Conventional wisdom has it that Billy Graham got his big push toward success from newspaperman William Randolph Hearst. In 1949 Graham's first major crusade was being launched in Los Angeles, and Hearst owned both major newspapers there. Supposedly, Hearst sent a brief message to his editors, saying, “Puff Graham.” But Billy Graham has a different understanding of his launching. In his autobiography, Just As I Am, he tells about a retreat he attended just a few months before that crusade. One night he was restless so he got up and took a walk. The moon was out, and the shadows were long in the San Bernardino Mountains. Dropping to his knees there in the woods, he opened the Bible at random on a tree stump in front of him. That tree stump became an altar. Graham prayed a prayer that went s…