50 years ago today - Nov 20, 1975-Thursday

[Leonard Arrington]

After the meeting of executives I met with Elder Robert D. Hales for a period of 30 or 40 minutes. Here are random memories of the conversation. He said he is attempting to bring a little imagination, courage, and spontaneity into the church magazines. He feels that Doyle Green's regime [1970-72] has been autocratic, that he had been peremptory in what he would permit and not permit, and the result is loss of spontaneity. We end up with bland, milk-toast articles that are not creative and stimulating. Having been criticized and beaten down repeatedly, they quit fighting and publish[ed] lots of pretty pictures. ... "Why did you put in so many pictures in the New Era?" "Because it is simpler to put pictures than some text that they will get after us for!" Anyway, he encourages us to submit once more some teenager stories from Church History and thinks they will be a little more permissive of historical truth than they may have been in the past. The same goes true of the Ensign. Says
they are planning a special women's issue of the Ensign for March. This will feature an article by Claudia Bushman, poetry by Carol Lynn Pearson, and other things. ... he thinks they have got to be less paranoid in what they will accept for publication. There was a poem of Carol Lynn Pearson which they had accepted, ran it through Correlation, and Correlation came back with objection to a line which talked of people with spears. They didn't like that line "because she really means women libbers.["] He said he told them to get out of the office-that was ridiculous. They also suggested she change a line which said she had learned that her Heavenly Father was as smart as ... And she will [have to] change it to "smarter than ..." He said it is slow to change an institution-to get it moved where it needs to be, must be [aggressive]. ... Said he sympathized with our problems. Certain things are history-our history-but need they be said? Like the BY [Brigham Young] letters to his sons.
Did we need to mention that one of Brigham Young's sons had trouble with drugs, with the bottle? It's history, but need it be mentioned? He said he had given up the goal of getting unanimous feeling among the brethren. Among the 15 [First Presidency and Twelve Apostles] there are some who feel strongly on this, some on that, and he now feels that one can't be pushed by one person alone to do or not to do something. Must consider what the majority are willing to support.

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