BYU Professor Richard Poll had ... published a detailed critique of W. Cleon Skousen's anti-Communist book, The Naked Communist. Aside from skewering Skousen, Poll had also repudiated the American anti-Communist movement.
Listed his objections to the book as "the inadequacy of its scholarship. The incorrectness of its analysis of Communism. The inaccuracy of its historical narrative. The unsoundness of its program for governmental action. The extreme partisanship of its program for individual action. The objectionable character of the national movement of which it is a part." On the ultra-conservative, anti-Communist movement, Poll wrote on pages 12-13: "Much of the market for The Naked Communist is in connection with "Anti-Communist Seminars," "Freedom Forums," and "Project Alerts," in which inaccurate history and negative programs are expounded in an evangelical blend of fear, hatred and pulse-pounding enthusiasm. Participants are admonished to study Communism, and they end up buying tracts by Gerald L. K. Smith and his racist cohorts, confessionals of ex-Communists, spy stories and other volumes which excite more than inform. They are aroused to fight Communism, and they end up demanding U.S. withdrawal from the UN and the firing of teachers who advocate federal aid to education. They are solicited to contribute to the Anti-Communist crusade, and they end up subsidizing pamphlets calling for the repeal of the income tax and the impeachment of Chief Justice Warren."
Unknown to the public, Hugh B. Brown had encouraged Poll to prepare this published condemnation of Skousen's book "in the hope that we may stem this unfortunate tide of radicalism." This despite the fact that President McKay had already recommended The Naked Communist to a general conference: "I admonish everybody to read that excellent book of [Salt Lake City Police] Chief Skousen's."
[Source: Richard D. Poll, 77ns Trumpet Gives An Uncertain Sound: A Review of W. Cleon Skousen's THE NAKED COMMUNIST (Provo, UT: Author, 1962), 3, listed his objections to the book as "the inadequacy of its scholarship. The incorrectness of its analysis of Communism. The inaccuracy of its historical narrative. The unsoundness of its program for governmental action. The extreme partisanship of its program for individual action. The objectionable character of the national movement of which it is a part." On the ultra-conservative, anti-Communist movement, Poll wrote on pages 12-13: "Much of the market for The Naked Communist is in connection with "Anti-Communist Seminars," "Freedom Forums," and "Project Alerts," in which inaccurate history and negative programs are expounded in an evangelical blend of fear, hatred and pulse-pounding enthusiasm. Participants are admonished to study Communism, and they end up buying tracts by Gerald L. K. Smith and his racist cohorts, confessionals of ex-Communists, spy stories and other volumes which excite more than inform. They are aroused to fight Communism, and they end up demanding U.S. withdrawal from the UN and the firing of teachers who advocate federal aid to education. They are solicited to contribute to the Anti-Communist crusade, and they end up subsidizing pamphlets calling for the repeal of the income tax and the impeachment of Chief Justice Warren." 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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