A conversation with former president jimmy carter

HAVE ANY OF YOUR SUCCESSORS SHOWN YOU THAT KIND OF LEVEL OF RESPECT? George H.W. Bush, along with his secretary of state, James Baker, did. But he's the only one, and I'm not

derogating the others when I say that. Somebody who has been out of office for 35 years is much less helpful to an incumbent president than either Gerald Ford or Richard Nixon were to me,

because they had only been out of office just a few months or years. IT'S GOT TO HURT, THOUGH, WHEN YOU'RE NOT EVEN ASKED TO SPEAK IN PERSON AT THE 2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL

CONVENTION. I was a little upset at the time, but now I've gotten over it. YOU AND ROSALYNN HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR 69 YEARS. EARLY IN YOUR MARRIAGE, YOU MADE SOME PRETTY IMPORTANT

DECISIONS UNILATERALLY. Yes, I did. That's the way my father did and that's the way most of the men did, at least that lived around us. They made the major decisions, and their

wives were free to run the household and take care of the children and buy groceries and stuff like that. YOU'RE A LITTLE BETTER ABOUT COLLABORATING NOW THAN YOU USED TO BE? We're

fully collaborative now. YOU END YOUR NEW BOOK BY SAYING YOU AND ROSALYNN LOOK FORWARD TO THE FUTURE BUT THAT YOU ARE "PREPARED FOR INEVITABLE ADVERSITY WHEN IT COMES." CAN YOU

ELABORATE? I know that there's going to come a time in the near future when I can't be so vigorous and travel around the world and spend all night on airplanes and tromp into the

deserts and jungles of Africa. But I have a lot stored up that I can do around Plains. So we're prepared for that — and we're obviously prepared, I'd say in a religious way

and psychological way, for inevitable death. YOUR GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER KILLED A MAN IN A GUNFIGHT. YOUR GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS STABBED TO DEATH IN A FIGHT, AND YOUR GRANDFATHER WAS SHOT TO

DEATH IN A FIGHT. ARE YOU KEEPING YOUR NOSE CLEAN? Well, I haven't been very belligerent in my life, maybe because of that ancestral background. I've been primarily devoted to

peacekeeping. I've stayed in a peaceful mood. _Charles Green, a former editor of National Journal, is a freelance writer._