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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Protests are expected here in New York today when Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives for the United Nations General Assembly just after releasing one American hiker who crossed into Iranian territory but still holding two others. It's now been more than 30 years of tortured US-Iranian relations. I got to speak with former President Jimmy Carter this morning about the modern origins of that enmity when Carter admitted the former Shah of Iran into the United States for medical treatment in October of 1979.

The US had helped to prop up the unpopular Shah before he was overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian Revolution. President Carter has a new book called White House Diary, it's excerpts of the actual presidential diary that Carter kept, and he annotates it with his comments today. President Carter, thank you so much for coming back on WNYC.

President Jimmy Carter: It's a pleasure.

Brian Lehrer: Let's begin with October 20th, 1979, the day you wrote in the diary that you admitted the Shah of Iran to the US for medical treatment, and you wrote that you simply informed the Iranian government of your decision, even though the State Department wanted you to ask their permission. Why did you reject the State Department's advice on that?

President Jimmy Carter: I went back to President Bazargan and to Prime Minister Yazdi and got their commitment later on, which I got in the diary, that they would protect American interest if the Shah came here, provided the Shah didn't make any political statements while he was in America. He agreed to that. Then later when the hostages were taken, those two Iranian leaders resigned in protest because the Ayatollah Khomeini approved in effect the holding of our hostages. I had a complete understanding personally with the leaders in Iran that they would protect our interests there.

Brian Lehrer: The Iranian hostage crisis began on November 4th, 1979. On November 6th, you wrote in your diary that Khomeini was a crazy man, except that he does have religious beliefs and the name of Islam would be damaged if a fanatic like him committed murder in the name of religion against 60 innocent people. You wrote, "I believe that's our ultimate hope for a successful resolution." Looking back, of course, the hostages were not killed, but did you underestimate at the time what radicals were willing to do in the name of Islam?

President Jimmy Carter: I don't think so. I underestimated the length of time they would hold our hostages, but I didn't underestimate their threats against the hostages themselves. I sent word to Khomeini in November of '79 that if he put any hostage on trial, that we would interrupt all of Iran's commerce with the outside world, with blockades, with mining and so forth. If he injured or hurt a hostage, then I would attack Iran with military force. Of course, he never put a hostage on trial, and he never hurt or injured a hostage either, although that was what they were threatening at the very beginning.

Brian Lehrer: I guess my question is really about the view of religion, in that case, Islam as a moderating force at the time, rather than a radicalizing force.

President Jimmy Carter: I think it was, although, I was biased, I have to admit, when Ayatollah Khomeini approved the action of the militants. I've never thought that he knew ahead of time that they were going to invade our embassy and take our hostages as they did. I think he was caught by surprise, but then later he found it politically expedient to go along with what they were doing.

There's no doubt in my mind that their religion and also their fear of American retribution prevented their actually hurting a hostage. Later, one of the hostage developed a numb right arm, a young man from Maine, and immediately they released him to freedom and he came by and I met with him. They were very careful not to hurt a hostage, and they never put one on trial.

Brian Lehrer: On November 18th, 1979, you wrote in the diary that Fidel Castro agreed to help win their release. Why was Castro willing to intervene for the United States?

President Jimmy Carter: Castro and I were reaching out to each other then. We both wanted to have full diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, and we were able to get a listing, I did, unilaterally of all travel restraints on Americans, which had now been reimposed as you know, but we ultimately put an intersection in Washington and Cuba where we now have diplomats and they haven't been removed although my successors have not been as friendly toward Cuba as I was. I think Castro was trying to do what was right, and he was also trying to be somewhat friendly toward me at that time.

Brian Lehrer: On November 27th, you wrote that your Secretary of State Cyrus Vance threatened to resign because you said you would put America's honor ahead of the hostages' release. Specifically, you would never apologize to Iran, hand over the Shah for trial, or pay reparations. Why were you against letting the Shah be tried in Iran for his alleged crimes as a ruler?

President Jimmy Carter: I didn't think that we should succumb to blackmail and threats and to send the Shah back to Iran to be tried and executed was not something that I would have done. Also, I would never have apologized to the Iranian government, because we had nothing about which to apologize, and I would never pay them ransom for hostages either. I was holding the American reputation intact, and so that was one of the criteria that I faced.

By the way, as I have all the way through the diary, Cyrus threatened to resign three or four times before he finally did resign. Those were the kind of pressures I had on me. There were tremendous pressures on the right wing for me to bomb Iran or to launch a military attack, which I think would have resulted in death of all the hostages. There was some pressure on the other side to be more apologetic, and so forth, than I was inclined to do.

Brian Lehrer: Vance finally did resign, as you say, as Secretary of State on April 21st 1980, saying he could no longer support your policy toward Iran. What were the specifics of what he could not support?

President Jimmy Carter: Cy Vance had been involved, along with all of us, in planning the hostage rescue operation which failed. He was completely immersed in the planning for that. After we launched the rescue operation and it failed, then Cy Vance resigned in protest, and I appointed Ed Muskie to be my Secretary of State. It was a matter of personal disagreement. I might say that of all my cabinet officers, philosophically, I was probably more compatible with Cy Vance than I was anybody else.

Brian Lehrer: Correct me if I'm wrong, but the impression that I got from the diary was that the precipitating incident was that the Methodist bishops denounced US policy, Western imperialism, et cetera, in connection with the Iran crisis, and you wanted Vance to intervene with them and he felt he could not represent you in that. Is that correct?

President Jimmy Carter: That's one of the factors, yes. No matter who the Secretary of State might be, no matter what his basic philosophy might be, it's an obligation for Secretaries of State, and all of the Cabinet members to carry out the policy of the president, no matter how much they might disagree with it. The only alternative they have is to resign, and eventually, that's what Cy Vance did. Later after I left office, Cy Vance was one of my best friends when I came to New York on a visit and so forth. I stayed in his house, that was him and his wife and children, so we would reconcile later on. He had honest differences of opinion about what we should do.

Brian Lehrer: Here we are 30 years later, with President Ahmadinejad coming to New York today for the UN General Assembly, and almost a parallel situation, one apparently innocent American hikers being released, as you know, while two others remain held, as in effect, hostages. Have we now suffered 30 years of blow-back for US imperialism during the Cold War?

President Jimmy Carter: I wouldn't call it a US imperialism. I think that these hostages-- I don't call them hostages, now, they're just prisoners who violated Iraq sovereignty by crossing the border between Iraq and Iran, and they violated Iran's sovereignty, inadvertently, they claim and I go along with that. I just got back from North Korea, bringing out a prisoner who crossed the border from China, walked across a frozen river into North Korea, and was captured. We have to realize that those countries have very different frameworks of law and violations of their borders than we do. My hope is, obviously, that we'll soon see the release of the other two American so called hikers who inadvertently crossed the Iranian border.

Brian Lehrer: On the big picture of 30 years now of these kinds of relations with Iran, and whether it's all their fault or whether we owe them an apology on some level for past history, what do you think?

President Jimmy Carter: I don't think we owe any apology. They abused us more than we have them. You have to remember that after the Shah left, Iran, and after the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolutionary government took over, we immediately restored diplomatic relations between our country and theirs. I was willing to get along well with them. In fact, that's why we had diplomats in Tehran. It was because we did have full diplomatic relations with the revolutionary government in Iran.

My hope the last 30 years has been that we would reestablish diplomatic relations with Iran, have diplomats in Tehran so there would always be a constant avenue of communication between the United States and Iran, no matter how much difference we had of opinion on different issues.

Brian Lehrer: Your diaries refer to the Afghan freedom fighters after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, some of these people would become the precursors to Al Qaeda. Did you have any discussions at the time about the potential for an Islamist-oriented rebellion to turn against the United States given what was happening in Iran?

President Jimmy Carter: No, I did not. We were deeply concerned about a threat to American security from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan because if they had been successful in Afghanistan, they could very well have moved into Pakistan and other adjacent countries, and threatened all supplies of oil from that and almost region to the outside world. I was very stern about trying to restrain the Soviet advance.

We gave secret help to the freedom fighters in Afghanistan, who were ultimately successful in expelling the Soviet Union. I think the Al Qaeda people, once they came in from exile from Saudi Arabia, and Osama Bin Laden, and they were welcomed into Afghanistan by some of the former freedom fighters, but most of the freedom fighters, obviously, have never been involved with Al Qaeda although a few of them have.

Brian Lehrer: After your recent trip to North Korea, which you mentioned a minute ago to bring home an American, you came home saying North Korea wants to make a deal on its nuclear program and a comprehensive peace with the United States. After decades of recalcitrance, why would North Korea want to make a deal now?

President Jimmy Carter: They wanted to make a deal 16 years ago when I went over there, and we did work out a deal between me and the former leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung. Later, President Clinton adopted that agreement that I worked out and then later on, under the six power talks, it was reconfirmed. Unfortunately, there haven't been any peace talks with North Korea now since 2009. There's no doubt in my mind that the North Koreans now want to have the same peace deal that I worked out 16 years ago, but the United States won't talk to them and witnesses, to repeat myself, the last ever we made to even have direct talks with North Korea, even in a six power framework was now almost two years ago.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think the US goal should be with respect to some of the world's worst human rights violators like North Korea? Should it be a normalization of relations or more pressure to see a regime like that fall?

President Jimmy Carter: I don't think the sanctions work. I think, in generic terms, sanctions against the people of a country like Cuba, for now, more than 50 years, or North Korea, and so forth, I think they're counterproductive because they strengthen the regime with which we disagree. Now, the Cuba dictators, Raúl and Fidel Castro can blame all of their economic problems on the American sanctions.

The same thing is the case in North Korea where their sanctions are preventing our working toward a goal that all of us want, that is a denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula and a peace agreement or peace treaty between or among the United States and North and South Korea to replace the temporary ceasefire, which legally means that we're still at war and just suffering on a ceasefire. I think we ought to be much more accommodating, much more reaching out to find a common ground on which we can resolve these differences.

Brian Lehrer: President Carter, I know you have to go. Thank you so much for your time today.

President Jimmy Carter: I've enjoyed talking to you. You have some good questions and you knew what you're talking about. It's a pleasure. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, sir. My great pleasure. Jimmy Carter in an interview we recorded this morning. He will be making a bookstore appearance this afternoon here in New York, 12:30 at the Barnes & Noble at Broadway in 66th Street. Jimmy Carter at Barnes & Noble Broadway in 66th 12:30 this afternoon. David Simon from The Wire and Treme and more right here in a minute.

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