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Conversation with Dr. Billy Graham
Mr. Dave Hardin: Mr. Graham, it’s really great to have you here with us at the Graham Center.

Dr. Billy Graham:Thank you, Dave, it’s great to be here. I haven’t been here in about two years, and I don’t get to Chicago as much as I’d like to because, to me, this is one of the great places to come anywhere in the world. I love it.

Mr. Dave Hardin: When you were a student at Wheaton College, I understand that even back then you knew about the Chicago Sunday Evening Club.

Dr. Graham: Oh yes. In fact I’ve watched the Sunday Evening Club many times when I’m visiting Chicago or when I’m exposed to it. Sometimes we’ve had certain guest speakers tape recorded so we can put it on our player at home.

Mr. Hardin: That’s marvelous! That’s a pretty good reach for the program.

Dr. Graham: Well, Paul Harvey has been the person who has sort of promoted that with me.

Mr. Hardin: Great! One of the things that I’d like to get into is what’s happening in your life today. Now, you mentioned you’re just back from Hungary and Romania.

Dr. Graham: That’s right.

Mr. Hardin: Tell us a little bit about your feelings about what you learned on that trip.

Dr. Graham: Well, I’ve been to all the east European countries now except Bulgaria, and Romania I’d never been to. I’d been to Hungary twice before. In Romania we were in seven cities, in Orthodox Cathedrals, Roman Catholic Cathedrals, two Baptist churches, a Pentecostal church, and my last talk was at the Jewish Synagogue in Bucharest. I spoke one hour before the New Year began. Rabbi Rosen introduced me, and I told them about my experiences at Auschwitz, and my experiences in Israel, and so forth. When I finished, and I had already told them that I’d given my life to a young rabbi that was born and reared in Israel, they gave me a standing ovation and the place was packed with Jewish people — the men on the floor and the women upstairs —and a lot of people on the outside. It was really an amazing experience.

Mr. Hardin: Speaking of eastern Europe and all — all of us in this country, as you know, are deeply concerned about our relationships with the Russians. Now you have had several trips there and you’ve gotten quite involved. Tell us about your impressions and feelings from these trips to the Soviet Union.

Dr. Graham: I’d say that first of all, the people of the Soviet Union are different than the government, let’s say. The people really want peace. I mean, they talk to you about it all of the time, and they are desperately afraid of war because it has only been forty years since one out of every twenty people in the Soviet Union was killed by the Nazis. And they can’t forget that. It’s too close to them, and they don’t want that to happen again. So they are genuinely for peace. I don’t think that this is something that they have worked up. I think that the Communist leadership that I have met, and I’ve been in the Kremlin and met two members of the Politburo of which there are only eleven members and had long talks with them. And I have addressed one of their peace conferences. And I got some of our people here to help me write those addresses so that I brought in the problem of human rights and verification. I have found them to be very receptive. And then in the last part of my discussions with them, I always present the gospel. I tell them about my own conversion to Christ, what Christ means to me, and I have determined that I would never talk to anybody anywhere in eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, that I didn’t preach the gospel to them.

Mr. Hardin: That’s great. Well, what do you think should be our behavior toward the Soviet Union — toward the country and its people?

Dr. Graham: I think I have to stay out of the political problems because that’s outside of my realm, and also I think I would be foolish to be talking about something that I’m not totally aware of. I have my own private opinions, and so forth, but I think that we ought to treat them as though they are people. I mean, they are people, and we have to live on the same planet. We have enough, we are told, enough atomic power now to blow the planet up eighteen times. Now Art Buchwald has a pretty good remedy. He said, “Why don’t we in our arms negotiations, say ‘Let’s reduce it in half. Then we can blow ourselves up only nine times.’” Now that, of course, is a bit amusing, but it’s a lot more complex than that. And I’ve told them that I am not for unilateral disarmament. I’m not a pacifist. I believe we have every right to defend ourselves. And I’ve told them, you know, that I believe there are three kinds of peace taught in the Bible. There is the peace with God, the peace of God, the peace between neighbors and between nations. And God can bring it about. I don’t think man is going to be able to accomplish this. I think technology has outstripped our moral ability to control these arms.

Mr. Hardin: I believe I read somewhere that you support a bilateral nuclear arms freeze. Tell us where your thoughts are on this nuclear arms race if you feel comfortable with that.

Dr. Graham: I’m for peace, because anybody that’s for war must have a hole in his head because Chicago could be wiped out in a matter of seconds, and New York and Los Angeles. All they need to do is wipe out about five of our major cities and the country is gone. They have submarines on both coasts like we have submarines with our tridents that can destroy much of the Soviet Union. All of this was explained to me by their experts and our experts. I’d become alarmed if I were not a Christian. Being a Christian, believing the Bible — then I know — or if I were an Orthodox Jew and believe in the Bible, then I know what the end is going to be. As I asked the chief rabbi in Israel one day, “Do you believe in the coming of Messiah?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Of course, I believe in the coming of Messiah too, but I believe it will be Jesus Christ.” He smiled over his cup of coffee and said, “Of course, that’s our difference.”

Mr. Hardin: You’ve been spiritual advisor to a number of presidents over the years and a number of our leaders. It has been suggested that since the Watergate time, you have kind of separated yourself a little more from the leadership. Tell us something about that kind of connection.

Dr. Graham: Well, of course, I have a tremendous respect for President Nixon. I think that he is one of the most brilliant men to sit in the White House in this century, and the most able. For example, remember he opened up China. He was the one who opened up detente with the Soviet Union. He was the one who signed the Salt II agreement. He is a very brilliant man. But when the Watergate thing came, I was disappointed, of course, and to some extent embarrassed. But at the same time I didn’t desert him. I’m a pastor. I’m a religious leader, and when one of your flock gets in trouble, you don’t desert them. That’s the time you go and put your arm around them. But during the last year of Watergate, he gave orders that I was not to come near him. He told his staff, “I don’t want Billy Graham tarred with Watergate,” and that’s in Bill Safire’s book and some of the other books as well. When he resigned the presidency and went out to California with thrombo-phlebitis, he nearly died. He came close to death. My wife chartered an airplane and had it flown in front of the hospital with a banner that said, “Nixon, God loves you and so do we.” She didn’t sign any name. Nobody knew who did that until months later. Time Magazine had a picture of that plane and it went all over the country in other publications but nobody knew who did it until about a year later. It was my wife’s doing.

Mr. Hardin: Before we leave the political area and go on to a kind of personal area, have you associated with the presidents since Nixon? Have you been involved?

Dr. Graham: Yes, I’ve probably seen more of Mr. Reagan than any president, maybe more than Mr. Nixon, because I have been a family friend of Mr. Reagan and his wife since the year after they were married. We were introduced by his mother-in-law, Mrs. Loyal Davis, from Chicago, who got us together in Phoenix, Arizona. She came out on the golf course when I was playing golf, and she said, “I want you to meet my son-in-law. The two of you have much in common.” Well, that fall he and I were speakers together in Dallas, and we’ve been friends ever since. I was with him a number of times when he was governor, before he was governor, between governorship and being president, and we’ve been guests at the White House so many times during his presidency that I suppose we have been invited to more state dinners there than by any other president.

Mr. Hardin: Are you still playing golf?

Dr. Graham: No, I quit golf ten years ago. It took too much time, and I was invited to too many pro-am tournaments. And when you are invited and turn down one, they cannot understand it. So I said — I’ll just quit.

Mr. Hardin: One last political thought, the South African political problem is really serious. What is a meaningful Christian response to South Africa that’s fair to both the whites and the blacks in that beleaguered country?

Dr. Graham: You know, they have invited me there for twenty years and I have turned them down for twenty years until they would integrate. When they agreed to integrate the stadiums and let us stay in integrated hotels, and so forth, we went. And I was watching the films that we made that we ran on national television after that, and also the press conference that I held in South Africa at that time, and I wouldn’t change a word. I looked into that camera in South Africa and said that apartheid would never work. “It’s going to cause trouble and revolution and violence unless you do something about it now.” And that was prophetic because everything that I predicted, is happening. We’re thinking about running some of it again just to show people what we said thirteen years ago in South Africa. It’s easy to sit here in Chicago and say what ought to be done, but to go to South Africa and say it, was a thing God led me to do.

Mr. Hardin: In your travels, you have been to so many places. What life-styles or values have you seen elsewhere that we could use here?

Dr. Graham: There are so many cultures. I have been to sixty-six countries preaching. And you see every kind of culture and I’ve learned one thing: that man is the same the world over. His heart is the same. He has the same joys, the same possibilities of greed, and hate, and lust that cause war. But he also has a need for God and for Christ. Christ is a universal person that appeals to him. And wherever I preach, I don’t care what country it is — it can be in Jordan, which is Islamic, or it can be in Egypt, which is Islamic, or it can be in some of these other countries that I go to. I’ve found the same interest, the same hunger, the same reception to the gospel of Christ.

Mr. Hardin: That’s great. I’d kind of like to move over to some personal issues. Most of us really struggle in our major relationships: in our marriages, with our children, with other people in our lives. Let’s start with marriage. What has helped you and Ruth to work out your relationship over the years considering all the stresses on you and all the travels that you have had to have while she was raising the children? Now she travels with you, which has got to be a blessing. But in those days, what was your approach to that? How did you all work it out?

Dr. Graham: We decided from the very beginning that this was commitment. Marriage is a commitment. And no matter what happened to me, whatever happened to her, physically or otherwise, I am committed to her as my wife. Someone asked my wife one time if she had ever thought of divorce. And she said — no, but she had thought of murder. She said that jokingly. But you know, here we have been married over forty years and we love each other a million times more than when we got married. I’m sure that when we got married, we didn’t know what love was. Love is after you have gone through all of these experiences, and all these problems and tensions, and reared a family, that you really love each other. And Ruth is my priority right now. If anything ever happened to her, I would stop what I am doing and give my time to her. She has given her life for me and for our family, and thank God all five of our children know the Lord, all five of our in-laws know the Lord, and all of our grandchildren who are grown know the Lord.

Mr. Hardin: All sixteen.

Dr. Graham: All — well, I can’t count the babies yet because we don’t know what’s going to happen to them. We believe with our hearts that they will come to know Christ too.

Mr. Hardin: You once indicated that in your early ministry, you kind of allowed yourself to get too busy. What did you do about that as your children were growing up?

Dr. Graham: Well, I always made it a point that if one of my children came to my study to talk to me, I never said, “I’m too busy.” The door was always open to any one of the children at all times. I tried to give them my complete attention at that moment when they were open and when they were asking a question. My wife did the same. My wife did a remarkable thing, because some of our children might not come in until one or two in the morning when they were teenagers. She would sit up and wait for them. Because she found that that was the time they wanted to talk — late at night and they would open up. So many parents today are under the influence of some sedation or drink or something that they can’t carry on a conversation at two in the morning.

Mr. Hardin: You can’t make an appointment with your kids. You have to do it when they’re ready.

Dr. Graham: You’ve got to do it when they’re ready. And then I remember something that a psychiatrist at Columbia University said that stuck with me for many years. He said, “When your children are going through a period of rebellion, keep their love at all cost, because when they come through it, you won’t have to reestablish anything. It will all be there.” We had two sons and they went through their little period of not really rebellion, but you know how teenagers do, they both went in ways they shouldn’t have gone. But I never had one of them come into my presence that didn’t hug and kiss me. I loved them. They knew I disapproved, but I didn’t preach at them. I knew that in time they’d come through it. And now they are both really spiritual men of God — one is a clergyman and one is in seminary.

Mr. Hardin: This is a hard one, but in looking back, how would you handle these relationships differently if you had it to do over again?

Dr. Graham: Well, I would probably accept less speaking engagements and spend more time at home, studying and being with my children. You know, I missed a lot. But Ruth was committed to my being an evangelist. She wanted me to do this work. And so she was willing to help rear them. And then we had the advantage of her father and mother living across the street from us. They were living in a little Presbyterian village in North Carolina — in Montreat, North Carolina.

Mr. Hardin: So you had grandparents right by you.

Dr. Graham: We had grandparents there, and they had been missionaries to China. And he became moderator of the Presbyterian Church before he died. He was a great writer, and he was a great doctor. And he spent time with them. And then we had some friends who lived in the neighborhood and they helped us with our children. We also had a lot of clergy and many wonderful people come to our home who were an influence on them.

Mr. Hardin: Billy, let’s go back to your early life a little bit. You indicated that at the age of sixteen you were first motivated toward the Lord by a preacher with the wonderful name of Mordecai Ham.

Dr. Graham: That’s right.

Mr. Hardin: What was there about Mordecai Ham that touched you?

Dr. Graham: Well, I was born and reared in what is called the ARP church. That is the Associate Reformed Presbyterian. They’re supposed to be just a little bit nearer the Kingdom of God than regular Presbyterians. They only have about 45,000 in the whole denomination. But that was the church I was reared in. An evangelistic campaign came to our town — I had never been to an evangelistic campaign. It was quite exciting to read about in the newspapers. At first I didn’t go because our church didn’t cooperate in the beginning. My father and mother didn’t go in the beginning. But he stayed about six or eight weeks. So about the third or fourth week I went, and I couldn’t stay away. I was fascinated to see a man open the Bible and preach right from the Bible and it seemed that he was speaking to me. One night I determined that I was going to give my life to Christ. So when he gave the invitation to come forward to receive Christ and a new way of life, I went forward and committed myself to Christ. And I guess the first year, nobody would have noticed much of a change in me. But something had happened. Some seed had been sown that was bearing fruit. And it wasn’t long until I was beginning to read the Bible and pray, and enjoying it going to church and enjoying it for the first time in my life.

Mr. Hardin: Other than Ruth and family, who has had a real influence on your spiritual development in recent years?

Dr. Graham: Oh, I would think a person like my own associates, like Cliff Barrows, and T. W. Wilson, and Grady Wilson, and people like that. But I would have to think of Dr. Edman, president of Wheaton College for so long. He was on my Board. He invited me to be on his Board. And they had tremendous influences on me, and Dr. Edman especially in the prayer life and in his wise counsel. I went to him for so many things. And there have been men like that that God sent along to influence my life.

Mr. Hardin: As a viewer, we tend to see you as a totally successful man of God. Yet we have all dealt with failures, all of us. What have been some of the major struggles in your life? And how has the Lord used these struggles?

Dr. Graham: Well, my greatest struggle right now is to find enough physical strength and mental alertness to do the work that I’m called upon to do. We receive hundreds of invitations to speak every week. What are the priorities? We receive more from abroad than we do from America — from all over the world. And sometimes I don’t know exactly how to handle it. But I have a marvelous staff. They help me. They advise me. They counsel me. But ultimately it is my decision. And I have just accepted too many of these engagements and I have not studied enough.

Mr. Hardin: It’s hard to say ‘no’, isn’t it?

Dr. Graham: It’s hard to say ‘no’. Of course, I study on airplanes and so forth, but that’s not the same as sitting with your library around you, and your reference works.

Mr. Hardin: How do you see the Lord moving in the world today? What changes do you see the Lord affecting and being involved with?

Dr. Graham: Jesus said the wheat and the tares will grow together. We see today the wheat, which is good, getting better. I think there is more wheat today, more good people, more Christian people today, than ever before. But we see the tares: evil, terrorism, wickedness, godlessness, worse than ever. And we see it showing up in every kind of statistic you can mention. And it’s going to climax, I think, with the reign of the Kingdom of God.

Mr. Hardin: How can we as everyday grass-roots people help in this changing that’s going on in the world?

Dr. Graham: Well, you know, President Eisenhower once said that one drop of ink can stain a whole paper. And he said, “You may be that one drop of ink.” But one drop of ink, the right kind of ink, can also spread good will and good feelings between people. And I think that each one of us has the responsibility to live a godly life and we make our impact upon the world as one person. And I don’t think anyone is exempt. I think we can all make a contribution. God loves us all. God is interested in us all. And we need to repent of our sins and receive Christ into our hearts. And then the scripture says, “We can be born again.” I know this was misused quite a bit during a political campaign, but there is that statement in scripture, “Born from above,” or “Born again.” You can start all over in life and you’re never too old to start by receiving Christ into your heart.

Mr. Hardin: What kind of a future would you wish for your five children and your sixteen grandchildren?

Dr. Graham: The kind of a future they now are going to face. It may be problems like the Apostle Paul faced. His future was death. All of the disciples were killed except one. That was John. Jesus didn’t offer us a bed of roses. He didn't offer us “cheap grace”, as Bonhoeffer used. He offered us a struggle. You know the Christian life is not a playground. It’s a battleground. It’s a battle with the forces of evil constantly. And we feel that tug and that warfare in our own hearts, and we are to yield to the Holy Spirit daily in our lives.

Mr. Hardin: If you could look ahead a decade, what are some of the hopes you have for our world?

Dr. Graham: Well, I would like to see a great spiritual awakening in the world because I think it’s the only hope to save us from nuclear disaster. You see, the thing that bothers me about the nuclear situation is the proliferation. Little countries are getting it. Fifteen countries now have the atomic bomb. Twenty-five countries are working frantically on it in addition to that fifteen. And when little countries get it, and some dictator may come who is half crazy, he’s liable to push that button that will start a chain reaction that could destroy the planet. And I think that in the Soviet Union and the United States, that that is their greatest fear.

Mr. Hardin: Do you feel that there is a spiritual awakening going on in the world?

Dr. Graham: There is — all over the world. And there also is an awakening of other religions. Look at the awakening within Islam. So it is not only within Christianity and Judaism, but it’s in other parts of the world as well. There is a hunger for the Supernatural. You see it in motion pictures. You see an emphasis on the transcendent today in the motion pictures and the arts that you didn’t see fifteen years ago. And you see many great subjects taken up in motion pictures today that you didn’t see years ago because many of our writers, and many of our directors and producers are beginning to see that they can have an impact on society. For example, the last year there were three pictures on the farm problem. And these are things you know that they are picking up. Of course, there are all these pornographic video tapes and all the rest of it that is so terrible, and so much violence on television, but we also have a lot of the good.

Mr. Hardin: We are getting a spiritual value in many of our movies.

Dr. Graham: That’s right.

Mr. Hardin: Starting with “Chariots of Fire” and going on with some of these farm movies....

Dr. Graham: We could have more “Chariots of Fire”.

Mr. Hardin: How would you like to be remembered after you have passed into the next life?

Dr. Graham: I would like to be remembered as a man of integrity and as a man of God, a man who followed Christ with all his heart and did his best, and was faithful in the things God called him to do.

Mr. Hardin: I think that’s wonderful and I think that’s kind of a nice place to end, and I just want to thank you, Billy Graham, for a really great interview.

Dr. Graham: Thank you, sir.

Mr. Hardin: And I want to take another ten seconds to just thank you for what you and your ministry have meant to all of us. It’s nice to have you here.

Dr. Graham: God bless you.     

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