When Jimmy Carter’s got Canada on his mind

The following are remarks by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site's Boyhood Farm on April 30 at the book launch for Arthur Milnes of Kingston's volume Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: A Canadian Tribute. P LAINS, GEORGIA—This was my home from the time I was four years old until I went off to college and the navy was I was 16. But I don't believe I have ever remembered a more gratifying, pleasing and emotional experience than the last few moments have been. The comments from the principal of Queen's, and Art who has become almost a citizen of Plains, and Steve Paikin's delightful presentation and chairmanship and to have Kevin Imrie and James Campbell (Queen's University students) present me with this Canadian flag. It is almost overwhelming for me. I don't think you could find very many American citizens who don't look northward with great admiration and sometimes envy at the society that has been formed by Canadians. I have had my life touched on two very important occasions by Canada. In fact, Art has revealed one of those occasions in his book that has gotten attention by The New York Times, CNN, and the Economist magazine that hasn't been presented before and that is when I went to Chalk River (Ontario) in 1953. All of us lately have been watching with a great deal of concern and despair the meltdown of the nuclear reactors in Japan. The same thing happened in Canada. At that time the nuclear program was one of the most secret in the world and I was blessed to be one of the few young naval officers who was privy to those secrets. I worked for Admiral Hyram Rickover and I was in charge of the crew that built the second atomic submarine, the USS Sea Wolf. A very small number of people in the world were qualified to learn the secrets of the inner workings of a nuclear reactor. When the disaster took place at Chalk River and I was asked to go up there and help dismantle the very highly radioactive core of the reactor and it was a very difficult and potentially dangerous event but it had to been done. We went to Canada on a train. Nobody in the United States knew we were going; nobody in Canada knew we were coming. We got to that remote area and they had prepared the place for us. We would put on our white suits and all of our protective equipment and we would dash on to a tennis court where an exact replica of the core of the reactor was on the tennis court. We had the proper wrenches, vice-grips and hammers and we would dash on the tennis court and take off as many nuts and bolts as we could and then we would get away and they would put it back together and we would run on the tennis court and do it again until we had it as perfect as human beings possibly can be in doing as much work as possible in 90 seconds. That is all the time we had. Then we went down below into the reactor room. We dashed on the site there and in a highly radioactive environment, did our job. I had radioactive urine for six months and I thought I would never have another child but Amy came later. But it was an indication even in my early life of the remarkably close ties that exist between every Canadian citizen and every citizen in the United States. Many years later when I was President of the United States—all the way through 1980—very few events occurred in my White House experience that were so positively emotional and gratifying. Obviously one of the high points of my life was when the so-called Canadian Caper occurred. The Canadian Parliament went into secret session for the first time in more than 30 years to vote at the highest level that Canada could help protect six of my hostages that were hiding in Iran. Those six hostages went into the Canadian Embassy (in Tehran) and were protected for a long time. Eventually, at the right moment, I agreed and the Canadian Prime Minister agreed, that they should be evacuated from Iran pretending not to be related to the United States at all. I think you all will remember, those of you who are old enough, how the closeness of this event affected every citizen in the northern hemisphere when without having to do so, the entire Canadian Embassy staff—and your own government right up to the Prime Minister—put themselves in political and sometimes physical danger to rescue (choking up) six of my American friends. I was a very close personal friend of Pierre Trudeau's. He served the first two years I was President. I would say he was an international statesman and participated in all the international events I did. Later (in 1996) when Rosalynn and I went to Niagara Falls for our 50th wedding anniversary, Pierre Trudeau happened to be there at the same time with a little girl about three years old. I made the mistake of saying "What a beautiful granddaughter." In a very nice way he told me that she was not a granddaughter but his daughter. We had Joe Clark who was elected to be Prime Minister in 1979 and immediately Joe Clark and I became friends. Even in the last few months Joe Clark has participated as part of a Carter Center team helping us monitor difficult elections. We have been overwhelmed with gratitude and I would say unanticipated friendships that have developed between Art and Steve (Paikin of TV Ontario, the event's MC) and others who have been here to visit Plains. As you may know, Steve is incredibly able to extract information. When he was at the Plains Inn (in 2010) I couldn't imagine why he was so hospitable, he kept filling my wine glass every time it was half-full! I thought, what a nice guy he is. And then I found out later that he had extracted all my secret information that I have withheld from American reporters. And just a few minutes ago he talked me into doing something that has made my wife very angry; he talked me into revealing something about my wife's voting record and she's waiting to get me home so she can berate me privately. Rosalynn, it's Steve Paikin, it's not my fault! We hope you will all follow Art and Steve's example and come to Plains and visit us again. Thank you all for coming. Art, we are very proud of the book. You were exceptionally gracious for what you said about me and I will try to live up as best I can to your descriptions of the past and your expectations for the future. Thanks to the Canadians for coming to Plains and for being our brothers and sisters now and we hope, for many years into the future. Former American President Jimmy Carter delivered these remarks before an audience of about 100 Canadians who gathered for a special luncheon with former president and Mrs. Rosalynn Carter at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site April 30 to mark the release of the new book, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: A Canadian Tribute, edited by Arthur Milnes, Fellow in Political History at Queen's University Archives in Kingston. news@hilltimes.com The Hill Times