Jimmy Carter, flanked by Secret Service agents and accompanied by Lady Bird Johnson and Rosalynn Carter, appeared at the LBJ Library and Museum in April 1981. Photo: Frank Wolfe/LBJ Library
With former President Carter due to be buried tomorrow, we decided to look back at a post-presidency moment in which he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, visited Austin.
Flashback: When the couple touched down at the Austin Municipal Airport on April 1, 1981, ahead of a visit to provide Carter with ideas for his presidential library, a phalanx of security personnel met them.
The visit included trips to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, the LBJ Ranch and LBJ's childhood home.
The intrigue: Two days earlier, on March 30, John Hinckley had tried to assassinate then-President Reagan in Washington.
"A ring of Austin police officers and Secret Service agents surrounded the Carters as they descended from the Eastern Airlines jet," per a story in the Austin American-Statesman.
"Newsmen and the public were not allowed near the official party."
Of note: The Statesman reporter observed that "As usual, Carter carried his own clothes bag as he left the airplane."
The bottom line: Outside the library, 400 school children shouted "Jimmy! Jimmy!"
In brief remarks after he wrapped up his visit at the LBJ site, Carter said that he never met Johnson, but the visit to the library "was the second-best thing."
