The president, not known for his spiritual side, said, “I don’t
suppose it could do any harm.” So Billy put his arm around the
shoulders of the president of the United States of America and
prayed, while Grady and Cliff chimed in with “do it, Lord,” and
hearty “amens.”
“When we left the Oval Office,” Billy said much later, “I
looked at the clock; my prayer had taken another five minutes.”
Upon emerging from the White House, the press corps
descended on them: “What did you tell the president, and what
did he say?” Billy, not knowing he was violating diplomatic pro-
tocol, told them everything he could remember.
Photographers asked them to recreate the pose they had
struck with the president for the prayer. Billy replied that he con-
sidered it improper to simulate prayer, but wanting to please the
press, he said: “My team and I were planning to thank God for
our visit with the president, and now is as good a time as any. I
suppose you could take a picture of that.”
So the next day, newspapers across the country ran stories of the
meeting, accompanied by photos of four men in white suits, down
on one knee with heads bowed, who had prayed with the president.
“It began to dawn on me a few days later how we had abused
the privilege of seeing the president,” said Billy. “The president
was offended that I had quoted him without authorization.”
Billy tried to make amends. But Truman had informed his
aides that “when, as, and if a request comes for Billy Graham to
be received at the White House, the president requests that it be
turned down.”
By January 1952, as plans were being finalized for the Wash-
ington, D.C., crusade, Billy invited the president to bring words of
greeting to the crusade. But a White House memo reported that
“the president said very decisively that he did not wish to endorse
Billy Graham’s Washington revival, and particularly, he said, he
did not want to receive him at the White House. You remember
what a show of himself Billy Graham made the last time he was
here. The president does not want it repeated.”
Only many years later, while in retirement at his home in
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham