. . .

Dr. Clandestine seems to feel that the Olney manuscript sheds new light on the Rocky Mountain Prophecy. Actually, we read this manuscript before we published the 1972 edition of Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? and even cited a reference to plural marriage in our book Joseph Smith and Polygamy, page 7. It was, in fact, partly because of Olney’s manuscript that we said that there “is some evidence that Joseph Smith considered going west to build his kingdom . . .” (Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? page 135).

In his zeal to prove that we suppressed evidence, Dr. Clandestine seems to have completely overlooked this statement in our book. In any case, while Olney does indicate that the Mormons were looking west, he says nothing about a prophecy given by Joseph Smith. The reader will notice that Dr. Clandestine says that “Olney recorded the rumors about the move west in July, and someone else recorded the prophecy in August.” He is unable, however, to tell us just who this “someone else” might be, and has to admit that “the exact source for the account of Joseph Smith’s prophecy of August 6, 1842 is not clear.”

. . .

In any case, Dr. Clandestine seems to miss the whole point with regard to the “Rocky Mountain Prophecy”—i.e., the Mormon Church always claimed that it was dictated by Joseph Smith himself, but all the evidence now indicates that it was not written in “Joseph Smith’s Manuscript History” until after his death. It is interesting to note that on page 42 of his rebuttal, Dr. Clandestine admits that “Joseph Smith’s autobiographical ‘History’ was written in large part after his death by clerks and ‘historians’ who transformed thirdperson accounts by others than Joseph Smith into first-person autobiography of Joseph Smith, . . .” Clandestine would try to excuse all this saying that “until quite recently official LDS history, as written by men (often of limited education) who were not trained in methods of editing and history.” Now, while the early Mormons may not have been trained in “methods of editing and history,” they certainly knew enough to criticize their enemies when they broke the rules. We feel, therefore, that Dr. Clandestine’s explanation for the falsification is a very poor excuse.