Skousen then returned to California, graduating from high school in 1930. At the age of 17 he traveled to Great Britain as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). After completing his missionary service, Skousen attended San Bernardino Valley Jr. College, graduating in 1935. He married Jewel Pitcher in August 1936, and they raised eight children together. He graduated with an LL.B. from George Washington University Law School in June 1940 (the school updated his degree as Juris Doctor (J.D.) in 1972 with its degree nomenclature). In June 1935, Skousen went to work for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, a New Deal program to subsidize farmers. Soon thereafter, he found employment with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), working as a messenger while attending law school at night. In 1940, after receiving his law degree and passing the Washington D.C. bar exam, he became an FBI Special Agent. FBI memos have described his work at the Bureau as mainly clerical and administrative. Skousen left the FBI in 1951. Ironically, the FBI would maintain a file on Skousen that would come to number more than 2,000 pages. From 1951 to 1955, he taught at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. In 1956, Salt Lake City mayor Adiel F. Stewart hired Skousen to serve as police chief in the wake of a police department scandal. Skousen was a well-respected police chief for nearly four years. In 1960, newly elected mayor J. Bracken Lee dismissed Skousen shortly after Skousen raided an illegal poker club where Lee was in attendance. "National Review" commentator Mark Hemingway characterized the gathering as "a friendly card game." Skousen supporters protested the abrupt firing by disrupting a city council meeting and planting burning crosses on Lee's lawn. Lee characterized Skousen's strict enforcement of anti-gambling laws as Gestapo-like. Lee said that although Skousen was an anti-communist, he "ran the police department in exactly the same manner as the Communists in Russia operate their government." "Time" magazine reported in 1960 that Skousen's "real offense seemed to be that he had failed to show enough enthusiasm for Lee's determination to slash the police-department budget." Lee told a friend that Skousen was "one of the greatest spenders of public funds of anyone who ever served in any capacity in Salt Lake City government", and a "master of half truths".