-- Spring 1964
... [Reed Benson became the John Birch] coordinator for the Mormon counties of southern Idaho. (1)
-- 22 May 1964
Louis Midgley, a BYU political scientist, published an anti- Birch editorial in the school's Daily Universe in May 1964. He concluded: "It is little wonder that the First Presidency has taken steps to warn Church members not to try to align the Church or its leadership with the partisan views of the Welch-Birch or any similar monstrosity." This resulted in President McKay's instructions to stop future discussion of the Birch Society in the Universe. (2)
-- May 22, 1964
[BYU Professor Louis Midgley] It is difficult to believe that anyone at a university—anyone who reads books and thinks—would take such a movement [The John Birch Society] seriously…. The man who wrote The Politician did so to inform his followers that former President Eisenhower was a communist. Of course he provides no evidence but the usual collection of garbage. For absurdity, the charge against Ike would have to be placed next to the belief, as far as I know, held by no one, that President McKay is secretly a Catholic. What Welch-Birch really wants is to return to a world without taxes, the U.N., labor unions, racial minorities demanding some kind of legal equality; Birchers want a world without fluoridation, the Soviet Union, large cities and emerging nations and all the rest that goes with our world. (3)
-- May 26, 1964
Mark E. Peterson to Hugh B. Brown: "he wished there was some way to keep Brother Benson out of politics." (4)
McKay telephoned Earl C. Crockett, BYU's acting president, and directed him to meet with Midgley "and ask him why he should have written the editorial 'Birch Society Reviewed' for ten thousand students to read…. This matter of the John Birch Society should be dropped." (4)
-- June 4, 1964
McKay: "It would be well for faculty members to hold no discussions whatsoever on the John Birch Society, and to drop the matter entirely." (5)
-- 1964
Mark A. Benson compiled a collection of his father's talks for a Deseret Book Company publication. Nearly every sermon referred to the threat of Communism, and the book also mentioned the Birch Society's president five times. By contrast, before their mutual involvement in the Birch Society, Reed Benson had compiled a book of his father's sermons which discussed Communism only three times. (6)
-- July, 1964
The John Birch Society began a recruitment project entitled "JBS Personal Letter Campaign". The idea was for members to contact potential supporters by using different types of letters with enclosures which would be coded so that it could be determined which packet was the most effective and productive. One proposed letter enclosed a copy of the John Birch Society reprint "The Time Has Come". Another letter enclosed a copy of John Stormer's conspiracy classic 1964 book, None Dare Call It Treason. A third letter enclosed a copy of a speech by Ezra Taft Benson. (7)
-- 23 July 1964
[Richard D.] Poll ... joined with twenty-one other BYU professors in publicly condemning John A. Stormer's None Dare Call It Treason as "this piece of fanatacism." Poll was the one who publicly responded to complaints by BYU's ultra-conservative students about this statement. At the time Stormer's book was "in sales and in loans, the most popular book" within the Birch Society. (8)
Endnotes:
1 - Reed A. Benson to Dean M. Hansen, 22 May 1967, in Dean Maurice Hansen, "An Analysis of the 1964 Idaho Second Congressional District Election Campaign," M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1967, 50, 221, as referenced in D. Michael Quinn, "Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992). See also Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3
2 - "Birch Society Reviewed By Prof. Louis Midgley," Brigham Young University Daily Universe, 22 May 1964, 2; David O. McKay to Earl C. Crockett, 4 June 1964, Wilkinson Papers, photocopy in my possession; Louis Midgley to Ray C. Hillam, 11 Aug. 1966, folder 10, Hillam Papers, archives, Lee Library, and box 34, Buerger Papers; Bergera and Priddis, Brigham Young University, 196-97, as referenced in D. Michael Quinn, "Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992). See also Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3
3 - Louis Midgley, "Birch Society Reviewed by Prof. Louis Midgley," (BYU) Daily Universe as referenced in Greg Prince, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism
4 - David O. McKay diary as referenced in Greg Prince, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism
5 - David O. McKay to Earl C. Crockett as referenced in Greg Prince, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism
6 - Benson, Title of Liberty, comp. Mark A. Benson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1964), with references to Robert Welch on 1,12,36,39, and 40. Compare to Benson, So Shall Ye Reap, comp. Reed A. Benson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1960), with references to Communism on 163, 208, and 328, as referenced in D. Michael Quinn, "Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992). See also Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3
7 - Ernie Lazar, Documentary History of the John Birch Society, https://sites.google.com/site/ernie1241b/home
8 - "Faculty Members Deplore 'Fanaticism' of Booklet," Provo Daily Herald, 23 July 1964, 14; "None Dare Call It Treason Causes Sincere Concern," Brigham Young University Daily Universe, 23 July 1964, 2; "Students Take Issue With 'None Dare Call It Treason' Critics," Brigham Young University Daily Universe, 28 July 1964, 2; "Poll Answers Student Letters," Brigham Young University Daily Universe, 30 July 1964, 2. 138. ", as referenced in D. Michael Quinn, "Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992). See also Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3
LDS History Chronology: Ezra Taft Benson
Mormon History Timeline: the life of Ezra Taft Benson
http://lds-church-history.blogspot.com/
