Mat12:34..Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."
35 "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things."
36 "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment."
37 "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."

    It seemed impossible, when H. R. Haldeman's White House diaries came out in 1994, that the Rev. Billy Graham could once have joined with President Richard M. Nixon in discussing the "total Jewish domination of the media." Could Mr. Graham, the great American evangelist, really have said the nation's problem lies with "satanic Jews," as Mr. Nixon's aide recorded?
 
    Mr. Graham's sterling reputation as a healer and bridge-builder was so at odds with Mr. Haldeman's account that Jewish groups paid little attention, especially because he denied the remarks so strongly.
 
    "Those are not my words," Mr. Graham said in a public statement in May 1994. "I have never talked publicly or privately about the Jewish people, including conversations with President Nixon, except in the most positive terms."
 
    That was the end of the story, it seemed, until two weeks ago, when the tape of that 1972 conversation in the Oval Office was made public by the National Archives. Three decades after it was recorded, the North Carolina preacher's famous drawl is tinny but unmistakable on the tape, denigrating Jews in terms far stronger than the diary accounts.
 
    "They're the ones putting out the pornographic stuff," Mr. Graham said on the tape, after agreeing with Mr. Nixon that left-wing Jews dominate the news media. The Jewish "stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain," he continued, suggesting that if Mr. Nixon were re-elected, "then we might be able to do something."
 
    Finally, Mr. Graham said that Jews did not know his true feelings about them.
 
    "I go and I keep friends with Mr. Rosenthal at The New York Times and people of that sort, you know," he told Mr. Nixon, referring to A. M. Rosenthal, then the newspaper's executive editor. "And all — I mean, not all the Jews, but a lot of the Jews are great friends of mine, they swarm around me and are friendly to me because they know that I'm friendly with Israel. But they don't know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country. And I have no power, no way to handle them, but I would stand up if under proper circumstances."
 
    Mr. Graham, who is now 83 and in poor health, quickly issued a four- sentence apology, but he did not acknowledge making the statements and said he had no memory of the conversation, which took place after a prayer breakfast on Feb. 1, 1972.
 

    The brevity of the apology and Mr. Graham's refusal to discuss the matter further have angered many of the same Jewish organizations that for so long counted Mr. Graham as their best friend among evangelical Christians. The taped remarks have become the subject of synagogue sermons and columns in Jewish newspapers, with some Jewish leaders suggesting that Mr. Graham had hidden anti-Semitic views for decades.
 
    "Here we have an American icon, the closest we have to a spiritual leader of America, who has been playing a charade for all these years," Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in an interview last week. "What's frightening is that he has been so close to so many presidents, and who knows what else he has been saying privately."
 
    Mr. Foxman urged Mr. Graham to return the award he won in 1971 from the National Conference of Christians and Jews — one of many such awards presented to him.
 
    Yesterday, Mr. Graham's organization issued a longer apology, in which Mr. Graham acknowledged making the statements, but repudiated them.
 
    "I don't ever recall having those feelings about any group, especially the Jews, and I certainly do not have them now," he said. "My remarks did not reflect my love for the Jewish people. I humbly ask the Jewish community to reflect on my actions on behalf of Jews over the years that contradict my words in the Oval Office that day."
 
    Mr. Foxman subsequently issued a statement accepting the new apology, but for many Jews the damage had already been done. In a recent column in several Jewish newspapers, the Washington journalist James D. Besser said the remarks should awaken Jews to the intense dislike for them among many evangelical Christians, except insofar as Jews are useful to the fulfillment of Christian apocalyptic prophecies.
 
    The tapes have been particularly disturbing to people and groups who have worked to find common ground between Jews and evangelical Christians, many of whom say that their progress has now been significantly set back. For years, Mr. Graham stood apart from other evangelicals in his refusal to proselytize Jews directly, sharply disagreeing on the issue with his own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. Because of that stance, the American Jewish Committee presented Mr. Graham with its National Interreligious Award in 1977, calling him one of the century's greatest Christian friends of Jews.
 
    The taped remarks, however, will only help perpetuate the stereotypes that Jews and evangelicals hold about each other, said Rabbi Yechiel Z. Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, based in Chicago.
 
    "Jewish friends are coming up to me now and saying, 'See, we told you so — they're all frauds,' " said Rabbi Eckstein, an Orthodox Jew who has become a liaison between Israel and evangelical Christians.
 
    Mr. Graham's statement yesterday expressed hope that he had grown past his words that day in the Oval Office. Describing himself as "an old man of 83 suffering from several ailments," he said his life had been a pilgrimage of growth and change.
 
    "Every year during their High Holy Days, the Jewish community reminds us all of our need for repentance and forgiveness," he wrote. "GOD's mercy and grace give me hope — for myself, and for our world."

    The National Archives recently released several hundred hours of tapes from Oval Office conversations during the Nixon Administration. One of those recordings included a conversation that I had with President Nixon and his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, more than 30 years ago.
 
 

    I had scores of conversations with Mr. Nixon in which we discussed every conceivable subject. However, I cannot imagine what caused me to make those comments, which I totally repudiate. Whatever the reason, I was wrong for not disagreeing with the President, and I sincerely apologize to anyone I have offended.
 
    I don't ever recall having those feelings about any group, especially the Jews, and I certainly do not have them now. My remarks did not reflect my love for the Jewish people. I humbly ask the Jewish community to reflect on my actions on behalf of Jews over the years that contradict my words in the Oval Office that day.
 
    In the Bible we read, "Above all else, guard your heart; for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk from your lips" (Proverbs 4:22, 23). That is true for me as much as anyone else. Every day I have to renew my heart before GOD, and ask for His grace and strength.
 
    I am now an old man of eighty-three suffering from several ailments. As I reflect back, I realize that much of my life has been a pilgrimage - constantly learning, changing, growing and maturing. I have come to see in deeper ways some of the implications of my faith and message, not the least of which is in the area of human rights and racial and ethnic understanding.
 
    Racial prejudice, anti-Semitism, or hatred of anyone with different beliefs has no place in the human mind or heart. I urge everyone to examine themselves and renew their own hearts before GOD. Only the supernatural love of GOD through changed lives can solve the problems that we face in our world.
 
    Of greater import or concern than any tapes made in the White House, each of us must face the fact that GOD has "tapes" that record not only our actions but also our thoughts and our intent. Every moral choice we have ever made is on His "computer." On the appointed day of GOD's judgment there will be nothing in any of our hearts that will not be disclosed. That is why we all need GOD's forgiveness.
 
    I take daily comfort in the Psalmist's words in the Old Testament: "The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy" (Psalm 103:8). Every year during their High Holy Days, the Jewish community reminds us all of our need for repentance and forgiveness. GOD's mercy and grace give me hope - for myself, and for our world.

    Our virtues are our vices. I firmly believe that. The same qualities that elevate us often also pull us down. No clearer illustration of this is at hand than the life of the Rev. Billy Graham, pastor to the presidents, who recently found himself, at age 83 and in ill health, repeatedly apologizing for anti-Semitic slurs he made with Richard Nixon in 1972. It's a sad capstone to a career notably free of scandal, particularly when compared to the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart and all the others who at one time or another aspired to a spot in the nation's pulpit.
 
    The focus has been on the anti-Semitic aspect of the remarks, about Jews having a "stranglehold'' on the media and such. But that isn't really what fascinates me. Lots of people will say all sorts of negative things they only half mean, and who would want their casual comments recorded on secret taping systems and handed down to history?
 
    No, what interests me is that Graham, in his second apology, said he is mystified at why he said what he did.
 
    "I cannot imagine what caused me to make those comments,'' he said.
 
    I sure can. Anyone even passingly familiar with Graham's career should know exactly why Graham said what he did. The reason is apparent, and it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Billy Graham became the unofficial pastor to the president over the past half century by ducking the great ethical crises of his day, and his echoing Nixon's anti-Semitic rantings is only a minor example.
 
    But first, for those just joining us, a quick history. Graham first tasted fame right here in Chicago, speaking to a youth rally at the Auditorium Theatre. Soon, he was captivating hundreds of thousands at tent crusades that lasted for weeks. It was only a matter of time before he found himself in Washington, praying with Harry Truman in the White House in 1950.
 
    The minister had discovered his flock: presidents. No national figure--no politician, no journalist, nobody--has had the continual access to the White House that Billy Graham enjoyed. He baptized Dwight D. Eisenhower. John F. Kennedy's Catholicism was no bar to Graham (who, though few know it, was a registered Democrat). Graham spoke at Lyndon Johnson's inauguration in 1965.
 
    He was especially close to Nixon. Each had been converted by the same Chicago evangelist, Dr. Paul Rader, and perhaps that created a special bond. Nixon and Graham prayed together, they golfed together, Graham spoke at Nixon's mother's funeral and was part of the all-night session that picked Spiro T. Agnew as a running mate. When Nixon needed a sympathetic audience, he turned to Graham--after sending troops into Cambodia, he tested the waters by speaking to a Graham crusade.

    Nixon went down in disgrace, but Graham endured. He was a frequent guest at the Reagan White House, but Bill Clinton was also under the Graham influence--Clinton, who met Graham while still a teen, used to tithe part of his salary to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
 
    How does a minister keep on such good terms with such a divergent cast of powerful presidents? I'll give you a hint. It isn't by challenging their biases. It isn't by getting in their face. Graham would no sooner have called Nixon on his anti-Semitic spoutings than he would have called Johnson on the Vietnam War. In fact, he did the opposite.
 
    "It seems the only way to gain attention today is to organize a march and protest something,'' he said, shrugging off the Peace March on Washington at a 1965 rally, his friend LBJ nodding in the audience.
 
    Ten years earlier, it was civil rights being given the backhand by Graham--who, to his credit, wouldn't speak to segregated audiences, but who wasn't exactly pushing Ike into uncomfortable positions either, dismissing lunch-counter sitters and freedom marchers as those who "become addicted to sitting, squatting, demonstrating and striking for what they want.''
 
    This is Graham's tragedy, and it gave him a superficiality that was even noted at the time. In 1965, theologian Martin Marty wrote of Graham in the Sun-Times: "A man in transit between epochs and value systems, he has chosen to disengage himself and distract us by shouting about the end of history.''
 
    Time on this earth is running out for Graham, and I feel sincerely sorry that his twilight is marred by this ugly incident. I truly believe he is a good man who tries his best. He didn't see the attention of the president as a lure, perhaps even the devil's trap.
 
    Maybe that was his role, his destiny. There were other ministers, remember, who walked with King at Selma, who joined the protesters forming a ring around the Pentagon. Somebody had to pray with Nixon.
 
    Still, I don't want to let Graham off too easily. You have to wonder: What was the point of gaining the trust of those in power, if your every comment was designed to flatter? If you never challenge them on their assumptions, no matter how mistaken? Think how comforting it would have been to hear Graham on those old tapes: "Now, wait a second, Mr. President, that's one of the stupidest things anyone's . . .''
 
    But man is a flawed vessel, and perhaps that is asking too much.