A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  Dobrynin gave no response to this remarkable interpretation of history, but Haraszti continued. It was not only Evangelicals who had flourished under communism, he asserted. Throughout the Soviet Union he had found a revitalized Christianity in the Orthodox Church. When revolutionaries murdered priests and stripped the churches of their gold and silver, they had forced Christians to realize they were blind, naked, sick, and weak with nowhere to turn except to Jesus Christ. It was true the Church had shrunk in numbers, but it was also true that it had grown in fidelity to Christ. “Sir,” he said, “you have forty to fifty million dedicated Orthodox Church members today. I have seen them, young and old, people and priests, and I saw Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit beaming in their faces. They are an invincible Church. They are not subject to intimidation, because they are willing to sacrifice their lives. If you put them in concentration camps, you give them an audience. If you execute them, they lift up their hands and eyes to the Lord, who is to receive them into his happiness. In addition to these millions of Evangelicals and Orthodox Christians, you also have other millions of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, and perhaps fifty million Muslims—over one hundred million believers in God, and only seventeen million Communist party members. You must make peace with them, or one day they will revolt. You know history. They will revolt when they feel strong enough. If you do not make peace with them, sir, you are going to face a very serious problem.” As long as the Communist countries restricted religious freedom, Western countries, and America in particular, would continue to view them with suspicion and resentment. If the atheistic state were to become involved in intense conflict with religious believers, Western powers might well intervene on behalf of the believers. And if that were to happen, not even the unthinkable would be unthinkable. “Sir,” he said, “we know what is the end of it if we do not check this situation. It does not matter then who shall be responsible for what, who is to blame, when both nations are blown up.”

  Haraszti moved in for the kill. “We are not begging the Soviet government to invite Dr. Graham,” he told Dobrynin. “We believe it is in the interest of the Soviet government to invite him. Why? Because Billy Graham is not just an evangelist; he is also a news-maker. You have been in this country long enough to know how public opinion works in America. Dr. Graham is a public-opinion maker. People listen to what he says and follow his leadership.” If he found some modicum of religious freedom in the Soviet Union, and a sincere desire for peace on the part of the Soviet people, and if he honestly reported what he had seen to the American public and to the President and Congress and other leaders, he could serve as a tremendous positive force for peace between the two great nations. No other person in the world, Haraszti averred, could have such an effect on public opinion, with the possible exception of the pope. Then, without speaking ill of the pope, he drew a comparison between the two men. Graham was an accomplished statesman—Haraszti told Dobrynin that Nixon had appointed Henry Kissinger to be secretary of state only after Graham turned down the post, an assertion Graham later dismissed as fanciful—with thirty years of quasi-diplomatic experience in the West, extensive political contacts on all the continents, and now, with successful trips to Hungary and Poland in his dossier and negotiations under way for visits to other Eastern bloc nations. The pope, by contrast, had lived in only one Communist land and had no experience in the West. He might develop into a great statesman and world leader, but it was too early to tell. If the pope were to visit the Soviet Union, the result might be good—or it might not be. “We don’t know what the pope will say; we do know what Dr. Graham will say. I think it is in the interest of the Soviet Union to invite Dr. Graham before somebody else is invited.”

  Dobrynin finally spoke. “Dr. Haraszti,” he said, “I could not disgree with one word you said. I report this to my government. I am for Dr. Graham’s coming to the Soviet Union. But I’m an ambassador only; I’m not the policy-making body.”

  “Mr. Ambassador,” Haraszti reminded him, “you are also a member of the Central Committee.”

  “Yes,” Dobrynin acknowledged, “I am.”

  Dobrynin stood by his word, and within a few weeks, it became clear that an invitation would eventually be forthcoming. Haraszti let it be known that Graham wanted to preach at as many places as possible, but would adjust to whatever schedule the government approved. Contrary to his 1959 prayer, he would not expect to preach in Red Square or in a stadium. He would want to preach in Orthodox as well as Protestant churches, and he felt it would be crucial to meet with Jewish leaders, as he had done in Hungary and Poland. He would accept appointments with political or religious dissidents but would not embarrass the government by publicizing their cases after his return to the United States. With these tacit understandings in place, preliminary plans were made for a visit during the fall of 1979, then postponed because of Soviet preoccupation with U.S.-Chinese relations, generated by Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the United States that year. The Moscow Olympics and the friction generated by America’s boycott of the games made 1980 seem unpropitious as well.

  The coveted invitation, which finally arrived in 1982, involved some of the most delicate, controversial, and peril-fraught negotiations of Graham’s entire ministry. During the summer of 1981, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pimen, announced that key religious leaders from all over the world would convene in Moscow in May 1982 for a World Conference of Religious Workers for Saving the Sacred Gift of Life from Nuclear Catastrophe. Though ostensibly sponsored by the Orthodox Church, the conference was obviously endorsed by the Communist party and was widely viewed in the West as a transparent government-engineered propaganda enterprise. When he first learned of it, Alex Haraszti shared this view and informed Soviet Baptist leaders that Billy Graham would have no part in such a charade. Without denying that the party fully approved of the conference, Baptist leader Alexei Bychkov insisted that the Orthodox Church’s sponsorship was entirely sincere and at least semi-independent. He also revealed that Baptist churches, as well as virtually all other religious groups in the Soviet Union, had contributed generously toward financing the conference. At least partially convinced, Haraszti contacted the Orthodox leaders he and Walter Smyth had been cultivating to devise an invitation Billy Graham would feel able to accept.

  Haraszti’s primary contact, Father Vitaly Borovoy, the Orthodox patriarchate’s representative to the World Council of Churches, let it be known that the Orthodox hierarchy was extremely interested in having Graham attend the conference but did not want to risk the embarrassment of offering an invitation that might be rejected. Before an explicit personal invitation could be issued, there would have to be some guarantee that Graham would accept it. Haraszti assured Borovoy that Graham wished to embarrass no one, that he was a strong advocate of peace, and that he was deeply interested in witnessing firsthand the way in which brave Russian Christians had been able to keep faith alive despite repressive government policies. At the same time, he would almost certainly not be interested in coming to Moscow simply to attend a conference that many Westerners would inevitably regard as a Communist-conceived, anti-American event but would also expect to preach in both Baptist and Orthodox churches, and to meet with Jewish leaders.

  Borovoy saw no problems with the Baptist and Jewish appointments but observed that canon law forbade having an unconsecrated priest preaching in an Orthodox Church. Haraszti, surprising the priest with a brief recital of serious disputes over small points in canon law, suggested it should be possible to find a way around the law. Borovoy thought for a moment, then brightened. “You are right,” he said. “The patriarch could introduce him to the faithful, and he could extend greetings.” Haraszti was pleased. “And Father Borovoy,” he said, “you know and I know that these ‘greetings’ will be centered around Jesus Christ. You will call it ‘greetings’ and we will call it ‘preaching.’ What is the difference?”

  In a subsequent meeting with Metropolitan Filaret, the chair o
f the conference’s International Preparatory Committee, Haraszti repeated Graham’s “basic wishes,” adding that any invitation to the evangelist should be accompanied by invitations to his key advisers, specifically, Smyth, Akers, and Haraszti. Filaret objected that other participants would be restricted to a single secretary and that bending those restrictions to accommodate Graham would offend participants from other countries, such as the various African nations. Haraszti was not in a yielding mood. Working a bit of diplomatic jujitsu, he informed Filaret that when he had visited the pope, Graham had been accompanied by three advisers. “I do not think,” he said, “that His Holiness, Patriarch Pimen, is so much smaller in stature than the pope that he could not afford having Dr. Graham with three of his closest advisers.” Certainly, if Patriarch Pimen were coming to America, Graham would not cavil over how many metropolitans he brought with him. As for offending Africans, Haraszti countered, “Your Eminence, I see your problem. But I would never have dared to compare the Soviet Union with Chad, or even Sudan, for that matter. I also would not realize that America should be in the same category as Chad.” Then, perhaps piqued by what he regarded as a specious excuse, Haraszti let his unbounded esteem for Graham soar to heights that would have stunned the evangelist. “I don’t compare Dr. Graham with the patriarch or the pope,” he told Filaret, “because Dr. Graham is not the head of a church. He is the head of all Christianity. He actually is the head of the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, the Protestants—everybody—in a spiritual way, because the pope cannot preach to all the Protestants, but Billy Graham can preach to all the Roman Catholics. The patriarch cannot preach to all the Roman Catholics; they will not listen to him. But Billy Graham can preach to all the Orthodox, and they will listen to him, because he is above these religious strifes. He is a man of much higher stature than any of these people. I do not mean any offense to His Holiness, the patriarch, but Billy Graham deserves more than three metropolitans or three cardinals.”

  Remarkably, instead of taking umbrage at Haraszti’s demotion of both pope and patriarch, Filaret stepped from the room. When he returned ten minutes later, his face was wreathed in a relaxed smile. “All right,” he said. “He can have his three co-workers.” With these feet in the door, Haraszti then gained permission to enlarge Graham’s entourage to include T. W. Wilson, a secretary, an aide to handle press relations, and a photographer. He reminded Filaret to arrange Graham’s preaching appointments and meetings with one or two high-ranking Soviet officials, and he made it clear Graham would expect to give a major address at the conference. In return, the evangelist would make no statements criticizing Soviet foreign policy or religious or social conditions in the Soviet Union. He would come not as a social critic but as an evangelist, “a man of God, and a gracious guest who would not abuse the friendship of his hosts” or embarrass them in any way.

  With this impressive collection of concessions safely tucked into his diplomatic pouch (“He was the world figure whom they wanted to invite to their world conference,” Haraszti explained, “and cost what it may, they were ready to pay the price”) the good doctor raised one last point, almost as if it were an afterthought: If Billy Graham visited the Soviet Union, it would be imperative for him to visit the six Siberian Pentecostals who, claiming to be victims of religious persecution, had sought asylum in the U.S. Embassy in 1978 and had been living in its basement ever since.

  Filaret’s face fell. The Siberian Six (“Seven” before one of their number went on a hunger strike and had to be removed to a hospital) had become a vexing source of tension between the Soviet and U.S. governments, and a cause célèbre for champions of religious freedom around the world. Soviet authorities persistently claimed the Pentecostals were not sincere religionists persecuted for their faith but opportunists using religion as a means to force the government to allow them to leave the country, as they had been trying to do for over twenty years. Several Graham associates eventually came to share this view, as did many American reporters assigned to Moscow, but the publicity generated by the group’s virtual imprisonment (they refused to leave and the U.S. government allowed them to remain in the embassy until the Soviet government guaranteed they would be allowed to emigrate unharmed) made them impossible for Graham to ignore. Fully aware of the metropolitan’s chagrin that he had raised the issue, Haraszti explained that if Graham returned to America and said the Soviet government had not allowed him to see the Siberians, it would reflect badly on the government and on the peace conference. If he said he had freely chosen not to see them, he would suffer an enormous loss of respect in America, either because he lacked compassion or commitment to religious freedom or because he was lying. And if he said the Pentecostals had not wanted to receive him, Americans would scoff, charging him with swallowing obvious propaganda. Uncomfortable as it might be for all concerned, Graham had to see the Siberians. Once more, Filaret reluctantly agreed but expressed his fervent hope that by the time of Graham’s visit, there would no longer be a “Pentecostal problem.”

  Filaret promised to put his accession to Graham’s basic wishes in writing as part of the official invitation Haraszti would deliver by hand to the evangelist. He insisted, however, that the envoy obtain a verbal guarantee from Graham that if the invitation were tendered, it would be accepted. Haraszti called John Akers that night. Akers relayed the information to Graham, and Graham spoke with the White House and the State Department. When Akers called Haraszti back, he reported that the invitation was acceptable “on the highest level,” and that Graham would accept it. Haraszti relayed that news to Filaret, not failing to mention that high levels had approved the evangelist’s participation in the conference—“I wanted the Soviet government to know that Dr. Graham does not come as a simple American citizen. The message was not missed.” When he returned to New York with a five-page invitation, he discovered, to his considerable agitation, that the assurances conveyed to Metropolitan Filaret were unraveling at the seams. In the brief period since he had signaled his acceptance, Graham had come under strong pressures from within his organization, from various Evangelical leaders, and from the State Department—with U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Arthur Hartman among the most vociferous—to decline the invitation and refuse to add respectability to the so-called Peace Conference. When Haraszti joined Graham and his inner circle of advisers in his suite at the Essex House in New York, he expected to bask in their appreciation. Instead, Graham anxiously asked, “Alex, do you realize I am risking my entire ministry if I accept this invitation?”

  Haraszti responded with crystalline logic. “The thirty-five years already behind you,” he said, “is history. You cannot jeopardize it. You cannot risk it. It is historical fact. Now, you must not jeopardize the ten years to come. This is the beginning. For years you have been praying that the Lord may bring the time when this becomes possible. Here is the time. This will be your first coming to the Soviet Union, but not your last one. If you accept this invitation, all the other satellite countries will fall in line. These things are interwoven. No Moscow, no satellite countries. Please, Dr. Graham, don’t let me down. Do not let me down.”

  Graham invited Haraszti to play the devil’s advocate. What arguments could be made against his going? Haraszti leapt at the opportunity. The main reason not to go, he said, would be unbelief. “If we don’t believe in the Word of the Lord, and if we don’t believe in our cause, then we must not accept.” As a man of faith, however, he had no choice. “You have no way out if you want to be honest, and I am sure you want to be honest.”

  This struck home, but Graham raised again the question of governmental opposition. “If the President should come and tell me [not to go], I will not go.” Haraszti observed that Western Christians sometimes criticize Christians in Communist lands for giving Caesar more than his due. Considering that Stalin murdered tens of thousands of believers, that Khrushchev closed thousands of churches, that Brezhnev demanded that Soviet people deny God, yet more than 100 million refused to do so, wh
at moral right did an American have to charge them with compromise or weak faith, especially when the American was risking nothing more than a few hostile attacks by the press?

  “Alex,” Graham said, “do you know that I receive hate letters by the thousands?”

  “I expect that you receive them,” Haraszti responded, “but if I may compare my little case with your great case, you don’t know how many hate letters I receive, and how much adverse publicity I receive in the American Hungarian papers, because I opened the way for Billy Graham to go to Communist countries—this poor, naive, good American, and Haraszti the evil spirit. I considered it a privilege not only to trust and believe in Jesus Christ, but also to suffer for him. I think that, spiritually, the same applies to you.”

  While they debated, a call came from Vice-President George Bush. Scribbling in one of the black notebooks to which he habitually commits precise details of anything he considers significant, Haraszti recorded the half of the conversation he could hear. “George, I am sorry,” Graham said, “but I have accepted it. It is too late. I had the nod from the highest place. I took it seriously and I accepted it. I cannot do anything now.” He went on to express confidence that his visit to the Soviet Union would not only promote the cause of Christ but would help improve relations between the two great countries. As a loyal American, he felt it was his duty to go.

  Graham later reported that Bush had said he was neutral about the visit and was simply conveying the expressions of concern received from others. “I’m reading to you without comment,” the Vice-President had said. “You are preaching the gospel, and I don’t dare tell you what to do.” Graham also received private approval from Ronald Reagan. “The newspapers were saying that the President was opposed,” he recalled, “but the Sunday before I went, George Bush invited me to lunch at his home, and I went with Punch Sulzberger, of the New York Times, and his family. When we got there, George said, ‘I don’t think the Reagans have any plans for lunch. I’ll call them up. I’ll bet they’re lonesome.’ He called them up, and in about half an hour, here they came, with several cars that go with them everywhere. Almost the first thing the President did when he came in was pull me aside and say, ‘Now Billy, don’t you worry about this trip. God works in mysterious ways.’ In fact, he gave me a handwritten note saying, ‘We’ll be praying for you every mile of the way.’” Graham also reported that a White House official had told him, “If you don’t go now, it would look as though we stopped you and it is going to hurt us. You have to go.”