Grady Wilson describes the time in the 1960s when Billy was
swimming with President Lyndon Johnson at Camp David, and
the president said in front of several staffers, “Billy, I think you
ought to run for president when I’m finished with my term. If
you do, I’ll put my entire organization behind you.”
Billy answered with a laugh, “Mr. President, I don’t think I
could do your job.”
“Billy, I know you think I’m joking,” said the president, “but I’m
serious. You’re the one man who might turn this country around.”
Later, Billy revealed that President Richard Nixon offered him
an ambassadorship, a cabinet post, “any job I wanted.” Earlier in
1952, Texas billionaire H. L. Hunt offered Billy six million dollars
if he would run for president. As attractive as these options may
have been, Billy realized they were not part of his mission. To
each he said, “God called me to preach, and I do not intend to do
anything else as long as I live.”
Billy’s focus was clear.
During the late 1970s, after feeling stung by the revelation of
Nixon’s statements on Watergate tapes, Billy had to further clar-
ify his focus on evangelism from even informal political involve-
ment. “I’m out of politics,” he said in an interview in 1981, partly
as a reaction to the perception that he had been too involved in
politics through his friendships with Lyndon Johnson and Richard
Nixon. He clearly separated himself from the Moral Majority, a
conservative religious movement seeking to steer America’s polit-
ical path to the right.
“I’m for morality,” he said, “but morality goes beyond sex to
human freedom and social justice. We as clergy know so very lit-
tle to speak out with such authority on the Panama Canal or supe-
riority of armaments. Evangelists cannot be closely identified with
any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle in
order to preach to all people, right and left. I haven’t been faith-
ful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future.”
Billy openly admitted he had allowed some blurring of his
focus in the past. “It was a mistake,” he said, “to identify the King-
dom of God with the American way of life.”
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham