Evan Solomon: President Carter, very good to see you sir.

Jimmy Carter: It’s a pleasure. Thanks for coming.

Evan Solomon: Twenty five years of The Carter Center, an extraordinary achievement. If you look through all the things you’ve done: monitoring dozens of elections, fighting disease, waging peace, as you say. Is there one accomplishment that you can say to yourself this is what I’m most proud of?

Jimmy Carter: Well, I think we’ve actually prevented a couple of wars, one in North Korea, another one in Haiti. That’s important. You never do know what would have happened. But I think the most persistent and substantive accomplishment was probably to do away with Guinea Worm, a horrible disease for whom dracunculiasis is the Latin name. We started out with 3.6 million cases and the latest results is that we now have 9000 cases left, which is a 99.9% reduction and we know every case of Guinea Worm in the world and we are addressing those every day to completely eradicate this horrible disease from the face of the earth. But what The Carter Center has had to do is go in to go into about 22,600 villages in three countries in Asia and all across the sub-Saharan continent of Africa to tell the villagers what they must do to do away with this disease. We also treat four other extremely serious illnesses that The World Health Organization officially categorizes as neglected diseases, neglected because nobody much wants to fool with them and because they’re not any longer known in Europe, Canada or the US.

Evan Solomon: Exactly, river blindness and…

Jimmy Carter: Yeah, those diseases, some of them inflict hundreds of millions of people but they have been eliminated from the developed world, so we don’t pay much attention to them anymore but that’s what The Carter Center does.

Evan Solomon: Now, I’ve tried, you know, reading your books over the years, I’ve tried to isolate what is it about President Jimmy Carter that makes you effective at doing these extraordinary things, I mean whether it’s getting huge pharmaceutical companies to give millions of pills or DuPont to make screens, as you talk about for the Guinea Worm. What do you think your talent is for advocacy?

Jimmy Carter: Well, I have a natural advantage in having been president of a great country.

Evan Solomon: Small advantage there…

Jimmy Carter: Well, it is an advantage. It gives me access to almost everyone in the world, both the corporate world and in the cultural world, political world, military world as well if I want it. So I can go and talk to them and explain to them what the task is. We’ve had a policy at The Carter Center, since I founded it 25 years ago, as you’ve said, in not fearing setbacks or defeat. We are not reluctant to take a chance if we see something that really needs to be done that no one else is attempting. And when I share this kind of adventurous, unpredictable opportunity to the CEO of the DuPont Company, or Merker Company or Pfizer Company or others and say, ‘if you would give us some of your products we will take those and invest them in the better life for people in the most remote villages on earth, and I’m an engineer, we’ll quantify, we’ll measure accurately what we’re doing, and you can share these results with your executive managers, with your employees, with your secretaries and research scientists and your whole company can be proud of eradicating a disease in a village and giving a people a new life,’ so, that appeals to them to become a partner with us.

Evan Solomon: One of the things that you seem to do is you’ll talk with people that many people refuse to engage with, people that are for example on the US’ administration’s list of people they won’t deal with or some people have called them terrorists. What is the line that you have in terms of dealing with people who have long records of human rights abuses or long records of violating Geneva Conventions and yet Jimmy Carter will go in and shake their hands and begin a dialogue? How do you negotiate that kind of terrain?

Jimmy Carter: Well, when an unsavory character is causing terrible problems like you just described, quite often they’re the only one that can change that policy or correct the problem. So if someone is guilty of human rights abuses I go directly to them, sometimes through a letter at the beginning, but if necessary I go to the country and meet with them, something the US has refused to do because we have withdrawn our ambassador from the country in protest. And, surprisingly, those outcast leaders often are hungry for some kind of human recognition that they are a person, that they should be respected in some way. So I appeal to their better nature, and also I have to say I threaten to add my sometimes powerful voice to condemn them if they won’t take reasonable action and I try to show them how modification of their policy, or negotiation of a peace agreement to end a war, or the holding of an open and honest and democratic election, gives them credit for promoting peace and being in favor of freedom.

Evan Solomon: But, how do you trust these people? Daniel Ortega, Milosevik, Krajisnik, I mean I can go through dictators in Africa that you’ve dealt with. How do you know they’re not using President Jimmy Carter to lend them some kind of veneer of credibility to sort of ease the pressure, but then sort of continue to exercise some kind of dictatorial power?

Jimmy Carter: Well, one way to prevent their defaulting on a promise is to encourage or make them go public with it, with a letter to me that I share with the secretary general of the United Nations and the president of the US and the New York Times. Quite often, surprisingly, in the past I have invited CNN to go with me to troubled spots, like to North Korea to talk to Kim Il Sung, or to Bosnia-Herzegovina to talk to Krajisnik, whom you mentioned. And, they promise on camera that within three days they will sign a particular agreement and it puts them on the spot. And, we did this with Kim Il Sung in the middle of the night, you know, Canadian and American time, it was pretty late…

Evan Solomon: But, you mention Kim Il Sung, which is kind of interesting, because I think in 1994 you went there…

Jimmy Carter: I did.

Evan Solomon: Under the auspices of President Clinton…

Jimmy Carter: With reluctant approval from him…

Evan Solomon: With reluctant approval from him, as always, but this was to negotiate an agreement not to develop nuclear arms (him: exactly), but now in 2004, if I recall, the North Koreans tested a nuclear device. Critics suggesting they signed that agreement and then they just went ahead and developed it anyway, raising the question: what is the purpose of these talks? Was President Carter duped in that agreement by Kim Il Sung?

Jimmy Carter: Well, Kim Il Sung agreed with me and shared his agreement not only with the world on CNN, but also in a telephone call to the White House. And, three days later he confirmed all of his agreements, there were multiple agreements, in a personal letter from Kim Il Sung to President Clinton, and he sent me a copy of it. And then subsequently, President Clinton and his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, negotiated a direct, official contract between the US and Japan and South Korea and China with Kim Il Sung in North Korea. He agreed to put the cameras back on his nuclear facility, to welcome back the international nuclear inspectors and he complied completely with the agreement. Later, Madeleine Albright, as secretary of state, actually went to Pyongyang to confirm fully what I had negotiated. And they were completely complying with it. Unfortunately, when President Bush came into office he almost immediately renounced the treaty agreements and as a result of that Kim Il Sung was free from all his obligations and so they began to purify their already existing nuclear fuel rods and made enough plutonium we think to actually produce six or maybe eight nuclear explosives and…

Evan Solomon: So, that’s under Bush that you would suggest (him: oh yeah) that the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea is a direct result of that policy by the Bush administration.

Jimmy Carter: Exactly. Sure. President Bush renounced the agreement which the North Koreans had honored and branded them as a focal point of terrorism and then after that North Korea overtly expelled all their nuclear arms control inspectors and began to process their nuclear fuel rods.

Evan Solomon: Given that, is there any value diplomatically of governments like the US, like the Canadian government, of labeling governments and groups as terrorist organizations and therefore disengaging with them, the way, for example, Hamas has been labeled or as you talk about, whether it’s Iran or North Korea, and of course the axis is wider than some might say? Is there any value of doing that for a government?

Jimmy Carter: I don’t think so.

Evan Solomon: You don’t think anybody should fall under those auspices?

Jimmy Carter: Well, you know, there might be a regime so unsavory, patently, that they’re threatening their neighbors and so forth, you could break diplomatic relations with them. I’m sure we didn’t have diplomatic relations with Germany under Hitler in the midst of the Second World War and so forth. But, when there’s an honest difference of agreement like now between Iran and the US or Iran and the Western world to break diplomatic relations, I think, is a very serious mistake. After the Shah was deposed, I immediately had diplomatic relations with the Iranians under the Ayatollah Khomeini. They had about 75 diplomats in Washington. I had, as you may remember, about 75 in Tehran, but they switched some of the students were taken prisoner. But, it’s better to be talking to them. And if you break…

Evan Solomon: But, what’s the line between appeasement? I mean, you know this is the debate. What would President Carter have done in 1939? Would he have been like Winston Churchill and say we cannot engage with this guy except through war? Or would they try to negotiate a settlement? How would you do that?

Jimmy Carter: Well, I don’t really care to go back to 1939, but I hope the idea would be to stop threatening Iran with military attack, bombing, which encourages them to build up their defense capabilities, and to negotiate directly with them to see what are their genuine needs, and they complying or not complying with the non-proliferation treaty, I think technically they are still complying with it, and to assure them that they have some benefits in not developing nuclear weaponry. But, when we sever all relationships and refuse to talk to them diplomatically at all, and in the meantime through sub-subtle means or overt means, say ‘we’re going to bomb you soon, or even some threats to use nuclear weapons against them,’ that just encourages them to go down the path that we are deploring. And, the same way with Syria. You know, Syria can play a crucial, beneficial role, not only on the border with Iraq but also in the Middle East peace process. We have severed all relationships with Syria. This is a young man who is now president. I’m not bragging on him, but I’ve known President Assad since he was a college student and a few months ago I was planning on going to Syria to try to induce President Assad to cooperate with the US and I was absolutely forbidden to go to Damascus by the White House. The national security adviser called me and said President Bush specifically requests that you not go to Syria because we want to punish Syria and if a distinguished American, a former president, goes to Syria it’ll add some stature to his reputation. Well, I think that’s counterproductive.

Evan Solomon: So, very few regimes in your mind, no matter what they do, puts them beyond the pale of international engagement?

Jimmy Carter: Well, international engagement is one thing. Diplomatic relations is another. You know, most other countries don’t do what we’re doing, you know just to cut off, if we disagree with someone then we demand if you don’t agree with our position completely, like Iran, we will not have any diplomatic relations with you and we will not talk with you directly or indirectly. That is what I’m deploring.

Evan Solomon: You say, quote, in your book, in the new book, “The US has abandoned its role as a champion of human rights (him: yes), through George W. Bush’s policies…”

Jimmy Carter: I don’t think I mention the president personally, but…

Evan Solomon: But you say since 2001, so I’ve done some fairly basic deductive reasoning there. And you’ve talked about lending support for violations of Geneva Conventions and torture at Guantanamo Bay. So, has the US, since you’ve been involved in politics, ever been in a more precarious position in the world, in terms of its stature?

Jimmy Carter: I’m not sure that precarious is the right word, because I don’t think there’s a danger to our democracy or anything, but we’ve never had a reputation, I don’t believe, in the last 200 years so low in the rest of the world as we do now because we’ve perpetrated unnecessary military attacks, like on Iraq. We have also violated human rights standards by the torture that was exposed publicly in the Abu Graib prison in Iraq, Guantanamo is another horrible example…

Evan Solomon: Just for the record…

Jimmy Carter: Yeah, please…

Evan Solomon: You said torture. The administration said these were a few bad apples, that these are not the responsibility of the administration. Do you agree with that view?

Jimmy Carter: No. I don’t agree with that view. It’s no doubt…

Evan Solomon: It’s institutionalized, supported methods of torture?

Jimmy Carter: I think so, yes. You can, the most famous example is water boarding – that’s when you actually drown a person by turning them upside down partially and pouring water through a towel down their nose and it’s in effect drowning them. That’s recognized throughout the world, even by our own US military leaders, as torture. And, our administration in Washington, the vice president and others publicly says that we’ll continue to do that in order to get some sort of confessions or information from these prisoners who are deprived of any legal counsel. They’re deprived even from being confronted with any accusation about the crimes they may have committed. And, we have publicly announced that the Geneva Conventions, which were orchestrated by American leaders in the past right after the Second World War, don’t even apply to us anymore. So, this has given America, in my opinion, a horrendous reputation as a chief violator of human rights, rather than a champion of human rights.

Evan Solomon: What are the costs of that?

Jimmy Carter: Reputation and The Carter Center every year, every year, has a meeting sponsored by me and the United Nations High Commission of Human Rights, a wonderful judge from Canada, and we bring in human rights defenders. Well, this past year, this year, we had defenders or heroes from 41 nations, I believe it was. These are people who come to The Carter Center and tell us publicly, and we have large trenches of news media there, they tell us their story about how in their own nations they used to be struggling towards honoring human rights, now there’s been a gross deterioration in respect for human rights, using the United Nations as a pattern for their oppressive leaders, to say well, if the US can do it, I can do it.

Evan Solomon: Using the US, (him: yes) in other words if the US can abuse human rights, civil rights, it lends credibility to other nations.

Jimmy Carter: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And this is a repetitive comment or complaint from these people. Now, sometimes, of course, when we invite these human rights defenders or heroes their governments won’t let them come, others, we highly publicize this event every year, and so some nations will let their abused people come out, sometimes when they go back home they’re put in prison.

Evan Solomon: You also write, I mean you’re so critical of the human rights record of the current administration and the current policy of the US, you also write in your new book, that quote “Washington is in the process of violating every nuclear restraint treaty.” In your characterization of this administration, it sounds almost like a rogue regime here, violating nuclear treaties, which is the same accusations the administration has said about North Korea and Iran, violating human rights, torture, I mean, where does this administration rank for you in terms of governments you monitor here at The Carter Center?

Jimmy Carter: Well, we have much higher standards as a nation than many of the other governments to which you refer that are despicable in many ways, but since we are the preeminent superpower on earth and have in the past been the epitome of the standard of human rights, of negotiating nuclear arms control agreements, under Eisenhower and Nixon and Gerald Ford, under me with SALT too, and Ronald Reagan, all of those nuclear arms agreements have been laboriously negotiated to stop the testing of new weapons and to stop the production of new weapons. And, the non-proliferation treaty calls for the goal of steadily reducing arsenals to zero. This administration has now abdicated or violated or circumvented every single major nuclear arms control agreement ever negotiated and one is to develop the so-called Star Wars program, which violates the anti-ballistic missile treaty. We’re in an altercation right now with Putin about whether we deploy these anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe. And, this has really brought a devastating blow to the non-proliferation treaty and its signatories. Every five years at The Carter Center we bring in to here, where we’re sitting now, representatives from about 35 nations who are technically capable of having nuclear weapons but who consider themselves to be special champions of a non-proliferation treaty. These are countries like yours, Canada, or like Argentina, or Chile or Australia or New Zealand or Egypt or Saudi Arabia and so forth, Austria, Norway, Sweden – all of those countries could if they wanted to have nuclear weapons. They know how to do it. They have the technology. They don’t do it and so they are the champions of the non-proliferation treaty. But, the US has refused to honor the principles of the non-proliferation treaty. A recent example of that, in my opinion, is very highly publicized, is our eagerness, not willingness, to provide nuclear fuel for weapons and also nuclear technology to India. India has refused to endorse or accept the restraints of a non-proliferation treaty. And, when I was president and I knew that India had exploded a nuclear device I ordained a policy of not providing technology or fuel to countries unless they became a member of a non-proliferation treaty. And, all the other countries in the world accepted that policy. Now the US is ready to provide them fuel.

Evan Solomon: Inflaming the situation. A couple things, I want to move a little quicker now, just because of time (him: fine). Obviously there’s a new film now from Jonathan Demme, ‘Man from Plaines,’ and it follows you on the book tour of ‘Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid,’ without a doubt the most controversial post-presidential episode in your life. Would you agree? Personally?

Jimmy Carter: That’s a fairly narrow definition, I would say yes I agree with that.

Evan Solomon: Cautiously.

Jimmy Carter: Yeah, cautiously.

Evan Solomon: Some have suggested, because of the controversy surrounding that book and the provocative title, the use of “apartheid” and you know there’s been resignations here from the board and that you have in some ways jeopardized the legacy of The Carter Center by abandoning your position as an honest broker and become partisan. How do you respond to that?

Jimmy Carter: That’s completely erroneous and the people who say that are indulging in falsehood. In the first place, there was one gentleman who, in a highly publicized way, resigned as a fellow of The Carter Center…

Evan Solomon: Kenneth Stein, a long time adviser.

Jimmy Carter: Yeah, but he resigned and he has not been a fellow of The Carter Center for 14 years, so it was a false resignation. But, anyway, I recognized when I wrote the book and prepared the title that it would be somewhat controversial, but I did it for two reasons: one, I wanted to precipitate a debate in this country about the treatment of the Palestinians and the reasons that we needed to take a new look at bringing peace to Israel. At this moment, there hasn’t been a single day of peace talks between Israel and her neighbors in seven years. None. And, I hope there will be before the end of this year. Also, in our nation there is never any debate about the plight of the Palestinians or the building of an intrusive wall, that’s taken more and more territory from the Palestinians, or the opportunity for Israel to achieve the goal that a vast majority of its citizens have always wanted, that is an exchange of Palestinian land for peace. So, I wanted to bring this out…

Evan Solomon: But, using that term, “bringing it out,” I mean you’ve been bringing this out obviously since the famed Camp David Accords (him: that’s right), by using the term apartheid and in the book you talk about it not being racially based, but as a geographic land grab (him: that’s right), but by using it do you in some way default in your position as an honest broker (him: no) because it’s so polarized and you’ve heard so many people in the Jewish community say ‘we can no longer trust President Carter to be an honest broker because he’s taken a position by using that provocative term?’

Jimmy Carter: No. The book came out in November and in December I got 6000 letters. I normally only get about 300 a month. Overwhelmingly, from American US citizens the letters were approving, finally somebody is telling the facts about what’s going on in the Mideast so we can have peace. And, there’s no doubt that the impact of this book overall has been very positive. It’s precipitated a debate. You can’t imagine the total absence in our country of any kind of discussion of both sides of the Mideast issue. There’s not a member of Congress who would dare say ‘let’s look at the plight of the Palestinians’ or ‘we believe that Israel should comply with the UN resolutions which they themselves accepted.’

Evan Solomon: 242

Jimmy Carter: 242, 338 and others, 194…

Evan Solomon: But, you know, just in terms of the Carter legacy and The Carter Center legacy, there were accusations that funding for The Carter Center came from various sources, one from I think Sheik Zayed, a friend of yours, and the Zayed Center who had allegedly run anti-Semitic conferences and that they support The Carter Center and that “President Carter and The Carter Center is now in the pocket of, because of the money given to The Carter Center, in the pocket of anti-Israeli and in some ways anti-Semitic groups.” How do you respond to those allegations, in terms of funding?

Jimmy Carter: They’re completely erroneous. You know, The Carter Center since its founding, as of two years ago and it’s dropped off since, they were 2.7%, less that 3%, of our total contributions from all the Arab countries combined. Exclusively, those contributions were designed to alleviate suffering in Africa, in our health programs, with a few extra dollars 25 years ago when The Carter Center buildings were constructed, 2.7%. I’ve never received a single penny of it.

Evan Solomon: So, money doesn’t influence policy.

Jimmy Carter: Of course not, no, of course not. And, my policy on the Middle East has been unswerving and undeviating, with slight modifications with the changing times, for the last 30 years. When we negotiated the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1979 in April, since then not a single word of that has been violated. And, it’s the only Middle East agreement that has existed. So, I haven’t changed, by the way, our contributions have gone up substantially since the book came out.

Evan Solomon: What’s the most dangerous situation in the world right now?

Jimmy Carter: I think long-term, the most serious problem the world faces is a growing disparity between rich people and poor people, where the rich are getting richer and richer, the poor and getting poorer and poorer, inside nations and between nations. And this is arousing disharmony and animosity and resentment and despair among those who now have the ability, in a global environment, to know what’s going on outside their own communities.

Evan Solomon: Most dangerous person in the world?

Jimmy Carter: I don’t really know, maybe Osama Bin Laden, but he’s been pretty defanged. I think he’s living in an isolated place somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan. But, I think his incarnations are probably the most nefarious.

Evan Solomon: We talked about your proudest moment. What’s your biggest mistake?

Jimmy Carter: Oh, when I was president I tried to rescue the hostages being held by Iranians and I sent seven helicopters to get them out and to my amazement, and to the amazement of the US military leaders, three of those helicopters became incapacitated. If I had sent one more helicopter we would’ve gotten the hostages out and I would’ve been a hero instead of kind of a jerk in people’s minds and I probably would’ve gotten reelected president.

Evan Solomon: You think that operation, the success of that operation, would’ve gotten you a second term?

Jimmy Carter: Oh sure, yeah. There’s no doubt about it. But, the way things have turned out with the good life that we’ve had at The Carter Center I’m not even sure that in the long-range of things that was bad for me.

Evan Solomon: One last, I’ve got to ask you one last question: if you were to give advice to the Prime Minister of Canada right now, we’re in the middle of a mission in Afghanistan right now, very controversial with the Canadian public, what would you say to that mission to the Canadian prime minister?

Jimmy Carter: Well, I’ve ordinarily been against approximately 100 adventures that have been launched by the US since I’ve left office, many of which resulted in military action.

Evan Solomon: You call them unnecessary in the book.

Jimmy Carter: Unnecessary. I think the one in Afghanistan was necessary. I think our invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11in order to root out Al Qaeda and capture Osama Bin Laden was necessary. However, after we’d been there a few months we abandoned Afghanistan, in a sense, and moved on to Iraq, which was a horrible mistake. So, I think now to rebuild Afghanistan and to try to persist and to bring a good life and democracy and freedom to afghan people is a worth cause.

Evan Solomon: Is the next president going to be a he or a she?

Jimmy Carter: I don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait and see.