A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  Harry Truman did not subscribe to this line of reasoning. After leaving the presidency, he once observed that Graham had “gone off the beam. He’s . . . well, I hadn’t ought to say this, but he’s one of those counterfeits I was telling you about. He claims he’s a friend of all the Presidents, but he was never a friend of mine when I was President. I just don’t go for people like that. All he’s interested in is getting his name in the paper.” Apparently, Truman eventually softened his assessment of the evangelist, but he had not done so by January 1952, and Graham had made little effort to mend the rift, if he even knew it existed. The communication between the evangelist and the White House regarding this crusade provides an illuminating contrast between a man whose desire for affirmation was a mainspring of his personality and a man barely able to summon conventional courtesy toward those whom he wished to avoid. A few weeks prior to the crusade, Truman informed his aides that “when, as, and if a request comes for Billy Graham to be received at the White House, the President requests that it be turned down. . . . “Unaware of Truman’s directive, Graham sent him a detailed preview of the campaign, noted that Oklahoma senator Robert Kerr would serve as crusade chairman, and added, “I would count it a high privilege and distinct honor if you could bring a few words of greeting [on opening day] and, if possible, stay for the entire service. We would be particularly thrilled to have Mrs. Truman and Miss Margaret join you on that occasion.” Graham then cannily suggested that such a favor could benefit the President and his party. Truman had talked of appointing an ambassador to the Vatican. Republicans saw this as a cynical political maneuver designed to nail down the Catholic vote in an election year, and many Protestants, whatever their party affiliation, opposed such an appointment on religious grounds. Aware that the President was in a tight spot, Graham said, “Due to some of the unfavorable publicity connected with the Vatican issue, I sincerely believe it would be of some advantage to you to join with us on that opening Sunday. You may be interested to know that I have refused to make any comment on the Vatican appointment because I didn’t want to be put into the position of opposing you.” A few days later, a White House memo reported that “at Key West, the President said very decisively that he did not wish to endorse Billy Graham’s Washington revival, and particularly, he said, he did not want to receive him at the White House. You remember what a show of himself Billy Graham made the last time he was here. The President does not want it repeated.” When the inevitable request came, Harry Truman’s “very decisive” declination was sanitized by his secretary into a polite “I’m very sorry I must send you a disappointing reply.”

  “Graham was disappointed, to be sure. The President’s approval would be a marvelous coup, irrefutable evidence that he and his ministry had national significance. At the same time, he felt Mr. Truman was making a tactical error. Just four days before the opening service, he wrote to the President’s secretary, informing him that “this campaign is being watched with probably more interest than probably any religious event since the founding of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam, and I do feel it would be advantageous for the President to give some word or to make a personal appearance at some time during these meetings.” The President was not persuaded, but Graham would not give up. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel, he seemed determined not to let go until he had wrung a blessing from his adversary. When Truman made good on his promise not to attend the opening service, Graham set a new goal. If Sam Rayburn and Congress could set aside normal regulations to permit him to preach on the Capitol steps, surely the President could set aside an hour or two to attend that service. Jerry Beavan sent Truman a resolution by 225 ministers who urged him to be present at that rally. Graham followed immediately with a letter noting that ABC would broadcast the service coast-to-coast and that “the clergy of the Washington area, together with literally thousands of their colleagues, would rejoice to know that their chief executive was in attendance on this occasion.” He then called the White House to issue a personal plea that Truman attend the service. An aide who took the call reported that Graham stressed that he “believes the President will go down in history as one of the most courageous men of all times,” reiterated his refusal to speak out on the Vatican issue, and observed that his ministry had received “some favorable publicity from various publications.” This time, Truman’s secretary informed Graham that “a previous engagement” would preclude the President’s attendance at the service, but that he “is nonetheless grateful for the kind thought which prompted your invitation and sends you his best wishes.” Finally, Graham stopped pestering the White House. He recognized he had been rebuffed—a Time magazine story described Truman’s nonappearance as a “snubbing”—but he resisted prophetic rebuke, limiting himself to a mild “I guess he was just too busy or something.” Privately, he may have taken pleasure in reports that the rally drew a bigger crowd than had Truman’s inauguration.

  Harry Truman may have regarded Graham as a rube to be avoided, but other politicians saw him either as a kindred spirit or as someone whose friendship could convey a blessing. Approximately one third of all senators and one fourth of House members asked for a special allocation of seats for crusade services, and scores of congressmen attended the Capitol rally. With the help of such friends, Graham secured permission to hold prayer sessions at the Pentagon each noon throughout the crusade. Virginia senator A. Willis Robertson, father of religious broadcaster and 1988 Republican presidential candidate M. G. “Pat” Robertson, boosted Graham by authoring a unanimous Senate resolution to be read at a crusade prayer service, urging Americans to pray that “God may guide and protect our nation and preserve the peace of the world.” Graham’s sojourn in Washington also led to acquaintance with two men who would become his close and controversial friends, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, the latter another favorite of Sid Richardson’s. Of greater immediate moment, however, the attention he received apparently convinced Graham that he and his supporters wielded considerable political clout. Late in 1951 he had expressed the opinion, foreshadowing later predictions by the religious right, that “the Christian people of America will not sit idly by in 1952. [They] are going to vote as a bloc for the man with the strongest moral and spiritual platform, regardless of his views on other matters. I believe we can hold the balance of power.” This bloc, he suggested, would be a coordinated effort in which church members would follow “the instructions of their religious leaders.” During the Washington crusade, he announced his desire to interview every potential candidate from both parties, revealing he had already met with Senator Estes Kefauver and General Douglas MacArthur (“He is one of the most inspirational men I have ever met. . . . He is deeply religious”), and expected to visit General Eisenhower during a March visit to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) near Paris. “The only one who has turned me down,” he noted pointedly, “is President Truman. I will not ask for another appointment.” Though careful to note that he would refrain from a public endorsement, he told reporters that he might well share his personal choice with a number of religious leaders “who probably will use my views as a guide.” He was also willing to commend his views to candidates. “If I could run for President of the United States today,” he volunteered, “on a platform of calling the people back to God, back to Christ, back to the Bible, I’d be elected. There is a hunger for God today.” At first Graham brushed off any suggestion of personal desire for political office, but statements such as this stirred some imaginations, and a few months later, he told reporters that “numerous congressmen” and a former member of Roosevelt’s cabinet had approached him to run for the United States Senate from North Carolina, or perhaps even to consider the presidency in 1956. Apparently, he did not consider such suggestions far-fetched. America had not yet reached a crisis that demanded he sacrifice his ministry to enter politics, he said, but if that should happen, he stood ready to help: “If the country ever comes close to communism, I will offer myself in any capacity
to lead the Christian people of this country in the preservation of their God-given democratic institutions.” In the meantime, he estimated he could swing at least sixteen million votes to the cause or candidate of his choice.

  Despite Graham’s profession of neutrality during the early stages of the presidential campaign, it appears he already suspected who his choice would be. Several months earlier, in a letter to Sid Richardson, he expressed a highly positive evaluation of Dwight Eisenhower (named, it was said, for Dwight Moody) and a hope that the general would seek the presidency. Richardson shared the letter with Ike, who wrote to Graham in November 1951, thanking him for “the overgenerous personal allusions your letter made to me” and commending him for his “fight for the old-fashioned virtues of integrity, decency, and straightforwardness in public life.” Richardson then proposed to Graham that he “write General Eisenhower some good reasons why you think he ought to run for the presidency.” Graham protested: “Mr. Sid, I can’t get involved in politics.” The canny old operator pushed this objection aside. “There’s no politics,” he said. “Don’t you think any American ought to run if millions of people want him to?” When Graham agreed, Richardson grumped, “Say that in a letter,” and Graham did as he was bidden. Eisenhower’s earlier note to Graham was apparently a formal courtesy, and his compliments were generated by Sid Richardson’s appraisal of the evangelist rather than any firsthand knowledge. But this missive caught his attention, and he asked Richardson, “Who was that young preacher you had write me? It was the darndest letter I ever got. I’d like to meet him sometime.” Given this encouragement, Graham promptly requested an interview and Eisenhower agreed, though he insisted that his position as SHAPE commander ruled out any early declaration of intentions. In later years Graham has minimized his role in Eisenhower’s decision to seek the presidency, claiming his was just one voice among many. According to Jerry Beavan, who met with Eisenhower and his staff at Fontainebleau to iron out details of Graham’s visit, Richardson and several of his Texas cronies specifically assigned Billy the task of persuading the general to enter the campaign, and the Fontainebleau meeting proved pivotal in that decision.

  Graham continued to feign impartiality, even to the point of declining invitations by both major parties to lead the opening prayer at their national conventions, but it was not hard to discern where his sentiments lay. He repeatedly criticized the Truman administration for the way America had entered the Korean conflict and for lack of resolve in pursuing victory. “How many of you voted to go into the Korean War?” he often asked, noting that “I never did.” The decision had been made by “one man sitting in Washington,” and just as all inherit the burden of Adam’s original sin in the Garden of Eden, “when Mr. Truman went to war in Korea, you and I went to war in Korea whether we liked it or not.” He told a Houston audience in May 1952, “The Korean War is being fought because the nation’s leaders blundered on foreign policy in the Far East. I do not think the men in Washington have any grasp of the Oriental mind; Alger Hiss shaped our foreign policy and some of the men who formulate it [now] have never been to the East.” The administration then compounded its original error, he charged, by refusing to follow General MacArthur’s advice to take whatever measures were necessary to win, choosing instead to drag out the war in a “cowardly” and “half-hearted” fashion at a cost of nearly two thousand American lives each week.

  Throughout the spring and summer, Graham echoed the sentiments and sometimes the exact phrases of the Republican campaign, observing that it was “time for a change,” time to elect new leaders who would “clean up the mess in Washington,” time to get “a new foreign policy to end this bloodletting in Korea.” Asserting that “we all seem to agree there’s a mess in Washington,” he proclaimed that “the nation desperately needs a strong spiritual leader” who has “the fortitude and moral courage to clean out the ‘grafters and hangers-on’,” “a Moses or a Daniel [or a general] to lead them in this hour.” After Eisenhower gained the Republican nomination, Graham visited him at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver and presented him with a red Bible, which the general apparently kept with him and read frequently throughout the campaign. At this same meeting Eisenhower confided his concern that the public did not perceive him to be a religious man. To make a show of religion during a campaign, he feared, would appear insincere, but he told Graham he intended to join a church immediately following the election, win or lose. Whether the general’s approach was guileless or craftily calculating, it won Graham’s admiration, and the story found its way into the newspapers. Without question, Eisenhower recognized the potential value of Graham’s goodwill. In the early stages of the campaign, he wrote to Washington governor Arthur Langlie, cochair of Graham’s 1951 Seattle crusade, acknowledging Graham’s power to reach millions of voters and expressing his pleasure in the evangelist’s commendation of his “crusade for honesty in government” during several Hour of Decision radio broadcasts. Clearly, Eisenhower hoped for more, even though he recognized Graham and other religious leaders would have to be circumspect in their support. “Since all pastors must necessarily take a nonpartisan approach,” he conceded, “it would be difficult to form any formal organization of religious leaders to work on our behalf. However, this might be done in an informal way, and I am passing a copy of this letter . . . on to [campaign adviser] Arthur Summerfield. If you have further thoughts along this line, I would be most grateful for them.” Perhaps because they doubted his influence or feared some kind of backlash, Eisenhower’s staff was ambivalent toward Graham. They acknowledged that the general “likes and admires” the evangelist, but attempted to limit the number and length of his visits.

  Keeping Graham’s favor proved wise. Not only did he continue to make Republican-flavored comments, but a few days before the November election, he revealed to the press that although he was still not taking sides, a personal survey of nearly 200 churchmen and religious editors from 30 states and 22 denominations indicated that 77 percent favored Eisenhower for president, while only 13 percent indicated an intention to vote for Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. Predictably, such gestures won Eisenhower’s appreciation and affection and, after his thumping victory in the election, led to Graham’s being asked to serve as a religious consultant for the inauguration ceremonies.

  The Washington crusade and his developing relationship with Eisenhower enhanced Graham’s symbolic importance as an official spokesman for Protestant Christianity. During the fall of 1952, he began to receive letters from chaplains and servicemen asking him to visit troops in Korea during the Christmas season. Cardinal Spellman visited the troops under the auspices of the Defense Department, but Graham was unable at first to obtain government sponsorship for his trip and was obliged to pay his own expenses, an inequity Harold Ockenga and other Evangelicals vehemently criticized. Jerry Beavan and friends in Congress, however, helped reduce Pentagon resistance to a morale-boosting visit, and accompanied by Grady Wilson and Bob Pierce, president of the Evangelical relief organization, World Vision, Graham soon set out on his first visit to the Far East, grandly announcing his plan to duck from bunker to bunker along the front “to assure the boys that prayers are being said for them at Christmastime.” In Tokyo, where he lunched with the emperor’s brother, visited wounded soldiers, and addressed nearly 750 missionaries (“I was told,” he reported, “that this was the largest gathering of missionaries on a mission field in history”), he was called in for an unexpected visit with General Mark Clark, Supreme Allied Commander in the Far East. On the day following that visit, Graham and his party received word that the Pentagon had decided not only to sponsor their trip but had ordered first-class treatment throughout their stay in Korea. With clear delight, Billy exulted, “We all became VIPs!” and, on returning home, disingenuously told his supporters of a privileged train trip in a general’s private command car, of having “a full escort with about ten jeeps to meet us” and an “entire staff lined up for review,” of “being briefed by ev
ery commanding general in every area,” and of being repeatedly offered “the seat assigned by protocol to [generals].”

  The tour, however, was hardly an exercise in vainglory. At almost every stop, Graham and his colleagues visited orphanages set up by American GIs (and, in many cases, supported by World Vision) to care for children who had lost their families in the war. He was equally diligent in visiting numerous hospitals and MASH (mobile army surgical hospital) units where wounded soldiers were being treated. He saw, for the first time, sights that exceeded his imagination: “men with their eyes shot out—their arms mutilated—-gaping wounds in their sides and back—their skin charred by horrible burns,” a “big, tough Marine” so shredded by enemy bullets that “there was not enough body left to be made whole again.” When one man, permanently paralyzed and lying facedown in a canvas and aluminum rigging, said, “Mr. Graham, I would like to see your face,” Billy lay on his back, fighting tears as he softly talked and prayed with him. Seeing his countrymen suffer strengthened his conviction that Washington should seek a swift and decisive end to such carnage, but it did not make him a war monger. “I wish every American could stand [in the hospitals] with me,” he said. “They would have a new sense of the horror of war.” And he recognized that Americans were not the only ones to suffer. After seeing a Communist POW who had been “burned by a liquid fire,” he said, “Watching him I could not help but think of the terrible suffering that goes on in the Communist armies as well. I offered a prayer for them, too, for our God is not only the God of the Americans, but also of the Communists. I am convinced that we as Christians should pray daily for our Communist enemies.” Graham reckoned he had “wept more in Korea than in the past several years put together. These experiences changed my life. I could never be quite the same again. . . . I felt sadder, older. I felt as though I had gone in a boy and come out a man.”