Strategy and Subterfuge: Billy Graham’s Political Machinations from Montreux to the Mayflower Hotel and Beyond

Abstract

One of the turning points in the 1960 presidential campaign was a gathering of 150 Protestant ministers at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on September 7, 1960, two days after Labor Day. During the closed-door gathering, Protestant leaders, including Norman Vincent Peale, unanimously adopted a statement warning about the dangers to the First Amendment and the separation of church and state should a Roman Catholic be elected president. Drawing on newly available archival sources, this article examines the role of religion in the 1960 campaign, including John F. Kennedy’s long struggle to neutralize the issue and the significance of Paul Blanshard’s 1949 best-seller, American Freedom and Catholic Power. Although Peale was roundly criticized for his role in the Mayflower gathering, the real force behind the meeting was Billy Graham, who did not attend. After assuring Kennedy in a letter dated August 10, 1960, that he, Graham, would not raise the religious issue in the campaign, Graham, at Peale’s behest, convened a group of Protestant ministers at the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland eight days later to discuss how they could deny Kennedy’s election in November. The direct consequence of the Montreux meeting was the Mayflower Hotel gathering. While Peale took the heat for the meeting, Graham continued to play both sides, insisting publicly that he was neutral in the presidential race while working behind the scenes to advance Nixon’s candidacy, a strategy he employed again twenty years later in an attempt to jettison the reelection of a fellow evangelical, Jimmy Carter.