[1] After two years at Brigham Young University (BYU), he served as an LDS missionary in France[2] where he edited the church's L'Etoile periodical.

While president of the Phi Alpha Theta chapter at BYU he invited Arrington to address the spring banquet.

[10] With Arrington's help, Bitton was appointed as a consultant for BYU to the newly created Joseph Fielding Smith Institute with an honorarium of $1,000 per year.

His first award granted by the MHA was in 1975 for the Best Article By A Senior Author for his works Ritualization of Mormon History and The Making of a Community: Blackfoot, Idaho, 1878 to 1910.

In 1979, Arrington and Bitton were given the MHA Best Book Award for The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latterday Saints.

[8] Bitton's biography of George Q. Cannon was described by Deseret News "as a definitive study of one of the most important of all Mormon leaders.