right-wing speakers to BYU and gave highly political speeches on campus. Wilkinson gave a lengthy May 1965 commencement address in which he attributed the beginning of moral decay of American values to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal as well as criticizing the current president Lyndon B. Johnson's views of social security. Hoping to incite controversy, Wilkinson planned to give another politically charged speech in April 1966. He asked his comptroller, Joseph Bentley, to find students to report on professors' reactions to the speech. Bentley in turn asked student Stephen Hays Russell to report on professors' reactions unofficially. The two made a list of professors to surveil, and Russell recruited ten students to take notes on what their professors said about Wilkinson's speech in their classes. Political science professor Ray Hillam was one of Bentley and Russell's targets. He was notified of the spy ring by one of his students and requested a formal hearing be arranged. In the first hearing on September 15, presided over by vice presidents of the university, Hillam was formally charged for being pro-communist and disloyal to the university, with information gathered by the student spies used as evidence. Hillam rejected the charges and questioned the motives of all involved. The vice presidents formally issued a report on October 17. The report did not address that Hillam was the target of a spy ring, only accusing him of "minor indiscretions". Ronald Hankin, one of the students involved, went to local television and radio stations to inform them of the spying scandal and Wilkinson's involvement in it. Wilkinson admitted that he recruited students to report on faculty members in an official statement. In the official history of BYU, Wilkinson included information about the spy ring, but omitted any information that led him to appear guilty. End of presidency Wilkinson considered the most important accomplishment of his term as president to have been the organization of student wards and stakes. Wilkinson was the ninth Commissioner of Church Education of the LDS Church. During his tenure, he also bore the title "Administrator–Chancellor of the Unified Church Schools System". On April 21, 1966, Wilkinson gave an address to the student body of BYU, entitled "The Changing Nature of American Government from a Constitutional Republic to a Welfare State". This was published in booklet form by Deseret Book Company. After McKay died in 1970, Neal A. Maxwell was named the new