by Billy Graham
“Billy, do you believe in Heaven?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Give me your reasons.”
With my New Testament open, I gave the President a guided tour through the Scriptures that spoke of the future life.
“How can a person know he’s going to Heaven?” he asked.
I explained the Gospel to him all over again, as I had on previous occasions. I sensed he was reassured by that most misunderstood message: salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone, and not by anything we can do for ourselves.
As our day wound to a close, I told President Eisenhower that I had to speak in Charlotte that night. If I was not going to make the plane in Washington, I should call and postpone.
“You can fly straight to Charlotte in my Aero Commander,” he offered.
I accepted gratefully, but after a full day and with the rush to get going, I failed to make a visit to the restroom. I didn’t realize until in flight that I needed to use the facilities very badly, and there were none on the small plane. In desperation, I asked the pilot to land for a few minutes in Greensboro, a hundred miles north of Charlotte. He did—and it seemed that every person in that little airport recognized me as I hurried through! When I came out, I had to shake hands with many of them before I could get back on the plane. That necessary detour had properly humbled me for the evening’s talk!
Shortly afterward, President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack, from which he slowly recovered. Given his earlier questions about Heaven, perhaps he had anticipated his illness.
He knew another truth that too few people understand. Peace between nations depends on goodwill between individuals. He personalized that sentiment at the end of one of my visits to him at the Walter Reed Army Hospital years later in 1968.
“Billy, I want you to do me a favor,” he said. “Nixon and I have had our differences. There have been misunderstandings, at least on my part. Now he’s going to be President, and my grandson is going to marry his daughter. I want to straighten things out. I think you’re the one to help.”
“I’ll do my best, sir,” I promised.
Eisenhower did not tell me the particulars of their differences, although I thought I knew. One sore spot had been Eisenhower’s tardiness in endorsing Nixon in the 1960 campaign against Kennedy.
“I’d like to see Nixon, if he’d be willing to come and see me. Would you ask him?”
I was invited to Mr. Nixon’s apartment in New York for dinner that very evening. Over steaks in front of the fireplace, I passed along Eisenhower’s request.
“I’ll call him in the morning and see him tomorrow,” Nixon said.
I never learned the details of their reconciliation, but I have no doubt that it took place. Both men were eager to put their differences behind them.
Not long afterward, in December of 1968, I had a private meeting at Walter Reed with Eisenhower. The details of our conversation were so intimate and sacred that I never hinted of them until after his death; then I asked Mamie’s permission to reveal them, which she gave willingly.
As my scheduled twenty minutes with him extended to thirty, he asked the doctor and nurses to leave us. Propped up on pillows amidst intravenous tubes, he took my hand and looked into my eyes. “Billy, you’ve told me how to be sure my sins are forgiven and that I’m going to Heaven. Would you tell me again?”
I took out my New Testament and read to him again the familiar Gospel verses, the precious promises of God about eternal life. Then, my hand still in his, I prayed briefly.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m ready.”
I knew he was. As I stood to leave, he grinned and waved.
“Billy, are you going to visit our boys in Vietnam again?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“Do me a favor and tell ’em there’s an old doughboy back here praying for them.”
“I will, General.”
A few months later, when I was in the office of Foreign Secretary Abba Eban in Israel, I was handed a note saying that Eisenhower had died in Washington. I took the next available flight to New York and called President Nixon in Washington. He told me Mamie Eisenhower wanted to see me.
At a hotel in Washington, where she was receiving foreign guests, Mamie welcomed me warmly and asked me to sit beside her. I never understood why she wanted me there just then, instead of a government dignitary or one of her family, but it was an honor to comfort her.
Dwight Eisenhower was one of the great men in our history, and it was a privilege to know him.
13
Breakthrough in Britain
London 1954
“A Labour member of Parliament announced today that he would challenge in Commons the admission of Billy Graham to England on the grounds the American evangelist was interfering in British politics under the guise of religion.”
The captain of the SS United States received this news report by radio just a couple of days before we were due to dock at South-ampton, England. The first steward brought me a copy. I was thankful that the captain hadn’t included it in the daily news sheet that was distributed to all the passengers.
The message seemed simple enough on the surface, but at the same time it was mystifying and sent us to our knees. Was one of the most important Crusades we had ever undertaken up to this time about to collapse because we would not even be permitted to get off the ship?
We were confident we had done as much as we could, humanly speaking, to prepare for the Crusade, but we also knew that Satan would not allow a mission like this to go forth unopposed. Was the door now closing in our faces just as we were on the threshold?
Perhaps no decision in our ministry up to this time had been as difficult as this one: the decision to hold a Crusade in London, which at the time was billed as the world’s largest city.
Since our first visit with Youth for Christ back in 1946 and 1947, Great Britain had had a special place in my thinking. For one thing, some of the great revivals in history, under the preaching of men like Whitefield and Wesley, had taken place in Britain. And Dwight L. Moody had had a remarkable ministry there in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
In addition, God had opened doors for us during our previous visits. During that extended tour in 1946 and 1947, we had called together in Birmingham 100 leaders from different churches; out of that four-day conference had come the British Youth for Christ movement. Tom Livermore, an Anglican clergyman, had been elected president, and many others had become involved, such as A. W. Goodwin-Hudson, who was later co–adjutor bishop of Sydney, Australia, and Birmingham industrialist Alfred Owen.
The publicity generated by our 1949 meetings in Los Ange-les—as well as the documentary film about us, which was widely circulated in Britain—had further aroused the curiosity of many British evangelicals.
During the Washington, D.C., Crusade in January and February of 1952, two prominent British Christian leaders—one a clergyman, one a future member of Parliament—visited the meetings and talked with me about the possibility of a Crusade in London. A few weeks later, in March, I addressed a meeting of more than 750 British clergymen in the Assembly Hall of Church House, Westminster, the administrative headquarters of the Church of England; that gathering was held under the auspices of the British Evangelical Alliance. I had been asked to speak that day on our Crusade ministry in the United States.
In the reception line before the buffet luncheon at that March gathering, I met such national Christian leaders as the bishop of Barking, Hugh R. Gough (who later became the Archbishop of Sydney, Australia); Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of Britain’s outstanding preachers; General Sir Arthur Smith (who presided at the meeting), commander of forces protecting London during the blitz and later chairman of the Evangelical Alliance; and the Reverend Colin Kerr, whom I had gotten to know in 1946, vicar of St. Paul’s Church, Portman Square, and prebendary of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
I spoke for about ninety minutes, describing the
new interest in evangelism and the Gospel that we had detected in America. In addition, I set forth some of the principles that guided us, including our commitment to work with the churches and not apart from them. The part of the speech that apparently made the deepest impression on my audience was my honest discussion of the major criticisms of mass evangelism, including the danger of false emotion, the potential overemphasis on finances, and the problem of converts who did not last. I addressed each of these as openly as possible and then outlined the specific ways we had worked to overcome them.
The substance of my message was later reprinted by the Evangelical Alliance and widely distributed across Britain. Follow-ing the address, I answered questions for about an hour. The next day, I met with a group of leaders who wanted to discuss the possibility of a Crusade in more detail. The upshot was a tentative invitation to hold meetings in London sometime during 1954.
A highlight of that 1952 trip was my being guest speaker at the Royal Albert Hall with the great British evangelist Tom Rees. Because the meeting was recorded for broadcast overseas by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and on the British Forces Network in Germany, the printed program carried some detailed instructions for the audience in the hall: “It is of the utmost importance that the hymns do not drag. The congregation, especially those in the balcony, are earnestly requested not to take their time from the organ or the choir, but to watch the conductor.”
The choir of 1,200 had thrilled Cliff particularly, and he was glad they taped the service; we could replay parts of it later on The Hour of Decision.
Ruth went along with me to England for those meetings, which was a special encouragement to me.
Later in 1952, John Cordle and Mr. F. Roy Cattell, the secretary of the Evangelical Alliance of Britain, came to the United States to try to talk me into accepting their invitation to hold a Crusade. They impressed me with their burden for England; they expressed themselves eloquently about the social and spiritual problems there since the war.
Part of our meeting was held in Ruth’s hospital room in Asheville as we awaited the arrival of our fourth child. I loved my three daughters—Anne, Gigi, and Bunny—with all my heart, but we were hoping and praying for a boy this time. When Ruth’s labor pains began in earnest, the nurse took her out. A couple of hours later another nurse came to tell me that we had a son. I was thrilled and emotional, but I also felt terribly guilty that I had not been with her, but with those two men. We named our son William Franklin Graham III, but we would call him Franklin. I went out into the hall and was so excited that I soon forgot about London and our British visitors! Eventually, in a lengthy letter, I accepted the invitation for a London Crusade to begin on March 1, 1954.
Our plans for widely publicizing the Crusade staggered our London committee. I was convinced that in a huge city like London, only a massive publicity effort would bring the event to the public’s attention; anything less would be lost in the constant barrage of commercial advertising. We budgeted $50,000 for publicity, an unheard-of amount.
In the months before the Crusade began, striving for simplicity and clarity (and using only my photograph and the slogan HEAR BILLY GRAHAM), thousands of posters and hundreds of thousands of handbills were distributed in the greater London area. In addition, groups all over England and around the world were praying for the success of these meetings.
We had been encouraged by being able to secure Harringay Arena, a 12,000-seat indoor stadium in the north of London; it was customarily the site of greyhound races, hockey games, boxing matches, and circuses. Though barnlike and without glamour, it seemed the only suitable building. When the arena management optioned it to the committee for a maximum of three months, even our most ardent supporters gasped. Most believed that three or four weeks was the maximum length of time we should plan for.
Having committed themselves with the three-month option, the London organizing committee still wasn’t used to the idea of arranging and publicizing a massive religious effort or with investing thousands of pounds in an outreach led by an untested American evangelist. I could not blame them. Around that time, a noted British evangelical leader, returning from Africa, was killed in the crash of a British Comet, the first all-jet commercial airplane. Planning a welcome-home reception for him, a group of evangelicals in London had spent hundreds of pounds. Alas for them, the sum was not refundable. What would happen, the London committee asked Jerry Beavan (who was serving as the Crusade’s associate director under Roy Cattell), if something similar happened to Billy Graham? Would the tens of thousands of pounds already spent for publicity, reserving the arena, and so forth be lost?
Jerry told them we never worried about such problems. He encouraged them to believe that “God would see us through.” His encouragement wasn’t enough, though. The committee continued to worry. Something of an impasse developed.
Then Arthur Goodwin-Hudson, who was vicar of St. Mary Magdalene, London, thought to recommend to Jerry a young insurance man connected with Lloyd’s of London, John Mercer. Using his contacts and his persuasive skills, Mercer managed to put together something that had never been written before, at least to our knowledge: an insurance policy to guarantee the timely arrival of a person for a specific public event. The premium was large, but the organizing committee took great comfort in knowing that they were protected financially. Their enthusiasm restored, they renewed their support of the Crusade.
The London meetings were being set up by Roy Cattell. I asked Jerry to go over several months earlier to assist Mr. Cattell with the preparations. Willis Haymaker went over with him, to help organize worldwide prayer support; Dawson Trotman and Lorne Sanny went over to conduct counseling classes. Letters were exchanged weekly between those advance men and the Team at home, and almost every week I was on the phone with Jerry in London getting the latest news, making decisions, and giving suggestions and ideas.
As for the economics of the Crusade, we knew, weeks before we left for England, that we did not have adequate reserves or adequate pledges. I asked the entire Team going to London—including myself—to work for just their expenses and a $50 weekly honorarium for the next few weeks. Without exception, they all agreed. Early in 1954, before embarking for London, we took a tour of West Coast cities (including Seattle, Portland, and Hollywood), partly to raise money for the forthcoming British meetings and to encourage prayer in support of that project.
In early February, when I was in Washington, D.C., Senator Alton Lennon of North Carolina gave a luncheon for me in the Vandenburg Room of the United States Senate. I outlined the possibilities and responsibilities of our forthcoming London Crusade to the senators and congressmen who were present. Then I asked if they would consider sending over a Republican senator and a Democratic senator to bring greetings from the United States Senate on the Crusade’s opening night. They were a little surprised at my request. However, it was finally decided that Democratic Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri and Republican Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire would go. Both of them said that they and any other representatives that would make the trip would be doing official work in London as well.
Early 1954 gave me very little time at home in Montreat. Ruth maintained in her counsel and advice to me that my studies should consist primarily of filling up spiritually; she believed, as I did, that God would give me the message and bring to remembrance in my preaching the things I had studied. This was always the most effective preaching, we had discovered: preaching that came from the overflow of a heart and mind filled not only with the Spirit but with much reading. Hence, I picked each sermon topic carefully, read myself full, wrote myself empty, and read myself full again on the subject.
When I wasn’t studying or spending time with the family, I spent hours walking the mountain trails near my home, getting into shape. Travel had always been grueling for me—the farther the trip, the worse the fatigue. And so I walked, praying the whole way that God’s will would be done in London.
There
was a cottage near us in Montreat called Chapman Home, the residence of the late J. Wilbur Chapman, one of Amer-ica’s great evangelists in the early part of the century. I often sat on the front porch there for hours. In the solitude and beauty of the mountains, I meditated and prayed. Sometimes Ruth joined me, and we watched the scenery change colors in the sweep of the sun or the flash of a rainstorm moving up that valley into the high mountains. I would pray and pray and pray, believing deep in my soul that God would bless and honor His Word if I preached it faithfully.
And yet I was also filled with fear. In my entire life, I had never approached anything with such a feeling of inadequacy as I did London. If God did not do it, it could not be done. But was I, as some critics suggested, too young at age thirty-five for such an awesome responsibility? I felt I was, but I also knew that I was doing what God had called me to do. In my flesh, I too often dwelled on the question, Who do you think you are? Yet all the while, God kept reminding me to dwell on Whom I knew Him to be: the Almighty God.
As Ruth and I traveled to New York to board the SS United States, I put on a brave smile for the media, but I had to quietly remind myself of the spiritual truth I had learned so long ago: in my weakness, I was made strong by God’s grace.
Before boarding, I called on my friend Henry Luce at Time and Life magazines to ask for advice. He had one suggestion: “If you can get even an inch of coverage in the Daily Mirror or one of the other big London dailies, that will help.”
Already in England there were dire predictions that the Crusade would be a failure. The British were suspicious of Amer-icans coming over to save them. They had not been impressed by flashy American preachers before. “Billy Graham will fall . . . on his face in London,” one editor wrote. “Billy Graham will return to the United States with his tail between his legs,” a bishop promised.
In February the Daily Worker, which represented the British Communist Party, ran the headline atom bomb gospeller. “We should be able to get some quiet fun out of Mr. Billy Graham when he gets here,” the article said. “His mission is to cause a religious revival on the strength of scores of thousands of pounds provided by wealthy backers. . . . He will try to persuade us that the more atom bombs America piles up, the more certain is the victory of the Prince of Peace.”