50 years ago today - Feb 26, 1966

A temple-square talk by Apostle Ezra Taft Benson is printed in the DESERET NEWS. However references to the John Birch Society are deleted without Apostle Benson's permission. In the talk he said that he had read the Birch Society's Blue Book, Robert Welch's The Politician, and recommended that the audience subscribe to the Birch Society's official magazine American Opinion. His talk even included the mailing address."

[Source: "Stand Up For Freedom: Partial Text Of Talk Given to S.L. Group By Elder Benson," Deseret News "Church News," 26 Feb. 1966,10-12; Duane Price to D. Michael Quinn, 9 Aug. 1992, summarizing his meeting with Benson in April 1966. Price was a supporter of Benson's position on the Birch Society. Anderson, "Church and Birch In Utah," 35n29, alluded to the censorship of the talk in the Church News. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.]

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