Review
Title: The Complete Ezra Taft Benson FBI File: A Facsimile Ebook
Author: N/A
Publisher: Signature Books
Genre: Documentary History
Year Published: 2008/2020
Number of Pages: 572
Binding: Ebook – Kindle or Kobo
ISBN: 978-1-56085-387-9
Price: 4.99
Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton for the Association of Mormon Letters
On January 21, 1953, after nearly ten years of serving in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ezra Taft Benson was sworn in as the fifteenth Secretary of Agriculture of the United States. Once President Eisenhower decided to name Benson as a member of his cabinet, the FBI opened up an investigation into Benson’s background. Matthew L. Harris, editor of Thunder from the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics (University of Illinois Press, 2019) and author of Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right (University of Utah Press, 2020) had this to say about the file collected by the FBI on Benson:
As Benson prepared for his move to Washington, the FBI conducted a thorough background check to ensure his fitness for office. They interviewed over two dozen of his closest associates and friends, including two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles along with his associates at the National Farmer’s Cooperative in Boise. The FBI report provides a rare glimpse into Benson’s personality and character” (Watchman on the Tower, 31).
If you are interested in viewing this “rare glimpse” for yourself, if you would love to study Benson’s FBI file but you don’t have the time to fill out a FOIA request and wait for the FBI ship you a fat envelope, then Signature Books has the publication for you! For the miniscule price of 4.99, you can download a digital copy of the ebook The Complete Ezra Taft Benson FBI File: A Facsimile Ebook. The Smith Pettit Foundation first published this book in 2008 as a limited-edition clothbound volume. Copies of the first edition sold out before most people even knew it had been published and on the rare occasion that they become available retail for around one hundred and fifty dollars! Not only is this electronic version a steal at 4.99, it was re-produced from an updated, “2014 version (of the file that) contained fewer redactions of names … and includes additional documents” that were not available in the 2008 edition (publishers preface). If you want to learn previously difficult to find details from Benson’s background, if you would love to view some of the original documents that Matthew Harris and other authors have used to write about Benson, this book is for you.
The Complete Ezra Taft Benson FBI File contains nearly 570 pages of documents spanning the 1940’s to 1989. Most of the documents are from the 1960s (249 pages) or the 1950s (162 pages), but the other decades still have some fun and intriguing documents. The book includes a wide variety of interesting documents. Included are letters to and from Benson, as well as letters to and from FBI Director J Edgar Hoover and other public figures. There are also interviews with associates, co-workers, and friends of Benson, newspaper clippings, copies of office memos, written reports on Benson, transcripts of speeches, and various other documents. Some are common and available elsewhere, such as a copy of the LDS Church’s “The Thirteen Articles of Faith,” but others are only available in this publication.
I’ll let you do most of the discovery yourself, but I’ll point out a couple of the fun things that you can discover when reading this collection of documents. Page 398 is a US Government Memorandum from 1966 written by M.A. Jones to Mr. Wick. The memo is about Benson’s desire to have Deseret Book publish a volume of the compiled speeches of FBI Director J Edgar Hoover. The author of the memo states that Benson’s idea has “merit,” but is concerned that Benson’s recent association and obsession with John Birch society could make Hoover look bad if he and Benson were to do a book project together.
This memo, and several other included documents, provide a fascinating glimpse into how the FBI and the government think. There are several redactions in this document that don’t make sense. For instance, the name of the director of Deseret Book is blocked out even though that information could be easily learned through a little research. Then there is this sentence, “In addition, Benson’s (REDACTED) is (REDACTED) of the local John Birch Society office” It is not that hard to figure out that the redacted names/words are a reference to Benson’s son Reed who was the director of the John Birch Society in Utah. Other documents have similarly perplexing redactions. Page 11 of Benson’s background check dated 11/28/1952 (page 86 of the book) gives reports from several locations where Benson previously lived. Under the heading “Credit and Criminal” the sheriff of Whitney, Idaho, reports that Benson had no arrest record in Whitney. The sheriff, whose name is on public record, is blocked out. In a similar report in the next paragraph, the name of the sheriff of Malad, Idaho, remains visible. The name of the LDS bishop of Whitney, Idaho, is also left visible on this page even though he was a private citizen while the sheriff whose name was removed was a public official. It would be fun to start a study into the thought and decision processes of the FBI based on what they did and did not include in this collection of documents.
The Complete Ezra Taft Benson FBI File is a REALLY COOL book. When I got my copy I geeked out and read it “cover to cover” (pixel to pixel? – book reading lingo needs to catch up with the twenty-first century!) I had great fun. I found it fascinating and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. But I think that it is good for readers to know just what they are getting. The Complete Ezra Taft Benson FBI File is a “bare-bones” book. The text includes a table of contents, a two paragraph-long “Publisher’s Preface,” and the documents. There are no footnotes in the book, no contextualization of the documents is provided, and there is no index. While most of the pages in this book are easy to read, it is composed of scanned photocopies. As often happens when you are working with copies of copies, some of the pages are dark and cloudy and difficult to read. Most of the pages are typescripts, but some are handwritten documents and take some study to decipher.
As the “Preface” to this volume points out, many of the included documents are “routine in nature.” But I believe as you read and explore The Complete Ezra Taft Benson FBI File, you will be fascinated! In your reading, you will discover nuggets and gems that provide interesting insights into Benson’s personality and character, his political activities, and his interactions with Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, and John Birch founder Robert Welch. At 4.99 you can’t pass up The Complete Ezra Taft Benson FBI File, reading it is an adventure waiting to happen!