[1] In addition to his role as a notable anti-communist and supporter of the John Birch Society, Skousen had a significant influence on Mormonism.

While his writings covered a wide range of subjects including the Six-Day War, New World Order conspiracies, and parenting,[2] his influence within Mormonism stemmed from his interpretations of LDS doctrine and his efforts to promote conservative values within the faith community.

Despite his association with the John Birch Society, Skousen's impact on Mormonism is a significant aspect of his legacy within both religious and political spheres.

Two of his most popular works, "The Five Thousand Year Leap" and "The Naked Communist," also resonated with audiences within the LDS community, further solidifying his influence in both realms.

"[10] Skousen supporters protested the abrupt firing by disrupting a city council meeting[11] and planting burning crosses on Lee's lawn.

"[10] Time magazine reported in 1960 that Skousen's "real offense seemed to be that he had failed to show enough enthusiasm for Lee's determination to slash the police-department budget.

"[7] Lee told a friend that Skousen was "one of the greatest spenders of public funds of anyone who ever served in any capacity in Salt Lake City government", and a "master of half truths".

During the Oaks administration, Skousen claimed to have been authorized to teach a new course about "Priesthood and Righteous Government", which would be published clandestinely under the name "Gospel Principles and Practices".

[citation needed] After losing his police job, Skousen founded a group called the All-American Society, which Time magazine described in 1961 as an "exemplar of the far-right ultras.

A 1962 FBI memo described Skousen as affiliating with an "extreme right-wing" group which was promoting "anticommunism for obvious financial purposes".

One, the proposed Liberty Amendment, would have precluded the federal government from involvement in any activities that competed with private enterprise and transferred federally-owned land to the states.

"[10] In 1981, the first year of Ronald Reagan's presidency, Skousen was asked to be a charter member of the conservative thinktank the Council for National Policy, founded by Tim LaHaye, who was later author of the Left Behind series of books.

Other early participants included Paul Weyrich; Phyllis Schlafly; Robert Grant; Howard Phillips, a former Republican affiliated with the Constitution Party; Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail specialist; and Morton Blackwell, a Louisiana and Virginia activist who is considered a specialist on the rules of the Republican Party.

Human beings are treated en masse as helpless puppets on an international chess board where giants of economic and political power subject them to wars, revolution, civil strife, confiscation, subversion, indoctrination, manipulation and outright deception as it suits their fancy and their concocted schemes for world domination.

[23] He also wanted to repeal the minimum wage, eliminate unions, nullify anti-discrimination laws, sell off public lands and national parks, end the direct election of senators, eliminate the income tax and the estate tax, remove the walls separating church and state, and end the Federal Reserve System.

[23] Skousen "once called Jamestown's original settlers communists, wrote end-of-days prophecy and suggested Russians stole Sputnik from the United States.

He agreed with John Birch Society co-founder Robert W. Welch Jr.'s contention that President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a communist agent.

[30] In 1970, he wrote The Naked Capitalist based on the book Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley, which claimed that top Western merchant bankers, industrialists and related institutions were behind the rise of communism and fascism around the world.

"[23] Among the sources Skousen cited to substantiate his claims in The Naked Capitalist was a former czarist army officer named Arsene de Goulevitch, whose own sources included Boris Brasol, a White Russian émigré who provided Henry Ford with the first English translation of the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and later became a supporter of Nazi Germany.

"[15] A 1971 review in the Mormon studies journal Dialogue described Skousen as "inventing fantastic ideas and making inferences that go far beyond the bounds of honest commentary," and also of promoting concepts that were "perilously close" to Nazism.

A few short years before this time, Cleon had organized a nonprofit educational foundation named "The Freemen Institute," to foster "constitutionalist" principles including a drastic reduction in the size and scope of the Federal Government, and a reverence for the true, unchanging nature of our Constitution.

We found in each other at that first meeting many areas of common ground and a shared love for the principles that make America the strongest bastion of freedom on Earth.

He spoke of his knowledge and study and recalled a time when he found Cleon sitting on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC.

[40] In commentary about this exchange, the National Review's Mark Hemingway termed Skousen an "...all-around nutjob", and described The Naked Communist as "so irrational in its paranoia that it would have made Whittaker Chambers blush," adding, "to be fair, Skousen wrote on numerous topics with wildly varying degrees of intellectual sobriety.

"[10] In fall of 2007, political commentator Glenn Beck began promoting The 5,000 Year Leap on his show, describing it as "divinely inspired" and written by someone "much more intelligent than myself".

[42][43] In a November 2010 article in Canada's National Post, Alexander Zaitchik, author of Common Nonsense (a book critical of Glenn Beck), described Skousen as a "whack job" with "decidedly dubious theories.

"[44] After Beck began promoting Skousen's The 5,000 Year Leap in March 2009, it climbed at one point to number one in sales on the Amazon.com non-fiction list and stayed in the top 15 throughout the following summer.

[49][50] In an op-ed, Chris Zinda of The Independent[a] points out a book co-published by Cliven Bundy, the central figure of a 2014 standoff with the Bureau of Land Management.