40 years ago today - Aug 11, 1978-Friday

[Leonard Arrington]
Haybron Adams took me to his office and sa[i]d, "I would like to show you a letter which somehow came into my hands." It was a xerox of a letter from Ezra Taft Benson to a Brother Huerder (I think) [Buerger]. ... Based on the response one supposes that this "Brother Huerder" [Buerger] had written Brother Benson about Story of the Latter-day Saints and about the article in Dialogue two or three years ago by Duane Jeffrey on "Seers, Savants, and Evolution." At any rate, Brother Benson replied rather tersely, essentially as follows: "In reply to your question about Story of the Latter-day Saints, let me say that it will never be republished. In reply to your question about 'Seers, Savants, and Evolution,' I very much regret its publication. It is an attempt to discredit Joseph Fielding Smith. There are inaccuracies in fact and interpretation of the Church's doctrine with respect to evolution."

[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]