sessions would come, very negative statements about me. I might say that Bob Byrd as majority leader, was much more supportive of my programs than Kennedy was, but, but it was obvious to me and all my staff, that everything we tried during those last couple of years, Kennedy tried to, to sabotage what I did. >> Take a listen to how President Carter characterized Ted Kennedy during his presidency, particularly the last couple of years. Keep in mind that he is characterizing Kennedy this way, at a time when he's dealing with sky-high inflation, sky-high interest rates, a declining economy, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviets in Afghanistan. he was in a swamp full of alligators and yet, this is how he portrayed Ted Kennedy's relationship to him. >> I think, I think that Ted Kennedy, who was a pain in my ass the last two years I was in office, was the worst problem I had, the last two years. Was just felt that he should have been a President. >> So in other words, President Carter considered Ted Kennedy to be the meanest alligator of all. You may also be interested in, how President Carter reacted to the assassination of President Kennedy, when he heard about it, while working on his farm in Georgia. >> I was on a tractor as a matter of fact and I came in, I was, we were weighing peanut trailers, trailers full of peanuts. And I came in and somebody in the office there told me that, the, the President had been shot. And I went out the back door and sat on the concrete steps and bowed down and prayed that he would be okay. And then I went back in, a few minutes later and, and I think Walter Cronkite had announced that he was dead and I cried. I think that was the first time I think I had cried, since my father died. But I wept when I heard that Kennedy had been, had been killed. >> What interested me, was to discover from President Carter, that he has been the subject of a number of threats since leaving office, both domestic and foreign. >> When I go on an overseas trip, almost invariably, I get a, a report from the Secret Service that where I'm going is very dangerous. And sometimes they ask me not to go, and I go anyway. Now, they make those routine requests, which come from, you know, the, National Security, Homeland Security set of [INAUDIBLE]. But when they make those reports to me, sometimes in writing from the intelligence agents, Jay and I both just laugh about it. So, I have been more concerned about my safety and doing the Carter's Center's business overseas, than I ever was in the White House. But I don't ever remember being afraid in the White House, or I never have cancelled a trip, but I would, I would, I would make a, a hasty withdrawal and not stop, shake hands and so forth, when the Secret Service convinced me that it was necessary. >> In a comparative way, the manifest failures and deep unpopularity of the Carter Presidency, enhanced the memory of the Kennedy White House. Whereas Kennedy presided over a soaring pre-eminent American economy, Carter represented a nation whose financial system could apparently no longer produce the bounty of the 1960s.
