November 1, 2019 • 50 mins
America has a long tradition of unruly presidential brothers, none more famous than Billy Carter. He became so well-known for his antics, there was even a brand of beer named for him. Mo speaks to President Jimmy Carter and Billy's widow and six children about the surprisingly complicated man behind the caricature.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
President Carter is on the line. Hello, Mr President, this
is Morocca. Thank you very very much for speaking with
me this morning. Most talk to you got one of
my favorite service. This isn't a prank call. I'm actually
on the phone with President Jimmy Carter and we're not
talking about Habitat for Humanity or his Nobel Peace Prize. Um.
(00:24):
What what are your fondest memories of your brother? Billy?
H good human hard work. Back when Jimmy Carter was president,
his younger brother Billy wasn't just known to insiders. He
became the most famous person family, ladies and gentlemen, I
give you the first brother of America, Billy Carter. Billy,
(00:46):
you are a fantastic You could make a Carreon, show
business anything. Billy Carter became a bona fide celebrity. Mama
Field as small as one of the boys. You can
see Brother Billy. This brother Billy Carter is on the
cover of Newsweek magazine holding a can of his new beer,
Billy Beer. Yes he even had his own beer, which
(01:09):
I remember him plugging on TV. Is the best beyond
ever taste, and I've tasted a lot. As a presidential
history buff I've long been fascinated by first families and
the striking pattern of unruly presidential brothers. They go way
back to John Quincy adams brother Charles, who was described
(01:33):
as a madman possessed by the devil Ulysses as Grant's
brother Orville got mixed up in a kickback scheme. And
remember Roger Clinton. I have one of his CDs. Roger
(01:54):
became such a nuisance that his secret Service code name
was Headache. Really, but no other presidential brother made headlines
the way Billy Carter did. Billy's doing great. He's making
five hundred thousand dollars a year lecturing and acting, while
Jimmy Carter makes two hundred thousand dollars a year lecturing
(02:15):
and acting. It was all in good old boy fun
until the character became a caricature, getting mixed up in
a truly bizarre international scandal and adding to the woes
that would cost his brother reelection. He started out as
a national amusement. He's become a national liability. He was
trying to be who the press had tried to turn
(02:38):
him out to be. A written brother with the help
of his family, will tell the story of the real
Billy Carter. I'm the president, brother, right, I'll play it
to the hill, to the Hill from CBS Sunday morning,
and Simon and Schuster, I'm Morocca and this is mobite
(03:00):
Harry's dismobid Billy Carter September death of the first Brother. Therefore,
(03:26):
I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice
President Ford will be sworn in as president at that hour.
In this office was the first presidential election since the
trauma of Watergate and Richard Nixon's resignation two years earlier.
(03:48):
Vice President Gerald Ford had taken the reins a kind
of caretaker commander in chief, best remembered for this a full,
free and absolute pardon under rich Nixon for all offenses
against the United States, which he America was looking to
renew itself, so it turned to a peanut farmer from
(04:12):
Plains Georgia. Jimmy Carter was a man on a mission.
The future of our counch is not in my hands,
it's in your hands. And I want to elevate the
spirits of our nation. He put a friendly face on
his own story of spiritual rebirth that managed to appeal
(04:35):
to religious and non religious people. America would be born
again with him as president, even though he had been
governor of Georgia. Carter seemed to come out of nowhere.
There was intense curiosity about him and his family. Every
family is different, unique. If I have a doubt that,
(04:56):
I have to look at my own family. Look. Historians
can argue about his single term in office, but there's
no question the Carter family belongs in the Hall of
Fame for sheer colorfulness. There was the matriarch, Lillian Carter,
better known as Miss Lillian. You know how today everyone
just throws around the word authentic, Well, Miss Lillian was
(05:18):
the real thing. Here she is describing how she disciplined
the future president. When we got a whipping. People asked me,
what was he hit with aboard a bell? There's a
little you know what a pas tree switches. That's what
it was out of That's what it is. And her
four kids were the ultimate variety pack. First came Jimmy,
the teetotaling, squeaky clean former naval officer. Then King's sister Gloria,
(05:44):
who was named most Outstanding Female motorcyclist in America in
eight well most of the time, and then I ride
some big ones too. Next up was Ruth the faith healer.
Morally Safer profiles her for sixty minutes. Do you think
(06:04):
that this country I can use a lot of healing.
I think the country is desperately in need for heley
and bringing up the rear. Thirteen years younger than Jimmy
was Billy. I have one such as hotory preaching. I've
got one of the motor cycle out, I got a brother.
I feel I'm almos slaying one of the family. I
want to stay in plains now. Maybe it's because I'm
(06:26):
from Maryland, but I have a little trouble understanding him.
What he said there is that he was the only
sane one in the family. There was a clear family
resemblance between Billy and Jimmy. Both had big, toothy grins,
but Billy was a little heavier set and wore thick, blocky,
black framed glasses the kind of today would be totally hip,
(06:47):
but not back then. I just remember saying when I
first met him, those glasses look awful. And what I'm
sure that endeared you to him, and now we want
to say it to him. What's what? What was those
crazy glasses? That's Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather he
(07:08):
profiled Billy back in January seven. We went to planes
a few days ago to spend some time with Billy,
to find out if he is, as he is so
often painted, just another South Georgia redneck. Billy Corner was
genuinely entertaining. Whether you liked him or not, agree with
you or not, he was entertaining. He was good for
a laugh. Did you like him when he went down there?
(07:30):
I loved him. I liked him, and I liked his family.
I liked everything about it. What Dan found in Billy
was a man of surprising depth. But what about these
stories do you read? Oh? And how many books a
week lately? I've been going to go three? Maybe four?
I read off one day one night. In the piece,
(07:50):
Billy seems utterly unimpressed by the network newsman who has
come down to interview him. Somebody told me that you
said most report is goodn't get a job doing anything else.
That's right about on whalefaith, it wasn't quotas And I
still say that. H the writing reporters take the news
off the ap and U P I and about of
(08:12):
the television reporters get the information reproducing and what the
hell goes on? And I've come through the only reason
anybody's a television porter because he can't read and write
at all. There were a lot of people who heard that,
and we're saying, you know what, old Billy is right.
And not only that, but he told that God damn
den rather write to his face. He won the anti
(08:34):
press primary. Right there, Billy talks about he's smoking six
five six, citing backs to day, and he's drinking. He's
drink anything with anybody, don't make no difference, would or
what time of the day of United is sure. There
are moments when he's just trying to get a rise
out of Dan. At one point, Billy claims that if
his brother hadn't been running, he devoted for segregationist George Wallace. Yeah,
(08:59):
I'm gonna want its dinner bad? How you putting me
on as kid of my wife got vot kid voters.
But overall watching him hold court with reporters and visitors,
it occurs to me what an asset Billy must have been.
At the beginning. I took a poll in playing John
(09:20):
who was the biggest songs and I want hands down.
While voters may have respected boy scout Jimmy. They liked
good old boy Billy. Now we'll probably talk about, well,
(09:42):
how much of the good old boy image that Billy
Carter put forward, how much of that was an act,
and how much of it was What do you think?
What do you think? Do you think part of it
was an act? I think part of it became an act,
but I don't think it started that way. Okay, So
(10:02):
we are entering Planes, Georgia now, and this is one
of the few presidential hometowns I've not been to. It's
always been on my list. End here it says on
the side of the building, Planes, Georgia, home of Jimmy Carter,
our thirty ninth President. Planes is a small town in
southwest Georgia. This is Peanut Country, population seven hundred, but
(10:28):
during the Carter years it was inundated with thousands of
tourists daily. If Planes became a circus, Billy was center
ring Billy Carter's service station museum. And I think I'm
guessing at that Civil Carter right there, I'm greeted by
Civil Carter, Billy's wife of thirty three years. Very good,
(10:52):
wait wait great, well, I love that. That's very thank you.
So much. She introduces me to three of their six children.
Him there was the oldest Kim, middle child Buddy, how
are you, God Morocco, and the youngest of the family, Earl.
He was born at the tail end of the ninety
(11:12):
six campaign. How are you? Yeah? Yeah, I want to
go in and see the station. I recognize this filling
station from the Dan Rather piece. It was here that
Billy parried with the press and talked it up with tourists.
I feel like I've stepped back into the nineteen seventies.
(11:33):
And look at that coke machine. If you knew the
right combination, you could get beer out of it. Is
that right, are you? Billy loved beer so much that
he did something unusual when he bought his station with
Sybil back in seventy two. Well, the story goes that
Billy always wanted his own personal bar and he's sold
(11:55):
beer and that was as far as he could go.
You know, So a bar and a filling station, which
is which in and of itself is kind of a
filling station. I got's a bar today. It's a quaint
little museum devoted to Billy. Um. There's a bust of
Billy All magazine cars at least two newsweeks. Yeah, the
(12:16):
memorabilia is mine. I just realized that this may be
the only first Brother museum. Probably there's a healthy quotient
of kitch here. The patchwork overalls Billy wore on he hall,
a shoe jacket lined with what else a picture of Billy. Well,
(12:40):
but it cross It's one of those things that it's
so hideous it crosses over into being break. And then
there's this a letter from a six year old Billy
to his older brother Jimmy. This is uh, dear Jimmy,
I want to see you. How are you? I made?
I'll lay's and bees love William Alton Carter When I
(13:05):
read that, that's the kind of letter you write to
your father, right right. William Alton Carter was born on
March ninety seven. Tell me about Billy, your youngest child.
He's eighteen. He is younger than Jimmy, and he didn't
come along with the other children. He was a baby,
(13:27):
and he was a little spoiled maybe, but he was
a good boy. That's Dan Rather. Speaking to Miss Lilian
back in ninety seven, Jimmy says that I've always loved
Billy the best. Maybe I did because we were so close.
Was he a little bit of a mama's boy? Now
he was not really, I don't think he was. He
(13:49):
was his daddy's son. He worshiped his daddy. Billy's father,
James Earl Carter Sr. Was known as Mr Earle. He
ran the family peanut business. Jimmy left for the Naval
Academy when Billy was just six years old, so the
brothers didn't really know each other in those early years. Billy,
working alongside his father, dreamt of taking charge of the
(14:12):
business one day. But in nine Mr Earl died of
pancreatic cancer. Billy was just sixteen. I mean, he lost
his hero. That's Billy's son, Buddy. And I think it
was understood that my dad was going to carry on,
you know, he was gonna you know, fall in vented
his footsteps and go through. But when he died, you know,
(14:35):
everything suddenly changed. That future wasn't there anymore, because you know,
Jimmy had to come back after Mr Earl's death, and
through the front door came big brother Jimmy. He was
going to take over. So he's wondering, who the hell, Jimmy,
who are you doing stepping in here and telling me
what to do. And uh, I think that's when he started,
(14:55):
you know, losing his way a little bit. I think
they were both stubborn. Think Jimmy is very stubborn and
Billy was at times. In fact, Billy once wrote, as
they say in the South, I'm bad stubborn. Ask anyone
who knows me. He said, the best way to get
him to do something was to tell him he couldn't.
Sibyl can vouch for this. She and Billy were childhood sweethearts.
(15:20):
They got married just after Billy joined the Marines. He
was eighteen, Sybil was just sixteen. I was right on
the burde of seventeen. We got married in August and
I was seventeen in November. You were so young, but
you were sure. Oh absolutely. I felt like I would
never be bored being married to Billy, and I can
(15:40):
honestly say that in the thirty three years that we
were married, I was never bored one day. I don't
know that I've ever heard a better encapsulation of why
someone shows their life partner. Then I didn't want to
be bored. Yeah. Absolutely. Billy stayed in the Marines for
four years. He and Sybil began raising a family. It
(16:04):
was during this time that he began to drink and
get into fights. After his time in the service, he
worked some odd jobs and even returned to the family
warehouse for a brief time, where he clashed with Jimmy.
He moved to Atlanta, where he enrolled in college but
dropped out. Then in nineteen sixty two, he got a call.
(16:24):
Jimmy was entering local politics and needed help with the business.
Billy was needed back in planes. He packed up the
family and headed home. We raised about within ninety about
body bibs pins raising Union state. Funny enough, Billy was
allergic to peanuts, but not too hard work, as Buddy remembers.
(16:47):
So my dad would go out, you know, four thirty
in the morning. He might be standing around the bed
of a pickup truck with some farmer thirty miles down
the road in the middle of phil either drinking a
cup of coffee or you know, nipping from a half
painters something, you know, just ending. But he was out there.
He could he understood the farmers, and he could talk
to him a lot easier than that my uncle could.
He was the hardest work I Elverys saw and he
(17:10):
always was small in his face. And do you think
that that was one of the happiest times in his
life when he came back and and was and was
running the business. Well, he never did run the business.
I actually I ran the business and stuff, he said,
when I was going away from home. And uh, but
he was. He was very good at it. But I
(17:31):
made the basic decisions. Still, I was a senior partner.
There's no doubt about that. M By all accounts, this
returned to planes was a more stable time for Billy
and his family. He wouldn't be for long. My name
as Jimmy Carter, and I'm running for president. You coming in.
(18:02):
I'm at the home of Civil Carter, Billy's widow. It's
just down the road from the service station and right
next door to Jimmy and Rosalind's presidential compound. Let me
introduce you to my girls. How do the ride is?
My girls are Janna, Marley and Mandy. Jana is the
(18:23):
second oldest of Billy and sybil six kids, Marley's number
four and Mandy's number five, and that the living room
is covered with family photos. A small painting of Billy
hangs in the center in the front Hall. There's a
beautiful full length portrait of Miss Lilian. What's that famous
(18:43):
story when somebody say, are you proud of your son?
Which is great? And she met that. Even though Jimmy
Carter had been in Georgia politics for more than a decade,
he was still largely unknown on the national scene. Jimmy
Carter Jimmy. When Jimmy told his family that he was
(19:05):
running for president, their reactions weren't much different. I can
remember Ms Lillian saying, president of what I think everybody
was shocked. Was Billy enthusiastic about this? Yeah, yeah he was.
He was. He loved Jimmy and he felt like he
felt like Jimmy would make a good president. He did.
(19:25):
In recent months, the town of Planes has been virtually
taken over by promoters as the tourists continue to flock
in by the thousands. In the beginning, it was all
of who, Me and Buddy who always doing stuff to
the tourists. Of all the siblings, Jana seems to me
to be the most like her dad. We we let
some oranges rotten. The tour train would come by and
(19:47):
with oranges that the train, Yeah, that was nothing. Years later,
Billy talked about the circules. It affected that everybody in planes,
me more so than most people. I was only available
with Carter. You know. I couldn't go in and drink
(20:08):
a bill or walked downtown without having four pictures taken,
which I enjoyed part of. Sometimes I wanted sometimes I
didn't want it. You know, people have no idea how
being the president affects the rest of your family. I mean,
it was just, you know, and it was fun for
a while. But but it's funny when you think about
what it would be like today. I always say we
would have a reality so dat he was still leaving.
(20:29):
Our next point of interest will be the home of
Billy Carter. It's the great house on the left with
the basketball goal in the yard. Billy lives there with
his wife Sybil, and their six children. The lack of
privacy got so bad that the family leader moved to
another town twenty miles away. It was hard. I worried
(20:50):
a lot about my kids and h but as far
as you know, wanting jim And to win and and
and be the president. And of course we were all
behind him and we loved to and campaigned for him.
When Jimmy won the Democratic nomination for president. He gave
special thanks to Billy, saying quote, without you, it couldn't
have happened. You stayed home and kept everything going. That November,
(21:15):
Jimmy Carter was elected the thirty ninth President of the
United States. Let's time for Rush to get together the
correct our mistakes. That's a difficult questions, and to make
god nations right. Just before the inauguration, the press asked
former President Lyndon Johnson's brother Sam Houston Johnson to comment
(21:35):
on Billy. Sam had battled with alcohol and at times
with his older brother. Sam's two word advice for Billy
be careful. Yeah, oh my word. I'm watching Billy's kids
(21:59):
as they watched themselves in that ninety seven Dan rather
peace when the fair Fawce thatt one comes up, best man.
The girls are shrieking at their nineteen seventies hair dues
or in the case of baby Earl, lack of hair.
(22:20):
But mostly they're transfixed by their dad to keep from
crying because it does make me a little bit of
By the time of that interview, just weeks before Jimmy
entered the White House, Billy was already a household name
and surprisingly self aware. You said to me yesterday you
(22:43):
thought you might have created a Frankenstein monster. What do
you mean by that? I like my would my, I
don't say act about Riddennick. I don't know what to
do with it. Now. You saw the crowd, he saw
the crowd yesterday. I think Hope was a little bit
too far. He was trying to be what the press
(23:04):
had tried to turn him out to be, a written
neck brother, and he would play to that, and he
would he would tell out landy stories just to see
what the press would do. So he was smart as
a whip, and the press made did he look stupid?
He was not stupid. I can't stand that. But Jenny,
(23:25):
you hated that, you hated the assumptions that people made.
Now that really was fake news. Patting and Dan rather
wouldn't call the story that he did fake news, but
he concedes that it was a bit more entertainment than news.
While I thought the peace turned out very well, I
do think we got the essence of Billy Carter in
(23:47):
the piece. Uh did we play something to the caricature?
I'm sorry to say, yes, boy, it's hard right not
to indulge that because the audience wants that. You know
that people watching at home wanted to hear him be
a little bit of a redneck, and he knew that
as well. Dan pointing out something else about Billy that's
less funny, Well, his eyes darted a bit. That's interesting.
(24:09):
Why do you what do you think that was about?
I think he spoke to his sense of vulnerability and
lack of confidence as somebody who has worn glasses that
are much thicker than the ones I wear. Now I
really mean this, you kind of hide behind them. I
never had thought of that. Billy admitted that he'd been
a shy kid due to a stutter, something that would
(24:31):
return from time to time when he was uncomfortable. He
also had this nervous laugh, really more of a giggle. Well, good,
no question, I said out, What was your dad's sense
of humor like at home? Depending when he came home.
We literally used to look out the window to see
(24:51):
the expression on his face because we we knew when
he was in one of his moods or not when
he was in a bad mood. We scattered. But when
he said the moods did that depend on drinking or
just this is the first sense I'm getting from the
kids that their father's drinking was a problem, and when
their uncle became president, it only got worse. When Jimmy
(25:15):
Carter went into the White House, the peanut business went
into a blind trust run by a lawyer in Atlanta.
When Billy tried to buy the business, he was turned down,
and so he quit altogether. And so in place of peanuts,
he made a career out of being Billy Carter. He
upgraded his look to leisure suits, traded in his black
(25:38):
rimmed glasses for wire framed aviators, and got himself a
Nashville based agent named Tandy Rice. I think everybody I know,
including you, has a little Billy Carter. Any Soon enough,
the president's kid brother was raking it in. The President's
brother Billy Carter well got another ten thousand dollar fee
a week from tomorrow He'll play on Billy's Redneck Power
(26:02):
softball team. Attended barn dance, and just generally be himself. Apparently,
he appeared at mall openings, he judged, and of course
participated in an international belly flop contest. And no matter
the venue, Billy always had a drink in his hand. Wonderful,
(26:24):
that's socialite celebrity Ja Ja Gabor. She gushed over Billy
when they appeared together with Sybil on the MERV Griffin
Show for a segment on marriage. Vidal Sassoon was also there.
Quick aside, I first learned the word pizzas while watching
Sassoon's a daytime TV show. Here's my favorite part of
the MERV Griffin appearance. Dined on a peanut from the
(26:48):
peanut grows on a tree? Or where does it grow?
I never thought of that either. Billy showed off his
range playing a rare trem attic role in the TV
movie Flatbed Annie and Sweetie Pie. I'm sorry to tell you,
Mr Rosa Jackson the hospital in Los Angeles. He's been
(27:08):
in an accident, night hijacking or something. There were stunts
like a tennis tournament with Bobby Riggs and Chris Effort.
Tell you the truth. I have never held tennis reag
in my hand in my life. The former president sums
up this period. He was famous people uh in order
to get published it for himself, and he just had
(27:29):
a good time. He was on he Hall. Also, I
know he's learning from a pet but now he needs
me and he's still but I still can't figure out
what to do with the outside of peanut. That's the
whole problem. Before a while, being Billy was big business.
(27:53):
Mr Carter is giving his famous brother Billy has some
credit for helping out with the country's economic problems. He
says that Billy is pretty well put the beer industry
back on its feet. Yes, Billy Beer perhaps the strangest
and yet most on brand manifestation of the Billy phenomenon.
Hey that Billy Carter ought to know what a great
(28:13):
beer tastes like. He had this Billy Beer brewed especially
for him. No, that's a commercial for Billy Beer. It
had a pretty great tag line. It's the best beyond
the taste, and I've tasted a lot. The white, blue,
and orange cans have become something of a collector's item.
Just to ask Homer Simpson, we elected the wrong Carter.
(28:41):
Since Billy had become synonymous with beer drinking, it seemed
only natural to pair the two. Falls City Beer, based
in Louisville, convinced Billy to lend his name to his
own personally selected specialty brew God Awful Stuff. Dan rather
remembers Billy Beer terrible ston. I have very vivid membership
(29:02):
trying to get down that Billy beer. He wasn't a fan.
He tried to get the dogs to drink it. That
told you told me something when the dogs wouldn't drink it.
Billy himself later admitted that it was the worst stuff
he'd ever tasted, and that you had to be an
alcoholic to drink it. By this time, beer wasn't even
his drink of choice. He moved on to vodka and whiskey.
(29:24):
The beer venture was short lived. Sales flatlined, the brewery
went bust, and Billy's reputation began to sour. He went
from being you know, the funny, you know, down to earth,
blue collar brother to the president, to be in some
kind of villain, and Billy became more than a mere
nuisance for Jimmy. More on that in a minute, but
(29:46):
first an installment of black Sheep brother trivia. Sibling scandals
seemed to come with the territory of being president, especially
when money comes into play. Meet Donald Nixon, younger brother
to Richard Nixon. Back in the fifties, he had a
(30:08):
chain of restaurants featuring a Nixon Burger. During Richard Nixon's
nineteen sixty run for the White House. An unsavory loan
that Donald had received from billionaire Howard Hughes came to light.
Nixon lost the election. When Richard Nixon finally made it
(30:28):
to the White House, his little brother was still at it.
Just listen to Don try to pitch the president on
a new water filtration project breakthrough that this man I
happen to be to go one of them the foundest fellows.
One fellow is a big supporting Murphy, a wealthy fellow.
(30:53):
To me, it's less about what Don is saying and
more about the President's tents. Uhuhuh oh. When it turns
out the President not only tried tapping the d n
C headquarters at the Watergate complex, he was also surveilling
his own brother. The surveillance involved not what he was
to it. The surveillance involved what others who were trying
(31:17):
to get him, perhaps to use improper influence and so forth,
might be doing, and particularly anybody who might be forward country.
As for Billy Carter, he did come under foreign influence.
Billy Carter and the Libyans Libya. It turned out they
both needed each other and may have tried to use
(31:39):
each other, the Libyans to open the door to America
Billy to get back on his feet financially. This was
a scandal which came to be known as Billy Gate
and involved Billy Carter's questionable dealings with the government to Libya,
which was looking for friends in high places. Among other things,
they wanted to get their hands on some C one
thirty transport plane. Here it is in a peanut shell.
(32:03):
After he was introduced to some Libyan officials in the US,
Billy was invited over to Libya in the fall of night.
I thought he was crazy, franctly, I thought he was crazy.
What did he say he was going to do? Well?
He did? He just didn't know, you know, they wanted
(32:24):
his help. Georgia, Belly Carter, the President's brother, is being
host to an unofficial goodwill delegation of businessmen from Libya,
a nation with whom diplomatic relations have been strained. And
then the Libyans came to planes. Which sounds like the
title of a movie or a book. Yeah, the Libyans
arrived in Georgia all under the auspices of friendship. Their
(32:46):
visits started with a shall we say, unfortunate leak to
the press. There's this huge story. I don't know if
he ever read it about He's waiting for a plane
somewhere and drink a lot of beer and he takes
a leak on the harmac on the turn back. Everybody
in South George's peat outside at one time or another,
I mean, and Billy stepped out of the car and
(33:08):
relieves himself against the side of a building. That's our
president's brother. That's the way you find Billy's house and planes.
You just follow the yellow brick roads, right. Irresistible material
for Johnny Carson. Saturday Night Live had some fun with
it too, playing Billy Gary busey uh uh if I
(33:34):
if I uh embarrass you for something I said, uh
or someplace that used I want to apologize. But Billy
was spouting off in more controversial ways, making comments some
viewed as anti Semitic to defend his dealings with the Libyans.
(33:57):
When you say there a hell of a lot more
Arabs and Jews and you're in expressing your feelings, what
did you mean? I mean Harmonion, the Raven Nation and
three million Jews pros and Carter told NBC News today
that he loves his brother Billy, but hopes the American
people understand he cannot control what Billy Carter says and
(34:17):
that it would be counter productive to try. By this point,
Billy became persona on Grotta on the speaking circuit, and
his income soon dried up. So why not make a
return trip to Libya? So he said, Honey, I'm going
to Libya. We're going. When you went with it, and
what was it like, Well, you get off the plane
(34:37):
and there are people walking up and down military with oozies,
And that was my first clue as to I think
I need to go back to planes. How is the food? Ah,
the food was when I got to the point where
I saw two eyeballs on the plate, I said, no,
(35:00):
I'm just not very hungry today. Sybil may not have
picked up any recipes, but Billy did come away with
a two d dollar loan. Maybe not illegal, but definitely
not a good look for the White House. In August,
believe made the covers of both Newsweek and Time. President
(35:20):
Carter remembers the news being kind of turned on Billy.
He had been there, darling, and he became kind of
a arial right. Well, when when, as you say, when
the when the press turned on him, that must have
been very painful for you. Well, it was because I've
been a lot of my time he were defending Billy
(35:42):
to the press instead of instead of explaining my foreign
policy and the best policies to the news media. This
is a CBS News special report, a presidential news conference
during the most urbulent moment of his presidency, with Americans
(36:03):
held hostage in Iran and a flagging economy, plus an
ugly fight within his own party for re election. And
now I'd like to say a word about my brother's
relations with Libya. President Jimmy Carter interrupted primetime television for
over an hour to address concerns over his brother Billy's shenanigans.
(36:24):
As all of you know by now, Billy is a
colorful personality. We are personally close. I love him and
he loves me. Billy is extremely independent. On occasion he
has said, I don't tell Jimmy how to run the country,
and he doesn't tell me how to run my life.
(36:44):
Imagine having to answer to the entire country and the
world for your little brother meddling in the Middle East.
Billy has had no influence on US policies or actions
concerning Libya in the past, and he would have no
influence in the future. Mr Carter, would you please take
the oath you swear that what you're about to say
(37:08):
as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Three weeks later, Billy himself testified before a Senate subcommittee. Mr. Chapman,
I hope this testimony will show, in common sense fashion
that Billy Cart is not a buffoon, a boo boy wacko,
as some public figures have so so described him. I
am a common common citizen with uncommon financial and family problems.
(37:30):
I won't restill order. He later wrote, quote, Jimmy and
I have never sat down and talked about my deal
with Libya. It's probably just as well if we ever
started talking about Libya, he might want to kill me.
Of course, none of this stopped Billy from talking to
the media. Can you stand another four years of this?
Or I can't stand about anything. I would I like
(37:52):
to uh we own is. I would like to compliment
Captain Pearson Long Beach, Bable Hospital. I haven't had a
drink you and all this, and I think I think
I said in something program. Did you catch that? In
the middle of this fiasco, Billy Carter had entered treatment
for alcoholism. Billy Carter ten pounds later off alcohol and
(38:12):
cigarettes too. After six weeks at the Navy treatment center.
In April ninety nine, Billy Carter admitted something to himself
and to the world. I am an I am an alcoholic,
and I do I think it is a disease, alcoholics acute.
I'm cute as long as I don't take a drink,
and once I take a drink, I'm not cute any long.
Billy said he was drinking half a gallon of vodka
(38:34):
a day before he quit. He was drinking to the
point where he was bloated and the only thing he
could hold on his stomach was buttermilk. Civil remembers their
doctor friend telling Billy that he would die if he
continued to drink. Soon after, he turned and he looked
at the children and he said, oh, I want you
(38:55):
to know that I'm an alcoholic and doum I have
to go away because I have to do something about this.
And the kids looked at him and said, Daddy, you
just realizing this. We've known it for a long time.
It's at this point I look back at all those
TV appearances and see Billy in a different light. He
(39:18):
had a serious problem and it was as plain as day.
Here's Billy's daughter, Kim. Did I get a kick out
of seeing him drunk? Somebody? No, I mean that that
was bad. Daddy was drinking all the time when the
four of us were growing up. Mandy doesn't run very
much of that at all. Remember it. Mandy was just
(39:40):
a young girl at the time, and Earl is so
much younger. He only remembers a sober Billy. But you,
it's different for you. It's different for me. I didn't
know him when he was an alcoholic. He gets sober
marks seventy nine, so I knew him after that, and
he was totally I grew up differently than they did.
And then Earl catches me off guard with something very personal.
(40:01):
The strangest thing is I don't recovering alcoholic and being
in a meetings and uh, people will come in and
not know. I don't tell people who I am when
related to people will ring my dad up, saying if
they saw him on TV and if he got sober,
then I can to Somebody will bring him up as
an example to aspire to, not knowing that you are
his son. My father is alive and well within the community.
(40:24):
Billy stayed sober for the rest of his life. He
said he could do it because he was bad stubborn.
For years, Billy and Sybil toward the country, speaking openly
about alcoholism and its effect on families. He would later write,
who's some good old boy Rednick and are relate to
when he winds up in jail drunk and can't remember
(40:45):
what he did to get there? Elizabeth Taylor Betty Ford
a psychiatrist or me? If he were allowed the day,
I think that would be the first thing that what
he would he would bring up about the good he's
in his life, you know, helping other people through alcoholism.
Jimmy Carter ended up getting walloped by Ronald Reagan in
(41:08):
the general election of He and Mondale won just six
states plus the district of Columbia. No one today blames
Billy for the loss, but he certainly didn't help. Jimmy
then began his distinguished post presidency as Billy faded from
the headlines. But even today, the kids received unwelcome comments
(41:30):
from unsuspecting strangers. Oldest daughter Kim remembers one incident when
she was working at the service station museum and one day,
this woman came in and she said, you know, it
was such a shame that he was the kind of
man he was. You know, his family must be so
ashamed of him, and his brother probably doesn't even like
to talk about him. And I, well, I popped my
(41:51):
big old butt up and I went to the door
and I said, ma'am, no, ma'am. I said, Billy Carter's
family is very proud of him and his brother, that
I loved him and still does. Well, how do you know?
And I said, because I'm his daughter, he was my daddy.
Are you sure? They're laughing, but none of the kids
(42:12):
seemed to miss the spotlight. Al He said, I don't
ever wish the family. I don't wish the other side
of the family for somebody to be president, because I
think more we were hard, more than good stuff came
out of it. I guess Billy never returned to the warehouse.
He did return to the airwaves doing a commercial in
(42:36):
that raised eyebrows. But I got two hundred thousand dollars
in Libya. A lot of people thought it was because
of my brother. I was giving them advice. Whether you
believe me or not, I'm going to give you some advice,
try to eat his grand light. Yes, Billy used the
Libya scandal to sell ice cream, but he was struggling financially,
and that wasn't nearly the extent of his personal misfortune.
(43:00):
That same year, Billy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the
same disease that took not only his father, but also
his sister Ruth and eventually his sister Gloria. It's not
clear if this was hereditary, environmental, may be caused by
farming chemicals, or just a terrible medical coincidence. Without blowing smoke,
(43:21):
I think it looked terrific, but I feel good. I
really feel good. And of CBS News paid a visit
to Billy. He was only fifty one, about my age now,
but the man on the screen looks far closer to
how Jimmy looks today at Billy had lost over fifty pounds.
(43:42):
By this point, Billy had moved back to planes and
he seemed in pretty good spirits, encouraged by thousands of
get well cards. Asked if he had any regrets. I
don't think I got to change anything. I think, knowing
mean as I do, I did something that you shouldn't
have done. And something that I should have one, and
if I had to do it again, I probably scowled
up worse than I did the first time. And so
(44:03):
I don't see that hindsight ain't worth a damn. He
was still one, Billy Carter repeating what he told his
doctor on my dying. But I want you to be
giving me a shot in the ass or something trying
to get me. Well, that's all I want to go
with it. Just three months after that CBS interview, on September,
(44:26):
Billy Carter died. He kept saying, Daddy's there and Mama's
waiting for me. I mean, he and he. This was
after hours of him not saying anything. He looked up
and they're there. He was seeing his dad, he was
seeing his little land. And then the last thing he said,
yeah's love to me. Tributes poured in. I mean it
(44:54):
was just flowers everywhere, arrangements and stacks of uh telegrams,
you know, on the table there. And Buddy remembers when
his uncle Jimmy came over to the house. And Uncle
Jimmy comes walking in and then he picks up those
telegrams stack this thing. I mean, we're from Bob Hope
rob Rait and uh, he says, civil who are all
these from and all these flowers? And Mom and said, well,
(45:18):
they're from there from Billy's friends. And he said, I
never knew he had so many friends. And it's not
because he didn't want to know. It's just that he
just he was busy running the world. But President Carter
says he always knew how loved his brother was. They
always had a group of friends around him. He loved
(45:38):
other people. He had ten times as many friends as
I did. All the men at the funeral removed their
ties in honor of Billy. It's been over thirty years
since Billy Carter died. For his kids, uncle Jimmy is
their last family connection. Here's Kim And I tell him,
I said, You're all we have last. You are all
(46:01):
we have left and and I want him and he
knows that. But when I look at him now, I
don't just see him, I see Daddy too. And here
is Janna. I got to miss and Daddy so bad
right for his birthday and um, which is in March.
And I emailed like a gimmy and I said, can
can I come see you? And he said, what's the matter?
(46:23):
I said, well, nothing, I just want to come talk
to you. So a couple of days I went and
he said, what's something. Did you need something, Jenna, And
I said, no, Sir, I said, I just want to
talk about that. I just miss him. And we sit
there and talked about him, you know, when he was
a little boy, and it just made me feel so
many And I told him the same thing. I said,
you're all we have left as far as dead again.
(46:45):
But you know, he said, Jenny, you come up here
anytime you want to him. We've talked about your daddy,
will talk about anything you want. You went up just
to talk to him about your yea, and it made
me feel a lot better. Yeah, when presidents leave off,
they get libraries and museums and eventually memorials. Presidential siblings
(47:07):
don't get any of that. Okay, Billy does have that
service station museum, which I highly recommend. It was really
good to talk about Vid. It just might us feel good.
At the end of my visit, Billy's daughter Janna told
me that nobody had ever really asked her about her
father before. She thinks maybe people were just scared. She
(47:30):
thanked me for coming down. I'm grateful to her and
her siblings, and Sybil for telling me about their lives
and about the man behind the caricature. Next time on
(47:51):
Obituaries we give a forgotten founding father the send off
he deserves. Thomas. That's your family. I certainly hope you
enjoyed this mobituary. If you would, please rate and review
our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram,
(48:14):
and you can follow me Morocca on Twitter at morocco.
For more great content about Billy Carter, please visit mobituaries
dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get
your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Megan Marcus.
Our team of producers also includes Harry Wood and me Morocca.
(48:37):
It was edited by Harry Wood and engineered by Dan
de Zula. Indispensable support from Kate mccauliffe, Genie Stanesky, Lucy
Kirk Shows Siment, Alberto Robina, Jason Sacca, Richard Rohrer, and
everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks to Jonathan Alter,
W T t W, the Carter Center, and of course
(49:00):
the Carter family for their hospitality. Our theme music is
written by Daniel Hart and as always undying thanks to
Rand Morrison and John carp without whom Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi,
(49:24):
It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I
invite you to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock
full of stories not in the podcast. Celebrities who put
their butts on the line, sports teams that threw in
the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies
(49:45):
that cratered whole countries that went to put and dragons, Yes, dragons,
you see. People used to believe the dragons will real
until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the
Book from any online bookseller, or stop by your local
bookstore and look for me when I come to your city.
Tour information and lots more at obituaries dot com. Mm
(50:08):
hmmm
President Carter is on the line. Hello, Mr President, this
is Morocca. Thank you very very much for speaking with
me this morning. Most talk to you got one of
my favorite service. This isn't a prank call. I'm actually
on the phone with President Jimmy Carter and we're not
talking about Habitat for Humanity or his Nobel Peace Prize. Um.
(00:24):
What what are your fondest memories of your brother? Billy?
H good human hard work. Back when Jimmy Carter was president,
his younger brother Billy wasn't just known to insiders. He
became the most famous person family, ladies and gentlemen, I
give you the first brother of America, Billy Carter. Billy,
(00:46):
you are a fantastic You could make a Carreon, show
business anything. Billy Carter became a bona fide celebrity. Mama
Field as small as one of the boys. You can
see Brother Billy. This brother Billy Carter is on the
cover of Newsweek magazine holding a can of his new beer,
Billy Beer. Yes he even had his own beer, which
(01:09):
I remember him plugging on TV. Is the best beyond
ever taste, and I've tasted a lot. As a presidential
history buff I've long been fascinated by first families and
the striking pattern of unruly presidential brothers. They go way
back to John Quincy adams brother Charles, who was described
(01:33):
as a madman possessed by the devil Ulysses as Grant's
brother Orville got mixed up in a kickback scheme. And
remember Roger Clinton. I have one of his CDs. Roger
(01:54):
became such a nuisance that his secret Service code name
was Headache. Really, but no other presidential brother made headlines
the way Billy Carter did. Billy's doing great. He's making
five hundred thousand dollars a year lecturing and acting, while
Jimmy Carter makes two hundred thousand dollars a year lecturing
(02:15):
and acting. It was all in good old boy fun
until the character became a caricature, getting mixed up in
a truly bizarre international scandal and adding to the woes
that would cost his brother reelection. He started out as
a national amusement. He's become a national liability. He was
trying to be who the press had tried to turn
(02:38):
him out to be. A written brother with the help
of his family, will tell the story of the real
Billy Carter. I'm the president, brother, right, I'll play it
to the hill, to the Hill from CBS Sunday morning,
and Simon and Schuster, I'm Morocca and this is mobite
(03:00):
Harry's dismobid Billy Carter September death of the first Brother. Therefore,
(03:26):
I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice
President Ford will be sworn in as president at that hour.
In this office was the first presidential election since the
trauma of Watergate and Richard Nixon's resignation two years earlier.
(03:48):
Vice President Gerald Ford had taken the reins a kind
of caretaker commander in chief, best remembered for this a full,
free and absolute pardon under rich Nixon for all offenses
against the United States, which he America was looking to
renew itself, so it turned to a peanut farmer from
(04:12):
Plains Georgia. Jimmy Carter was a man on a mission.
The future of our counch is not in my hands,
it's in your hands. And I want to elevate the
spirits of our nation. He put a friendly face on
his own story of spiritual rebirth that managed to appeal
(04:35):
to religious and non religious people. America would be born
again with him as president, even though he had been
governor of Georgia. Carter seemed to come out of nowhere.
There was intense curiosity about him and his family. Every
family is different, unique. If I have a doubt that,
(04:56):
I have to look at my own family. Look. Historians
can argue about his single term in office, but there's
no question the Carter family belongs in the Hall of
Fame for sheer colorfulness. There was the matriarch, Lillian Carter,
better known as Miss Lillian. You know how today everyone
just throws around the word authentic, Well, Miss Lillian was
(05:18):
the real thing. Here she is describing how she disciplined
the future president. When we got a whipping. People asked me,
what was he hit with aboard a bell? There's a
little you know what a pas tree switches. That's what
it was out of That's what it is. And her
four kids were the ultimate variety pack. First came Jimmy,
the teetotaling, squeaky clean former naval officer. Then King's sister Gloria,
(05:44):
who was named most Outstanding Female motorcyclist in America in
eight well most of the time, and then I ride
some big ones too. Next up was Ruth the faith healer.
Morally Safer profiles her for sixty minutes. Do you think
(06:04):
that this country I can use a lot of healing.
I think the country is desperately in need for heley
and bringing up the rear. Thirteen years younger than Jimmy
was Billy. I have one such as hotory preaching. I've
got one of the motor cycle out, I got a brother.
I feel I'm almos slaying one of the family. I
want to stay in plains now. Maybe it's because I'm
(06:26):
from Maryland, but I have a little trouble understanding him.
What he said there is that he was the only
sane one in the family. There was a clear family
resemblance between Billy and Jimmy. Both had big, toothy grins,
but Billy was a little heavier set and wore thick, blocky,
black framed glasses the kind of today would be totally hip,
(06:47):
but not back then. I just remember saying when I
first met him, those glasses look awful. And what I'm
sure that endeared you to him, and now we want
to say it to him. What's what? What was those
crazy glasses? That's Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather he
(07:08):
profiled Billy back in January seven. We went to planes
a few days ago to spend some time with Billy,
to find out if he is, as he is so
often painted, just another South Georgia redneck. Billy Corner was
genuinely entertaining. Whether you liked him or not, agree with
you or not, he was entertaining. He was good for
a laugh. Did you like him when he went down there?
(07:30):
I loved him. I liked him, and I liked his family.
I liked everything about it. What Dan found in Billy
was a man of surprising depth. But what about these
stories do you read? Oh? And how many books a
week lately? I've been going to go three? Maybe four?
I read off one day one night. In the piece,
(07:50):
Billy seems utterly unimpressed by the network newsman who has
come down to interview him. Somebody told me that you
said most report is goodn't get a job doing anything else.
That's right about on whalefaith, it wasn't quotas And I
still say that. H the writing reporters take the news
off the ap and U P I and about of
(08:12):
the television reporters get the information reproducing and what the
hell goes on? And I've come through the only reason
anybody's a television porter because he can't read and write
at all. There were a lot of people who heard that,
and we're saying, you know what, old Billy is right.
And not only that, but he told that God damn
den rather write to his face. He won the anti
(08:34):
press primary. Right there, Billy talks about he's smoking six
five six, citing backs to day, and he's drinking. He's
drink anything with anybody, don't make no difference, would or
what time of the day of United is sure. There
are moments when he's just trying to get a rise
out of Dan. At one point, Billy claims that if
his brother hadn't been running, he devoted for segregationist George Wallace. Yeah,
(08:59):
I'm gonna want its dinner bad? How you putting me
on as kid of my wife got vot kid voters.
But overall watching him hold court with reporters and visitors,
it occurs to me what an asset Billy must have been.
At the beginning. I took a poll in playing John
(09:20):
who was the biggest songs and I want hands down.
While voters may have respected boy scout Jimmy. They liked
good old boy Billy. Now we'll probably talk about, well,
(09:42):
how much of the good old boy image that Billy
Carter put forward, how much of that was an act,
and how much of it was What do you think?
What do you think? Do you think part of it
was an act? I think part of it became an act,
but I don't think it started that way. Okay, So
(10:02):
we are entering Planes, Georgia now, and this is one
of the few presidential hometowns I've not been to. It's
always been on my list. End here it says on
the side of the building, Planes, Georgia, home of Jimmy Carter,
our thirty ninth President. Planes is a small town in
southwest Georgia. This is Peanut Country, population seven hundred, but
(10:28):
during the Carter years it was inundated with thousands of
tourists daily. If Planes became a circus, Billy was center
ring Billy Carter's service station museum. And I think I'm
guessing at that Civil Carter right there, I'm greeted by
Civil Carter, Billy's wife of thirty three years. Very good,
(10:52):
wait wait great, well, I love that. That's very thank you.
So much. She introduces me to three of their six children.
Him there was the oldest Kim, middle child Buddy, how
are you, God Morocco, and the youngest of the family, Earl.
He was born at the tail end of the ninety
(11:12):
six campaign. How are you? Yeah? Yeah, I want to
go in and see the station. I recognize this filling
station from the Dan Rather piece. It was here that
Billy parried with the press and talked it up with tourists.
I feel like I've stepped back into the nineteen seventies.
(11:33):
And look at that coke machine. If you knew the
right combination, you could get beer out of it. Is
that right, are you? Billy loved beer so much that
he did something unusual when he bought his station with
Sybil back in seventy two. Well, the story goes that
Billy always wanted his own personal bar and he's sold
(11:55):
beer and that was as far as he could go.
You know, So a bar and a filling station, which
is which in and of itself is kind of a
filling station. I got's a bar today. It's a quaint
little museum devoted to Billy. Um. There's a bust of
Billy All magazine cars at least two newsweeks. Yeah, the
(12:16):
memorabilia is mine. I just realized that this may be
the only first Brother museum. Probably there's a healthy quotient
of kitch here. The patchwork overalls Billy wore on he hall,
a shoe jacket lined with what else a picture of Billy. Well,
(12:40):
but it cross It's one of those things that it's
so hideous it crosses over into being break. And then
there's this a letter from a six year old Billy
to his older brother Jimmy. This is uh, dear Jimmy,
I want to see you. How are you? I made?
I'll lay's and bees love William Alton Carter When I
(13:05):
read that, that's the kind of letter you write to
your father, right right. William Alton Carter was born on
March ninety seven. Tell me about Billy, your youngest child.
He's eighteen. He is younger than Jimmy, and he didn't
come along with the other children. He was a baby,
(13:27):
and he was a little spoiled maybe, but he was
a good boy. That's Dan Rather. Speaking to Miss Lilian
back in ninety seven, Jimmy says that I've always loved
Billy the best. Maybe I did because we were so close.
Was he a little bit of a mama's boy? Now
he was not really, I don't think he was. He
(13:49):
was his daddy's son. He worshiped his daddy. Billy's father,
James Earl Carter Sr. Was known as Mr Earle. He
ran the family peanut business. Jimmy left for the Naval
Academy when Billy was just six years old, so the
brothers didn't really know each other in those early years. Billy,
working alongside his father, dreamt of taking charge of the
(14:12):
business one day. But in nine Mr Earl died of
pancreatic cancer. Billy was just sixteen. I mean, he lost
his hero. That's Billy's son, Buddy. And I think it
was understood that my dad was going to carry on,
you know, he was gonna you know, fall in vented
his footsteps and go through. But when he died, you know,
(14:35):
everything suddenly changed. That future wasn't there anymore, because you know,
Jimmy had to come back after Mr Earl's death, and
through the front door came big brother Jimmy. He was
going to take over. So he's wondering, who the hell, Jimmy,
who are you doing stepping in here and telling me
what to do. And uh, I think that's when he started,
(14:55):
you know, losing his way a little bit. I think
they were both stubborn. Think Jimmy is very stubborn and
Billy was at times. In fact, Billy once wrote, as
they say in the South, I'm bad stubborn. Ask anyone
who knows me. He said, the best way to get
him to do something was to tell him he couldn't.
Sibyl can vouch for this. She and Billy were childhood sweethearts.
(15:20):
They got married just after Billy joined the Marines. He
was eighteen, Sybil was just sixteen. I was right on
the burde of seventeen. We got married in August and
I was seventeen in November. You were so young, but
you were sure. Oh absolutely. I felt like I would
never be bored being married to Billy, and I can
(15:40):
honestly say that in the thirty three years that we
were married, I was never bored one day. I don't
know that I've ever heard a better encapsulation of why
someone shows their life partner. Then I didn't want to
be bored. Yeah. Absolutely. Billy stayed in the Marines for
four years. He and Sybil began raising a family. It
(16:04):
was during this time that he began to drink and
get into fights. After his time in the service, he
worked some odd jobs and even returned to the family
warehouse for a brief time, where he clashed with Jimmy.
He moved to Atlanta, where he enrolled in college but
dropped out. Then in nineteen sixty two, he got a call.
(16:24):
Jimmy was entering local politics and needed help with the business.
Billy was needed back in planes. He packed up the
family and headed home. We raised about within ninety about
body bibs pins raising Union state. Funny enough, Billy was
allergic to peanuts, but not too hard work, as Buddy remembers.
(16:47):
So my dad would go out, you know, four thirty
in the morning. He might be standing around the bed
of a pickup truck with some farmer thirty miles down
the road in the middle of phil either drinking a
cup of coffee or you know, nipping from a half
painters something, you know, just ending. But he was out there.
He could he understood the farmers, and he could talk
to him a lot easier than that my uncle could.
He was the hardest work I Elverys saw and he
(17:10):
always was small in his face. And do you think
that that was one of the happiest times in his
life when he came back and and was and was
running the business. Well, he never did run the business.
I actually I ran the business and stuff, he said,
when I was going away from home. And uh, but
he was. He was very good at it. But I
(17:31):
made the basic decisions. Still, I was a senior partner.
There's no doubt about that. M By all accounts, this
returned to planes was a more stable time for Billy
and his family. He wouldn't be for long. My name
as Jimmy Carter, and I'm running for president. You coming in.
(18:02):
I'm at the home of Civil Carter, Billy's widow. It's
just down the road from the service station and right
next door to Jimmy and Rosalind's presidential compound. Let me
introduce you to my girls. How do the ride is?
My girls are Janna, Marley and Mandy. Jana is the
(18:23):
second oldest of Billy and sybil six kids, Marley's number
four and Mandy's number five, and that the living room
is covered with family photos. A small painting of Billy
hangs in the center in the front Hall. There's a
beautiful full length portrait of Miss Lilian. What's that famous
(18:43):
story when somebody say, are you proud of your son?
Which is great? And she met that. Even though Jimmy
Carter had been in Georgia politics for more than a decade,
he was still largely unknown on the national scene. Jimmy
Carter Jimmy. When Jimmy told his family that he was
(19:05):
running for president, their reactions weren't much different. I can
remember Ms Lillian saying, president of what I think everybody
was shocked. Was Billy enthusiastic about this? Yeah, yeah he was.
He was. He loved Jimmy and he felt like he
felt like Jimmy would make a good president. He did.
(19:25):
In recent months, the town of Planes has been virtually
taken over by promoters as the tourists continue to flock
in by the thousands. In the beginning, it was all
of who, Me and Buddy who always doing stuff to
the tourists. Of all the siblings, Jana seems to me
to be the most like her dad. We we let
some oranges rotten. The tour train would come by and
(19:47):
with oranges that the train, Yeah, that was nothing. Years later,
Billy talked about the circules. It affected that everybody in planes,
me more so than most people. I was only available
with Carter. You know. I couldn't go in and drink
(20:08):
a bill or walked downtown without having four pictures taken,
which I enjoyed part of. Sometimes I wanted sometimes I
didn't want it. You know, people have no idea how
being the president affects the rest of your family. I mean,
it was just, you know, and it was fun for
a while. But but it's funny when you think about
what it would be like today. I always say we
would have a reality so dat he was still leaving.
(20:29):
Our next point of interest will be the home of
Billy Carter. It's the great house on the left with
the basketball goal in the yard. Billy lives there with
his wife Sybil, and their six children. The lack of
privacy got so bad that the family leader moved to
another town twenty miles away. It was hard. I worried
(20:50):
a lot about my kids and h but as far
as you know, wanting jim And to win and and
and be the president. And of course we were all
behind him and we loved to and campaigned for him.
When Jimmy won the Democratic nomination for president. He gave
special thanks to Billy, saying quote, without you, it couldn't
have happened. You stayed home and kept everything going. That November,
(21:15):
Jimmy Carter was elected the thirty ninth President of the
United States. Let's time for Rush to get together the
correct our mistakes. That's a difficult questions, and to make
god nations right. Just before the inauguration, the press asked
former President Lyndon Johnson's brother Sam Houston Johnson to comment
(21:35):
on Billy. Sam had battled with alcohol and at times
with his older brother. Sam's two word advice for Billy
be careful. Yeah, oh my word. I'm watching Billy's kids
(21:59):
as they watched themselves in that ninety seven Dan rather
peace when the fair Fawce thatt one comes up, best man.
The girls are shrieking at their nineteen seventies hair dues
or in the case of baby Earl, lack of hair.
(22:20):
But mostly they're transfixed by their dad to keep from
crying because it does make me a little bit of
By the time of that interview, just weeks before Jimmy
entered the White House, Billy was already a household name
and surprisingly self aware. You said to me yesterday you
(22:43):
thought you might have created a Frankenstein monster. What do
you mean by that? I like my would my, I
don't say act about Riddennick. I don't know what to
do with it. Now. You saw the crowd, he saw
the crowd yesterday. I think Hope was a little bit
too far. He was trying to be what the press
(23:04):
had tried to turn him out to be, a written
neck brother, and he would play to that, and he
would he would tell out landy stories just to see
what the press would do. So he was smart as
a whip, and the press made did he look stupid?
He was not stupid. I can't stand that. But Jenny,
(23:25):
you hated that, you hated the assumptions that people made.
Now that really was fake news. Patting and Dan rather
wouldn't call the story that he did fake news, but
he concedes that it was a bit more entertainment than news.
While I thought the peace turned out very well, I
do think we got the essence of Billy Carter in
(23:47):
the piece. Uh did we play something to the caricature?
I'm sorry to say, yes, boy, it's hard right not
to indulge that because the audience wants that. You know
that people watching at home wanted to hear him be
a little bit of a redneck, and he knew that
as well. Dan pointing out something else about Billy that's
less funny, Well, his eyes darted a bit. That's interesting.
(24:09):
Why do you what do you think that was about?
I think he spoke to his sense of vulnerability and
lack of confidence as somebody who has worn glasses that
are much thicker than the ones I wear. Now I
really mean this, you kind of hide behind them. I
never had thought of that. Billy admitted that he'd been
a shy kid due to a stutter, something that would
(24:31):
return from time to time when he was uncomfortable. He
also had this nervous laugh, really more of a giggle. Well, good,
no question, I said out, What was your dad's sense
of humor like at home? Depending when he came home.
We literally used to look out the window to see
(24:51):
the expression on his face because we we knew when
he was in one of his moods or not when
he was in a bad mood. We scattered. But when
he said the moods did that depend on drinking or
just this is the first sense I'm getting from the
kids that their father's drinking was a problem, and when
their uncle became president, it only got worse. When Jimmy
(25:15):
Carter went into the White House, the peanut business went
into a blind trust run by a lawyer in Atlanta.
When Billy tried to buy the business, he was turned down,
and so he quit altogether. And so in place of peanuts,
he made a career out of being Billy Carter. He
upgraded his look to leisure suits, traded in his black
(25:38):
rimmed glasses for wire framed aviators, and got himself a
Nashville based agent named Tandy Rice. I think everybody I know,
including you, has a little Billy Carter. Any Soon enough,
the president's kid brother was raking it in. The President's
brother Billy Carter well got another ten thousand dollar fee
a week from tomorrow He'll play on Billy's Redneck Power
(26:02):
softball team. Attended barn dance, and just generally be himself. Apparently,
he appeared at mall openings, he judged, and of course
participated in an international belly flop contest. And no matter
the venue, Billy always had a drink in his hand. Wonderful,
(26:24):
that's socialite celebrity Ja Ja Gabor. She gushed over Billy
when they appeared together with Sybil on the MERV Griffin
Show for a segment on marriage. Vidal Sassoon was also there.
Quick aside, I first learned the word pizzas while watching
Sassoon's a daytime TV show. Here's my favorite part of
the MERV Griffin appearance. Dined on a peanut from the
(26:48):
peanut grows on a tree? Or where does it grow?
I never thought of that either. Billy showed off his
range playing a rare trem attic role in the TV
movie Flatbed Annie and Sweetie Pie. I'm sorry to tell you,
Mr Rosa Jackson the hospital in Los Angeles. He's been
(27:08):
in an accident, night hijacking or something. There were stunts
like a tennis tournament with Bobby Riggs and Chris Effort.
Tell you the truth. I have never held tennis reag
in my hand in my life. The former president sums
up this period. He was famous people uh in order
to get published it for himself, and he just had
(27:29):
a good time. He was on he Hall. Also, I
know he's learning from a pet but now he needs
me and he's still but I still can't figure out
what to do with the outside of peanut. That's the
whole problem. Before a while, being Billy was big business.
(27:53):
Mr Carter is giving his famous brother Billy has some
credit for helping out with the country's economic problems. He
says that Billy is pretty well put the beer industry
back on its feet. Yes, Billy Beer perhaps the strangest
and yet most on brand manifestation of the Billy phenomenon.
Hey that Billy Carter ought to know what a great
(28:13):
beer tastes like. He had this Billy Beer brewed especially
for him. No, that's a commercial for Billy Beer. It
had a pretty great tag line. It's the best beyond
the taste, and I've tasted a lot. The white, blue,
and orange cans have become something of a collector's item.
Just to ask Homer Simpson, we elected the wrong Carter.
(28:41):
Since Billy had become synonymous with beer drinking, it seemed
only natural to pair the two. Falls City Beer, based
in Louisville, convinced Billy to lend his name to his
own personally selected specialty brew God Awful Stuff. Dan rather
remembers Billy Beer terrible ston. I have very vivid membership
(29:02):
trying to get down that Billy beer. He wasn't a fan.
He tried to get the dogs to drink it. That
told you told me something when the dogs wouldn't drink it.
Billy himself later admitted that it was the worst stuff
he'd ever tasted, and that you had to be an
alcoholic to drink it. By this time, beer wasn't even
his drink of choice. He moved on to vodka and whiskey.
(29:24):
The beer venture was short lived. Sales flatlined, the brewery
went bust, and Billy's reputation began to sour. He went
from being you know, the funny, you know, down to earth,
blue collar brother to the president, to be in some
kind of villain, and Billy became more than a mere
nuisance for Jimmy. More on that in a minute, but
(29:46):
first an installment of black Sheep brother trivia. Sibling scandals
seemed to come with the territory of being president, especially
when money comes into play. Meet Donald Nixon, younger brother
to Richard Nixon. Back in the fifties, he had a
(30:08):
chain of restaurants featuring a Nixon Burger. During Richard Nixon's
nineteen sixty run for the White House. An unsavory loan
that Donald had received from billionaire Howard Hughes came to light.
Nixon lost the election. When Richard Nixon finally made it
(30:28):
to the White House, his little brother was still at it.
Just listen to Don try to pitch the president on
a new water filtration project breakthrough that this man I
happen to be to go one of them the foundest fellows.
One fellow is a big supporting Murphy, a wealthy fellow.
(30:53):
To me, it's less about what Don is saying and
more about the President's tents. Uhuhuh oh. When it turns
out the President not only tried tapping the d n
C headquarters at the Watergate complex, he was also surveilling
his own brother. The surveillance involved not what he was
to it. The surveillance involved what others who were trying
(31:17):
to get him, perhaps to use improper influence and so forth,
might be doing, and particularly anybody who might be forward country.
As for Billy Carter, he did come under foreign influence.
Billy Carter and the Libyans Libya. It turned out they
both needed each other and may have tried to use
(31:39):
each other, the Libyans to open the door to America
Billy to get back on his feet financially. This was
a scandal which came to be known as Billy Gate
and involved Billy Carter's questionable dealings with the government to Libya,
which was looking for friends in high places. Among other things,
they wanted to get their hands on some C one
thirty transport plane. Here it is in a peanut shell.
(32:03):
After he was introduced to some Libyan officials in the US,
Billy was invited over to Libya in the fall of night.
I thought he was crazy, franctly, I thought he was crazy.
What did he say he was going to do? Well?
He did? He just didn't know, you know, they wanted
(32:24):
his help. Georgia, Belly Carter, the President's brother, is being
host to an unofficial goodwill delegation of businessmen from Libya,
a nation with whom diplomatic relations have been strained. And
then the Libyans came to planes. Which sounds like the
title of a movie or a book. Yeah, the Libyans
arrived in Georgia all under the auspices of friendship. Their
(32:46):
visits started with a shall we say, unfortunate leak to
the press. There's this huge story. I don't know if
he ever read it about He's waiting for a plane
somewhere and drink a lot of beer and he takes
a leak on the harmac on the turn back. Everybody
in South George's peat outside at one time or another,
I mean, and Billy stepped out of the car and
(33:08):
relieves himself against the side of a building. That's our
president's brother. That's the way you find Billy's house and planes.
You just follow the yellow brick roads, right. Irresistible material
for Johnny Carson. Saturday Night Live had some fun with
it too, playing Billy Gary busey uh uh if I
(33:34):
if I uh embarrass you for something I said, uh
or someplace that used I want to apologize. But Billy
was spouting off in more controversial ways, making comments some
viewed as anti Semitic to defend his dealings with the Libyans.
(33:57):
When you say there a hell of a lot more
Arabs and Jews and you're in expressing your feelings, what
did you mean? I mean Harmonion, the Raven Nation and
three million Jews pros and Carter told NBC News today
that he loves his brother Billy, but hopes the American
people understand he cannot control what Billy Carter says and
(34:17):
that it would be counter productive to try. By this point,
Billy became persona on Grotta on the speaking circuit, and
his income soon dried up. So why not make a
return trip to Libya? So he said, Honey, I'm going
to Libya. We're going. When you went with it, and
what was it like, Well, you get off the plane
(34:37):
and there are people walking up and down military with oozies,
And that was my first clue as to I think
I need to go back to planes. How is the food? Ah,
the food was when I got to the point where
I saw two eyeballs on the plate, I said, no,
(35:00):
I'm just not very hungry today. Sybil may not have
picked up any recipes, but Billy did come away with
a two d dollar loan. Maybe not illegal, but definitely
not a good look for the White House. In August,
believe made the covers of both Newsweek and Time. President
(35:20):
Carter remembers the news being kind of turned on Billy.
He had been there, darling, and he became kind of
a arial right. Well, when when, as you say, when
the when the press turned on him, that must have
been very painful for you. Well, it was because I've
been a lot of my time he were defending Billy
(35:42):
to the press instead of instead of explaining my foreign
policy and the best policies to the news media. This
is a CBS News special report, a presidential news conference
during the most urbulent moment of his presidency, with Americans
(36:03):
held hostage in Iran and a flagging economy, plus an
ugly fight within his own party for re election. And
now I'd like to say a word about my brother's
relations with Libya. President Jimmy Carter interrupted primetime television for
over an hour to address concerns over his brother Billy's shenanigans.
(36:24):
As all of you know by now, Billy is a
colorful personality. We are personally close. I love him and
he loves me. Billy is extremely independent. On occasion he
has said, I don't tell Jimmy how to run the country,
and he doesn't tell me how to run my life.
(36:44):
Imagine having to answer to the entire country and the
world for your little brother meddling in the Middle East.
Billy has had no influence on US policies or actions
concerning Libya in the past, and he would have no
influence in the future. Mr Carter, would you please take
the oath you swear that what you're about to say
(37:08):
as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Three weeks later, Billy himself testified before a Senate subcommittee. Mr. Chapman,
I hope this testimony will show, in common sense fashion
that Billy Cart is not a buffoon, a boo boy wacko,
as some public figures have so so described him. I
am a common common citizen with uncommon financial and family problems.
(37:30):
I won't restill order. He later wrote, quote, Jimmy and
I have never sat down and talked about my deal
with Libya. It's probably just as well if we ever
started talking about Libya, he might want to kill me.
Of course, none of this stopped Billy from talking to
the media. Can you stand another four years of this?
Or I can't stand about anything. I would I like
(37:52):
to uh we own is. I would like to compliment
Captain Pearson Long Beach, Bable Hospital. I haven't had a
drink you and all this, and I think I think
I said in something program. Did you catch that? In
the middle of this fiasco, Billy Carter had entered treatment
for alcoholism. Billy Carter ten pounds later off alcohol and
(38:12):
cigarettes too. After six weeks at the Navy treatment center.
In April ninety nine, Billy Carter admitted something to himself
and to the world. I am an I am an alcoholic,
and I do I think it is a disease, alcoholics acute.
I'm cute as long as I don't take a drink,
and once I take a drink, I'm not cute any long.
Billy said he was drinking half a gallon of vodka
(38:34):
a day before he quit. He was drinking to the
point where he was bloated and the only thing he
could hold on his stomach was buttermilk. Civil remembers their
doctor friend telling Billy that he would die if he
continued to drink. Soon after, he turned and he looked
at the children and he said, oh, I want you
(38:55):
to know that I'm an alcoholic and doum I have
to go away because I have to do something about this.
And the kids looked at him and said, Daddy, you
just realizing this. We've known it for a long time.
It's at this point I look back at all those
TV appearances and see Billy in a different light. He
(39:18):
had a serious problem and it was as plain as day.
Here's Billy's daughter, Kim. Did I get a kick out
of seeing him drunk? Somebody? No, I mean that that
was bad. Daddy was drinking all the time when the
four of us were growing up. Mandy doesn't run very
much of that at all. Remember it. Mandy was just
(39:40):
a young girl at the time, and Earl is so
much younger. He only remembers a sober Billy. But you,
it's different for you. It's different for me. I didn't
know him when he was an alcoholic. He gets sober
marks seventy nine, so I knew him after that, and
he was totally I grew up differently than they did.
And then Earl catches me off guard with something very personal.
(40:01):
The strangest thing is I don't recovering alcoholic and being
in a meetings and uh, people will come in and
not know. I don't tell people who I am when
related to people will ring my dad up, saying if
they saw him on TV and if he got sober,
then I can to Somebody will bring him up as
an example to aspire to, not knowing that you are
his son. My father is alive and well within the community.
(40:24):
Billy stayed sober for the rest of his life. He
said he could do it because he was bad stubborn.
For years, Billy and Sybil toward the country, speaking openly
about alcoholism and its effect on families. He would later write,
who's some good old boy Rednick and are relate to
when he winds up in jail drunk and can't remember
(40:45):
what he did to get there? Elizabeth Taylor Betty Ford
a psychiatrist or me? If he were allowed the day,
I think that would be the first thing that what
he would he would bring up about the good he's
in his life, you know, helping other people through alcoholism.
Jimmy Carter ended up getting walloped by Ronald Reagan in
(41:08):
the general election of He and Mondale won just six
states plus the district of Columbia. No one today blames
Billy for the loss, but he certainly didn't help. Jimmy
then began his distinguished post presidency as Billy faded from
the headlines. But even today, the kids received unwelcome comments
(41:30):
from unsuspecting strangers. Oldest daughter Kim remembers one incident when
she was working at the service station museum and one day,
this woman came in and she said, you know, it
was such a shame that he was the kind of
man he was. You know, his family must be so
ashamed of him, and his brother probably doesn't even like
to talk about him. And I, well, I popped my
(41:51):
big old butt up and I went to the door
and I said, ma'am, no, ma'am. I said, Billy Carter's
family is very proud of him and his brother, that
I loved him and still does. Well, how do you know?
And I said, because I'm his daughter, he was my daddy.
Are you sure? They're laughing, but none of the kids
(42:12):
seemed to miss the spotlight. Al He said, I don't
ever wish the family. I don't wish the other side
of the family for somebody to be president, because I
think more we were hard, more than good stuff came
out of it. I guess Billy never returned to the warehouse.
He did return to the airwaves doing a commercial in
(42:36):
that raised eyebrows. But I got two hundred thousand dollars
in Libya. A lot of people thought it was because
of my brother. I was giving them advice. Whether you
believe me or not, I'm going to give you some advice,
try to eat his grand light. Yes, Billy used the
Libya scandal to sell ice cream, but he was struggling financially,
and that wasn't nearly the extent of his personal misfortune.
(43:00):
That same year, Billy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the
same disease that took not only his father, but also
his sister Ruth and eventually his sister Gloria. It's not
clear if this was hereditary, environmental, may be caused by
farming chemicals, or just a terrible medical coincidence. Without blowing smoke,
(43:21):
I think it looked terrific, but I feel good. I
really feel good. And of CBS News paid a visit
to Billy. He was only fifty one, about my age now,
but the man on the screen looks far closer to
how Jimmy looks today at Billy had lost over fifty pounds.
(43:42):
By this point, Billy had moved back to planes and
he seemed in pretty good spirits, encouraged by thousands of
get well cards. Asked if he had any regrets. I
don't think I got to change anything. I think, knowing
mean as I do, I did something that you shouldn't
have done. And something that I should have one, and
if I had to do it again, I probably scowled
up worse than I did the first time. And so
(44:03):
I don't see that hindsight ain't worth a damn. He
was still one, Billy Carter repeating what he told his
doctor on my dying. But I want you to be
giving me a shot in the ass or something trying
to get me. Well, that's all I want to go
with it. Just three months after that CBS interview, on September,
(44:26):
Billy Carter died. He kept saying, Daddy's there and Mama's
waiting for me. I mean, he and he. This was
after hours of him not saying anything. He looked up
and they're there. He was seeing his dad, he was
seeing his little land. And then the last thing he said,
yeah's love to me. Tributes poured in. I mean it
(44:54):
was just flowers everywhere, arrangements and stacks of uh telegrams,
you know, on the table there. And Buddy remembers when
his uncle Jimmy came over to the house. And Uncle
Jimmy comes walking in and then he picks up those
telegrams stack this thing. I mean, we're from Bob Hope
rob Rait and uh, he says, civil who are all
these from and all these flowers? And Mom and said, well,
(45:18):
they're from there from Billy's friends. And he said, I
never knew he had so many friends. And it's not
because he didn't want to know. It's just that he
just he was busy running the world. But President Carter
says he always knew how loved his brother was. They
always had a group of friends around him. He loved
(45:38):
other people. He had ten times as many friends as
I did. All the men at the funeral removed their
ties in honor of Billy. It's been over thirty years
since Billy Carter died. For his kids, uncle Jimmy is
their last family connection. Here's Kim And I tell him,
I said, You're all we have last. You are all
(46:01):
we have left and and I want him and he
knows that. But when I look at him now, I
don't just see him, I see Daddy too. And here
is Janna. I got to miss and Daddy so bad
right for his birthday and um, which is in March.
And I emailed like a gimmy and I said, can
can I come see you? And he said, what's the matter?
(46:23):
I said, well, nothing, I just want to come talk
to you. So a couple of days I went and
he said, what's something. Did you need something, Jenna, And
I said, no, Sir, I said, I just want to
talk about that. I just miss him. And we sit
there and talked about him, you know, when he was
a little boy, and it just made me feel so
many And I told him the same thing. I said,
you're all we have left as far as dead again.
(46:45):
But you know, he said, Jenny, you come up here
anytime you want to him. We've talked about your daddy,
will talk about anything you want. You went up just
to talk to him about your yea, and it made
me feel a lot better. Yeah, when presidents leave off,
they get libraries and museums and eventually memorials. Presidential siblings
(47:07):
don't get any of that. Okay, Billy does have that
service station museum, which I highly recommend. It was really
good to talk about Vid. It just might us feel good.
At the end of my visit, Billy's daughter Janna told
me that nobody had ever really asked her about her
father before. She thinks maybe people were just scared. She
(47:30):
thanked me for coming down. I'm grateful to her and
her siblings, and Sybil for telling me about their lives
and about the man behind the caricature. Next time on
(47:51):
Obituaries we give a forgotten founding father the send off
he deserves. Thomas. That's your family. I certainly hope you
enjoyed this mobituary. If you would, please rate and review
our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram,
(48:14):
and you can follow me Morocca on Twitter at morocco.
For more great content about Billy Carter, please visit mobituaries
dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get
your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Megan Marcus.
Our team of producers also includes Harry Wood and me Morocca.
(48:37):
It was edited by Harry Wood and engineered by Dan
de Zula. Indispensable support from Kate mccauliffe, Genie Stanesky, Lucy
Kirk Shows Siment, Alberto Robina, Jason Sacca, Richard Rohrer, and
everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks to Jonathan Alter,
W T t W, the Carter Center, and of course
(49:00):
the Carter family for their hospitality. Our theme music is
written by Daniel Hart and as always undying thanks to
Rand Morrison and John carp without whom Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi,
(49:24):
It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I
invite you to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock
full of stories not in the podcast. Celebrities who put
their butts on the line, sports teams that threw in
the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies
(49:45):
that cratered whole countries that went to put and dragons, Yes, dragons,
you see. People used to believe the dragons will real
until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the
Book from any online bookseller, or stop by your local
bookstore and look for me when I come to your city.
Tour information and lots more at obituaries dot com. Mm
(50:08):
hmmm
Host
Mo Rocca
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!