From: gclapp@javelin.sim.es.com (Glenn Clapp)
Subject: SLCM1192-3/5
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Corp.
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 23:51:01 GMT


SERIOUS IMPLICATIONS

        The suppressive actions of the top leaders of the Mormon
Church have done more damage to the church than the "enemies of
the church" could have done in many years. It is going to be very
difficult to sweep this matter under the rug. Their actions will
undoubtedly haunt the church for many years to come.

        As stated earlier, in 1908 Joseph F. Smith, the sixth
prophet of the church, ordered that the McLellin collection be
purchased by the church to keep it "from falling into unfriendly
hands." If President Smith had made the collection available to
researchers instead of suppressing it, its contents would have
been known by researchers and Mark Hofmann never could have
claimed to have the collection because scholars would have known
that it was in the church archives. Consequently, Steven
Christensen would not have become involved in trying to obtain
the collection from Hofmann and Christensen and Kathleen Sheets
would probably be alive today.

        In trying to keep Hofmann's purported McLellin collection
from falling into unfriendly hands, Hugh Pinnock followed in the
footsteps of President Smith and opened the way for the tragedy
when he arranged a loan of $185,000 for Hofmann to purchase the
imaginary collection.

        As if this is not bad enough, when church leaders
discovered the real collection, they were so embarrassed that
they kept it hidden from investigators. This conspiracy of
silence forced investigators to spend untold hours trying to pin
down the truth about the collection. If the church had been
forthright about the matter, investigators could have spent this
time in pursuing more profitable areas. The church's silence
concerning this matter definitely hurt prosecutors and left them
with a weaker hand in their dealings with Hofmann's lawyers.

        While it is true that the General Authorities of the
Mormon Church have preached openness, honesty and trust in God
from the pulpit, when it came right down to it some of the very
highest leaders of the church were unable to live up to the lofty
teachings they have set forth. They apparently did not believe
that the God they serve was able to handle the embarrassing
situation the church found itself in. Therefore, they proceeded
to protect the church with their own strategy. In their attempt
to save the church, they gave an advantage to a man whom they
knew was a desperate criminal who was charged with murder. Their
behavior with regard to this matter did not match up with their
twelfth Article of Faith: "We believe in being subject to kings,
presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and
sustaining the law."

        While it is true that they did not receive a subpoena for
the McLellin collection, it was only because they kept its
existence well hidden from the prosecution. Now that this
information has come to light, the actions of these leaders speak
louder than their words. The message seems to be that the
church's image is more important than the truth, even to the
point of withholding key evidence in a murder investigation! We
feel that this is a terrible example to set before the youth of
the church.

WHAT'S IN THE VAULT ?

        While Richard Turley stresses the cooperation by church
officials during the investigation, the evidence seems to provide
a different story. Robert Lindsey relates the following:

                "...Salt Lake City detective Jim Bell spoke at a
        meeting that had been called to review what detectives
        knew... He said he suspected the church was concealing
        information about Hofmann and the murders.

                "'They're hiding something; the church is doing
        everything it can to make this as difficult as possible.
        I've never seen anything like this in a homicide
        investigation.'" (_A Gathering of Saints_, page 236)

        Lindsey went on to say that "many of the investigators"
felt "that they were being stonewalled by leaders of the church."
(Ibid.) On pages 268-269 of the same book, we find this
information:

                "The salamander letter and several other
        documents Hofmann had sold to the church were still in
        Washington at the FBI laboratory. When Ted Cannon [Salt
        Lake County Attorney] pressed the church to let his
        investigators look at the originals of those that were
        still in Salt Lake City, a lawyer for the church said
        that would be impossible, because some of the documents
        were extremely confidential and the church did not want
        to risk having them made public.

                "Cannon said that if the church declined to
        provide the documents voluntarily, he would subpoena
        them--and indeed, he subsequently did so. But, to head
        off a court fight over the subpoena, Cannon surrendered
        to a demand by the church's lawyers to keep the substance
        of the documents a secret. "'The content and meaning and
        interpretations to be placed upon what is iterated within
        the documents,' Cannon wrote to Wilford Kirton, the
        church's lawyer, 'is either immaterial or of secondary
        concern as far as this investigation is concerned....
        every reasonable measure will be employed to secure not
        only the documents themselves, but the contents thereof,
        from scrutiny or discussion by anyone outside the
        authorized investigative team....' "

                "Cannon agreed to let church officials maintain a
        sign-in/sign-out log identifying everyone who examined
        the documents and agreed with the church's demands that
        members of his staff would have to turn over to the
        church all notes, photocopies, photographs and negatives
        made during examination of the documents. Cannon ended
        his letter with an expression of thanks for the church's
        cooperation, a clause that brought snickers from many of
        those in the War Room [i.e., the room where investigators
        met to discuss strategy in the Hofmann investigation]."

        Richard Turley acknowledges that there were some problems
regarding documents the prosecution wanted and goes so far as to
say that at one point Church leaders were preparing to resist a
subpoena:

                "The next morning, [Apostle] Dallin Oaks
        telephoned Rowe... Rowe described the burden the request
        imposed on the Historical Department and the risks it
        posed to the 261 books and manuscripts involved. Oaks, in
        turn, wrote to Thomas Monson of the First Presidency
        about the request. 'It would be a very large burden and
        risk for the Church to produce 261 books and manuscripts,
        or to copy them,' Oaks observed. He also doubted the
        investigators really needed all they were seeking. He
        recommended that the church go to court to resist the
        subpoena, even though 'our differences with the County
        Attorney would then become public.' After drafting the
        letter, Oaks received a telephone call from his fellow
        Historical Department adviser, [Apostle] Boyd Packer...
        Hinckley and Packer both backed Oak's recommendation."
        (_Victims_, page 248)

        As it turned out, the Mormon Church did not go to court
to resist any of the subpoenas, but it did impose very unusual
restrictions on the use of its documents. This quibbling with
investigators over access to documents undoubtedly cost
prosecutors a good deal of time that could have been spent on
more important matters.

        Michael P. George, of the county attorney's office, felt
that President Hinckley was not telling the truth about his
dealings with Hofmann. On page 224 of his book, Richard Turley
provided this information:

                "In response to other questions, Hinckley said he
        knew of no dealings between Hofmann and general
        authorities of the church beyond those already mentioned.
        Mike George later explained that 'what we were talking
        about at that time was other dealings involving Hofmann
        in regards to documents being sold to members of the
        First Presidency.' When Hinckley said he knew of no
        others, George did not believe him.

                "Hinckley answered based on his recollections,
        supplemented by information provided him by Francis
        Gibbons and Glenn Rowe. Two pieces of information had
        eluded church officials, however, in their attempts to
        reconstruct Hofmann's dealings with the church. They
        recalled that the Grandin printing contract had been
        purchased by the Historical Department using funds
        provided by the First Presidency. Later research would
        convince them, however, that the transaction itself was
        closed in Hinckley's office.

                "The other elusive item was the Bullock-Young
        letter. Hofmann had given it free to Hinckley for the
        church... In the more than four years that had elapsed
        since the gift, Hinckley had forgotten about it... Later,
        Gibbons would rediscover the Bullock-Young letter and
        bring it to Hinckley's attention, but on December 9,
        1985, when George and Famsworth interviewed him, the
        document had been forgotten."

        The Bullock letter was a very controversial Hofmann
forgery which church leaders assumed was authentic and suppressed
in the First Presidency's vault. Mark Hofmann had previously sold
the Mormon Church a document he had forged in which Joseph Smith
blessed his son, Joseph Smith III. According to former Church
Archivist Donald Schmidt Hofmann received material from the
archives which was valued "in the neighborhood of $20,000" for
the blessing document. This blessing indicated that Joseph Smith
III was the prophet's true successor, not Brigham Young.

        In the letter to President Brigham Young, Thomas Bullock
indicated that he would not turn over the blessing because he
feared Young would destroy it. Bullock told Young that he did not
have "licence to destroy every remnant of the blessing which he
received from his Father... I will not, nay I can not, surrender
that blessing, knowing what its certain fate will be if
returned..." (_Victims_, page 61)

        This letter tended to put Brigham Young in a very bad
light, and therefore Mormon leaders felt it must be suppressed.
Turley relates that Mark Hofmann brought the Bullock-Young letter
directly to President Gordon B. Hinckley:

                "After Hinckley read the document, Hofmann said
        he was a believing, active Latter-day Saint, that he
        wanted to give the original document to Hinckley, and
        that he did not want to blackmail the church.... Hinckley
        asked, 'Are you telling me that you wish to give this
        document to the Church without cost?'

                "Yes, Hofmann answered. He also told Hinckley he
        had not kept a copy of the document for himself....
        Hinckley discussed the matter with his fellow counselors
        in the First Presidency, N. Eldon Tanner and Marion
        Romney.... The men decided to file the document in the
        First Presidency's vault." (_Victims_, page 62)

        President Hinckley was obviously fooled by Mark Hofmann's
clever attempt to make him believe he was a faithful Mormon.
Since Hofmann told him that he had not even retained a copy of
the letter for himself, Hinckley apparently thought that he could
hide it in the First Presidency's vault and that it would never
be brought to light.

        It seems unlikely that Hinckley would have forgotten such
an important transaction with Hofmann. In any case Richard Turley
gives this information about the matter on pages 232-233 of his
book:

                "Also on January 8, Francis Gibbons transferred
        to Dean Larsen the original and a typescript of the
        Bullock-Young letter, which Gibbons had rediscovered....
        It was overlooked until Gibbons happened across it.

                "The rediscovery of the letter put church
        officials in an awkward position. Because the letter had
        been forgotten, it had not been mentioned in the church's
        news conference or in previous interviews with
        investigators. Undoubtedly, its discovery would subject
        church officials to ridicule. Despite the likelihood of
        criticism, however, Hinckley directed Gibbons to turn the
        letter over to investigators. In his memorandum to
        Larsen, Francis Gibbons wrote, 'The brethren understand
        you will make this letter available to the Salt Lake
        County Attorney under a subpoena which has been served on
        the Church to produce all documents in its possession
        received from Mark W. Hofmann...'"

        Michael George, of the county attorney's office, was
rather upset when he learned of the existence to the Thomas
Bullock letter. In _A Gathering of Saints_, page 274, Robert
Lindsey reports what happened when the "rediscovery" of the
letter became known:

                "After being issued a subpoena, the church had
        released to Throckmorton and Flynn what it said were all
        of the documents it had acquired from Hofmann since 1980,
        including some that it had previously kept secret.

                "When the First Presidency's Vault yielded the
        letter presented to Gordon Hinckley by Hofmann in which
        Thomas Bullock accused Brigham Young of having tried to
        destroy the Blessing of Joseph Smith III, it caught the
        War Room by surprise.

                "'What else are they hiding?' Michael George
        demanded. 'None of the church historians I've talked
        to--Don Schmidt, Leonard Arrington, Dean Jessee -- even
        knew this existed. They've never heard of it. What else
        do they have? Who knows what's in the First Presidency's
        Vault?'"

        Now that we know that the McLellin collection was also
hidden in the First Presidency's vault, Michael George's question
concerning what else is in the vault seems almost prophetic.

        Mormon leaders were not only uncooperative with
investigators when it came to providing historical documents, but
they were secretive regarding other matters as well. The book,
_Mormon Murders_, claimed that a detective by the name of John
Foster wanted to get a copy of a page from "the Church
Administration Building log" which showed Hofmann had come to
the church offices on a certain day. According to Naifeh and
Smith, when Foster "went to pick up the photocopy, every entry
except the one relating to Hofmann had been whited out... giving
police no way to determine if relevant entries had been whited
out along with irrelevant ones." (page 302)

        Richard Turley, on the other hand, maintained that "the
log photocopy attached to Foster's police report has no
whited-out entries. Investigative Information Memo #840..."
(_Victims_, page 439, footnote 1) After making this point,
however, Turley turns right around and says that "there was one
Administrative Building log page on which extraneous entries were
whited out before being given to police. It was a page for
October 15, 1985, that was furnished to investigators who asked
when Hofmann met with [Apostle] Dallin Oaks on that day. The
unmasked entry answered their question, and they did not ask to
see the other entries, which had been whited out because they
were irrelevant to the question and because church officials felt
ethically bound to protect church visitors' privacy unless
required by investigators to do otherwise." (Ibid., pages 439-40)

        That the Mormon Church would find it necessary to hide
such information from the police is certainly strange. We would
expect that type of reaction from the CIA or the FBI but to have
a church which proclaims that it operates "in full light" with
"no secrecy about its doctrine, aim, or purpose" behave in such a
manner makes one rather curious as to what is really going on. It
also seems strange that there was no attempt to force the church
leaders to produce the original log. While there may not have
been anything else of importance in the log, the fact that most
of the material was deleted would make one wonder if Hofmann met
with Apostle Oaks more than once on the day of the two murders or
if other important figures involved with Hofmann or the McLellin
transaction were in Oaks' office that day. The entire log book
should have been subpoenaed and thoroughly examined for all
meetings between church leaders and Hofmann as well as others who
were in any way associated with Hofmann's document deals. We
seriously doubt that other people in Salt Lake City would have
received the preferential treatment which the LDS leaders
received in the Hofmann investigation.

        At any rate, on page 247 of his book, Richard Turley
admits that this was not the only time that the church
"removed or masked information" provided to investigators:

                "When Mike George delivered one [subpoena] the
        next day, the county's request had expanded to 'any
        records, check out slips, logs, cards, or other
        documentation of visits to the LDS Church Historical
        Archives and the documents, books, catalogs, letters
        information, etc' that Hofmann and five others had used
        since 1975....

                "The next day, February 20, a county investigator
        delivered a subpoena to the church's Missionary
        Department asking for missionary records pertaining to
        Hofmann and one of his associates.... library circulation
        records and missionary records dealt with living
        individuals and thus raised issues of privacy that were
        hot topics among legal scholars, librarians, and
        archivists across the United Slates. Church officials
        felt a responsibility to comply with the subpoenas while
        at the same time fulfilling their legal and ethical
        responsibility to safeguard the privacy of living
        individuals. Thus in responding to requests for
        information officials sometimes removed or masked
        information not specifically required by the
        investigators. When Kirton received the missionary
        records, he reviewed them and eliminated portions not
        required by the subpoena.... On February 27, Kirton sent
        the screened materials on to the county."

        Although the title of Richard Turley's book begins with
the word _Victims_, it is basically the story of only one victim,
the Mormon Church. The story of the real victims of the tragedy
seems to be glossed over. While we have to agree that the church
was a victim of Mark Hofmann's devious plans, we feel that
Richard Turley, Apostle Dallin Oaks and other church officials
have painted a role of martyrdom which does not fit with the
facts.

        When a person carefully examines the evidence, it becomes
evident that church leaders shot themselves in the foot. The
Mormon church hierarchy must accept a great deal of blame for the
tone of the books and articles which have tended to embarrass the
church. The fact that church leaders alienated a significant
number of the investigators who worked on the Hofmann case with
their secrecy and lack of cooperation seems to have made a very
negative impression on the authors who interviewed them.

        It seems that the Mormon leaders and the investigators
were on a collision course from the day of the bombings. Church
officials felt that in order to prevent embarrassment to the
church they had to remain as quiet as possible about the McLellin
collection Hofmann had dreamed up and the role Hofmann,
Christensen and Sorenson were playing in its suppression. The
investigators, on the other hand, needed thus very information to
solve the murder case. Although the Mormon leaders' main concern
seems to have been to protect the church and themselves from
embarrassment, they ended up obstructing the investigation,
wasting the valuable time of investigators and, consequently,
delaying the arrest of the murderer.
-- 
=============================================================================
= Glenn Clapp                          |  gclapp@thunder.sim.es.com         =
= Evans and Sutherland Computer Corp.  |  My opinions are my own, but then  =
= Salt Lake City, Utah  (801) 582-5847 |  that's my opinion.                =