35 years ago today - About Mar 6, 1980

A general authority revealed that Spencer W. Kimball asked Ezra Taft Benson to apologize to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles [regarding his "Fourteen Fundamentals In Following the Prophets" talk] who "were dissatisfied with his response." Therefore, Kimball required him to explain himself to a combined meeting of all general authorities the following week.

The entire Benson family felt anxious about the outcome of this 1980 meeting. They apparently feared the possibility of a formal rebuke before all the general authorities. Benson's son Mark (a Bircher and the Freemen Institute's "Vice President in Charge of Development") wrote him a note that morning: "All will be well--we're praying for you and know all will be well. The Lord knows your heart." The meeting went well for Benson who "explained that he had meant only to reaffirm the divine nature of the prophetic call." Ezra's biographer indicates that the most effusively supportive general authority in attendance was Apostle Boyd K. Packer: "How I admire, respect and love you. How could anyone hesitate to follow a leader, an example such as you? What a privilege!"

[Source: In 1980 a general authority reported to George T. Boyd the apologies which Kimball required of Benson. Boyd's letter to Michael Quinn, 24 Sept. 1992, requested that Quinn not identify the general authority for publication. Boyd (an in-law of Spencer and Camilla Kimball) also reported this conversation to BYU professor Duane Jeffery early in 1980. Telephone interview of Jeffery in David John Buerger diary, 14 Aug. 1980, folder 4, box 1, Buerger Papers. These reproofs were also reported in "What Mormons Believe," Newsweek 96 (1 Sept. 1980): 71, in "Thus Saith Ezra Benson," Newsweek 98 (19 Oct. 1981): 109; in Allen interview (with Henry D. Taylor as a general authority source different from the above), 3 May 1984, by Alison Bethke Gayek; and in Quinn interview on 5 Sept. 1992 with Rodney P. Foster, assistant secretary in the First Presidency's Office from 1974 to 1981; Dew, Ezra Taft Benson, 469. For Mark Benson's position in 1980, see "Mark Benson Becomes Our New Vice President in Charge of Development," Behind the Scenes (Jan. 1980): (4). See D. Michael Quinn, "Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992) for full cite and context.]