Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography from Plains to Post-Presidency

When Governor Carter of Georgia was exploring his candidacy for the presidency and made a TV appearance on What's My Line?, the panel failed to guess his job. The White House, in any case, seemed an improbable goal for a Southern Baptist who considered politics sinful. This latest biography, as critical of Carter's crucial shortcomings as it is admiring of his sometimes painful integrity, hews to the standard portrait of Carter as the quintessential do-gooder unwilling or unable to embrace political necessity. Bourne is a former associate both in local politics and at the White House who has also published a life of Fidel Castro. Despite his background as a psychiatrist, he is not deeply probing. In his perspective, Carter's ideals and impulses are open and require no sessions on the biographical couch. According to Bourne, political naivete and rural Southern stubbornness made Carter reluctant to accommodate ethical compromises and pragmatic bargains. Isolating himself among too many Georgia cronies (Bourne is particularly tough on Hamilton Jordan), he ran an inept if well-intentioned presidency that foundered on domestic inflation and the Iran hostage dilemma. Bourne bases his research not only on the archives but on his own experience with Carter and his wife, Rosalynn (whom Bourne sees as a spousal power more effective than Hillary Clinton), and interviews with contemporaries. This is the most reliable biography thus far. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Feb.) FYI: Jimmy Carter's spiritual autobiography, Living Faith (Times Books), has begun to turn up on general trade as well as religious bestseller lists.