He was rebuffed, then embraced, by former US president Harry Truman. Confided in — and deeply hurt — by former US president Richard Nixon. A source of reassurance for former US president George H.W. Bush on the eve of war. The spark that finally turned former US president George W. Bush toward sobriety.
Evangelist Billy Graham, who died on Wednesday at age 99, was a fixture of the presidency to every man who has held the US presidential office back to the early years of the Cold War. He met all 12 of them, plus US President Donald Trump before he ran for office, and counseled most as they grappled with governing, politics and peace of mind.
For some of the presidents he advised, Graham offered more than just prayers, support and photo opportunities. Depending on the White House occupant and the era, he was a friend, negotiator and shrewd political adviser.
Photo: Reuters
His first overtures to a president were rebuffed. His star rising, Graham pressed Truman to attend his Washington crusade in 1952, but Truman wanted no part of Graham, who he considered a publicity hound.
He had better luck with Truman’s successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Graham urged Eisenhower to run for president, baptized him at the White House and counseled him about the afterlife.
His close friendship with Nixon began in the late 1950s, before the Republican landed in the White House. The match was glued by their disdain for communism, Graham’s belief that Nixon was a man of high moral character— and both men’s ambitions.
Graham considered endorsing Nixon in the 1960 election against John F. Kennedy, when Kennedy’s religion became a divisive issue.
When Kennedy defeated Nixon, Graham agreed to play golf with the US president-elect at the Kennedys’ Palm Beach, Florida, estate, but they were never close.
Graham’s relationship with Nixon was complex and ultimately painful. When the Watergate scandal broke, Graham said he did not recognize the man he knew as modest and moral.
He urged then-US president Gerald Ford to pardon Nixon.
Graham was also criticized by some conservative evangelicals for praying at the inauguration of former US president Bill Clinton, a supporter of abortion rights.
Graham had a close relationship with the Bush family.
Patriarch George H.W. Bush said that the pastor’s presence on the eve of the Gulf War helped him avoid doubt, “even for a second ... [about] the moral clarity of our mission that January night.”
Years later, his son, George W. Bush, said that he had been drunk the first time he met Graham at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. The two went for a walk that launched George W.Bush’s rejection of alcohol and embrace of Christianity.
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