BILLY GRAHAM: A MAN WITH A MISSION.(SPECIAL SECTION)

Byline: Barry M. Horstman Post staff reporter

He has preached the gospel to more people around the globe than anyone in history, and has been a friend and confidante to the pope, the queen, prime ministers and every U.S. president since Dwight Eisenhower.

For a half century, he has been a fixture on lists of the 10 most admired people in America or the world. He was the first Christian to preach behind the Iron Curtain after World War II, and has received both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, America's highest civilian honors.

But the line on his lengthy, impressive resume that perhaps says the most about the Rev. Billy Graham deals with one instance when the famed evangelist did not reign supreme.

When Ladies Home Journal magazine compiled a survey rating leaders in various disciplines, Graham ranked second in the category ''achievements in religion.''

First place went to God.

For a North Carolina farm boy who has been called the ''Protestant Pope'' and ''God's ambassador,'' the lofty company is as humbling as it is well-deserved.

Since pitching two old circus tents in a parking lot in downtown Los Angeles in 1949 and preaching for eight weeks straight, Graham has never been off the national and international stage.

Graham, says former Pennsylvania congressman Bob Edgar, now general secretary of the National Council of Churches, ''is to religion what Johnny Carson was to late-night television. …