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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- W. Cleon Skousen, a one-time FBI agent, Salt Lake police chief and professor who is best known for his anti-communist and conservative writings and lectures, has died at his Salt Lake City home of causes incident to age, family members said.
Skousen, 92, wrote 46 books, including "The Naked Communist," one of the most popular works in the 1960s on Communist conspiracy.
He died Monday, surrounded by his wife of 69 years, Jewell, and many family members.
Among his other best sellers were "The Naked Capitalist," "So You Want to Raise a Boy," "The Making of America," "The Five Thousand Year Leap" and "Fantastic Victory" about the Israel-Arab war of 1967.
His books on religion included "Treasures from the Book of Mormon," "The First 2,000 Years" and "Prophecy and Modern Times.'
Skousen taught at Brigham Young University for 16 years.
He helped organize the conservative Freemen Institute in 1972 as a place to study the U.S. Constitution.
But in a 1996 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Skousen said he became dismayed at the way the term "freemen," which he popularized in the 1970s and was taken from the Magna Carta, was used by separatists trying to set up sovereign townships.
"They grabbed onto a name they didn't understand and said, `We Freemen can do anything, we're free from the law,"' he told the newspaper. "They've destroyed the name."
The Freemen Institute board changed the organization's name to the National Center for Constitutional Studies.
Skousen was born in Raymond, Alberta, Canada, on Jan. 20, 1913, and was educated in Canada, Mexico and the United States. He received his doctorate at George Washington University.
Survivors include eight children, 50 grandchildren and 67 grandchildren.
Funeral services were pending.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
