A telephone conversation between Richard Nixon and Billy Graham--February 21, 1973

"Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Roe v. Wade, which had the effect of legalizing abortion througout the United States."
"There was no discussion of abortion or the recent Supreme Court ruling."
"That was the curious incident."
Paraphrased from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story The Adventure of Silver Blaze

Bruce Wilson of Talk to Action is a blogger whose perspective I generally disagree with, but he does post interesting items sometimes. One of his recent posts was a transcript that he prepared of a telephone conversation between U.S. President Richard Nixon and evangelist Billy Graham that took place on February 21, 1973. I encourage the reader to examine the transcript, or better yet, listen to the recording and come to your own conclusions.

It was Mr. Nixon who made the call, and it was apparently the first conversation between him and Mr. Graham in some time. On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States, with its abominable Roe v. Wade decision, had legalized abortion on demand throughout the United States. One might think that America's best-known evangelist, while he has the ear of the president, might want to bring the topic up for discussion, but there isn't a word on the subject from Billy Graham--a "curious incident" indeed.

The conversation contains some references to events and people that current readers (including even this blogger) may not be familiar with, so I offer the following to fill in some blanks. My source for some of this is the 1974 World Almanac and Book of Facts.

--Watergate was starting to gain momemtum as a scandal, but so far only the men who had perpetrated the actual break-in at the Watergate building in 1972 had been tried. On February 7, 1973 the United States Senate voted to form a seven-member panel to further investigate the affair. The next day, Sam Ervin was named to head the panel. So far there were no links to President Nixon, so it's not surprising that the issue didn't come up in this conversation.

--On December 18, 1972 President Nixon ordered the so-called "Christmas bombing" of Hanoi for the purpose of bringing the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to the negotiating table. The bombing ended on December 30, and on January 27, 1973 the U.S.A., South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and Viet Cong signed an agreement ending the war in Vietnam. Operation Homecoming began on February 12 when 142 American prisoners of war were released; they began arriving in the United States on the 14th.

--"Mrs. Meier" was actually Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel.

--On February 21, Israeli planes shot down a Libyan civilian jetliner which had strayed over Israeli-occupied Egyptian territory in the Sinai Desert on a routine flight from Benghazi, Libya to Cairo. The final death toll was 108. Israeli officials claimed that they had intercepted the plane as a last resort after the French pilot had ignored instructions to land. Libyan Foreign Minister Mansur Kikhia called the downing a "criminal act." On February 22--the day after this telephone conversation--Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan called the event a "tragedy," but blamed the pilot. The same day, the Cairo airport produced a tape that indicated that the pilot, having lost his way due to instrument failure, had believed he was over Egyptian territory pursued by Egyptian MiGs and was unaware of instructions to land until he was being shot down. On February 24, Mr. Dayan conceded that Israel had made an "error of judgement" on the nature of the intrusion, but emphasized the shared responsibility of the pilot. On February 25 Mr. Dayan announced that Israel would pay compensation to the families of the victims.

--John Stennis was a 71-year-old Democratic U.S. Senator from Mississippi who was shot in front of his home in Washington on January 30 in an apparent robbery attempt. The Senator underwent more than 6 hours of intensive surgery at Walter Reed Hospital and was still resident there, although reportedly "much improved" when three men were arrested on March 12 in connection with the shooting. Harold Hughes was a Democratic U.S. Senator from Iowa.

--the names of Doug Coe and Mark Hatfield will be familiar to anyone who’s read Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family (2008), about which I have already posted.

--Marc Tanenbaum (correct spelling) was director of inter-religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee and was known for building bridges of understanding and co-operation between Judaism and other religious bodies, particularly the Roman Catholic Church. For Billy Graham’s attitude toward evangelizing Jews with the gospel of Jesus Christ, see the article about him in the January 1978 issue of McCall’s magazine, which you may be able to find in a public library (the downtown branch of the Edmonton Public Library has a copy in the stacks). Mr. Graham seems to enjoy better relations with Jewish leaders than Jesus did, which I find very suspicious.

--the man with whom Mr. Graham was talking who was vacationing in the same place as he was, referred to in the transcript as "[?]", was Bunny Lasker, who was chairman of the New York Stock Exchange from 1969-1971. I’ll let the reader draw his own conclusions about the people in Billy Graham’s social circle.

--the man referred to as "Carson Beck" in the transcript was actually Eugene Carson Blake, an American Presbyterian minister who was president of the National Council of Churches in the 1950s and later the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches. He was a world leader in the ecumenical movement, and was known for making public appearances with Soviet agents who posed as Christian clergymen.

--the man referred to as "Crowe [Kroll]" was John Krol, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia; Terence Cooke was Archbishop of New York. Both were members of the College of Cardinals.

-- "McCloughlin" was John McLaughlin, then a Jesuit priest and supporter of President Nixon. This is the same John McLaughlin who became the host and moderator of the long-running (and still-running) PBS talk show The McLaughlin Group.

--"Rosy" was, I assume, President Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods, who soon gained notoriety for accidentally erasing 18½ minutes from one of the Watergate tapes.