[Leonard Arrington]
Yesterday President Ernest Wilkinson spent an hour with me in the late afternoon ... It appears that Bob Thomas and Dallin Oaks, sensing the problems involved in him writing about his and the Oaks administrations for the third volume of the BYU history had recommended that a co-editor be appointed with him for the third volume. Specifically they had recommended Frank Fox as the co-editor. ... he was totally opposed to a collaboration with Frank Fox. Frank Fox was too young and inexperienced. He had already indicated that his approach was completely different than that of President Wilkinson, and President Wilkinson had read his book on Madison Avenue and World War II, which was so sophisticated and so filled with "clever" words and sophisticated expressions that it was not lucid or understandable or even interesting to the people who will be reading the BYU history. After giving the matter careful thought, President Wilkinson had decided to ask me if he might suggest my name to be co-editor with him. His reasons for doing this were (a) He was now inclined to agree with President Oaks and Dr. Thomas that readers of the third volume would assume his prejudicial point of view whether or not it existed and that it would be more believable if a co-author be also listed; (b) unlike Dr. Fox I had carefully read through all the chapters in volume one and volume two and was well acquainted with the first two volumes; (c) I had had lots of experience in these matters; and (d) he had built up respect for my competence and judgment. He almost pled with me to agree to this. He also said he had not mentioned it to anyone but Roy Bird and did not expect to do so until I responded one way or the other. He also said that he was putting $50,000 of his own money into support of the three-volume history and he thought he was entitled to some consideration whatever arrangements were determined upon. ... I responded to President Wilkinson that I would think the matter over and talk to him later about it. ...
I must confess that despite our completely different social philosophy and despite some of his personal characteristics which I disdain, perhaps even loath, I have developed a genuine affection for him. Perhaps it is because of his forthright honesty, his sincerity, his pluck, and his courage in ignoring stupid bureaucratic procedures and policies. ...
When I returned to the office on Monday there was delivered a beautiful gold chrysanthemum with a note from Eugene England saying, "Welcome home: we missed you!"-a very nice and thoughtful thing for him to have done. He happens to be gone this week but finished before he left his second paper on Brigham Young. After having read it, I am inclined to suggest that he continue with additional essays on Brigham and submit a manuscript to Deseret Book or to BYU Press on Brigham Young. His essays are of outstanding literary and historical character and provide insights that are not found in any publications. ...
I have always thought it was unfortunate that we did not have any good LDS biographies-that the only really fine biographies, historically speaking, were Juanita Brooks' biography of John D. Lee and Hal Schindler's biography of Porter Rockwell. This seemed incredible in view of the meticulous journals kept by many of our important leaders and of the enormous interest in the lives of these people demonstrated by LDS readers. ...
[Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
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