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Prophet David O. McKay (1873 - 1970):


“Well, the era through which we are passing is no exception.  On the flyleaf of the book, The Naked Communist, by W. Cleon Skousen, we find this quotation, (and I admonish everybody to read that excellent book of Chief Skousen’s) : ‘the conflict between communism and freedom is the problem of our time.  It overshadows all other problems.  This conflict mirrors our age, its toils, its tensions, its troubles, and its tasks.  On the outcome of this conflict depends the future of mankind.”

-    Prophet David O. McKay, Conference Report, Oct. 1959, p. 5

“Communism destroys man’s God-given free agency... Latter-day Saints cannot be true to their faith and lend aid, encouragement, or sympathy to any of these false philosophies. They will prove snares to their feet.”

-    Prophet David O. McKay, see R. Clayton Brough, His Servants Speak, 1975, p. 77


Prophet Ezra Taft Benson (1899 - 1994):


“We believe in a moral code.  Communism denies innate right or wrong.  As W. Cleon Skousen has said in his timely book, The Naked Communist: The communist ‘has convinced himself that nothing is evil which answers the call of expediency.’  This is a most damnable doctrine.  People who truly accept such a philosophy have neither conscience nor honor.  Force, trickery, lies, broken promises are wholly justified.”

-    Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, April 1960, p. 9

“No true Latter-day Saint and no true American can be a socialist or a communist.”

-    Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, as quoted in The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, by D. Michael Quinn

“The so-called civil rights movement as it exists today is used as a Communist program for revolution in America.”

-    Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, Civil Rights: Tool of Communist Deception, 1968, p. 3

“There are some who apparently feel that the fight for freedom is separate from the Gospel. They express it in several ways, but it generally boils down to this: Just live the gospel; there’s no need to get involved in trying to save freedom and the Constitution or stop communism.... Should we counsel the people, ‘Just live your religion – there’s no need to get involved in the fight for freedom?’ No we should not, because our stand for freedom is a most basic part of our religion.”

-    Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, General Conference talk, October 1966


Others:


“Church attempts to influence Deseret News readers have sometimes backfired. During the 1936 presidential campaign, Church President Heber J. Grant (who detested the Democrats’ New Deal policies) had another member of the Church’s First Presidency write an unsigned editorial accusing Franklin D. Roosevelt of ‘knowingly promoting unconstitutional laws and... advocating communism,’ among other things. The editorial outraged Mormon voters. Many saw the conservative hand of the Church presidency in the editorial; over seventy percent of the letters sent to the First Presidency office soon after its publication condemned the editorial. One historian noted that over 1,200 Latter-day Saints canceled their subscriptions to the Deseret News because of the editorial. It had clearly caused a backlash, and a few days after its publication, 69.3 percent of Utah’s votes went for Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (see D. Michael Quinn, J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years, p. 75).”

-    John Heinerman and Anson Shule, The Mormon Corporate Empire, p. 38

“A [Mormon] temple [in East Germany] would ... be an ensign to the people that the government is not as repressive as the press indicates. I’m sure the government hopes that this will make members of the Church more satisfied to stay in the GDR [German Democratic Republic]. The Church is no threat to the government, and they know it’s no threat.”

-    Susan Oman, “East German Communists Welcome Mormon Temple,” Sunstone Review, November 1982, p. 28

“The head of the [LDS] church, its president Mr. McKay, kept on asking during our visit, ‘Isn’t it at all possible to buy in the Soviet Union, at least five acres of land and begin preaching there our Mormonism?’ Naturally we answered Mr. McKay that the land in the Soviet Union belongs to the people and is not for sale.”

-    Alexv Adjoubey, The Silver Cat, or Travels in America, 1956, Frank Moss Papers, Box 245, Folder 22, Western Americana Section, Marriott Library, University of Utah