In Defense of Cleon Skousen

I have come across a few articles recently which disparage and belittle the accomplishments of W. Cleon Skousen. The main criticisms people have are first, that he was fired from his position as the Chief of Police in Salt Lake City; second, that his church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, distanced itself from him and third, that he is a crackpot who believes that people want to form a one world government. Each of these charges are distortions and/or lies and when examined truthfully are extremely benign.

The first accusation is true. He was indeed fired from his position as the Chief of Police. Saying this alone makes it sound like he was incompetent or negligent in some sense. You only need to find the reason and timing of his dismissal to know that he was fired because he disagreed with the Mayor about enforcing laws. Mayor J. Bracken Lee fired him and then called him a liar to discredit anything he might say about Lee and his illegal activities. Mayor Lee later stated that it was his worst political decision to fire Skousen since crime jumped up 22% shortly after Skousen left. Any reference to his stint as police chief as a negative for Cleon is a twisting of the facts. I came across an old 1994 family reunion video I have and there is a good section about Skousen’s Police Chief experience. I will let him defend himself.

The second accusation is not true, but is a twisting of a separate announcement by the church. Skousen had formed an educational, political group called the “Freeman Institute” which would read about and discuss many political issues. Some members of the LDS faith had been using the church buildings to hold meetings. Any LDS member who has attended meetings during an election year has heard the standard announcement that the church does not support any particular candidate, nor does it allow it’s buildings to be used for political meetings. In 1979, since the buildings had been used by some in the Freeman Institute, the church sent an announcement to stop the use of buildings which stated, “This instruction is not intended to express any disapproval of the right of the Freemen Institute and its lecturers to conduct such meetings or of the contents of the lectures. The only purpose is to make certain that neither Church facilities nor Church meetings are used to advertise such events and to avoid any implication that the Church endorses what is said during such lectures.” That hardly sounds like the church distanced itself from Skousen, but rather that they had an interest in maintaining a tax exempt status.

The third criticism is based on his belief that people were conspiring to bring about a one world government. In today’s world of continental unions, talk of a one world currency and treaties that give away sovereignty of nations to a global power, a reasonable person would never say that this idea is for crackpots. People have even admitted to being part of a conspiring group to put the world under one government. Criticizing Skousen on this point could just demonstrate complete ignorance, complete complicity or both.

I find it to be very ironic that a major point that Skousen made about the people seeking to gain power was that they were changing history by omitting or twisting certain things when teaching it and now his legacy has fallen victim to the same distortions.

In Defense of Cleon Skousen