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Executive
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2007
Book Reviews |
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The
Preacher and the Presidents by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Pastoring Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy cut
Billy Graham a lot of slack in their new book, The
Preacher and the Presidents. The authors, both TIME writers, may have transferred the same institution sympathy
that their company has had for Graham since the days of Henry Luce. In this
book, Gibbs and Duffy present many of the dimensions of the relationship that
Graham developed with each United States President from Truman through George
W. Bush. In each case, it appears from this book that Graham’s intention was
to pastor to these powerful individuals, to provide them the spiritual
nurturing they needed. In some cases, there were Presidents who exploited
Graham for political purposes, and in others, that Graham offered political
support and supporters to those individuals whose policies he supported.
Along the way, Graham admits to making many mistakes in his dealings with the
White House residents. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 19, “Summons for the Silent Majority,” pp. 183-185: I
was aware
of the risk at all times, political risk. —Graham
on proximity to power Nixon
needed Graham's help in a much more public way in the spring of 1970. It had
been a season of random violence and political fury in the streets. In March
the radical Weathermen plotted to blow up an officers' dance at Campuses everywhere were
steaming with protests against the war. On Apri129, Nixon called Graham at
home in Montreat at one in the morning on "a personal matter." He
was going to be making a major speech the next night, he said, though he
didn't get into specifics. "All I knew was that it would be a tough
speech," Graham said, "and aimed at saving American lives." The
next night Nixon went on television to announce that the United States had
invaded Cambodia—a neutral country he had been secretly bombing for a year—to
root out North Vietnamese camps and break enemy supply lines. Rather than
portray this as a regrettable but necessary move to protect Such
a sudden and defiant escalation of a war people had hoped would be over by
now triggered a revolt among students, inspiring Nixon the next day to
denounce "these bums blowing up campuses." But it was not just the
radicals in a furor; kids who had never picked up a rock in their lives were
now inflamed, and many professors and parents as well. When National
Guardsmen shot and killed four unarmed students at At
that moment Nixon needed both Graham's private reassurance and public
support; in the days to come he would call again. "He's very disturbed,"
Haldeman said of Nixon after the campus shootings. "Afraid his decision
set it off . . . talked a lot about how we can get through to the students,
turn this stuff off. . . . He's out there on a tough limb, and knows it.” Nixon went on television on the
night of May 8 to defend the invasion as furthering the students' goal of
peace. Afterward he was so troubled he couldn't sleep; nearly one hundred
thousand protesters had converged on the White House that day, and there was
talk of placing machine guns on the White House lawn. There were
demonstrations all over the capital that night; students kept vigil at the
Lincoln Memorial. Nixon called his daughter Tricia, called Haldeman seven
times, Kissinger eight times. He called William Safire, Bebe Rebozo, Pat
Moynihan, Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller . . . and Billy Graham. Kissinger
thought the president was on the edge of a breakdown. At dawn Nixon set off
with a clutch of Secret Service agents to the Lincoln Memorial and talked to
the surprised and sleepy students there. "I know you want to get the war
over," he said. "Sure you came here to demonstrate and shout your
slogans on the ellipse. That's all right. Just keep it peaceful. Have a good
time in Even
before the uproar his team had been talking about his loss of momentum and
leadership in the public eye. The image makers like Klein, Ron Ziegler, and
Ehrlichman all saw a serious problem; but it was all a matter of theater:
"They argue for more public presidential presentation, press
conferences, speeches, review trips," Haldeman recorded in his diary,
"demonstrate that P [the president] cares and is interested and will try
to do something. Whole thrust is on need for appearance, not
substance." Nixon
told his staff that he wanted to try an idea Graham had for a big pro-America
rally, maybe for the Fourth of July. He thought they were all still too timid
about mobilizing their Silent Majority. Nixon felt that "he should
probably go out into country and draw crowds and show popular
enthusiasm." It was easier to believe that the problem was one of
slanted press coverage rather than broad public repudiation; he and Graham
talked about this by phone, and afterward Nixon sent Haldeman a memo. Graham,
he said, had observed how "CBS in its coverage of the
[pro-administration] construction workers march gave approximately a minute
of time to the 150,000 who demonstrated in Above
all Nixon had to do something about the roiling campuses—so it was irresistible
when an opportunity presented itself. Graham was holding a crusade in the
football stadium at the And so Nixon and his entourage
flew down to "Perhaps," Nixon
declared, " Billy
Graham is a fine man, and The
Preacher and the Presidents allows his goodness to come across on these
pages. Steve
Hopkins, October 25, 2007 |
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Go to Executive
Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for this book appeared in the November
2007 issue
of Executive Times URL for this review: ttp://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The
Preacher and the Presidents.htm For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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