bility. Billy was a friend and counselor to many American presi-
dents during times of crisis. All these chief executives experienced
extreme personal testing. One can read in each of their lives, from
Eisenhower through George W. Bush, growth through immersion
in the crucible.
For instance, Ronald Reagan biographer Peggy Noonan uses
just that word to describe the period when the future president,
as a young actor, experienced a string of calamities, including
near-death in a hospital, the fading of his acting career, and the
loss of his marriage. Jane Wyman’s filing for divorce devastated
him. And yet this is the man whose legacy is his optimism, the
man who stirred the morale of a nation with his upbeat charm.
“These days were the crucible,” writes Noonan, “the essential
experience of his adulthood, the great educator, the time that
formed him and that he referred back to all of his life.”
In the same way that Theodore Roosevelt modeled his life
after his evangelical father, who had lived with such vigor and
love, Ronald Reagan modeled his after his evangelical mother, “a
little tornado of goodness,” to use Noonan’s phrase. The great test
came when, returning from service in World War II, his career
opportunities wilted, and he eventually found himself in a differ-
ent war. As president of the Screen Actors Guild during the
McCarthy blacklist battles, he firmly opposed the brutal tactics of
the Communists, yet stood firm against the unfair accusations. He
was caught in the middle, but the experiences toughened him,
taught him, enabled him to take in stride unfair accusations and
avalanches of press criticism. It also made him more intently a
man of prayer.
During his presidency, Reagan reached out to Billy, who was
going through what was perhaps the evangelist’s greatest strate-
gic crisis. In 1982 it seemed the media and all America had turned
against him for agreeing to travel to the Soviet Union, and seem-
ingly being used by the U.S.S.R. for propaganda purposes. Presi-
dent Reagan took Billy aside. “You know what’s been in the
press,” he said. “I believe that God works in mysterious ways. I’ll
be praying for you every mile of the way.”
Igniting!