Ezra Taft Benson was a sharp critic of the civil rights movement and called it a communist conspiracy. Why was that? Dr. Matt Harris details the red scare, and why Benson was so opposed to both communism and civil rights.
Matt: Elder Benson thinks that Martin Luther King–this is the Birch view, of course, but Elder Benson, following the Birch line thinking that Dr King is a communist agent. That somehow if you push for racial equality, you also want economic equality and that makes you a socialist and a communist. So Elder Benson is furious with Hugh B. Brown’s general conference talk, where the Church is on record as supporting civil rights. Now keep in mind what that means. Brown never said that we favor the civil rights stuff going on in Congress right now. Nor do we favor particular legislation in the State of Utah. There was nothing specific about it. He would write that too, to other Latter-day Saints who wrote him letters. “Does that mean we support the Civil Rights Act of 1963, that John F Kennedy is pushing through?” He’d write back, “We don’t support any particular policy. I just want you to know that we do support civil rights as a general principle.” So clearly, there’s some hedging with him.
We will also talk about his European Mission.
Matt: …after the whole Harding speech on the floor of the Congress, it created a buzz storm. And the brethren and President McKay [decide] “We’ve got to get Benson out of the country. We’ve got to purify his blood.” That’s what Joseph Fielding Smith says in a private letter. We’ve got to get him out of the country and purify his blood. What he meant by that is purify his blood of politics, of Birch. In 1963, ironically enough, the same month that Hugh B. Brown is giving that civil rights statement in conference, Elder Benson’s going to get summoned into the First Presidency’s office to be told that he’s going to be sent to Germany to preside over the European mission.
Ezra Taft Benson wanted to run for U.S. President. Dr. Matt Harris describes a few attempts by Benson to run for POTUS, and how Church leaders finally put an end to Benson’s political aspirations.
Matt: The Birchers will create this secret organization called the Committee of 1776. It’s run by Birchers. It’s got Birch footprints all over it, but “we can’t reveal ourselves as Birchers because it’s too controversial.” And they say this in their board meeting. “If we say it’s us, then people will be turned off by it. So do not mention that Robert Welch or anybody is behind this.” But it’s really mostly Birchers doing this.
So they draft Benson as their presidential candidate and they draft a man named Strom Thurmond, who was a Dixiecrat in the 1940’s, and split off from the Democratic Party because he was so pro-segregation and didn’t like the civil rights tack that President Harry Truman was taking.
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And, without going into the details, the ticket fizzles. It doesn’t raise enough money. Thurman never had the buy-in, to be honest, that Benson had. Benson was alarmed by it and just giddy about it. President McKay gives the green light for him to do this, by the way, which is interesting, over the protest, of Hugh Brown and some other leaders.
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Elder Benson and his son Reed fly out to Birmingham and they have a three hour meeting with George Wallace and Benson tells Robert Welch, “He’s a great guy. We have a lot in common.” So, Benson tells Governor Wallace, “I need to get the support of President McKay. I can’t do this unilaterally.” President McKay knew that there was some pushback when he gave the green light to run with Strom Thurmond. Some of the Apostles told him, including Hugh Brown, “This is stupid. Don’t do this.”
McKay is an old Scottish man. He had a little temper. “Don’t tell me what to do.” The brethren were sensitive to that, including Hugh B. Brown. So he goes back to Salt Lake and tells President McKay in a highly confidential meeting, “They want me to be the presidential candidate with Wallace.” This is on the Independent ticket because there’s a Republican Mormon who might wrap up the Republican nomination. So we’ve got two high profile Mormons running for the same office.
GT: This is George Romney, right?
Matt: George Romney, right. What really muddies the water is there are a number of brethren who support George Romney and not Benson. That’s another challenging issue.
GT: And Marion G. Romney is in the quorum. How is he related to George?
Matt: They’re cousins. So, we’ve got that dynamic going on, too. Romney has gotten priesthood blessings from President McKay, from other people about running and they tell him, “You’re going to run and we support you.” President McKay supports George Romney and tells him this.
If you were’t aware, George Romney is the father of Mitt Romney. Harris tells how LDS leaders ended Benson’s political ambitions.
Byt the way, Harris’ book on Benson is now available for purchase on Amazon! See https://amzn.to/2EHTklK
What are your thoughts on Benson’s views of the Civil Rights movement and communism? Would you have voted for Benson? Were you aware he wanted to run with Strom Thurmond and George Wallace?
Wheat & Tares 
The more I hear of Benson, the more I struggle to reconcile someone so paranoid, anti civil rights and almost anything Jesus stood for with the apostle and prophet of the LDS church.
As a contrary viewpoint, LDS_Aussie, I find it comforting. These men we’ve called as prophets are fantastically flawed. They still seem to produce incredible insight and guidance. Sure it’s frustrating to have to parse between the crazy and the inspired. But as I struggle to discriminate my own crazy from my own inspired, I like knowing that even those chosen to represent God have the same struggles (whether or not they recognize it). If they can make profound connections with God, in spite of their flaws, I might have a chance at doing it too.
To the best of my likely inadequate recollection of the 60s and perception of the present, the apostles in the 60s spoke and wrote their personal opinions (as if they were the gospel truth) more freely than is now the case. It was always interesting and enlightening to contrast ETB and HBB. Also, it seemed that after ETB later became president of the church, he did not push even part of his prior paranoid political platform. There had been considerable fear that he would, so at least some tried to pay attention to that possibility.
That phenomenon had also been noted in the case of JFSII and his anti-science, especially anti-evolution, teachings, published after the deaths of his opponents in the Q12, but not repeated, to the best of my memory, after he became president of the church.
As presidents, they seem to have left it to others to purport [wrongly] that their earlier teachings were teachings of presidents of the church. I still remember being horrified to find “Man, His Origin and Destiny” (as well as “Mormon Doctrine”) being quoted in church manuals after President McKay’s prior efforts, however ultimately ineffective, to prevent their publication or re-publication. It seems that the process of weeding them out may be continuing, but without the repudiation that some wish for. Similarly, there remains a significant part of the membership of the church who take ETB’s notion of proper government as if it were the gospel of Christ. The popularity of conspiracy theories may have waned, but it is far from gone.
I vacillate between the concerns expressed by LDS__Aussie and Benjamin, most commonly leaning toward Benjamin’s approach.
My thoughts are that it’s both amazing and unsurprising that this man was chosen to lead the church. Amazing because of what LDS Aussie said about how antithetical Benson’s brand of conservative paranoia was to the tenets of Christ’s gospel. And unsurprising for the same reason. Anyone who does the least bit of digging will find conference addresses and other public statements from the GAs in the 50s and 60s that are simply hair-raising in their obsessive condemnation and paranoia of social movements and ideas that most people today, even many conservatives, view as progress and as good ideas. I mean some of the stuff is really stunning. Hell, just read Benson’s own “A Witness and a Warning” from ’79. IMHO, it’s incomprehensible that someone like that would be chosen to lead the church of Jesus Christ, but that seems to be what was wanted by the conservative branch of church leadership back then. Yikes.
Benson was a Bircher through and through. Older generation folks I know in my ward still believe in Bircherism and are influenced by what Benson wrote. Younger generation folks not so much.
Newsflash: the Church has been against Communism since the beginning. Communism is the counterfeit to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ownership of private property (See D&C 134:2) is the foundation of freedom and the key to the Law of Consecration. The fact some are troubled with President Benson’s talk “A Witness and a Warning” tells you everything you need to know about the problems with our current political climate. See AOC , Bernie and the rest.
I am bothered by the Church’s lack of repudiation of prior leaders’ false teachings/opinions that were preached as doctrine. At a minimum, it would be nice if the Church would very publicly and prominently state (i.e., in General Conference or in the Ensign) that many opinions of Church leaders have been published over the years that may represent false doctrine and certainly don’t reflect the official views of the Church, and that other Church leaders have strongly disagreed with some of those published opinions. If no church leader publicly rebukes Benson’s or McConkie’s teachings, how can lay members feel comfortable doing so? The lay member would be shut down in many congregations for doing this.
Lastly, why didn’t liberal Church leaders ever publish their own books expressing positive views on evolution or on various liberal political positions (or at least giving a speech stating that Eisenhower wasn’t a communist)? It seems that only the conservative wing of the Church published its views on controversial topics, and accordingly, its no wonder that many members believe the Church’s positions to be conservative.
Uhhh, Law of Consecration is the exact opposite of ownership of private property. You give your property to the church and they give you what you need. That’s the exact opposite of ownership of private property. See Warren Jeffs and FLDS for a modern-day example.
The only way the Law of Consecration will work is if the government recognizes private property. As stewards of God’s property we are freely able to live the Law of Consecration. As serfs living on the government’s property (communism) we cannot live that higher law.
Brother Sky, the presidents of the church aren’t exactly “chosen” in the usual sense of the word. “it’s incomprehensible that someone like that would be chosen to lead the church of Jesus Christ,”
The enemy of every church was (and is) communism. The enemy of liberty (and rather often life itself) is communism particularly that flavor practiced by Josef Stalin. Were I to choose a president of Christ’s church at such a time, a man with government influence and strong anti-communist feelings is ideal.
RickB and Ralpo: The huge difference between Stalinism and the United Order is choice. Persons could join the order at Orderville, Utah (for instance) and also leave it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orderville,_Utah
But neither communism nor socialism allows choice. People are inherently not equal; some tall, some short, some strong, some weak, some smart, some stupid (and so on). Where freedom exists economic inequality also exists. But for the greatest inequality, you pretend to the equality of socialism since some pigs are “more equal” than others. In Soviet Union, most people were poor, but high party officials lived like kings.
[https]://thevieweast.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/power-and-privilege-in-communist-eastern-europe/
As my final thought; I’m pretty sure Hugh B. Brown, David O. McKay, John A. Widstoe, and Dieter F. Uchtdorf all understand communism is not in harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Having said that does not mean I think we have to adopt President Benson’s political views. His time as prophet were in some ways progressive: equalization of mission costs, equalization of ward budgets, pride, etc. As Henry Eyring ( the scientist) said of Joseph Fielding Smith, (paraphrasing) “I didn’t agree with him scientifically but he taught me how to return to Heaven and become like Christ.” We can say the same about every prophet of this dispensation.
“As stewards of God’s property we are freely able to live the Law of Consecration. As serfs living on the government’s property (communism) we cannot live that higher law.”
Consecration doesn’t work unless EVERYONE participates. This is why consecration failed in Kirtland under Joseph Smith.
Under the theocracy of Brigham Young, people weren’t free to leave the United Order, and there was compulsion exercised. I find this idea of “freely able to live the Law of Consecration” as a specious argument, especially for young people born into a consecration society. Yes, they are forced to live consecration. I am reminded of a humorous story about a boy that wanted a new pair of pants and was initially prohibited from doing so and did something ingenious with his free agency. I would even argue that this person was a “serf”, to use your terminology. See https://mormonheretic.org/2009/08/31/would-you-recognize-this-church/