A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  Graham offered to provide similar diplomatic services, as well as to gain entree to yet another world leader, when he asked Dwight Chapin to see about having the American ambassador to France arrange a meeting with that nation’s new president, Georges Pompidou. A few months later, when Graham’s schedule placed him in Paris at the time of Charles de Gaulle’s death, he wired the White House to let Nixon know that he “would be available for anything he might want me to do in connection with De Gaulle’s death.” In each of these cases, Graham probably had more to gain than the President, but on two other occasions in 1970 he exposed himself to sharp criticism and enthusiastically lent himself and his prestige to efforts that Nixon’s staff hoped would shore up the President’s policies and popularity and rally support for the administration.

  In May 1970 Graham held a crusade in the stadium at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and invited the President not only to attend but to address the crowd, another crusade first—Lyndon Johnson had attended a crusade while President but had not spoken. Graham, of course, insisted his invitation was free from political intent and professed bafflement that anyone should think otherwise. “If Mr. Nixon had been running for election,” he acknowledged, “I could understand the charge of politics. But he is the President. I wouldn’t think that you’d call the President political.” Years later, he still maintained that his only concern had been spiritual: “I was going to preach the straight gospel. I thought he needed to hear it. I had him sit on the platform, of course; he was President of the United States.” Not everyone agreed with Graham’s assessment. In a CBS News editorial, Dan Rather asserted that whatever the evangelist’s intent, Nixon had leapt at the chance to make a safe, popular appearance in the South. By identifying with Graham, who was enormously popular in his native region, the President hoped to give a boost to Republican candidates in that year’s elections. He was particularly interested in the race for governor of Alabama, where a defeat to George Wallace would derail his troublesome presidential ambitions, and in the Republican attempt to unseat Democratic senator Albert Gore, Sr., in Tennessee. He did not think it seemly to campaign directly against the two men, but his advisers were said to feel that standing with Billy Graham would provide “just the right touch.” Secondarily, at a time when colleges were erupting in protest against the Vietnam War—the killings at Kent State had occurred just ten days earlier—Nixon sought to prove he could appear on a major campus without creating an uproar, and it seemed unlikely that a stadium full of Billy Graham supporters gathered from conservative East Tennessee would explode into anti-establishment chaos, especially since a state law made it a crime to disrupt a religious service.

  The evening proved to be less than the total triumph Nixon and his advisers hoped for. As he and Graham strode across the stadium turf on their way to the platform, a sweeping ovation washed over them, and a contingent of volunteers from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the unsmiling and vigilant corps of Secret Service agents provided an impenetrable defense against a small band of protesters holding placards recalling the biblical injunctions against killing or kneeling at the edge of the field in memory of those who had died in Vietnam. After Graham introduced Nixon, noting that “I’m for change—but the Bible teaches us to obey authority,” the President urged the youth night crowd to depend upon “those great spiritual sources that have made America the great country that it is.” When several hundred hecklers scattered about the stadium responded to that bit of piety with chants of “Bullshit! Bullshit!” and “Stop the crap and end the war!” the huge crowd swamped them with new waves of applause and cheers of approval that continued for several minutes. At one point, Nixon asked for attention, but he knew that most of the crowd was with him. He acknowledged the existence of different points of view and asserted his own belief in dissent, but added, with a triumphant smile, “I’m just glad that there seems to be a rather solid majority on one side rather than on the other side tonight,” a verdict that touched off still another torrential ovation. Overall, it was a satisfying evening for the President—Time called it “one of the most effective speeches he has yet delivered,” and when the service was telecast a few weeks later, most of the protest had been edited out, making it appear even better. Later that evening, after Air Force One arrived in California, Henry Kissinger called from San Clemente to tell Graham how much Nixon had appreciated the opportunity to have a part in the service.

  Graham’s other key effort to quiet the turmoil bedeviling the President occurred when he and Bob Hope teamed with Disney personnel, Reader’s Digest publisher Hobart Lewis, and hotel magnate J. Willard Marriot, Sr., to produce a July 4 religiopatriotic extravaganza known as Honor America Day. The exact genesis of the Super Salute to God and Country is is difficult to pin down, but Graham was obviously involved at the earliest stages, and despite insistence that it was strictly a nongovernmental affair, the White House played a central role in its planning and execution. The official rationale for the event was that in those troubled times, a divided nation needed an opportunity to renew and express its commitment to its deepest and most precious ideals and values and to celebrate the glorious joys of being an American—a combination revival meeting and national birthday party. In keeping with that aim, the organizers attempted to sound all the major chords in America’s heart song, with little sense that excess might detract from effectiveness. When told that a team of marathoners would relay an American flag from Philadelphia to Washington, and that the flag’s arrival at the Lincoln Memorial would touch off a worship service presided over by Billy Graham, H. R. Haldeman did not wince in fear that many Americans might find the blending of civil and sacred symbols too blatant. Instead, he wrote on the memo, “Great idea! Start from Liberty Bell. Maybe others from Williamsburg, Jamestown, Mt. Vernon, etc.” Later, he suggested that “most of all we need a solid cornball program developer.”

  Billy Graham’s participation went far beyond letting his name appear at the top of the stationery and showing up to preach. BGEA seconded Walter Smyth to work on the project full time, and Cliff Barrows oversaw the planning of the music for the religious service. Graham mentioned Honor America Day on his Hour of Decision broadcast, sent a special letter urging his East Coast supporters to attend the celebration, and dispatched several staffers to stir up interest among churches within reasonable driving distance of Washington. He personally encouraged black ministers to support the event, since an all-white gathering would appear too flagrantly Republican. He also tried to make sure that others did their part. In a memo to Charles Colson, Dwight Chapin noted that Graham “is pushing everyone very hard and when we run up against problems, Billy immediately reacts to the call and gets people tracking right. A call of thanks [to] keep him charged up would be a good touch.”

  The festivities themselves went smoothly. Rabbi Tanenbaum, Bishop Sheen, and E. V. Hill led prayers, and astronaut Frank Borman, “the first man to pray publicly in outer space,” was on hand to remind the assembly of the glories of prayers past. The U.S. Army Band and the Southern Baptist Male Chorus lent collective gravity to the occasion; Pat Boone, Kate Smith, and Johnny Cash sang patriotic favorites; and country singer Jeannie C. Riley warned that “when you’re running down my country, Hoss, you’re walking on the fighting side of me.” On the ideological edges of the crowd, leftist and other antiwar groups protested the American presence in Southeast Asia, and right-wingers damned the administration for not really trying to win in Vietnam. In the center, where he felt most comfortable, Billy Graham ticked off the reasons why America was worthy of honor. A generous America, he said, had repeatedly opened its doors to the distressed. Instead of hiding and denying its problems, it recognized and tried to solve them, giving all the right to voice their opinions freely, even when they ran counter to the policies of the government and will of the majority. And, most important of all, America should be honored because of its pervasive faith in God Almighty. It was vintage Fourth of July fare and vintage Graham,
a shining example of his ability to articulate the beliefs and sentiments of the great and decent center segment of American culture. The crowds on hand were disappointingly small—CBS estimated the total turnout at approximately 15,000—but millions watching network news heard Graham proclaim that “we honor America because she defends the right of her citizens to dissent”; call dissent “the hallmark of our freedom in America”; and thunder in conclusion, “Honor the nation! . . . And as you move to do it, never give in. Never give in! Never! Never! Never! Never!” Despite failure to attract the hoped-for “vast crowd,” the White House was pleased. Patrick Buchanan urged Chapin to distribute pictures of Graham preaching in front of the Lincoln Memorial to “all publications,” to mail a copy of his sermon to every minister in America, and to see to it that the sermon was reprinted in the Reader’s Digest. No one appeared more appreciative than Nixon, who both called and wrote Graham to commend him on his speech, assuring him that he had touched the hearts of millions and noting that “the Honor America Day ceremonies reinforced my own conviction that it is time to strike back—not in anger, and not in a mean spirit, but in affirmation of those enduring values that have proved themselves in crisis and trouble, generation after generation, and given our nation its greatness.” Graham never imagined for a moment that Nixon’s values varied from his own or doubted that Richard Nixon was God’s man for that critical hour in American history. In a handwritten note near the end of the President’s second year in office, Graham wrote, “My expectations were high when you took office nearly two years ago but you have exceeded [them] in every way! You have given moral and spiritual leadership to the nation at a time when we desperately needed it—in addition to courageous political leadership! Thank you!” He signed the letter “With Affection.”

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  The Power and the Glory

  Despite his enthusiasm for the task, Graham’s dabbling in the political arena occupied only a small portion of his time. His primary commitment and energy still went into preaching the gospel as effectively and widely as possible and encouraging movements and institutions that would enhance the growth and respectability of middle-of-the-road Evangelicalism. A lung problem that caused him to cut back on his crusade schedule in 1968 left him time not only to offer counsel to candidate Nixon but also to pursue his continuing interest in a school that would serve the East Coast as Fuller and Wheaton served the West and Midwest.

  Graham apparently entertained few regrets about declining John MacArthur’s offer to underwrite a full-scale university, but when the opportunity came to create an eastern counterpart to Fuller Seminary—a smaller and more manageable project that would not require him to neglect evangelism—he could not resist. That possibility arose as a result of an unusual set of circumstances involving the usual cast of characters. When Temple University in Philadelphia began to accept government funds in the midsixties, it was forced by law to divest itself of its seminary, the Conwell School of Theology, named for Temple’s founder, nineteenth-century Evangelical philanthropist Russell Conwell. The seminary was small, with only five faculty members, a couple of buildings, and fewer than fifty students. The easiest course would have been simply to close down, but institutions resist death. Daniel Poling, a prominent clergyman and friend of Graham who was a member of Temple’s board, had another plan. At a quickly arranged meeting in Penn Station, while Graham awaited a train to Montreat, Poling put the kind of pressure on Billy that Billy often put on others. “We’ve got to do something,” he told Graham, “and I’ve got it on my heart that you should have it,” adding that J. Howard Pew had it on his heart as well. Smarting from the United Presbyterian Church’s recent refusal of his offer to build an Evangelical seminary that would stand for the integrity of Scripture, Pew pledged to throw generous support behind Conwell if Billy Graham would take charge. Graham resisted, but Poling pressed and, apparently thinking he saw a glimmer of interest, kept on pressing. Finally, echoing William Bell Riley’s words twenty years earlier, he told Graham, “I’ll just have to meet you at the Judgment of God with this, because I know you’re the one to take it.” The threat that he might be out of God’s will if he spurned Poling’s offer pushed Billy’s balky camel on through the eye of the needle. “To make a long story short,” he recalled, “I took it, but with this understanding: all the board and all the faculty would resign, and I would name a new board and a new faculty. Of course, that created some problems.” Perhaps only Billy Graham would have dared set such conditions, but Poling accepted, and the Temple board agreed in essence to give Conwell to Graham, to let him do with it whatever he wanted.

  What he wanted was a board and faculty whose judgment and theology he trusted, and that is what he got. He packed the eighteen-member board with old friends and associates: Leighton Ford, Stephen Olford, Allan Emery, Carloss Morris, Robert Van Kampen, Roger Hull, and other dependables, mostly from the Northeast; only four of the resigning trustees were asked to stay on. An all-new Evangelical faculty was formed, led by Stuart Babbage, a professor of theology at the Columbia Presbyterian Seminary in Atlanta. In an innovative attempt to recruit and train black clergymen, Graham arranged to have regular seminary classes taught in a black section of the city to make it easier on students who might find it difficult to come to the Temple campus for all their classes. After about a year, Graham began working on Harold Ockenga to take over the day-to-day leadership of the school. Ockenga was favorably inclined but was also considering an offer to become president of Gordon College and Divinity School, an Evangelical school in Wenham, Massachusetts, north of Boston. “One day we were talking on the phone,” Graham recalled, “and I honestly don’t remember which one of us said it, but one of us said, ‘Why should we try to build two schools on the East Coast? We have one great school—Fuller—on the West Coast. Why not have one great school on the East Coast?’” The prospect of merger, with the attendant advantage of avoiding competition for faculty, students, and money, appealed to both men.

  Because the Temple campus was crowded, and because Graham felt a location in the Boston area would provide the most desirable intellectual cachet, it made sense for Conwell to move to New England. Since Graham had that school’s board in his pocket, his suggestion of a merger met little resistance. The Gordon board took more persuading, but Ockenga handled those negotiations, a task doubtless made easier by the prospect that access to Howard Pew’s millions might finally end the little school’s chronic financial problems. Pew was entirely willing to make good on his offer to back Graham’s project, but not without qualification. Because he was convinced that association with an undergraduate college would divert attention from the seminary’s primary task, and ultimately, that a liberal arts curriculum would undermine the authority of Scripture, he insisted that the new seminary divorce itself from Gordon College. Faced with the need to find a new home for a school that did not yet even exist, Graham approached another of his New England friends: Richard Cardinal Cushing. Billy pointed out to the cardinal that a Carmelite seminary in South Hamilton, near Wenham, had only two dozen or so students. “We want to put a major institution out there,” he told Cushing. “We need that seminary.” The prelate got on the telephone immediately (“He didn’t always use Evangelical Protestant language when he talked to his assistants,” Graham remembered) and found out that the seminary was indeed quite underutilized. Not long afterward, J. Howard Pew put up 2 million dollars to buy the land and several million more to refurbish existing facilities and to build and stock a library. With a new and attractive setting, a Graham-appointed board and faculty, and the combined 310-member student body from the two constituent schools, the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary got off to a brisk start in 1970. Enrollment quickly boomed, and two decades later, more than 550 students were preparing for the ministry in one of the largest and most vigorous seminaries in the country. And Billy Graham was still chairman of the board.

  In the midst of establishing a new educational institution, Graham rebounded
sufficiently from his health problems to return to Australia and New Zealand early in 1969 to finish a series of meetings cut short the year before. In 1970 he used an ambitious and innovative television relay system to transmit a crusade in Dortmund, Germany, to theaters, arenas, and stadiums throughout Western Europe and into Yugoslavia—“unscrambling Babel,” as one aide put it, to reach speakers of eight different languages. Then, after more than three years of attending mainly to foreign fields, he returned to America for two full years of domestic crusades, in Anaheim, New York City, Knoxville, Baton Rouge, Lexington, Chicago, Oakland, Dallas-Fort Worth, Charlotte, Birmingham, and Cleveland. For the most part, these were standard crusades with standard results, including the standard announcements of record-breaking closing-day crowds and higher-than-average rates of response to the invitation. They were not, however, performed in a vacuum, and Graham found that wherever he went, he was obliged to adapt not only to current events and improved technology but also to his status as a symbol friends and foes alike could use in service of their own agendas.

  The two-part visit to Australia and New Zealand was a mixture of joyous reunion and rude rebuff. Perhaps no event in that region’s history had affected religious life more than Graham’s triumphant tour in 1959. Now, a decade later, crusade committees and counseling classes and the pulpits of cooperating churches contained hundreds of people who proudly identified themselves as Fifty-Niners, men and women who had first come to faith in Graham’s original crusade and were happily “going on in the Lord.” The response in Sydney, where Evangelicals uncharacteristically had the strongest voice in Anglican circles, was generally warm and enthusiastic. Crowds were good—over 500,000 in eight days—and first-timers made up an unusually high 70 percent of the inquirers, a statistic that delighted both team and sponsors, since first-timers are more likely to represent a net addition to church rolls than are “rededicators.” Graham’s postponing of scheduled crusades in Melbourne and New Zealand may have made it harder to regenerate excitement when he returned in 1969; whatever the explanation, neither proved as receptive as they had been in 1959.