NOM

Kurt Manwaring: Could you share one or two entries you consider to be gems and provide your own brief commentary?

Gary Bergera: I know I’m biased, but there are so many gems, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to identify the best. That said, here’s one that I think encapsulates the difficulties Arrington found himself facing, his frustrations with his own inability as how best to respond, and his temperament in such situations. From December 12, 1976:

“My experience in working for the Church for, now, almost five years suggests several comments.

“First, I find the Church, in most instances, to be a beneficent employer. That is, the Church will be compassionate with an employee in a manner that a private employer would not be. It will work with a homosexual, with a cripple, with a retardee, with a person in bad health, with a person undergoing mental health problems. It will try to salvage a life, a situation, a deteriorating health or social or family relationship.

“Second, the Church, being led primarily by older people, will attempt to get by as cheaply as possible, will pay less than competitive businesses pay, will grant smaller increases than private businesses will grant, will resist upgrading salary scales, will feel that the Church should pay less than competitive salaries. The Church will lag behind other businesses and institutions in introducing improvements in its salary scales, will make changes reluctantly and grudgingly.

“Third, in positions like mine which are ‘sensitive’ the security is less than in a university, in the Federal government, in private business. One feels more insecure because he is subject to arbitrary action by any member of the Quorum of the Twelve, and he sees every week examples of such arbitrary action.

“Fourth, there are administrative problems in dealing with the hierarchy. Some of these are the product of the particular personalities. Our own experience is somewhat as follows. We want to determine a matter of policy. We take it to Elder [Joseph] Anderson [the managing director of the Church Historical Department]. Elder Anderson does not make a decision–almost never does he make a decision. He recommends we take that question to the Advisors to the Twelve. The Advisors almost never make a decision; they recommend we take it to the First Presidency. We do not receive answers on many of the questions we take to the First Presidency: The First Presidency wants to discuss it with the Twelve. It never gets on the agenda of the Twelve, or if it does make the agenda, they do not get to it. Or if they get to it someone asks a question about it which our Advisors can’t answer, so it is referred to them to get the answer. They subsequently ask us the question, we provide an answer, they go back with it to the Twelve. By that time, the Twelve have another question. We have had several of our proposals follow precisely this route, with no decision in a year or even two. This has happened on our proposal for a six-volume biography of Brigham Young, on our proposal to do a study of the operation of plural marriage, and on other matters of this type. This could be solved very easily if the Twelve would have one of us outside their Council room during the discussion, prepared to give an answer to any questions that might be asked.

“Fifth, we have observed instances in which a member of the Twelve ‘sounded off’ about our work without really knowing what we were trying to do or why, and without consulting us, our advisors, or our managing director, and without giving them or us a chance to answer the charges. We also have experienced only one instance (S. Dilworth Young’s letter on the [Edwin] Woolley biography) in which we have been praised or appreciation expressed for any of our books, articles, or any other accomplishment. It is normal for an employee to expect occasional expressions of appreciation for his work, and we try to do this for our own employees. But with all the books we have published, and articles, we have never had written or oral communications from Elder Anderson, our Advisors, members of the Quorum of the Twelve, or the First Presidency about them. As if each is fearful of putting something in writing which would later embarrass him. One almost feels that the bureaucracy and the hierarchy fail to use the Gospel in their dealing with their own appointees and, instead, rely on legalistic pronouncements and coercive administrative power. I have never seen a group of people so afraid to do something, so fearful of doing wrong, so terrorized by the possibility of vindictiveness. And this is a Church!”