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Welcome to the Church History Library's Men and Women of Faith lecture series. I know many of you have braved the cold and snow, and I applaud your efforts to do so. Tonight, we are streaming this lecture live. So we welcome all of you that are snuggled up home watching this also. Tonight's lecture is titled Serving Church and Country-- President Ezra Taft Benson. Our presenter is Sheri Dew, someone who has inspired me for years. And I've been looking forward to this lecture, as many of you probably are also. We also welcome her assistant, Sonia Larson, who will be helping with her presentation. My name is Deborah Xavier, and I am the marketing communications specialist with the Church History Library. Sherri L. Dew is a native of Ulysses, Kansas, and graduated from Brigham Young University. She served as Second Counselor to the Relief Society General Presidency from 1997 to 2002. Since then, she has served as chief executive officer of Deseret Book Company. She was recently named Vice President of Deseret Management Corporation. Sister Dew is a 30 year veteran of the publishing industry and has authored a number of bestselling books, including my favorites, No Doubt About It, If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard, No One Can Take Your Place, and the informative and inspiring Women and the Priesthood. She also authored the biographies of two presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints-- President Gordon Hinckley and President Ezra Taft Benson, our subject tonight. Welcome, Sherri L. Dew.

Good evening, brothers and sisters and friends. It's a pleasure to be here. I will admit to you, when the invitation came to participate tonight, I was a little hesitant. It has been 27 years since we published the biography of President Benson. I hate even admitting that I'm old enough that I can remember something that happened that long ago, but I was pretty sure that I had forgotten more than I ever knew, and I wondered if I could do him justice. He is difficult to do justice to under the best of circumstances. And so my prayer is this evening that I hope that I have prepared carefully and can share some things for you to consider. But my prayer is that the Spirit will touch your heart and will communicate to you whatever is meaningful for you to latch on to and to learn from the life of this remarkable man. President Ezra Taft Benson's life is remarkable. It's remarkable by any measure. It's hard to do justice to in a biography let alone in one lecture. He had such unique experiences. Really, as I've been re-studying and remembering some of what I've learned-- and I have to say it has been a privilege to do that and to reflect again on the life of this man whom the Lord prepared and eventually anointed as a prophet. It's been inspiring to remember what he went through and to look at the sweep of his life. That's one of the things that is so inspiring to me and I imagine to all of us. When you study the life of a prophet, it's not just the events and the circumstances that you're looking at. What we can see is the hand of the Lord in selecting this man and preparing him throughout the sweep of his life by learning, teaching, experiencing, wrestling, dealing with the various challenges that came. But in the process of that, we see him growing and preparing until the moment came when the Lord anointed him and appointed him as his mouthpiece here on the Earth. Now let me set the stage with just a brief thumbnail. This is just a kind of a quick reminder of some of the key moments in his life. And then I've selected just a handful of very unique circumstances in his life to discuss with a little bit more detail with the hope that it will help us understand this man a little bit better and appreciate who he was and who he is. Ezra Taft Benson was a farm boy from Whitney, Idaho. He was born the 4th of August, 1899. He came with a great heritage in the Church. His great grandfather was Elder Ezra T. Benson, who was called as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles by Brigham Young. So he grew up with that heritage. He served a mission to England in 1921, and before he left for England, about his biggest trip he'd ever made was from the southern part of Idaho to the big Salt Lake City. So to go to England and serve a mission was a very big deal. He came home, and he married the absolute love of his life, Flora Amussen-- beautiful, beautiful Flora Amussen, whom he adored. He was devoted to her, and he was devoted to his family. They developed kind of a mantra in their family that they were aiming to have no empty chairs, meaning no empty chairs in their celestial eternal family. And that was their goal. The young Ezra and Flora would go on to have six children. He graduated from BYU with honors, was voted the man most likely to succeed. Then he and Flora journeyed east to Iowa State, where he received a master's degree in agricultural economics. And again, he graduated with that degree with honors. He then began to pursue an agricultural career. Some of what I-- as the daughter of a farmer, some of what I related to in studying his life was the fact that he was so immersed in agriculture, this farm boy who grew up to become an agricultural specialist and then an expert. He served first in his local county in Idaho. Then he went to Boise. Then he was named the Executive Director of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives in Washington, DC. That proved to be his first taste of kind of government and of dealing with bureaucracy and also his first taste with a little bit of national acclaim in the agricultural environment. While there, he was called to serve as the first President of the newly organized Washington, DC stake. He had also served while in Boise as a stake president for a short period of time. It was while he was in Washington, DC, and he was age 43 went on a trip through Salt Lake City, he was called to meet with President Heber J. Grant, who called him to serve as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. He, alongside President Spencer W. Kimball, was sustained, then, to the Quorum of the Twelve in the October 1943 General Conference. He had countless assignments as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, as all Apostles do, but one was dramatic in the extreme, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But it was his mercy mission, as it were, to postwar Europe in 1946. Then a very unusual thing happened to him, and we'll talk about this a little bit this evening because it's so unique and so interesting, and it's so revealing of his character, his personality, and just his deep integrity. And that is he was named by President Dwight D Eisenhower to serve in his cabinet as Secretary of Agriculture. President Benson became a very staunch and outspoken defender of freedom in all of its forms. And then in 1985, he became President of the Church, where he became known as a great advocate of the Book of Mormon. Now that is a very brief thumbnail, but at least I hope it gives you some context as just a brief reminder about sort of the scope and the sweep of his life. Now I wondered how to approach this lecture. When studying the life of any prophet, there is so much material that we could do a year's worth of lectures on any one of them and their life experiences and learnings and contributions to the Church and to the world. Sometimes when President Benson is mentioned, people talk about him as being a patriot, a patriarch, and a prophet. Sometimes they talk about God, family, country. Sometimes they talk about faith and freedom, and all of those are fair ways to look at his life. But tonight, what I'd like to do instead is to focus on four characteristics that I believe he exemplified. As I studied his life and spent a lot of time with him over a period of several years, these are the characteristics that leaped out to me and that seemed to be a true descriptor of who he was. So number one, Ezra Taft Benson was absolutely a man of deep faith. He had a fundamental faith developed over the years, but I think he came with some faith, probably started with some faith, and he just believed that the Lord was in charge and that He would open up the way. There are countless evidences of this, but there is none to me that's more fascinating than what happened to him in 1946. In the very end of-- in December of 1945-- in fact, on the 22nd of December 1945, President George Albert Smith convened a special meeting of the First Presidency and the Quorum the Twelve. Now the war had just ended. The war ended in September of that year 1945. And President Smith said that after much prayer and contemplation that he had determined that they needed to call a member of the Twelve to go to Europe and to spend some time there-- in fact, to go for an unspecified length of time and to try to reestablish contact with the European Saints who had been so devastated and scattered throughout the War. And many of them had lost contact with Church headquarters for years, in some cases. And he said, we need a member of the Twelve to go and to take as long as it takes to find the members, find out how they are, and to facilitate the distribution of much needed welfare supplies. As President George Albert Smith was making this announcement, Elder Harold B. Lee said, I immediately thought, "well they won't send Ezra Taft Benson because he has the largest, youngest family still at home." And about the minute he was thinking of that, President Smith said, we've determined to call Elder Ezra Taft Benson to go to Europe, surprised Elder Benson along with everyone else. He immediately set in motion to try to figure out what to do, how to get necessary clearances, and how to move forward. Excuse me. And then in January of 1946, he headed for Europe. They set him apart as the President of the European mission, and President Smith basically said to stay there until the job was done. So off he went. What he found there defied description. Europe was devastated. There were no phones, not much food, no roads, no gas, very few cars, and certainly no cars for civilians. I want to show you just a couple of minutes from a video that's on lds.org from a documentary about President Benson that just gives you a little flavor of what he found in Europe.

"January 29, 1946-- I am leaving today for London for the purpose of reopening missionary work in the war-torn countries of Europe. This is a challenging opportunity for which I am deeply grateful." During the next 11 months, he traveled over 61,000 often hazardous miles in everything from unheated aircraft to military jeeps. He searched out and met with the starving Saints of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the rest of occupied Europe. "February 13-- drove through once beautiful Berlin. The wreckage cannot possibly be understood unless seen. Later, I faced in a half wrecked auditorium 480 cold, half-starved, but faithful Latter Day Saints. It was an inspiration to see the light of their faith." Elder Benson oversaw the distribution of 92 boxcars of food, clothing, and bedding to thousands of war-weary Saints. He authorized the printing of 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price in German. He organized branches, purchased properties, and rejuvenated missionary work. When he left 11 months later, the Saints throughout Europe had a renewed spirit of hope. But challenging missions of service were only beginning for this dedicated disciple of Christ.

In most places, he was the very first civilian to travel throughout the occupied areas of Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria, and other countries. In Paris, for example, when he was first there he tried to get access to the occupied areas of Germany, and a US Colonel who was in charge said, "Mr. Benson, are you crazy? Don't you realize there's been a war here? No civilian travelers are permitted to enter these areas. It wouldn't be safe for you. It's not even possible. All travel is absolutely restricted to the military." Fred Babbel, who was a secretary who traveled with him and really helped him along throughout this entire mission, said that Elder Benson just stood there and quietly continued to ask if he might possibly have permission to travel if he arranged for his own car. And the Colonel said, "that's not possible. You'll never get your own car." And Elder Benson said, "well, if I could find a car, would you be willing to give me permission to go into these areas?" And finally the Colonel saying, "this will never happen," agreed to give him permission if in some unlikely circumstance he could find a car. Well, he found a car, found a way to find a car. Repeatedly, he was told, "you can't find a car," and then he found a car. "There are no seats on this plane," and then he got seats on the plane. Military officers told him he couldn't proceed, and then he would talk to them, and they would proceed. It's interesting to look at that entire 11 month experience because just getting from place to place required faith. It required the ability to receive revelation, and it also required a fundamental know-how of how the government works or how bureaucracy works. And interestingly, he had just spent a few years in Washington, DC learning that, learning how to do it. And so he had a way about him that he could combine his spiritual instincts and his spiritual gifts, really, with some good old fashioned know-how about how to deal with everyone who said "no, no, no, you can't go here, you can't go there." As he crossed the German border for the first time, what he saw absolutely sickened him. I mean, there were blackened, twisted ruins everywhere he went. He talks in his journal-- and his journal is very descriptive about this 11 month period-- he talks about the city of Karlsruhe being reduced to ruins. He describes that as he climbed over heaps of twisted steel and tried to make his way through barricaded roads that he could hear the faint sounds of "Come, Come, Ye Saints." He had tried to get word to the Saints there that he would be coming. He didn't know if they had gotten the word, but they did. And so he could hear them singing, and he says he found 300 Saints waiting for him dressed mostly in tattered clothing, some emaciated, some in the advanced stages of starvation, all of them freezing, shivering from the cold. He wrote in his journal, "as we walked into the meeting, every eye turned to us. I shall never forget the look on their faces as they beheld, for the first time in seven years, a representative of the General Authorities. It was not me but the fact that a representative from headquarters had arrived." end quote. He taught them. He encouraged them. He handed out supplies. He gave hundreds of priesthood blessings. Keep in mind that many of these were women and children because the men had been off to war. And so he blessed many, many women and their children. Everywhere he found Saints who were suffering. He wrote sister Benson on one occasion about a group of members that he had seen combing the ditch banks for food. This is what he wrote in his letter to her: "Some take ordinary grass and weeds and cut it up to mix with a little chicken feed and water, which is their meal. I noticed between Church meetings some would take out of their pocket a little cup, partly filled with chicken feed or cereal and water, which they would eat cold. I didn't intend to write all this sad picture. I have tried to spare you at home most of the heartrending scenes in Europe today. But somehow, I just couldn't hold it in this morning. It's too terrible to contemplate." In Frankfurt, he made his way to Frankfurt, and there, he needed permission to go deeper into the occupied areas. And he needed it from a four star general by the name of Josef Magnanni. He was the general in charge of American forces in Europe. He went in, presented himself in the office, and the aide told him it would take days to even get an interview with General Magnanni. So Elder Benson said to those traveling with him, "let's go out to the car." And they went out to the car and he said, "OK, let's pray about this. Let's pray about what to do because we've got to have permission to proceed." And as they'd finished praying, he said to his associates, I think we should go right back to that office. And his associates wrote later about the fact that they weren't all that eager to go in and be kicked out of this office again. "He said, no, let's go back." Well, when they got in there, there was a different aide. And for some reason, this aide assured him right in and said, you can talk with the general right now. So Elder Benson and the men travelling with him went in and started talking to this general who was completely annoyed by this absolutely ridiculous American asking for permission to go into the occupied areas. And at first, he was just about ready to usher him out of his office. But those with Elder Benson said that he just kept talking to him in a very dignified but kind and kind of gentle way. He just kept talking. And finally, they could see the demeanor of this General change, and the General actually said, "Mr. Benson, I don't know what it is, but there's something about you I like." He said, "I want to try to help you in every way I can." And then Elder Benson told him about the warehouses of supplies that the Church had that could be shipped immediately to try to help the people in this part of Germany. And at that point, the General said, "Mr. Benson, I've never heard of a Church with such vision." The general cautioned them. He said, "you're going to be the first civilians to go into these occupied areas, and it's not safe, and we will not be responsible for your safety. But if you want to go, we'll give you permission to go." So off they went, deeper into Germany.

Excuse me. One of the stops was Berlin. In the video, you just saw something about Berlin, and what he found there was beyond description. Again from his journal, "I witnessed scenes that seemed almost outside this world. I smelled the odor of decaying human bodies. I saw old men and women with small hatchets eagerly digging at tree stumps and roots in an effort to get scraps of fuel and then pulling them home for miles on anything that would roll. Later, I faced, in a cold half wrecked auditorium off a bombed street, 480 cold, half-starved, but faithful Latter day Saints. I heard their harrowing experiences, including murder, rape, and starvation of their loved ones. Yet there was no bitterness or anger but a sweet expression of faith in the gospel." Over and over, he came bringing them the greetings of President George Albert Smith, of bringing them food, of blessing them and giving them priesthood blessings and of giving them hope and telling them, "you will rebuild, and life will go on. And the Gospel is true, and the Lord will help you." He saw hideous things. He went to Dachau and was sickened at getting a firsthand look at what happened to those who had lost their freedom to practice their religion as they saw fit. He went to Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and even other areas. Everywhere, they conferred with high officials and met with Saints. The travel was rough. It was rigorous. They traveled more than 61,000, miles and there wasn't an easy mile in the group. He wrote some descriptive passages in his journal about what the travel was like. Here's one on a flight from Copenhagen back to London, which was their headquarters. They flew in an unheated plane that reached to minus 20 degrees as they flew, and he said, "when we finally landed, we were a sad looking lot. At each step, our knees would buckle under us. Each foot felt like a large block of ice, and there was virtually no feeling in our legs. Never had I experienced such difficulty in walking. By bathing our legs in cold water, we were gradually able to restore some feeling in our limbs." One of my favorite stories which is indicative of literally hundreds of other stories-- they were in Oslo, and they needed to get back to London. Started to snow, and it shut down the airport, and nothing was taking off. And he was at the airport for hours and hours and hours hoping the weather would break and he could get on a plane. Finally, after they had been there hours and hours, there was this little teeny break in the weather, and they were going to let one plane take off, which was a mail plane, a plane filled with mail. And they were going to let that one plane take off, and no passengers were going to be allowed to go on this plane. And Elder Benson wouldn't leave. Those who were there with him, they were from Oslo, said, we might as well go home and make you comfortable and come back tomorrow and try. And he said, "no, I've got to get to London." He would not leave. The plane-- they closed the doors. It taxied. It went out to the runway, and it stayed there for a while. And finally, it taxied back. Elder Benson is still standing there with his nose pressed to the glass. And the plane taxied back. And the door opened. Somebody gets off the plane, comes in, and says, "where's that guy that says he has to get to London tonight?" He says, "if he wants to ride with the mailbags in the belly of the plane, he can ride there." So he said, "I'll do it." And he got in the plane and made it back to London. Those kinds of things happened over and over. He tried for months to get into Poland, and he couldn't get a visa. And it had reached a point where he just felt compelled that he had to get in there. This is what his secretary wrote. He said, "I sensed deeply with him that we were faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem. After moments of soul searching, reflection, he said quietly but firmly, 'let me pray about it.' And he went back to his room. Some two or three hours later, after Elder Benson had retired to his room to pray, he suddenly stood in my doorway and said with a smile on his face, 'pack your bags. We're leaving for Poland.' At first I could scarcely believe my eyes. He stood there enveloped in a beautiful glow of radiant light." He didn't know how they'd get there. They made their way to Berlin again. And then, after another set of remarkable circumstances, they got permission to go into Poland. He was a godsend to the Polish Saints. Many times on these trips including on this one to Poland, he went days without eating. Occasionally, they could get some K rations. Many nights, he slept on kind of a smelly straw tick on the floor, whatever floor they could find. He talks about sometimes passing the sacrament in potato peelings.

But he did it day after day, week after week, month after month. The mission to Europe tested him, and it strengthened him. It tested his spiritual strength, his emotional strength, his physical strength. But it also shaped his faith and strengthened his faith. This is what Elder Lee said at the end of this nearly year that he spent. He said, "The hazards of this mission, the obstacles that he had to overcome, all called for a particular kind of missionary service. Ezra Taft Benson performed all that and more in a mission that took him away from a little family at a time when his absence entailed the kind of support that only families such as his were prepared to give." And truly, Sister Benson's letters kept him going. She held the fort down at home.

He was a man of faith. He was a man of great faith. And he just absolutely believed that if he did everything he could that the Lord would intervene and help him even when circumstances look to be virtually impossible. The second characteristic is that he was a man of principle. He stood by what he believed. And one of the eras in his life that demonstrates this in kind of a very dramatic way is the time he served as Secretary of Agriculture to President Eisenhower. Again, let me show you a little short video clip from that documentary on lds.org, and I recommend it to you. It's only about 20 minutes long, and it gives a wonderful overview of President Benson's life.

"You're about to see the Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson, face the nation with questions from veteran correspondents representing the nation's press." In 1952, President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked Elder Benson to serve as United States Secretary of Agriculture. His acceptance at the urging of President David O. McKay thrust Elder Benson into intensive government service at its highest levels.

"At San Francisco Airport, Secretary of Agriculture Benson and son Reid are welcomed aboard the private plane of Jacqueline Cochran Odlum. The world famed aviatrix will fly them to El Centro. They next joined the $50 a plate dinners in the National Guard armory. Here, Secretary Benson speaks out against continuing rigid wartime price supports which he says have piled up unmanageable surpluses and reduced farm income." "And as your Secretary of Agriculture, I pledge to you and to farmers everywhere that I will never knowingly support any program or policy which I believe is not in the best interests of our farmers and fair to all of our people regardless of political pressure."

Upon his return to Utah in 1961, he told the Saints in General Conference, "I have had a conviction through all this period that I was where the Lord wanted me to be."

This was such an interesting thing for a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to be tapped by Eisenhower to become a member of the cabinet. President McKay did encourage Elder Benson when he went to talk to Eisenhower. Elder Benson said, "what should I do?" And he said, "well, you'll know by the way Eisenhower asks you whether or not you should accept." And the way President Eisenhower posed the question, which was couched really in very spiritual terms, Elder Benson felt like he should accept. And President McKay supported him in that. And so he was-- what do you call it?

Appointed-- sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture. I was trying to say sustained. No, he wasn't sustained. That's the Church. His appointment surprised a lot of people. Nobody saw this coming. I love one report from the Farm Journal, which kind of capsulized a lot of the sentiment, and it said this. "Ezra Benson is going to shock Washington. He's in the habit of deciding everything on principle." There are a lot of fascinating things that happened during this eight years, and he stayed the entire eight years. For one thing, this man of prayer, who had been used to praying and seeking the guidance of the Lord to help open the doors with military officials so they could go into the occupied areas, his habit of prayer didn't stop. Before the very first cabinet meeting, he went to Eisenhower and just suggested to him, "I wondered if it would be OK to consider opening their first cabinet meeting with prayer." Eisenhower didn't commit to him. But then at the cabinet meeting, he called on him to offer an opening prayer, as it were, and to bless their proceedings. This is what the Secretary of the Cabinet Maxwell Rabb later described-- how he described it, and he said, "that moment was electrifying," is the word he used. "There was a murmur of approval, and then several of your colleagues crowded around you at the conclusion of the meeting to tell you how moving your words were." In his own staff meetings in the Department of Agriculture, he opened those meetings with prayer. Hard to imagine, actually, today. One staff member described it this way. "Well, we all take turns. Some of us hadn't prayed aloud since our 'now I lay me down to sleep' days. We stumbled and fumbled for words." But the Secretary never let on that he noticed. And after a few trials, everybody was at ease. Has it helped? Well, I'd say that when you start a meeting that way, people aren't stuck up with the pride of their opinions. You pretty quickly come to an agreement on what ought to be done in any situation. So Elder Benson brought his values and his behaviors and the things he cared about right with him right into the Secretary of Agriculture's office. Now he came under sharp, fierce attack as Secretary of Agriculture. There were huge issues in those days about farm subsidies. He believed the farmers needed fewer government controls, not more. He wanted to reduce subsidies to the farmers, and that wasn't a very popular idea because it meant taking guaranteed dollars out of the farmers' pockets. He said this: "Nobody owes the farmers anything for crops they don't grow or goods they don't produce or work they won't do." So even though there were a lot of politicians from farm states who did not like this point of view, he just was sure he was right-- that the government didn't owe farmers a living. And he said this and it kind of summarizes his convictions. He said, "a man, at times, must compromise. The test is to be found in what he is not willing to compromise no matter how great the pressure. I believe that this nation cannot go on compromising a little bit of freedom here and a little there without eventually losing at all. It just isn't good for government to do for people what they can and should do for themselves." Because he wouldn't back down, all kinds of things happened. He had eggs thrown at them, tomatoes thrown at him. He got raked over the coals in congressional hearings. He was crucified in the press. Politicians pressured him to dump him. Journalists started saying he would be the first member of the cabinet to go. Gave his first major big speech as Secretary of Agriculture to the central livestock association in Minnesota. And he stated his views very strongly. And he got a pretty rousing response. But then he goes back to Washington, and the roof fell in. And headlines started to appear in lots of periodicals that kind of sounded like this one from the Saturday Evening Post, which was, "Elder Benson's going to catch it," meaning to catch a lot of trouble from Eisenhower. He went to talk to Eisenhower to see if he's in trouble, and Eisenhower just smiled, and he said, "well," he said, "you were right, but maybe you were right a little too soon" is how he put it.

He absolutely churned a lot of controversy, and he took a lot of attacks. Over time, Washington became kind of fascinated with him. And you saw things like this. This is from a National Press Club introduction: "Despite the heat Secretary Benson has taken, he has stood his ground. Surely, it can be said he is a man of great integrity, and he has guts." Here's another one. This is from the Longies-Wittnauer Chronoscope, which is an old time TV program. "No member of the Eisenhower cabinet has shown more political courage than Ezra Taft Benson. For a time, he was the most criticized member. But he stuck to his guns and never wavered in his convictions." Let me just read you one more. This is from the New York Times Magazine in an article called "The Benson Formula for Success." "One reason is his religion. He acts like a man whose conscience is always clear. His testimony today will be the same next week or the week after or a year from now. He doesn't have to remember what he said to an opposition senator at their last meeting. This is a built in ulcer-saving device not always found in Washington."

The bottom line is that over time, he had some legislative victories. He took heat. He experienced all of it. But Eisenhower stuck with him. In fact, there were different times when Elder Benson would say, if you need me to go back, I'd be very happy to go back to Salt Lake City. I've got work there I care deeply about. And Eisenhower didn't want him to go back. He seemed to having him in the cabinet. Maybe it it's because he became the lightning rod. I don't know, maybe that was the reason. But over time, Elder Benson won a lot of respect because he stuck to his principles. He felt his principles were sound. There's one episode that took place while he was Secretary that I think really shows how he tried to always incorporate what he cared about in the work he was doing as Secretary of Agriculture. In 1959, he made an international trip where he went to a lot of countries, one of them being Russia. His Air Force plane was only the second US Air Force plane that landed in Moscow since World War II. When he got to Moscow, he wanted to visit one of the two Protestant churches that were existing-- that existed in Moscow at the time. And his host kept trying to deter him. But he kept asking, said, "I really want to go to one of those churches." And eventually, on the very last day they were there, they took him to the Central Baptist Church. Now this is how one reporter described the scene as they entered this Baptist Church in the center of very Communist Moscow. "Every face in the old sanctuary gaped incredulously as our obviously American group was led down the aisle. They grabbed for our hands as we proceeded to our pews, which were gladly vacated. Their wrinkled old faces looked at us pleadingly. They reached out to touch us. They gripped our hands like frightened children." The minister invited Secretary of Agriculture Benson, Elder Benson, to speak. And so he went to the pulpit in the central Baptist Church. And here we have an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ bearing testimony of Jesus Christ in the middle of Moscow and telling the people to have hope, that truth would endure, and that God would bless them and that their lives would keep getting better. Think about that, what he promised them in 1959. One cynical newsman, who had complained about going to church with Ezra, stood and wept openly. A reporter from the US News and World Report wrote this: "It turned out to be one of the most moving experiences in the lifetime of many of us. One newsman, a former Marine, ranked it with the site of the American flag rising over the old American compound in Tientsin China, at the end of World War II." And then the editor of Farm and Ranch Magazine wrote, "imagine getting your greatest spiritual experience in atheistic Russia. This Methodist backslider who occasionally grumbles about having to go to church stood crying unashamedly, throat lumped, and chills running from spine to toes. It was the most heart rending and most inspiring scene I've ever witnessed." Throughout his cabinet term, he never backed away from what he believed in terms of what was best for the farmers, but he also never backed away from what he believed about the Lord Jesus Christ, about the Restoration of the gospel, about the veracity of the Book of Mormon. It was pretty fun to read hundreds of letters that he received from ambassadors and dignitaries all around the world. Every time he would go, he would take copies of the Book of Mormon with him. And he would give them. He would sign them and write a note of them and give them to these dignitaries that he was meeting around the world. And the fun part is to see thank you letters that would come back from these people to Secretary Benson. And they would say, "thank you for your recent visit. We enjoyed hosting you here. Thank you for the copy of the Book of Mormon you left me. It is the fourth copy you've left with me in your travels."

It didn't matter. And the other thing he did that I just found absolutely delightful and really instructional is that here he is. He's giving speeches to the National Cattlemen, to the poultry producers of America, to all these different agricultural groups. And yet he would get up and talk to them about the importance of the family and how they ought to strengthen their homes and that no society could be stronger than the strength of its families in its homes and how virtue is important and all these different things. And often, he would say something like this: "Let me tell you what an ancient American prophet had to say about the strength of the home." Do you wonder how many National Cattlemen are going, let's see, who would that be? An ancient American prophet. So wherever he went, he taught truth, and he stood by what he believed. Everybody didn't like what he believed, but he stood by it. He became known during that era and afterwards as a great defender of freedom. There are those who felt he was too partisan and too political. There are those who felt that he shouldn't have spoken at some of the organizations he spoke at, like the John Birch Society. But he felt deeply about freedom, that we fought a battle before we came here to be free enough that we could make our own choices. I believe he is the first General Authority to ever speak against drugs in General Conference because why? Any kind of addiction robs you of freedom. So whether it was debt or drugs or Communism or anything, he spoke against it because he felt that people needed to be free to be able to make their own choices. He felt that America was the Lord's base of operations and that it needed to be free. And so when you look at his messages, his sermons, and other kinds of messages that he gave, it all pointed back to that issue of freedom about which he felt deeply and passionately.

During his cabinet service, there are few places he didn't go and few prominent individuals he didn't meet. He met everyone from Winston Churchill and Nikita Khrushchev to Moesha Diane and Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. President Heber J. Grant, when he set him apart as an Apostle, admonished him to make friends for the Church. And during his time in Washington, he made friends for the Church around the world. Now we're about out of time, but I want to cover very quickly two more principles-- characteristics, as it were-- of President Benson that are important to mention. And I'll do it very quickly. One of them is that he was a man with a very gentle, generous heart. I'm not sure he was always seen that way. But my experience with him in the hundreds of hours I spent with him was that he was as kind and generous and gentle as he could be. While I was working on his biography, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I still remember the day he called me and with a trembling voice-- had heard about this and called to ask how she was and what he could do. And before I could say anything, he said, "I've already had her name put in the temples, and I will pray for her." Many times during the course of her chemotherapy treatment, which went on for months, I would slip back to our home in Kansas to be with her for a few days. And invariably, the phone would ring, and it would be present Benson. "Well, I understand you're in Kansas. Is your mother OK? What can I do to help her?" His journal is filled with examples just like that. He's in Athens, and he finds out about a man who's taken-- who's been criticized and has taken a lot of not only criticism, but he's been kind of persecuted for joining the Church, and his children have been kicked out of school. And all these difficult things have happened. He said, "I want to go talk to that man. I just want to go meet him." They drove clear across to Athens, took most of the time they had to make this journey to find this man. They pull up outside of his home, humble home, and Elder Benson gets out and just says, "I understand you've had some rough things happen. Tell me about it." And he just promised him that if he would just try that the Lord would bless him and told him that he would be praying for him. And within a few months this man returned to activity in the Church. I could tell you hundreds of stories like that. He had a gentle heart. He had a kind heart, a thoughtful heart. One day after the biography had been published, I got a call on a Saturday from one of his granddaughters, and she said, "Sheri, Grandpa wants to come to your ward for Church tomorrow." I said, "seriously?" She said, "he just wants to thank you in some way for all the work you did." And I said, "well, he doesn't need to do that." And she said, "no, he's decided he's coming, and I just thought I'd tell you he's going to be there."

And bless his heart, he came to my ward. He participated. He bore his testimony. He made no big deal about me at all. I don't think he even mentioned me. But it was simply a kind gesture and a way to indicate, 'thank you for all the work that you did.' That's the Ezra Taft Benson I experienced on a personal, firsthand basis-- that he was a man with a deep love for people and a very, very kind heart. The last thing that I need to mention is that this was a man who deeply loved the Lord, and he was devoted to Him. As President of the Church, he continued to do what he had done most of his life and make friends for the Church. Many presidents and dignitaries and others came to meet with him. And they wanted to meet with him in an unusual way because they kind of felt like they had a connection with him because he had served in a government position. And so he was very comfortable hosting high officials. Just two things I want to mention about his presidency, and we could talk about that at length. But there are a couple of things that stand out for me in a major way. The first is how prophetic he was. I've heard Elder Nielsen talk about the fact that four days after he became President of the Church, so four days-- this would have been on the 14th of November. He became President on the 10th of November, 1985. And on the 14th of November, 1985, which tomorrow will be 29 years, in a meeting with the Quorum of the Twelve in the temple, he basically told different members of the Twelve what he wanted them to focus on. And to Elder Nelson, he said, "I want you to open the countries which are presently under the yoke of Communism for the preaching of the gospel."

So Elder Nelson, I've heard him tell the story and say, uh, "I was a medical doctor. I didn't know anything about opening countries that were under the yoke of Communism for the preaching of the gospel." But he said, "we started." And he has remarkable stories to tell about starting to try to make inroads with different officials in different countries that at that time were behind the Iron Curtain. Now this is before the Berlin Wall had come down. But they started to make those connections. And so when the wall came down just a few years later, they were ready. They had already done some of the groundwork, laid the foundation, built some relationships. And so when things started to change with different governments and in the political nature around the world, the work had already been done because the President of the Church had told a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, go figure this out. And they were ready to walk through the door so that the Church could start to be recognized in countries that we would have never thought they would be recognized in quite that quickly. It was clearly prophetic. And interesting to me that a man that had been so staunch in his defense of freedom felt such empathy for the people living in a situation where they did not have freedom, and he knew they needed the gospel. The second thing that we have to mention is just how he felt about The Book of Mormon. He loved The Book of Mormon. He studied The Book of Mormon. He read The Book of Mormon, and he told us to do the same. So let me just read to you a familiar passage that will remind us of what he promised from a diligent, regular study of The Book of Mormon. He said, "it is not just that The Book of Mormon teaches us truth, though it indeed does that. It is not just that The Book of Mormon bears testimony of Christ, though it indeed does that too. But there is something more. There is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path." Now his Second Counselor, as you remember, was President Thomas S. Monson. Let me conclude by saying what he said about this man whom he served as Second Counselor. "President Benson has the capacity to bring men and women back to the straight and narrow pathway. He would have made a great wagon master in bringing the Saints across the plains. He wouldn't have let them wander to the goldfields of California, and he wouldn't have let them stop and plant for two or three seasons in the lush, rich soil of Iowa. He knows how to say, 'move on, wagon train.' He would have brought them to the valleys of the mountains successfully. Spirituality will be the main contribution and theme of his administration. That spirituality will lead to a greater study of The Book of Mormon. It will lead to more temple work. It will lead to greater Christian service, and it will lead to an holier people."

Because I have had the privilege of writing the biographies of two presidents of the Church, on occasion when I've been interviewed about that, almost invariably, I've been asked this question. And the question is, "tell us what's different between President Ezra Taft Benson and President Gordon B. Hinckley." I think that's a fairly uninspiring question. You kind of want to say, duh. Of course they're different. They had different parents. They were raised in different places. They married different-- had different wives. They had different children. They had different occupations. They had different gifts and talents. Of course they're different. The more interesting thing to me is, "how are they the same?"

And there are some key things that are the same, they are things you see in every prophet. They are men of deep faith. They believe the Lord will make up the difference when we are obedient and do our best. They are men of great character and great principle and will stand by what they believe. They are men with great and compassionate hearts. Look at President Monson. We see it over and over again. And they are men who are deeply, deeply devoted to the Lord. So though I picked four characteristics that are very indicative of President Benson, they are indicative of these men that the Lord chooses and prepares to be President of the Church and to be his mouthpiece and to be prophet. I testify to you I know that's true. And every time I was ever with President Benson, the Spirit prompted me and whispered to me every single time, you're in the presence of a prophet. And I testify that we are led by a prophet today in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.

OK, now I went over time, and I did that intentionally so you wouldn't ask me very many questions because I probably don't remember whatever you're going to ask me about, OK? But if you have any questions, I'm happy to try and answer them. There's a-- oops-- question right over here. And I think we've got a microphone coming down the aisle. I'm a retired foreign language teacher. The issue of translation into German, into Russian, into other languages, is of intense interest to me. Do we know anything about what those translators, those interpreters, said before or after as they had this experience of interpreting for President-- for Elder Benson? As they traveled with him or as they translated from him around the world? Well, mostly in Germany, mostly during in '46, and then during that experience in Russia. Were the translators or the interpreters-- I used the wrong word. Were the interpreters members of the Church, or were they not members of the Church. In most cases, they were members of the Church. But I must say that--

in most cases, they were members of the Church. I think that's a fair thing to say. But his journal is not particularly enlightening about that as I recall. I'm not surprised. Yeah, he was not really mentioning that all that much. Well, the very best interpreter will stand back, but there are certain people who can-- there are some wonderful things that can come out as a result of that. No, he traveled with some individuals, some of which were from there. And my hunch is that they did a lot of the interpreting. But again, they absolutely felt like they were his support team, as it were in their staff. And so there are little bits and pieces that have survived, but I never saw very much. Another dimension. Yeah, another dimension. And I think President Benson just-- he didn't write much about it. Is it right here?

It's unusual for a man from the state of Idaho to be picked for national office, if you will, first as a representative of the farm organizations in Washington and then as the Secretary of Agriculture, over people from the larger agricultural producing regions of the country. How do you explain that, how he was chosen for these positions? There's probably a practical explanation. He did attract a lot of attention when he went back as the Executive Director of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. He really kind of left a mark in a matter of a very few years on Washington as a very savvy, smart, practical administrator. And so he started to make a lot of connections during that era. So in that regard, he had some Washington, DC experience. To me, the bigger question is how did he get from Idaho to Washington, DC the first time. And that was always a little-- know but he had done some great work in Idaho, and they had they had done some kind of unique things with farmer cooperatives throughout Idaho. And that seemed to get the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives interested. So you can kind of give a practical response. So that's the first thing. The second thing is I think that was in his life plan. So even if you can't explain it entirely in a practical way, I just think that's where the Lord wanted him. I really do believe he was there because he was supposed to be there because you can't really completely explain it. He surprised everybody. Washington was totally surprised. There isn't anybody-- there are no news reports that I could find. There was no journal entries anywhere that I could find that said, "oh yeah, we knew he'd be picked." You know, I don't think anybody expected that Eisenhower would select him, first and foremost, because he was a religious man. He was a religious authority. And so I just think-- my personal belief is he was supposed to be there. There is no way for me to describe-- and again, it's been years since I read and studied his journal. But it left such an impact on me. I can't even tell you how many connections he made for the Church. Yes, he was on agricultural business. But everywhere he was around the world, the Church would come up. And if it didn't come up, he brought it up. It was just amazing. So I think he was where he was supposed to be. I think it was ordained from heaven. That's what I believe. When he was called to the Quorum of the Twelve, did he have political ambitions?

I can't answer that. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. Please, right here. There's one in the back, and then there's one right here. And if you say it loud, I'll repeat it because I can hear you. How did President Benson manage his role as father during such extensive periods of travel? She said, how did he manage his calling as father during such extensive periods of traveling? He was very devoted as a father. His children knew he loved them and that the family was very important to him. And the fact is, Sister Benson carried a huge load all throughout-- if you talk about the emergency mission to Europe, it fell on her. During the cabinet years, she absolutely stepped in and made things happen. Now he made the best effort he could. It looks to me like he really tried hard to spend time with the family, and he would involve his children in the best ways that he could. But a lot of it fell to Sister Benson. That's just a fact. And he relied on his older children to help mentor his younger children. There's a kind of a family mantra about that-- that if you kind of try to raise up the early ones, and then they can help the later ones. And so they kind of all pitched in. The whole family felt like they were called as Secretary of Agriculture. You know what I mean? It was absolutely a family thing. And they came together, and they did the very best they could, and they kind of left a mark. There is a pretty interesting old segment on The Edward R. Murrow Show where the Benson family was featured. And Sister Benson at first resisted it. But then they decided, OK, they would do this show. And so Murrow comes in, and he basically films a family home evening. And Washington hadn't seen anything quite like that. And afterwards, the Murrow people said that they got more mail about the Ezra Taft Benson family home evening than almost any show they had ever aired. So the family really rallied around their dad because they wanted to help him. And that's how they made it work. But Sister Benson-- and I have to say. By the time I met Sister Benson, she had become quite frail, and her memory was frail. And so I never saw the young Flora Benson. I never saw that. But she must have been really something in terms of just a lot of fortitude and just took it on herself and just made things work. OK, there's one in the back. Speaking about frail, could you make a remark or so about the transformation of his health when he was called to Prophet? I saw a real difference, and I don't know if have you ever-- could make some remarks about that. He had-- OK, this is the part where I'm really relying on my memory, and I hope I'm right. OK, so I could tell you go read the biography, but I probably shouldn't do that. Actually, I don't think it's in print anymore. But anyway, if I'm remembering correctly, not very long before he became President of the Church-- and I don't know. I can't remember. It was probably within the previous year. He had fallen and hurt his hip. And I don't know if he had a hip replacement or some kind of surgery. But there had been a period where his health was absolutely diminishing. And with the call to be President of the Church, he had a resurgence in health that kept him vital for several years. He was very strong, and he did some traveling. And he certainly did some speaking. And he was in pretty robust-- through the entire time that I worked with him on the biography, he was very, very alert, very-- really quite vigorous. And then at a later point, his health started to decline. But he did have a resurgence in his health, a revitalization for several years. There are those who thought he was not going to last very long when he had the problem with the hip, and he had a wonderful bounce back after he was named as president. OK, there's a one back here. Thank you, Sheri, for your lecture this evening. In Ezra's biography, there is mention made that in-- I believe it was 1956. There was a committee formed asking if he would be willing to run for president with Strom Thurmond as his vice president. Do you have any more information about that that you can fill in for us? There were different times when there were little swirlings about things like that. But from his point of view, that never that never really took root. He was not the instigator of those things. But there were other people saying, hey, you ought to run for President. You're-- da da da da da da. So it came up, and it came up more than once, actually. But he wasn't the instigator. But sometimes, there would be enough of a clamor and enough people approaching him that he would have to at least talk to the President of the Church about it or consider-- is this something you should consider. So if I'm remembering correctly, there were some conversations about it but not at his instigation. It was more in response to what was coming to him.

Please. During the years that he worked on the cabinet, was he, like, on hiatus from the Apostles? Or did he still do things with-- He still fulfilled some Church assignments. Where he could, he would meet with them. He certainly was at General Conference. But his primary assignment from the President the Church, yes, he was a full member of the Quorum of the Twelve, and there are times when he would come to Salt Lake and meet with the Twelve. And there are times when he took Church assignments, but his biggest assignment was fulfilling his role in the cabinet.

I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the story of the cow milking contest down at BYU with Elder Oaks. Oh yeah, I can't remember that. Can you tell it? Something about Elder Oaks-- I can't remember that. He got kicked over by the cow because he went to the wrong side of the cow. Yeah, I think-- yeah, that sounds right to me. He loved to challenge people to a cow milking contest because he knew he would beat them, and he always did. But yeah, thank you. I'd forgotten all about that. But I think that's right. I think-- I don't want to say because I can't remember, but I think you're telling it right.

Are there any other questions, please? If his biography is out of print, I just wondered if you might know anybody who could do something.

I'm not sure about that. That wasn't my real question. My real question is, President Benson and President Lee were born the same year very close to each other in Idaho. Did they know each other as boys growing up? I don't think they did. I never saw any evidence of that. But they were very close as general authorities serving together. Would anybody like to have the last word? It's you. You get it. I think President Benson, of all the Prophets, has had the greatest impact on my life. But I wanted to ask you because I don't know for sure. Did the commandment from God come through President Benson for us to read The Book of Mormon every day? Because that impacts me as I remember to do that for myself every day. And I think of President Benson. And that was taught to me by my father. And also, how did the Church respond to President Benson's enthusiasm for The Book of Mormon? What happened within the Church when he stressed so forcefully that we are to read it? First of all, let me answer the second part of the question first and then conclude with the first part of your question. I don't remember the numbers now, but the numbers do show that the Church started printing way more copies of The Book of Mormon. And there were a lot of different measures that they were trying to do at the time that would seem to suggest that we were listening to a prophet, and we kind of started to get a little bit more serious about reading the Book of Mormon. I think that in the lives of a lot of people that during his presidency, they established a regular pattern of studying The Book of Mormon. I think that is-- I think your experience, your father's experience, is not unusual at all. Now you asked, was that a commandment that came from God? I don't know. I have no way of knowing that. But there is something that I have noticed in studying the lives of prophets, and that is you can see early in their lives, at some earlier part of their lives, where they start latching on to things they really care about, and you see them learning about those things and practicing, as it were, and gaining their own testimony and faith about those things. And then it progresses and progresses until the time comes when they can actually do something about it. And with President Benson, him as President of the Church telling us to read the Book of Mormon is not like that was just-- I can say for sure that wasn't a new idea. It wasn't something he suddenly cared about. He cared about that for decades. He showed it when he handed out copies of The Book of Mormon constantly as Secretary of Agriculture. He showed it in his young life when he would be talking about all the pressures that a young father and businessman is experiencing, that he would turn to The Book of Mormon and he would find peace and solace and counsel and direction and revelation. And so he had lived that for years and years and years. And when it comes forward full swing to where he becomes the President of the Church-- and at that point, he's had enough experience with it himself to say, you know what? The Church would change if we would all read The Book of Mormon. And he absolutely believed it and taught it.

Brothers and sisters, it's been a privilege to be with you this evening. As you can tell, I overprepared, which I always do. It's not possible to talk about this man in this length of time and to do him justice. But I do want to tell you that I know he was a prophet, selected by the Lord, and prepared by Him. And honestly, that's one of the most inspiring things for me to look at the life of a prophet and see the hand of the Lord all over his life. And you see that with President Benson. You see it with President Hinckley. You see it with President Monson. You see it with President Hunter. It doesn't matter. It's one of the great testaments of our faith. It's one of the great blessings of the Restoration that we have a prophet who the Lord himself tutored as his divine schoolmaster and had ready for us at the moment when he needed to be ready. That was the case with President Benson, and that is the case with President Monson today. And again, I testify of that in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.