William Neal Carter
From the Secret Service to the Rolling Stones, Bill Carter has led a fascinating life documented in his new book. He says that amazing things happen when you don’t plan for them.
BY JACK W. HILL ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Like a real-life Forrest Gump, albeit a quick-witted version, Bill Carter has found himself surrounded by famous folks throughout his career — but without any particular desire to do anything to call attention to himself, except that which was asked of him when he was a Secret Service agent and later a lawyer. While Carter was growing up in Rector, he knew he wanted to do something to make a living that would be easier than working in the cotton fields. The recent return of the Rolling Stones to central Arkansas reminded rock-music fans that it took an Arkansan, Carter, to spring Keith Richards and Ron Wood from a Fordyce jail. Those two Stones had errantly rolled into the town and found themselves on the wrong side of the local authorities. After telling that story for three decades — along with other tales that started with his time as a Secret Service agent for President Kennedy and continuing through adventures like retrieving Steve McQueen’s body from Mexico — Carter was convinced by daughters Julia and Joanna to put his memories into book form. The book, Get Carter: Backstage in History From JFK’s Assassination to The Rolling Stones, was published earlier this year by Fine’s Creek Publishing Co. in Nashville, Tenn. Carter has lived in Tennessee since 1981, when he gave up his Little Rock law practice, convinced he could better manage his clients Tanya Tucker and Reba McEntire from the heart of the country music industry. Now he lives on 40 acres in Lebanon, Tenn., with wife of two years, Marlow Herman, and their three horses and two dogs. “I had never kept any kind of a diary,” says Carter. “But after hearing my daughters asking me to write my life story down, I went back to the daily logs I had kept while in the Secret Service and started seriously thinking about all those things I was a part of, mostly starting with the Kennedy assassination [on Nov. 22, 1963]. I got hold of the Warren Commission files and found out that 15 of their file boxes had my name in them. I’d forgotten that. “I’m no writer, and I’m not a very good organizer, either. So I had to get an old friend, Judi Turner, to help me with the writing end. I still had the files from the Rolling Stones years, and a lot of stuff on Fred Smith when he was starting Federal Express, since his colleague, Frank Watson, was later my partner.” Old Carter pal Lindsey Fairley, who was along on the Fordyce caper, recalls how he made his appearance in court there, fashionably attired in his Bermuda shorts. “I was having a barbecue when I got the call from Bill about how the Fordyce gendarmes had nabbed those boys,” says Fairley from West Memphis, where the former judge practices law. “We had to fly down there, and it got a little dicey landing in their small airport, big pine trees on both sides. We took along this bail bondsman who didn’t much like flying. He got a rental car and drove it
back home. “I had gotten to know Bill when I was in the U.S. attorney’s office in Little Rock while he was with the Secret Service, and I’d sometimes ride with him when he was looking for somebody, and he always made his arrests in a professional manner. The Secret Service was in charge of counterfeiting, so he got to meet a lot of thugs in those days.” One of the things that no doubt helped spring Richards and Wood from their Fordyce predicament was their adherence to Arkansas liquor laws, Fairley figures. “Those boys had crossed over into West Memphis and stopped at the first liquor store they saw, and they must have bought a half-pint of everything that was on the shelf,” he says. “They all had their Arkansas tax stamps on them, which kept them out of more trouble than they were in at the time.” Carter came to the attention of the Rolling Stones thanks to experience he’d accumulated in his post-Rector years. He had gone into the Air Force, gotten out and taken a Civil Service exam when someone suggested he do so, since he had accompanied his brother to the test. Before long, the Secret Service offered him a job that he held until 1965, when he returned to law school. His Secret Service years were filled with times he had no trouble remembering. He accompanied Kennedy on an Arkansas visit and later guarded Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House after her husband was shot in Dallas. In the aftermath of that national tragedy, Carter interviewed Marina Oswald, the widow of Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby, the man who killed Oswald. As to why the Rolling Stones would have ever sought help from an Arkansas lawyer in the first place, Carter credits the legendarily powerful Arkansas congressional delegation in the 1960s and ’70s. In that era, several Arkansas legislators wielded power sufficient that even English rock stars, or their employees, found their way in 1973 to the office of the late U.S. Rep. Wilbur Mills, who steered them to Carter. ADVICE FROM MILLS “Congressman Mills explained to me what was going on then,” Carter explains, “how for political purposes the government was trying to deport John Lennon and Yoko Ono and keep the Rolling Stones from coming back into the country to tour. It was easy dealing with them the first several years, but when Keith got arrested for heroin offenses in Toronto in ’77, that was quite a bit more difficult to solve.” Judge Bill Wilson, who met Carter in the early 1970s when both were Little Rock lawyers, remembers how hectic the times were when Carter was known as the Stones’ American attorney. “I was working with Bill one day on a farm he had north of Morrilton, and he was on his back under a tractor or something, and a taxi pulled up,” Wilson says. “Some elegantly dressed lawyer from New York got out with a contract that Mick Jagger wouldn’t sign unless Bill Carter signed off on it. It was that summer of 1980, when it was 105 degrees or something, and this guy was in a three-piece suit. Bill, wearing a straw hat and with grease on his arms, never got up. He just initialed it and the guy went on back.” Wilson was also present when Carter got the call to help McQueen’s loved ones extricate his body from south of the border. “Being intimidated is not one of Bill’s faults,” Wilson laughs. “He’s a problem-solver. I don’t think he’ll ever die of boredom.” Retired Commercial Appeal reporter John Bennett, in Little Rock from 1968 to 1978, recalls some of Carter’s methods of making friends and influencing people during his Stones era. “At the time I was a reporter in Washington, D.C., and Bill called from the Dolly Madison Hotel and told me to come over,” Bennett says. “He said he was handing out tickets to some power people in Washington, so I went over and sat down, had a drink and just watched. It was like they were paying homage, these guys from the White House, State Department and Commerce Department. They would say that the tickets were for their kids. “I got some pretty good story tips from Bill, who was really wired to the power politicians in Arkansas. He’s a guy with a sense of humor, but with an ornery streak in him and always serious for his clients.” Another Carter friend and fellow lawyer, Richard Griffin, who moved to Houston in 1989, agrees about the special quality that has made Carter the man so many have gone to with their problems. AMAZING TALES TO TELL “He is one of the most convincing people you will ever talk to,” Griffin says. “He moves people. There’s nothing about him that’s not positive. He just wants you to get active, and the amazing thing is, I didn’t used to believe him when he would tell me these tales. “I said, ‘Bill, you’ve got to be kidding!’ He has always been the right person at the right time. One time he called me from a Stones tour in Dallas and told me to come down and meet them and go to dinner. So I called my son and had him meet me and we flew down, and did all that Bill suggested. My son and his friend have since then tried to convince their friends that this really happened to them. When my wife was back finishing college, she was taking a writing course and needed to interview someone. “Bill called and was in Pine Bluff with Reba McEntire and invited us to come and have lunch, and my wife asked if she could interview the singer. Bill said sure, and Betty, my wife, talked to her for an hour, and when she took her story to her class, the teacher and other students didn’t believe her. This time, we had a picture to prove it.” Former law partner Frank Watson, who lived in Little Rock several years before moving to Memphis, views Carter as akin to a great American hero. “He’s one of those John Wayne kind of characters, who gets things done, gets great results for his clients and business associates,” Watson says. “When I met Bill, it was when Winthrop Rockefeller was governor, and his man, John Norman Harkey, was the insurance commissioner. Well, he came to see me about doing an investigation of something, and he noted that Bill Carter had been appointed to the Game and Fish Commission by Gov. [Orval] Faubus, so he was suspicious, I guess. So they started investigating Bill, and found out he’d put more insurance crooks in jail than anyone else. So they became fans of Carter because of his work ethic and honesty.” During Carter’s years in Little Rock, he worked with Tanya Tucker, even getting the singer and her family to move into the Watergate Apartments, a stone’s throw away from his offices. “I worked with her for four years,” Carter says, “and it was another time when Congressman Mills helped fix things when she had some contract problems, and was only 16 years old at the time. We later convinced Rolling Stone magazine to put her on the cover, and she was the first Nashville artist to be given such treatment.” Later, Carter worked with Rodney Crowell, Shenandoah, Lari White and Lonestar. One of the more unusual encounters described in Carter’s book concerns Jimmy Hoffa, who at the time was fighting a bit of fine print in a government commutation that was designed to keep him from resuming power of the Teamsters Union: “I went to see President Nixon on Hoffa’s behalf, in the summer of ’74, when Nixon was more concerned with Watergate, and then Hoffa disappeared after losing his first round [of his legal battle], never to be seen again.” By 2003, Carter had decided to leave country music behind and work with gospel stars Bill and Gloria Gaither, who have packed central Arkansas’ Alltel Arena several times in recent years. “Bill [Gaither] couldn’t get gospel music on TV and was struggling,” Carter says. “He came to me and asked for help. He is the most nonjudgmental person I’ve ever met. He used to introduce me as ‘having worked with the Rolling Stones and now he’s working with us. He’s going in the right direction.’” Carter’s daughters have taken separate paths to success. Joanna is head of creative services at Capitol Records, and Julia and her husband have three restaurants in the Nashville area. BILLY GRAHAM’S STORY Carter is hoping he will be remembered, not so much for helping rock stars and celebrities in trouble, but for having been the executive producer of a recently completed Billy Graham documentary that aired Easter week on PBS stations and later on the Biography Channel. He spent two years organizing the footage on Graham and is “prouder of that documentary than anything I’ve done.” “I tell young people all the time, ‘Quit setting such high goals for yourself. Work hard today, and an opportunity will come to you. But if you set that high goal, you might not achieve it, and if you fail, you may start second-guessing yourself. I’m not saying I’m an example for anybody.” Unlike most aspiring authors, the aw-shucks Carter has made few plans to promote his book, saying he feels awkward about the whole situation. “I haven’t been that aggressive,” he says. “Talking about your own life, it’s just not that comfortable or easy to do. But I’m flattered everyone is interested. What you can see in the book is that I never planned anything in my life. I never planned to go to college; I never planned to go to law school; I never planned to go in the Secret Service. If there’s a message, I’ve worked hard and expected very little, but the harder I’ve worked, the more I’ve received. “My life has been blessed. I really feel like I’ve had spiritual guidance throughout my life, that’s opened the doors for me, and I’ve taken advantage of it. That’s not to say that I’ve not made mistakes, as when there are two paths, and I’ve chosen the wrong one, and probably known I was doing that. Maybe I’ve heard a voice asking me, ‘Now, Bill, are you sure you’re making the right decision?’ And you think, ‘Well, maybe not, but I kind of want to enjoy this for a while !’” SELF PORTRAIT Bill Carter DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH Jan. 19, 1946, Rector. IF I’VE LEARNED ONE THING IN LIFE, IT’S That God sent me here to learn two things — patience and unconditional love. While I’m a failure at patience, I’m proud that I’ve learned unconditional love. PEOPLE WHO KNEW ME IN HIGH SCHOOL THOUGHT I Was mischievous and probably that I wouldn’t amount to a great deal. THE LAST BOOK I READ WAS Soul Survivor, by Philip Yancey. I KNEW I WAS GROWN UP WHEN I stopped blaming my parents for my problems. MY FAVORITE GOSPEL SONG IS “Precious Memories.” MY FAVORITE ROLLING STONES SONG IS “Honky Tonk Women.” THE NUMBER OF ROLLING STONES CONCERTS I’VE ATTENDED IS 194, during three tours and a few other occasions. THE BEST ROLLING STONES CONCERT EVER WAS The HBO special filmed at Madison Square Garden in 2003 or 2004; never before had I seen them when they were all drugfree or didn’t have something interfering with their performance. THE BEST ADVICE I EVER RECEIVED CAME FROM Orval Faubus. I’d asked him for advice on something, and he said “Look within for the answer, and pray about it.” I’ve practiced that the rest of my life, and it’s worked very well for me. THE GUESTS AT MY FANTASY DINNER PARTY WOULD BE Mick Jagger, Wilbur Mills, Orval Faubus, Fred Smith (founder of Federal Express) and President John F. Kennedy. THE MENU FOR MY LAST MEAL WOULD BE Barbecued ribs. MY FAVORITE PLACE IN THE WORLD IS The mountains of North Carolina. For 11 years, I lived on top of a mountain, and it turned out to be across a valley from where Billy Graham lives. ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP Focused. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/KAREN E. SEGRAVE
