Another admirer is Joseph Ginat, former adviser to the prime minister of Israel and now director of the Center for Peace Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

"He was in Israel over 20 times, and I went with him to meet top politicians and government ministers," Ginat said. "He always had good questions and analyzed the situation in the Middle East. He had a great love for Israel, no question about it. I think that he followed the approach of President Ezra Taft Benson, who also loved Israel very much." The two talked biblical studies and the history of the Old Testament. "He was so articulate. He explained things so every person could understand . . . and he had an excellent sense of humor that came out in his lectures."

Skousen also had plenty of critics and clashed with former University of Utah professors J.D. Williams and Obert C. Tanner, according to U. law professor Ed Firmage, who remembers working with Skousen as a young employee in his father's store in Provo. "I had talks with him when he came in and we sold him a suit or tie or shirt." While he He appreciated Mr. Skousen as a person, and even invited him to speak once to his First Amendment class at the U. But "on the issues that mattered, he and I were on opposite sides of the fence. He was way to the right — a John Birchy kind of person who really appealed to a particular brand of right-wing Mormonism at a particular time. I don't view him as a significant constitutional scholar. He had a rightward song that was ideologically driven."

Firmage said he didn't read much of Skousen's work, so "I wouldn't be much of a commentator on his writing. I know he had definite views on Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, as most rightward Christian denominations do. But I think his defense of right-wing ideas was subversive of Mormonism and notions of the Constitution." Firmage spent his early career working with Martin Luther King and Hubert Humphrey during the Cold War. "He saw Russia as bigger than it was and saw various plots and plans and schemes against the country that I think didn't exist. It was the height of the McCarthy era and he was one of the chief spokespersons."

Wrapping religion and constitutional views together as Mr. Skousen did makes political views "a religious principle for some people. That makes it impossible to see the real defenders of the Constitution when you're looking for a bogeyman all the time. It was a somewhat paranoid period in American history that we're now somewhat free of. I think we are in a better and healthier period now."

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E-mail: carrie@desnews.com