[Leonard Arrington]
Elder [G. Homer] Durham was more explicit with me this morning about the questionable future of our division. He said Elder [Gordon B.] Hinckley, though sympathetic with what we are doing, feels strongly that we ought to turn over the research and writing of Church history to independent scholars not in the employ of the Historical Department. ...
He said that President [Spencer W.] Kimball's health is still not back to normal. He gets dizzy spells and has not gone back to his office. This raises the possibility that Elder [Ezra Taft] Benson, who will be 80 this week but physically is only 60, will become president of the Church. He thinks it is doubtful that Brother Benson would be very sympathetic with the work of the History Division and might even cut the division before 1982. ... We already have one indication of his feelings with him overruling President [Dallin H.] Oaks and the administration of BYU and insisting on the appointment of Richard Vetterli, a John Bircher, as political science professor at BYU. Brother Durham says he views himself as someone who is protecting my best interests. He said that shortly after his appointment he asked Brother Joseph Anderson, "What are the land mines that we have to watch out for?" Brother Anderson assured him there were none, that things were going along very well with the department and with the manner in which the department was being received by others. A few days later Brother Durham was called in by a group of six apostles who expressed grave concern about the Historical Department in general and the History Division in particular. So he knew from that time that there were plenty of land mines to watch out for. ...
In another connection, Elder Durham said that the General Authorities receive only a subsistence and not a salary, and this subsistence is approximately half what the bureaucratic employees are paid. (This I suspect means less than $20,000 per year.) And he said this has not been paid out of tithing revenues since 1939. It was about that time that President [Heber J.] Grant came in to the Quorum [of Twelve Apostles] to say that the Church business investments and profits were now enough to take care of all of the allowances of the General Authorities, all of their travel and all of their administrative expenses....
[Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
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