Below you will find diary entries on the topic of “Friends of Church History.” You can view other subjects here.
Search the diary entries below for specific dates, names, and keywords using the keyboard shortcut Command + F on a Mac or Control + F on Windows.
November 20, 1972
Dear Friends:
As you know, there are new programs being inaugurated in the interest of Church History and Records Management under the sponsorship on the Historical Department of the Church. One of these, designed to involve interested members in the purposes of the Department, is the incorporation of the “Friends of Church History.” We invite your participation.
The Friends of church History will meet at 7:30 p.m. on November 30, 1972, in the second floor Public Service area of the Historical Department facilities in the east wing of the new General Church Office Building. Following the business of organization, which will be conducted by William B. Smart of the Deseret News staff, there will be a reception and tours of the new facilities at which the heads of the three Historical Department divisions, Don Schmidt, Earl Olson, and I, will be hosts.
This is not a fund-raising project. Dues will be set at a level necessary to carry out the organization’s own program. Members will be invited to meet monthly to hear papers and discussions on Church history, to use the Historical Department facilities for research, and to serve in a voluntary capacity in promoting existing or projected research. They will receive a periodical newsletter. Most important, they will be meeting with like-minded people concerned with the responsible and accurate telling of the Mormon experience.
History buffs meeting and knowing each other can encourage study and stimulate thought among themselves. By meeting regularly to hear from established scholars, they can keep current on new findings and interpretations in the field.
We realize the demands made on your time, but most sincerely invite your support and whatever participation you care to lend to the new group.
Sincerely,
Leonard J. Arrington
[LJAD, letter to potential members of The Friends of Church History from LJA, 20 November 1972]
Late this afternoon Elder Hunter telephoned to say that in the meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in the Temple they had discussed our proposal to organize the Friends of Church History. I had suggested the desirability of the organization when Brother Hunter and I met with the First Presidency on August 8. Subsequently on September 13 I had received a letter from Presidents Tanner and Romney saying that the First Presidency had approved our program. On that basis we had proceeded with plans to organize Friends of Church History. We had discussed with William Smart his serving as the organizer and first president and Earl and myself and all of the staff had worked toward having an open house for our department and toward organizing the group. At the time that we sent out letters inviting people to come we sent a copy to President Lee for his information so that he would be informed on what we planned to do. Apparently President Lee took that into the meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve today, read it, and raised serious questions about it. What kind of a group would it be? Would it raise serious problems? and so on. Apparently some members of the Twelve raised serious questions about it. Would it be a forum for discussing Church history? Would it be a forum for Dialogue-type people? and so on.
Brother Hunter, although he had received a copy of the letter and had been with me when I presented it to the First Presidency seemed to be very vague about it and seemed to feel that we had gone too far without clearing with the First Presidency. He wanted to know what the purposes of the organization were, whether it was a Church-sponsored organization, what good it would do, how heavily we were involved, who the officers would be, what we planned to do tonight, and so on. I attempted to answer these to the best of my ability in a telephone conversation that lasted about a half hour.
Brother Hunter recognized that it was too late to stop people from coming but wanted to know if we could prevent them from organizing tonight. I told him I didn’t think we could. He seemed to be very concerned and very upset—very fearful. He said he would try to get an appointment with the First Presidency for me and him sometime before our meeting occurred at 7:30. I told him I would remain here and await his call. After the call I explained these matter quite candidly to Earl, and he and I agreed that we would not tell anyone else. Earl said that the First Presidency or Brother Hunter might direct that the bard not choose officers or that we might not lend our support to the organization, in which case it would die.
LJA
[LJAD, LJA Diary, Thursday, 30 November 1972]
Brother Hunter telephone just before 5:00 to say that it was impossible for him to get a meeting with the First Presidency. He suggested that we go ahead with the meeting, that we accomplish as little as possible in the meeting, that we not take any money and that we not elect officers, that we talk about the whole thing and propose that we would get in touch with people later. I asked him specifically whether he thought we ought to go ahead with presenting the constitution, and he said we should. He said he should not be present because it would give the official sponsorship of the Church, which apparently President Lee was a little concerned about. I told him I would telephone Bill Smart and try to get his agreement on this.
LJA
[LJAD, LJA Diary, Thursday, 30 November 1972]
Dictated at 9:30 p.m. after the Friends of Church History meeting. Upward of 400 people were in attendance according to the best estimates—there may have been as many as 500 that came. Every chair in the entire department was placed in the general reading room and filled, and in addition there must have been 100 people on the ledge and perhaps another 50 or 100 standing, so we estimate between 400 and 500.
The spirit was good, friendly, pleasant, and complimentary—also a good spiritual feeling. Clearly they were all fine members of the Church or wished the Church well. We did not see a tendency for anybody to regard it other than as a fine well-motivated Church group. The size of the crowd and their enthusiasm suggests the support for the Historical Department. The passage of the motion for $10 dues suggests a strong interest and support. The motion was past unanimously. The prayers that were offered by good faithful churchmen suggest the good attitude and great interest. Virtually all of them remained afterwards to circulate among the facilities on the four floors and at this time—9:30—there still must be a couple of hundred wandering around seeing the facilities. Brother Smart, who did a magnificent job of conducting the meeting, suggested that I should do two things according to the telephone call of Brother Hunter: (1) Telephone Brother Hunter to report what we did and ask him whether he objects to a news story on the meeting; (2) To telephone the Tribune and ask that they not print a notice in case Brother Hunter wishes it.
LJA
[LJAD, LJA Diary, Thursday, 30 November 1972]
LEONARD J. ARRINGTON DIARY, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1972
I will not deny that I have been shaken by the telephone calls of Elder Hunter yesterday. They took away some of my self-confidence, my enthusiasm, my ebullience. I now question my ability to survive in the uncertainties of church policy and practice. Why is every experienced bureaucrat so afraid of President Lee? It was such an unlikely action for the Twelve to criticize the formation of a Friends of Church History group. What does that portend with respect to more sensitive matters—the publication of diaries, of objective history, of realistic biography? I wonder how long it will be before I am sent off to be a mission president or some other assignment that will take me away from this sensitive position? And who would they place in charge of it?
LJA
[LJAD, LJA Diary, Friday, 1 December 1972]
December 1, 1972
Elder Howard W. Hunter
Room 304
Church Administration Building
47 East South Temple
Salt Lake city, Utah 84111
Dear Elder Hunter:
There were two things that I may not have made entirely clear in our conversation yesterday. First, that the organization of the Friends was discussed with Elder Dyer by Earl Olson and myself as early as March of this year. Elder Dyer approved of the idea, but he said we should do it shortly after we moved into the new building. We do not know whether Elder Dyer mentioned it to the First Presidency before his illness, but I did mention it orally and had it on the outline I presented to the First Presidency in the August 8 meeting. Subsequently on September 13, I had the letter from Presidents Tanner and Romney which said the program I presented was approved. I then mentioned the forthcoming organization in the meeting of the Cannon-Hinckley History Club at which Presidents Tanner, Romney, and Kimball were present.
In the meantime Don Schmidt, Earl Olson, and myself had been discussing with various people a suitable person to head up the organization for the first year. Brother William Smart was regarded highly. We all approved of him and we sent his name to Brother Dyer. We understood that he approved although he did not tell us orally. With one other person I then went to Brother Smart and asked him if he would take the leadership. He agreed to do so.
Thus while the idea of the organization of the Friends of Church History originated with many people even several years ago, Brother Smart’s own role was one that we asked him to play. In doing so he had the approval of Brothers Olson, Schmidt, and myself and as we understood of Brother Dyer. Thus we should make clear that Brother Smart was (is) exercising this leadership because some of us had asked him to do so, not because of any desire on his part to project himself into the picture.
Sincerely,
Leonard Arrington
[LJAD, letter to Elder Howard W. Hunter from LJA, 1 December 1972]
LEONARD J. ARRINGTON DIARY – December 4, 1972 – MONDAY
Ron Esplin came in this morning and said that Brit McConkie had told him that he had had lunch with Bruce McConkie and Boyd Packer on Friday. Brit brought up the matter of the Friends of Church History. Bruce had said that he would have come to the meeting if they hadn’t had the discussion in the Twelve about it. He seemed to think it might be worthwhile. Brother Packer was very doubtful of the wisdom of having the organization—thought it would be a Dialogue-type program that would rake over old controversial subjects and stir up trouble and mistrust. Brit said very freely that he believed that it was a good thing and Bruce seemed to want to agree with him, but Brother Packer sort of cringed. On the basis of the conversation, Ron feels that eventually we are going to get the OK.
Brit told Ron that he had dealt with the Church officials for about 20 years and that there are certain brethren on the Twelve who are extremely cautious about anything. When you want something accomplished you have to go to the First Presidency because the Twelve will not universally approve anything unless the First Presidency are willing to give their sanction.
LJA
[LJAD, LJA Diary, Monday, 4 December 1972]
I telephone Bill Smart to tell him that we still had not had a meeting with the First Presidency and hadn’t got everything cleared yet to go ahead with the organization of the Friends of Church History. I told him that I didn’t think there was any problem, that everybody had been very cordial and helpful, and I mentioned the pleasure of Brother Dyer. Brother Smart then said he had seen President Tanner this afternoon about another matter and that he had asked Brother Tanner whether there was any problem involving him and Friends of Church History. President Tanner said, “No, your skirts are completely clean.” Brother Smart added to me, “I presume your skirts are clean too, Leonard.” Brother Tanner said that the problem, which caused the blowing of the whistle, had to do with the security and accessibility of materials in the Historical Department. Some persons had remembered the occasion some years ago when the microfilm of the Book of Abraham manuscript was stolen and then printed by the Tanners.
President Lee felt strongly that this was not a public library, but a private archive—that we should allow those to use it that we choose to allow, and that we ought not to make everything available to every person. Somehow, apparently, President Lee and perhaps others had interpreted that sentence in Bill Smart’s letter about Friends of Church History using our archives to mean that they would be pressuring us to open up everything to everybody. President Tanner did not see that as a problem. He thought we could be depended upon to make rules that were reasonable and protective. So President Tanner reasserted that there was no problem with Bill nor for that matter with our department either. I suppose that means we’ll get the go ahead in forming the organization eventually. Bill added that in view of some other things that are happening with him, it might not be wise for him to accept the position as president, but we would let that take care of itself when the time came.
LJA
[LJAD, LJA Diary, Friday, 8 December 1972]
11. Relative to the matter of a meeting of Friends of Church History tentatively set for the 25th of this month, it was decided that there would be nothing wrong in writing those concerned telling them that there will not be a meeting this month and that they will be notified later regarding any future meetings.
[LJAD, Minutes of the meeting of the Executives of the Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Thursday, 11 January 1973]
8. Brother Arrington asked if the matter of the Friends of Church History has been resolved, and Brother Anderson stated that he had written to the First Presidency relative thereto, sending them certain materials in regard to this organization. Discussion was had relative to the affiliation of the organization with the Church and the matter of making certain materials in the Historical Department accessible to them. It was explained that their status would be no different from that of anyone else. It was also explained that an individual who is a member of Friends of Church History could not write an article without having the article screened before publication, and that we would have much better control if the Friends of Church History organization were affiliated with the Church so that approval could be given to anything published by the organization; otherwise, on an individual basis, we would have no control over what they want to publish. It was decided that until further word is received a letter should be sent to those concerned stating that the January meeting is cancelled and that they will be notified later regarding any future meetings.
[LJAD, Minutes of the meeting of the Executives of the Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Thursday, 18 January 1973]
At this point President Lee said that they had another meeting at 10:00 and would not have time to discuss two important matters that they wanted to discuss—and anyway they wanted to discuss them when President Romney was there. These two matters were “The Friends of Church History” and the financial arrangements with authors of our volumes in the Mormon Heritage Series and the sesquicentennial history series.
On the latter, President Lee said that we should do this very carefully because it might amount to large sums of money received by our employees for work done as a part of their assignment at a time when they were receiving a salary from us. With regard to “The Friends of Church History” President Tanner said that it was a fine idea—that it would be a fine organization and would serve a number of useful purposes provided we establish sufficient safeguards and controls.
At the end of the meeting which was at 10:00, Brother Hunter, Brother McConkie, Brother Anderson, and Earl, Don, and myself stood for a few minutes in the ante room of the First Presidency to see if we agreed on the things that had been decided in the meeting. Don, Earl, and myself then returned to the office while Brother Anderson went with Brother McConkie and Brother Hunter to discuss some matters—perhaps the proposal that I had made for the appointment of a third Assistant Church Historian and for employment of Brother Gary Shumway as oral historian.
The net result of the meeting is that I don’t seem to be getting very rapid approval on any of my projects and those that are approved are hedged with a number of restrictions that will make it difficult for us to do a proper professional job.
LJA
[LJAD, LJA Diary, Tuesday, 30 January 1973]
(This letter was not sent. LJA)
abt. 7 Feb ‘73
Dear Elder Hunter,
There were two things that I may not have made entirely clear in our conversations yesterday. First, that the organization of the Friends was discussed with Elder Dyer by Earl Olson and myself as early as March 1972. Elder Dyer approved of the idea but said we should do it in anticipation of the move to the new building. We do not know whether Elder Dyer mentioned it to the First Presidency before his illness, but I did mention it orally and had it on my outline for the August 8 meeting with the Presidency. Subsequently, on Sept. 13 I had the letter from Presidents Tanner and Romney, which said the program I presented, was approved. I then mentioned the forthcoming organization in the meeting of the Cannon-Hinckley History Club at which Presidents Tanner, Romney, and Kimball were present.
In the meantime, Don Schmidt, Earl Olson, and myself had been discussing with various people a suitable person to head up the organization for the first year. Brother William Smart was regarded highly. We all approved of him, and we conveyed his name to Brother Dyer. We understood he approved, although he did not tell us orally. I then went with one other person and asked Brother Smart if he would take the leadership on this. He agreed to do so. I wanted to make it clear that, while the idea of the organization of the Friends of Church History originated with many people, even several years ago, Brother Smart’s own role was one that, with the approval of Brother Olson and Schmidt and, as I understood, with the approval of Elder Dyer, I asked him to play. Thus,
Elder Dyer was exercising this leadership because some of us had asked him, not because of any desire on his part to project himself into the picture.
Sincerely,
[LJAD, Letter written by LJA but not sent to Elder Hunter, 7 February 1973]
Earl, Don, Brother Hunter, Brother McConkie, and myself waited in the white marble room while Brother Anderson went in to tell the First Presidency what we proposed to discuss. The First Presidency and Brother Anderson then came back from President Lee’s office into the First Presidency Council Room and invited us in to join them.
……….
Brother Anderson then brought up the matter of Friends of Church History. President Lee pointed out the concern that had been expressed by members of the Quorum of the Twelve about this organization. They were concerned about these people having access to previous private documents that were not available to other scholars. They would have to go through the same interview process. The material that was restricted to others would also be restricted to them. President Tanner spoke up to say that he thought one of the principal benefits of the organization was helping us to collect materials, diaries, correspondence, and other materials that ought to be in the Church Archives. I pointed out some of the advantages of having the organization. They seemed to agree. They suggested that I look over the constitution again to see that it fit in with the thinking they expressed and then resubmit it. I told them I would do so.
………
President Lee also mentioned in leaving that there was a good possibility that the Church would be able to acquire the Wilford Wood collection—a great deal of discussion about that. Also some further discussion about Friends of Church History. All the brethren seemed to feel that there are advantages in having the organization now, and that we ought not to give up the idea of having it. President Lee asked in the meting, “Is the organization going ahead?” I told him no, it had been suspended after the first meeting pending the approval of the First Presidency. He seemed to be a little surprised at that.
[LJAD, LJA Diary, Tuesday, 26 June 1973]
First Presidency’s Meeting
Tuesday, June 26, 1973
73-1903 Discussion Re: “Friends of Church History”
Brother Arrington explained that the activities of the “Friends of Church History” have been held in abeyance pending further direction from the First Presidency. President Lee explained that the concern of the brethren about the “Friends of Church History” was prompted by the publicity released by Brother William B. Smart, which indicated that the research facilities of the Church Historical Department would be opened up to any of the members of the group. President Lee explained that it is the desire of the brethren to make certain that vital and sensitive materials are not made available for public use until the time is ripe for doing so. Brother Arrington explained that many research libraries have similar groups as a means of obtaining volunteer aid in research and in the collection of historical materials. In view of the concern expressed by President Lee, Brother Arrington said that he would like to reconsider the proposed bylaws for the “Friends of Church History’ and to submit them at a later time.
In this discussion, President Lee explained to the brethren the tentative arrangements, which have been made to obtain and store in the Church Archives the extensive collection of historical documents and artifacts gathered by Brother Wilford Wood. (See minute 73-1869 above.)
[LJAD, First Presidency’s Meeting, Tuesday, 26 June 1973]