From: press2@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (barry.o.olson)
Subject: McLellin Collection Suppressed PT 7 of 10
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 03:47:26 GMT
Keywords: Tanner Nov. Newsletter/Hoffman bombings/suppresion



This is the seventh article broken down into 10 parts from Gerald
and Sandra Tanner's November "Salt Lake City Messanger" newsletter.
For those who need this info and couldn't obtain by hard-copy.
This is an FYI only production. Critique as you like.



SALT LAKE CITY MESSENGER          (Issue #83 - November 1992)
Utah Lighthouse Ministry
Po Box 1884,
Salt Lake City, Utah 84110


        Mormon Leaders Suppress "Key" Item in Murder Case
  The True McLellin Documents Found in First Presidency's Vault!



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.
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