40 years ago today - Jan 30, 1979-Tuesday

[Leonard Arrington]
I asked him [Milt Backman] why he didn't use the biography of Sidney Rigdon or even cite it. "Well, I didn't want to say anything hostile, and if I list it I have to." It is your responsibility, I said, as a scholar to say something about it. You can say it kindly; and if you have any trouble we'll help you. You have to say it's the best available biography of Sidney Rigdon, this McKiernan work, but it makes one key error. Assuming that Rigdon belonged to one Mahoning association and McKiernan said he actually belonged to the other. You have got to say that and you can say it nicely. I told him that one possible controversial chapter is the one on the spiritual experiences, the pentecostal. "Well, I tried to stick very closely to printed sources, Documentary History and so on. They're already out [published]; I don't see how they [critics] can complain. I have mixed in a few diary entries." "It's okay by me, I'm not objecting to it, I'm just saying that's one area where they may raise questions. If so, we'll deal with that at the time."

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