div style="text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; "span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Today's guest post comes from our friend Steven Miller, author of the recent and much noted book /spana href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/books/review/Douthat-t.html"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South/span/aspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" (the link takes you to the NY Times review of the book). You may find an interview with the author /spana href="http://www.antemedius.com/content/billy-graham-rise-republican-south-interview-historian-steven-p-miller"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"here/span/aspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;", and find the book's web page /spana href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14614.html"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"here/span/aspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;". Steven reflects on the latest release of the Nixon tapes and the ongoing revelations of the Billy Graham/Richard Nixon connection, and in particular how Nixon's political project dovetailed with Graham dreams of evangelical unity./span/span/divp class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal"bspan style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Thoughts on the Latest Graham-Nixon Tapebr /by Steven Miller/spano:p/o:p/span/b/pp class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal"bbr //b/pimg src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/04/19/books/douthat-600.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 600px; height: 350px;" border="0" alt="" /p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"Tuesday’s /span/spana href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062300126.html"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"latest tapes and papers release/span/span/aspan style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" from the Nixon Presidential Library, from what I can gather, contains some span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"juicy anecdotes, but no paradigm-shifting revelations (News flash: Richard Nixon was a cynical, embittered man—a master of political hatchet work and paranoid overreach alike)./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"The release does, though, include another /span/spana href="http://nixon.archives.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/tape043/tape043.php"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Billy Graham-Nixon conversation/span/span/aspan style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" (February 21, 1973) that, like their now-notorious February 1, 1972, conversation, has gained attention for its /span/spana href="http://www.forward.com/articles/108451/"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"notes of anti-Semitism/span/span/aspan style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Indeed, it is noteworthy that the earlier conversation was not so exceptional after all./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"There is much to ponder here, and I do not begin to imagine that I have put this conversation in full context./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Below I offer a few thoughts, written from the perspective of a student of Graham./span/span/span/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"span style="font-family:quot;;"o:pspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"By Nixon standards, the tone of the 20 minute phone conversation was very upbeat, coming just after the treaty ending American involvement in the Vietnam War and just before the Watergate crisis really hit the Oval Office’s fan./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"The general theme was, /spanispan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"We’ve proved ‘em wrong, haven’t we?/span/ispan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"—the “’em” being Nixon’s critics, real and imagined./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Much of the conversation concerned the relationship between Israel and American Protestant leaders, especially in light of Prime Minister Golda Meir’s impending visit to the States./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Several recent events had threatened that relationship, in the eyes of Nixon and Graham./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Nixon cited Israel’s shooting down of a Libyan passenger plane, while Graham was smarting from recent statements by American Jewish leaders opposed to the ecumenical Key ’73 evangelistic campaign, with its manifest destiny-like slogan: “/span/spana href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908386,00.html"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"CALLING OUR CONTINENT TO CHRIST/span/span/aspan style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"”./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Both believed that Israeli and American Jewish leaders underestimated, at their peril, the latent anti-Semitism among Americans, even among good Christian folk./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Unsurprisingly, Nixon put the matter more crudely: “It may be they have a death wish.”/spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"But Graham also suggested that Israel was in danger of alienating its Christian allies, especially if American Jews continued “overreacting” to the emerging “Jews for Jesus” movement, which was “just scaring them to death.”/spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"In a line that /span/spana href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-06-24-graham-tapes_N.htm?csp=34"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"makes for an easy headline/span/span/aspan style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;", Graham quoted the Book of Revelation (2:9, 3:9) in describing the kind of Jews who belong to the “synagogue of Satan.”/spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"As with the 1972 conversation, Graham certainly had in mind publishers of pornographic material; but, in the context of echoing Nixon’s distaste for the Fourth Estate, Graham also seemed to be thinking of high-profile Jewish liberals in the mainstream media./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Graham, as I have written elsewhere concerning the 1972 exchange, “was willing to indulge Nixon’s prejudices and . . . voice a few of his own.”/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"o:p/o:p/span/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"span style="font-family:quot;;"o:pspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"I was struck by the way in which Graham casually cited dispensationalist eschatology in discussing matters Jewish with Nixon./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Jews are “God’s time piece,” Graham declared to an agreeable, grunting Nixon, “and he has judged them from generation to generation, and yet used them, and they’ve kept their identity.”/spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"I was struck because Graham-Nixon communications often were rather devoid of theological content./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"At the same time, as I have argued, Nixon was more comfortable with Graham’s evangelicalism than has been assumed (to the extent Nixon was comfortable with anything or anyone)./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Either way, Nixon and Graham undoubtedly shared a strong criticism of liberal media outlets, such as /spanispan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Newsweek /span/ispan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"and the /spanispan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"New York Times/span/ispan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"“And Henry Luce would turn over in his grave,” Graham declared to Nixon, if Luce knew what the formerly friendly /spanispan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Time/span/ispan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" was now publishing. /spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Many members of the liberal media happened to be Jewish./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"That is, Nixon and Graham chose to notice the presence of Jews therein./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"o:p/o:p/span/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"span style="font-family:quot;;"o:pspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"The Graham who comes through in this conversation suggests the fine line between emerging Israel-philia and lingering anti-Semitism among early 1970s evangelicals./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Graham saw himself as a strong friend of Israel, and he could cite his closeness with Marc Tannenbaum of the American Jewish Committee as evidence./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"At the same time, Graham remained keenly aware of how much Jewish leaders valued him as an ally./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Tannenbaum was set to visit Graham in Montreat to discuss Key ’73./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Graham clearly was most comfortable in a broker-style relationship with Jewish leaders, wherein they would explain evangelicals to their people and he would explain Jews to his. /spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"o:p/o:p/span/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"span style="font-family:quot;;"spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"o:p/o:p/span/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"span style="font-family:quot;;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"In the end, this conversation confirms that Graham was indeed in Nixon’s “kitchen cabinet” during the immediate post-reelection period./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"When Graham and Nixon talked, they talked politics./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Unprompted by Nixon, Graham proceeded to dump on evangelical critics of Nixon’s Vietnam policies, such as the liberal Senator Harold Hughes (D-IA), who was “pretending to be . . . a great Christian” and the moderate Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR), whom Graham cited as “the big disappointment in political life—in politics that I’ve known.” /spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"At some level, of course, Graham kowtowed to Nixon like many a presidential confidante before and since./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"But in these weeks before Watergate consumed Nixon and threatened Graham’s reputation, Graham clearly saw Nixon’s political project (countering liberal hegemony with a new majority) and his own religious project (countering mainline Protestant hegemony with evangelical unity) as complementary efforts./spanspanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"“And just as you have changed the political picture, we hope to change the religious picture,” Graham said to Nixon in reference to the upcoming Lausanne evangelism conference./spanspan style="mso-spacerun:yes" /spano:p/o:p/span/pdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/37589721331585843-9048564200259273158?l=usreligion.blogspot.com'//div
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