In the spring of 1950, Henry Luce's friend Bernard Baruch was staying at his vacation home at Hobcaw Barony, S.C., and following the revival meetings in nearby Columbia of a young and lanky preacher named Billy Graham. "There's a young fellow down here that's not only preaching some good religion," Baruch wrote Luce, "but he's giving some good common sense." Luce, TIME's co-founder, decided to go see for himself.
After attending one of the crusades, Luce met up with Graham at a dinner that evening. The publisher and the preacher talked late into the night. "I think he was trying to...
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