Put not your trust in princes: Long ago, that biblical admonition was forgotten by the Rev. Billy Graham, who spoke unguardedly to the dark prince of American politics, Richard Nixon. Thirty years later, Mr. Graham, 83 years old and in frail health, has been called to public account for what he said privately. It is both fair and unfair and, above all, it is sad.
It is fair because what was revealed on the tapes recorded in the Oval Office -- and released by the National Archives -- was an ugly manifestation of casual anti-Semitism of a sort once commonplace. The preacher and the president were discussing the so-called Jewish domination of the media, a stock obsession of conspiracy-minded bigots for generations.
"This stranglehold has got to be broken, or this country's going down the drain," Mr. Graham said on the tapes -- and Mr. Nixon agreed. Later in the conversation, Mr. Graham spoke in a two-faced and cynical way about the Jews who "are great friends of mine."
When this conversation was revealed, Mr. Graham said he deeply regretted the comments, which he could not recall. "They do not reflect my views, and I sincerely apologize for any offense caused by my remarks." He also said that throughout his ministry, he had "sought to build bridges between Jews and Christians."
Actions, it is said, speak louder than words -- and, in fact, Mr. Graham has been a friend of Jews and Israel. How then is this revelation on the tape -- which seem at odds with the life he has lived -- to be explained? The temptation is to seize reflexively upon the shallowest and most cynical assumption: that Mr. Graham is simply a hypocrite.
But life is not so simple, and Mr. Graham has always given the impression of being much more sincere than that. The fact is that 30 years ago such anti-Semitism was often unthinking, a horrible habit not yet confronted for what it was. But people change over time, they grow, they reflect, they come into the light. The tape says something about Mr. Graham in 1972; it may say next to nothing about his life taken as a whole.
Even with the raised consciousness of 2002, very few of us today could bear having our private conversations made public -- and that includes Mr. Graham's detractors. The very best people say ill-considered and hurtful things on occasion. To recognize that fact is not to excuse such private indiscretions, but to put them in a human context.
Whatever the extent of Mr. Graham's wrongdoing -- for which his apology now should make amends -- it is worth remembering that another villain was in attendance, Mr. Nixon, once again showing his knack for bringing out the worst in people. The secret taping was both a betrayal of his friends' confidences and, ironically, the engine of his own humiliation. Now Mr. Graham has paid a price for cozying up to those in power, what might be called the sin of sycophancy.
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