President Nixon’s journey across the American landscape mirrored that of his entire nation in this remarkable century. His life was bound up with the striving of our whole people, with our crises and our triumphs.
When he became president, he took on challenges here at home on matters from cancer research to environmental protection, putting the power of the federal government where Republicans and Democrats had neglected to put it in the past, and foreign policy. He came to the presidency at a time in our history when Americans were tempted to say we had had enough of the world. Instead, he knew we had to reach out to old friends and old enemies alike. He would not allow America to quit the world.
Remarkably, he wrote nine of his ten books after he left the presidency, working his way back into the arena he so loved by writing and thinking and engaging us in his dialogue. For the past year, even in the final weeks of his life, he gave me his wise counsel, especially with regard to Russia. One thing in particular left a profound impression on me. Though this man was in his 9th decade, he had an incredibly sharp and vigorous and rigorous mind. As a public man, he always seemed to believe the greatest sin was remaining passive in the face of challenges, and he never stopped living by that creed. He gave of himself with intelligence and energy and devotion to duty, and his entire country owes him a debt of gratitude for that service.
Oh, yes, he knew great controversy amid defeat as well as victory. He made mistakes, and they, like his accomplishments, are a part of his life and record. But the enduring lesson of Richard Nixon is that he never gave up being part of the action and passion of his times. He said many times that unless a person has a goal, a new mountain to climb, his spirit will die. Well, based on our last phone conversation and the letter he wrote me just a month ago, I can say that his spirit was very much alive to the very end.
This is a great tribute to him, to his wonderful wife, Pat, to his children and to his grandchildren whose love he so depended on and whose love he returned in full measure. Today is a day for his family, his friends and his nation to remember President Nixon’s life in totality. To them, let us say may the day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close.
May we heed his call to maintain the will and the wisdom to build on America’s greatest gift: it’s freedom. To lead a world full of difficulty to the just and lasting peace he dreamed of.
As it is written in the words of a hymn I heard in my church last Sunday, “Grant that I may realize that the trifling of life creates differences, but that in the higher things we are all one.” In the twilight of his life, President Nixon knew that lesson well. It is, I feel, certainly a fate he would want us all to keep.
And so, on behalf of all four former presidents who are here — President Ford, President Carter, President Reagan, President Bush — and on behalf of a grateful nation, we bid farewell to Richard Milhous Nixon.
Reverend Billy Graham
Closing Remarks
The great king of ancient Israel, David, said on the death of Saul, who had been a bitter enemy, “Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel.”
Today we remember that with the death of Richard Nixon, a great man has fallen. We have heard that the world has lost a great citizen and America has lost a great statesman. And those of us that knew him have lost a personal friend.
You know, few events touch the heart of every American as profoundly as the death of a president, for the president is our leader. And every American feels that he knows him in a very special way, because he hears his voice so often, sees him on television, reads about him in the press. And so we all mourn his loss and feel that our world is a bit lonelier without him. But to you who were close to him, this grief is an added pain, because you wept when he wept and you laughed when he laughed.
And here amidst these familiar surroundings under these California skies, his earthly life has come full circle. It was here that Richard Nixon was born and reared; that his life was molded. But the scripture teaches that there’s a time to be born, a time to live and a time to die.
Richard Nixon’s time to die came last Friday evening. Since 1990, he had had a brilliant young cardiologist as his doctor by the name of Jeffrey Bora, and last Tuesday, the day after the president suffered his stroke, the doctor came by the New York Hospital to examine him. He was partially paralyzed and could not speak, but he was still alert. And as the doctor talked, the president reached out and grabbed his arm with an unusual strength. Then as the doctor turned to leave, something made him turn around and look back to the bed where Richard Nixon was lying, and just at that moment the president waved and gave his trademark thumbs-up signal and smiled. That took determination, which he had, and we’ve heard about already today. It was an example of fighting on and never giving up that Jeffrey Bora will never forget.
Now, President Nixon’s great voice, his warm, intelligent eyes, his generous smile are missed as we gather here again, just 10 months after we were here when his beloved Pat went to heaven.
A few months ago he was asked on a television interview, “How would you like to be remembered?” He thought a moment, and then replied, “I’d like to be remembered as one who made a difference,” and he did make a difference in our world, as we’ve heard so eloquently this afternoon.
There’s an old saying that a tree is best measured when it’s laid down. The great events of his life have already been widely recounted by the news media this week, and it’s not my purpose to restate what others have already said so eloquently, including those who have spoken so movingly here today.
I think most of us have been staggered by the many things that he accomplished during his life. His public service kept him at the center of the events that have shaped our destiny. This week Time magazine says that “by sheer endurance he rebuilt his standing as the most important figure of the post war era.
During his years of public service, Richard Nixon was on center stage during our generation. He had a great respect for the office of the president. I never heard him one time criticize a living president who was in the office at that time. There’s an old Indian saying, “Never criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.”
However, there was another side to him that’s more personal, more intimate, more human that we’ve heard referred to several times today, and that was his family, his neighbors and his friends, who are gathered here today. It was a side that many people did not see, for Richard Nixon was a private person in some ways. And then some people thought there was a shyness about him. Others sometimes found him hard to get to know. There were hundreds of little things he did for ordinary people that no one would have ever known about. He always had a compassion for people who were hurting. No one could ever understand Richard Nixon unless they understood the family from which he came, the Quaker church that he attended, Whittier College where he studied, and the land and the people in this area where you’re sitting today. His roots were deep in this part of California.
But there’s still another side to him that was his strong and growing faith in God. He never wore his religious faith on his sleeve, but was rather reticent to speak about it in public. He could have had more reasons than most for not attending church while he occupied the White House when there were so many demonstrations and threats going on. But he wanted to set an example, and he decided to have services most Sundays in the White House, a small congregation, and clergymen from various denominations.
And I remember before one of the first services that President Nixon had at the White House, Ruth and I and two of our friends were in the private quarters with him. I’ll never forget the President sitting down on the spur of the moment at an old battered Steinway that they had there playing the old hymn, “He will hold me fast for my Savior loves me so; he will hold me fast.”
John Donne said that there’s a democracy about death. It comes equally to us all and makes us all equal when it comes. And I thin
k today every one of us ought to be thinking about our own time to die, because we, too, are going to die, and we’re going to have to face almighty God with the life that we lived here. There comes a time when we have to realize that life is short and in the end the only thing that really counts is not how others see us here, but how God sees us and what the record books of heaven have to say. For the believer who has been to the cross, death is no frightful leap into the dark, but is an entrance into a glorious new life. I believe that Richard Nixon right now is with Pat again, because I believe that in heaven we will know each other.
The Bible says for me to live as Christ and die is gain; there’s a gaining about death. For the believer, the brutal fact of death has been conquered by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the person who has turned from sin and has received Christ as Lord and Savior, death is not the end. For the believer there’s hope beyond the grave. There’s a future life.
Yesterday, as his body was escorted to the plane for its final journey here, the band played and the familiar strains of a hymn he especially loved, maybe the hymn that he loved the most, were played: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind, but now I see. Through many dangers, toils and snares, I’ve already come; ’tis grace that brought me safe thus far, for grace will take me home.”
That hymn was written 200 years ago by an Englishman named John Newton. He was a cruel man, a captain of a slave ship. But one night in a fierce storm he turned to God and committed his life to Christ. Newton not only became a preacher of the gospel, but he influenced William Wilberforce and others in Parliament to bring an end to the slave trade. John Newton came to know the miracle of God’s amazing grace and it changed his life, and it changed our lives as well.
And so we say farewell to Richard Nixon today with hope in our hearts, for our hope is in the eternal promises of the almighty God.
Years ago, Winston Churchill planned his own funeral, and he did so with the hope of the resurrection and eternal life which he firmly believed in. And he instructed after the benediction that a bugler positioned high in the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral would play taps, the universal signal that says the day is over. But then came a very dramatic moment. As Churchill had instructed, another bugler was placed on the other side of the massive dome and he played the notes of reveille, the universal signal that a new day has dawned and it is time to arise. That was Churchill’s testimony; that at the end of history, the last note will not be taps, it will be reveille.
There is hope beyond the grave, because Jesus Christ has opened the door to heaven for us by his death and resurrection. Richard Nixon had that hope, and today that can be our hope as well.
And to the children and the grandchildren, I would say to you, you have that hope within your hearts. I had the privilege of knowing them when they were little girls, and I’ve seen them as they’ve come to know Christ, and to know God in their lives. And we look forward to seeing Dick and Pat someday in the future again.
Shall we pray?
God of all comfort, in the silence of this hour we ask Thee to sustain this family and these loved ones, and to deliver them from loneliness, despair and doubt. Fill their desolate hearts with Thy peace, and may this be a moment of rededication to Thee, our Father. Those of us who have been left behind have the solemn responsibilities of life. Help us to live according to Thy will and for Thy glory so that we will be prepared to meet Thee. We offer our prayer in the name of Him, who is the resurrection and the light: Jesus Christ, our Lord. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.
I
Our Challenge
Beyond Peace
When I met with Mao Tse-tung for the last time in Beijing on February 27, 1976, I was shocked at how his physical condition had deteriorated since our first meeting in 1972. He was a shell of the man he had been. He was still sharp mentally, but a massive stroke had robbed him of his ability to put his thoughts into words. The charismatic communist leader who had moved a nation and changed the world with his revolutionary exhortations could no longer even ask for a glass of water.
As we sat together in his book-cluttered office in the Forbidden City, I was reminded of President Eisenhower’s intense frustration after suffering a stroke in 1957. A few days after he had returned to the White House from the hospital, he described to me the ordeal that simple speech had become. He complained that when he wanted to say “ceiling,” it would come out “floor.” When he wanted to say “window,” he would say “door.” He smiled without much warmth and said that he was afraid that fighting for words sent up his blood pressure. I tried to relieve the tension by pointing out that his problem was that his brain worked faster than his mouth—the opposite of the problem most politicians have.
Fortunately, Eisenhower recovered completely. Mao never would. As we spoke in Beijing he was six months from death, and a succession crisis was already raging around him. But I was addressing a man who was still the revered leader of nearly a billion people, and who had played an indispensable role in bringing about the new relationship between our countries that had begun four years before.
During our conversation, I said that we must continue to cooperate in seeking peace, not only between our two countries but among all the nations of the world. It was painful to watch as he tried to respond. His face flushed as he grunted out half-words. His translator, an attractive young woman dressed in a drab, shapeless Mao suit—one of the worst punishments ever inflicted upon Chinese women by the old-guard communists—tried to put his grunts into English.
Mao knew enough English to realize that she had not understood him. He shook his head angrily, grabbed her notebook, and wrote out the words in Chinese. She read them aloud in English: “Is peace your only goal?”
I had not expected the question and paused briefly. “We should seek peace with justice,” I answered.
My reply was adequate within the context of the Cold War. Today that is too limited a goal for the United States. Our goal then was to end the struggle between East and West in a way that would avoid a nuclear war and also ensure that freedom and justice would prevail over tyranny. Today, the communists have lost the Cold War. Marxism-Leninism has been utterly discredited as a political doctrine. The Berlin Wall, the ultimate Cold War symbol of political injustice, has been demolished, and pieces of it can be seen in midwestern town squares and the museums of presidential libraries. The threat of nuclear war between the United States and Russia no longer hangs over us. In a very real way, peace with justice has been achieved. Yet it is clear that the defeat of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century was just the first step toward the triumph of freedom throughout the world in the twenty-first century. This will be assured only if the United States—in its policies at home and abroad—renews its commitment to its founding principles.
We live in a new world—a world we helped create. For forty-five years, America and its allies fought one of the longest struggles in human history. The Cold War touched every region of the world and made most of it hostage to a vast conflict of political ideas and economic systems. For the United States, Korea and Vietnam were battles in that war. Our major goal for nearly five decades—first the containment and then the defeat of Soviet communist aggression—has now been achieved.
In the past five years, we have witnessed four of the greatest events of the twentieth century: the liberation of one hundred million people in Eastern Europe from Soviet-imposed communism in 1989; the defeat of Iraqi aggression in the Persian Gulf War in the spring of 1991; the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union in December 1991; and the failure of socialism and a mass movement toward capitalism in nations as different as Sweden, India, France, and even communist China.
We have achieved a goal we would not have dreamed possible five years ago: free-market capitalism, not socialism or communism, is the wave of the future.
These spectacular develop
ments represent some of the greatest triumphs for freedom in history. Yet at a time when we should be celebrating victory, many observers are wallowing in pessimism, as if we had suffered defeat. Instead of pressing toward the mountaintop and beholding a new vision of peace and freedom for the future, they are wandering in a valley of self-doubt about the past.
One sign of this defeatism is that the leaders in Western Europe, Canada, and Japan who played major roles in winning the Cold War have either been rejected by the voters or have some of the lowest approval ratings in history. All of the Group of Seven industrial countries—the nations wealthiest in goods—are experiencing massive public discontent with their governments, their social and economic problems, and their nations’ roles in the world. At the Tokyo summit meeting of the industrialized democracies in July 1993, President Clinton’s approval rating was at a record low compared with those of his predecessors in their first year in office, and yet his rating was the highest among the G-7 leaders. Ironically, the only leader at the summit with a higher approval rating was President Boris Yeltsin of Russia, whose political and economic problems dwarf the West’s.
The United States and the other members of the G-7 have the richest economies on earth. Economic power, however, is not the same as strength of national character. Our country may be rich in goods, but we are poor in spirit. As we sink further into a false, almost hypnotic contentment because we are at peace abroad, and a myopic preoccupation with our domestic problems, the persuasive power of our principles and our ability to project a worthy example for the rest of the world inevitably weaken. We are justifiably concerned about our budget deficit. But our crisis of values at home, coupled with our lack of a coherent mission abroad, has created an even more deadly spiritual deficit. We seem to be experiencing what Arnold Toynbee, in his Study of History sixty years ago, called “the dark night of the soul.”
Beyond Peace Page 2
