David O. McKay instructs Bruce R. McConkie to meet with Spencer W. Kimball to check the changes McConkie made to the first edition of Mormon Doctrine.
- Type
- Personal Journal / Diary
- Hearsay
- DirectReprint
- Reference
David O. McKay, Presidential Diary, July 5, 1966, in Confidence Amid Change: The Presidential Diaries of David O. McKay, 1951–1970, ed. Harvard S. Heath (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2019), 663
- Audience
- Reading Public
PDF- Transcription
July 5, 1966, 8:00 a.m. . . . According to appointment, I met with Brother Bruce R. McConkie, of the First Council of Seventy. Brother McConkie discussed the matter of re-publishing his book “Mormon Doctrine.” I asked him a number of questions about the original publication, about the need for the book, and asked him to give me the facts about what has been done since we stopped the publishing of the book.
He said that the book has been read with care by one of the brethren, but no one has gone over the corrections he has made since the reading.
I told Brother McConkie that should the book be re-published at this time, he will be responsible for what is in it, and that it will not be a Church publication. I said that Elder Spencer W. Kimball who has in the past been chairman of the Reading Committee should check the changes that he has made as a result of the prior reading.
I asked Brother McConkie to meet with Brother Kimball and give him this message.
- BHR Staff Commentary
We read the following in a footnote (ibid., 663-64n29):
There is a discrepancy between McKay’s account of this meeting and McConkie’s letter summarizing it three days later. McConkie wrote: “President McKay discussed the entire matter with me, and asked numerous questions about the original publication, about the need for the book, and about what happened since its publication. We discussed the fact that the book had been read with care by one of the Brethren, but that no one had gone over the corrections I had made as a result of this reading. President McKay indicated that the book should be republished at his time [italics added], said that I should be responsible for what was in it, that it would not be a church publication, and that Elder Spencer W. Kimball, who has been in the past chairman of the Reading Committee, should check the changes. I have made in it as a result of the proper reading.” This letter appears in McKay’s diary under the date. As Prince suggests, “At that point, President McKay, age ninety-two and in failing health, did not take the matter up with his counselors or the Quorum of the Twelve . . . McConkie, who practiced law prior to becoming a General Authority, was well versed in the legal meaning of words; and so one is hard pressed to conclude that he misunderstood McKay’s cautionary statement, ‘should the book be republished,’ as a mandate to republish” (David O. McKay, 52).
- Citations in Mormonr Qnas
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