A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  No one could foresee the details of these extraordinary developments following in the wake of the 1973 crusade, but only the most obtuse could fail to recognize they were witnessing a wondrous thing. Secular observers would inevitably point to timing, to organization, to publicity, to the efforts of an eager minority to secure a place in a rapidly advancing society. But as a helicopter lifted him from Yoido Plaza and skimmed over the mile-long sea of handkerchiefs and white programs waving beneath in adoring gratitude, Billy Graham blinked with wonder and pronounced the only benediction he could fathom: “This is the work of God. There is no other explanation.”

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  Vietnam and Watergate

  Graham fervently wanted to believe that America and Richard Nixon were also involved in the work of God. He had long seen America as especially blessed in return for its allegiance to Judeo-Christian principles and, since the mid-1950s, had repeatedly urged Nixon to make his commitment to those principles more explicit, to say in public what Graham felt certain he believed deep in his heart. The goodness of America (if it would seek anew the vision of its founders), the greatness of Richard Nixon (if he would let it come to full flower), and his own ability to discern right from wrong—these were fundamental articles of Billy Graham’s faith. Bedrock beliefs can withstand enormous challenge, but never in Graham’s life had he been forced to deal with the cognitive dissonance posed for him by the two key issues of Richard Nixon’s presidency: Vietnam and Watergate. And perhaps never in his life did he experience so much difficulty in facing the limits and inconsistencies and distortions of his own perceptions than in his efforts to try to come to terms with these egregious episodes in American history.

  The Nixon presidency had been a heady experience for Graham. His closeness to the White House had brought increased criticism, but that was bearable. Nixon won reelection in a landslide, and both he and his policies were generally admired by Graham’s own constituency. Besides, for the most part, the detractors were people who had never much cared for Graham or his ministry. Even more important, Nixon’s establishment of the White House church services and his encouragement of Graham’s evangelistic efforts seemed part of the return to spiritual concerns that Billy perpetually longed for and frequently professed to see appearing on the horizon. After the second inauguration, he wrote a gushing note commending Nixon on what he deemed “by far the finest Inaugural address I have ever heard any President give. I have received many comments concerning the spiritual emphasis at the end. The note you struck touched a deep chord in America. . . . You are one of the most thoughtful men I have ever known.” Unhappily, he could not add that Nixon was one of the most generous people he had ever known. When the media reported that of $2 million he had earned during his presidency, Nixon contributed only $13,510 to charities and churches, including a paltry $1,250 to the Whittier Congregation of Friends and $4,500 to BGEA, Graham registered surprise at “the small amount he reported giving to charities in relation to his total income,” but added that “there may be some other explanation, in that his finances and contributions were left to other people.”

  Graham’s perception of increased spiritual concern on Nixon’s part emboldened him to push for measures he hoped might nudge America closer to becoming the righteous republic he was certain God wanted it to be. He had been predictably upset in 1962 and 1963 by the Supreme Court decisions banning prayer and devotional reading of the Bible in public schools. He once opined that “the few atheists who object to Bible reading in schools should be overruled by the majority” and briefly considered leading a movement to restore school-mandated prayer. He bowed for a time to the court’s commitment to pluralism, though its secularist tendencies so dismayed him that in 1970 he recommended that Protestants consider establishing a massive system of parochial schools, a vision whose incarnation (though largely independent of action on his part) became one of the key institutional segments of the Christian New Right within a decade. Now, however, he seemed ready to experiment with the civil religion he and Richard Nixon were constantly being accused of trying to impose on America.

  At the first White House service following the 1973 inauguration, Graham recommended that the Ten Commandments be read in every public-school classroom in America. It would, he ventured, be less controversial than prayer, and surely, all Judeo-Christian people could agree on its precepts. He failed to acknowledge that a rapidly growing segment of Americans did not fit into the categories of Jew or Christian. Neither did he seem to appreciate that with their prohibitions of worshiping gods other than Yahweh, taking God’s name in vain, making graven images, and violating the Sabbath, the Ten Commandments were not simply general moral principles but explicit theological tenets. When reporters asked Chief Justice Warren Burger, who was present at the service, if Graham’s suggestion might raise constitutional questions, Burger replied, “At this time, it would,” but that seemed not to discourage the evangelist. At one point, he volunteered that if the Ten Commandments would not pass the court’s test of neutrality, he would settle for Mao’s Eight Values: Speak politely, pay fairly for what you damage, repay debts fairly, do not hit or swear at people, do not damage crops, do not take liberties with women, and do not mistreat captives. But when that concession to pluralism drew fire from some who feared he might be growing soft on communism, he returned to recommending the Ten Commandments.

  Graham’s critics were quick to point out the problems and inconsistencies of such positions, but it was not these issues that disturbed them most. Of far greater concern were Vietnam and Watergate, issues on which they felt no man who had the President’s ear should remain silent. Graham liked to say, “I am not a Nathan,” referring to the prophet who had called King David to account for his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. In his mind, the alternative was an evangelist like Paul, who preached wherever he was given opportunity, including the courts of kings and governors, but did not occupy himself with trying to rectify the injustices of the Roman Empire. His critics, however, continued to feel that his refusal to speak out early and boldly against American policy in Vietnam and, later, against the Nixon administration’s role in the execution and attempted cover-up of the Watergate break-in smacked not of the Apostle Paul, whose preaching resulted in his own imprisonment and martyrdom, but of Zedekiah, the proud and colorful false prophet of Israel who won a favored spot in the court of Ahab by telling the king what he wanted to hear, confirming a course of action that ended his reign in death and disgrace, with the dogs of Samaria licking up his blood.

  Graham dealt with his confusion over Vietnam by refusing to comment on it during 1972. He was flushed out of that bunker, however, when the United States resumed heavy bombing of North Vietnam in mid-December of that year, setting off fresh waves of angry protest across America. Prodded by the press and fellow clergymen, including the Reverend Ernest Campbell of New York’s Riverside Church, who preached a sermon entitled “An Open Letter to Billy Graham,” in which he implored the evangelist to use his influence with Nixon to try to stop the bombing, Graham broke his self-imposed silence early in January 1973. In a widely distributed press release, he set forth what he claimed was the posture he had assumed throughout the war. “In regard to the conflict in Southeast Asia,” he said, “I have avoided expressions as to who was right and who was wrong. Naturally, I have come under criticism from both hawks and doves for my position. During all this time, though, I had repeatedly indicated my hope for a rapid and just peace in Southeast Asia. I have regretted that this war has gone on so long and has been such a divisive force in America. I hope and pray that there will be an early armistice.” He pointed out that although the Bible “would indicate we will always have wars on the earth until the coming again of the Prince of Peace,” he did not take that as justification for indifference or complacency. “I have never advocated war,” he said. “I deplore it! I also deplore the violence everywhere throughout the world that evidences man’s inhumanity to man. I am therefore praying for ever
y responsible effort which seeks true peace in our time.”

  In response to the suggestion that he urge Nixon to stop the bombing (which had, in fact, been stopped a few days before he released his statement), Graham scoffed at the popular picture of him as some kind of “White House Chaplain,” pointing out that his relationship to Nixon was little different from Cardinal Cushing’s relationship to John Kennedy. He also insisted that his influence on Nixon had been overdrawn: “The President doesn’t call me up and say, ‘Billy, shall we do this or that?’ That just doesn’t happen. I’m not one of his confidants; I’m not one of his advisers. I’m just a personal friend. That’s all. In no way would he ask me military strategy. He’s never even discussed it with me. If I have something to say to President Nixon, I’ll do it privately and I won’t announce it from the housetops with a lot of publicity.” Even if the President did seek his advice on secular matters, Graham claimed, he would be reluctant to give it, a statement that neatly finessed two decades of documented action to the contrary. “I am convinced,” he asserted, “that God has called me to be a New Testament evangelist, not an Old Testament prophet! While some may interpret an evangelist to be primarily a social reformer or political activist, I do not! An evangelist is a proclaimer of the message of God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ and the necessity of repentance and faith.”

  The New York Times published another interview with Graham on the weekend of the inauguration, just six days before the signing of the truce agreement in Paris on January 27, 1973. He claimed he had “doubted from the beginning” the wisdom of “sending American troops anywhere without the will to win.” It seemed to him, he said, that “we entered the war almost deliberately to lose it. I don’t think we should ever fight these long-drawnout, half-hearted wars. It’s like cutting a cat’s tail off a half-inch at a time.” Still, he conceded that the December resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam had dismayed him. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I felt gloomy. Like all Americans, I thought a cease-fire was imminent.” Rather than let those widely shared and quite comprehensible statements stand alone, however, Graham minimized the significance of the war by noting once again that it was just one example of violence in a world filled with tragedy. “There are hundreds of thousands of deaths attributed to smoking,” he said. “A thousand people are killed every week on the American highways,” he noted, “and half of those are attributed to alcohol. Where are the demonstrations against alcohol?”

  By this time, Graham had settled on an official version of his role with regard to the war. He told the New York Times, Christianity Today, and anyone else who asked that in all the history of the Vietnam conflict, he had made only one public comment that could be construed as support for the war. That lone remark, made before the United States became deeply involved in the war, had been an offhand response to a question. Moreover, he wasn’t even certain what he had said on that occasion, “but I know that as soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t.” Graham’s critics were not impressed. Union Seminary’s John C. Bennett observed that “when people claim to be above politics it is axiomatic that they in effect support the status quo.” Elaborating on this point, others charged that it was precisely Graham’s silence that accounted for his popularity with the president. Since he was unwilling to criticize them on any matter of substance, he was perceived by them and by the public to be in favor of whatever policy they espoused. In specific response to that criticism, a BGEA spokesman explained that “if he took a position for or against certain policies, he would alienate people on one side or another—and this he is not what he set out to do.”

  It is true that Graham had felt deep disquiet over the war for several years. It is true that he made some effort, as in his Bangkok meeting with missionaries, to discern both the positives and negatives of American policy and conduct and to suggest ways in which the war might be brought to a swift and satisfactory conclusion. It is also true, however, that his consistent characterization of war protesters as misguided, extremist, or even disloyal and his refusal to criticize American policy in Southeast Asia could easily be interpreted as support for that policy. That is how much of the public and many of his fellow clergy viewed his position, and that is certainly how the White House viewed it. In April 1972 Haldeman had instructed Colson that “calls should be made before the President’s Wednesday night speech to Billy Graham, Bob Hope, Cardinal Krol, and others of that sort—the hard-line type—who support us. They should be urged to watch the speech because the President will be making some very important points that they will find helpful.” Apparently, Graham wanted the White House to consider him a supporter. As soon as the media began to pick up on his press release deploring all war and violence and urging a rapid and just peace in Southeast Asia, Dwight Chapin informed Haldeman that Graham wanted to be in touch with him and with the President. “He is very disturbed,” Chapin reported, “by some press reports which quote him as saying the war is deplorable.”

  When the Paris accord ended the war less than a week into the second Nixon administration, Graham could not resist a bit of private crowing; in a note of congratulations, he told the President, “Some of the liberal commentators seem to be disappointed that you were able to do it!” Now, perhaps, with the war behind him, Nixon could unshackle his latent spirituality and help heal America’s wounds by leading it back to God. First, of course, he would have to attend to his own salvation. “It is my prayer,” the evangelist wrote, “that during these next four years you will put your total trust in the same Christ that your dear Mother so firmly believed in.” Unfortunately for Nixon, for Graham, and for the nation, the dark form taking shape on the horizon was not a whirlwind of revival, but the specter of Watergate.

  When operatives of the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) broke into offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate apartment complex in June 1972, few could have foreseen that the early trickles of indignation would eventually become a flood of outrage that would sweep Richard Nixon from office and deposit several of his key associates in prison. Clearly, Graham did not treat it as an act of great consequence. When George McGovern depicted what some were calling a caper as instead an example of the ethical poverty of the Republican administration, Graham characterized his attack as a “desperate” move, a sign that he knew he could not defeat Nixon on the more important issues of the campaign. In a note to Haldeman, he observed that “it is amazing to me that people who made a hero of [Daniel] Ellsburg for stealing the Pentagon Papers are so deeply concerned about the alleged escapade at Watergate.”

  Five months later, after federal judge John Sirica ordered seven defendants in the case, including G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord, Jr., to appear before a grand jury to explore possible high-level involvement in the break-in, and after McCord told a closed Senate hearing that John Mitchell, former attorney general and head of CREEP, had known of plans for the break-in before it occurred, Graham’s primary response was one of admiration for the aplomb Nixon demonstrated while his enemies snapped at his ankles. “I have marveled at your restraint as the rumors fly about Watergate,” he wrote. “King David had the same experience. He said: ‘They accuse me of things I have never even heard about. I do them good but they return me harm.’ (Psalm 35:11–12).” Graham apparently believed Nixon was certain to emerge unscathed. Quoting a modern-language translation of Proverbs 19:20, he predicted, “If you profit from constructive criticism, you will be elected to the wise men’s hall of fame.”

  As evidence mounted that, indeed, Watergate had not been simply a caper performed by an overzealous free-lance cadre of CREEP “plumbers” but a carefully planned expedition ordered and subsequently covered up by men quite close to and possibly including Richard Nixon himself, Graham took some steps to clear himself of any possible stain that might wash over him. “[New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs] Punch Sulzberger was a good friend,” he explained. “During Watergate, he offered me the use of his op-ed page to w
rite whatever I wanted, and I wrote two articles distancing myself to some extent.” He also gave interviews to AP religion writer George Cornell and the Today show and made some of the same observations on an Hour of Decision broadcast in May. “Of course,” he acknowledged, “I have been mystified and confused and sick about the whole thing, as I think every American is.” He felt certain the President was not seriously involved, since “his moral and ethical principles wouldn’t allow him to do anything illegal like that,” and he decried the “trial by media and by rumor.” At the same time, he called for the dismissal and punishment of “everybody connected with Watergate,” labeled the scandal as “a symptom of the deeper moral crisis” brought on by “amoral permissiveness that would make Sodom blush,” and called on Americans “to engage in some deep soul-searching about the underpinnings of our society and our goals as a nation,” to “take the law of Moses and the Sermon on the Mount seriously,” and to show concern for “an honest and efficient government at all levels.”

  As he called on the nation to learn the deeper lessons of Watergate, Graham was counseling the White House to make that task more difficult. After Haldeman, Ehrlichman, John Dean, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resigned in anticipation of the Senate hearings scheduled to begin in mid-May, Graham called Larry Higby to suggest that Nixon and his staff take immediate measures to divert the public’s attention from the Watergate affair. He suggested, Higby told the President, that “wherever possible we create picture situations such as the one yesterday with you and Willy Brandt. This causes public focus on the fact that the President is not bogged down on one issue, but is working in other areas. He feels the more of this type of thing we can do, the better. The American people need to be diverted from Watergate. . . .” Two days later, North Carolina senator Jesse Helms dropped a note to Nixon, reporting that “I chatted at some length yesterday afternoon with Billy Graham. I need not tell you that you have a real friend there. Do not allow the present circumstances to worry you. Your friends understand, and we are confident that right will prevail. God bless you.” These letters and verbal messages delivered through aides and friends served a double purpose. Not only did they transmit information he wanted the President to have; they also enabled him to say with a straight face and, perhaps, a clear conscience that he and the President had never discussed Watergate.