Renowned gardener Tom Johnson, who helped former President Jimmy Carter landscape the grounds at his presidential library in Atlanta, is reflecting on Carter’s legacy after he entered hospice care over the weekend at his home in Plains, Georgia.
Johnson, the former executive director of Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston who now lives in Georgia, is recalling lessons he learned from the former president he called a friend.
In a Sunday interview, Johnson said Carter should be remembered for more than the botched military raid to rescue 52 American diplomats in Iran that led to a 444-day hostage crisis.
The 98-year-old Carter, the longest-living former president, has a legacy of helping people and attempting to change the world, said Johnson, who is now retired and living in westernGeorgia.
“A lot of what President Carter did that was good gets washed away” by the hostage crisis that began in late 1979. “One of his biggest legacies is how the man inspired others to go out to make their part of the world a better place.
“I heard him say one time that ‘There will be researchers and scholars who will spend the next 100 years studying a decision I had three minutes to make.’” Johnson said. “There are a lot of things he did that gets overlooked because the press focuses on the Iranian crisis” that led to the death of eight U.S. servicemen, who died in the failed rescue attempt.
“What were the other options?” Johnson asked. “We could have bombed [Iran], and the hostages could have been killed. So, looking at it now, they all came home to their families.”
Johnson, who spent a decade at the Carter Center beginning in 1986, has remained fond of the Carter family. He proudly declares that he began his horticultural career in his 20s with the Carters, and he is now on the board of directors of the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail Foundation.
Johnson and his wife, Mary Ann Johnson, who was director of operations at Magnolia, are frequent visitors to Plains, helping to replenish butterfly gardens at the Carter’s home and in the city.
Those visits to Plains, Johnson said, “have more significance, and they take on a special meaning now that President Carter is in hospice.”
Herb Frazier, who is the special assignments editor at the Charleston City Paper, is the former public relations and marketing manager at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.
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