Item Detail
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9300
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2
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4
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English
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Ernest L. Wilkinson and the 1966 BYU Spy Ring : A Response to D. Michael Quinn
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Dialogue : A Journal of Mormon Thought
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Spring 1995
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28
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163-72
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"The summer 1993 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought featured D. Michael Quinn's near-definitive discussion of Ezra Taft Benson's political activities during the 1960s and 1970s. Despite Quinn's thorough documentation, in the section entitled 'The 1966 BYU "Spy Ring"' he claimed that Benson master-minded this episode of covert surveillance, labeling it 'the best-known manifestation of Ezra Taft Benson's six-year-old encouragement of "espionage" at Brigham Young University.' Aside from an anonymous informant, no contemporary, first-hand account supports Quinn's assertion. Instead, the documents clearly show that the student ringleader exaggerated his ties to Benson and that BYU president Ernest L. Wilkinson, not Ezra Taft Benson, instigated the spying." [Author]