A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  The soul safari wound up with visits to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he was received by the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Emperor Haile Selassie, a longtime friend of Evangelical missions. After Ethiopia Graham drew 10,000 people to a rally held under a giant crimson tent in Cairo, apparently the first such Christian meeting in Egyptian history. Arrangements for both visits had been smoothed by assistance from Vice-President Nixon’s office. Later, Graham revealed that he had been invited to hold a full-scale crusade in the Egyptian capital but decided against it, explaining that “such a crusade in the United Arab Republic would cause thousands and thousands of Christians to be publicly identified with a white Western American evangelist. I would not want anyone to suffer needlessly for their loyalty to Christ and most certainly never to be injured or abused by their appearance at one of our rallies.”

  True to the vow he made to Jack Dain following his Indian tour, Graham largely avoided condescending assessments of African culture when he returned to the United States. He spoke of communism as erroneous and dangerous, and he lamented the “fanatic devotion” he found among Africa’s Muslims, but he clearly regarded both ideologies as formidable forces. The film Africa on the Bridge referred to tribal idols that “can neither see nor speak” and included scenes of tribesmen having their faces scarred in religious ceremonies, but the narrator said without obvious condescension that beliefs that are “to us, foolishness, [are] to millions of Africans the final word about God and the world about them.” When portraying other aspects of African life, the documentary took a decidedly nonjudgmental tack. Bare-breasted women were shown suckling their young or simply walking along the roadside, with no clucking judgments about their lack of modesty. (In an amusing juxtaposition that must have caused consternation when it was shown in Evangelical congregations that frowned on any public exposure of the body, including swimming in mixed groups, the film contained a sequence in which the world’s most famous evangelist and his faithful side kicks were shown lounging on the deck of a river launch clad in nothing but swimsuits.) Perhaps reflecting Graham’s own love of animals—recalling his boyhood fantasies of playing Tarzan in the woods behind the dairy barn, he relished telling of how he and Cliff Barrows had whooped with delight as the little plane in which they were riding flew over great herds of elephants, zebras, antelopes, and buffalo in Kenya—the film also included extended scenes of African wildlife, including one in which lions stalked and killed a waterbuck, and another in which members of the team delighted in the antics of a band of baboons. Similarly, scenes of tribal dances, which might have been lambasted as depraved pagan rituals, were presented as joyous occasions that proved “the African has great talent for sheer showmanship.” Implicit throughout, of course, was a recognition that Africa was in large measure still a backward continent, but this assumption took on a descriptive rather than evaluative tone. The primary message was that the continent had great potential, that it was poised promisingly, if somewhat precariously, on the bridge to full modernity, and that all it needed to lead it across was the enabling power of Christ.

  As a reprise to the African tour, Graham visited both Jordan and Israel, neither of which was overjoyed. Jordan, in fact, had banned him from entry, charging him with propaganda and fund-raising activities on Israel’s behalf. The evangelist acknowledged having friends in Israel but denied he had raised money or assisted that country in any notable way. “As a Christian,” he said, “I’m both pro-Jew and pro-Arab.” After an amusing exchange of disclaimers—a BGEA spokesman said the Jordanian embassy in Washington recommended the ban, an embassy spokesman said he had never heard of Billy Graham and knew of no ban, and Graham said that as far as he knew, he had made no request to visit Jordan but hoped he would be able to—a Muslim businessman in Charlotte contacted an influential relative in Jordan and managed to get the ban lifted. If resistance truly existed, it posed no obvious problem. King Hussein welcomed him for a brief visit, and, in a singular gesture of ecumenical good will, a Muslim radio station recorded his sermon on John 3:16, replaying it several times while he was in the country.

  Israeli authorities gave Graham a warmer official welcome but refused to let the sponsoring Christian Council rent large halls for public meetings. As a further restriction, in an off-the-record agreement that Time magazine got hold of, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion enjoined the evangelist from mentioning Jesus while speaking to Jewish audiences. Graham graciously indicated he would accept both limitations. At a press conference in the King David Hotel, he noted that one of his reasons for coming to Israel was to preach the gospel, then added, “but I want to make it clear that I am going to address only Christian audiences. I have no intention of proselytizing. In fact, I must be grateful to you for proselytizing me. For Jesus Christ was a Jew, all the apostles were Jews, and the whole early church was Jewish.” At the same gathering, he expressed his delight at being able to see “the new nation where the Star of David now flies again after twenty-four centuries.” These generous gestures softened most of whatever resistance remained, so that some Israelis protested the restrictions on Graham, and when he preached an unapologetically evangelistic message to an audience that was ostensibly Christian but which some observers guessed to be 70 percent Jewish, no complaint was raised. To avoid any unpleasantness, Graham offered no invitation but suggested that any who wished to receive Christ should contact representatives of the Christian Council. While in the country, Graham visited with Israeli president Ben-Zvi and established friendships of long standing with Israeli political giants Abba Eban and Golda Meir. A few years later, Ms. Meir presented him with one of his most treasured possessions, a Bible inscribed “To a great teacher in all the important matters to humanity and a true friend of Israel.” He also visited with the head of the Ministry of Religion, Rabbi Toledano. When Graham inevitably affirmed his own belief that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the white-bearded rabbi softly observed, “When the Messianic times come, then we will know the truth.”

  The African tour capped slightly more than a decade of activity during which Billy Graham emerged from virtual anonymity outside Evangelical circles to become one of the best-known and most widely admired men in the world—the Luce Clipping Service reported that it processed more than 5,000 articles about him each month, more than Franklin D. Roosevelt generated during his heyday. He was clearly the primary spokesman for Evangelicalism and, in the eyes of many, for Protestant Christianity as a whole. According to some, his fame and the accompanying attention paid to religious revival played a significant role in increasing the amount of coverage given to religion in daily newspapers and stimulated Time and Newsweek to initiate a regular section devoted to religion. As he had risen from preaching to drunks and brawlers in saloons and stockades to addressing tens of thousands in Olympic stadia and storied arenas, and to sharing his faith quietly with kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, captains of industry and masters of mass media, he had led his people out of a cultural wilderness, had helped make them feel that America was once again “one nation under God,” and that they were among its finest citizens. From this pinnacle of accomplishment and renown Graham could see “all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.” He had faced and fought bravely with powerful temptations, so that even his harshest critics acknowledged his genuineness. He lived well, but not nearly so well as he might have, and no hint of scandal tarnished his public or private image. He was clearly fascinated by fame, but his omnipresent fear of the very celebrity he sought kept the excesses of that particularly treacherous lust in harness, if not completely subdued. Fame and recognition had brought influence and power. He had made modest efforts to use them, with results that both encouraged and disquieted him, but the greatest opportunities, and with them the deepest pitfalls, still lay ahead.

  Part 4

  The Kingdoms of the World and Their Glory (1960–1974)

  17

  Election and Free Will

  When Graham returned t
o America after his African tour, he gave a full report to President Eisenhower, Vice-President Nixon, and Secretary of State Christian Herter, who assembled a handful of top aides for an informal briefing that lasted several hours, an indication that the White House regarded him not simply as a goodwill ambassador but as a man whose contacts and observations might make him a valuable diplomatic resource. Eisenhower seemed to appreciate the contact and information, and Graham urged him to visit Nigeria at his earliest opportunity to help prevent that pivotal nation from falling into Communist hands. This visit to the White House renewed Graham’s sense of standing near the center of power and doubtless reinforced his desire to remain there—a prospect that was less than certain. The President would soon be stepping down. It seemed obvious Richard Nixon would be the Republican nominee, though it was no secret Eisenhower was less than enthusiastic about him, and the growing possibility that the attractive young senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, might get the Democratic nomination made it far from certain Nixon could win the election without a real struggle. Because he felt close to the Vice-President and because he enjoyed a personal relationship he had little chance of duplicating with Kennedy, Graham began to explore ways in which he might help his friend hold on to power.

  Billy always found fewer faults in his friends than others managed to see. If they liked him, he liked them, and was inclined to think the best of them and to regard patent shortcomings as little more than a failure to let the sterling character he was sure they possessed manifest itself with sufficient force. Nearly a decade of friendship with Nixon—nurtured by occasional games of golf, ritual exchanges of gifts and greetings, Graham’s behind-the-scenes support of the Republican ticket in 1956, and Nixon’s reciprocal appearance at the 1957 Yankee Stadium rally—had left Billy with remarkably few reservations about the Vice-President, and in private conversations, he tried to allay Eisenhower’s anxieties at the prospect of a Nixon presidency. Still, he sometimes wished his friend would make it easier for him to offer his wholehearted support. In 1959 he told Nixon, “If I have one suggestion for you, it is this: there are many, many reasons why I would strongly urge you to attend church regularly and faithfully from now on. I am convinced that you are going to have the backing of the overwhelming majority of the religiously minded people in America. It would be most unfortunate if some of your political enemies could point to any inconsistency.” He also noted that he had mentioned Nixon several times on his Hour of Decision broadcasts and “practically came out in full support of you a few weeks ago by saying that you were the best-qualified and best-trained man in America for the presidency.”

  In May 1960, as Kennedy’s prospects improved, Graham told a group of reporters that “this is a time of world tension. [It] is a time for a man of world stature. I don’t think it is a time to experiment with novices.” He added that while he intended to stay out of politics, he had deep personal convictions on the matter. When asked if his convictions stemmed from his friendship with Nixon, he replied with a smile, “Might be. But I’m not taking sides.” According to one columnist’s report, “The fifty correspondents roared with laughter.” Two days later Graham contacted the Nixon staff to say that “after deep and long consideration,” he was coming out publicly on the Vice-President’s behalf. He also indicated, a Nixon aide reported, “that he was going to be on Meet the Press sometime early in June and that if [we] felt that was the time for him to do it, he would use that as the forum.” Between them, Graham and Nixon apparently decided that something less than a flat-out endorsement would better serve the interests of both men, at least for the time being.

  As the campaigns heated up, Graham warmed to the task of giving advice, often on matters with a less than obvious connection to eternal salvation. After Eisenhower denied, then subsequently admitted, that the U-2 aircraft downed by the Russians was indeed a U.S. spy plane, Graham told Nixon, “In my opinion, the current U-2 incident is political dynamite. My advice, for what it’s worth, would be to keep as quiet as possible. It is difficult to tell which way sentiment is going to turn. I think the mood of the people at the moment is to resent this incident being used for political advantage by either party.” He went on to offer his observations about possible Communist attempts to influence the coming election, revealing continued respectful fear of the enemy’s diabolical cleverness. “It’s been my contention since the beginning,” he volunteered, “that Mr. Khrushchev is interjecting himself into the American political campaign.” Without suggesting how the Soviet leader might accomplish his aim, he said, “I believe he is hopeful that he can force one of the parties to nominate a man that he can ‘get along’ with. After the nomination of such a man, the left-wingers and fellow travelers in this country will go all out to elect him. . . . I am more convinced than ever that you will be the next President of the United States.”

  Although Graham had suggested earlier that if Kennedy were elected, the religious issue could work in Nixon’s favor, he now saw another side to the situation. “If Senator Kennedy is nominated,” he predicted, “he will capture the Catholic vote—almost one hundred percent. No matter what concessions you make to the Catholic Church or how you play up to them—even if you had a Catholic running mate, you would not even crack five or ten percent of the Catholic vote.” Adding that “Johnson, Smathers, Rayburn and others agree with me at this point!” he concluded, “Since the Protestant voters outnumber the Catholics three to one, you must concentrate on solidifying the Protestant vote. In my opinion, if you make a mistake of having a Catholic running mate, you will divide the Protestants and make no inroads whatsoever in the Catholic vote. Therefore I hope you will discard this idea at all costs. It is imperative for you to have as your running mate someone in the Protestant church, someone the Protestant church can rally behind enthusiastically. I can think of only one man in the Republican party who has the support of both liberals and conservatives in the Protestant church, and that is Dr. Walter Judd,” a former Evangelical missionary whom Graham greatly admired and who he undoubtedly hoped could bolster the efforts of New Evangelicals to influence national policy. “They don’t all agree with him,” he conceded, “but they deeply respect him. Having been a missionary and being one of the ablest speakers in America, it is my opinion he would be almost a must. With Dr. Judd, I believe the two of you could present a picture to America that would put much of the south and border states in the Republican column and bring about a dedicated Protestant vote to counteract the Catholic vote.” Aware that this kind of specific political advice ran directly counter to his professions of non-partisanship, Graham added, “I would appreciate your considering this letter in utter confidence. You would do me a favor by destroying it after reading it.”

  Kennedy allegedly sought to short-circuit anti-Catholic bias by asking Graham and other prominent clergymen to sign a pledge not to bring religion into the campaign. Graham refused to sign, and in announcing that refusal, Grady Wilson tossed in the unlikely and never-verified allegation that Roman Catholics in Latin America had recently conducted a special mass during which they had prayed that the plane bringing Billy Graham to Brazil that summer would crash and kill the evangelist. Wilson’s statement, made on a local radio program, drew sharp objection from Kennedy’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, who denied any effort to get anyone to sign a pledge, but Grady stuck by what he had said. Graham, however, wrote to Lyndon Johnson, asking him to assure Senator Kennedy that he did not intend to raise the religious issue “publicly” and hoped “to stay out of the political campaign as much as possible.” A week later, Johnson sent a note thanking Graham and noting that Kennedy had been “obviously impressed by your attitude.”

  In midsummer, both parties chose their candidates. Ignoring Graham’s advice, Nixon opted for Henry Cabot Lodge; in a cannier but ambivalent move, Kennedy sought to appeal to the South and Southwest by selecting Lyndon Johnson. Graham’s expressed intention to stay out of the campaign was short-lived. Two weeks after his let
ter to Johnson, he returned from a meeting of the Baptist World Alliance in Rio de Janeiro filled with fresh concern that Nixon was floundering. “This conference of religious leaders all agree,” he wrote, “that your people are not nearly so well organized as the Kennedy people. I heard this from man after man representing different parts of the nation.” He noted that Kennedy was getting his name in the papers more often than Nixon and that despite a recent Gallup poll showing that Nixon’s chances were improving, he felt Kennedy was still ahead. He then added presciently, “Your debates with him on television will be decisive in the minds of millions!”

  Graham predicted trouble on both the racial and religious fronts. He had traveled to and from the Baptist conference with Martin Luther King, Jr., and learned that King had met with Kennedy at Joseph Kennedy’s apartment in New York and had been “tremendously impressed” by the senator. In other accounts of the meeting, King was said to have found Kennedy pleasant but lacking a “depthed understanding” of the racial situation, but Graham felt the black leader was “just about sold” on the senator. “I think I at least neutralized him,” he noted, but ventured that “if you could invite him for a brief conference, it might swing him. He would be a powerful influence.” Dr. King, like Dr. Graham, was determined not to endorse either party’s candidates, asserting that his cause transcended partisan politics, but Graham’s perception that Kennedy was capable of loosening the Republican grip on the black vote was accurate. Nixon decided against contact with King, probably feeling blacks would not desert the party of Lincoln (60 percent of the black vote in 1956 went to Eisenhower) and that association with the controversial leader would alienate white voters, particularly in the South. Ultimately, however, after both John and Robert Kennedy made telephone calls that offered encouragement to Coretta King and helped free her husband from a Georgia prison a few days before the election—facts disseminated to black churches on the Sunday before the election—Kennedy garnered a stunning 70 percent of the black vote, even though King maintained to the end his refusal to give an explicit endorsement. Graham must have been surprised at what appeared to be a tactical mistake on Nixon’s part, since his close scrutiny of the campaign had led him to believe that “God has been giving you supernatural wisdom in handling difficult situations.” On the other hand, he and Norman Vincent Peale had been commissioned by a gathering of ministers to urge the Vice-President to say more about religion in his addresses, and he told Nixon, “These men reported that throughout Protestantism there is running a question as to your religious convictions. They report that many people are concerned at this point. I informed them of your reticence to use religion for political purposes. They felt people had a right to know. Therefore, I would urge you to weave this into your addresses.” He noted that Peale would soon be coming out flat-footed in favor of Nixon, a move he estimated might prove extremely costly to the popular minister.