I mostly know Benson from his time as the president of the lds church – the mormons call them “prophets.” He was responsible for a purge of academics from the Church, widely known as the September Six, that ended a prominent strain of feminism in mormonism and gave rise to the anti-intellectualism that is so common in lds circles today. Mormon politicians have a rocky history to say the least – Joesph Smith was running for president when he was “martyred,” and is regarded by some as the first political assassination in the United States – so I’m unsurprised Benson’s time in the government was fraught.