"::::::""Forthcoming book

A trio of LDS scholars have been funded by the LDS church to write a book, Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, to be published by the Oxford University Press:

Ronald W. Walker (BYU Professor of History), 
Richard E. Turley Jr. (managing director of the Family and Church History Department of the Church), and Glen M. Leonard (director of the Church's Museum of Church History and Art). 

The three were granted access to documents in the LDS Church archives. According to Turley, a file in the archives confirms that Lee was acting on his own. The file included the notes of a Mormon historian who, at the request of Church leaders, conducted a confidential investigation of the massacre in 1892. Turley said, ""There are very candid statements on the part of participants to a Church official under the agreement of confidentiality.""

While the trio found additional evidence of church leaders' culpability, Turley stated that ""Utahns elsewhere in the territory acted to preserve the lives of other troublesome immigrants . . . Unfortunately, the militia and church leaders of Iron County made different decisions, and their acts demand the strongest condemnation . . . Circumstance may explain their acts; nothing can justify them.""

The new sources the co-authors are using will be made public once their book is published. Turley said although the church is cooperating and is funding the research, the work is ""not a Church commission""; ""The idea to do the book was ours, not theirs."" Publication apparently has been delayed as the co-authors have tried to be as thorough in their research as possible. According to Turley, LDS leaders share the authors' desire to bring all available evidence out in the open. First drafts of the book will be circulated for comment among LDS and non-LDS parties, including historians and descendants of the perpetrators and victims. ""Open, candid evaluation of that tragedy can produce catharsis, a cleansing spiritual renewal and healing,"" Turley said, adding that the authors will ""present the evidence as we find it - honestly, openly and candidly.""

The above is hardly an example of a brief description, and is far greater than the longest has ever been for the Franz books. I have put back a smaller concise, neutral description that should keep all happy. Posted Central 10 July 2005

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