levels, ga – Jimmy Carter has already had months of media scrutiny as a devout Southern Baptist running for president. Then the 1976 Democratic nominee brought up sex and sin when explaining his religious beliefs to Playboy magazine.
Carter was not misquoted. But he was certainly misunderstood, since in the wide-ranging interview his thoughts were reduced to utterances of “lust” and “adultery” in the general imagination.
Almost half a century later, when 98-year-old Carter is given hospice care in the same south Georgia home where he once spoke to Playboy journalists, interviewer Robert Scheer still believes Carter was treated unfairly. He remembers the former president as a “real” and “serious” figure whose intentions were stifled by the intensity of a campaign’s closing stages.
“Jimmy Carter was a thoughtful guy,” Scheer, now 87, told The Associated Press. “But that got lost here. I’ve never seen a story like this before. It was worldwide. … It just never went away.”
A political disaster followed. Rosalynn Carter was suddenly asked if she trusted her husband. The aftermath, in Carter’s words, “almost cost me the election.”
Carter spent more than five hours on Playboy for several months — “more time with you than Time, Newsweek and all the rest combined,” the contestant told Scheer.
The resulting questions and answers ran to 12,000 words, and Scheer added thousands more in an accompanying story. Carter discussed military and foreign policy, racism and civil rights, political journalism, and his reputation as a “vague” candidate.
“They weren’t interested in sensationalism,” Scheer said of Playboy.
Hugh Hefner’s iconic publication is estimated to reach more than 20 million readers each month with its images of naked women. But the magazine also chronicled American culture with its branded “Playboy Interview,” which featured such power figures as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, Malcolm X and leading news anchor Walter Cronkite.
Carter, who wasn’t afraid of nuance, proved he belonged with them, Scheer said.
The nominees’ most memorable comments came at the end of their final session. Golson stood on Carter’s doorstep, urging Carter if his piety would make him a “rigid, unyielding president” unable to represent all Americans.
The Baptist deacon responded with an 823-word monologue on human imperfection, pride and God’s forgiveness. He said he believes in the “absolute and total separation of church and state,” stating his faith is rooted in humility, not judgment of others.
Carter quoted Matthew 5:27-28 and explained that Jesus Christ considered an abusive thought to be consummated adultery, and by that standard He was in no position to condemn a man who “makes a tabernacle” and “fucks many women.” , because he had “looked at many women with lust” and so “many times committed adultery in my heart.”
Scheer called it a “reasonable statement” that reflects Carter’s Baptist tradition: “He said, look, I’m not going to be a fanatic. … I’m not that perfect guy.”
Playboy recognized that Carter was providing explosive material — and not just about sex. Citing President Lyndon Johnson’s handling of Vietnam, Carter accused the last Democratic president, alongside disgraced Republican Richard Nixon, of “lying, cheating and distorting the truth.”
The magazine decided to send the full question-and-answer text to about 1,000 media outlets by the end of September, ahead of the usual October release date for the November issue.
The idea, Scheer explained, is to allow time for fair reporting rather than dropping bombs days before the election.
Headline writers, satirists, and late-night television all pounced on it anyway, dubbing it Carter’s “lust in my heart” interview. Saturday Night Live, then a fledgling NBC sketch comedy show, was having a big day. A political cartoonist depicted Carter lusting after the Statue of Liberty.
He complained to NPR in 1993 that the Playboy interview turned into “the #1 story of the entire 1976 campaign.”
“I explained Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount,” Carter wrote wistfully in his 2015 memoir.
As a candidate, Carter’s faith had endeared him to many other white evangelicals and cultural conservatives. That made him a difficult match for Republicans, who did not want the Democrats to keep up with most of America. The downside, Scheer noted, was the many young voters and urban liberals — key Democratic constituencies — who “wondered if he was that southern square.”
“Hamilton Jordan (Carter’s campaign manager) always called Carter’s beliefs ‘the weirdo factor,'” said media historian Amber Roessner, a professor at the University of Tennessee who has written extensively about Carter. “Talking to Playboy was her way of proving he wasn’t a prude.”
Scheer, who was with Carter as part of his traveling press corps, said Playboy’s early text release incited a frenzy.
“Reporters were racing around and asking me, ‘Bob, what is this?’ he remembered.
The touring press initially focused on Carter’s criticism of Johnson, who had died in 1973. It was a juicy detail because Carter was on his way to Texas to court Johnson’s widow.
Carter initially told reporters he was taken out of context. Scheer “ran back to the plane to get the tapes” and effectively caught the contestant violating his promise never to make a “misleading statement.”
Lady Bird Johnson skipped Carter’s Texas events, Scheer said. Carter apologized to her over the phone.
As his comment about adultery skyrocketed, Carter insisted the exchange was unofficial, a disposable banter as Scheer and Golson prepared to leave.
“He was still wearing the mic!” Scheer told AP.
The way the story shifted “made Carter seem like a creep,” Roessner said.
Rosalynn Carter offered a blanket answer: “Jimmy talks too much, but at least people know he’s honest and doesn’t mind answering questions.” And no, she never worried about his fidelity.
“The only lust I worried about was that of the press,” she wrote in 1984, recounting how her discipline finally collapsed when a reporter asked her if she had ever committed adultery.
“If I had,” she replied, “I wouldn’t tell you.”
Ford, who had caught up to Carter but was still lagging badly, capitalized on the story. The Republican president was an Episcopalian, spoke quietly about religion, but invited leading evangelical pastors to the White House the day after the interview was published, including Rev. WS Criswell of the Dallas First Baptist Church.
Criswell later explained from his pulpit that he had asked Ford, “Mr. President, if Playboy magazine asked you for an interview, what would you do?” Ford’s response, according to Criswell, “I was asked for an interview by Playboy magazine — and I declined with a resounding ‘no’!”
Thousands of his parishioners roared.
Rev. Billy Graham, the nation’s leading evangelist, and Rev. Jerry Falwell, the rising leader of the so-called religious right, also attacked Carter. National media, including The AP, highlighted the criticism from Christian pastors across the country.
Roessner, the daughter of a Protestant pastor, said Carter’s Playboy comments were awkward, “but if anyone got the context … it should have been the pastors.”
She recalled Carter’s resentment during an interview she did with him in 2014. Decades of global humanitarian work had given the former president a profile that transcended politics at the time, but “nearly 40 years later he clearly stuck to it,” she said. He said he was “still incredibly frustrated with what he felt was the unfair reporting and response.”
The 1976 campaign was the first since Nixon’s resignation, fueled by Washington Post reports, and many journalists demonstrated a new level of distrust of politicians, particularly one that Scheer described as “wearing his religion on his sleeve.”
Those same news organizations largely ignored what the soon-to-be president said about them, Roessner noted.
“The traveling press has no interest in any subject unless it’s about making a mistake,” Carter told Playboy. “There’s nobody in the back of this plane who would ask an important question unless they thought they could trick me into making some crazy statement.”
At least Scheer asked many political questions and looked back on Carter’s narrow victory just a few weeks later.
“Whatever they said, I think it did exactly what they wanted to achieve,” Scheer said. “That doesn’t mean they weren’t nervous.”
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