David Hume Kennerly remembers the first time he photographed Jimmy Carter.
It was 1976, during Carter’s first debate with President Gerald Ford, and Kennerly was not a fan of the Georgia governor who had seemingly come out of nowhere to win the Democratic nomination.
“He was wearing that famous toothy grin, and I immediately disliked him, his smile and what he was trying to do to my boss,” Kennerly recalled with a laugh.
Kennerly was the chief official White House photographer for Ford, who was getting killed in the polls at the time by Carter and would later lose the election.
Carter and Ford shake hands before their third and final presidential debate, which took place in Williamsburg, Virginia, in October 1976.
“Carter was like really an out-of-left-field candidate,” Kennerly said in an interview with CNN. “He had not been on the national scene, but he had prepared for this for years. In retrospect, it was one of the most impressive campaigns probably ever run in America. … Of course, I didn’t appreciate that at the time whatsoever because I was Ford’s photographer.”
Over the years, Kennerly’s opinion of Carter would change — and much of that had to do with the example set by Ford, who was gracious to Carter through the presidential transition and would later become his friend.
“They got to know each other and discovered there was more to like than to not like, and it was very inspirational for me,” Kennerly said.
Carter and Ford attend a White House reception on the day of Carter’s inauguration in January 1977.
People hold campaign signs in Milwaukee in October 1976.
Ford and Carter walk together outside the White House in November 1976. Carter won the election earlier that month.
As Ford’s chief White House photographer, Kennerly was able to get exclusive access to many scenes from the transition, including Carter’s trip to the White House 20 days after the election.
“It was the first time Jimmy Carter had ever been in the White House, which is really kind of crazy,” Kennerly said.
Kennerly distinctly remembers one wide shot he took in the Oval Office, when Carter and Ford were shaking hands.
“That was the moment where Ford reached over and said, ‘Jimmy, I haven’t really congratulated you on winning.’ And there was no one else in there except me and them,” Kennerly recalled. The two men are far away from the camera, making the Oval Office seem especially vast, and Kennerly considers it a metaphor for the size of their job.
Another one of Kennerly’s favorite photos from that visit show White House chief of staff Dick Cheney, a future vice president, giving Carter the side-eye.
“He really didn’t like Carter. I mean, none of us did,” Kennerly said. “Ford was actually pretty sanguine about it, but we had all loved President Ford and kind of took it personally. The night he lost the election, I was very emotional about it.”
During the visit, Ford even showed Carter his private office.
“His private secretary, Dorothy Downton, is looking at Carter like he’d just gotten out of a spaceship,” Kennerly said of the photo atop this story. “Ford offered Carter that private office, which is literally right through the door, next to the Oval. But that was how embracing he was, and that’s what you do traditionally.”
White House chief of staff Dick Cheney looks at Carter during Carter’s trip to the White House in November 1976.
Carter and Ford attend a White House reception before Carter’s inauguration in January 1977. From left are Carter and Carter’s wife, Rosalynn; Ford and Ford’s wife, Betty; Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and his wife, Happy; and Vice President-elect Walter Mondale and his wife, Eleanor.
Carter sips a cup of coffee at the White House reception before his inauguration. Most outgoing presidents have attended their successor’s inauguration, according to David Hume Kennerly, Ford’s chief White House photographer and a presidential scholar at the University of Arizona.
Kennerly was also there taking pictures when Carter returned to the White House for his inauguration in January 1977. Carter and Ford attended a reception with their wives and shared coffee before heading to Capitol Hill for the swearing-in.
Kennerly couldn’t ride to the Capitol with them, but he was able to mount a camera with a wide-angle lens in the presidential limousine. A Secret Service agent riding in the front had a cable release to operate the shutter for Kennerly during the trip.
“At the end, when I retrieved the film, (the agent) said, ‘Oh, I don’t think the pictures are very good; they hardly talked to each other.’ I said, ‘No, that’s good!’ ” Kennerly recalled. “When I showed Carter that picture, many years later, he said it was an uncomfortable ride.”
Carter waves to the crowd after he was sworn in at the Capitol.
At the Capitol, Kennerly was just a few feet away from Carter after he was sworn in. As Carter waves to the crowd, Ford can be seen on the left.
“He’s the former president right then and there and I’m the former chief White House photographer right then and there,” Kennerly said. “I was out of a job as of 12:01 on January 20, and I immediately started shooting for Time magazine. That picture was taken for Time.”
While Ford’s successor was just getting started, there wouldn’t be one for Kennerly. Carter chose not to have a chief official White House photographer. He is the only president not to have one since Yoichi Okamoto was the first for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1963.
“Carter was sort of undoing the imperial trappings of the office as underscored by Richard Nixon,” said Kennerly, now a presidential scholar at the University of Arizona. Kennerly was also in the news a lot back then “with people I was dating and stuff like that. I didn’t care for it because it was uncomfortable to be on that side of the camera. But I had a lot of publicity. A lot of people knew who I was, and I guess I represented what (the Carter administration) didn’t want. Carter was carrying his own bags and wearing his cardigan — you know, man of the people sort of stuff.”
Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale meet in the White House in May 1977.
Carter still had a team of photographers — many of whom worked under Kennerly — but there was no one person, Kennerly said, who was given the same access to Carter that he was given to Ford.
“I think Carter suffered from not having a photographer who had good access to him,” Kennerly said. “He was an interesting guy. … I think if you have genuine entrée to somebody and are able to photograph them in action without posing for pictures — just like, showing them at work — I think you get a better sense of who they are. My mission wasn’t to make Ford look good or bad, but it was just to show him for who he was.”
After Ford’s term, Kennerly was able to photograph Carter here and there on assignment. He was in Washington during one of Carter’s greatest accomplishments, the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978, and he was able to convince Carter’s people to let him mount a camera in the limo again as Carter rode to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Carter shakes hands with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin after the signing of the Camp David Accords in September 1978.
People line Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, to welcome Americans who had been freed by Iran in January 1981.
William Daugherty, one of the Americans who had been hostage by Iran, is greeted by family members at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
A week later, Kennerly was at Andrews Air Force Base photographing the return of American hostages from Iran. The Iran hostage crisis had severely damaged Carter’s hopes of reelection.
“Of course, Carter’s presidency is remembered, in great part, for that, which is unfortunate,” Kennerly said. “I look at things from a historical context. Now we’re all these years from then, and Camp David really was what he should have been remembered for. Not the hostages, even though that happened on his watch.”
Kennerly’s career as a news photographer started in 1966, when he was 19 years old. He joined United Press International, a wire service, in 1967 and photographed his first president, Richard Nixon, during the 1968 campaign. He has photographed the last 11 presidents, including Johnson, whom he photographed after his presidency.
“Politics has really run through my veins and has been what my career is about,” said Kennerly, who also won a Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for his work covering the Vietnam War.
In 1981, Reagan hired Michael Evans to be his chief White House photographer, and the position has continued through Joe Biden and his official photographer, Adam Schultz.
Reflecting on the position today, Kennerly said it’s different than it used to be.
A big part of that is the sheer volume of photos being released — “way more stuff coming out, like a fire hose of pictures, just because of social media,” Kennerly said. “It’s changed a lot. But the mission itself hasn’t really changed. I think all of us who have been in the job, No. 1, our first priority is really the history of the presidency and the documentation of the presidency. And that was what I felt. Ford never said to me, ‘I didn’t like that picture’ or ‘You can’t take that.’ He really let me do my own thing.”
Carter offers a toast at the rededication of Ford’s presidential library in April 1997.
After Carter died December 29 at the age of 100, Kennerly looked through his archive and said he was blown away by how many good shots he had of Carter despite not covering him that much while in office.
He and Carter crossed paths many times over the years, and he said Carter remembered him and was always very nice to him — even though Kennerly said the former president could be “prickly” at times and didn’t suffer fools lightly.
“He was a very generous guy. He believed in his faith,” Kennerly said. “I didn’t get to know him that well, but I did get to see those sides of him. He just did things the way he wanted to do them.”
Carter is interviewed at the Carter Center in Atlanta in September 2011.
Carter and Ford’s relationship grew over the years as they collaborated on various issues and supported each other’s presidential libraries long after leaving office.
“They are a great example of how political rivals can become true friends,” Kennerly said. “They are a great lesson for the here and now, and it really has to do with two people being on the same page in order to have that happen.
“Gerald Ford was always such a great example for me about how you treat people and how you make decisions. He was the poster child for a person who was doing the right thing. And same with Jimmy Carter.”
