there toward more religious freedom. And perhaps he saw it
before many of us, because it takes a man of God to sense the
early movement of the hand of God. And yet, who could predict
that in 1989 freedom’s tide would be economic, political and intel-
lectual or that the walls of bayonets and barbed wire, the walls of
tyranny, would come tumbling down.”
Dan Rather of CBS, who had joined in the chorus of criti-
cism, later acknowledged that Billy alone had looked past the
atheistic Soviet propaganda to see a nation eager for change.
“Before anybody else I knew of, and more consistently than
anyone else I have known, of any nationality, race, or religion,
Reverend Graham was saying, ‘Spirituality is alive in the
Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist states.’... Frankly, there were those
years when I thought he was wrong, or that he didn’t know
what he was talking about,” said Rather. “It turns out he was
right. And give him credit — he also took the time to go and
see for himself.”
Just as Billy had hoped, the visit to Moscow opened the door
for him to preach without censorship behind the Iron Curtain. He
returned to the Soviet Union in 1984 and 1988; he toured Hun-
gary and Romania in 1985; he preached in China in 1988 and
North Korea in 1992 and 1994.
In 1992, Billy stood again in Moscow’s Olympic Stadium,
where he had prayed as a tourist in 1959. Only now, the stadium
was not empty. This time Billy shared the message of God’s love
with 50,000 people crammed in a stadium built for 38,000.
Between 20,000 and 30,000 additional people stood outside
watching the crusade on projection screens.
■ ■ ■Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Courage is an inner resolution
to go forward in spite of obstacles and frightening situations.” Billy
Graham in 1982 not only went forward but tenaciously perse-
vered when the battle grew hottest and the outcome was still in
doubt.
Summoning Courage