What Jimmy Carter Left Behind

In November 2010, former President Jimmy Carter visited my office in the White House, where I had just taken up the post of national security adviser. It was a reunion of sorts: at age 22, I had begun my career working for Carter, but far away from international affairs, serving as a staffer in the White House Congressional Relations Office. I went on to manage the 1980 Democratic National Convention, where Carter headed off a challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy, and then, after the president’s loss in the election that fall, I helped with his transition to private life in Atlanta, Georgia.