So he demonstrated as he answered the Senators' questions
"I am just an ordinary citizen from a small Southern community," said the nervous, chain-smoking witness before a Senate subcommittee last week. But little was ordinary about the fact that Billy Carter had come to the ornate Senate Caucus Room, the famed site of the Teapot Dome, McCarthy and Watergate hearings. He was there to testify under oath about his controversial relations with the government of Libya. Soft-spoken and attired in a three-piece suit, he was no longer playing his old role as the Carter family clown. Indeed, in concluding a carefully crafted 27-page opening statement, he said, "I hope this testimony will show in common-sense fashion that Billy Carter is not a 'buffoon,' a 'boob' or a 'wacko,' as some public figures have described him."
In this, Billy appears to have succeeded. And although his judgment in choosing friends and business associates may remain open to question, he performed rather well in responding to the Senate panel's two main lines of questioning: 1) Had he used his position as the President's brother to influence U.S. policy toward Libya, a radical country with which Washington maintains subzero relations? 2) What were the details involving the $220,000 that he had received from a Libyan bank? In nine hours of testimony over two days, the Senators learned little that was new about either matter. Billy confirmed that he had visited Libya in 1978 and again the following year; he had played host, in turn, to a Libyan delegation to Georgia in January 1979; he had tried to arrange, without success, for the Charter Crude Oil Co. of Jacksonville to obtain Libyan crude oil; and he had received one check from the Libyans for $20,000 in December 1979 and another for $200,000 the following April 1.
Throughout the testimony, Billy insisted that there was nothing wrong with these transactions. He conceded that he probably "had been invited [to Libya] because I was the brother of the President," but he maintained that he made it very clear to his hosts that he "had absolutely no influence" on U.S. policies. To show how pointless any such effort would have been, Billy told the Senators that "when Jimmy was Governor of Georgia," the state "repaved the streets of Plains with one exception — the small portion of street in front of my house."
As for the $220,000 from Libya, Billy insisted that it was simply an advance on a $500,000 loan. Senators greeted this claim with understandable skepticism, especially since no loan papers were signed and there was no documentary evidence of collateral.
When Senators demanded proof that the money was indeed just a loan, Billy said that there was "just my word."
The one surprise at the hearings was the disclosure that two of Billy's acquaintances, Farmer George Belluomini and Financial Consultant Ronald Sprague, both of Bakersfield, Calif, are being investigated by the Treasury Department for possibly having laundered funds connected with a drug smuggling operation. Subcommittee Special Counsel Philip Tone, however, made it clear that "the Government has no information that Mr. [Billy] Carter was in any way involved."