Hugh B. Brown warned a BYU audience against "extremists and self-styled patriots who label all those who disagree with them as Communists." Then in a more obvious allusion to Benson, he said that the First Presidency "deplore any attempt made by individuals to ascribe to the Church personal beliefs which they entertain." Newspapers observed that Brown's "remarks were taken as a rebuff to Mormon apostle Ezra Taft Benson who has repeatedly expressed his admiration for the John Birch Society and its founder, Robert Welch."
["Church Leader Rebuffs Self-Styled Patriots," Ogden Standard-Examiner, 26 Oct. 1963,9; also "President Brown Supports U.N., Hits Extremists," Deseret News, 26 Oct. 1963, B-l. 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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