President Carter

Gerald Rafshoon is an American television producer, political operative and former communications director for President Jimmy Carter. We were happy to catch up with Rafsoon at the residence of The Ambassador of Germany and Mrs. von Voss-Wittig for a book party and conversation with Stuart E. “Stu” Eizenstat for his new book: PRESIDENT CARTER: The White House Years at The Berliner Salon moderated by Marvin Kalb, former Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for CBS and NBC.

The last time we chatted with Rafshoon was at his play Camp David that he produced for Arena Theater in May of 2014 with President and Mrs. Carter in attendance. “He tried to do a lot and he did a lot,” he said of his former boss. “If you ever said to him, ‘Don’t do this because it’s bad for our politics,’ he would ignore you. He got a lot of things done, but they weren’t always pretty. In general, he had a very outstanding record of getting a lot done – the Panama Canal Treaty, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation) – so many different things. He never took the political stance, you know, of doing less,” he told Hollywood on the Potomac. “He always wanted to do more; and if it hadn’t been for the hostages (Iran) the point is, if he had done something bellicose like bombing Iran, it might have killed the hostages, and he probably would have gotten him re-elected. A lot of people felt he had to take action, but he did the right thing. He froze their assets. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. I was with him not too long ago. He’s 93 years old and he still goes around the world trying to save people and he teaches Sunday school, every Sunday.”

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