Just As I Am

by Billy Graham

  If one day of the Atlanta Crusade can be singled out as a red-letter day, it would have to be November 5, 1950. That Sunday afternoon, live from Ponce de Leon Park, we went on the ABC radio network with our first nationwide broadcast of The Hour of Decision. Cliff led a thousand-voice choir, Bev sang, Grady read Scripture, and I preached. Tedd Smith was at the piano, and Paul Mickelson from California took over at the organ for Bill Berntsen, who’d been with us in Portland but had had to return to his teaching duties at Northwestern Schools, where he was head of the music department. Our potential audience was 9 million listeners. For that first Hour of Decision broadcast from Atlanta, a scheduling problem at the station in Minneapolis, of all places, pitted our lineup against truly awesome competition from a new NBC radio program called The Big Show. Its initial broadcast was also on November 5, originating at Radio City in New York and featuring Tallulah Bankhead, Fred Allen and Portland Hoffa, Jimmy Durante, José Ferrer, Frankie Laine, Ethel Merman, Danny Thomas, Mindy Carson, and Meredith Willson’s orchestra. Talk about a David and Goliath confrontation! Yet our ratings turned out to be surprisingly strong.

  The year 1950 ended as it had started, with a New Year’s Eve rally at Mechanics Hall in Boston. On the whole, the press was friendlier than they had been during our first visit a year before. The Boston Post heralded our arrival on December 29 with this headline on the first page: “billy graham is in hopeful mood.” The subhead read, “Fiery Preacher Here for Weekend Revival Encouraged by Trend of Leaders to Prayer.”

  The accompanying picture showed me standing with my arm around Mother at the Bellevue Hotel; it was the first time she had been with me at a citywide Crusade outside of North Carolina. My father had refused to make the trip, saying that Boston was too cold for his southern blood.

  It was now a year since we had completed the Los Angeles Crusade, which had thrust us into the national media spotlight. So much had happened so fast. Clearly, it had been the year of the whirlwind. Cumulative attendance at the meetings had passed the 1.5 million mark, with nearly 50,000 recorded inquirers. It was the Lord’s doing, and it was marvelous in our eyes. But if things went on at this rate, where might they lead? I needed time to catch my breath and my balance, both. Invitations flooded in, and with eight Crusades scheduled, ranging from three days to six weeks, we were booked every month in 1951. As our calendar began to fill up even further ahead, 1952 was starting to shape up much the same. Our main concern, of course—whether at a Crusade or on the radio or at some other speaking engagement—continued to be the souls of people.

  Clearly, the Lord was setting our course for the immediate future. In the one year between Los Angeles and Atlanta, we had developed an organization, a radio broadcast, a film ministry, a financial policy, and a compatible Team. Now we needed to find out if all these things would work.

  12

  The General Who Became President

  President Dwight D. Eisenhower

  It was 1952, and I was on the most farfetched mission I could imagine.

  Some time before, I’d had dinner with a friend from Fort Worth, Texas—oil baron Sid Richardson, whom I affectionately called Mr. Sid—and we had discussed General Dwight D. Eisenhower as a possible candidate in the 1952 election. Mr. Sid had urged me to contact Eisenhower and encourage him to run. During Eisenhower’s short tenure as president of Columbia University, his speeches had marked him as a conservative, but nobody knew his party affiliation. Rumors said Harry Truman hoped he would run as a Democrat.

  In spite of Mr. Sid’s confidence in me, I had no illusions about being able to persuade Eisenhower to run. After all, he had been telling both parties for years that he was not interested. And I was not interested in being sidetracked by politics! Though a registered Democrat (a sort of birthright in the part of the South where I came from), I always voted for the man and not the party.

  I wrote the same thing in a letter to Mr. Sid, which he forwarded to Eisenhower in France, where he was serving as Com-mander at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE). In it I stressed the need for a man like the general to become president. “The American people have come to the point where they want a man with honesty, integrity, and spiritual power,” I wrote to Mr. Sid. “I believe the General has it. I hope you can persuade him to put his hat in the ring.”

  On November 8, 1951, Eisenhower wrote to me, cordially reacting to the case I had presented in my letter to Mr. Sid, and reaffirming his refusal to make a partisan declaration. A month later, I wrote directly to him for the first time. A district judge, I told him, had “confided in me that if Washington were not cleaned out in the next two or three years, we were going to enter a period of chaos that could bring about our downfall. Sometimes I wonder who is going to win the battle first—the barbarians beating at our gates from without, or the termites of immorality from within.” I assured him of my prayers for God to “guide you in the greatest decision of your life. Upon this decision could well rest the destiny of the Western World.”

  Nobody could accuse me of understatement. I even brashly told him that I had “been in Europe six times since the end of World War II, and I know something of your dilemma.” Back then I was not averse to publicly criticizing the U.S. State Department for its many blunders, but how foolish and presumptuous that appears now!

  I was told that Eisenhower said to Mr. Sid, “That was the damnedest letter I ever got. Who is this young fellow?”

  “I’ll send him over so you can meet him,” Mr. Sid replied.

  Meanwhile, Eisenhower’s letter to me sharpened my desire to see him become president under whatever label he chose. I was heartened that he told me to “continue to press and fight for the old-fashioned virtues of integrity, decency, and straightforwardness in public life.” He continued, “I applaud your efforts to support high moral standards and to remind us of the priceless privileges of freedom in our political, economic, and religious life.”

  I felt that the country would be fortunate to have a national leader who espoused such principles. I was pleased, therefore, when Mr. Sid arranged for me to meet General Eisenhower in Europe.

  Shortly after the Washington Crusade in early 1952, I traveled by ship to Europe, going by way of England—where Ruth and I, Cliff and Billie, and T.W. stopped at the invitation of the British Evangelical Alliance to hold discussions with British clergy about a possible Crusade—and Germany, for other Crusade explorations. Then on to Paris. By this time it was March.

  As our taxi pulled up in front of SHAPE, I was tense. Leaving Cliff and our close friend Bob Evans to wait for me, I was escorted by a military aide past various guardposts to the office of the commander of the Allied forces.

  General Eisenhower welcomed me warmly, with an outstretched hand and a wide smile. He was younger looking than I had expected, and more down-to-earth. Although he was in uniform, his office looked like that of a corporate executive, with walnutpaneled walls, a walnut desk, and green carpeting to match his chair. (Columbia University had sent both desk and chair from his office on the New York City campus.)

  We talked about our mutual friend, Sid Richardson. I explained that Mr. Sid often introduced me to people he thought I should know.

  The General shared some of his religious experiences as a boy. His parents had been River Brethren, a small but devoutly pious group in the Mennonite tradition. They had read the New Testa-ment in the original Greek and had taught their sons to memorize Scripture, just as my parents had taught me.

  He asked me about the Washington Crusade in the National Guard Armory and the message I was preaching. I considered that an especially perceptive question. Most people assumed they knew what preachers were all about, but the General was interested enough to probe my basic message. He listened intently and confessed that he and his wife, Mamie, rarely attended military chapel services, even during wartime.

  We talked about the Korean War and about the gains Com-munists were making around the world. And of course we talked abo
ut the following November’s election.

  “General Eisenhower,” I said, “I must tell you that no matter how much I might be for you privately, I couldn’t issue a public political statement.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  In more than two hours together, at no time did he hint that he would run. Still, I left feeling that I had met the next president of the United States.

  Four months later, in Chicago, the Republican Convention nominated General Eisenhower, with Senator Richard Nixon as his running mate. To my surprise, a call came from Frank Carlson, a senator from Kansas whom I had gotten to know during our Washington Crusade; he told me that General Eisenhower wanted to see me. Mystified, I traveled immediately to Chicago to meet with him at the Blackstone Hotel. Apparently, Carlson had sold Eisenhower on the idea that I could contribute a religious note to some of his campaign speeches.

  “Would you be willing?” Eisenhower asked.

  “Of course I want to do anything I can for you,” I said, “but as I told you last spring, I have to be careful not to publicly disclose my preferences or become embroiled in partisan politics.”

  “I understand,” he said. “But would you be able to come and see me in Denver next month? Plan on spending a few days.”

  In August we were together at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver for several sessions. During these, I gave him some Scripture verses I thought he might find helpful. Once I absentmindedly addressed him as “Congressman.” I quickly recovered but said “Senator.” By the time I got around to “General,” he was laughing and I was red-faced.

  “Why don’t you just call me Ike,” he said, but I never could. It was “Mr. President” when he was in office, and “General” when he was not.

  I respected his desire to inject a spiritual tone into his campaign, and the moment came when I felt free to talk to him about his own faith.

  “General, do you still respect the religious teaching of your father and mother?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, adding softly, “but I’ve gotten a long way from it.”

  I also felt free to present the Gospel to him and to clarify again the message that I preached. He told me that he had become disillusioned with the church early on when some preachers seemed to detour from spiritual essentials to merely social or even secular matters.

  “Frankly,” I said, “I don’t think the American people would be happy with a president who didn’t belong to any church or even attend one.”

  “As soon as the election is over, I’ll join a church,” he said. “But I’m not going to do it in order to get elected. I don’t want to use the church politically.”

  “What denomination do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “I’ve thought about that,” he said. “I suppose Presbyterian, because Mamie is Presbyterian. Do you know any good Presbyterian churches in Washington?”

  I recommended a couple, including National Presbyterian, where the pastor had been a wartime chaplain on the European front. He made a note of the name. In the course of our meetings in Denver, I gave him a red-leather Bible, which I inscribed to him on the flyleaf. In later years, some articles mentioned that he kept a red Bible by his bedside during his presidency.

  When Eisenhower won the election in November, I was asked by the press to pray for the President-elect in front of newsreel cameras. It had been only two years since the Truman fiasco, when photographers had asked me to pray on the White House lawn. I agreed, but I took care not to repeat what had taken place privately between Eisenhower and me, but I gladly prayed that the new President be given wisdom, confidence, strength, humility, and a deep dependence on God. I urged Americans to close ranks behind him and to pray for him.

  Shortly after the election, an opportunity for ministry arose that effectively removed me from any further direct involvement with General Eisenhower before his inauguration.

  For months I had been receiving letters from missionaries, chaplains, GIs, and Korean religious leaders asking if I could come to Korea. Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, also urged me to go. The war was in full swing, but as much as I wanted to comply, going seemed impossible. Back then our schedule was made up almost two years in advance, and I hesitated to cancel anything already established.

  The year 1952 had already proved the most strenuous in my ministry. We had held more Crusades and scheduled more meetings, and I had preached more sermons than ever. We were involved in radio, television, and film, and I was even writing a book.

  My schedule for the months of November and December included a Crusade in Albuquerque and a series of TV programs in Hollywood. I hoped to take the last two weeks of December off to relax with my family in the mountains of North Carolina. How could I possibly squeeze in a Korean tour?

  Before the Albuquerque meetings, Ruth was able to join me in Florida, and we had a couple of days to ourselves. As she and I settled into a little hotel room for a couple of days, I suddenly turned to her. “Darling, what would you think about my going to Korea to spend Christmas with our troops?” I asked.

  Since Ruth had been born in China and had attended high school in Korea, she knew and loved the land and its people. “I think it would be wonderful,” she said without hesitation.

  “It’s hard to think about a Christmas away from home,” I said.

  “We’ll manage,” she assured me.

  Knowing that she was behind me, I asked Bob Pierce and Grady Wilson to see how quickly they could make the arrangements. We three would be the only ones going. We would fly out of Albuquerque after the Crusade and rest a few days in Honolulu before the long, grueling flight to the Far East. Grady had told us that a doctor had prescribed sleeping pills for him, to allow him to sleep on the plane.

  Somehow Ruth—never one to turn down an opportunity for a practical joke—got hold of those sleeping pills and replaced them with empty capsules she had gotten at a pharmacy and filled with hot mustard powder, sharing her plan with Bob and me. Grady did not pull them out until he, Bob, and I finally left Honolulu to head for our next stop, Tokyo. We settled into the special beds on the Boeing Stratocruiser. Grady asked Bob and me if we wanted one of his sleeping pills. We both said yes and pretended to take them.

  About halfway through the night, I noticed that Grady was still awake.

  “Can’t you sleep?” I whispered.

  “I’ve got terrible heartburn,” he said. “I just took another sleeping pill. The first one didn’t work!”

  Our first stop was Japan, and I will never forget seeing that beautiful coastline from the air. This was part of the area my wife knew so well and about which she had told me so much. We were several hours late, but as we got off the plane, we were greeted by well-wishers singing Christian songs in English and carrying a sign that read, “WELCOME BILLY GRAHAM TO JAPAN.”

  The red tape of getting us into a war zone was monumental. But once we got over there, we were delighted to find that we had the support of the U.S. military. I hadn’t been in Tokyo but two or three days when I got an invitation to see General Mark Clark, commander of U.N. and U.S. Army forces in the Far East. He was so warm and gracious that I immediately felt at home. He said he had read about our work and knew us by reputation.

  “I want to give you the field rank of major general. When you go to Korea, I want you to go to all the military sites you have time for, and I’ll see to it that you have everything you need.”

  He rolled out the red carpet for us, providing transportation, lodging, and entrée to every spot we wanted to visit. That proved to be of great benefit, allowing us to get around in a difficult area. While the missionaries set up meetings for us, often it was the military who provided sound systems or lighting or carpentry or transportation.

  While in Japan, I heard a rumor that years earlier the emperor had made an astounding statement to General Douglas MacArthur. “I’ll make Japan a Christian nation,” he said.

  MacArthur thou
ght about it for a day or two before he responded. “No, then Japan wouldn’t be truly Christian. The people must come to Christ voluntarily.”

  So then, instead of the emperor proclaiming Christianity as the official state religion, General MacArthur sent out an appeal to the United States for ten thousand missionaries and ten million Bibles. American churches responded with perhaps a thousand missionaries and two or three million Bibles.

  Years later, when I was visiting General MacArthur in his suite in New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, he confirmed the story. Many people have wondered what would have happened had MacArthur accepted the emperor’s offer.

  At a banquet in Tokyo, Japan, I addressed 750 missionaries in what some said was the largest meeting ever of missionaries in the field. Never had I felt less worthy to stand before an audience. These were the true warriors of the Cross. They had left their homes and loved ones to battle on the front lines for the Gospel. God spoke to me through their example, and I would never be the same.

  The missionaries were tired, discouraged, and in need of a laugh. That night I shared with them the practical joke Ruth had pulled on Grady with the sleeping pills. They loved it, nearly falling off their chairs laughing. Grady, sitting at the head table, was hearing this for the first time. He turned several shades of red; for once his sense of humor abandoned him. But when he saw Ruth again back in the States, he had to laugh; it was the first time, he said, that he had taken a mustard plaster internally.

  My first opportunity to meet American GIs was in Tokyo General Hospital. I was moved as I saw the wounded. We talked to men whose spines had been crushed and who were paralyzed for life. We talked to others who had had their skulls split open. One boy had lost both eyes, an arm, and a leg, yet he greeted me with a smile. I would never forget those valiant men.