Introduction to the Episode and Guest

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's April 8, 2026, and today we are here to talk about someone who I would say is one of the most controversial and polarizing and maybe even important Mormon figures or leaders of the 20th century. We are here to talk about the Ernest L. Wilkinson.

John Dehlin [00:00:27] Many will know of him because the large student center of byu, the Wilk or the Wilkinson center, obviously is named after him. He was a president of BYU. I believe it's from 19. If I put my glasses on, I believe it's from 1952 to 1971.

John Dehlin [00:00:48] And he was controversial for all sorts of reasons. I believe he may have. I think we've covered before Mormon Stories said or done some. Some things that were considered not super friendly to the black or African. African American community. I believe he wasn't super friendly to the LGBT community.

John Dehlin [00:01:10] And the thing that I knew most about him when I was a political science student at BYU was that he allegedly led aspiring to spy on professors who were starting to get a little bit too, I don't know, liberal in their politics or in their teaching. But who knows? We're in for all sorts of treats today because we have back on Mormon Stories, Gary James Bergera. How do you pronounce that?

Gary Bergera [00:01:40] Just like that.

John Dehlin [00:01:41] Bergera. And he, I will say, I will go on the record and say Gary is a legend. He led signature books slash the Smith Pettit foundation for at least three decades, if not more. More. But so many of the really important books that shaped my relationship with the church came from, I don't know, passed through Gary's editorial supervision and oversight. And I'm sure I'm understating the importance of Gary Bergera in my life, but. Gary, welcome back to Mormon Stories podcast.

Gary Bergera [00:02:16] Thanks, John. It's a pleasure to be back.

The Wilkinson Diaries and How They Came to Be

John Dehlin [00:02:17] Yeah. And this book, Barbara shared it with me. The book is called Educating Zion. The Diaries of BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson, 1952-1971. You edited it, but it's his diaries. And yeah, they're really. Do you think my introduction, my description of Gear, of President Wilkinson was overly enthusiastic in terms of him being one of the most interesting, controversial and important figures in 20th century Mormonism?

Gary Bergera [00:02:51] Well, I think, John, I think you're as far as that. Goji, I couldn't agree more with you. Wilkinson was one of the major non general authority characters in Mormon culture, Mormon society, Mormon intellectualism. In the 1950s and 60s, he took BYU and he turned it into one of the major universities, religious universities in the United States. And that was by. It was almost all Wilkinson who did that. He worked with a board of trustees that composed of the general authorities of the LDS Church presided over by the LDS Church President David O. McKay. Most of those trustees probably did not share Wilkinson's vision for the kind of university that he thought BYU could become.

Gary Bergera [00:03:44] But David O. McKay did. And Wilkinson and David O. McKay together, especially Wilkinson though, because he was the president of the university. They took this school, which was kind of a glorified high school and turned it into a university with 25,000 plus students.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] Yeah, I mean you could look at like Bob Jones University or Liberty University or I don't know, there's all sorts of universities that are religiously affiliated that let's just say aren't considered top tier, division one sort of caliber. Or you can look like Notre Dame, which obviously is. And I would say BYU leans more towards Notre Dame in caliber at least than it leans towards Bob Jones or Liberty University. Is it fair to say that maybe Ernest Wilkinson more than anyone else might be responsible for where BYU is today in terms of positive things, status and stature?

Gary Bergera [00:04:49] Yeah, Wilkinson definitely wanted BYU to become maybe even more than Notre Dame. I mean he had, he was thinking the big Ivy League, although with the religious component to it. So he set that foundation. Dallin Oaks probably contributed a lot too to BYU and Jeffrey Holland to BYU being a major American university. I'm not sure since then where it stands now if it leans more in the direction of Notre Dame or more in the direction of a more explicitly religious university. I haven't really kept up on BYU history after Wilkinson and Oaks and Holland to some extent, but those three, I mean they did, they had big ideas for BYU and what they thought and hoped it could become.

John Dehlin [00:05:39] Well, let's jump in. Anything you want to say about the book or you or signature or Smith Pettit.

Gary Bergera [00:05:46] Before we dive in, here's what I'll say about the book. The book is. So I first got involved with looking at Wilkinson and BYU in the 1980s and have stayed interested in that. I found Wilkinson a really interesting character and he kept an amazing diary, Wilkinson's diary that he started I guess in 52 and he kept up through almost to the end of his life. Although the focus of the book is on his BYU years, his total diary, I estimated it being probably in excess of 5000 single spaced letter size pages. And it's a huge document and Wilkinson was an excellent diarist. He would have.

Gary Bergera [00:06:34] He tried to keep track of his daily activities. He knew what was important, and he also knew that history comes from documents. So Wilkinson's diary is not only his best defense. Wilkinson was writing for future readers. And he was right. It was a legacy project for him as well. And he would write. Here's the kind of diarist that Wilkinson was. He would go to a board of Trustees meeting, and then afterwards he would say in his diary, I attended a board of Trustees meeting today. You can find out what happened in the meeting by consultation, the minutes. But let me tell you what might not be in the minutes.

Gary Bergera [00:07:14] So he was aware of what was being recorded, what was important, what people would find interesting. And Wilkinson also would sometimes. Wilkinson was not always putting himself in the best light. There are times in the diary when he seems to disclose, either intentionally or not, some maybe less positive aspects about himself. And he had no illusions that he could be cantankerous and opinionated and forceful and he could rub people the wrong way.

Gary Bergera [00:07:48] And he knew all about. He knew and accepted that. There's a quote, I think, where he says, I don't understand why people get mad, why we can't argue and disagree with each other, you know, in the law. Because he was a lawyer. He was trained as a lawyer. We do that in court all the time. And afterwards we're fine with each other. So he knew that he could rub people the wrong way. But you get the impression from him that he didn't care. He had this vision, and he was going to pursue the vision the best way that he knew how. And as strongly and as forcefully he would rub, you know, he rubbed some general authorities the wrong way.

Gary Bergera [00:08:23] There were Henry D. Moyle, who was a counselor in David O. McKay's first presidency. They disagreed about things. Hugh B. Brown. Hugh B. Brown was. They probably disagreed more because of their political differences. Huey Brown was slightly more liberal, and Wilkinson was a lot less. A lot more conservative.

Gary Bergera [00:08:45] And especially Harold B. Lee. Wilkinson and Lee, toward the end of the 20 years, when the 20 years of Wilkinson's presidency at BYU, they did not get along. And Wilkinson, When David O. McKay died in 1970, I think Wilkinson knew that his support was gone. Now, among the general authorities, Joseph Fielding Smith was the president, but Harold B. Lee, Joseph Fielding Smith's first counselor, was the de facto president.

Gary Bergera [00:09:18] And then when, especially when it became clear that Harold B. Lee was going to be the president, Wilkinson submitted a letter of resignation that took effect, I think maybe a year later. He knew that he did not have the support that he had had. And it was probably in his and everyone's best interests if he left the presidency.

John Dehlin [00:09:39] So it sounds like we can say for sure that Wilkinson served the longest

Gary Bergera [00:09:44] of any university right now. Yes, yeah, that's true. He did serve the longest. It was about 20 years that he was president. And although it's interesting because the president of the University of Utah, Olpen Ray Olpin, served almost exactly the same time for almost exactly the same number of years.

John Dehlin [00:09:59] And the student center is also named after Go Utes Go Cougars. Let me ask, as I understand that Wilkinson remained faithful to the LDS Church throughout his whole life to the end, how in the world did signature end up with his diaries?

Gary Bergera [00:10:14] So Wilkinson did remain faithful to the LDS Church. That's not to say that he agreed with everything, especially with the management of byu. He thought that decisions were best made when you had all the information. And so he saw it as his job to make sure that, that those people who were going to make decisions about BYU had the best information. And it frustrated him to no end when they felt, when they felt that they had enough information or especially if he thought they had bad information.

Gary Bergera [00:10:43] And so any decisions that were made that where they did not have the best information, Wilkinson thought were bad decisions. So he would support the general authorities and their callings. But that's not to say that he believed that they always made the best or even the correct decisions. How we wound up with the diaries is that I actually reached out to, I presented a paper at Sunstone years earlier, probably in the 90s, on Wilkinson.

Gary Bergera [00:11:18] And in the audience was one of Wilkinson's daughters, Alice. And Alice came up to me afterwards and said how much she liked the paper. And so that initiated a relationship with Alice and eventually other members of the Wilkinson family. And I asked Alice, would you be interested in a one volume edition of your dad's diaries? And the family, the four surviving children, said yes, individual ones had some concerns.

Gary Bergera [00:11:50] So I met with them several times and submitted the manuscript to them and listened to what their questions were and concerns were and tried to accommodate them as best I could. In the meantime, I think around 2002 or 4, the Wilkinson Diaries were open to the public at BYU. The BYU Library Special Collections holds all of Wilkinson's papers, both his personal papers and his BYU presidential papers.

Gary Bergera [00:12:23] And the Wilkinson diaries are open to the public. They've been open to the public for 25 or so years. So there's nothing anybody can go look at them.

John Dehlin [00:12:35] So you just kind of picked the best and most interesting stuff.

Gary Bergera [00:12:39] Yeah, so I went through specifically looking for Wilkinson and BYU history. And then from that I slowly went through and tried to decide, okay, what's going to be of most interesting to the history of BYU and to readers?

Gary Bergera [00:12:55] I probably went overboard in some cases on some topics because I found them interesting and thought that they at least they should be available to other researchers in an. In an easily accessible format. So, yeah, so it was working with the Wilkinson family.

Gary Bergera [00:13:15] Sadly, three of the four children have passed away. I believe Alice is still alive. So I hope they're okay with what I've done. Alice, I'm pretty sure is just fine with what I've done. And I did try to accommodate concerns that they had about.

Gary Bergera [00:13:38] They understood what their father was like, and Wilkinson could be very blunt in his judgments of people. And so I tried to contextualize that to accommodate concerns that they had too.

John Dehlin [00:13:53] And did you. Even if the entire diaries were public, did you even need the kids permission or approval or.

Gary Bergera [00:14:00] I don't know if I did or not, but I wanted to. I wouldn't want to do it without. So it was not an official publication. The family did not endorse this, but they did cooperate with it. And Alice shared some information that she had that I thought was really helpful. And yeah, I mean, I don't know to what extent the cooperation of the children was essential, but I'm glad that I went about it this way.

Wilkinson's Conflicts with Church and BYU Leaders

John Dehlin [00:14:34] So just because you brought it up, name some of the people Wilkinson was most tough on or rough with.

Gary Bergera [00:14:41] Well, the one thing that I can think of, I mean, he referred to one of the academic vice presidents as an egghead. He referred to. He had some critical things to say about one of Reed Benson's children. And I think that those kinds of things.

John Dehlin [00:15:00] That's the son of Ezra Taft Benson. Reed is the son.

Gary Bergera [00:15:02] Reid is the son of Benson.

John Dehlin [00:15:03] So the son of Reed.

Gary Bergera [00:15:04] I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I misspoke.

John Dehlin [00:15:06] Okay.

Gary Bergera [00:15:06] It was the son. It was Reid, the son of Ezra Benson, who I.

John Dehlin [00:15:11] Was he the John Bircher guy or was he.

Gary Bergera [00:15:13] He was the John Bircher guy. Okay. Yeah. Which is funny because I don't think Wilkinson had disagreed that much with the John Birch Society, although he was never a member. But he did attend some workshops, some Birch workshops.

Gary Bergera [00:15:27] And there are probably. I mean, there's an instance in the book where Wilkinson and Boyd K. Packer, who was recently called as an assistant to the 12 and appointed to the Board of Trustees, where they just go head to head on future of the Institute program and the seminary program. Wilkinson wanted at that point. This was in the, I want to say, the early to mid-60s when Wilkinson, one of his big projects was a junior college system. He wanted the church to buy up properties throughout the United States adjacent to other universities and then establish.

Gary Bergera [00:16:05] No, they didn't have to be adjacent to other universities. He wanted to establish junior colleges that would feed upperclassmen into byu. And Boyd K. Packer saw that as diminishing the role of institutes and seminaries. And Boyd Packer was not shy about voicing his disagreement, and Wilkinson was not shy about pushing back on that. And there's an instance in there where they go at it head to head and you get Wilkinson's perspective on this more than Packer's. But that's an interesting exchange to read.

John Dehlin [00:16:39] Who won?

Gary Bergera [00:16:41] Well, Boyd K. Packer won because there is no junior college. The church does not have a system of junior college.

John Dehlin [00:16:46] But Rick started out as a junior college.

Gary Bergera [00:16:47] There were a few junior college. Well, there were a few academies. Rick started out as an academy, became a junior college, and then later became a full college. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:56] Well, let's go back a little bit in time. What was, what was Wilkinson's upbringing slash career? It looks like he didn't. He didn't become president until he was in his 50s.

Gary Bergera [00:17:09] So he gre up in Ogden. He tended to describe his upbringing as hard scrabble. Wilkinson was not wealthy by any means, but he was smart. And he went through school. He went to law school. He worked for a law firm. He established his own law firm. He was a lobbyist for a time, especially in regards to Native American legislation. And then in his early 50s, he started to express an interest in BYU and the future of BYU. And he wrote some letters to J. Reuben Clark outlining his views for what BYU could do. I don't know that Wilkinson ever explicitly applied to byu, but you can read between the lines of these letters that he would have been open to being invited to serve as president.

John Dehlin [00:18:04] Yeah. So I'm just curious. I wonder why he cared so much about byu. Did he actually attend byu?

Gary Bergera [00:18:08] So it turns out I didn't know this until just now that he did attend BYU. He graduated from Weber and then went to BYU and graduated in 1921. And then I guess, John, from there he went to law school and then graduated and got his. Passed the bar, joined some law firms, lobbied.

John Dehlin [00:18:28] Do you know which law firm? Which law school? I did it to you again.

Gary Bergera [00:18:32] I don't know which law school. I want to say George Washington, but I don't.

John Dehlin [00:18:36] No, that's Right, Yeah. George Washington confirmed. George Washington. I'm throwing random questions.

Gary Bergera [00:18:44] This is the hard thing for me at this point is that, well, this book's 600 pages long and I finished it maybe five or so years ago. And it's hard to, for me and I'm old and so it's hard for me to always remember exactly what happened.

John Dehlin [00:18:55] No, that's good.

Gary Bergera [00:18:56] So, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:57] So he cared about BYU because he went there, at least in part, probably.

Gary Bergera [00:19:01] I mean, it's hard to know. I mean, I think he saw BYU as the premier LDS school and in the 50s, maybe he was burning out a little bit with law and saw this as an opportunity if the church was interested in hiring him to serve as the new BYU president.

John Dehlin [00:19:21] What was BYU like in terms of its reputation and its enrollment?

Gary Bergera [00:19:28] Well, it was a very small school. It was, you can't, I mean it would be, it's, it's maybe not. Maybe it's too harsh to say that it was a glorified high school, but it was not, you know, it was not a major school. It was a university, it was a four year university.

Gary Bergera [00:19:48] But you know, it had, it had faculty that wanted to do more with it, but it was not really well funded at that point. When Wilkinson came on, it happened to coincide with the implementation of the GI Bill.

Gary Bergera [00:20:04] So there were a lot of incoming veterans from Korea that took advantage of that and there was this influx of students and Wilkinson was able to take advantage of that to argue for greater appropriations, financial appropriations from the church. Wilkinson realized that if he wanted to grow byu, he would need to get more students and he would need to get more monies from the church and also he would need to get just more monies generally and those kind of fed off each other. If he could get more money, he could get more students. If he got more students, he could argue for more money. And he used those to his advantages to help BYU grow.

John Dehlin [00:20:50] So, you know, for those who have tried to follow 20th century Mormon history, they'll be aware that there were the science wars between like BH Roberts or Talmadge or Woodstow or Eyring Senior and like the Joseph F. Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, Boyd K. Packard types. And that at some point Joseph Fielding Smith outlived those other science minded apostles. And then there were the evolution scandals at BYU early on.

John Dehlin [00:21:23] And correlation comes up obviously around the 60s and 70s. My question is, were there any church leaders in the 40s and 50s saying, wow, we've got science and secularism, but we want, you know, we want to Maintain faithful leaders, you know, faithful membership. And so we have to thread that needle of like, you know, having the best and the brightest to send out into the world with the quality education. But we don't want to have all of them losing their faith over revolution or Age of the Earth or getting liberal ideas.

Balancing Faith, Politics, and Academic Life at BYU

John Dehlin [00:22:00] Did Wilkinson or any of his predecessors have concern around that and. Or a vision about how to balance modernity, science with faith? Was that even on anyone's radar in the 50s?

Gary Bergera [00:22:16] I don't think it was on. I don't think it was a focus, really. Yeah. In the 40s? I don't think so. I'm not really well versed on BYU history in the 40s. I just don't think so. In the 50s. Joseph Hilling Smith does publish his Origin and Destiny, and that becomes a topic for a time. And there is some pushback. Richard Paul. Well, aside from Henry Eyring. Henry B. Is that right?

John Dehlin [00:22:49] The dad. The dad, yeah.

Gary Bergera [00:22:50] Yeah. Aside from his really articulate and strong pushback, there's Richard Paul pushes back on that idea too. Wilkinson, I get the impression from Wilkinson is that he doesn't really care so much. It's not his area, you know, whatever.

Gary Bergera [00:23:11] And he's more concerned about criticisms of the general authorities than he is about what do we do about organic evolution at byu. So Paul has a meeting with Joseph Fielding Smith where he tries to argue for a greater understanding of science. He has a meeting with David O. McKay, and David O. McKay is much more supportive of science. I don't think David O. McKay has a problem at all with organic evolution. He figures it can fit into God's plan.

Gary Bergera [00:23:47] Joseph Fielding Smith doesn't see how organic evolution could possibly fit into God's plan. David O. McKay also seems to be a little bit more tolerant of general authorities voicing their opinions. Richard Paul thinks that Joseph Ewing Smith, because of his position in the church, that his books carry greater weight than anybody else's on these kinds of controversial topics.

Gary Bergera [00:24:16] Wilkinson finds out that Richard Paul has met with both men. He worries that that's a runaround, that if Richard Paul had some concerns, he should have gone to Wilkinson and then Wilkinson could address them as he thought best. And Wilkinson kind of encourages Paul not to spread accounts of his meetings with these men. That eventually does blow over. It's not a big deal, although Wilkinson holds it against Paul and he holds it against Paul for a long time.

Gary Bergera [00:24:53] Organic evolution is one of the first issues where the faculty. Wilkinson tries to figure out how he can monitor his faculty and to make sure that his faculty fall in line in support of his agenda for byu. Tithing payment also becomes a really important faculty issue for Wilkinson. Wilkinson feels that his faculty should pay a full tithing.

Gary Bergera [00:25:16] And he finds out that that's not the case, that not everybody on his faculty is paying full tithing. There's a time when Wilkinson is able to access individual tithing records so he can monitor exactly how much tithing specific faculty members are paying. Eventually, he's told he can't do that anymore. And he.

Gary Bergera [00:25:42] And by that point. So this is the early 60s, by that point, Wilkinson is also burning out a little bit from being BYU president. And that's when in 1963, the end of 63, he decides he's going to run for the U.S. senate. So he leaves BYU for a year. That Senate run changes Wilkinson. It affects Wilkinson's view of the world. He becomes much more politicized. And when he comes back from.

John Dehlin [00:26:08] Who do you run against? Do you remember?

Gary Bergera [00:26:10] So in the primaries, he ran against Sherman Lloyd and he won. And then he ran against Frank Moss and he lost.

John Dehlin [00:26:24] And who is Republican, who is Democrat?

Gary Bergera [00:26:26] Who What?

John Dehlin [00:26:27] Who is Republican? Who is Democrat?

Gary Bergera [00:26:28] So Wilkinson is the Republican and Frank Moss is the Democrat.

John Dehlin [00:26:31] Wow. There was a Democrat senator in Utah.

Gary Bergera [00:26:34] That's amazing. Yes. Well, that's when, you know, Lyndon Johnson, basically, you know, he. Everybody seemed to vote for him. That's when Barry Goldwater ran 64. 64 for president. Yeah. And I think Utah went Johnson. I'm not sure about that. But, you know, it was kind of a tidal wave.

John Dehlin [00:26:52] Interesting.

Gary Bergera [00:26:53] So Wilkinson comes back from that and he's very politicized and very. Politics become one of his chief interests. And that's when. In 1966, I think. 65. 66. He encourages students to monitor faculty so that he can weed out the liberal faculty from the school.

John Dehlin [00:27:22] Okay, so that's the spy ring. So maybe we'll just jump into that. Is that right?

Gary Bergera [00:27:27] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:27:28] Okay, so that's good background that he runs for Senate, loses, becomes more politicized. Was Ezra Tab Benson a conspirator or a collaborator?

The BYU Spy Ring and Campus Surveillance

Gary Bergera [00:27:42] I don't. So Ezra Tab Benson Wilkinson came up with this by himself.

John Dehlin [00:27:48] What was the concern at the time?

Gary Bergera [00:27:50] The concern was that there were wolves in sheep's clothing in the BYU faculty, politically, politically, who were leading students astray.

John Dehlin [00:28:00] Wilkinson saw like to make them communist. Was this red scare kind of stuff.

Gary Bergera [00:28:06] I don't know the extent to. The ironic thing is that the professors that BYU targeted were Republicans.

John Dehlin [00:28:15] So I read. I was in the political science department Was it Vetterly? Was it Midgley?

Gary Bergera [00:28:20] This was not. Midgley was in the political science department. Vetterly not yet. Ray Hillum was one of the. Ray Hillam was probably the main player in this, and Ray Hill was Republican. They were not Republican enough. I mean, they were not conservative.

John Dehlin [00:28:37] They were RINOs. They were Republican.

Gary Bergera [00:28:39] Yeah, they didn't have that term back then, but that's what he would have thought. Wilkinson blended theology and politics, and for him, free enterprise system was part of the gospel. Capitalism, capitalism was part of the gospel. Those kinds of things. Limited government, part of the gospel. Those were all gospel principles for him. He would have, you know, I mean, he and Ezra Hup Benson were not far apart at all on this. I don't see. I don't think Ezra F. Bentsen knew about or encouraged Wilkinson to set up a spy ring to monitor faculty. I think that was Wilkinson himself.

Gary Bergera [00:29:20] Wilkinson. In the past, Wilkinson had dealt with complaints about faculty for unorthodox beliefs or teachings, and he had never. These had always been secondhand reports. He wanted to set up a program where he could get firsthand testimony from students about the unorthodox beliefs of certain faculty members. It started out with maybe seven or eight faculty members, and then it grew to maybe 12 that he specifically targeted, that he wanted to know, what are these people's teaching? Wilkinson decided that he would give a talk on politics, on the free enterprise system, on capitalism that he knew was going to be controversial and that he knew certain faculty might criticize.

Gary Bergera [00:30:14] So he and one of his vice presidents found a student who would organize some students, a group of students. There weren't that many students, maybe six or ten. And they met together before the talk. Wilkinson gave the talk. These students attended classes. They attended classes in which they were enrolled sometimes and also classes in which they were not enrolled sometimes.

Gary Bergera [00:30:41] They were encouraged to listen to what their teachers had to say about the Wilkinson's talk. They were encouraged to ask questions, sometimes to find out what Wilkinson had to say. Then they would write up these reports of what the faculty said. They would give the reports to the main students, and then the main student would prepare a report and deliver it either to Wilkinson's vice president or to Wilkinson. And that happened. It was only once. But students continued to report on faculty members that they thought were teaching unorthodox ideas.

Gary Bergera [00:31:19] Wilkinson had this information. As it turned out, at least one of the students, maybe two, decided to go public with what they had been told to do. They went public, and from that point, things blew up. Faculty, certain faculty Especially Ray Hillam found out what had gone on. They complained about it.

Gary Bergera [00:31:46] They eventually met with Harold B. Lee and with Eldon Tanner. Three vice presidents investigated the charges that Wilkinson had organized a student spy ring. Wilkinson downplayed it, and he tried to deflect and he obfuscated about this. The vice presidents took three years maybe to investigate this. They issued a couple of reports. In the meantime, they found out that they had not been given full access, access to information that they needed.

Gary Bergera [00:32:25] And the final report that they prepared condemned Wilkinson for his involvement by name in this spy ring and exonerated the faculty, specifically Ray Hillem. Ray Hillam seemed to take the brunt of this particular activity. And he was later named, I think, department chair. They named him department chair of Political science.

John Dehlin [00:32:51] When you say he took the brunt, though, it sounds like he kind of won.

Gary Bergera [00:32:54] He did win.

John Dehlin [00:32:54] Hillam won.

Gary Bergera [00:32:55] Yeah. Yeah, Hillam definitely won.

John Dehlin [00:32:57] And he became department head.

Gary Bergera [00:32:58] And he became department head. He got a raise. And Wilkinson was named for. By. Yeah, I mean Wilkinson. So here's an interesting point for me on this, is that I met Wilkinson once. This was in 19, I think, February of 1977.

Gary Bergera [00:33:18] I was a student in journalism, and I had wanted to write an article about academic freedom at BYU and specifically about the spy ring. And I made an appointment to talk to Wilkinson. Wilkinson had been retired from BYU or resigned from BYU for a few years, although he still had an office in an old house that BYU owned that was just east of the new mtc.

Gary Bergera [00:33:44] And I went and met with him and asked him about the spy ring. And he told me that he had never organized students to spy. And that technically is correct. He didn't organize students to spy. Somebody else did.

Gary Bergera [00:34:01] But that's how he. That Wilkinson was able to remember the past in a way that exonerated him from the most, you know, problematic of the charges. And I understand that. But he. Wilkinson, in studying Wilkinson, the spy ring, for me, is probably the one, the primary instance that is the most disappointing because Wilkinson could have come clean from the beginning. He could have owned up to having instituted aspiring. But he didn't.

Gary Bergera [00:34:44] And I think that's too bad. Hillam, in his account of this, I think Hillam blamed Wilkinson's ego for not being able to admit that he had made a mistake.

John Dehlin [00:34:55] So devil's advocate, like, I know that, for example, when the ERA stuff was happening throughout the United States, there was some big meeting in Salt Lake City where the church sent out people to write down license plates of people attending the ERA meeting. AM I. Right, like, like the Mormon Church, the LDS Church has not been above doing its own surveillance of its members when necessary. There's the whole strengthening the members, you know, committee. So why would the church even. Why would it even be a headline? Why would it even be embarrassing for Wilkinson to initiate aspiring. It's a private. I'm just devil's advocate, outside view. It's a private church. The church probably does a ton of surveillance all the time, including today. Why would they care if their president was doing it?

Gary Bergera [00:35:49] Well, and I think that's what I think that was. Wilkinson's point of view is, what's the big deal? Yeah, the problem for the faculty is that they saw BYU as an American university. They complained that they did not have the opportunity to address these charges that labeled them as unorthodox. They wanted an opportunity to be able to confront the people who were accusing them, to question these, to argue in their defense. And they felt that that had not happened.

John Dehlin [00:36:21] So lack of due process.

Gary Bergera [00:36:23] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:24] And they were being accused of what, being too socialist, not capitalist enough?

Gary Bergera [00:36:28] They were probably being accused, yes. And they were being accused of not supporting the church in terms of its social and political views.

John Dehlin [00:36:38] And so would you say he misled or lied in his response to the accusations? Would you say you were disappointed?

Gary Bergera [00:36:48] I would say that he, as I read his response to the accusations, he did lie. He did say that he did not organize students. And in fact, in fact, his vice president, who was involved with this and who didn't disagree with it, kept his own diary. And in his own diary, he records Wilkinson telling him, you know, we need to have plausible deniability. He didn't use those words, but that's what he meant, you know, that it's really the student, it was this one student that we had suggested who should take the fall for this. So Wilkinson. Early on, Wilkinson was planning on disavowing any knowledge or involvement in the spy ring. He later changed. And he did say that. Yes, I did do that. I met with a student. We did encourage the student to do this, but it took him a while to come around to that. Okay,

Controversial Policies and Hot-Button Issues at BYU

John Dehlin [00:37:51] let's just talk about some of the potentially hot button issues that he might have been involved with or things that BYU is most known about today. Let's start with, you know, I did like a 17 or 19 part series with Matt Harris on the church's history with black people and the priesthood, et cetera.

John Dehlin [00:38:14] I know that in the 60s, the LDS Church was experiencing a lot of protestation over its policies around the priesthood ban to priesthood and temple ban, and that there was starting to be movements in the 60s against the church and specifically BYU around civil rights legislation, around how many black students it had, whether black students were being discriminated against. I even seem to remember there being an admission process that intentionally filtered out black applicants and that by the late 60s there were very, very few black students.

John Dehlin [00:39:03] And I even remember Harold B. Lee being quite okay with that and willing to lose tax exempt status if the church was forced to admit more black students. So what do you want to share about Ernest Wilkinson, BYU, and BY's relationship to Black students?

Gary Bergera [00:39:22] Well, first I should say that Matt Harris knows more than any of us will ever know about the history of the church and African Americans and the priesthood, temple ban, and the history of BYU and African Americans. Wilkinson was not. I can't say that Wilkinson wasn't racist.

John Dehlin [00:39:49] That's a double negative. Yeah, no, I'm not calling you out on that. I'm just like.

Gary Bergera [00:39:54] But I think that Wilkinson would have admitted more black students to BYU if it had not been for Harold B. Lee. Harold B. Lee seems to be the primary force that wanted to limit, if not exclude black students from BYU entirely. And it seems like his primary motivation, and you can correct me, is he worried about intermarriage.

John Dehlin [00:40:18] Yeah, he didn't want white Mormons having sex with.

Gary Bergera [00:40:21] He didn't want his daughters marrying, dating, or marrying any, any blacks in the late 60s. Right. That's when it became really an issue. There was a big civil rights push and BYU was there and people knew that BYU did not have many, if any, black students.

Gary Bergera [00:40:41] And the athletic events became the primary focus for protests against the church's policy of excluding blacks from priesthood and temple. And, and Wilkinson, I'm sure, would have been fine with admitting more blacks, but he couldn't get the support from his board of trustees to expand the outreach to try to get more black students enrolled at byu.

Gary Bergera [00:41:14] He knew that that would take care of the protests against BYU or at least would take the air out of the. The protests against byu. So I mean, I don't think that he would have been happy to have either of his daughters marry African Americans, but I think he would not have been opposed to allowing more black African Americans to enroll at byu.

John Dehlin [00:41:42] There's that. Sometimes I think I confuse Markey Peterson with, with Ernest Wilkinson because there's that famous quote in the 50s where basically Mormon Apostle Markey Peterson comes to BYU and basically it's an anti segregation speech where he says, in effect, let the blacks have their Cadillacs or watermelon. We just don't want them here intermingling with us white people. Would Ernest Wilkinson have hated that talk? Would he have loved it? Was he there in 54? That before?

Gary Bergera [00:42:20] So he would have been there in 54. I don't recall Wilkinson commenting on the talk either way, either in four, either in favor or against. So I just don't think it was on his radar. I don't think he lived for a time on the east coast, so. As did Ezra Benson. Yeah, I just don't think it was on Wilkinson's radar. I don't think he worried about it. It.

John Dehlin [00:42:50] Interesting. Okay, so is there anything else about race that's worth mentioning that comes to your mind around Wilkinson?

Gary Bergera [00:43:01] Not really. He. I wish I knew more about Wilkinson before BYU and about his views on Native Americans. You know, he had that big case where he won, like, $3 million in a settlement involving, I think, the Ute tribe. And I just. Now I wish I knew more about that.

John Dehlin [00:43:25] Okay, so what about gay, lesbian students at byu? Did he care about that? Was he concerned? Did he initiate spy rings around gay students?

Gary Bergera [00:43:37] I don't think he initiated spy rings around gay students, but he would have been happy to hear reports, you know, if anybody wanted to turn in gay students, Wilkinson would have been open to that. There's a story. It's not in the book where. And I thought that Trevor Southey told this. That. And you do hear stories. So these are all just anecdotal. I don't have any good information on this about students who would turn in other students or who would entrap other students. Wilkinson did make it very clear at a certain point in the 60s that. That LGBTQ students were not welcome at BYU. And if you were LGBTQ, you should find another university to go to.

John Dehlin [00:44:25] That. That was Wilkinson's view.

Gary Bergera [00:44:27] That was Wilkinson's view. Wilkinson, as far as Wilkinson was concerned, they were sinners and they had no place at byu.

John Dehlin [00:44:36] So. Yeah. So let me just see if I've got a quote here from Wilkinson. You tell me if this sounds. If this sounds familiar. The basic quote is, now, do we not intend to admit to our campus any homosexuals? If any of you have this tendency and have not completely abandoned it, may I suggest that you leave the university immediately after this assembly. We do not want others on this campus to be contaminated by your presence.

Gary Bergera [00:45:11] Yes, that. That sounds like Wilkinson.

John Dehlin [00:45:13] So wasn't super LGBT friendly. Of course. Who would have been in the 50s and 60s? Right. Okay. So did that. Did that Did. Did that make you feel anything in terms of, like, assessment of him?

Gary Bergera [00:45:30] No, No. I mean, it just. It. All it did was to confirm the fact that this is how things were in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.

John Dehlin [00:45:42] Okay. Okay.

Gary Bergera [00:45:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:47] That is a pretty intense quote.

Gary Bergera [00:45:48] It's a very intense quote. But that's how he was. I mean, he would say stuff like that about a variety of things.

John Dehlin [00:45:56] I mean, that's kind of like Marky Peterson. That's why I get him and Marky Peterson confused. Cause, like, that's a pretty hot take. Yeah, it is. Just, if you're gay, just leave. We don't want you.

Gary Bergera [00:46:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

John Dehlin [00:46:09] But I don't. Again, I don't know how unique that would have been for the time.

Gary Bergera [00:46:13] I don't think it was that unique. But it is strong. I mean, for us today to hear it, it does sound like it's especially strong.

John Dehlin [00:46:21] What about the honor code? Was there an honor code around dress and grooming and word of wisdom and law of chastity before he got there?

Gary Bergera [00:46:29] So before. No, there was not really. The honor code did not address those specific things. Before Wilkinson, there was an honor COD code, but it's dealt mostly with cheating. That seemed to be the primary focus of the honor code in the 60s, with the emergence of a counterculture and a protest culture and those kinds of things, questioning the moral matters, Wilkinson. Encouraged by the general authorities and by the parents of students, Wilkinson became much more concerned about how students dressed. Long hair on men, length of skirts for women, and those became part of the honor code. He made sure he took the honor code away from students and gave it to faculty, to administrators to administer. And then from there, it's just become what it is today.

John Dehlin [00:47:27] Okay, so we do have Wilkinson to thank for the honor code.

Gary Bergera [00:47:31] You have Wilkinson and a lot of other people to thank for that. But Wilkinson did take it on as a personal project.

John Dehlin [00:47:38] You mentioned in an outline that there was a point in Wilkinson's tenure that Hugh Nibley wanted to leave BYU and that Wilkinson convinced him to stick around. Is that story worth telling?

Gary Bergera [00:47:52] Well, I'm happy to tell it, at least. Somebody asked me about that, and I remember it being in the diaries, but it never struck me as being as interesting as I think other people find it. Hugh Nibley. There was a point in the 50s when Hugh Nibley told Wilkinson that he was thinking about taking a job at the University of Utah because he thought that he was not appreciated at BYU and he would be better appreciated at the university. Of Utah. And Wilkinson tried to convince him and Nibley wasn't buying it. And it took J. Reuben Clark, who was a counselor in the first Presidency, who intervened and who met with Nibley and told him, look, there's no way that the University of Utah is going to allow you to do the kinds of things that you want to do.

Gary Bergera [00:48:41] And you are much better positioned to make the kinds of contributions at BYU than you will ever be at the University of Utah. And Nibley decided that he should stay at byu. I don't know how much of that. That if Nibley actually thought that he would have more freedom at the University of Utah to make the kinds of contributions that he thought he could make and receive the kind of recognition that he thought he deserved.

Gary Bergera [00:49:13] And so it may have. Maybe he really believed that maybe that was a way of bargaining for greater responsibilities or more money or something like that. I'm not sure that Nibley was ever motivated by money, but he did decide to. Decided to stay at byu.

John Dehlin [00:49:33] Did I remember right? You mentioned tithing. Did Wilkinson propose a mandatory garnishment of tithing from the faculty? Did I get that right?

Gary Bergera [00:49:45] I'm not sure if he ever did a mandatory. Like a tax.

John Dehlin [00:49:51] Yeah, just like auto deduction.

Gary Bergera [00:49:53] I don't think so. But he made it clear that if you were not paying a full tithing, he thought he could monitor. He would be able to monitor that. So I don't know that he ever thought that there would actually be a withholding from their salaries. He did at one point propose that all seniors be assessed a $2,000 fee that would buy. With which the university would buy a life insurance policy on that graduating senior that would name BYU as the beneficiary upon that student's death. But that was a way of fundraising. But that didn't get very far. So that would be interesting if he did. I don't recall that he ever proposed. He might have entered. Well, no. Yeah. I just don't recall if he ever did try to enforce the payment of tithing to that degree.

Wilkinson's Greatest Achievements and Disappointments

John Dehlin [00:50:55] Okay, you mentioned, I think we talked about this before recording, but I don't know that it hit the recording. You tell me if I'm wrong. There were a couple big battles that he lost. One had to do with with Rick's college, which ends up byu, Idaho and where it would be. Do you want to talk about some of those things?

Gary Bergera [00:51:20] Sure. These are the two probably Wilkinson's greatest disappointments during his years as president of byu. While Wilkinson was president of byu, he was also the church Commissioner of Education, which gave him responsibility over the institute and seminary program. So he had these two hats that he wore.

Gary Bergera [00:51:37] Wilkinson wanted to do two things. He wanted to move Rick's College from Rexburg to Idaho Falls. He thought that Idaho Falls had greater promise in terms of growth, both population and in other ways. And he thought that Rexburg was a dying town.

Gary Bergera [00:52:02] So he wanted to move Ricks from Rexburg to Idaho Falls. He marshaled all the information. He had his most persuasive arguments. The board of trustees agreed to move Ricks to Idaho Falls. Then there was some pushback and they agreed not to move it. Then Wilkinson argued again and they agreed to move it.

Gary Bergera [00:52:29] Other people argued against it. And Finally David O. McKay made a decision that Ricks would stay in Rexburg. And it was a devastating blow for Wilkinson. He thought that was a big mistake. But David O. McKay decided. David O. McKay told people that he had never been fully satisfied in his own mind that moving Rick's.

Gary Bergera [00:52:54] Rick's to Idaho Falls was in Rick's best interests. And so he decided. And the way that he decided, the way that they announced this or made it clear, is that David O. McKay approved capital expenditures for the Ricks campus at Rexburg.

Gary Bergera [00:53:12] That was the one big regret disappointment that Wilkinson had. The other is Wilkinson wanted to establish a network of junior colleges throughout the United States where students, LDS students, would attend for their first two years, and then if they continued, they would transfer either to a local college or ideally to BYU and finish out their education at BYU. And the church bought 11 or 12 parcels of land with the idea that they would build these junior colleges.

Gary Bergera [00:53:52] There were a couple of reasons why that didn't happen. One was the church finances in the 60s were in a problematic state and they didn't know if they could spend the money. The other was that there was considerable opposition from the Seminary Institute program, primarily from Boyd K. Packer. Boyd K. Packer was made an Assistant General authority in the 60s and was appointed to the Board of Directors, trustees, the Church Board of Education.

Gary Bergera [00:54:18] And he argued against this. And Boyd K. Packer and Wilkinson in some ways were cut from the same cloth. They could be equally argumentative and blunt, and they went head to head on this issue and probably more for the lack of money than for Boyd K. Packer's arguments. Boyd K. Packer was convinced that Wilkinson really, his heart was at BYU and not with the Seminary Institute program. And Boyd K. Packer was a veteran of the Seminary Institute program, and that was his first love. And he just. He worried that this Junior college was a way of slowly killing the institute and seminary program.

Gary Bergera [00:55:08] I suspect that money, the lack of money, was maybe a bigger factor for the death of the junior college program. But Boyd K. Packer and some of the other general authorities who agreed with Packer, they could make a convincing argument. Plus, David O. McKay's health was failing. And so finally they decided not to. They would not pursue the junior college program. What they would do is to bolster the institute program.

Gary Bergera [00:55:39] And that's where they would. If they had money, it would go to the institute program and not to the junior college program. And the junior college program just faded away. The church sold off its real estate holdings and Wilkinson. Those two things, the death of the junior college program and Rick's remaining in Rexburg, are probably Wilkinson's two biggest disappointments of his years as president and Commissioner of education.

John Dehlin [00:56:08] What would you say his greatest achievements and. Or his.

Gary Bergera [00:56:12] Wilkinson thought that his greatest achievement was the implementation of stakes, a stake in wards on the BYU campus.

John Dehlin [00:56:20] You're talking about student wards and student wards.

Gary Bergera [00:56:23] Yeah, he thought. Now maybe he's being a little disingenuous or a little humble about that, but he thought that the stakes at the wards were probably the best contribution to students, to the life of students. Their lives on campus, their social lives, the opportunities for marriage, socializing. He thought that that was his biggest accomplishment, the greatest accomplishment. Now, you could also make an argument that the growth of byu, the involvement of the church, the growth of church subsidies to byu, the growth of the faculty, being able to attract really competent faculty, that those are at least as important to the status of BYU today as the bringing in wards to students.

John Dehlin [00:57:15] Would you say that over the 20 years Wilkinson was president that the caliber of faculty at BYU increased significantly?

Gary Bergera [00:57:24] There's no question that the. In terms of terminal degrees, the number of faculty with PhDs rose significantly. And if you view that as an important indicator of faculty competence, then yes, there's no question that the faculty during those 20 years increased the quality of the faculty. And presumably then the whole educational experience at BYU increased dramatically.

John Dehlin [00:57:54] Did he have opinions about the sports program at all? Was he even interested in that?

Gary Bergera [00:57:58] Wilkinson was not a big ad. There were a lot of things about the sports program at BYU that he did not like. He did not think students should be paid. I'm not sure. I think he saw sports as secondary to the educational aspect of byu. Maybe sports was a necessary evil.

John Dehlin [00:58:22] I just don't think the 1984 championship would have happened under oaks. Is that right?

Gary Bergera [00:58:26] The football is that Right.

John Dehlin [00:58:27] Would it have been under, was Holland president of Oaks?

Gary Bergera [00:58:30] It might have been under Holland. Yeah, I think it was under Holland. Holland. I think Holland just came on just a year or two before that.

John Dehlin [00:58:36] Okay, so Wilkinson wasn't.

Gary Bergera [00:58:40] No, I don't think so. I mean he, you know, he was, he played the fade. There's a famous thing where he came as Cosmo, dressed as Cosmo the Cougar in one of the, I think it was a basketball game. Oakston Wilkinson did too.

John Dehlin [00:58:55] Oh, really?

Gary Bergera [00:58:56] Yeah, Wilkinson did too. Oh, and and also Wilkinson also did, you know, one of the assemblies with Cosmo egging him on did a bunch of push ups to show to people that he was physically, you know, he was still at it physically.

John Dehlin [00:59:08] Sounds like Putin.

Gary Bergera [00:59:10] Yeah, so, but I, you know, I think Wilkinson saw sports as a necessary something to the education to by educational offerings. But I, yeah, I don't think he was, I don't think he was the booster that maybe some people are today.

John Dehlin [00:59:30] What about fundraising? Was he effective in fundraising?

Gary Bergera [00:59:33] He tried to be a fundraiser. They had a special administrator. They created a post for fundraiser that was not as successful as they were hoping. So I don't think fundraising, they made a dent in fundraising, but I don't think it ever became what it did later. And I'm sure that Dallin Oaks and, and the president since then have really pushed outside fundraising to supplement the church's subsidy of byu.

Personal Reflections on Wilkinson's Character and Legacy

John Dehlin [01:00:04] Would you say there was anything that stuck out? I mean, this is a real labor of love. Again, I'm going to call out the book Educating Zion, the diaries of BYU President ERNEST L. WILKINSON, 1952-1971. You can buy it with signature books. We love signature books. So please buy it. You'll love the book. We should all support signature books and the good work that they do. Really quick, what's this cover?

Gary Bergera [01:00:34] So this covers the years 52 to 60.

John Dehlin [01:00:36] No, I mean what's on the COVID What's on the COVID What's the photo?

Gary Bergera [01:00:38] So the COVID is. I did not choose the COVID This was signature books and it's a genius cover in some ways. It's Wilkinson in the 60s for homecoming every year the students would go up to the, the big Y, the block Y on the mountainside east of BYU campus. And they would clean it and whitewash it, give it a new whitewash. So that's a picture of Ernest Wilkinson applying a fresh coat of whitewash on the BYU on the Y on the mountain. And you can read that as in whatever way you want to. You can Read it as white wash. You can read it metaphorically or literally, but it's open to interpretations.

John Dehlin [01:01:19] But I mean, he didn't then academically, he raised the caliber. He wasn't. If the implication there would be that potentially he whitewashed academia. You're saying he raised BYU's academic game and.

Gary Bergera [01:01:34] Sure, yeah, he definitely. Yeah, he raised BYU in a lot of ways.

John Dehlin [01:01:41] Maybe he whitewashed his involvement in the spy ring.

Gary Bergera [01:01:43] He could have whitewashed his. He did whitewash his involvement in the spy ring.

John Dehlin [01:01:47] Okay, so that's maybe where the metaphor, it could, yeah, could come into play. Were there any moments, again, this is a Labor of Love. 600 ish pages of actual text or reading, not counting table of contents, footnotes, appendix, et cetera. Were there any human moments that really stuck out to you in just terms of his humanity that you want to make.

Gary Bergera [01:02:14] So the things that struck me about Wilkinson are those aspects of his personality that maybe rub people the wrong way. I don't know that. I don't know that BYU has ever had a president like Wilkinson since Wilkinson because he would stand up to authority for what he believed in. And you know, I kind of admire that and respect that, that he would do that. He would argue so vociferously for the things that he felt so strongly about

John Dehlin [01:02:51] with high ranking apostles.

Gary Bergera [01:02:52] You're saying with anybody, yes. David O. McCabe maybe was only the. Was maybe the only person that he would temper himself with, but he would still argue for what he believed in and what he thought was in BYU's best interest.

Gary Bergera [01:03:12] There are some human elements to Wilkinson. Wilkinson would privately give money to students who needed it. This was not something that he ever bragged about. I don't even know that he wrote about it in his diary. I've heard about this from other people who knew him, that there were times when he would support students financially.

Gary Bergera [01:03:38] And I don't even know if the students knew in every instance that he was doing that. So I think that Wilkinson did have a genuine affection for the students. That affection morphed into paternalism in the 60s when Wilkinson became more involved in the honor code.

Gary Bergera [01:03:57] But he did like students. He is on the record saying that he likes students more than he likes faculty. So I think that they were the faculty, some of the faculty. He bristled at some of them. But I do think that there was a genuine affection for most of the students that he interacted with.

John Dehlin [01:04:17] And did he consider some of those apostles to be like his enemies or his nemeses?

Gary Bergera [01:04:22] No, I don't think that He. Wilkinson's interesting because the story that I told you where he said that we argue in the law, we argue, but afterwards we socialized and things like that. It mystified Wilkinson that people didn't like him if he disagreed with him.

Gary Bergera [01:04:39] He struggled to understand, why can't we disagree but still be friends? I don't think Wilkinson had any friends among the general authorities, really. I don't think that there were. I don't think he socialized in a friendly sort of way. I don't think he ever went bowling with any of them. I don't know that he. But I don't know that Wilkinson ever bowled. He was consumed by work. Work, and he worked all the time. Even on Sundays. He would work. He would spend time in his office. The custodial staff referred to Wilkinson's office as the hornet's nest.

Gary Bergera [01:05:13] At general conferences, he would book a room at the Hotel Utah and work on BYU stuff while general conference was in session. So, yeah, I don't think that the notion of friendship. I'm not even sure that applies to Wilkinson, at least while he's president of byu. After he leaves byu, he has more time.

Gary Bergera [01:05:38] His children told me that they thought that Wilkinson was a better grandfather than father. And I think that's just a function of the time that he's had to spend with his kids versus his grandkids.

John Dehlin [01:05:49] Okay, so I was going to ask whether you had any reflections of his kids and grandkids about. About how they liked him.

Gary Bergera [01:05:56] Well, they all loved him. Right? I mean, that. You have to. But I mean, they recognized that he was an absentee father because he was just gone. And that really, the burden of raising a family fell on his wife, Alice.

John Dehlin [01:06:08] So I think you've already mentioned this, but, you know, when I think of byu, just because of my experience there, I think of, like, Cecilia Farr and Gail Houston and David Knowlton getting kicked out or the September 6th, you know, Michael Quinn kind of the enforcement of religious orthodoxy and the concern over students losing their faith. Over his 20 years, was he ever involved in that? Sort of like kicking out, firing BYU professors for being too secular or not being faithful enough or for eroding people's faith.

Gary Bergera [01:06:42] So there were faculty members who left because they didn't feel that they had the kind of freedom that they wanted, that they expected from a university. There were faculty who left because they didn't like some of Wilkinson's policies. There were faculty who left because they didn't feel that they had the opportunity for advancement because of Wilkinson's possible antipathy for them.

Gary Bergera [01:07:07] John, my experience at BYU is maybe a little bit different from yours since I'm older than you. So I graduated from BYU, you the first time in 1980 and then the second time in 1982. So I had Dallin Oaks for those years. And my experience, I don't recall any kind of pressure from the university, both either in regards to faculty and what faculty could teach.

Gary Bergera [01:07:41] The faculty that I interacted with were I never. When I hear today that there were, you know, that there are some administrators who worry about unorthodox faculty or faculty who are trying to lead students away from the faith. From the faith.

Gary Bergera [01:07:58] I don't know what that means because that was never my experience at byu. I never had any faculty who I thought were teaching unorthodoxy, who I thought were trying to get students to leave or to stop believing. All of the faculty, even the faculty who might be more liberal leaning, they were all very supportive of the LDS Church.

Gary Bergera [01:08:22] So that was my experience at byu. Other people's experience, I just. I don't even know how to approach sometimes because I don't have the background or the context to do that with them.

The 7th East Press and Academic Freedom at BYU

John Dehlin [01:08:35] Well, I think I've mentioned you before. I'd love to have you tell your Mormon story because you're a legend and you know so much. But you were there when the 7th East Press was either formed or operating, is that right?

Gary Bergera [01:08:47] That's right. I was a graduate student. I had started a graduate program in public administration at byu that's in the Book of. And I was teaching at the MTC also.

John Dehlin [01:08:57] Okay.

Gary Bergera [01:08:57] Yeah. When the the 7th East Press started in September of 1981, did you help start it? So I was like an innocent bystander.

John Dehlin [01:09:09] Who were the people who started it?

Gary Bergera [01:09:11] So Elbert was there, Elbert Pett was there. Ron Priddis was there. There's a guy named Anthony Schmidt was there. Maxine Hanks was involved early on. There were a few others who were involved very early on. I was not involved to the extent that they were in setting up the 7th East Press. My contributions consisted during that very first few months of writing a column called Gray Matters that addressed controversial issues in Mormon theology. And then I stopped doing that after, I think the first semester, by the end of that year. 81. And so my involvement from that point after was tangential at best. But I didn't know the people.

John Dehlin [01:09:50] Why'd you stop?

Gary Bergera [01:09:51] Why did I stop writing stuff? Stuff? I wanted to work for BYU studies as an editorial intern. And they made it Clear to me that I could not be both an editorial intern at BYU Studies and write under a byline for the 7th East Press. And I really wanted the experience of working at BYU Studies. And so I said, okay, I'll agree not to write columns under a byline for the 7th East Press anymore. That's not to say that I didn't help out at the 7th East Press, read articles and help with other things, but I got to work as an editorial intern at BYU Studies for a time, which was an amazing opportunity for me.

John Dehlin [01:10:32] Okay, so when you mention names like Maxine Haynes, Albert Peck, Ron Priddis, you, I'm dying to know, like, when the 70s press is envisioned, what was everyone trying to accomplish? Were they faithful at the time? Were they believing? Was it subversive? Were they, they quote wolves in sheep's clothing, trying to talk about complex issues to help lead people out of the church? Like, what would have caused. I'm just dying if I could be a fly on the wall of those early meetings where the people you mentioned, including yourself, were all thinking, we need to start the 7th East Press. What was the status of everyone's faith? And I know that'd be different for every individual. What were the intentions of starting the seventh East Press and what were not the intentions?

Gary Bergera [01:11:26] So, John, my first suggestion would be for people to go back years ago and listen to the interview that you did with Elbert. Yeah, that was. I'm not sure. That was a long time ago.

John Dehlin [01:11:38] I don't remember. Really good.

Gary Bergera [01:11:39] It's a long interview, and it's a really good interview. And Elbert, I think, goes into some detail about those early years. Elbert, Kurt and Maxine and Ron and another student named Anthony Schmidt are probably the best to answer that. I can give you my experience of being in some of those meetings when they were talking about wanting to found a student newspaper. And my memory is that they were most interested in providing an opportunity for students to articulate opinions and to pursue news stories that the university, and specifically the Daily Universe wouldn't do and that they saw themselves as a supplement to the BYU experience and to the Daily Universe, that that's really what was motivating them.

Gary Bergera [01:12:36] It's not that they were trying to talk about controversial topics or. Or to advocate either a pro Mormon perspective or a less pro Mormon perspective, that really they were there for the students to try to provide an opportunity for students to experience BYU in a way that they might not be able to experience if their only source of information was the Daily Universe.

Gary Bergera [01:13:10] One of the motivating factors, I think, for the 7th East Press was the fact that they knew that the BYU limited the kinds of speakers who could appear on campus, and that if you were Democrat or too Democratic, you were not approved to speak on campus.

Gary Bergera [01:13:28] And I think that the students who were founding the Seventh East Press wanted to be able to provide an opportunity for those kinds of points of view to find expression and exposure on the BYU campus. And that's why when seventh of these press was kicked off campus, it was such a shock. So it started on campus, it was distributed on campus. They had newsstands on campus and they were sold in the BYU bookstore. And then BYU decided, I think maybe six months later later, that they weren't going to do that anymore. And the reason that they gave is that the 7th East Press had done an interview with Sterling McMurran, professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah, in which Sterling McMurran said, you don't get books from angels.

Gary Bergera [01:14:17] And there were some members on the Board of trustees, specifically Ezra Tab Bentsen, who thought that we should not give a forum for the expression of that kind of point of view. The irony for me is that the following year, Dialogue ran that interview where McMurran says the same things, and they did not kick Dialogue out of the BYU bookstore.

Gary Bergera [01:14:41] The hard thing for me, and the thing that I try not to feel more bitter about, is that at no Point did the BYU administration ever say to the 7th East Press, you guys need to be careful or this article is going to be a problem, or that article is a problem. Can you do something about that? Can you?

Gary Bergera [01:15:01] It was just everything was fine until it wasn't. And that's one of the most hurtful things for me about that experience of having been of the 7th East Press, having been kicked off campus.

John Dehlin [01:15:16] I was just reading one of Sterling McMurran's books last week, and I started reading it because of a Ben park video that got recorded where Ben park was talking about whether or not BH Roberts lost his faith. And some suggestion that at some point Sterling McMurran was told, either by B H Roberts or someone close to him, that B.H. roberts had lost his faith in a historical Book of Mormon. You were editing books and paying attention to Dialogue and Sunstone during all the decades where that whole controversy would have been adjudicated. Where do you land, if you're willing to share on whether or not BH Roberts lost his faith in a historical Book of Mormon? If you wanna share, I think the

Gary Bergera [01:16:07] primary source for that right is A Diary. Is it Wesley Lloyd's diary where he records a meeting with B.H. roberts, where B.H. roberts seems to suggest that maybe the arguments for a historical Book of Mormon aren't as persuasive as people thought they were. You know, I never followed it that closely, so I don't have opinion about where B.H. roberts ended up. It would not surprise me if B.H. roberts thought, concluded that the Book of Mormon was not history, that it was an expression of faith, and that that's how he viewed it. He did not view it as a history textbook, but he viewed it more

John Dehlin [01:16:48] as

Gary Bergera [01:16:51] an expression of faith. I don't think BH Roberts ever lost his faith in the church. Church, but he might have ended his life with a more nuanced view of the Book of Mormon as both a document of faith and a document of history. That's kind of where I'm at.

John Dehlin [01:17:11] Love it. Well, what a fascinating time. I know that it's separate from the Ernest Wilkinson administration, but I would love to have you back. Are you a tiny bit hesitant to tell your story on Mormon stories just because you're private maybe?

Gary Bergera's Personal Mormon Story

Gary Bergera [01:17:28] No. Well, I mean, this is the truth, and I'm not trying to be humble or anything about this, but I've always found other people's stories more interesting because they have interesting things that happen to them. I don't know that my personal story, my personal autobiography is really that interesting. And I'm being honest about that. You know, it would be great, John, I would come back if I could sit with you and talk to you at depth.

John Dehlin [01:17:54] You want to interview me?

Gary Bergera [01:17:55] Your personal. Your trajectory through the LDS Church and Mormonism generally. I read something recently, I think, where you had said that you would be, if things were right, you would feel comfortable about going to church. Church,

John Dehlin [01:18:16] yeah. Well, yeah, that got some play.

Gary Bergera [01:18:19] It did get some play because I saw it.

John Dehlin [01:18:21] Yeah, yeah. No, you know, just for fun, I'll give you my answer and that's that. Nowhere did I say I would request to be re. Baptized or want to rejoin or pay a tithing or like, go to the temple or get a temple recommend. There are times where. Well, I do attend church right now, occasionally. I attended over Christmas with my dad and stepmom as an example. Or I might attend with my sister. Like, I believe in family still.

John Dehlin [01:18:51] And occasionally there's a reason to attend. And I quite enjoy it, believe it or not. When I do, I attend with my mom. My mom's 91 and I've attended with her, but I do feel sometimes A desire to get to know my neighbors better.

John Dehlin [01:19:08] And I have no way of doing that without kind of going to my local ward, really. That comes to mind. That's easy. But also, I just. I still maintain. I'm curious if you would feel this way too. I still maintain affection and even a little bit of gratitude for my Mormon upbringing and for the degree to which the church has done positive things for me in my life. And I mostly, I consider myself part of broader Mormon culture and continued to be fascinated at the church's evolution. So there's lots of reasons why I would find it interesting to attend a sacrament meeting. None of it has to do with the church's truth claims or a desire to pay tithing or to kiss the ring of the church's leadership, which people are like, you're a traitor.

John Dehlin [01:19:59] You know, John, you. You're a traitor. A disgusting trader. That's what people called me. Just by saying it might be interesting to attend my local ward anyway. Is that the sense you got? Would you ever attend a soccer meeting?

Gary Bergera [01:20:16] Sure, I would attend if I had a reason to.

John Dehlin [01:20:19] You're a traitor.

Gary Bergera [01:20:23] And that's the risk you take, right? By going public with your personal stories, people think they know you well enough to know if you're being a traitor or not. No, I think that that's true. And I have a lot of affection. One of my projects right now in retirement is editing the diaries of my great grandmother.

John Dehlin [01:20:46] What was her name?

Gary Bergera [01:20:47] Her name was Lorena Eugenia Washburn Larsen. And she actually, she's a character in volume two, two of the Saints series that the church published. She was a plural wife in Utah in the 80s, the latter part of the 19th century.

Gary Bergera [01:21:04] And she's, you know, as far as fame goes, she's famous for reporting on the manifesto, the issuance of the manifesto. And she was a second wife. And the manifesto comes out and the men in the town were, where they're living, they don't know what to make of this, what does this mean? And they get together and decide. It means they have to choose which of their wives they're going to continue to live with. And her husband decides it's not going to be her.

Gary Bergera [01:21:34] And this is devastating for her. And she talks about, in an autobiography that was published after she died, she talks about how hard this was. And finally she came to a realization that whatever, she's going to support the church and this is the right thing to do. She's not going to leave. She's going to stick with. With it.

Gary Bergera [01:21:52] An interesting thing is that she bears more children with this husband after the manifesto than she does before. But she effectively raises these kids as a single mother. And as far as civil society goes, she's a mistress, and all of her children are illegitimate. And she raises these kids to adulthood, and it's not easy.

Gary Bergera [01:22:17] Before the manifesto, she goes on the underground and lives in Colorado for a period of time. She comes back, she does the best she can. And so these diaries survive in my mother's family, and they date from the 30s and they go into the 40s, and she dies in 45. So that's my project now, is raising this. And I'm going through this. And I mean, she's just this.

Gary Bergera [01:22:40] At one point, somebody refers to her as a typical Mormon woman, and she's not. But she is in this. And her family is everything for her. The church is what has kept her going and has given her a reason to live.

Gary Bergera [01:22:58] And that part, I mean, for me, that connection to this woman, whom I hadn't thought about very much until I started working on these diaries, is a compelling argument for what the LDS Church can offer people, people, that kind of meaning to continue in the face of horrible things in the hope that everything will work out and you'll all be together in the end.

John Dehlin [01:23:26] No, I share that. My grandmother, my maternal grandmother, was the daughter of a third wife, and I knew her. And as I was trying to study her, I'll just say polygamous history. Yeah. I found out that my great grandfather spent less and less time with his earlier wives and more and more time with his later younger wives over time, and that the earlier families, at least at some points, felt a little bit estranged or abandoned. And I think that that would be a really fascinating area of historians to do work on is just what were those family systems like in the late 19th and early 20th century? And, you know, that's interesting.

Gary Bergera [01:24:16] My great grandmother's experience is the opposite. He spent all of his time, well, the majority of his time with his first wife, and they're buried together in a little cemetery plot in Monroe, Utah. When my great grandmother died, her kids debated where should we bury her? And they decided not to bury her next to her husband, but instead to bury her in the Provo cemetery.

John Dehlin [01:24:42] Well, so I can see, I can stretch my brain to understand why you would think your story wouldn't be interesting. It takes a lot of creativity and whitewashing on my part. But just I'll say two reasons why I think my viewership in the world would benefit from an interview with you one would be, like, nowadays, people might know Mormon stories of them, but they might know CES Letter, or they might know, you know, various podcasts or RFM or Bill Real or whatever.

John Dehlin [01:25:19] But, like. And maybe they'll know a little bit about Sandra Tanner, because I've had her on a lot. But so much of the historical knowledge that we have now really comes from dialogue articles and signature books, authors and sort of the really vibrant, thriving Mormon studies projects that came out of kind of the Leonard Arrington Camelot era, but specifically in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. And you were central to so much of all of that, whether it's publishing and dialogue or publishing so many of the books that were instrumental to me, like Grant Palmer's An Insider's View of Mormon Origins or Michael Quinn's Origins Extensions of Power, or Simon Southerton's Losing a Lost Tribe.

John Dehlin [01:26:13] So people like you and Sandra have forgotten more interesting Mormon history than any of us in modern times will ever learn. Tell me I'm wrong.

Gary Bergera [01:26:24] So I can't. So it's true that there are times when I hear people talk about what was going on in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, where, you know, I mean, I. I feel a little, you know, Forrest Gumpish, you know, to have been and.

John Dehlin [01:26:45] Yeah.

Gary Bergera [01:26:45] To remember those kinds of things. So I can't say that you're wrong. I mean, I have one perspective, but there. There are a lot of people who experience this. And my involvement in terms of the academy of, like, a university or that kind of thing, I'm kind of adjacent to that because that's not my background. I was not. It's always awkward for me if somebody calls me doctor, because that's not. I don't have a doctorate. I just have a Master's of Public Administration, which has been helpful in some way anyways, but it's been. Yeah, there. I mean, I've forgotten a lot.

John Dehlin [01:27:29] I don't think Fon Brody had a doctorate. I don't think Juanita Brooks had a doctorate.

Gary Bergera [01:27:33] Yeah, Juanita Brooks didn't. Didn't. Didn't. Fon Brody.

John Dehlin [01:27:36] I thought she had a master's in Chicago. But all I'm saying is, like, that was back then.

Gary Bergera [01:27:42] That was back then.

John Dehlin [01:27:43] I appreciate your modesty. I'm sure it's sincere, although I think it's misguided.

Signature Books and Its Influence on Mormon History

Gary Bergera [01:27:49] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:27:52] But the other thing is, I would love to hear you tell the story of the publications of some of these books that you edited and published, including Michael Quinn and your reflections on him. Grant Palmer Your reflections on him, Simon Southerton. And I'm sure there's a lot of other authors of journal articles and of books where you'd have really fascinating stories.

Gary Bergera [01:28:16] You know, I wish I had the fascinating stories that.

John Dehlin [01:28:19] That you're looking for.

Gary Bergera [01:28:20] One of the problems that I have is that my memory is not good. And I'm not saying that to get out of talking about people. It's just not. It's not very good. And I have. I mean, there are little things that I remember about people. But, you know, it'd be worth going through Signatures correspondence to just refresh one's memory about some of these experiences with people. But

John Dehlin [01:28:46] I wish someone would do a history.

Gary Bergera [01:28:47] It would be good if you could talk to somebody who had a good memory about these things.

John Dehlin [01:28:52] What year was Signature started?

Gary Bergera [01:28:54] So Signature was started in 1981. Scott Kenney was the first publisher or director of publishing.

John Dehlin [01:28:59] So he was the first editor of Sunstone, right?

Gary Bergera [01:29:01] Yeah, he was involved then.

John Dehlin [01:29:03] So he helped start Signature after Sunstone.

Gary Bergera [01:29:05] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:29:06] Okay, keep going.

Gary Bergera [01:29:07] Yeah. And he's still around. I mean, he would be an interesting. I don't know if you've ever reached out to him.

John Dehlin [01:29:11] I need to.

Gary Bergera [01:29:12] So after Scott left Signature after a couple of years and that's when. When I was invited to come on and Ron came along as well.

John Dehlin [01:29:19] Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, that's.

Gary Bergera [01:29:22] And I was at Signature up until the end of 2000. And then I started working for the Smith Pettit foundation in 2001 and stayed with Smith Pettit until I retired from Smith Pettit, which would have been four years ago.

John Dehlin [01:29:36] What would you say are the most influential books Signature Books is published?

Gary Bergera [01:29:41] Influential? It depends on how you want to. I mean, the Wilford Woodruff Diaries was a big deal when they came out. The books Salamander, the story of the Mark Hoffman bombings that had probably sold the most of any books that Signature ever published. And it was probably in all formats. It's probably north of 60,000 copies, which is a huge number for something like this. Deseret publishes a lot more, but for us that was a huge thing.

Gary Bergera [01:30:12] It's hard to know. Ask again, in 50 years, what books have made an impact? I assume that Quinn the Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, as well as his studies of the hierarchy, that those are really important books.

Gary Bergera [01:30:28] Grant Palmer's book definitely made an impact. My favorite Mormon oriented biography is Mike Quinn's biography of J. Reuben Clark. I think that's probably. It's the best, the finest, if not one of the best and finest Mormon biographies ever published, in my opinion. I just think that it's done really well across a spectrum of criteria.

John Dehlin [01:31:01] That's a great recommendation. I need to read that book. It's a good book. I need to read that book.

Gary Bergera [01:31:05] I think the backslider, Levi Peterson's novel, I love that. Made, you know. And it's too bad that you know that. Well, I mean, that's how things go, right? Is that enough time passes by and you forget what's happened in the past?

John Dehlin [01:31:16] Levi was one of the first people I interviewed on Mormon stories.

Gary Bergera [01:31:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:20] That's a great book. It's a classic. It's a Steinbeck.

Gary Bergera [01:31:23] It's a big deal.

John Dehlin [01:31:23] Steinbeck caliber book. Yeah.

Gary Bergera [01:31:26] Yeah. More recently, what would stand out? It's hard to tell, isn't it? Because you do need the benefit of hindsight, of time passing in order to know. Has this book made an impact? Because you can think that something's going to be a big deal and it just isn't.

John Dehlin [01:31:48] I wanted to take time to dig into your Leonard Arrington stuff because I'm sure that would have been brilliant. Yeah, I just haven't had time to really dig into that.

Gary Bergera [01:31:55] That might be one. George Smith's edition of Brigham Young's diaries. That's a big deal. It is. Despite the competing volumes that may come out from the Brigham Young papers project, George's two volume edition of Brigham Young's diaries is a big deal.

John Dehlin [01:32:12] I'm guessing John Turner would have relied on that when he wrote his book.

Gary Bergera [01:32:15] Although he probably would have done his own research in the original sources too. But I would hope that he had relied on.

John Dehlin [01:32:20] On. Yeah. And George Smith did a lot on polygamy.

Gary Bergera [01:32:23] He wrote the book on polygamy. Yeah, that came. I think that Brian Hales books came out just after that.

John Dehlin [01:32:31] Y' all published with Brian Hales, right? Or he published with you?

Gary Bergera [01:32:34] No, he published with Greg the polygamy books he published with Greg Coford. He published an essay in the book that one of signature's contributors did that I don't remember right now. Now he wrote about. He wrote about writing those books. Oh, it was Joe Geisner in Joe Geisner, the first volume of Joe Geisner's Historians and their works or something like that. Brian Hales is in there and he talks about writing his books.

John Dehlin [01:33:00] I understand how painful it is to not remember stuff that's embarrassing, not to do that.

Gary Bergera [01:33:06] And it's my own stuff too, that I can't. People ask me things about things. That I've written and I just don't remember, remember. So that it is a hard thing and so that. Sure. That's another one of the reasons why is that I just don't want to embarrass myself with you and your viewers.

John Dehlin [01:33:22] Well, you'll never stop being a legend to me. And I'll never stop being grateful for your role and Signature's role in helping me see Mormonism way more clearly. Because I didn't have the benefit of the Internet or Mormon stories or the CES letter or even the Tanners when I'm at Microsoft in 2000. But I could buy books, and I bought several of yours, and there's a few people I'll say this about.

John Dehlin [01:33:51] But there would be no Mormon stories without Gary Bergera and Signature Books. Not that that's necessarily a big deal, but I do think Mormon Stories has had a big impact. So to that extent, I stood on your very important shoulders. Gary Bergera, thanks.

John Dehlin [01:34:09] Yeah, so thanks for your influence on me. Most importantly, I'm happy that I was able to make conscious decisions about what to do with my life, feeling like I had more informed consent as a result of the books you helped publish.

Gary Bergera [01:34:25] Well, thank you.

Final Thoughts on Educating Zion

John Dehlin [01:34:28] All right, so anything else you want to say about this wonderful book?

Gary Bergera [01:34:31] I don't think so.

John Dehlin [01:34:32] Yeah. The book is Educating Zion. For some reason I can't see as well as I used to, the book is Educating Zion, The Diaries of BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson, 1952-1971, edited by Gary James Bergera. Here's the book. Buy it from Signature. Signature just recently released the Carolyn Pearson, Volume one of the Carolyn Pearson Diaries. There's, I think, three more to come. Those are all bangers. Carolyn Pearson is a legend. That's another one that's probably gonna make its mark for sure. But please buy Signature books because they're amazing. Buy the Backslider. Buy Early Mormonism, the Magic Worldview.

Gary Bergera [01:35:18] Just buy them all.

John Dehlin [01:35:19] Buy them all. Buy Gret Palmer's An Insider's View of Mormon Origin Virgins. You won't regret it. But most importantly, Gary Bergera, we wish you well. We want you to come back anytime on Mormon Stories podcast. And we will always be grateful for the role you've played in helping our lives be better. So thank you.

Gary Bergera [01:35:41] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:35:42] Yeah. All right, that's it for today on Mormon Stories. Thanks for joining us. Please like and subscribe to this channel. We thank our donors for making all of this possible. If you are not a donor and you value this type of content, Please go to MormonStories.org donate, become a monthly donor, and we'll continue creating this type of content. If there are other books you want us to review, other historical moments, I think we should do one on the J. Reuben Clark book. Who would be the best person to bring on to represent that book? Is there anybody that could do it justice?

Gary Bergera [01:36:16] So I know that Ben park deals with J. Reuben Clark in his new book, his most recent book. I think so probably. I think he talks about that, looked into J. Reuben Clark. And Ben also has studied the context of J. Reuben Clark, that period of time. So he would be. Yeah, he'd be pretty good.

John Dehlin [01:36:36] Are you friends with Ben?

Gary Bergera [01:36:39] I mean, I know him.

John Dehlin [01:36:40] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Well, we would love to have Ben park on for a lot of reasons, but that's definitely one. But maybe we should do a review of that book because I think it would be. If you speak of it that highly, we need to cover it anyway. If you have feedback for us, you can email us@mormonstoriesmail.com we love your comments on YouTube and on Spotify as well. We really appreciate that and we just love to hear from you. So please stay in touch. Be good to each other, be kind to each other. Buy this book from Signature Educating Zion, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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