When John Rodney Benson applied to go to Carleton College, he was supported by a letter of recommendation.
His YMCA secretary in Crete, Illinois, said that Benson had been an active member of the Hi-Y Club in his area.
John in my estimation is mature for his age in that he has been able to discipline himself accordingly when assignment and responsibility come his way.
John has particularly impressed me in that he probably is somewhat insecure and yet able to adjust through conscious effort and discipline. As the chaplain of his club, I watched him gear up for the task and come up with some meaningful club devotion that captured the interest of teenagers and made a real impact upon them as well as upon himself.
One of his teachers wrote: “He is an excellent student with a good family background. His personality is sound and he has a great deal of drive to succeed.”
His mathematics teacher observed: “He planned and completed an excellent paper on non-Euclidean geometry while studying solid geometry in my class.”
There was another gushing tribute from a teacher who wrote: “I would rate Mr. Benson as one of the finest students I have had the good fortune to deal with. His activities as an active officer in the local Hi-Y Club give proof of his capability amongst a group. His dress and manners give evidence to support his obvious maturity.”
He concluded that Benson had “an interest field of great size” and that “in all actions he reveals a constant presence of mind.”
These would be undoubted assets in his subsequent career as an eminence grise in the leadership of the revisionist Socialist Workers Party and especially when he was based in Paris with the Unified Secretariat.
The minister at the local Methodist church told the Carleton authorities: “My pastorate in Crete began in October of 1958, and in this brief span of time I have visited in the home of this young man and have greeted him each week after our worship services.”
The Carleton admissions board must have scrutinized his social pedigree with relish. The son of Dr. S.R. Benson, a dentist, he had been brought up in the Methodist Church and showed great potential for group leadership.
At Crete-Monee High School he had belonged to the Latin Club, the Chess Club, the National Honor Society and had taken part in swimming and golf.
The Carletonian newspaper said: “This summer, on the basis of his excellent qualifications for college entrance, Benson was invited to participate with 18 other students in a ten-week pre-freshman honors term. His vocational plans included either research chemistry or nuclear physics.”
The college paper explained that the special course was designed “to give especially-selected freshmen the opportunity to get more rapidly into advanced work at Carleton.”
So, even at this early stage, Benson was marked out for special training.
There was not a trace of the future “revolutionary” in Benson's application to Carleton. On the contrary, his biographical sketch (which began somewhat incoherently) oozed with middle-brow morality, conformity and patriotism.
“Both the city and the country have influenced my life, while I have always lived in a rural community; it is only 30 miles from Chicago.
“Golfing, swimming and tobogganing — these are activities in which I could not have participated if I had lived somewhere else. However, I enjoy the availability of shopping areas and commercial recreations, especially major league sports, of Chicago. I have lived in the same town and gone to the same school all my life.
“I have gone on three vacations with my family. When I was in the seventh grade, we went to Florida. The next winter we spent two weeks in Mississippi. Then, the summer following my freshman year, we went on a sight-seeing trip in the East. I have indeed been fortunate to have been able to travel with my family.
“My school years have had their disappointments and pleasures. My biggest disappointment was my failure to do well in athletics. When I was in the seventh and eighth grades, I played quite a lot of basketball. Then in my freshman year, I made the Freshman team. Although I have gone out for the team each year since then, I have failed to make it.
“Last year I was on the golf team and should be in it again this year. However, here again I have been disappointed with my play.
“While I have been unhappy with my athletic success, I have been very pleased with my scholastic achievement. In elementary school my grades were not exceptional but they have improved since I came to high school. Mathematics and science have held most of my interest.
“I think I have done well in both of these subjects. Last year I won a math contest in which all junior and senior math students competed. Also, last year my chemistry teacher chose me to take an American Chemistry Society scholarship test. When I was a sophomore, I was chosen to participate in a state Latin contest.
“Finally, my greatest honor came last year when I was elected to the National Honor Society.
“I have been fortunate enough to participate in the Illinois Area YMCA Youth and Government program. Each Hi-Y Club selects two people to be delegates to a model legislature.
“These delegates must attend four Chicago-wide meetings and a pre-legislative session in order to be able to make the trip to our state capital. In Springfield, the delegates sponsored a bill which was chosen by the individual clubs.
“The actual process of passing legislation is duplicated so that each delegate may become familiar with the process. While this program was very educational, what I really gained from it was an increased ability to meet people and make new friends.
“With my high school year nearly over, I am eagerly looking forward to meeting new friends and continuing my education during the next few years.”
On arrival at Northfield, Benson was elected treasurer of the freshman class and absorbed himself in his mathematics study.
Unlike the other members of the “Carleton Twelve” in the SWP, Benson did not lead a flamboyant social life. He belonged to no clubs, he appears to have taken little interest in competitive sports.
But there is one outstanding feature of his days at Carleton: he was a regular participant at Sunday services and vespers.
Without any comment, his college report also notes one other activity, “Head of the Young Socialist Alliance.” (The YSA is the youth section of the SWP.)
How could the “head of the Young Socialist Alliance” also be such a devout churchgoer and religious believer? The contradiction is not explained anywhere.
He graduated on June 14, 1963, on the same day as Mary-Alice Waters. He majored in mathematics and it seemed as if he had passed a milestone in his ambition to become a nuclear physicist.
However, when he accepted his BA and shook hands with Dean Richard C. Gilman, Benson knew that he was making a career elsewhere. He was about to become a full-time professional “Trotskyist” with the SWP.