He used to be big in anti-communist circles.
Way back before the Internet it usually wasn't possible to just call a commie a commie and walk away. Most people wouldn't understand what you'd said and you'd look like a kook. The 'solution" was to interpolate/interpret your anti-communism thesis in terms of a locally prevailing orthodoxy. So you had anti-commie Mormons, anti-commie Baptists, anti-commie Catholics, and so forth, and they'd have their spokesman and he'd say all sorts of things.
WIthin that mix you had OTHERS who'd use the anti-commie thing to peddle their own agenda.
Billie James probably fell into that last category although his "failings" are not easily classifiable.
He went away ~ but others took up the cudgle, and eventually America woke up, elected Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan (All well known anti-communist figures) and there we have it.
Simultaneously communications improved so there was less need for a single spokesman to push any sort of political philosophy, or to oppose one.
Recalling all that I quickly looked up Skousen to see if he had anything to do with Hargis, and lo and behold he did ~ and also Reverend Moon, etc. The whole crew ~ I gather Skousen was the Mormon version of all the other formal anti-commie speakers, if not leaders. There were similar techniques and so forth, and they communicated with each other.
To a degree it all worked.
The question now is whether or not Skousen is still relevant ~ and the Progressives attacking Romney on that point are missing the obvious ~ if Romney exists, Skousen failed!
But did Billie James Hargis?
Well Mitt wins one there ~ if Billie won him over in his final days in some way that's the last thing the Progressives are going to condemn.
***But did Billie James Hargis?***
Billy went bust when it was found he was diddling both male and female students at his Tulsa university. I was living in Tulsa at the time and it was all over the news.