In 1972, Atlanta resident Marc Goldstein and his friends were about to depart on a 8,000-mile, post-high school graduation trip across the country in his brother’s VW camper.
It seemed like a good idea to take a document vouching for their character, and who better to supply it than then-Gov. Jimmy Carter?
Goldstein, now a Sandy Springs resident, said he and his “long-haired, scruffy” friends were planning a six-week, meandering camping trip all around the western United States and Canada.
“The way we looked could have been described as ‘pretty rough.’” he said. “Our parents felt like maybe we needed a letter just in case something happened.”
Using a friend’s connections to then-Gov. Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, the graduates asked for and received a letter from the man himself vouching for their character.
The Carter missive, typed on official stationary, dated June 18, 1972, said he was writing the letter “on behalf of my good friends Neil Gordon, Marc Goldstein, Mike Habif and Paul Rubin.”
“These young men reside in Atlanta, and they are outstanding citizens of Georgia,” the letter continued. “Any courtesies or considerations you might show them will be sincerely appreciated.”
Goldstein said the letter came in handy while they were trying to cross over the U.S.-Canadian border and got some pushback from the authorities.
“We showed them the letter and they let us go pretty quickly,” he said.
Goldstein got a chance to return the favor four years later, when he was working on a television truck for Ted Turner’s fledging station, WTCG, which later evolved into TBS, the nation’s first superstation.
Then president-elect Carter was holding a press conference to announce the appointment of Mike Blumenthal as his secretary of the treasury and Brock Adams as his secretary of transportation.
After it concluded, as Goldstein gathered up recording equipment to load onto the truck, he found Carter’s watch and his press conference script on the podium.
“The script was very precise, but it was folded over and there were notes written by Carter on the outside pages,” he said. “The watch itself was very basic, but there was an inscription on the inside of it that I can’t remember.”
Goldstein said his mother’s voice of reason resounded in his head, dismissing any ideas he might have had about keeping the watch as a souvenir.
“‘You’re a good boy and you gotta do the right thing,’ she would have said,” he said. “I went into the back room and asked if anyone from the Carter administration was still around, and then I gave the watch to Jody Powell [Carter’s press secretary],” he said.
Although Goldstein didn’t receive any tangible kudos for his act, Powell let him keep Carter’s press conference notes, which he still has to this day.
Goldstein said the two pieces of correspondence penned by Carter remind him of a more simple era.
“During that time, we thought we could do anything we wanted, right?” he said. “I doubt any of those things would happen today.”
