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I was wondering about this recently. At the very least, some of the non-native speakers – with the exception of Uchtdorff, who has excellent English – must have their grammar and syntax checked over and improved… So do GAs really write their talks, or do they give the idea and have someone else do it, a bit like politicians?
I had heard that President Monson had to approve all the talks in advance, but I can see how that could be impracticle. It is possible that this rumor was begun to help bolster the old idea that “everything said in conference is scripture.”
I doubt he writes them all Roy, but I imagine they’re all vetted beforehand! Pres Monson is a busy man, and probably does as much as some national leaders. Still, there might be a team of speechwriters out there somewhere. They write their own. They are submitted in advance so the translators aren’t translating on the fly and so the teleprompters can be set to have them take the right amount of time they are assigned. Ironically, given the other current thread on J. Golden Kimball, I think he was the first person to have his talks reviewed beforehand and asked to read them word-for-word – and that simply was to keep his vocabulary in check. Now, apostles at least often add something off-the-cuff – but they generally stick to their prepared words, again, for translation and timing issues.
I don’t think anyone read Packer’s talk before he gave it this past conference. The Ensign staff have copies of the talks beforehand. They follow along and correct any differences so that when they’re printed in the next issue, they’re identical to the spoke version. I think what happened with Elder Poelman and recently with Elder Packer shows that they’re not vetted. The story as I heard it about J. Golden Kimball was that Pres. Grant became exasperated at his language so he wrote out a talk for him for the next conference. Things started ok but then Elder Kimball stopped, turned and and said, “Hell, Heber, I can’t read your damn writing.”
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