When Achsah Nesmith got the phone call offering her a job writing presidential speeches for Jimmy Carter, she turned it down. As the mother of two young children, she explained to Carter’s chief of staff, she just didn’t have time.
Nesmith quickly changed her mind, however, and called back to accept with encouragement from her husband, a fellow journalist who told her: “I can raise two babies.” She arrived at the White House right after Carter’s 1977 inauguration, becoming one of the first women to work as a speechwriter for an American president.
“She was not one to tout her own accomplishments,” Susannah Nesmith said of her mother. “She was always careful to point out that Betty Ford had a speechwriter who wrote for President Ford. And John Adams’ wife wrote some, if not all, of his speeches.”
Nesmith, who lived in Alexandria, Virginia, died March 5 following a brief illness at age 84. She prided herself on crafting speeches that enabled Carter to sound like himself, free of political double-speak and clichés, her daughter said.
“She was one of his favorite speechwriters by far. She just had his voice,” said Terry Adamson, who worked with Nesmith in the newsroom of The Atlanta Constitution before serving in the Justice Department during the Carter administration and later as Carter’s personal attorney.
Carter, 99, entered hospice care a year ago at his home in Plains, Georgia, and is the longest-living U.S. president.
