Billy Graham: His Son's Father?
by Joseph C. Hinson
March 3, 2002

In the latest round of Nixon tapes released from the National Archives, Billy Graham expressed disdain for the Jewish people, which, he said, dominated the media. "This stranglehold has got to be broken or this country's going down the drain," Graham said, agreeing with Nixon's own comments earlier in the conversation.

"You believe that?" Nixon says in response.

"Yes, sir," says Graham.

"Oh boy. So do I," Nixon agrees, then says: "I can't ever say that but I believe it."

"No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something," Graham says, reassuring the president.

This revelation comes just months after his son said "We're not attacking Islam but Islam has attacked us. The God of Islam is not the same God. He's not the son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different God and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion." (See also Franklin Graham? His Father's Son?)

After the September 11th attacks, the elder Graham spoke at National Day of Prayer and Remembrance in Washington, D.C.  "We come together today to affirm our conviction that God cares for us, whatever our ethnic, religious or political background may be," Billy Graham preached. "The Bible says that he is the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles.'"

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said that, “These tapes give eloquent testimony that 27 years after the Holocaust, America’s most powerful political and religious leaders were still very comfortable with antisemitism”.

“The fact that Billy Graham, “America’s man of God” not only agreed with the President, but was an active participant of this antisemitism is unconscionable,” he added.

I'm having a hard time not being cynical about either Graham at this point. To me, Billy Graham was untouchable. He was the evangelist you pointed to when Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart were proven to be fakes. He was the one you stood up against the vast right wing believes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. But now we have prove that he was none of this. In fact, he may have been worse. He kept his true heart hidden. With Robertson, you at least know he thinks the Jews are trying to control the world and lead it to Satan. He's written books about that very thing!

Graham was the everyday man's preacher. He came from a humble background and rose to national prominence as a televangilist in the late 40s and 50s. He counseled presidents and leaders. Time called him "the Pope of Protestant America," whatever that means. President Bush in 1991 called him "America's Pastor" after the preacher came out and supported the Gulf War.

This is not the first time Graham has been on the right side of the right wing. In 1953, he said about Senator Joseph McCarthy, "While nobody likes a watchdog, and for that reason many investigation committees are unpopular, I thank God for men who, in the face of public denouncement and ridicule, go loyally on in their work of exposing the pinks, the lavenders and the reds who have sought refuge beneath the wings of the American eagle and from that vantage point try in every subtle, undercover way to bring comfort, aid and help to the greatest enemy we have ever known -- communism."

By the 1980s, he had softened somewhat. He urged reconciliation with the Soviet Union and China. Fundamentalists turned against him. Further, he took a stance against the Christian Right. "I don't think Jesus or the Apostles took sides in the political arenas of their day. The tactics ought to be prayer and discussion."

So what happened to him in the 1970s? Was he playing to Nixon's prejudices to initiate himself further with the man? This seems doubtful. Graham and Nixon met while the latter was vice-president in the Eisenhower Administration. I guess at this point, I am looking for any evidence that the man didn't mean what he said. Of course, that would bring up another whole set of questions and doubts about him.

Later in the conversation with Nixon, Graham said, "They swarm around me and are friendly to me. Because they know that I am friendly to Israel and so forth. But they don't know how I really feel about what they're doing to this country, and I have no power and no way to handle them."

It's kinda hard to find a silver lining in that cloud. In his defense, however, Graham did issue the following press release through his Texas public relations firm: "Although I have no memory of the occasion, I deeply regret comments I apparently made in an Oval Office conversation with President Nixon some 30 years ago. They do not reflect my views and I sincerely apologize for any offense caused by the remarks."

This raises another series of questions. First, why say you have no memory of the incident? Are you trying to say that's not your voice on those tapes? My guess is that he's simply trying to distance himself from those statements. Of course he knows he made those statements. But by claiming to have "no memory of the occasion," he's brushing the comments aside a bit.

Secondly, how can you regret statements you have no recollection of? First, he isn't taking full responsibility for those statements. He first claims to have no memory of the occasion. He then says he "apparently" made them. Not exactly taking respobility there, Billy?

Next, he claims those statements "do not reflect my views." Well, golly, Billy, when did you say them then? Isn't that, by definition, a lie? Saying something you don't believe?

Lastly, he apologizes for "any offense caused by those remarks." Note the wording. He's not apologizing for making the statements. How could he? He didn't actually admit to making them. But the way he apologizes seems to be popular these days. He makes it look like anyone who is offended are the ones who should be apologizing.

Some Man of God this fake is. He's a phony and a liar. Maybe they all are.

Here's a piece of an interview by Fox News commentator Tony Snow and Billy Graham in January, 2000.

Snow: "When you get to Heaven, who's going to speak first, you or God?"
Graham: "'When I get there, I'm sure that Jesus is going to say that he will welcome me. But I think that he's going to say: 'Well done, our good and faithful servant.' Or he may say: 'You're in the wrong place'."
Snow: "You really worry that you may be told you're in the wrong place?"
Graham: "Yes, because I have not - I'm not a righteous man. People put me up on a pedestal that I don't belong in my personal life. And they think that I'm better than I am. I'm not the good man that people think I am. Newspapers and magazines and television have made me out to be a saint. I'm not. I'm not a Mother Teresa. And I feel that very much."

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