40 years ago today - Dec 7, 1977

President Kimball resolved "spy scandal" with a decisiveness lacking in the more famous episode of 1966. He made the following statement to the school's Board of Trustees in December 1977: "We understand that a member or members of the Board directly, or through others, have sought evidence about alleged statements made by faculty members in courses taught on the BYU campus and have stated or implied that such evidence is to be used by a Church official in a so-called `hearing.'" The church president's blunt statement concluded with a clear disapproval of such "surveillance of BYU employees."

[Source: Minutes of Combined Boards of Trustees, 7 Dec. 1977, archives, Lee Library; Bergera and Priddis, Brigham Young University, 223. 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.]