Billy Carter: Death of the First Brother

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, 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 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 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 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

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 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 Harry's dismobid Billy Carter September death of the first Brother. Therefore, 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.

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 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 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,

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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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? 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, 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 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

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, 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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, 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, 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. 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 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 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. 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. 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 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

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. 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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. 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 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. 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

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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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.

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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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. 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 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 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

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 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 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 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. 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,

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. 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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? 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. 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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, 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 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 hmmm