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Billy and Lyndon
ANGELABETHHARTMAN says: DEAR TEXAS MONTHLY PERSONALLY I IDOLISIZED BOTH BILLY GRAHAM AND JOHN F. KENNEDY AND LYNDON JOHNSON BECAUSE ALL THREE WERE CHRISTIAN MEN AND I THEY WERE THE THREE BESTS MEN ON FACE OF GOD’S GREEN EARTH AND WHEN JOHNSON SAID ON THE NIGHT WHEN THEY BROUGHT BACK JOHN F. KENNDEY’S BODY ON AIR FORCE ONE HE SAID THAT HE WOULD DO HIS BEST HE ASKED FOR OUR HELP AND GOD’S THAT’S ALL I CAN DO.THAT WHAT JOHNSON SAID AFTER HE TOOK THE OATH FOR THR NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. (March 11th, 2010 at 5:30pm)
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But Johnson’s memory of a mother who had hoped he would be a preacher, to follow in the steps of her own grandfather, also burdened the president’s complex soul. “He wanted to live up to his mother’s goals,” observed Graham, whose own upbringing had taught him something of what that could mean. “I think he had a con§ict within himself about religion. He wanted to go all the way in his commitment to Christ. He knew what it meant to be ‘saved’ or ‘lost,’ using our terminology, and he knew what it was to be ‘born again.’ And yet he somehow felt that he never quite had that experience. I think he tried to make up for it by having many of the outward forms of religion, in the sense of going to church almost fanatically, even while he was president. Sometimes he’d go to church three times on a Sunday.” Graham recalled that “a number of times I had prayer with him in his bedroom at the White House, usually early in the morning. He would get out of bed and get on his knees while I prayed. I never had very many people do that.”
Of all the areas of national policy in which Johnson sought Graham’s approval, none was more sensitive than the war in Vietnam. Graham was convinced that the president anguished over the war, observing, “He carried a tremendous burden for the boys in Vietnam. He felt he was personally responsible for boys being killed.” Shortly before Graham was to address a world congress of church leaders in Berlin, Johnson had told him, “Billy, if anyone asks you about Vietnam, you say the president of the United States wants peace and will go anywhere in the world to talk peace.” Graham remembered that “he pounded the table so hard as he spoke that I said, ‘Mr. President, I am the only other person here, and you don’t have to convince me.’ ”
Yet as American involvement in Vietnam grew deeper and more torturous, Graham found himself pulled in contradictory directions. At Christmastime 1966, he visited the troops in Vietnam, with Johnson’s blessing, but the trip did not quiet his misgivings. He told reporters that he continued to view the war as “complicated, confusing, and frustrating,” adding that “I leave with more pessimism about an early end to the war than when I arrived. How can we have peace? I don’t know. I don’t have any answers. I had hoped there would be some formula, but I don’t see it.”
As the war wore on, he ventured that “I’m not so sure I would have gotten involved, but it’s not all President Johnson’s fault.” Graham returned to Vietnam at Christmas 1968, this time at the importunate invitation of General Creighton Abrams, Jr., who had replaced General William Westmoreland. Perhaps hoping to gain some leverage with a Congress that consistently refused to provide the manpower and weaponry it felt it needed, the military accorded Graham full V.I.P. treatment. He preached nearly 25 times, occasionally teaming up with Bob Hope.
In contrast to his visit two years before, Graham this time found morale “unbelievably high” and assured the home folk that American soldiers “know why they are fighting in Vietnam, and they believe what they are doing is right.” He told reporters, “There is no question: The war is won militarily.” Graham’s optimism regarding the end of the war stemmed at least in part from an aching hope that his tormented friend in the White House might find some relief from his trials.
When Lyndon Johnson announced on March 31, 1968, that in the interest of national unity, he would not seek reelection, Billy Graham was one of few Americans who were not surprised. Nearly a year earlier, Johnson confided to Graham that he did not expect to run for a second term. That decision, Graham contended, stemmed less from weariness with the struggle than from fears about his health. “My people don’t live too long,” Johnson had said. “My father died when he was about my age. I don’t think I could live out another term, and I don’t want the country to have to deal with that.” Such fears were not rare for Johnson, according to Graham. “He thought a great deal about death, and he talked to me about it several times.
“I had a number of quiet, private talks with him about his relationship with the Lord,” Graham recalled. “One of them was not long before he died. We were sitting in his convertible Lincoln, where he’d been chasing some of the deer right across the fields. We were stopped, looking out, and the sun was sinking. We had a very emotional time, because I just told him straight out that if he had any doubts about his relationship with God, that he’d better get it settled. I said, ‘Mr. President’—I still called him Mr. President then; before he became president, I called him Lyndon—‘according to what you say, you don’t think you have much longer to live. You’d better be sure you’re right with God and have made your peace with him.’ He bowed his head over the steering wheel and said, ‘Billy, would you pray for me?’ I said, ‘Yessir,’ and I did. He was very re§ective after that. We must have sat there for another hour, hardly talking at all, just looking at the sunset.”
Later during that same visit, Johnson told Graham that he wanted him to preach at his funeral and gave him the choice of presiding over a memorial service in Washington or the burial at the ranch. Graham said he felt more comfortable at the ranch, which seemed to please the president. He led the preacher over to a small grave plot and said, “I want to be buried right here. My father’s grave is right there, my mother’s right there.” Then he stopped and looked Graham in the eye: “Billy, will I ever see my mother and father again?” Graham provided him with the promise that gives Evangelical faith its greatest power: “Well, Mr. President, if you’re a Christian and they were Christians, then someday you’ll have a great homecoming.”
Johnson pulled out a handkerchief and began brushing tears from his eyes. Then he decided that others needed to hear what he had just heard. Returning to discussion of the funeral, he said, “Obviously, there’ll be members of the press here. I don’t know how many, but maybe they’ll come from around the world. Billy, I want you to look in those cameras and just tell ’em what Christianity is all about. Tell ’em how they can be sure they can go to heaven. I want you to preach the gospel.” He paused. “But somewhere in there, you tell ’em a few things I did for this country.”
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