Mormon Leader’s Life ‘a Miracle,’ Benson Says : Kimball Eulogized by Likely Successor

Spencer W. Kimball, the Mormon Church prophet-president for the last 12 years, was eulogized at his funeral service Saturday by his expected successor as a humble man who never complained about his “almost inconceivable trials.”

Kimball died Tuesday at age 90, but his surgeon disclosed Saturday in the service at the Mormon Tabernacle that he and Kimball were convinced in March, 1972, that Kimball had only about two months to live because of a failing heart.

Physician Russell M. Nelson, since named to the high-ranking Council of the Twelve Apostles, performed open-heart surgery on the then-77-year-old Kimball, who recovered remarkably. Yet when he was named president the next year, he was viewed as a caretaker administrator.

“President Kimball’s life was a miracle,” said Ezra Taft Benson, president and senior member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, referring to a litany of Kimball’s other ailments, including throat cancer and a skull operation in 1981 that left him permanently frail.

Benson, who spoke Saturday with a slow, sometimes quavering voice and walked with the caution not unexpected for a man of 86, is expected to be named as the new church president. The Council of the Twelve Apostles will convene in the Mormon Temple today but probably will not announce its decision until Monday. It has always chosen the man with the highest seniority on the council.

During the middle and late 1970s, the relatively small number of Mormon liberals expressed fears that Benson, active in right-wing politics for a couple of decades, would politicize the church upon succeeding Kimball, a transition then considered imminent.

Agriculture secretary for the eight years of the Eisenhower Administration, Benson was an enthusiastic supporter of the John Birch Society and declared in 1967 that the civil rights movement was a Communist program for revolution.

However, many Mormons today have noted that Benson has confined his talks to faith and doctrine for at least the last five years.

“I’d be very surprised if we get a political topspin on any matters if Elder Benson becomes president,” said Gary Lawrence, a spokesman for the church in Southern California.

Likewise, Jack Newell, dean of liberal studies at the University of Utah, said Benson has seemed to become more moderate in tone as he has gotten older. “We will know more when he chooses his counselors,” Newell said, referring to aides who form the ruling First Presidency with the man designated prophet.

‘Not His Agenda Anymore’

In an effort to quell speculation about Benson’s politics, chief church spokesman Jerry Cahill said before the funeral that “that’s really not his agenda anymore. . . . He wants it known that he recognizes that faithful members of the church are involved in both political parties, and he respects that.”

In 1974, Benson was quoted as saying that a good Mormon, “if he is to follow the Gospel,” cannot be also a liberal Democrat.

In his eulogy of Kimball, Benson praised his presidency as “one of the most progressive in the history” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Besides overseeing a doubling of missionaries and an increase of about 2 million members to the present 5.8 million worldwide, Kimball extended the lay priesthood to worthy young black men as well as to whites, Benson said. That 1978 “revelation” to Kimball was one of the most significant since the church’s founding in 1830, Benson said.

Televised to Churches

The funeral service in the domed tabernacle drew less than the 6,000-person capacity, but the service was televised live to Mormon churches through an internal network. On Friday, more than 30,000 people filed past Kimball’s open casket at the church’s administration building.