wouldn’t prove an awkward revelation for either the pope or for
Billy. The pope had grabbed him by the thumb and pulled him
close to whisper intensely, “We are brothers.”
He had made an error of judgment in revealing the content
of his conversation with President Truman. He would not make
that mistake again.
That’s not to say he didn’t make othermistakes. During his
otherwise wildly successful visit to South Africa in 1973, with an
unguarded comment he shot himself in the foot, or, as William
Martin described the episode, it was “a shot that hit his foot and
ricocheted around the world.”
Since the United States Supreme Court had recently handed
down the Roe v. Wadedecision, upholding the legality of abor-
tion, a reporter asked Billy if he considered abortion the taking
of human life. Billy said yes, he did, but that such a procedure
might be justified in certain situations, such as pregnancy caused
by rape.
Billy’s unfortunate tendency to allow a key word or image to
send his mind down a “rabbit trail” then led him to make an
unprompted comment about a newspaper article he had read the
day before about the gang rape of a twelve-year-old girl. He said
he advocated strict punishment for rape, and then added, “I think
when a person is found guilty of rape, he should be castrated. That
would stop him pretty quick.”
Billy immediately knew that he had gone too far. “It was an
offhand, hasty, spontaneous remark that I regretted almost as
soon as I said it.”
South African papers paid it little attention, but in America it
created an uproar. The comment was considered both barbaric and
racist. Despite the fact that Billy had insisted his South Africa meet-
ings be integrated, a first for South Africa at the time, the comment
was considered evidence of Billy’s being a racist, because in Amer-
ica a disproportionate number of convicted rapists were black.
American readers were surprised at how quickly Billy put out
this media fire by admitting he had spoken unwisely. “I unfortu-
nately used a word which, in our sex-saturated culture, was emo-
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham