Introduction

W. Cleon "Klingon" Skousen was a notorious nut job among nut jobs, consumed as he was by conspiracy theories that included:

-Blacks were behind the Mormon Cult’s Anti-Black Doctrine;

-the Devil invented rock 'n roll; and

-BYU is infested with Commie-symp professors.

And Latter-day Quaints wonder why they aren't taken seriously? It was W. Cleon Skousen, along with my grandfather Ezra Taft Benson, who came to embody the "modern"-day mad hatter Mormon mentality.

I mention this because, with some regularity, posts appear on this board about Mormon-conspiracy concocter, religiously-fundy fanatic, anti-Commie crusader and right-wing extremist extraordinaire Brother Skousen.

Here’s a recent one singing "Praise to the Man Who Communed with the Crazies":

“The secret weapon of the Communists is teaching young people about Atheism (that our existence is by accident, the Big Bang). Now, hopefully, we can all agree that Communism was a bad moment in history.

“So, my question is: Is this what Atheism brings? A degenerated society? Is it the ultimate goal of the Left to destroy America?

“I just finished reading the ‘Naked Communist,’ written by BYU professor Cleon Skousan [misspelled] (1958). Within are the ideas that past Mormon Leaders absolutely believed. (Recall E.T. Benson's sermon ‘The Constitution,’ and his writings on the ‘evils of the dole’ and ‘stealing from the rich to give to the poor’).

“Scousan [misspelled] basically throughout the book tears apart the theologies of the Left (and Communism). Showing how the great Socialist Atheists of the 20th century (Stallin [misspelled] , Lennin [misspelled], Rosenburgs [misspelled], Carl [misspelled] Marx, and others) created a socialist nation through espionage, murder, slavery, the Korean war (which never ended) and pragmatism [Note; The poster here is apparently opposed to being pragmatic]. They believed that they had discovered some great mystery that there is no god, no morals, no property rights, and went about enslaving a whole hemisphere under the Bolsheviks.

“Since Russia has always known they can't overtake us in War, their secret weapon has always been an idea that they have sought to plant in public schools, it's called 'Dialectical Materialism.' Which is basically the idea that everything in nature is by accident and is in constant conflict. Scousan [misspelled] says:

-”Materialism is not Americanism but Communism. Every time we

-“produce a child who is trained to believe that the universe is

-“the product of accumulated accident, that human being are only

-“graduate beasts, that there is no such thing as right or

-“wrong, that spiritual convictions are old fashioned and

-“unnecessary, then we have caused a casualty . . .a potential Red ally. (p .299)

“The book explains further what made America superior to Socialist (Lefty) nations was that the founding fathers believed in freedom, God, private property, and they established American Laws on the Bible.

“What's your view, Is he right? Do children need God and religion so America doesn't become degenerated? (I'm open to all opinions).

(“The Secret Weapon of the Communists is Atheism (by Cleon Skousan [misspelled]),” from RfM contributor “poopstone,” on “Recovery from Mormonism" bulletin board, 1 May 2017, http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1972360,1972360#msg-1972360)


Good lord, the loons are on the loose tonight.

I had my own encounters with Cleon Skousen. So did my grandfather ETB. My uncle, Reed Benson (ETB's oldest child) was a high-ranking member of the John Birch Society--a group upon which Skousen heaped his hogwash honors. And my father, Mark A. Benson, worked for a while in Skousen’s outer-space outfit, the “Freemen Institute,” where he served as Skousen’s “Vice-president of Development” (more on both of those later).

As for Skousen’s kooky connections to ETB, they were rooted in the far-right fevered fact that Cleon and Ezra were fellow travelers in the caravan of religious and political fringies--although even my grandfather came to question some of Cleon's particularly crazy concoctions (more on that later, as well).
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--EPISODE 1: A Personal Preface--Close Encounters of the Sue-able Kind

I knew Cleon Skousen, having become personally acquainted with him through his association with my grandfather and his affinity for ETB's ideas. Skousen's extremist, anti-Communist Mormon mind was as disheveled as the headquarters of his "Freemen Institute," which I visited on one occasion and found to be a maze of disorganization, chaos and floor-to-ceiling messiness. (And I thought my office was cluttered).

Several years ago, when Skousen was running his "National Center for Constitutional Studies" (successor to his “Freemen Institute,” for whom my dad, Mark, worked as vice-president), he reprinted one of my editorial cartoons in his organization's magazine.

So far, so good, given that he was a paying client and back then I was still a tithe-paying conservative Mormon. The cartoon in question had to do with secular humanist book burnings of the Bible and other holy texts. (Hey, cut me some slack. I was ETB's oldest grandchild wind-up toy soldier before I saw the light and commenced my flight).

But this time Cleon went too far in his Bozo bazaar.

His people took the cartoon and without permission changed its labels, removing tag lines originally on the cartoon characters and replacing them with ones describing Skousen's outfit--so that in the end the cartoon was completely adulterated to show Skousen's group being hounded and persecuted by its godless enemies.

I was so ticked off at the copyright violation that I contacted a non-LDS company lawyer and threatened to sue. Skousen called me personally and in a hurt voice said he couldn't imagine why I would want to do something like that to such a great cause. He also said they didn't have the money to pay me if I took him to court. Hmmmmm.

I settled for a printed apology in the magazine's next issue, although it was a pretty lame one. (In retrospect, I should have moved forward with the suit, which could have brought me a tidy return after attorney fees--and if Crazy Cleon was actually telling the truth for once, maybe have even put him out of business. (Sorry for my dereliction of duty).
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--EPISODE 2: A Wacky Mormon Takes Up the Banner for Certifiable Mormon Flake Skousen (the Latter Who Attempted to Root Out Communist Professors at BYU)

Skousen’s devoted Mormon apologists include the likes of his nephew, Mark Skousen--a financial economist and author who wrote a glowing tribute to his uncle entitled, "Visionary Author Helped People See the Truth of Nation's Origin.”

What follows is that glowing gloss-over on Uncle Cleon, compliments of nephew Mark—the latter who was a student attending BYU and who, along with several other politically conservative students, was recruited as a "prospective spy" to covertly monitor and then report back in complete secrecy to university president Ernest L. Wilkinson on the teaching activities of faculty members on campus believed to harbor "liberal"/"pro-Communist" political or social views.

First, though, some basic background on that infamous BYU “Spy Ring”: and how he was involved in its operation:

Students being approached to serve as agents in this "spy ring" included members of the Provo chapter of the John Birch Society and the BYU chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). Mark Skousen, writes Quinn, was then-president of BYU's student chapter of YAF.

(D. Michael Quinn, "The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power" (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1997], pp. 93-94)

Authors Gary James Bergera and Ronald Priddis, in their book "Brigham Young University: House of Faith," further report that this recruitment meeting took place on 26 April 1966 in Room 370 of BYU's Wilkinson Center, where Mark Skousen, along with seven other "sympathetic" students, "volunteered" to "monitor" the classes of eight targeted BYU faculty members for evidence of espousing "communist or socialist ideas."

(Gary James Bergera and Ronald Priddis, "Brigham Young University: House of Faith" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1985], pp. 207-09)


Now the effusive essay:

Invoking Biblical verse, Mark Skousen compares Uncle Cleon to a giant among men:

"'There were giants in the Earth in those days . . . mighty men who were of old, men of renown.' --Genesis 6:4

"I am delighted to . . . to pay tribute to my uncle, W. Cleon Skousen, whose book 'The 5000 Year Leap' has gained notoriety by the endorsement of Glenn Beck. Glenn told me that, even though he never met the man (who died in January 2006 at the age of 93), Cleon's book changed his life and gave him hope for America. . . .


"Dismissed By Press As Extremist

"The curmudgeons and supposedly objective reporters hope to keep the public from reading Cleon Skousen's books by dismissing him as an extreme right-winger. But if you read the introductory chapter of ‘Leap,' you discover that he rejects both the extreme right wing (anarchy) and extreme left wing (tyranny) of the American political spectrum. He contends that the Founders of our nation placed the Constitution in the 'balanced center.' That was the genius of the Founders, finding the golden mean of state power, neither too much nor too little government. The book is meant to be a layman's introduction to the brilliance of the Constitution. Millions of copies of the Constitution have been given out to Americans by the Cato Institute and other organizations, but how many really understand it?

"That's where Cleon Skousen comes in. He took it upon himself to establish the National Center for Constitutional Studies in the 1970s, offering week-long courses and giving lectures around the country on the Constitution. He considered it his patriotic duty and his calling in life.

"Cleon wrote two books on the subject. 'The Making of America' is a textbook, and one that I prefer. It dissects every article and section of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the amendments. 'The 5000 Year Leap' is more for the general masses, to inspire the public by highlighting 28 "great ideas" that inspired "the Founding Fathers' phenomenal success formula." These 28 ideas are essential but not especially controversial or extreme: the need to protect property rights, defend the borders, encourage strong local government, avoid too much debt, encourage free enterprise and "elect virtuous leaders."

"Cleon emphasizes several principles in the Constitution, such as the separation of powers, and checks and balances, but he remains surprisingly silent on the welfare or commerce clauses.

"'Leap' introduces the reader to a great many political philosophers, including Cicero, Montesquieu, Blackstone, Locke, Adam Smith, Bastiat, and Tocqueville, and quotes generously from Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Franklin. He seeks to counter the notion that Franklin was a profligate womanizer and emphasizes that even in his infamous 'Advice to a Young Man in Seeking a Mistress,' Franklin tries to dissuade the young man from taking a mistress and encourages him to marry, the 'proper remedy' for the 'hard-to-govern' passions.


"A Beloved Uncle and Teacher

"I got to know my dear uncle well over the years. I took his courses on the Constitution, attended many of his talks on religion and politics, and went on one of his popular tours to Israel. I envied his ability to speak and attract a large following, especially in the West. In my 35 years of lecturing at investment conferences, the most frequent question I heard is: 'How are you related to Cleon Skousen?' Then, these strangers would tell me how he had changed their lives for the better, as he did for Glenn Beck.

"My uncle had a sweet spot in his heart for Arizona, and for several years, supporters provided him and his wife, Jewel, an apartment in Mesa during the winter months to do his research, give lectures, meet with friends and relax. They were overwhelmed by Arizona's hospitality.

"I'm not saying Cleon Skousen was without fault. As a former FBI agent, he may have exaggerated his relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, although it was never so egregious as his nitpicking critics claim. During the long battle against the 'evil empire' and communist threat, Hoover's friendship with Cleon was never in jeopardy, as his personal correspondence demonstrates. Cleon's bestseller 'The Naked Communist' was vindicated when the Berlin Wall and the Soviet system collapsed.

"Yes, we had our differences, and I have reservations about his conspiracy theories and defense of the John Birch Society, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Joe McCarthy. (He had a weakness for defending the underdog.) But I love his Bible commentaries, especially his famous 'thousand year' books, and his work on the Constitution, for which he will be remembered. He was a devoted churchman and family man who loved his wife and eight children. His life was so full and diverse that he wanted to call his memoirs 'Six Careers' - as G-man (FBI), professor (Brigham Young University), police chief (Salt Lake City), tour director (Israel), president of a non-profit (NCCS), and author (more than 35 books).


"Wise Ben Franklin's Advice

"When my own father died when I was only 16, Cleon became like a dad to me and my siblings. He spent time with my family and gave me good advice as I grew up. He so inspired me to write 'The Making of Modern Economics' that I dedicated the book to him. I considered it an honor to be one of his pallbearers at his funeral, which was attended by thousands.

"These words by Benjamin Franklin best sum up my uncle and his critics: 'The best men have always had their share of envy and malice of the foolish and wicked, and a man has therefore some reason to be ashamed of himself when he meets with none of it. My good friend Rev. Whitefield once said, "When I am on the road and see boys in a field pelting a tree, though I am too far off to know what tree it is, I conclude it has fruit on it."'

"My uncle stands tall, and his works are still bearing fruit."

(“Visionary Author Helped People See Truth of Nation's Origins,” by  Mark Skousen, “Arizona Republic,”  - 19 September 2010, http://archive.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/2010/09/19/20100919w-cleon-skousen-glenn-beck-pro.html#ixzz4ftoU25Ta
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EPISODE 3: A Direct, Resounding and Repudiating Response to the Preceding Pro-Mo Propaganda, Authored by Gary Nelson, entitled "Distorted Book is Bad History"”

Nelson knows a numbskull when he sees one and gives Skousen’s skull a sound thumpin’:

"If you were under the impression that the United States is a secular, democratic republic founded on the great ideas of the Enlightenment, think again.

"We owe our form of government not to the rebellious Founding Fathers but to ancient Israel, whose government provided an all-but-perfect model for the U.S. Constitution.

"Thus runs a main theme of a 29-year-old, but newly popular, book called 'The 5000 Year Leap.' The book, [has been] saved from obscurity by talk-show megastar Glenn Beck and heralded by the likes of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney . . . . It calls the American Revolution a miracle of God and enumerates 28 'great ideas that changed the world' and could return America to the pristine and virtuous state in which it was born--if only they were followed. You can get a copy at your public library, but you might have to wait: As of this writing, all seven in Mesa [Arizona's] system were checked out, and in Phoenix, only 12 of the system's 30 copies were available.


"A Fervent Conservative Following

"The book is among the works of prolific author W. Cleon Skousen (1913-2006), who developed a fervent following among certain classes of conservatives during his decades as a writer and lecturer. The late Arizona [and impeached/ousted Mormon] Gov. Evan Mecham counted Skousen as his political mentor and told this newspaper in 1986: 'I would enjoy being known as a protégé of Cleon Skousen. I have all of his books, suitably autographed. I'm a great fan of his, and we're very dear friends.'

"Not everyone, however, falls into the 'great fan' category.

"Ernie Lazar, an independent researcher in Palm Springs, Calif., has been exploring America's extreme right wing for decades. Skousen, a fervent anti-communist and early champion of the John Birch Society, crossed his radar. Lazar dug up a treasure trove of Skousen information in the form of 1,928 pages of FBI documents detailing Skousen's service with the agency from 1935 to '51 and his career as an anti-communist thereafter.

"A recurring theme in these files is that Skousen was wont to exaggerate his FBI credentials, especially when it came to his relationship with J. Edgar Hoover and his expertise on communism. The FBI also found fault with the conclusions Skousen drew from his research. . . .


"Looking Back to Ancient Israel

"Skousen's primary premise is that the Constitution owes its basic structure to the governing principles of ancient Israel. The United States must therefore be regarded as a direct creation of God, as the Bible says Israel was. Subservience to the national aims and subjection to what Skousen calls "the religion of America" thus become divinely ordained individual duties. Where does Skousen find biblical support for such republican features as the popular election of leaders and representatives, the three distinct branches of government, the separation of powers? To quote him:

"'Leaders were elected and new laws were approved by the common consent of the people." (See 2 Samuel 2:4, 1 Chronicles 29:22; for the rejection of a leader, see 2 Chronicles 10:16; for the approval of new laws, see Exodus 19:8).'

"Let's see, indeed.

"In the wording of the 'New Revised Standard Version,' 2 Samuel 2:4 reports, 'Then the people of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah.' But that hardly amounted to the election of a king. Scripture reports that it was God, not the people, who had chosen David, a fact made plain in the early portions of 1 Samuel 16.

"Skousen's reference to 1 Chronicles 29:22 takes us to this: 'They made David's son Solomon king a second time; they anointed him as the Lord's prince.' But again, it was God, not the people, who had chosen Solomon. In fact, a more popular choice, David's son Adonijah, had the reins of power yanked from his hands when he tried to usurp that arrangement shortly before David died (1 Chronicles 22:9,10 and 1 Kings, Chapter 1).

"'For the rejection of a leader,' Skousen writes, 'see 2 Chronicles 10:16.' That is where we find 10 tribes of Israel revolting against Solomon's son Rehoboam, setting up an opposing kingdom that the Scriptures unwaveringly portray as wicked. True, God had foretold the rebellion (1 Kings 11:11), but to predict events is not necessarily to bless them, and the ensuing 10-tribe kingdom was eventually swept away.

"Finally, Skousen cites Exodus 19:8 as evidence that the people approved their own laws. This is ludicrous. The law they were accepting there at Sinai was not of their own making, it was of God. No legislature framed it; no constitutional convention enshrined it.

"And while Skousen makes a weak and fleeting attempt to show that Israel had the analogs of a Senate and a House of Representatives, scriptural support for that notion is non-existent. Rather, the governing ethos of ancient Israel is summed up most succinctly at Isaiah 33:22: 'For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us' ('King James' Version).

"Only the most vivid imagination sees in that description of pure theocracy any resemblance to the secular republic envisioned by the Founders.


"Let the Evidence Speak for Itself

"Nor do Skousen's innumerable citations of secular sources add up to the kind of analysis that carries water with scholarly historians.

"Eduardo Pagan, who is the Bob Stump Endowed Professor of History at Arizona State University, is well familiar with Skousen's work. There is a whole genre of popular writers who write in a pseudo-scholarly manner,' Pagan said. 'They don't quite meet the standards of bona fide scholarly research.' Skousen, he said, fits into that category. Regarding Skousen's writings, Pagan said, 'I would characterize it more as a statement of faith than recognized scholarship.' He said Skousen and others like him often cite sources more than 50 years old, in effect rejecting the scholarship of American history that has accumulated since the 1950s.

“Pagan contrasted Skousen with historian Barbara Tuchman, whose analysis of the American Revolution differs radically from Skousen's. She saw the Revolution not as a miracle but as the inevitable outcome of British political and military bungling, a thesis painstakingly set forth and copiously annotated in her 1984 classic, 'The March of Folly.' Pagan said he would recommend Tuchman's works as examples of true historical scholarship. As for Skousen, he said, 'I would only recommend his work if we were studying reactions to the modern study of history.'


"Bawdy Ben Franklin's Advice

"Among Skousen's secular citations, one in particular may speak volumes as to his credibility. In the chapter touting the virtues of family, Skousen quotes Benjamin Franklin in a letter as saying, 'Marriage is the proper remedy. It is the most natural state of man, and therefore the state in which you are most likely to find solid happiness.' What Skousen fails to mention is that the bulk of Franklin's letter is devoted to advice on how to find a mistress. Franklin's recommendation, in the bawdiest and most sexist language imaginable: 'You should prefer old women to young ones.' Among the reasons: 'They are so grateful!'

"It's not that Skousen does not expound some good ideas and dig up a few good quotes along the way. Government of law, not of men, is a good thing. Debt can be a bad thing. Family good, tyranny bad. And so on--worthy ideals, laudable virtues. But for Skousen to so abuse Scripture and history in the service of the idea that a secular nation is somehow ordained of God, and thus of itself is almost a thing to be worshiped, is a monstrous and dangerous thing and can itself portend the very tyranny to which he and his disciples profess to be so opposed."

(“Distorted Book is Bad History, Poses Its Own Tyranny,” by Gary Nelson, 19 September 2010, “Arizona Republic,” “Arizona Republic,” http://archive.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/2010/09/19/20100919w-cleon-skousen-glenn-beck-con.html#ixzz4ftVEZFZg)
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More meat about meathead Skousen follows here, based on my own personal assessments, along with critical commentary from others. Crazy Cleon was quite the convoluted combo: Everything from Commie basher to rock ‘n roll trasher--a real piece of Marvelous Work and a Blunder who, despite his schmoozing of top Mormon leadership, ultimately became an official LDS embarrassment.

In the wake of Skousen's death, I gathered some observations from my personal Ezra Taft Benson and Cleon Skousen files (combined with research from other sources in my home library) on Skousen's colorful, controversial life and his bizarre mix of apocalyptic religious/political beliefs:
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EPISODE 4: Cleon Clings On to McKay--Skousen's Inside Track with the Mormon Church Hierarchy and President David O. McKay's Official Mormon Church Blessing of Skousen's Radical Right-wing Agenda

In 1962 LDS General Conference, McKay recommended that members of the Church avail themselves of Skousen’s book, "The Naked Communist," declaring:

“I admonish everybody to read that excellent book of [former FBI agent and then-Salt Lake City Police] Chief Skousen’s.”

(David O. McKay, “Preach the Word,” in "Improvement Era," 62 [December 1959], p. 912, as quoted in Quinn, "The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power," p. 82)


In his officially Mormon-blessed book, Skousen warned readers to be on the alert against a worldwide Marxist revolution dedicated to “the total annihilation of all opposition, the downfall of all existing governments, all economies and all societies,” through the creation of “a regimented breed of Pavlovian men whose minds could be triggered into immediate action by signals from their masters.”

To fight the international Red menace, Skousen extolled Brigham Young University as a pre-eminent religious training ground in the “war of ideologies” and urged concerned parents:

“We should not sit back and wait for our boys and girls to be indoctrinated with materialistic dogma and thereby make themselves vulnerable to a Communist conversion when they are approached by the agents of force and fear who come from across the sea.”

(W. Cleon Skousen, "The Naked Communist" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Company, 1958], pp. 2, 377-378)


As much as Skousen (who at one time served on the religion faculty of BYU) regarded the school as a bulwark against Communism, he nonetheless was convinced that Marxists had infiltrated the campus of the Lord's University and established an operating cell.

Writes excommunicated Mormon historian, D. Michael Quinn,, of BYU's "Red Scare" seizure:

"In February 1969, W. Cleon Skousen, whom Benson had unsuccessfully tried to transfer from the religion faculty to the deanship of the College of Social Sciences, allegedly asked a niece to recruit students as informants [to ferret out suspected Marxists among the sheep]. A student herself, she told a political science major that her uncle 'had discovered there was an active communist cell on [the BYU] campus whose goal it was to destroy this university by 1970.'

"This student testified that she asked him [the student majoring in political science] to infiltrate BYU's Young Democrats. Anti-Birch professor Louis Midgley [whom I had as a professor while at BYU as a poli sci major myself] was among the faculty 'high on the list' of suspects as being communist sympathizers on this campus and her words were that [he, the student] was to 'talk with them and try to get them to commit themselves.' Cleon Skousen relayed the information 'to his "superior" in Salt Lake City.

However, as Quinn notes:

"Skousen's efforts at campus espionage in 1969 collapsed after a faculty member wrote a memo urging him [Skousen] 'to give the lie to this rumor . . . that you have organized a "spy" ring to check on the alleged pro-Communist sympathies of professors.' The political science professor had confessed. He found no Communist sympathizers at BYU . . .."

(Quinn, p. 103)
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EPISODE 5: Skeptical of Skousen's Rabid Radicalism--An Opposing Never-Mo View

Shining an altogether different light on Skousen’s work, is Richard Dudman, author of "Men of the Far Right.” According to a bio on Dudman, he “an American journalist who spent 31 years with the ‘ St. Louis Post-Dispatch,’ during which time he covered Fidel Castro’s insurgency in Cuba, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, the Watergate scandal, the Iran-Contra scandal and wars and revolutions in Latin America and the Middle East, in addition to the Far East. He served as chief of the Washington bureau during the 1970s which landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents.”

(“Richard Dudman,” at “Wikipedia,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dudman#cite_note-1)


Dudman writes of Skousen:

“Skousen’s book, 'The Naked Communist,' is a Bible of the right-wing movement and is promoted heavily by many of the extremist groups. In it, he asserts that the first Russian sputnik was built with plans stolen from the United States after World War II and that President Batista, the former Cuban dictator, was really a sincere, pro-labor, popular ruler.

"Skousen advise[d]legislators to overthrow Supreme Court restrictions on actions against persons suspected of being communists. He urge[d] businessmen . . . to seek help from the American Security Council [a Chicago-based group of ‘right-wing military men and businessmen’ that operated ‘a private loyalty-security blacklist where employers could check their employees and job applicants for indications of left-wing connections.’]”
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EPISODE 6: Skousen's Bewildering Background as Salt Lake City’s Fired Totalitarian Police Chief*

Skousen was quickly removed from his post as Salt Lake’s police chief by then-city mayor J. Bracken Lee, who called him “an incipient Hitler” who “ran the [SLC] police department in exactly the same manner as the Communists in Russia operate their government.”

What reportedly resulted in the mayor's decision to can Skousen was Skousen's raid on an illegal poker club where Lee was present:

"In 1960, newly-elected mayor J. Bracken Lee dismissed Skousen shortly after Skousen raided an illegal poker club where Lee was in attendance. 'National Review' commentator Mark Hemingway characterized the gathering as 'a friendly card game.'

"Skousen supporters protested the abrupt firing by disrupting a city council meeting and planting burning crosses on Lee's lawn. Lee characterized Skousen's strict enforcement of anti-gambling laws as Gestapo-like. . . . 'Time' magazine reported in 1960 that Skousen's 'real offense seemed to be that he had failed to show enough enthusiasm for Lee's determination to slash the police-department budget.' Lee told a friend that Skousen was 'one of the greatest spenders of public funds of anyone who ever served in any capacity in Salt Lake City government,' and a 'master of half-truths.'"

(Richard Dudman, "Men of the Far Right" [New York, New York: Pyramid Books, 1962], pp. 127-28; and "Cleon Skousen," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleon_Skousen)
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EPISODE 7: Super Supporter of Far-Right Anti-Communist Crusades

Skousen was an active barnstormer and speaker for Fred C. Schwartz’s ”Christian Anti-Communist Crusade.” "Life Magazine" noted that Schwartz “preached doomsday by Communism in 1973 unless every American starts distrusting his neighbor.”

(Dudman, pp. 8, 118)
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EPISODE 8: Diehard Defender of the John Birch Society Against Alleged International Communist Plotters

Although not an official member of the John Birch Society, Skousen was a die-hard supporter, serving as an active cohort in its “American Opinion Speakers Bureau,” which included among its Far Right allies my uncle and high-ranking Birch Society officer, Reed Benson.

(Benjamin R. Epstein and Arnold Forster, "Report on the John Birch Society 1966," [New York, New York: Vintage Books, 1966], p. 95)


In 1963, Skousen published a pamphlet, “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society,” in which he claimed that the Birch Society had been “dishonestly ridiculed and smeared at the instigation of the international Communist conspiracy.” He further claimed that the Birch Society was “marked for annihilation because it was becoming highly successful in awakening the American people.” He also accused Americans who criticized the Bircher Society as “promoting the official Communist party line.”

(Skousen, “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society” [Salt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Company, 1963], pp. 11-12)
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EPISODE 9: Skousen's Incendiary Claim That Communists Were Behind Attacks on the Mormon Church's Racist Anti-Black Doctrine, Plus Other Racist Rants

In 1970, amid growing college protests against BYU sports teams for the LDS Church’s anti-Black priesthood policy, Skousen published a tabloid featuring the screaming headline, “The Communist Attack on the Mormons.” The article asserted that: “. . . [professional] Communist-oriented revolutionary groups have been spearheading the wave of protests and violence directed toward Brigham Young University and the Mormon Church, [employing] Marxism and Maoism as their ideological base and terror tactics as their method. . . .”

Skousen warned that Communists were plotting to manipulate press reports into depicting the Mormon Church as being “rich, priest-ridden, racist, super-authoritarian and conservative to the point of being archaically reactionary.” He claimed that, in fact, the Mormon Church was one of the Communists’ “prime TARGETS FOR ATTACK” because it is “STRONGLY PRO-AMERICAN” and that the ‘Negro-priesthood issue” was being used as a “SMOKESREEN” to “further their ulterior motives.” Citing Ezra Taft Benson’s speech, “Civil Rights: Tool of Communist Deception,” he warned that Communist-inspired assaults on the Mormon Church were designed to: ‘ . . . create resentment and hatred between the races by distorting the religious tenet of the Church regarding the Negro and blowing it up to ridiculous proportions.”

(“Special Report by National Research Group,” American Fork, Utah, 84003, March 1970, p. 1, emphasis in original)


Like my grandfather, Skousen also declared that the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was a tool in a Kremlin-conceived conspiracy to destroy America. Writes Quinn:

"After [President Ronald] Reagan signed the law for King Day, Cleon Skousen's Freemen Institute observed that this national holiday honored 'a man who courted violence and night-riding and broke the law to achieve his purposes; who found it expedient openly to collaborate with totalitarian Communism; and whose personal life was so revolting that it cannot be discussed.'"

(Quinn, p. 113)


Furthermore, in his poorly- and insultingly-crafted textbook, "The Making of America" (which I eventually ditched after it was given to me by a Skousen supporter), Skousen favorably quoted a 1934 essay which paternalistically referred to the children of African-American slaves using the racially derogatory term "pickaninnies," as reported thusly:

". . . Skousen became the center of a minor controversy when state legislators in California approved the official use of another of his books, the 1982 history text, 'The Making of America.' Besides bursting with factual errors, Skousen's book characterized African-American children as 'pickaninnies' and described American slave owners as the 'worst victims' of the slavery system. Quoting the historian Fred Albert Shannon, 'The Making of America' explained that '[slave] gangs in transit were usually a cheerful lot, though the presence of a number of the more vicious type sometimes made it necessary for them all to go in chains.'"

("Beck Guru: Skousen's 'Story of Slavery' Suggests Slave Owners Were 'Worst Victims of the System,'" in "Media Matters for America," 30 September 2009, https://mediamatters.org/research/2009/09/30/beck-guru-skousens-story-of-slavery-suggests-sl/155203)
_____


EXHIBIT 10: Skousen's Founding of the Extremist, Book of Mormon-Based Freeman Institute and His Solicitation of Ezra Taft Benson's Support

Skousen eventually established the rabidly anti-Communist Freeman Institute in Provo, Utah, where my grandfather spoke at the dedication of its headquarters. The group derived its name from the Book of Mormon characters known as “freemen” and initially drew many Mormon Birchers into its ranks. My father, Mark Benson, was the Institute’s “Vice President in Charge of Development.”

(Quinn, pp. 109-11).
_____


EXHIBIT 11: Skousen's Dire Warning to Ezra Taft Benson of an International Scheme for One-World Government, Orchestrated by Wall Street Bankers

In a letter sent to my grandfather (which, despite its formulaic fundraising format, my grandfather curiously marked in red pen with a handwritten notation “Confidential,” even though it was nothing more than a mass mailer sent out to Skousenites), conspiracist Cleon warned:

". . . [The] so-called ‘Council on Foreign Relations’ [has been] “set up . . . to groom ambitious one-world political personalities for leadership in all major departments of the American government from the President on down. . . . Their latest triumph was the election of Jimmy Carter. . . .”

Skousen ominously claimed that “members of the Establishment have directed foreign policy from Wall Street in the past.” He told my grandfather that because of President Gerald R. Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and other “master-planners,” the “foreign-policy establishment of Wall Street bankers and lawyers . . . moved into the very heart of the Establishment and took over.”

Skousen further declared:

“I wonder how people who say there is ‘no such thing as a conspiracy’ will deal with this one?”

He also forewarned ETB that the one-world planners intended to celebrate the upcoming “200 anniversary of the United States Constitution by scrapping it.”

In an apocalyptic conclusion to his letter, Skousen, under the sub-heading “We Need Millions of Freeman,” informed my grandfather through a mass mailer:

“I don’t know how all this affects you, but it puts a fire in my veins. I hope that in this coming year we can double or triple the number of Freeman and eventually we can challenge these advocates of world serfdom and drive them out of power. . . . I pray it will happen soon. And we must do everything we can to help make it happen. That’s what you are helping to accomplish, and I am grateful to you for your support. See you next month!”

(Skousen, fund-raising letter sent to “Elder Benson,” January 1977, copy in my possession)
_____


EXHIBIT 12: Skousen's Full-Throated Assault on "Satanic" Rock Music, With Ezra Taft Benson's Full-Hearted Encouragement

In my personal library I discovered a book that once belonged to my grandfather entitled, "Rock 'N' Reality: Mirrors of Rock Music--Its Relationship to Sex, Drugs, Family & Religion," by Mormon author and BYU graduate, E. Lynn Balmforth [Hawkes Publications: Salt Lake City, Utah, 1971].


RfM poster described Balmforth as follows:

“About that Ernest Lynn Balmforth book, ’Rock n Reality,’ [for] which Skousen wrote the intro, [it] was Balmforth's Religion Dept. Master's thesis, when Skousen was head of that department at BYU.

“I think this guy [David M. Balmforth] is closely related to him, and has written books more or less in the same Bircher themes: http://www.amazon.com/Americaa-Coming-Crisis-Prophetic-Warings/dp/0882906313/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446268510&sr=1-2&keywords=balmforth”

(“Re: Lack of Cranial Housin' for Cleon Skousen: Him, the LDS Cult and ETB,” by RfM poster “snagglepuss.” on RfM bulletin board, 31 October 2013. http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1704028,1704293#msg-1704293)


My grandfather apparently had a special fondness for this thin, paperback volume. He had signed his name in his big, flamboyant style above the title on the front cover, along with noting in the upper right-hand corner of same, "Return to E.T.B." He further autographed the inside of the front cover, along with noting the date--February 18, 1972--that he received it. He very much seemed to want to make sure he never lost it.

The book's "Preface" was authored by Skousen, obviously one of Ezra Taft Benson's closest ideological allies. My grandfather had dog-earred the first page of that section and underlined several of its passages in ballpoint pen.

In the left-hand margin next to the third and fourth paragraphs of the first page, respectively, he wrote the words "on card" and "card," indicating that he wanted these particular passages transferred to his typed card file, which he used as a sermon resource.

My grandfather highlighted, via underlining and/or margin brackets, the following from Skousen's words of warning:

"We've combined youth, music, sex, drugs, and rebellion with treason!'

"This was the way Jerry Rubin, chieftain of the Yippies, described the current assault on America's up-coming generation in his book, DO IT!

"Later, in a speech at Salt Lake City, Utah, he said: 'Rock 'n' Roll is the center of the Revolution!'

"Americans are well aware that there has been a revolution. In morals. In manners. In speech. In crime rates. In riots. In violence. In drugs. In sex. In pornography. In politics. In movies. In education. In music.

"What most of us failed to realize at the moment was how important the music revolution would become. It turned out to be the catalyst for all the rest. It became the prod to promote drugs, the advertiser of sex in the hedonism manner, the mind-conditioner for four-letter gutter speech, and eventually the blatant propaganda funnel for political subversion. It also became the seductive Jezebel for a modern philosophy of no God, of Man as merely a graduate beast of the jungle, of Jesus Christ as a phoney actor--a superstar, of peace and prosperity being possible only under communism, of America as the enemy of the world, of Russia as the hope of the world."

(p. 3)

Turning the page, Skousen continued his tirade against rock music, while my grandfather's marking pen took a momentary break:

"Just as a sampler, here are the lyrics to America's number-one-hit-recording at the moment of this writing. It is by John Lennon and is called, 'Imagine.'

'Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people,
Living for today.

'Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.

'Imagine no possessions.
I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger--
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world.

'You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
And the world will be as one.'"

(p. 4)

Skousen continued his message of clear-and-present danger:

"I observe that many young people have taken from this song only the theme of 'brotherhood' and 'all the world for all the people.'"

At this point, Ezra Taft Benson's marking pen picked up again, as he underlined Skousen's next words:

"However, the professional debunkers who were behind the engineering of this song took colossal satisfaction from the fact that they are succeeding in getting tens of millions of young Americans to mouth the artfully planted brain teasers of 'no heaven,' 'no hell,' 'above us only sky,' 'no countries,' 'nothing to kill or die for,' 'no religion,' 'no possessions,' and 'all the world as one.'"

At this point, my grandfather's marking notes temporarily ceased, as Skousen climatically rolled forth:

"Yes, it's turning out to be quite a revolution."

(p. 5)

Skousen somberly concluded the "Preface" with this gloomy prediction, highlighted once more by Ezra Taft Benson's pen:

"The problem expertly treated in this book by Mr. Balmforth is of historical significance. This problem may turn out to be a major factor which contributed to the downfall of civilization."

(p. 6)
_____


EPISODE 13: Skousen’s Whopper--That the Little People Get to Vote God Out of Power--Was, Even for His Buddy in the Unbelievable, Ezra Taft Benson--a Bridge Too Bizarre

Author Bill McKeever zeroes in on a particularly bizarre element of Skousen's beyond-Kolob nutty religious notion that God’s spirit children could kick him (meaning God himself) out of office:

"Skousen’s politics aside, it was his theology that was especially troubling. His book 'The First 2,000 Years,' published in 1953, included a section on God that can only be described as blasphemous.

"Under the subtitle 'The Source of God’s Power,' he [Skousen] wrote:

“'Through modern revelation we learn that the universe is filled with vast numbers of intelligences, and we further learn that Elohim is God simply because all of these intelligences honor and sustain Him as such . . . His glory and power is something which He slowly acquired until today, ‘all things bow in humble reverence.’

"'But since God "acquired" the honor and sustaining influence of ‘all things’ it follows as a corellary (sic) that if He should do anything to violate the confidence or "sense of justice" of these intelligences, they would promptly withdraw their support, and the "power" of God would disintegrate. This is what Mormon and Alma meant when they specifically stated that if God should change or act contrary to truth and justice "He would cease to be God." Our Heavenly Father can do only those things which the intelligences under Him are voluntarily willing to support Him in accomplishing (pp.355-356).’

McKeever adds:

"The idea that God could 'cease to be God' is not at all unique to Skousen. In fact, on page 354 he rightfully notes that the phrase comes directly from the Book of Mormon (Mormon 9:19; Alma 42:13, 25).

McKeever continues:

"Skousen sums up these passages by saying, 'In other words, if eternal principles were violated, God could cease to be God!'

"On p. 356 he {Skousen] also cites Doctrine and Covenants 93 to support his position:

“'In the Doctrine and Covenants, "intelligence" or that eternal, self-knowing will within each of us is called by several names. Sometimes it is called the "the light of truth," sometimes ‘the light of Christ,’ and in one place it is identified with the phenomenon of "life."'

("W. Cleon Skousen: The Man Behind Glenn Beck," under "Mormonism Research Ministry," at: http://mrm.org/cleon-skousen)


Apparently, my grandfather didn't buy it. In ETB's personal copy of Skousen's "First 2,000 Years" (which he gave to me and which, after he died in my post-Mo days, I sold to Benchmark Books, a used LDS bookstore in Salt Lake City), ETB had highlighted Skousen's arguments for a voted-out-of-office Elohim with skeptical underlinings and question marks.

Bad sign there, Cleon.
_____


EPISODE 14: The Mormon Church Finally Puts Official Distance Between Itself and Skousen

Following Mormon president David O. McKay’s death, the LDS Church “found it necessary to counter the now-familiar pattern of Mormon ultra-conservatives to imply church endorsement.”

(Quinn, p. 110)


It was about time. In a letter “[t]o All Stake Presidents, Bishops, and Branch Presidents in the United States,” the First Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball dictated the following, gingerly-worded order:

“It has come to our attention that in some areas announcements have been made in Church meetings of lectures to be given by those connected with the Freemen Institute. This is to inform you that no announcements should be made in Church meetings of these, or other similar, lectures or events that are not under the sponsorship of the Church.

“This instruction is not intended to express any disapproval of the right of the Freemen Institute and its lecturers to conduct such meetings or of the contents of the lectures. The only purpose is to make certain that neither Church facilities nor Church meetings are used to advertise such events and to avoid any implication that the Church endorses what is said during such lectures.”

(letter from the Office of the First Presidency, Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, 15 February 1979, copy in my possession)

*********


The Conclusion on Clown Cleon

Yes, folks, welcome to W. Cleon Skousen's wacky world of mindless Glenn Beckian Mormonism--one which even the Mormon Church itself found too wacko for comfort.

That should tell you something. Put that in your pen and underline it--then maybe think twice about defending Screw-Loose Skousen on Recovery from Mormonism. After all, he's one of the reasons why there is recovery from Mormonism.



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2017 04:48AM by steve benson.

Thank you for this, Steve.

These things needed to be said, and you (given your family background and experience) are the only one who could say them so effectively.

Thank you.

I had a class at BYU taught by Skousen. That was enough for me.

Hi Steve, :^)
The Naked Communist is the first book I've read by Scousan, In my view understanding history and past politics helps us understand the world today.

There is no doubt that Carl Marx and Engles shaped the movement of the left and have had major influence.

Some of the posters on this board think I'm dumb to read anything they don't agree with, a lot of people are cynical today, I'm not saying the socialists were bad, what I am saying is that everyone needs to decide for themselves if they believe those 19th century ideas or not. If America really is doomed if we follow the Socialists, as Cleon Scousan (and ET Benson) said.

But it's fun to discuss, and I enjoy reading everyone's opinions, It gets me all riled up! :^) :^)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2017 09:06AM by poopstone.

And that's a very informative read. I'll have to look for a copy of "The 5000 Year Leap." (Mitt Romney and Glen Beck endorced the book?) I'm surprised that McKay endorsed the Naked Communist? I've read the autobiography by Franklin and that's funny that the part they use about fidelity is actually about taking on a mistress. lol!

Just one slight mistake you may want to quickly correct, that I found while reading the above post, the reference that says:

(W. Cleon Skousen, "The Naked Communist" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Company, 1958], pp. 2, 377-378)

The edition of that book only goes to page 341. As always thanks for the information, I always learn a lot. :^)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Communist

http://wikivisually.com/wiki/The_Naked_Communist



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2017 02:40AM by steve benson.

People who protest the loudest about "socialism" are the ones who are benefitting from it the most.
I suspect that you cannot even define "socialism".

Just so I can know. Who or what the hell is the left?

I pointed that out to you in the OP, and you're still getting it wrong. The truth is obvious: You don't read much at all.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2017 04:19PM by steve benson.

He reads, but he doesn't read to understand, but rather to reply.

I liked Skousen's book, The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution. I used that book as part of our American History / Civics homeschooling curriculum. It was far better than any of the then current American history/civics books used in the public school system. I had heard that California had considered using it as a textbook in their public schools at one point. As I recall, there was some controversy over it, I felt that, overall, it was a very well written book that taught sound constitutional principles to younger students of American History and the Constitution.

Its original edition is described below:

"Skousen's rolling theocratic lecture tour ran into problems in 1987, when outsiders started examining the contents of the book on which the seminars were based. 'The Making of America,' it turned out, presented a history of slavery that could have been written by a propagandist for the Ku Klux Klan.

"Skousen relied for his interpretation of slavery on historian Fred Albert Shannon's 'Economic History of the People of the United States' (1934). Quoting Shannon, Skousen described African-American children as 'pickaninnies' and described American slave owners as the 'worst victims' of the slavery system. He further explained that '[slave] gangs in transit were usually a cheerful lot, though the presence of a number of the more vicious type sometimes made it necessary for them all to go in chains.' Shannon and Skousen also cast a skeptical eye on accounts of cruelty by slave masters and expressed much more interest in the 'fear' Southern whites had while trying to protect "white civilization" from slave revolts."

("FRINGE MORMON GROUP MAKES MYTHS WITH GLENN BECK’S HELP," by Alexander Zaitchik, Southern Poverty Law Center, 23 February 2011, 2011 Spring Issue, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2011/fringe-mormon-group-makes-myths-glenn-beck’s-help)
___


And that's not all. What follows are more offensive entries by Skousen in his bigoted book:

"[From] Skousen: 'Slavery is not a racial problem. It is a human problem. In 'The Making of America,' Skousen wrote of slavery:

"'In the history of the world, nearly every nation has had slaves. The Chinese kept thousands of slaves. Babylon boasted of slaves from a dozen different countries. The dark-skinned Hittites, Phoenicians, and Egyptians had white slaves. The Moors had black slaves. America had black slaves. The Nazis had white slaves. The Soviets still do, with several million white slaves wearing out their starved, near-naked bodies in slave labor camps.

"So the emancipation of human beings from slavery is an ongoing struggle. Slavery is not a racial problem. It is a human problem. ['The Making of America, p. 728]' . . .

"Skousen's 'Story of Slavery"] [was] controversial when first published. In 'The Making of America,' Skousen capped his analysis of the 15th Amendment by quoting several pages of historian Fred Albert Shannon's 'Economic History of the People of the United States' (1934), saying that they 'tell the story of slavery in America.' ['The Making of America,' p. 729]

"As Zaitchik wrote in his September 16 Salon article, Skousen's use of Shannon's work aroused controversy shortly after the book was first published in the early 1980s:

"'Toward the end of Reagan's second term, Skousen became the center of a minor controversy when state legislators in California approved the official use of another of his books, the 1982 history text 'The Making of America.' Besides bursting with factual errors, Skousen's book characterized African-American children as 'pickaninnies' and described American slave owners as the 'worst victims' of the slavery system. Quoting the historian Fred Albert Shannon, 'The Making of America' explained that '[slave] gangs in transit were usually a cheerful lot, though the presence of a number of the more vicious type sometimes made it necessary for them all to go in chains.'

"Shannon's account of slavery sympathetic to slave owners, hostile to abolitionists, minimized suffering. The following are excerpts from Shannon's account of life in the antebellum South, as presented by Skousen in 'The Making of America' as 'the story of slavery in America.' In them, Shannon claimed that children of slave owners envied the 'freedom' of slave children and that 'impermanent' marriages between slaves were a 'blessing of slavery.' Shannon also dismissed accounts of cruelty toward slaves as rare or unfounded but addressed in great detail the 'fear' Southern whites had of slave rebellions against 'white civilization.'

-"Abolitionists [were] at fault for delaying emancipation:

"'Gradual emancipation by legislative action was talked about in the South for two generations after the Declaration of Independence. A fierce contest, waged over this issue in the legislature of Virginia as late as 1832, was lost by the emancipationists largely because of resentment against the interference of Northern abolitionists and terror over the Nat Turner insurrection of the preceding year.

"'Had the result been different the effect upon the border states, where slavery at best was of questionable value, may well be imagined. By too militant action the abolitionists themselves did much to perpetuate slavery in the northern group of the Southern states." ['The Making of America,' p. 730]


-"Newly-sold slaves [were] 'usually a cheerful lot':

"'The tendency was to sell families as units, if for no other reason [than] to keep the slaves contented. The gangs in transit were usually a cheerful lot, though the presence of a number of the more vicious type sometimes made it necessary for them all to go in chains. At the other extreme, when the Central of Georgia railroad company in 1858 equipped a Negro sleeping car to assist in the slave trade it set a standard not always maintained in a later generation. When on the block, the slave was as likely to hinder as to help in his sale. Some, out of a vain conceit in bringing a high price, would boast of their physical prowess, in which case an unwary purchaser would likely be cheated. Others would malinger, because of a grudge against owners or traders or in order to bring a low price and be put at less tiring labor. Dealers, also, adopted the tricks of horse traders to make their merchants more attractive -- the greasiest Negro was generally considered the healthiest." ['The Making of America,' pp. 731-32]


-"Slaves hampered [the] efficiency of white labor.

"'In the management of slave labor, the gang system predominated. The great majority of owners, having at the most only one or two families of Negroes, had to work alongside their slaves and set the pace for them. Slavery did not make white labor unrespectable, but merely inefficient. The slave had a deliberateness of motion which no amount of supervision could quicken. If the owner got ahead of the gang they all would shirk behind his back." ['The Making of America,' p. 732]


-"White schoolchildren would 'envy the freedom' of 'colored playmates.' 'Slave food, even if monotonous, was plentiful. Corn bread and bacon were the mainstays, with plenty of fruit and vegetables in season. In hog-killing time, countenances were unusually greasy. Clothing also was on the par with that of the poorer white people and no less adequate in proportion to the climate than that of Northern laborers. If [Negro children] ran naked it was generally from choice, and when the white boys had to put on shoes and go away to school they were likely to envy the freedom of their colored playmates. The color line began to appear at about that time.' ['The Making of America,' pp. 732-33]

-"Cruelty [was] rare, slave owners [were] 'the worst victims':

"'Excessive toil occurred only where the masters or overseers were feeble witted as well as brutal. A persistent rumor among abolitionists was that sugar planters followed a policy of working slaves to death in seven years as a matter of economy. The persons spreading such reports were as ignorant of Negro nature as they were of conditions in the sugar mills.

"'Furthermore, they overrated the ability of the masters to know how to kill a slave in the given time instead of leaving him a broken-down burden to the plantation. When they set out to prove the accusation they returned with no evidence, but convinced that the practice existed in some obscure region which they had not succeeded in ferreting out. Harriet Martineau, after watching slaves go through the motions of work without tiring themselves, considered the planters as models of patience and observed that new slave owners from Europe or the North were prone to be the most severe. Numerous observers, of various shades of opinion on slavery, agreed that brutality was no more common in the black belt than among free labor elsewhere, and that the slave owners were the worst victims of the system.' ['The Making of America,' pp. 733-34]


-"Broken marriages [were] 'one [of] the blessings of slavery':

"'Negro weddings were attended by white people who joined in the celebration. If the marriages were of a rather impermanent nature, that fact was frequently considered as 'one of the blessings of slavery.' At church and camp meetings the Negroes, in their own section of the building or tabernacle, enjoyed the experiences immensely. They could shout without restraint, while the masters, in order to preserve their dignity, had to repress their emotions. It made little difference if religion was thrown off soon after the camp meeting dissolved--backsliding was pleasant, and there was always a chance to get intoxicatingly converted again.' ['The Making of America,' p. 734]


-"'Negro preachers" warranted surveillance:

"'The worst offenses of slaves against the white men's code were rebellion and running away. Drunkenness, stealing, hiding out from work, personal filthiness, carelessness of property, fighting, and general brutality had various positions in the scale of misdemeanors. Negro preachers often bred discontent by their unnecessary restraint upon pleasure, and, if itinerants, had to be watched closely for abolitionist or seditious doctrines." ['The Making of America,' p. 734]


-"Southern life [was] a 'nightmare' of fear--for white people:

"'The constant fear of slave rebellion made life in the South a nightmare, especially in regions where conspiracies were of frequent occurrence. The extermination of white civilization in Santo Domingo was followed in the nineteenth century by several other bloody outbursts in the West Indies, which never failed to cause ominous forebodings in America. . . .

"'In the 19th century, conspiracies headed by George Boxley and Denmark Vessey in South Carolina (1816 and 1822), and the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia in 1831 were the outstanding examples. Boxley, a Negro with a sort of John Brown intelligence, escaped while six of his followers were executed. The Vessey plot, prematurely revealed, resulted in 130 arrests which culminated in the hangings of 35, deportation or nearly as many, and imprisonment of 4 white participants. Nat Turner, a mystic type of Baptist preacher, set out to annihilate white civilization, and succeeded to the extent of 10 men, 14 women, and 31 children. He was finally hanged with several of his followers, but the after-effects of the uprising were deplorable.' ['The Making of America,' p. 735]


-"Southern slavery [was] better than Northern freedom:

"'The free Negro had rather more opportunity for economic advancement in the South than in the North. The Southerner was bothered by the race problem but knew how to handle the individual Negro, while the Northerner professed a benign interest in the race so long as its members were as remote as possible. Neither section was willing to grant equal rights in education, suffrage, or legal standing, while many states of all sections had laws prohibiting the immigration of free Negroes. Abraham Lincoln could not have maintained his standing in the Republican party had he not been a staunch supporter of the Illinois exclusion law and a firm opponent of political and social equality. It was most difficult for a Negro to get a job in the North, except at the most loathsome of tasks. Some Negroes, having been freed and sent to any Northern state which would receive them, became so miserable as to solicit a return to slavery.' ['The Making of America,' pp. 735-36]


-"Emancipated slaves [were] hated because of [the] Civil War and 'carpetbag regime':

"'This seemingly hopeless situation was by 1860 approaching a solution which was not allowed to materialize. The limits of slavery expansion either by purchase or conquest had been reached. The natural increase of slave population in a few decades would have checked the opportunities for profitable sale. It seems futile to believe otherwise than that, before the end of the century, the diminishing returns from slave ownership would have driven slave prices so low that, in self-defense, owners would have made tenants of their laborers, thrown them upon their own resources, and placed dependence upon rentals for profits. It likewise seems reasonable to believe that by this solution the Negro might have escaped the revulsion of feeling against him that resulted from forcible emancipation and the carpetbag regime.' ['The Making of America,' p. 737]


-'"The end picture-caption:

"At the end of Skousen's extensive quotation of Shannon, 'The Making of America' features an illustration of two dark, manacled hands with the accompanying caption: 'In some ways, the economic system of slavery chained the slave owners almost as much as the slaves.' ['The Making of America,' p. 737]"

("Beck Guru Skousen's 'Story of Slavery' Suggests Slave Owners Were 'Worst Victims of the System," by Simon Malon Maloy, "Media Matters," 30 Septmber 2009, https://mediamatters.org/research/2009/09/30/beck-guru-skousens-story-of-slavery-suggests-sl/155203)
_____


When asked for an explanation from Skousen on the racist content of his book, "[he] was reported by his secretary to be unavailable for comment. She said Skousen, as a college student in 1934, read the Shannon text and decided to include it in his 'The Making of America.' . . ,

"However, responding earlier . . . to similar charges [of racism in 'The Making of America'] by a Washington-based liberal lobbying and education organization, 'People for the American Way,' Skousen denied that his book cast any racial aspersions. He said the word 'pickaninnies' is 'used as the blacks themselves used it. It was a colloquial term with no deprecatory implication.' He said the word was not used in the material he himself wrote."

("Probe Ordered in State Panel's Sale of 'Racist' Book," by Carl Ingram, "Los Angeles Times," 9 Februray 1987, http://articles.latimes.com/1987-02-07/news/mn-1727_1_appointees)
_____


Hope the children in your home-schooling program enjoyed being taught from the pages of Skousen's disgusting, racially- prejudiced production.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2017 03:54AM by steve benson.

Well, Steve, I wondered how long it would take you to follow up with a contrived rant and false assumptions regarding my use of a book
you obviously haven't read.

If you read back through my post, you will see that I stated that I used Skousen's Making of America as "*part* of our American History / Civics homeschooling curriculum" and indicated that we used it for the book's content regarding the US Constitution.

Our curriculum incorporated the use of a variety of literature such as Uncle Tom's Cabin, Roots, several autobiographies, as well as trips specifically to American History sites that did not whitewash this aspect of our history.

The quotes you ascribe to Skousen's views were from essays written by other people. I'm not sure that Skousen actually shared these views? Perhaps he was just being lazy when he included a whole treatise in his book rather than research and write it himself.

But it obviously is too much for you to handle, since you didn't respond meaningfully to any of it.

All you could come up with was that all I quoted from his book were essays written by others. Not only is that not true, those bigoted essays would not have appeared in Skousen's book without his personal blessing and unless he agreed with them. Skousen was not a reliable historian by any stretch of the imagination; rather, he was a rabid right-winger whose poisonous, cherry-picked propaganda was, in some respects, too nutty for even Ezra Taft Benson to swallow--which is saying something.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2017 12:21PM by steve benson.

It always is a curiosity ( to me, at least) that "conservatives" want to limit personal freedoms - individual choices but give free reign to the business / economic community.

I'll never quite understand that point of view either. It's priorities are so backwards to the teachings of Christ. I may not be a believer, but they claim to be.

In the first place, where does the name "Cleon" come from anyway? ("Hi, Cleon, old pal".)

Can we presume it was a relative's last name?

As for EXHIBIT 11, Cleon took history written by Carrol Quigley, a highly regarded historian and plagiarized it. It goes into the role the Council of Foreign Relations has played into US politics and foreign policy for decades. Take a look at key cabinet members of past administrations and its stacked with CFR members.

If you want to read a legit history book read "Tragedy and Hope", by Carroll Quigley.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_and_Hope

It may red pill your worldview like anti-Mormon literature blows TBM'S minds.

The "red pill" is the Commie-colored Red one that the Skousen lug nuts see under every bed and in every medicine cabinet.

Quigley's book is certainly a unique take on history but in your post you have grossly oversimplified (and, to some extent, misrepresented) Quigley's views. You're, of course, not the first one to have done this to him. Quigley's book is not the smoking gun that the radical conspiracy fringe in Skousenland have feverishly made it out to be. For the record, Quigley regarded Skousen as a "political agitator" and not a legitimate historian. He also debunked much of the "global" conspiracy nonsense that was being touted and spouted by right-wing extremists in Quigley's name

As to your post itself, you make it sound like as if Quigley's "Tragedy and Hope" is all about U.S. politics and the Council of Foreign Relations. That is not the case:

"In reality, Quigley’s book . . . was only very tangentially related to American institutions such as the Council of Foreign Relations. It actually focused on one group of British establishmentarians, the progressive imperialists who set up the British equivalent of the CFR, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (a.k.a., Chatham House), edited The Times of London for most of the first four decades of the 20th Century, and largely controlled the peculiarly influential All Souls College at Oxford."

("Carroll Quigley's Conspiracy Theory: The Milner Group," by Steve Sailer, 25 July 2015, http://www.unz.com/isteve/carroll-quigleys-conspiracy-theory-the-milner-group/)


Moreover, Quigley himself complained about how he had been misrepresented by the far-right--specifically, by nutwad Skousen and his fellow travelers in the John Birch Society:

" . . . [A]n article that coyly claims that Quigley 'knew too much,' . . . falls short of addressing Quigley’s own statements [recorded in an interview with the Washington Post Magazine], or any of the 'crucial pages' in question that the author [Quigley] claims were taken out of context by the 'ultra-right.'

"Unfortunately, instead of focusing the discussion with Quigley on what he actually did find in his historical investigations-- which included original research into the power and influence monopolies of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations, (both organized by the Trustees of the Last Will and Testament of British arch-imperialist and DeBeers Diamond Co. founder, Cecil John Rhodes)--the article avoids these facts and investigates individuals on the so-called 'right,' who Quigley had claimed, misappropriated, misinterpreted and plagiarized his works. In doing so, the writer of the article avoids any real investigation into the historical 'Secret Society' that Professor Quigley has claimed to thoroughly expose in his works and (if you know what to listen for) also at key junctures during this audio interview itself.

"The main targets of the article include Cleon Skousen, then a Professor of Religion at Brigham Young University, who had been a former FBI agent and Police Chief of Salt Lake City and author Gary Allen who Quigley said 'didn’t know up from down.' Skousen was the author of 'The Naked Capitalist' and [John Bircher] Gary Allen wrote a book entitled 'None Dare Call It a Conspiracy.'

"Quigley claimed that Allen had plagiarized whole portions of his own book 'Tragedy and Hope.' When Quigley’s publisher Macmillan told him that they would not be defending his copyright, he decided he wasn’t going to go after Skousen or Allen personally, which would have been at great personal expense. Quigley voiced concern at the 'absurdity' that a picture of him had been featured on the same page as J.P. Morgan, implying Quigley was at the heart of the 'plot' that he was actually exposing. Quigley had vocally admitted his agreement with some of the organization’s aims, but ultimately disagreed with its secrecy.


"Complaints of Distortions and Misappropriations

"Quigley’s frustration . . .seems to stem from the cartoonish way that his thoroughly researched history was being represented, that certain individuals were simply missing the point, and that his original and historical account of the 'Secret Society' upon which he sought to shed light, was being distorted for profit and for political gains. 'None Dare Call It a Conspiracy” had claimed that “Tragedy and Hope” had unearthed the existence of a 'power-mad clique (that) wants to control and rule the world,' put in a generic fashion. Quigley’s assertion was that this was not precisely the case, and that this portrayal was an oversimplification of the actual nuance contained in his research and books. He also voiced serious concern that people were trying to link every single secret society throughout history to the 'Anglo-American establishment' he had spent much of his life researching, even having personal access to its historical archives over a period of several years. He made very clear that the group he was exposing was not the 'Bavarian Illuminati' and that those trying to make the connections between the Council on Foreign Relations and the 18th Century Illuminati were guilty of believing that 'all secret societies are the same secret society,' continuing that “these people say they are all one.' Quigley also discusses his concern that some individuals and groups were 'using' his book to promote monolithic Jewish conspiracy theories, which he likewise found to be absurd.

"For anyone interested to know more about Carroll Quigley’s own complaints against Skousen and his book 'The Naked Capitalist,' I would recommend reading the 'Round Table Review' dialogue between Quigley, Skousen, William Fort, Jr. and Louis Midgley [*Note: Midgley was a political science professor of mine at BYU and quite eccentric], published in the early 1970’s in which many of the alleged distortions, discrepancies, misappropriations, and plagiarized portions are discussed.

"Quigley details the role of the John Birch Society in the distribution and promotion of 'None Dare Call it a Conspiracy.' The John Birch Society was founded by Robert W. Welch, and included Fred C. Koch, founder of Koch Industries (who later resigned) and film and stage director Myron Fagan among its nearly 100,000 members. While following up on Quigley’s accusations, I was able to confirm that both Skousen and Allen had been directly affiliated with the John Birch Society.

"It was not difficult to find some validity in Professor Quigley’s complaints mentioned in the audio file and I found that there were individuals including Myron Fagan, who vocally perpetuated the myth of direct historical continuity between the 18th Century Bavarian Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations. Fagan had been a member of the John Birch Society while circulating some of these un-sourced assertions, even releasing an LP entitled 'Illuminati' which featured the Council on Foreign Relations in cross hairs, and clearly insinuates a direct historical continuity among these groups.

"This does not follow that everyone affiliated with the JBS organization held this position, and it is beyond the scope of relevance for anyone who actually reads Professor Quigley’s works first, instead of relying on second hand interpretations. I would also add that this does not negate the possibility of ideational continuity among some secret groups or societies or the adopting of similar organizational frameworks beneficial to secrecy, planning and training of new recruits. While they certainly played a role in boosting the publicity of 'Tragedy and Hope,' it remains that neither of these two books by Skousen or Allen, or the John Birch Society needs to be discussed if the goal is to objectively investigate the claims that Professor Quigley himself put into print. Whether or not others misappropriated his text, misinterpreted, or misconstrued any portion or all of 'Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time,' it is irrelevant to the historical legacy of Carroll Quigley and an honest assessment of his research and his works.

"The claims of insider knowledge into a very intricate secret society made by Quigley himself deserved to be examined in 1966 and 1975 at the time of this article’s publication. Instead, these facts were obscured by the article, and a convenient straw man was allowed to be built upon the idea that 'right wingers' and 'ultra-conservative' writers had been solely responsible for the negative effects and publicity of Quigley’s highly credible revelations to the general public.

“[Quigley complains]: 'Skousen has simply taken extended passages from my book, in violation of copyright, and put them together in terms of his own assumptions and preconceptions to make a picture very different from my own. Skousen is apparently a political agitator; I am an historian. My book merely tried to give an account on what happened in the world in the early part of the 20th Century.' (Carroll Quigley, 'Quigley’s Response') . . .

"Quigley then states, 'What is said in here' (presumably pointing to the Skousen or Allen books earlier mentioned) 'is that these people were for world domination and the group I am talking about were not,' disclosing how Lord Milner got involved as the Chief Rhodes Trustee after returning from Africa until his death in 1925. 'It’s an Atlantic Bloc,' he states . . . ."

("Professor Carroll Quigley and the Article that Said Too Little: Reclaiming History from Omission and Partisan Straw Men," by Kevin Cole, 15 Auguest 2015, http://www.unityofthepolis.com/professor-carroll-quigley-and-the-article-that-said-too-little)/



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2017 12:55AM by steve benson.

Read the book. I don't need other people's take on a book I've read myself. Follow it up with his book "Anglo-American Establishment".

People commonly dismiss, embellish, or completely manufacture facts to sustain their own frames of reality. Or straight up fight to stay blissfully ignorant.

You are wrong about it supposedly detailing a worldwide plot undertaken by secret societies bent on planetary domination. And you obviously didn't read the linked material carefully--wherein Quigley himself dismisses such notions as nothing but non-historical hijacks conducted by right-wing radicals to promote their own ultra-conservative political agendas. He details the scope and limitations of his own findings--which are at direct odds with the absurd assertions of the Cleon and his Clan of Kooks.

Since you do not appear conversant in what Quigley said about Skousen's use and abuse of Quigley's "Tragedy and Hope," here are the basics:

"In 1969, a 1,300-page book started appearing in faculty mailboxes at Brigham Young, where Skousen was back teaching part-time. The book, written by a Georgetown University historian named Carroll Quigley, was called 'Tragedy and Hope.' Inside each copy, Skousen inserted handwritten notes urging his colleagues to read the book and embrace its truth. 'Tragedy and Hope,' Skousen believed, exposed the details of what would come to be known as the New World Order (NWO). Quigley’s book so moved Skousen that in 1970 he self-published a breathless 144-page review essay called 'The Naked Capitalist.' Nearly 40 years later, it remains a foundational document of America’s NWO conspiracy and survivalist scene (which includes Skousen’s nephew Joel).

"In 'The Naked Communist,' Skousen had argued that the communists wanted power for their own reasons. In 'The Naked Capitalist,' Skousen argued that those reasons were really the reasons of the dynastic rich, who used front groups to do their dirty work and hide their tracks. The purpose of liberal internationalist groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations, argued Skousen, was to push 'U.S. foreign policy toward the establishment of a world-wide collectivist society.' Skousen claimed the Anglo-American banking establishment had a long history of such activity going back to the Bolshevik Revolution. He substantiated this claim by citing the work of a former Czarist army officer named Arsene de Goulevitch. Among Goulevitch’s own sources is Boris Brasol, a pro-Nazi Russian émigré who provided Henry Ford with the first English translation of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

"'The Naked Capitalist' does not seem like a text that would be part of the required reading list on any reputable college campus, but some BYU professors taught it out of allegiance to Skousen. Terrified, the editors of 'Dialogue: The Journal of Mormon Thought,' invited 'Tragedy and Hope' author Carroll Quigley to comment on Skousen’s interpretation of his work. They also asked a highly respected BYU history professor named Louis C. Midgley to review Skousen’s latest pamphlet. Their judgment was not kind.

"In the Autumn/Winter 1971 issue of 'Dialogue,' the two men accused Skousen of 'inventing fantastic ideas and making inferences that go far beyond the bounds of honest commentary.' Skousen not only saw things that weren’t in Quigley’s book, they declared, he also missed what actually was there--namely, a critique of ultra-far-right conspiracists like Willard Cleon Skousen.

“'Skousen’s personal position,' wrote a dismayed Quigley, 'seems to me perilously close to the "exclusive uniformity," which I see in Nazism and in the Radical Right in this country. In fact, his position has echoes of the original Nazi 25-point plan.'"

("Meet the Man Who Changed a Right-wing Crank Whom Even Conservatives Despised. Then Beck Discovered Him," by Alexander Zaitchik, "Salon," 16 February 2009,http://www.salon.com/2009/09/16/beck_skousen/)



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2017 02:39AM by steve benson.

You are creating a straw man. I claimed nothing other than it is an eye opening history that should cause one to think, and Skousen took Quigley's work and ran with it in a direction he desired. Its a side of history rarely spoken about and rarely taught. Both books are very deep, well researched, much more than your copy/paste job.

in order to create a false global conspiracy tale that aligned with crazed Cleon's personal, wacky, John Birch-loving views. That's not a strawmman. That's a fact--and Quigley (along with others) effectively called him out on it.

Only a strawhead would attempt to claim otherwise.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2017 07:13AM by steve benson.

A. "Quigley's Response, [by] Carroll Quigley

"Thank you for the opportunity to read 'The Naked Capitalist and [BYU professor Louis] Midgley's review of it. I think his review is very perceptive, and there is very little I can add to it.

"Midgley is correct in his basic statement that Skousen has simply taken extended passages from my book, in violation of copyright, and put them together in terms of his own assumptions and preconceptions to make a picture very different from my own. Skousen is apparently a political agitator; I am an historian. My book merely tried to give an account of what happened in the world in the early part of the 20th century. I did a good deal of independent research on it, much of it in places which did not attract Skousen's attention at all (such as French economic history, and economic history in general). The book was published five years ago. On the whole, except perhaps for my section on Red China, it has stood the challenge of later information fairly well. The chapter on 'Germany From Kaiser to Hitler' has just been re-published by Houghton Mifflin in a book entitled 'Why Hitler?'

"Midgley has pointed out the chief distortions of my materials in Skousen's book. My picture of 'Financial capitalism' said that it was prevalent in the period 1880-1933. Skousen quotes these dates in several places (p. 14), yet he insists that these organizations are still running everything. I said clearly that they were very powerful, but also said that they could not con- trol the situation completely and were unable to prevent things they dis- liked, such as income and inheritance taxes. Moreover, I thought I had made it clear that the control of bankers was replaced by that of self-financing or government-financed corporations, many of them in the West and South- west, in oil or in aero-space, arid I saw a quite different alignment of American politics since 1950 (pp. 1245-47). Skousen implies that financial capitalism was not only omnipotent but immoral, both of which I denied.

"Most notably, Skousen asks in his foreword: 'Why do some of the richest people in the world support communism and socialism?' He says that I give the answer. I never anywhere said that financial capitalism or any of its subsidiaries sought to 'support communism.' On the contrary, I said two things which Skousen consistently ignores: (1) that bankers sought to influence all shades of American political opinion across the board from Right to Left (p. 945); and (2) that Wall Street support of Communist groups was based on three grounds, one of which was to 'have a final veto on their publicity and possibly on their actions, if they ever went radical' (p. 938). Morgan's pipeline to the Liberals (the Straights) was no more liberal than his pipeline to the Communists (the Lamonts) was communist. Skousen simply assumes that anyone who tries to infiltrate the communists or contributes funds to them must be a sympathizer, but, as he must know, the FBI has been doing this for years, as the CIA has been doing it all across the political spectrum on American campuses in recent years.

"I must say that I was surprised at the picture of myself which I found in Skousen. Midgley is correct in his statement that I never claimed to be an 'insider' of the Eastern Establishment, as Skousen seems to believe I was; I simply said that I knew some of these people, and generally liked them, although I objected to some of their policies. It seems to me that Skousen is unable to understand their point of view, simply because he upholds what I would regard as 'the Radical Right' view that 'exclusive uniformity' is the basis on which our society should be based. My own view is that our whole Western tradition rests, despite frequent aberrations, on what I call 'inclusive diversity.' These are the last two words of my book, and they are its chief message, which seems to me to be one of the chief aspects of the Christian way of life: that diverse peoples with diverse beliefs must live together and work together in a single community. It seems to me that the Wall Street power group sincerely held this belief; that is why they made Harvard and other institutions they influenced so 'liberal.' They felt strongly that communists and the Soviet Union and other diverse peoples were in this world together and had to live and let live in order to co-exist. It seems to me that this is what Skousen cannot accept. His political position seems to me to be perilously close to the 'exclusive uniformity' which I see in Nazism and in the Radical Right in this country. In fact, his posi- tion has echoes of the original Nazi 25 point program.

"Midgley says that Skousen was triggered into writing 'The Naked Capitalist by my critical remarks on the Radical Right. I agree with him. If you will look at my book (pp. 146-47), you will see that the Round Table Group, under the influence of Lionel Curtis, held basically Christian beliefs. These were sincere. But they bungled them greatly in application. Perhaps it was intellectual arrogance to expect to 'build the Kingdom of God here upon this earth,' and they certainly failed disastrously. No one knows this better than I do. But I still cannot condemn them, and I cannot see that the American Radical Right has anything better to offer. I think the Round Table effort failed because they tried to work through government, rather than through each person's individual effort in his private life."

("THE NAKED CAPITALIST," under "Roundtable Review," Participants: William, E. Fort, Jr., Louis C. Midgley, Carroll Quigley, W. Cleon Skousen, in "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought," Vol. VI, Nos. 3 & 4, Autumn-Winter 1971, pp. 109-10, https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/issues/V06N0304.pdf)
_____


(*MORE):

B. The "Daily Kos" quotes portions of Midgley's brutal dismembership of Skousen's ignorant, plagiarized and twisted claims about Quigley's "Tragedy and Hope":

"THE NAKED SKOUSEN

" . . . Skousen received his most emphatic smackdown, perhaps one of the most eloquent, most epic smackdowns of all time, as a result of his book, 'The Naked Capitalist,' published in 1970. This was Skousen's review of a book written by Professor Carroll Quigley, 'Tragedy and Hope.' Quigley was a noted Harvard-educated historian, Ivy League professor and an authority on the development of civilizations. 'Tragedy and Hope' is Quigley's lengthy, textbook-like account of the influence of certain wealthy and powerful individuals on world financial and political systems in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

"Skousen came across a copy of the obscure, academic 'Tragedy and Hope' published several years previously and seized upon it as evidence of a malevolent new world order conspiracy, engineered by a wealthy elite. 'The Naked Capitalist' is Skousen's interpretation of 'Tragedy and Hope,' in which he makes the bizarre claim that Quigley, by virtue of his access to the source material he analyzed in order to write the book, was an insider in this evil circle of global subversives and that he wrote Tragedy and Hope as an announcement that this group of elites was taking over and a one world government structure was imminent. The people of the world had no hope now of avoiding it and if they tried to fight it they would surely suffer tragedy at the hands of these oppressive, all-powerful dictators. Skousen took it upon himself, in the form of 'The Naked Captialist,' to trumpet his incredible find and alert the world. . . .

"Skousen was on the faculty of Brigham Young University and 'The Naked Capitalist' was a part of the curriculum for some professors. The book, and Skousen's associated political agitating in connection therewith, caused so much dissention at the school among both faculty and students that the controversy was addressed in the . . . periodical, 'Dialogue.' The Autumn/Winter 1971 issue of the journal presented a 'Round Table Review' of 'The Naked Capitalist' by several individuals, including Professor Louis C. Midgley of Brigham Young University. The editors also received a review from Professor William E. Fort, Jr., also on the faculty of Brigham Young University. The editors subsequently invited Professor Quigley to respond to both 'The Naked Capitalist' and Midgley's review, provided Skousen with an opportunity for a rebuttal to Midgley and Quigley, and then included a final response by Midgley to Skousen's rebuttal.

"Fort's review is cursory and not much more than a brief, uncritical endorsement of Skousen's work. Midgley's review, however, must truly be one of the most epic, powerful and well-written smack downs ever put to paper. It is an eloquent, wise and comprehensive debunking of 'The Naked Capitalist' as well a scathing rebuke of Skousen's analytical skills. Under the subheading 'The Cult of Conspiracy' Midgley writes . . .:

"'The Naked Capitalist' is intended to expose a massive, top-secret, Capitalist super-conspiracy. Communism and socialism, we are told, are merely some of the fruit of this Gigantic International Monolithic Network of Total Global Power. Skousen now believes that it is the Capitalists who have been secretly "running the world" for many years, forming "a conspiratorial control center higher and stronger than either Moscow or Peiping." 'The Naked Capitalist' is intended to strip bare this 'Global Establishment" which secretly plans, plots, and conspires to rule the world. Now you have perhaps always thought that the hard-working, money-making Capitalists were the Good Guys in Skousen's demonology. Nothing could be further from the truth. He believes that "globalism," "internationalism," "one-worldism," and ruthless centralized dictatorship are what the Capitalist demons have in mind. They only use communism to achieve these goals. . . .

"'Much of what Skousen claims to have found in Quigley's book is simply not there. There are numerous places in 'The Naked Capitalist' in which Skousen (1) asserts something about Quigley but then inadvertently reveals that he completely misunderstands Quigley's remarks; (2) simply invents fantastic ideas and attributes them to Quigley; or (3) makes inferences from Quigley's book that go far beyond the bounds of honest commentary.'

"[Who does (1) (2) and (3) remind us of? Kind of seems to be (Mormon) Glenn Beck's M.O. exactly.]

"Midgley then proceeds to provide and analyze specific examples of each. He then continues:

"'The story Quigley tells is good enough. Why then expand it into a lurid tale of global conspiracy and subversion when it is not even a story of a secret conspiracy at all, but merely a reasonable account of the role of one group within the complex of American and world politics? It is by a strange magic that Quigley's account of the role of certain international bankers and their friends in England and the United States becomes transformed in Skousen's mind into a top-secret, Super-capitalist, Super-conspiracy of a global nature. Quigley makes it clear that banking interests and the groups they support are (1) not secret (only semi-secret like most financial, governmental and university affairs generally), (2) not a subversive or crim- inal conspiracy, (3) not global, only international in the sense that some ties were maintained between bankers and intellectuals in England and the United States), and (4) not really monstrous, sinister, or demonic (but more nearly meddling, naive, idealistic and vain — all rather typical faults of both intellectuals and the wealthy). . . .

"'But the Quigley that Skousen has invented (or rather appropriated from the John Birch Society) is not the real Quigley at all. Skousen's picture of Quigley as an elite member of a criminal conspiracy who is now willing to tell the inside story is unprincipled fabrication and a clear piece of deceit. Unless Skousen had planted in the reader's mind his fantasy about Quigley writing a book "to expose world-wide conspiracy and disclose many of its most secret operations" (p. 4), it would never occur to a reader of Tragedy and Hope that Quigley was anything but the author of a textbook on recent world history in which some account is offered of the political activities of financial capitalism."

"['Unless Skousen had planted in the reader's mind his fantasy' . . . Something Beck is very skilled at doing as well.]

"And then from Midgley an admonition:

"'Has Cleon Skousen simply invented the utterly false, paranoid view of politics and history advanced in "The Naked Capitalist"? Carroll Quigley informs me that for over two years the John Birch Society and other radicals have been busy distorting the contents of his "Tragedy and Hope" in order to support their own paranoid fantasy about a super-conspiracy behind the multitude of evils in the world today. Skousen has bought without question the dogma of the Birchers and other radicals. He is now busy using his rhetorical powers to charm and flatter Church members into accepting the dogmas of his conspiracy cult. He has made an accommodation between the gospel of Jesus Christ and, of all things, a vain and wholly absurd worldly ideology. The immediate result of Skousen's activity is a kind of radical cult within the Church. He and his friends make every effort to teach their radical political dogmas as if they were truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . .

"'The Lord has warned the Saints to avoid secret combinations (see Ether 8:19, 22-6); we are not told to start our own secret combination to counter the evils we see or think we see in the world. We are not to follow the pattern set by this world; our politics should be of an entirely different kind; our Kingdom is not of this world. We are not commissioned to win this world for the Lord by joining some seedy and unseemly political mass movement like that offered by the New Left or the Radical Right. No conspiracy, not even a Skousen-type Super-Conspiracy, can possibly frustrate the Kingdom of God; the Saints need not fear the corruption of this world if they keep their eyes and hearts on the Master. Brigham Young gave us some good advice as to how we as partakers in the Lord's priesthood should deal with political questions: "Let no Religious test be required or the Holy influence and Power of the Priesthood be brought to bear in any Political question. If the inherent merits of all such matters will not furnish argument sufficient for all necessary purposes, then let them go; for it is better that the whole Political fabric, corrupt as we know it to be, should totter and go to destruction, than for our Saints to be offended." Brigham Young warned us not to permit the trivial matter of this world's politics to influence us in the least and added: "and never, no never! no never!! again drag Priesthood into Political gentile warfare." (Letter, July 20, 1849.) In spite of such prophetic warning the conspiracy cult thrives.'

"Midgley definitely has Skousen's number, and Beck's too, for that matter. Sowing dissention, conflating politics with God's will, turning citizen against citizen. Cleary Beck does not feel the need to follow the advice of Brigham Young regarding dragging purported religious authority into political battles.

"Quigley's review of 'The Naked Capitalist' is next, in which he fully endorses Midgley's analysis. He also accuses Skousen of mischaracterizing him. . . .

"One can only imagine Skousen's mortification as he read Midgley's review and Quigley's associated comments. He attempted a response, which is peevish and thoroughly unpersuasive. He seems determined to put words in Quigley's mouth and twist and distort 'Tragedy and Hope' into something it simply is not. Connecting the dots where none exist--just like Beck.

"The final word goes to Midgley:

"' . . . Quigley tells us that the title of his book points to the tragedy of war and the hope that mankind will turn from hatred to Christian love and thereby learn to live with others with whom we differ (see pp. 131Off.). Unless we begin to manifest love, he maintains, we will destroy ourselves in senseless war. This is what he means by the phrase "inclusive diversity." Therefore he can say "that diverse peoples with diverse beliefs must live together in a single community." Skousen has pounced on the harmless word "must," inferring from it that Quigley wants "compulsion, the loss of Constitutional freedoms and deceptive police state tactics," collectivism, globalism, and "one-world amalgamation of the United States and the Soviet Union." All these terrible things are inferred from the harmless little word Quigley used to express his belief in the necessity of loving our neighbors. . . .

"'I know the truth of the prophetic warnings against various kinds of radical political activities, including communism and birchism. But there has never been one word from our prophets warning us of Skousen's myth of a bankers' conspiracy. Instead, the prophets tell us that we have nothing to fear from the wicked in this world if we hold fast to the iron rod of the gospel. But that involves not following Skousen-type programs, which fight the worldly wicked with their own tool--hate--rather than return love for the evil that abounds in this world. Obviously, I have placed myself in opposition to such "living prophets" as Robert Welch and many other such pariahs, but that is another matter. Perhaps Skousen accepts such men as "living prophets"; in any case he has certainly attempted to affect an accommodation between their strange message and the gospel of Jesus Christ.'

" . . . 'This is a mean game. Wherever Skousen and his disciples are able to spread their cult we see hostile camps, disunity in the Church and loss of conviction in the gospel of Jesus Christ.'

"Skousen has pounced on the harmless word 'must,' inferring from it that Quigley wants 'compulsion, the loss of Constitutional freedoms and deceptive police state tactics,' collectivism, globalism, and 'one-world amalgamation of the United States and the Soviet Union.' All these terrible things are inferred from the harmless little word . . .

"The danger of Skousen's theories is that they enable conservatives who seek to eliminate things like civil rights, public schools and the Constitutional protection of equality to dissemble their true motives by purporting to be acting out of patriotic concern regarding Communist (or progressive) subversion. Their ideas can't win on the merits, so they bring out unethical tactics like witch hunting, demagoguery and character assassination, all wrapped the anti-Communist-American-flag."

("He Blinded Me with Skousen," by "The Red Phone Is Ringing," in "Daily Koz," 19 May 2010, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiWquO4jdPTAhWp6YMKHW5_AvsQFgglMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2010%2F5%2F19%2F867891%2F-&usg=AFQjCNGYi1XS2dBXpq2M88LH1vYSfsiRjQ&sig2=r4_w2Aw-UbY5AbN5fRilow)



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2017 02:37AM by steve benson.

My father said Skousen was a genius.

I rest my case.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2017 12:10AM by steve benson.

I took an Old Testament class from Brother Skoussen. I didn't know who he was or anything about his reputation. His class fit the proper time slot.

My final grade was a C-. I thought he was a pompous ass who made the Hebrew Scriptures as boring as hell.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2017 02:25AM by steve benson.

I attempted to present these kind of facts about Loony Cleon to a family member who loves his book"The first 2000 Years".. They didn't go for it. This guy was more nuts then a payday bar though. In the Adam and Eve portion of this book, he makes this statement that the snake reptiles had a pact with Satan, which sounds like the plot of a poorly done fantasy novel or 1980s Fanatsy movie.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2017 07:11AM by steve benson.

I liked Skousen based on what I knew of him. I read two of his books and appreciated his understanding that keeping America free from domination by secretive and subversive influences both from without and within required knowledge and vigilance from its citizens. He was a patriot and a warrior for the constitution and liberty. I am sure he was wrong about some things and I certainly don't agree with his religious views . Much of what he asserted about a secretive consortium of global banking elite working behind the scenes to achieve global dominance is correct.

You know, just like LDS Inc.

Posted by: Eric K
Date: May 02, 2017 10:26AM
Re: "The secret weapon of the communists is Atheism (by Cleon Skousan)"

"Cleon was a Mormon nut case that supported the John Birch Society. Time to let him go."

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1972360,1972559#msg-1972559



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2017 07:26AM by steve benson.

You first. LOL!