60 years ago today - May 22, 1961

Ezra Taft Benson made what LDS authorities called "end runs" around the Quorum of Twelve and First Presidency counselors in order to obtain McKay's encouragement for his political activism. However, such "end runs" were common practice for general authorities and church bureaucrats during the McKay presidency.

[Specific use of "end run" terminology for this feature of McKay's presidency appears in J. Reuben Clark office diary, 22 May 1961; Wilkinson diary, 25 May 1967; Neal A. Maxwell oral history, 1976-77, 24-25, LDS archives. 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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