Stephen Hays Russell, the student-leader of [the BYU spy-ring], signed a 1967 statement which made no reference whatever to the John Birch Society or to Ezra Taft Benson, even though the Birch connection appears in other sources.
Russell's 1967 statement acknowledged on page 3 that "if I 'got caught' at this, official university reactions would be that I was acting on my own," and on page 9 that Ernest Wilkinson expected Russell to be the "scapegoat". Although he implicated Wilkinson and two of Wilkinson's assistants already named by fellow-spy Hankin, all of Russell's other statements about BYU espionage were obviously intended to shield others beyond the BYU administrators who were involved.
[Source: Stephen Hays Russell statement, 13 Mar. 1967, typescript, signed at the bottom of each page by Stephen Hays Russell, folder 9, Hillam Papers, and box 34, Buerger Papers. 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.]
This is a silly conclusion. No one beyond the BYU Administration nor The John Birch Society was involved in the conception or the operation of student monitoring selected professors for a three-day period. See Gary Bergera's definitive piece on this episode.
ReplyDeleteFrom Quinn's "The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power," p. 93-94
DeleteIn spring 1966 their "covert surveillance" included efforts to extract "pro-Communist" views from their professors. Some students used hidden tape recorders to document their "evidence." The student organizer emphasized his association with Benson. "On one occasion, the head of the John Birch Society in Utah County took me to the Church Office Building at Salt Lake City to meet Apostle Ezra Taft Benson," Russell later wrote. "I was introduced to Brother Benson as a ' key conservative student at Brigham Young University. "'232 At the group's initial meeting Russell told his associates that "the General Authorities" authorized this espionage. Later he specified several times that "Brother Benson was behind this. "233 According to someone who was at LDS headquarters in 1966, Russell occasionally reported directly to Benson. 234
On 29 April 1966 Wilkinson privately acknowledged the first "voluntary report from certain students" about "certain liberals on the campus."235 After later discovering the details of this spy ring from its participants and from meetings with Tanner and Lee, one of BYU's vice-presidents confided that "the real home of the group was ETB."236