Crusade converts

In response to “Encounters with Billy Graham” (Feb. 24), my own encounter was not personal but crusade-related. Recruited, along with hundreds of other ministers and lay church members in Washington to serve as “counselors” for converts, we were instructed to come forward immediately, pouring out of the stands at the invitation. Was the act of creating the illusion of record “mass” conversions for the benefit of viewers or contributors – a practice followed by his imitators and possibly predecessors – essentially dishonest or did the end justify the means? Was any harm done if counselors far outnumbered converts?

Graham, whose political influence was open to manipulation by every office-seeker for 50 years, is nonetheless to be commended for every person whose life he helped re-claim.

Bernard H. Cochran, Raleigh