55 years ago today - Mar 17, 1966

[Letter from former neighbor of McKay Robert Hinckly to David O. McKay] "The head of the Birch Society, Robert Welch, is due in Salt Lake City on April 6th or 7th, the time of General Conference. Efforts will be made to have him recognized in some way during Conference (Elder Benson may even propose to have him come to the stand to make some brief remarks). But this is the Robert Welch who slandered President Eisenhower by writing that "there is only one possible word to describe his purposes and actions. That word is 'treason.'" Welch bore the same kind of false witness against Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, calling him "a Communist agent." He also accused the late President John F. Kennedy, during his brief term in office, of being sympathetic to the Communist goals of world conquest…. President McKay, I beseech you to give heed on these matters to all of your dedicated Counselors in the First Presidency…. I fervently hope that Mr. Welch, the Birch head, will receive no recognition of any sort from you or the Church while he is in Salt Lake City. And I beseech you to require a decision from Elder Benson forthwith as to whether his life will be dedicated to Church or Birch. He is doing the Church a great, great disservice by mixing the two."

[Robert Hinckley to McKay as referenced in Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Write, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press (2005)]

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