Did Billy Carter cook the books of the family warehouse? ou know what the problem is? Yankees can't keep up with a fast-talking Georgia boy."
With that burst of regional pride, Jimmy Hayes, 32, tried to explain last week why a visiting reporter from the Washington Post, way up north, had interviewed him at length and then printed such a story. Hayes had good reason to be groping for an explanation: the Post had quoted him as saying that he and Billy Carter had deliberately falsified records concerning loans from the National Bank of Georgia to the family's peanut warehouse in Plains.
Hayes' differing interpretation of what Billy had done only further muddied an already murky situation. Since last fall, federal investigators have been examining the Carters' business records and the N.B.G.'s loan accounts to see if any illegal activity was involved in handling loans of more than $4.6 million to the Carter business. The loans were arranged by then N.B.G. President Bert Lance, the close friend whom Jimmy Carter later made Director of the Office of Management and Budget in Washington. One question was whether any of the funds had been used illegally in Jimmy Carter's campaign for the presidency. So far, no evidence has turned up that any money from the loans found its way into Carter's campaign or that he was involved in any bookkeeping irregularities.
Although a dozen FBI agents were assigned in January to probe the circumstances surrounding the bank loans, they bypassed Hayes until he had given a series of taped interviews to the Washington Post, which printed them last week. The Atlanta FBI chief immediately got a hotwire telephone call from Washington. Hours later, a pair of agents were on their way to interview the talkative source.
For eleven months in 1975 and 1976, Hayes worked for a collateral-monitoring firm that checked on the supply of peanuts held in the Carter warehouse. The peanuts served as collateral for the bank loans. As the peanuts were shipped out of the warehouse, Hayes was supposed to make sure that fixed portions of the loan were paid back to N.B.G.
Hayes told the reporter that frequently, after peanuts had left the warehouse, Billy Carter would put off signing the checks to the bank. Then, to cover up the lateness of payments, Hayes said, he and Carter would change the dates on warehouse release documents and date checks for weekends and holidays.
In a transcript of the Post interview, Hayes told Reporter Ted Gup: "That's what I call 'kitin' money.' "
Gup: You call it...
Hayes: Kitin' money
Gup: Gotten money?
Hayes: Kitin'. K-I-T-E-I-N-G [sic].
You know, like writing a bad check and beating it to the bank.
In addition, the Post quoted Hayes as saying that Carter had concealed a $500,000 deficit in payments on the N.B.G. loan.