The Family (55 page)

36.
Broger, “Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense,” July 26, 1957, no box number, collection 459, BGCA.

8.
VIETNAMIZATION

1.
Clifton J. Robinson to Doug Coe, April 28, 1966, folder 2, box 372, collection 459, BGCA.

2.
“Carter Appoints ‘Field Marshall’ Sullivan Ambassador to Shah,”
MERIP Report
, no. 59, August 1977, pp. 24–25. Sullivan went on to become the last American ambassador to Iran, an appointment of great controversy. Sullivan “is well-fitted to run secret presidential wars and lie to Congress about them,” editorialized
The Nation
, an assessment borne out in more admiring terms by a study conducted for the CIA: “The secret war in Laos, author Charles Stevenson has emphasized, was ‘William Sullivan’s war.’…Sullivan imposed two conditions upon his subordinates. First, the thin fiction of the Geneva accords had to be maintained…; military operations, therefore, had to be carried out in relative secrecy. Second, no regular US ground troops were to become involved.” Instead, Sullivan resorted to one of the most destructive bombing campaigns of the Vietnam War. William M. Leary, “CIA Air Operations in Laos, 1955–1974,”
Studies in Intelligence
(published by the CIA), Winter 1999–2000.

3.
Abram, “Memorandum to the Board,” circa 1966, folder 2, box 563, collection 459, BGCA.

4.
Bold Satanic forces:
Ibid.
Cyclone
: Frank McLaughlin to Abram, December 15, 1966, folder 1, box 168, collection 459, BGCA.
“Ten steps…”
: Coe to Jim Anderson of Young Life, November 18, 1981, folder 5, box 168, collection 459, BGCA.

5.
Robinson had won for the Fellowship’s muscular Christ the ostensibly Ghandian Hindu A. M. Thomas, responsible for India’s armed forces during some of the worst fighting with Pakistan. Robinson to Ford Mason, November 30, 1964, folder 2, box 232, collection 459, BGCA.

6.
Robinson to Halverson, April 13, 1963, ibid.

7.
Halverson to Robinson, May 22, 1963, ibid.

8.
Cordle, Halverson:
Robinson to Mason, November 30, 1964, ibid.

9.
V. Raymond Edman,
They Found the Secret: Twenty Lives That Reveal A Touch of Eternity
(Zondervan, 1984), pp. 78–87.

10
Halverson’s responsibility to a pluralistic nation did not mellow his religious convictions. Upon his death in 1995, Senator Dan Coats (R., Indiana) would eulogize him by expressing his admiration for a man who would preach thusly on the Senate floor: “God of our fathers, if we separate morality from politics, we imperil our Nation and threaten self-destruction. Imperial Rome was not defeated by an enemy from without; it was destroyed by moral decay from within. Mighty God, over and over again you warned your people, Israel, that righteousness is essential to national health.” Halverson also preached in the Senate against investigative reporting. Cal Thomas, “The Most Powerful Man in Washington Retires,”
York Daily Record
, November 9, 1994.

11.
Robert D. Foster,
The Navigator
(Challenge Books, 1983), p. 61.

12.
Doug Coe, “The Person of Christ,” a videotaped address to the President’s Meeting, a gathering of evangelical leaders, January 15, 1989.

13.
“Washington Welcomes Doug Coe,” in
Christian Leadership
, October 1959, collection 459, BGCA.

14.
“a woman so uncomplaining”
: Wallace Haines quoted in “A Key Man in Every Country,” July 1973, folder 20, box 383, collection 459, BGCA. Sharp-nack to Coe, December 28, 1959, folder 10, box 135, collection 459, BGCA.

15.
Cal Ludeman to Coe, April 27, 1960, folder 11, box 135, collection 459, BGCA.

16.
Kent Hotaling to Coe, January 18, 1960, folder 10, box 135, collection 459, BGCA.

17.
One of Coe’s standard closings on letters written in 1960, folder 11, box 135, collection 459, BGCA.

18.
Haines is quoted back to himself in a letter from Coe to Haines dated December 27, 1967, folder 4, box 204, collection 459, BGCA. Coe to parents, November 4, 1959, folder 11, box 368, collection 459, BGCA.

19.
Frank Laubach, “A Pentagon of World Friendship,” October 19, 1955, folder 1, box 505, collection 459, BGCA. Chuck Hull to Coe, January 15, 1960, folder 10, box 135, collection 459, BGCA.

20.
Traveling on Fellowship behalf
:
Christian Leadership
, December 1959, collection 459, BGCA. “Capehart and Carlson Meet Duvalier; U.S. Senators Pledge Assistance to Haiti,
New Pittsburgh Courier
, December 5, 1959.

21.
Doug Barram to Coe, June 12, 1962, folder 5, box 168, collection 459, BGCA.

22.
“Finding the Better Way,” January 15, 1942, pamphlet, collection 459, BGCA.

23.
March 1962 remarks to a prayer breakfast for the governor of Arizona, filed under “Thoughts on Prayer,” file 16, box 449, collection 459, BGCA.

24.
“LBJ, Billy Graham Eloquent at Breakfast,”
Washington Post
, February 18, 1966.

25.
March 8, 1962, folder 5, box 361, collection 459, BGCA.

26.
Carlson to José Joaquín Trejos Fernández, November 27, 1967, folder 17, box 365, collection 459, BGCA. Dorn was of no relation to the first W. J. Bryan, for whom he was named not in deference to Bryan’s fundamentalism, ironically, but in honor of Bryan’s anti-imperialism.

27.
Howard Siner, “Attorney Knows Carter as Smart, Kind Friend,”
San Jose News
, March 4, 1977.

28.
Bill Green to Coe, August 4, 1960, folder 11, box 135, collection 459, BGCA.

29.
Savimbi, a black African leader who enjoyed support from the apartheid state as well as American Christian conservatives, is harder to pin down than Barre, who gambled his whole relationship with the United States on the Family. Interviews with and correspondence of Clif Gosney, a former Family liaison to the South African Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, reveal that Savimbi was also within the Family’s circle, his spiritual well-being tended by Gosney, a sincere Christian, and Piet Koornhof, a cabinet minister in the South African government of F. W. de Klerk.

30.
There are at least two nearly full boxes of documents at the Billy Graham Center Archives detailing the Family’s relationship with Brazilian regimes. Boxes 184–85, collection 459, BGCA.

31.
Interview with Coe by Tore Gjerstad, October 29, 2007.

32.
Notes on reorganization folders 1–2, box 563, collection 459, BGCA.

33.
Abram to Admiral C. S. Freeman, November 23, 1949, folder 2, box 348, collection 459, BGCA. Abram never put an explicitly anti-Semitic word on record, and while Malik may have been holding out hope for a Christian Palestinian state to the south of Lebanon, he was likely motivated more by his understanding of scripture, which did not include anti-Semitism. Freeman, however, the point man on the project, was an old-fashioned Jew hater and a frequent collaborator with Merwin K. Hart, the American fascist organizer.

34.
Quoted in the December 1959/January 1960 issue of
Christian Leadership
, a members-only newsletter of the International Christian Leadership—the Fellowship. Located in the periodicals section of collection 459 at the BGCA.

35.
June 28, 1963, “Thoughts on Prayer,” folder 16, box 449, collection 459, BGCA.

36.
Bell made clear to the students that they’d been selected not for their good standing as Christians—some were not religious—or good grades, but solely for their status as big men on campus. February 5, 1970, “Young Men’s Seminar,” tape 107, collection 459, BGCA. “During the seminar, when I voiced my objection to the assumption that we were all devoted Christians,” Joe Persico, the student body president of San Francisco State, had complained to Lyndon Johnson after a similar event in 1965, “we were told by Roger Staubach…from the U.S. Naval Academy, ‘I feel sorry for all of you who are not Christians, because you have no chance of an after-life.’ General Silverthorn”—one of Abram’s chief aides, an ancient officer who’d held a Kurtz-like post in the U.S. occupation of Haiti during the 1920s—“told us that, ‘of course, Christ said a few oddball things, too, like the Sermon on the Mount.’” Andrew Kopkind, “The Power of Prayer,”
New Republic
, March 6, 1965.

37.
February 5, 1970, “Young Men’s Seminar,” tape 107, collection 459, BGCA.

38.
Ibid.

39.
For basic biographical details about Colson, I relied on his first two memoirs,
Born Again
(Spire, 1977) and
Life Sentence
(Chosen Books, 1979), and John Perry’s admiring biography,
Charles Colson: A Story of Power, Corruption, and Redemption
(Broadman and Holman, 2003). Colson’s output, augmented by numerous ghostwriters, is enormous. Texts I found particularly useful to understanding his thinking include
Against the Night: Living in the New Dark Ages
(Servant Publications, 1989);
How Now Shall We Live?
(Tyndale, 1999); and
Kingdoms in Conflict
(William Morrow, 1987).

40.
Thimmesch, “Politicians and the Underground Prayer Movement,”
Los Angeles Times
, January 13, 1974.

41.
Hefley and Plowman,
Washington: Christians in the Corridors of Power
, pp. 38–55.

42.
Paul Apostolidis,
Stations of the Cross
: Adorno and Christian Right Radio (Duke University Press, 2000), p. 151.

43.
Kandy Stroud, “Chuck Colson: Reflections Before Prison,”
Women’s Wear Daily
, July 1, 1974.

44.
Collection 275, BGCA.

45.
Apostolidis,
Stations of the Cross
, p. 151.

46.
Lindsay,
Faith in the Halls of Power
, p. 59.

47.
Colson to Coe, November 20, 1980, folder 8, box 368, collection 459, BGCA.

48.
Apostolidis,
Stations of the Cross
, p. 150.

49.
Howard Gillette, Jr.,
Between Beauty and Justice: Race, Planning and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C.
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 153.

50.
No signature to Coe, April 1, 1960, folder 10, box 135, collection 459, BGCA.

51.
Julia Rabig, “‘Black Buffers’: Evangelical Entrepreneurship Meets Black Power on the Streets of Washington, D.C.,” unpublished paper presented at the 2004 University of Pennsylvania Graduate Humanities Forum.

52.
Ibid., p. 19.

53.
Interview with John Staggers, “How to Eat an Elephant,”
HIS
, November 1981.
HIS
was a men’s magazine published by the Inter-Varsity Christian Leadership.

54.
Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman,
Snapping: America’s Epidemic of Sudden Personality Changes
(Stillpoint Press, 2005), p. 32.

9.
JESUS
+
0
=
X

1.
Abram to Frank McLaughlin, February 14, 1968, folder 1, box 168, collection 459, BGCA.

2.
Kathy Kadane, “U.S. Officials’ Lists Aided Indonesian Bloodbath in ’60s,”
Washington Post
, May 21, 1990.

3.
Wilkes, “Prayer,”
New York Times
, December 22, 1974.

4.
Senator B. Everett Jordan, “Personal and Confidential Memo” to members of Congress on Family assets around the globe, April 1969, folder 2, box 363, collection 459, BGCA. Marpaung’s contribution to the murderous crackdown is even celebrated by some evangelicals. “The story of Indonesian revival is an illustration of God’s sovereignty,” reads the subheading over an account of Marpaung’s speech on an evangelical website, http://members.aol.com/thewaycm/revival/asia.html, accessed July 20, 2007.

5.
Hatfield to Nixon, November 11, 1969, folder 5, box 584, collection 459, BGCA.

6.
Shortly after that meeting, Moorer, convinced that Nixon was soft on communism, began an espionage operation against the president’s civilian advisers, “a hanging offense,” in the words of the Pentagon investigator who uncovered the plot. “Don’t tell Laird,” Nixon instructed his attorney general as he considered prosecuting Moorer. James Rosen, “Nixon and the Chiefs,”
Atlantic
, April 2002.