While [Ezra Taft] Benson was preparing to help divide a Provo stake, he was told that his wife, Flora, was on the telephone. Eisenhower's office was trying to reach him, she said. "There's really something to it," Benson told himself moments later, concluding "to get off by myself for a while"to "quietly considera course of action." He drove to the campus of nearby Brigham Young University, where he soon located a vacant office and knelt in prayer. Afterwards, he telephoned McKay, who again stressed that he should "accept if it was a clear offer." Nearly twenty-four years later, Benson recalled telling McKay: "I had hoped you'd have a different feeling. I don't want that job [Secretary of Agriculture]."
[Source: "Prophet Remembers Telephone Call from President Eisenhower in '53 (sic)," Church News , June 1, 1984, 6.; Gary James Bergera, '"Rising above Principle": Ezra Taft Benson as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, 1953-61, Part 1', Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (Fall 2008, v 41)]
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