Billy Graham’s son and successor says the Donald may be his “candidate of choice” for the Presidency, stirring memories of how the fabled minister got his start as the spiritual advisor to Presidents.
In backing Trump, the Grahams would be coming full circle on gambling casinos from a founder of Las Vegas to the honcho of Atlantic City.
In 1940s after starting out as a Fuller Brush salesman, the elder Graham went to L. A. and started saving celebrity souls. A young evangelist not adverse to publicity, he was landing only small fish until he hooked onto the mobster who helped Bugsy Siegel invent Vegas, Mickey Cohen (“I have killed no man that didn’t deserve killing.” Think Harvey Keitel in Warren Beatty’s 1991 movie, “Bugsy.”).
The conversion lasted only long enough to generate headlines but, after Cohen did a prison stretch, the Rev. Graham tried again, breaking bread with the reformed gangster.
“I am very high on the Christian way of life,” Cohen said afterward. “Billy came up, and before we had food he said—-What do you call it. that thing they say before food? Grace? Yeah, grace. Then we talked a lot about Christianity and stuff.”
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