Steve Benson will doubtless have more information on this.

Ezra Taft Benson, before becoming President and Prophet, ran for vice-president in the 1968 election as a candidate from the American Independent Party.

There have not been many times that Mormon apostles have run for national office. Reed Smoot ran for the U.S. Senate, with the approval of the Brethren.

Can we not assume that Benson's run had approval from the church? If not, where was he ever disciplined? When Moses Thatcher, a 19th century apostle, fell out of political "harmony" with the brethren, he was dropped from the Twelve and threatened with excommunication.

Double standard?

this 'may' have been an item of interest in 'olden days', but Morland isn't politically diverse today as far as party politics; anyone running (national office) as a democrat isn't going to get a salute.

So much of this is done 'with a wink and a nod' ...
"official permission"? I fail to see that as significant.

...cool his obsession with the John Birch Society. But David O. McKay gave mixed signals about the JBS. Sometimes he seemed sympathetic, sometimes not.

Harry Reid, while not an apostle, could certainly be considered out of "political harmony" with the Brethren...but I have no knowledge of him being "counseled".

Ezra Taft Benson for President

Another faction had forsaken the third party option, taking an even more unorthodox approach to the presidency. The 1976 Committee was formed in 1966, composed mostly of John Birch Society members, its mission being a ten-year campaign to avert the Communist takeover of the United States which they projected would occur by the time of our nation's 200th anniversary. They resolved that their first order of business was to create massive support for a 1968 presidential ticket of Ezra Taft Benson and Senator Strom Thurmond, taking the self-described "unusual course" of seeking to make these men the nominees of both the Republican and Democratic parties.9

As Secretary of Agriculture in the Eisenhower administration, Benson and his family got national media exposure. This positive publicity did much to suggest that Mormonism epitomized Americanism; along with other media exposure of the 1950s, the decade of wholesomeness and conformity, it has paid and will pay dividends for LDS public relations for decades. The dual stigma of sedition and polygamy no longer follow the Mormons as closely as they once did. It is noteworthy that H. L. Hunt, at least in his earlier years, understood the Latter-day Saint religion no better than to try to persuade his bigamous wife to move to Utah and become a "Mormon" because "having two or three wives was normal in that religion."

The apostle cautiously gave the group his approval to explore their chances. Bunker Hunt gave the Committee $2,500, and they had apparently already gotten well underway in 1967 when a delegation was sent to Salt Lake City to make the final pitch to Elder Benson.10 According to an article in the January 1986 Ensign, "President Benson offered no encouragement and the campaign was dropped."11

The 1968 Wallace Campaign

The name of Wallace's third party was the American Independent Party, perhaps taking its name from the Independent American of Kent Courtney, an early supporter who was also present for the strategy meeting of January 1967, in which the campaign was planned by two dozen Wallace supporters from around the country.12

One of the campaign's large sources of funding was the Hunt family of Dallas. Rumors spread that H.L. secretly funded the campaign, but his son Bunker was actually the one contributing the money. H.L. seemed reluctant to fund any cause not entirely his own. Bunker, on the other hand, was one of the John Birch Society's largest contributors and also funded the Manion Forum radio series.13

Ezra Taft Benson had refused the 1976 Committee's invitation to run for the White House, but the Mormon patriot was too good a prospect to abandon. Benson was Bunker Hunt's first choice for Wallace's running mate and would probably have been the choice of Wallace and the AIP. Hunt had already shot down the selection of Kentucky Governor Chandler, the AIP's first choice for the vice presidential nomination. Elder Benson and his son Reed went to meet Governor Wallace in Alabama to discuss the possibility, but the option was finally refused after LDS Church President David O. McKay discouraged it. Finally, Curtis LeMay was settled upon as the VP candidate, after Bunker Hunt gave LeMay a $1 million incentive.14


http://bottleofbits.info/hp/hp12.htm

In 1968, my grandfather gave me a copy of the platform of George Wallace’s American Independent Party. I remember that it was adorned with a broad-winged eagle across the top and printed in red, white and blue.

He told me that the principles of Wallace’s party were “closer to those of the Founding Fathers than either the Republicans’ or the Democrats.’

As it turned out, George Wallace himself had made serious attempts to generate Ezra Taft Benson’s interest in joining his third-party presidential ticket as Wallace’s running mate.

This was the same George Wallace who, when running for Alabama’s gubernatorial seat in 1962, defiantly declared, "I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

The same Wallace who, in defiance of a federal court order, infamously stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama, flanked by armed state troopers, in an unsuccessful attempt to block two African-American students from registering for class.

The same Wallace who, faced with another federal court order to integrate his state’s schools, commanded police to prevent their opening but was thwarted when President Kennedy again nationalized the Guard to enforce the decree.

The same Wallace who was governor when state troopers unleashed dogs, tear gas and whips on African-Americans marching from Selma to Montgomery.

(Richard Pearson, “Former Ala. Gov. George C. Wallace Dies,” in "Washington Post," 14 September 1998, sec. A, p. 1)


The same Wallace whose presidential platform my grandfather described as being closest to the hearts and minds of our Elohim-inspired Founding Fathers.

Actually, George Wallace and the 1968 platform of his party was more accurately described as follows:

“The American Independent Party was a ‘white supremacist . . . ultra-conservative’ . . . organization founded in reaction to the 1960's civil rights movement and the Supreme Court's overturning of ‘separate, but equal’ (Plessy v. Ferguson) statute that forced integration.

(see Daniel A. Mazmanian, "Third Parties in Presidential Elections" [New York: Franklin Watts, 1974], p. 130).


Candidate Wallace was described as “a pronounced racist who . . . ran his campaign on a platform of state's rights and increased defense spending and gained a large following of voters in Southern states.

“The political purpose of Wallace's campaign was to force one or both of the major party candidates, Nixon and Humphrey, to a more conservative position on the issue of state's rights. Wallace wanted the federal government to give the states the power to decide whether of not to desegregate.”

(“The Effect of Third Party Candidates in Presidential Elections,” http://www.123student.com/politics/3417.shtml)


Wallace strongly requested that my grandfather join him in that fight—and, in response, my grandfather gave serious consideration to the offer.

After support of efforts by the “1976 Committee” to draft him and Strom Thurmond on a presidential ticket had fizzled, my grandfather began jockeying into position to be offered the spot as Wallace’s vice-presidential mate.

In February 1968, he and my Uncle Reed (Ezra Taft’s oldest son), met behind closed doors at Wallace’s governor’s mansion in Montgomery to examine the possibilities.

After the meeting, Wallace sent a letter to President McKay requesting his “permission and blessings,” coupled with “a leave of absence” for Ezra Taft Benson, so that my grandfather could join Wallace in their bid for the Oval Office.

McKay refused.

Later that year, Wallace approached my grandfather again hoping to convince him to join him on the ticket. Wallace was steered a second time to McKay in his efforts to get my grandfather’s boss to change his mind.

McKay held firm.

(George C. Wallace, letter to David O. McKay, 12 February 1968, and McKay to Wallace, 14 February 1968, cited in D. Michael Quinn, "Extensions of Power," Chapter 3, "Ezra Taft Benson: A Stury of Inter-Auorum Conflict" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, in associaiont with Smith Research Associates, 1997], pp. 99, 102, and "Notes," p. 463n271; and Sheri L. Dew, “Ezra Taft Benson" A Biography,” Chapter 19, "Sounding a Warning" [Salt Lake City, Tuah: Desert Book Company], pp. 398-99)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2011 12:47PM by steve benson.

...Smith had been President? I don't recall him making political pronouncements.

Looks like the FP has a firm grip on the Twelve....so far.

Thank you for the great, detailed post.

"white supremacist . . . ultra-conservative’ . . . organization" kind of describes the church at the time.

I don't doubt what Steve says, but (as I said before)
We're now in a different era.

that said, we also know that ChurchCo is Stuck in times of behind-the-scenes manuvering & influence peddling.

Welcome to the 21st Century, ChurchCo.

But Mitt in the spotlight is testing the efficacy of their strategy. "I'm a Mormon" is a huge experiment.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2011 12:52PM by steve benson.