535.“People ask us . . . many Westerners think.” Walter Smyth interview, June 11, 1986.
535.BG assumes surveillance. BG, interview, March 6, 1989.
535.Soviet official: “I raised my hand.” Plowman, interview.
536.BG gives credibility to small churches. AH, interview.
536.“We bring new images.” Ibid.
537.Permission to print BG books. John Akers, interview, March 6, 1989.
537.“a magnificent goodwill ambassador.” AH, interview.
537.BG expects Baker’s support. BG, interview, March 6, 1989.
537.BG on Gorbachev’s spirituality. Interview, CBS Morning News, December 25, 1987. Transcript.
Chapter 32: Amsterdam
539.“would have been in Book of Acts.” Quoted in Dave Foster, Billy Graham: A Vision Imparted. A Pictorial Report on the International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists (Minneapolis: World Wide Publications, 1984), p. 23.
539.“According to Walter Smyth. . . .” Foster, A Vision Imparted, p. 6 “to reach the little guy.” BG, interview, February 27, 1987.
540.Burklin: “no idea as to how many . . .” Werner Burlkin, interview, June 6, 1986.
540.Why Amsterdam was selected. Foster, A Vision Imparted, p. 17.
540.“poignant and comic moments.” From Tom Minnery, “How to Be an Evangelist,” Christianity Today, September 2, 1983, p. 44; Foster, A Vision Imparted, pp. 21–22.
541.Wives meeting. Foster, A Vision Imparted, pp. 62–63; Foster, “Billy Graham on What He Does Best,” Christianity Today, September 2, 1983, pp. 28–31.
541.Processing applications for Amsterdam ’86. Bob Williams, interview, June 9, 1986; application evaluation guidelines, ICIE 1986, furnished by Williams.
541.Distribution of invitees. “Summons to the ‘Unknowns,’” Time, July 28, 1986, p. 69.
543.PRC representatives. Burklin, interview.
543.Evangelists operate book scams. T. W. Wilson confirmed that this had happened. Interview, February 26, 1987. I received several such requests from individuals whom I had noted hanging around the conference bookstore and telling Westerners of their needs.
544.Five hundred women participants. “Summons to the ‘Unknowns,’” p. 69.
544.“It’s already paid for.” Bob Evans, interview, July 9, 1986. Graham acknowledged that this had happened. Several other team members told the same story, not always with a sense that their leader had acted prudently.
545.“might have been better spent.” A. Jack Dain, interview, July 14, 1986.
545.Sri Lankan evangelist crosses war zone. Dave Foster, Amsterdam 86 (Minneapolis: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 1987), p. 25.
545.“They will kill us.” Foster, Amsterdam 86, p. 21.
545.“I felt like a worm.” BG, ICIE press conference, July 18, 1986.
545.“we are all one in Christ.” Burklin, interview.
545.“This place is like heaven!” Foster, Amsterdam 86, p. 83.
546.Cultural adaptation of program. John Corts, interview, June 9, 1986.
547.BG resists speaking. Ibid.; Walter Smyth, interview, June 11, 1986.
548.Ruth on problem children. Foster, Amsterdam 86, p. 61.
548.John Corts on Day of Witness. Interview.
548.Day of Witness. Personal observation; statistics from Foster, Amsterdam 86, pp. 83–66. McIntire. Luncheon conversation with McIntire and Bundy, July 18, 1986.
550.Corts’s 1990 report on mini-Amsterdams. Letter, Corts to author, February 6, 1990.
Chapter 33: The Constituted Means
551.BG checked off remaining states. Graham has not actually held a crusade in Delaware, but his campaigns in Philadelphia and New York, and a New Jersey crusade scheduled for September 1991—his first in that state—have involved churches in Delaware.
552.“Yes, we have a plan . . . don’t change.” Sterling Huston, interview, May 2, 1987.
552.“This is the game plan.” David Bruce, interview, July 24, 1987.
552.“dog-and-pony show.” Kenneth Chafin, oral history, 1981, CN 141, Box 11, Folder 8. Chafin was dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism from 1968 to 1983.
553.“When you have a thirty-year track record.” John Bisagno, oral history, November 13, 1981, CN 141, Box 13, Folder 2, BGCA.
553.Ambassador Rodgers’s only assignments pertained to BG. The Honorable Joe M. Rodgers, U.S. ambassador to France, interview, September 21, 1986.
553.Crusade security. Tex Reardon, interview, April 29, 1986.
553.Ruth Graham: “Nothing can touch a child of God.” Mary Bishop, Billy Graham, the Man and His Ministry (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), p. 16.
554.“If they really want you.” T. W. Wilson, Interview, February 27, 1987.
554.Akers on inclusion of blacks. John Akers, interview, February 25, 1987.
555.Jones and Bell observations on efforts to include blacks. Howard Jones and Ralph Bell, interviews, May 1, 1987.
555.Bisagno on crusade services. John Bisagno, oral history, 1981, CN 141, Box 13, Folder 2, BGCA.
555.Crusade music. Gavin Reid, interview, April 30, 1987, and To Reach a Nation (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1987), pp. 78–80; John Innes, interview, May 1, 1987.
556.Hulk Hogan meets BG. Denver crusade, press release 87-8, BGEA Crusade Information Service.
557.BG blesses reporters who curse him. Larry Ross, interview, March 28, 1988.
557.George Cornell assesses BG. Letter, Cornell to Robert Ferm, August 20, 1959, CN 19 (Ferm Collection), BGCA.
557.Mission England press coverage. Reid, To Reach a Nation, p. 56, and interview.
557.“Get some more pictures up.” Bob Evans, conversation, November 12, 1987.
558.Dienert on BG’s gift for publicity. Interview, October 5, 1987.
558.Reid: “He is a ‘name.’” Reid, To Reach a Nation, p. 76.
559.Telephone ministry. Terry Wilken, interview, June 11, 1986.
559.“We never call them ‘converts.’” BG, quoted in Lewis F. Brabham, A New Song in the South: The Story of the Billy Graham Greenville, S.C., Crusade (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), p. 52.
559.BG: “not sure I have ever led a soul to Christ.” Related by Roy Gustafson, interview, July 13, 1986.
559.Over the years, various journalists, sociologists, seminary professors, church-agency researchers, and members of Graham’s own staff have studied individual crusades in attempts to determine how many inquirers were already members of, or in reasonably close touch with, a church before they went forward at a crusade service; how many were members or at least attending church at some specified point after the crusade; and how big a net gain in previously unaffiliated members the churches in a crusade city experienced. The studies vary in both design and result, but several findings appear again and again. In America, depending somewhat on the location of the crusade, between half and three quarters of the inquirers were already faithful in church attendance. Even larger percentages (as high as 96 percent in one study) had some kind of tie with a specific congregation or denomination. The net gain in new church members amounted to between only 5 percent and 16 percent of all inquirers, and a substantial portion of those were young people, who typically make up at least half of the total number of inquirers. When social class was considered, members of the respectable middle class, who compose the bulk of white Evangelical Protestant churches in America, clearly predominated. In short, what most inquirers in Graham’s American crusades hear may be “Good,” but it can hardly be counted as “News.” For them, Graham is not so much an evangelist, bringing fresh tidings of a hitherto unknown truth, as he is a revivalist, calling them to renew allegiance to that which they already believe, or to take a few more steps in the direction in which they were already leaning. See, for example, Kurt Lang and Gladys Engel Lang, “Decisions for Christ: Billy Graham in New York City,” in Identity and Anxiety, Survival of the Person in Mass Society, ed. M. R. Stein (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960); George Palmer Bowers
, An Evaluation of the Billy Graham Greater Louisville Evangelistic Crusade, 1958, Th.M. Thesis, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, December 1958; Glenn Firebaugh, “How Effective are City-Wide Crusades?” Christianity Today, March 27, 1981, pp. 24–27; Lewis Drummond, The Impact of Billy Graham Crusades: Are They Effective? (Minneapolis: World Wide Publications, 1982); Win Arn, “Mass Evangelism: The Bottom Line,” in Arn, ed., The Pastor’s Church Growth Handbook (Pasadena: Church Growth Press, 1980), pp. 95–101; Frederick L. Whitham, “Revivalism as Institution alized Behavior: An Analysis of the Social Bases of a Billy Graham Crusade,” Social Science Quarterly, 49, no. 1 (June 1968): 115–27; Various surveys of British crusades summarized in G. W. Target, Evangelism Inc. (London: Penguin, 1968), passim.
560.“My Answer” column written by others. William A. Doyle, “God, Mammon and the Men of BGEA, Corporate Report, June 1977, p. 30; Fred Dienert, interview, October 5, 1987.
561.Unusual addresses. From a collection of letters on display at the Billy Graham Museum, Billy Graham Center, Wheaton, Illinois.
561.BGEA Christian Guidance Department. Ralph Williams, interview, August 5, 1987.
561.Twenty-seven secretaries answer seventeen thousand letters. John Corts, interview, August 5, 1987.
562.“I do all of my own writing.” “Billy Graham: The Man at Home,” Saturday Evening Post, Spring 1972, p. 46; Ferms interview, March 28, 1987. Graham does receive extensive help on at least some books. In a March 18, 1976, memo to Harold Lindsell, apparently regarding Graham’s book on the Holy Spirit, published in 1978, Graham’s secretary, Stephanie Wills, informed Lindsell that she had asked Mr. Graham “if he’d like the book chapter by chapter or all at once. He said he doesn’t have time to work on it right now, so he’d prefer it all at once. However, he then said that he might have time in early April. . . . If possible, I would like a copy of that first chapter as soon as possible. Since I need to retype it I would prefer to do it while he’s gone than try to do it when he gets back.” The reference to retyping seems to indicate that Graham had sent Lindsell a draft for editorial and other assistance. CN 192 (Lindsell Papers), Box 6, Folder 3, BGCA. The Holy Spirit is usually regarded as Graham’s most substantial theological work. In its preface Graham thanks several people for reading and commenting on the manuscript. Lindsell’s name is the first. Billy Graham, The Holy Spirit (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1978), p. 11.
562.Radio Stations. BGEA annual report, 1988; BG, interview, February 26, 1987; T. W. Wilson, Team and Staff Conference, The Homestead, Virginia, November 13, 1987.
562.“The film ministry . . . deficit financing.” John Akers, interview, February 26, 1987.
563.Dave Barr’s view of film ministry. Barr, interview, November 14, 1987.
563.BG’s TV audience. The Unchurched American (Princeton Religious Research Center and the Gallup Organization, Inc., 1978), p. 58.
564.“a Good News Show . . . more disciplined.” Roger Flessing, conversation, May 1, 1986.
564.Efforts to hook secular audience. Ted Dienert, interview, May 1, 1987.
565.Television maximizes BG’s effectiveness. Ross, interview. 556 BG not afraid of technology. Ted Dienert, May 1, 1987.
566.BG sticks with Bennett agency. Fred Dienert, interview, February 1976. Several media agents have commended Graham for his policy.
567.Third Coast. The details of this story seeped out more or less by accident. Puzzled as to why Bennett had chosen Third Coast Studios, I asked Fred Dienert and received his “small portion” answer. It seemed slightly irregular, and when I raised the matter with several usually candid members of the Graham organization, they admitted to the existence of some questions about the arrangement. At the Denver crusade, Ted Dienert had invited me to come to Austin to watch the editing process. When I called Bennett offices in Dallas to find out precisely when he would be in Austin, I was given the date but I sensed a certain uneasiness. That particular impression may have been erroneous; the tension in the air when I arrived at Third Coast Studios was palpable. It was clear I had come into the midst of a fairly serious family squabble. Dienert was cordial but visibly uncomfortable. Cliff Barrows, who arrived at about the same time I did, was cordial but seemed weary, a condition that could easily have resulted from Grady Wilson’s death and funeral a few days earlier. Several others seemed almost pleased I was present. Cliff’s questions about Third Coast’s facilities, unexplained retreats by principal players into side rooms, and knowing glances exchanged between technicians and Bennett staff members made it obvious that something was up. Discreet inquiry made it just as obvious that I would probably not get the full story just by asking. In the course of the day, someone mentioned that Stellacom, a company somehow affiliated with the Walter Bennett Company, was doing work for NASA. Since NASA is a government agency, I knew that if that were the case, Stellacom’s records, as well as those of all related companies, would be a matter of public record. A check of the pertinent records showed ties to Walter F. Bennett Company, Walter Bennett Company, Walter F. Bennett Advertising, Third Coast Studios, Third Coast Sound, and Third Coast Videos, Incorporated. Bennett ownership of Third Coast is given on various documents as 45 percent, 50 percent, and, in one case, 100 percent—a possible mistake. Subsequent conversations pegged the actual figure at 45 percent; an additional 5 percent was owned by a Bennett employee. With this information in hand, I asked several key participants and was able to piece together the story as related here. In fact, it appears that with the Walter Bennett Communications/BGEA work as its main account, Third Coast itself was losing money. Stellacom, a Third Coast subsidiary with a cost-plus contract guar anteed by the government, was a quite profitable operation, and likely to remain so. Not long after the Graham video work went back to CVS, leaving Third Coast even more unprofitable, Walter Bennett Communications and a business associate bought out the co-owner, thus gaining control of Stellacom, the most profitable part of the operation.
Chapter 34: Decently and in Order
568.“George is a . . . wizard.” BG, interview, February 27, 1987.
568.“He’s hard . . . like an indispensable engineer.” Former BGEA employee, interview, July 15, 1986.
569.Wilson tour of BGEA. August 3, 1987.
570.BG on John Corts. BG, interview, February 26, 1987.
570.“He is much brighter . . . brilliant.” John Akers, interview, February 26, 1987.
570.BG “has innate common sense.” George Wilson, interview, August 3, 1987.
570.“He plays it down . . . his strategy.” T. W. Wilson, interview, February 27, 1987.
571.“Mr. Graham . . . intuitive promptings.” Sterling Huston, interview, May 2, 1987.
571.BG “a great delegator.” T. W. Wilson, interview, February 26, 1987.
571.BG generous with praise. Emery, oral history April 9, 1979, CN 141, Box 10, Folder 4, BGCA.
571.“he is also the bottleneck.” Former BG associate, interview.
571.T. W. on BG’s “fickleness.” Wilson, interview.
571.R. Ferm on BG’s flexibility. Robert Ferm, interview, March 28, 1987.
572.Marvin Watson’s appointment to the board raised some eyebrows, since he had pled Watson guilty to covering up an illegal fifty-four-thousand-dollar contribution to Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign. Graham defended the appointment by saying, “It hasn’t been brought up and I don’t think anybody would bring it up because I think the entire board has total and complete confidence in the integrity of Marvin Watson and also in his deep Christian commitment. . . . I know the whole story. He explained it to me very carefully, point by point. . . . It was best for his sake and for his family’s sake and for his Christian testimony’s sake for him to do what he did. I personally don’t think he was guilty.” Charlotte Observer, February 7, 1977.
572.Plowman: “That board . . . That happens.” Edward Plowman, interview, February 10, 1987.
573.Bennett on BGEA fiscal standards. Quoted in “Billy Graham on Financing Evangelism,
” Christianity Today, August 26, 1977, p. 18.
573.BG and staff take reduced salaries during major crusades. Harold L. Myra et al., “William Franklin Graham: Seventy Exceptional Years,” Christianity Today, November 18,1988, p. 22.
573.BG stopped taking free clothes. “A Contagious Faith in God,” Charlotte Observer, February 9, 1977.
573.Country club memberships. Mary Bishop, Billy Graham, the Man and His Ministry (New York: Grosser & Dunlap, 1978), pp. 20, 22.
573.“freebies.” Publishers Weekly, late summer 1977 (precise date unclear in BGCA scrap-book copy).
573.Ruth’s coat. Patricia Daniels Cornwell, A Time for Remembering: The Ruth Bell Graham Story (San Francisco: Harper &c Row, 1983), p. 113
574.BG rejects plane. BG, interview, February 27, 1987.
574.“I could have kept it all.” Ibid.
574.“Fred Dienert . . . Trader Vic’s.” BG, conversation, February 22, 1986.
575.Barrows on home and office. Cliff Barrows, interviews, March 25, and February 24, 1987.
575.BG knows to “mind his steps.” George Wilson, interview.
575.Mildred Dienert on BGEA morality. Interview, April 30, 1987.
576.BG on Oral Roberts. Interview, March 5, 1989.
576.“I may still make some bad mistakes.” BG, interview, March 28, 1987.
576.BG on effects of TV scandals. “A couple of big names . . . work for God,” Myra et al., “Seventy Years,” p. 20.
576.“Jesus had just twelve . . . history of the church.” CBS Morning News, December 25, 1987, transcript.
576.“I don’t think . . . it may help the church,” George W. Cornell, AP, in the Washington Post, January 2, 1988.
576.“It’s making everybody . . . very carefully.” Myra et al., “Seventy Years,” p. 23.
576.Emery brings rationality, wears black hat. Emery oral history, April 9, 1979, CN 141 Box 10, Folder 4, BGCA.
577.“Confrontation difficult for BG and Barrows. Cliff Barrows, interview, March 25, 1987.
577.BG: “So far, I have resisted . . . her advice.” BG, interview, March 26, 1987.
577.“We have been blessed . . . easy on us.” T. W. Wilson, interview.
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