Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham

by Billy Graham

  In Lima we were once again in a large bull ring. It turned out to be a good venue, accommodating the large crowds who attended. Seldom had I seen a greater contrast among people in one meeting: wealthy businesspeople sat side by side with impoverished Indian peasants as they all listened to the Gospel of Christ.

  Dan Piatt was with us in Peru, and he and I had a chance to play golf one afternoon. It was a very cloudy day, so we both took off our shirts. I was already suntanned from the rest of the trip, but Dan was white as snow. He got so sunburned that he became sick and could not come to the meeting that night.

  Between Lima and Santiago, there was only one jet flight a week, a Boeing jet, offered by Air France. As we took off, I was a little nervous about all the surrounding mountains.

  The pilot broke in soon after takeoff to say, “They want us to fly over the city of Antofagasta as a salute.” He explained that Antofagasta was celebrating some kind of anniversary. With that bit of warning he made a steep dive over the city, flying very low. I did not think he could pull up without tearing the wings off, but he did, just trimming the treetops—or so it seemed. And then he did it two more times!

  When we arrived in Santiago for the final meetings of our trip, scheduled for February 16 and 17, I was struck by how similar the city seemed to European cities; it reminded me a great deal of Geneva, in particular. Our activities in Santiago included a colorful, mile-long parade of some 8,000 evangelical Christians. The procession wound enthusiastically through the streets to the grounds of Parque Cousino, where the meetings were held.

  John Bolten was there with us; he owned a lot of property in Chile. He took us out to a magnificent golf course, where we enjoyed a bit of relaxation.

  From Santiago we flew across the Andes to Buenos Aires, in order to make our airline connection for the long flight home. We found ourselves on an Argentine airliner; it was a Comet, the last of a fleet of five, I was told.

  “What happened to the other four?” I asked an airline employee.

  “They crashed in service,” he answered.

  Because the Argentine pilots seemed to be having some difficulty with this type of aircraft, the French manufacturer had sent an experienced pilot to sit in the cockpit during flights. This seemed only moderately reassuring, given the fate of the other planes in the original fleet.

  I was sitting in the aisle seat of the front passenger row, which had three seats on each side of the aisle. To my immediate left, in the middle seat on my side of the aisle, was a heavyset woman; we were jammed against each other.

  The door between the passenger section and the cockpit was open, and I could see what was going on up front. As we went down the runway, the Argentine crew was apparently a little slow reacting. Just before it was too late, the French pilot hurriedly leaned over and pulled back on the stick, sending us into the sky. I will always remember the Andes as the most beautiful mountains in the world.

  Cumulative attendance during this Latin American trip totaled quarter of a million people, with 9,000 inquirers. Measured against the standards set by Crusades in certain other parts of the world, that outcome was not large. However, as I noted at that time on The Hour of Decision, “I have never seen such spiritual hunger in all of our travels around the world. . . . We learned once again that spiritual hunger is no respecter of persons. It exists among the rich as well as the poor, and the truth of the Gospel appeals to men universally.”

  I was grateful for the statement one U.S. Catholic newspaper made as it reviewed our first South American trip: “Never once, at least in our memory, has [Billy Graham] attacked the Catholic Church. . . . In view of past history [in South America], where violence has so often prevailed, it is well to remember that the slightest disturbance could easily make tempers flare again. Billy Graham seems to sense this.”

  Beyond doubt, God was at work in South America, and we now looked forward eagerly to the second South American trip, scheduled for later in the year, following Crusades in Chicago and Fresno.

  CHICAGO

  Sandwiched between our two trips to South America in 1962 was the significant Crusade in Chicago, held in the new McCormick Place arena. In some ways, the Chicago Crusade was just as pivotal for our ministry as the New York Crusade of 1957 had been.

  On the one hand, Chicago was seen as the center of evangelical strength in America, what with the presence of Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College (where just a few years earlier we held a memorable areawide Crusade at Centennial Field), and many other evangelical institutions. Of course, I myself had strong ties in the Chicago area, dating back to my days at Wheaton as a student, in Western Springs as a pastor, and all over the whole area as a representative of Youth for Christ. On the other hand, Chicago was also a center of social and theological liberalism, represented by the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, The Christian Century, and several major liberal seminaries.

  Under these conditions, a broad-based invitation from the Windy City for a Crusade was difficult to secure, and for a number of good reasons.

  First, most of the mainline churches in Chicago were liberal (and therefore refused to support us); one of the few exceptions was Fourth Presbyterian Church, one of the largest in Chicago.

  Second, the city was a major Roman Catholic center; in those pre-Vatican II days, we had little open support from the Roman Catholic community, although a number of Catholics (including some priests) attended the meetings.

  Third, the media were not particularly open to us; the religion editor at the main newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, was a graduate of a major liberal seminary, and he ignored us for the most part.

  Fourth, we were unable to buy television time in the Chicago area in spite of the fact that Walter Bennett, the advertising executive who arranged all of our television schedules, had his offices there.

  Our chairman of the 1962 Crusade was Herbert J. Taylor, chairman of Club Aluminum and one of the godliest gentlemen I have ever known. Every morning before he went to his office, he recited the Sermon on the Mount. An active Rotarian (and the international president of Rotary Clubs in 1954–55), it was he who devised the Rotarian four-way test [of things we think, say, or do]—a formulation that has since become famous. Unfortunately for us, Taylor was not able to bring a wide spectrum of support from the business community to the Crusade; while business support in New York had been massive, support in Chicago was weak.

  All the evangelical churches and organizations in Chicago, however, came to our support. Night after night McCormick Place was filled to capacity. Three-quarters of a million people attended over a three-week period, with some 16,500 decisions for Christ. In addition, I squeezed in a visit to the recruits at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station.

  The final rally, jammed with more than 100,000 people, was held in Soldier Field on one of the hottest days I have ever experienced. The temperature was well over one hundred degrees. Though I did preach, I had to cut my sermon short because of the heat. That decision had a consequence I had not foreseen. We were recording the meeting for later release on national television, but by shortening my message, I left a hole in the hour-long program. As a result, I had to return that night to the stadium, now empty and dark (and not that much cooler!) to speak off the cuff for seven minutes. What appeared to be a technological disaster, though, actually turned out to be a dramatic close to the program; the response was one of the highest we have ever received from a television broadcast.

  We would return to Chicago for other Crusades and events in future years. One night in 1971, for example, inside the mammoth McCormick Place, Mayor Richard J. Daley welcomed us to the city and then remained with us on the platform for the service. In the audience were some 30,000 young people.

  After Bev had sung the second hymn of the evening, while Cliff was leading the massed choir in a great anthem of praise, a police officer rushed on stage and whispered in the mayor’s ear, “They’re coming!”

  Earlier in the day, some Satan worshi
pers had let it be known that they were coming to the meeting with the intention of storming the platform and stopping the proceedings. Sure enough, here they were. They burst past the ushers and hurried down the aisles, all the while chanting something of their own.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Dr. Graham,” the mayor said. “My police will handle it.”

  We had never called the police before to handle a meeting disturbance, and I didn’t want this to be the first time. “Mr. Mayor, let me try it another way,” I urged.

  I went to the microphone and interrupted the choir’s song. “There are three hundred, or four hundred, Satan worshipers here tonight,” I announced. “They’ve said that they’re going to take over the platform. Now I’m going to ask you Christian young people to do something. Don’t hurt them. Just surround them and love them and sing to them and, if you can, just gradually move them toward the doors.”

  Thankfully, to our great relief, that’s just what happened. Hundreds of the Christian young people, pointing their fingers up, which is the Christian One Way sign, began to surround them, singing and shouting, “Jesus loves you!” and “God is love!”

  “My,” said the mayor, “I ought to have you in all these riots we’re having around here!”

  As one newspaper the following morning put it, “The hell raisers were routed by Jesus’ power.”

  The success of that Crusade resulted in a renewed flood of invitations to Los Angeles in 1963, San Diego in 1964, and Seattle in 1965. It also encouraged committees in other midwestern cities to extend invitations to us; Columbus and Omaha in 1964 and Kansas City in 1967. Chicago also convinced us that the meetings in New York in 1957 were not a fluke and that America’s largest cities were open to evangelism in an unprecedented way. Invitations came to us all the time, and one of the biggest loads I had to carry during that period was where to go next.

  SOUTH AMERICA

  The second Latin American tour took place in the fall of 1962. Once again our associate evangelists began Crusades in most cities before we arrived for the closing sessions.

  Brazil

  We opened on September 25 with a six-day Crusade in São Paulo, Brazil. The city—named, I could not help but recall, after Chris-tianity’s greatest evangelist, the Apostle Paul—had some 350 Protestant churches giving support to the Crusade. The closing meeting, with a 200-piece orchestra accompanied by a 1,000-voice choir, drew 65,000 to the city’s main stadium.

  I have always remembered the São Paulo meetings for another, more personal reason. Less than a month before, on August 28, my father had passed away, and this was my first public ministry since his death. He had suffered declining health for several years due to a series of strokes. His death was not unexpected, and yet I felt his absence very keenly even a hemisphere away from home.

  My father was always so proud of me. In his last days, he sat in the S&W Cafeteria near their home in Charlotte and greeted people. The owner, Mr. Sherrill, considered my father something of an attraction. He was glad for him to sit there for a couple of hours; people knew him and would come in to say hello. There was something about this picture that appealed to me, probably because I felt that my father was a man of love.

  My mother cared for him during his declining years, but Melvin, Catherine, and Jean, all of whom lived in Charlotte, also took major responsibility for his care.

  When he died, the New York Times printed an obituary with a photograph of that humble and loving man, and to this day I thank God for all he meant to me.

  Paraguay and Argentina

  The São Paulo meetings were followed by a series of one-or two-day meetings in Asunción, Paraguay; Córdoba and Rosario, Argen-tina; and Montevideo, Uruguay. In each city, Chuck Ward arranged for a welcoming rally at the airport; this was meant to create public interest in the meetings and to unite the local believers who were supporting the effort.

  At one place, I recall, our plane was three and a half hours late taking off. I was certain that everyone at the other end would give up and leave before we arrived. Instead, an enthusiastic crowd of 2,000 people greeted us. I expressed surprise to one leader, but he just shrugged. “Oh, you know how relaxed we Latins are about time,” he said. “If you’d shown up when you were scheduled to arrive, hardly anyone would have been here!”

  The flight had been a rough one, stormy all the way over jungles, mountains, and wild country. The aircraft we were in—it was an old British Viscount turboprop, as I recall—was not all that sturdy. Again, to be honest, I was nervous! It didn’t help that the pilot announced, as we were circling for a final approach to the runway, “If you look to your left, you’ll see the British Comet plane that crashed last week.”

  Paraguay’s longtime president, General Alfredo Stroessner, received me. I was criticized later by some back in the United States for trying to be diplomatic in my comments about him instead of condemning him outright for his alleged human rights abuses; however, I knew that those matters were already being raised by our ambassador, William P. Snow, with whom I also met. I took the opportunity to share my faith in Christ with Stroessner. He assured us of his support for the meetings. He had, we understood, a German Lutheran background, although I had no reason to believe he was a practicing Christian.

  Unfortunately, however, there was strong opposition from other sources in Paraguay. These opponents clearly had considerable influence, even trying to force the local press to boycott us. In fact, the only person who showed up for our scheduled press conference was a radio technician who came to run a tape recorder; not a single reporter was there. The technician turned his tape recorder on, however, and I answered questions about the Crusade posed by members of the local committee. Two radio stations carried the interview later, we heard.

  Furthermore, we learned that those opposing the Crusade were organizing a massive counterdemonstration just a few blocks from the outdoor soccer stadium where our meetings were being held. That demonstration, designed for popular appeal—with everything from a parade of 15,000 students in the afternoon to a gigantic free music and folk-dancing festival—was scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m., half an hour before our closing rally was due to begin. Needless to say, this caused a great deal of consternation among the supporters of the Crusade. They redoubled their prayers.

  Lee, Grady, and I, who were rooming together in a hotel, had a lot of prayer about the meeting that night. Suddenly, without warning, a storm came up just out of nowhere. It was so fierce that it broke the glass doors in our hotel room, sending shattered pieces all over our room and forcing the three of us into the farthest corner to ride out the vicious winds.

  That morning Russ Busby and Dick Lederhaus of World Wide Pictures had flown two hundred miles east to photograph Iguaçú Falls, one of South America’s great natural wonders. With the storm approaching, their pilot refused to take off for the return flight.

  The local Crusade committee had already blanketed the city with leaflets and posters advertising both the Crusade with Joe Blinco and the closing meeting, at which I was to speak. In response, the counterdemonstration printed several hundred thousand leaflets advertising their evening festival, to be dropped over the city from airplanes that afternoon. But just as the planes were being loaded, the storm, with hail and winds clocked at ninety miles an hour, perhaps including a tornado, unexpectedly hit the city of 300,000, uprooting trees and knocking out electrical power. It also scattered the paraders who were beginning to assemble and destroyed preparations at the festival site, damaging even the statue of the Virgin Mary that had been brought out of the cathedral for the parade. The planes themselves were damaged and would have been unable to take off even had the storm let up in time, and the leaflets were drenched beyond reclamation.

  But by five o’clock the sun was out again, and as the time approached for our meeting, electrical power was restored to the arena. In spite of the fact that some roads were blocked by fallen trees, several thousand people came. The local committee felt that God had answ
ered their prayers in a decisive and unmistakable way. It was the first time, we later learned, that an evangelical Protestant meeting had been held on public property in Paraguay’s five hundred years of history. One small Mennonite church with only 40 members received 70 referrals of people who had made commitments to Christ during the Crusade.

  The next day, when Russ and Dick returned to Asunción, they said the airport looked like a war zone. The government imposed a curfew on the city to prevent looting.

  From Asunción we continued across the border to Córdoba and Rosario, Argentina’s second-largest city, with cold winds coming off the arid Patagonia that forced me to preach in a heavy coat and muffler. In Rosario I spoke to students at the Catholic university, the area’s largest, and received a very warm welcome from them. The Catholics had a reverence for the Bible; we did not have to convince them Who created the world and Who Christ was.

  Uruguay

  On to Montevideo. Joe Blinco held a separate Crusade in Uruguay among people who were descended from the Waldensians; this particular group were nineteenth-century refugees from religious persecution in Italy.

  The vice chairman of the Crusade in Montevideo was the pastor of the city’s largest Methodist church, the Reverend Emilio Castro (not a relation of the Cuban dictator). He stayed by my side throughout our visit, taking me everywhere in his little car. He had a social burden, not so much for Uruguay (since at one time it had been among the most prosperous nations in the hemisphere) but for the rest of Latin America. The sharp disparity between the rich and the poor, and the overwhelming poverty in both the cities and the countryside, deeply troubled me as well. In later years, after Emilio Castro became prominent in the World Council of Churches, we did not always agree on all theological points. On social affairs and social conscience, though, he did sharpen my thinking.