Very few men can say they have worked for senators like Strom Thurmond, or that they have been an advisor or staffer to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Bush (and on occasion, Reagan). In addition to helping these presidents get elected, implementing some key legislation like desegregation, and establishing a strong Republican party in the South that was primarily Democratic, Harry S. Dent became an ambassador for God, for his family, and oppressed countries such as post-communist Romania.
His youngest daughter Ginny Dent Brant remembers going to the White House to visit her father when they were living in Alexandria, Va., in the 1960s. As she tells in her new book, “Finding True Freedom: From the White House to the World” (CLC Publications, September 2010), she also remembers the many moves that her family went through while her father was fulfilling his work in Washington, and the times she longed to be with her father while he was at the height of his political career.
But as much as Dent took stock in his work with Nixon prior to Watergate, it came to an end when Nixon and his staff were indicted for the crimes of Watergate. After being called to a grand jury for questioning, only Dent and Henry Kissinger did not serve a prison term for the scandal. Chuck Colson, special counsel to Nixon, was among the men on Nixon’s staff who served a prison term and knew Dent well. Years later, Colson spoke at a Presidential Prayer Breakfast at the White House in which Dent told him that his religion was the real deal.
Dent, known as a good man who “only smokes and chews politics” and thought God was a “force for good,” encouraged Nixon after Nixon’s re-election to a second term to admit his wrongdoing and ask the country for forgiveness for what would soon come out in the media as Watergate. Nixon didn’t take Dent’s advice – probably one of only a few times he didn’t.
But as Ginny Dent Brant shares, “My father was removed from Nixon’s inner circle, but it turned out to be God’s plan. We later learned that Nixon’s chief of staff was responsible for the demotion Dad received prior to Watergate. While it cost him his pride, it could have cost him time in prison.”
After Watergate, Dent continued to campaign in the South and advise presidential candidates, including Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush. But it was on a trip to Israel with Ed Young Sr. (pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston) that Dent, who Ginny had prayed for years would follow the God she had come to know, saw for the first time that all he had heard about “was real and that it did happen.”
Ginny, who had previously sought modeling to satisfy her longings, had been introduced to God through Young Life at her high school in South Carolina and began to make decisions about her life (including giving up modeling and pursuing seminary). She persuaded her father to let her attend Columbia International University (previously Columbia Bible College and Seminary) – where she and her boyfriend/soon-to-be husband attended, and later Dent and Ginny’s mom Betty attended. What Dent once forbade, he later accepted as a place where he could also learn more about God.
From there, Dent founded Laity Alive and Serving, which helped bridge the economic, spiritual and political gaps in Romania. In addition to helping set up healthcare facilities, Dent was also known for his role in establishing churches and pastors who were trained to care for individuals in post-communist Romania. Dent led several hundred individuals to Romania from South Carolina to help in the rebuilding efforts that he was chiefly responsible for. He was given honorary citizenship in Romania for the work he accomplished there.
From walking the halls of the White House to the streets of the impoverished nation of Romania, Dent truly felt that the freedom he offered to individuals went well beyond his days in politics. He and his daughter Ginny delighted in the fact that they were able to offer freedom to those who were desperately seeking it.
Ginny traveled with her father to Romania to help in his ministry and also went with him throughout the U.S., including a prison where Dent and Colson spoke. It was the greatest joy Dent and Ginny knew to be able to share time together. Dent helped establish Billy Graham’s The Cove in North Carolina and worked as the South Carolina chairman for Graham’s crusades. Likewise, Ginny worked as a trustee for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and traveled to the Middle East as part of her work in ministry. One group she went to visit in Yemen was under high alert from threats made against them from al-Qaeda. Though some on the Yemen team were later killed, she understood her part in sharing Christ with others while there.
The love between father and daughter grew from the years they had the same mission of working to bring others to understand who God is. Dent and Ginny would say those were the years that bore more fruit from anything they had ever done in their lives. Ginny’s sacrifices to care for her father when he was in a sharp decline from Alzheimer’s gave her the time she had longed for in previous years when her father was working 80-hour weeks in Washington. Ginny says her father could control public opinion but he couldn’t control his own life. “When he realized that his life really began at age 48 when he finally understood who God was, his life was never the same again,” says Ginny. “His fight for the freedoms of our country became the fight for the spiritual freedoms of others.”