TRANSCRIPT
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, Jimmy Carter's most trusted advisor during his single term as U-S president and then for the following four decades in the couple's humanitarian work, has died at the age of 96.
The Carter Center says she had been living with dementia and had suffered declining health for many months.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were married for more than 77 years, forging what they both described as a “full partnership.”
With Jimmy Carter's election win in 1977, just three short years after the infamous Nixon presidency ended, Rosalynn had this to say:
"Jimmy has never had any hint of scandal, in his personal or his public life. I really believe he can restore that honesty, integrity, openness, confidence in government that we so sorely need in Washington today. The next president of the United States, my husband, Jimmy Carter."
Unlike many previous first ladies, Rosalynn sat in on Cabinet meetings, spoke out on controversial issues and represented her husband on foreign trips.
Aides to President Carter sometimes referred to her — privately — as "co-president."
During their White House years, which spanned from 1977-1981, Jimmy Carter told aides she was his best friend and probably the most influential person in his life.
Loyal, compassionate and politically astute, Rosalynn Carter prided herself on being an activist First Lady, and no-one doubted her behind-the-scenes influence.
Asked if she gave the President a lot of advice, Rosalynn replied:
"Well, we talk about all the issues. We talk about the strategy of the campaign, we always have. And I think we just have a mutual respect for each other."
When her role in a highly publicised Cabinet shakeup became known, she was forced to declare publicly, “I am not running the government.”
Many presidential aides insisted that her political instincts were better than her husband’s — they often enlisted her support for a project before they discussed it with the president.
Her iron will, contrasted with her outwardly shy demeanor and a soft Southern accent, inspired Washington reporters to call her “the Steel Magnolia.”
Both Carters said in their later years that Rosalynn had always been the more political of the two.
Jimmy Carter trusted her so much that in 1977, only months into his term, he sent her on a mission to Latin America to tell dictators he meant what he said about denying military aid and other support to violators of human rights.
Throughout her husband's political career, she chose mental health and problems of the elderly as her signature policy emphasis.
As honorary chairwoman of the President's Commission on Mental Health, she once testified before a Senate subcommittee, becoming the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to address a congressional panel.
After Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election, Jimmy and Rosalynn co-founded The Carter Center in Atlanta to continue their work.
Frequently, the Carters left home on humanitarian missions, building houses with Habitat for Humanity and promoting public health and democracy across the developing world.
The Carter Center's senior fellow for health policy, Bill Foege [[fay-ghee]], says their influence should not be underestimated.
"To emphasise how important Mrs. Carter was in all of this, she would attend the meetings. She would keep the notes. And even when they would go birdwatching, she's the one that kept the flight list of the birds that they had seen. But more than that, I think when we went to Thailand and looked at refugee camps, I realised how powerful she could be because her trip there suddenly unleashed money for refugee camps in Thailand.”
Later in their lives, each of the Carters attributed their successes to the other and to the strength of their partnership.
"It's always been my wife of 63 years that's made it possible to do whatever I've done."
"That is the beginning of a wonderful romance and I can say 68 exciting, loving, interesting, unpredictable, challenging and - I could go on - years. Over the years, we've become not only friends and lovers but partners."
Jimmy Carter is the longest-lived United States president.
Rosalynn Carter was the second longest-lived of the nation's first ladies, trailing only Bess Truman, who died at age 97.
