An ominous cloud overshadowed the 112th Annual General Conference 50 years ago this month.

Americans were still stunned by the air attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii four months before.On Feb. 28, 1942, the First Presidency announced that public sessions of the conference would be canceled in view of travel restrictions, financial demands on Church members and "the hazard, even though remote, that is incident to larger gatherings in the highly militarized area of Salt Lake City."

The hazard prompted the First Presidency to announce in late March that the Salt Lake Tabernacle would be closed to the public for the duration of the war emergency. It was not reopened until September 1945.

Attendance at the conference was limited to General Authorities and the presidencies of the Church's 141 stakes. Sessions were held on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, April 4-6, in the Assembly Hall and Salt Lake Temple.

The Sunday morning and Monday morning sessions of the conference were carried to the general membership over KSL Radio. Sunday's session included two half-hour nationwide broadcasts: the weekly Tabernacle Choir program and the "Church of the Air" program. The local portion of the broadcast featured messages from the First Presidency and other General Authorities.

Speaking in the temple's assembly room during the Sunday morning session was President David O. McKay, second counselor to President Heber J. Grant.

"Even though we sense the hellish origin of war," he said, "even though we feel confident that war will never end war, yet under existing conditions we find ourselves as a body committed to combat this evil thing. With other loyal citizens we serve our country as bearers of arms, rather than to stand aloof to enjoy a freedom for which others have fought and died."

That afternoon, President J. Reuben Clark Jr., first counselor, read a message of the First Presidency in which they said: "Both sides cannot be wholly right; perhaps neither is without wrong. God will work out in His own due time and in His own sovereign way the justice and right of the conflict, but He will not hold the innocent instrumentalities of the war, our brethren in arms, responsible for the conflict. This is a major crisis in the world-life of man. God is at the helm." - R. Scott Lloyd

(Another in a series of "Conference Moments." Sources: Deseret News Church Edition Feb. 28-April 18, 1942; Conference Reports, April 1942. Illustration by Deseret News artist Reed McGregor.)