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Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
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Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:41 pm
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Part 4 of 15
JANIE PETERSON
MR. FLYNN: The next witness is Janie Peterson.
JANIE PETERSON, a witness herein, having first been duly sworn by a Clerk for the City of Clearwater, was examined and testified as follows:
MR. LeCHER: Your name is Janie Peterson?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: All right.
Miss Peterson, I'll ask you the same standard questions I've asked all the other witnesses.
They are: Are you appearing today and testifying under oath voluntarily?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: All right.
Are you — have you been paid by anyone for your testimony, other than expenses for coming to Clearwater?
MS. PETERSON: No.
MR. LeCHER: Do you have a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: Does the Church of Scientology have a lawsuit against you?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: Has anyone suggested to you that you should state anything but the truth or has anyone suggested that you change your testimony for any reason?
MS. PETERSON: No.
MR. LeCHER: Would you like to make a statement or say something in your own words?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. Basically, I'd just like to briefly give you a rundown on my background in Scientology and then you can ask me whatever questions you want to.
I was involved in Scientology for five years, from 1975 until July of 1980. During that time period, I held three different positions in the organization. The first one was called the Director of Processing, which is in charge of all the auditing that occurs within the organization. I was then promoted to a position called Technical Secretary, which was in charge of all auditing and training that occurred within the organization. About a year later, I was promoted to the Guardian's Office, which was the last position that I held.
During that time period that I was in the Guardian's Office, was the time period when the Hartwells and LaVenda Van Schaick and another lady who was involved in Clearwater, Tonja Burden — this was during the time period when they were all leaving the Church and were having various problems.
MR. LeCHER: You were the head auditor?
MS. PETERSON: I beg your pardon?
MR. LeCHER: You were the head auditor?
MS. PETERSON: I was the executive over the auditing that occurred in the Las Vegas Organization.
MR. LeCHER: Who devised — I mean, who thought up auditing and who used — who improved upon it? Who devised the test? Who did the training? There must be a training manual that you must use as a teaching aid. Was that you and —
MS. PETERSON: No. Mr. Hubbard.
MR. LeCHER: Every technique used in auditing was Mr. Hubbard's?
MS. PETERSON: That's correct.
MR. LeCHER: He gave it to you and others, then, you carried it out?
MS. PETERSON: That's correct.
You weren't allowed to do anything on your own.
MR. LeCHER: All right.
I'd like to know what you did in the Guardian's Office vis a vis these other people that you have mentioned.
MS. PETERSON: I beg your pardon?
MR. LeCHER: What did you do in the Guardian's Office with respect to these other people that you have mentioned?
MS. PETERSON: Well, we were — Mr. and Mrs. Hartwell left Scientology very upset. They were — had received a bill from the head office — and I'm not sure — exactly sure where — and they were — they were having some sort of an upset. Mrs. Hartwell's daughter was Executive Director of the organization at that time.
They — what's called a mission was sent out to the organization from the United States Guardian's Office — I might point out right here that all of the Guardian's Offices are run exactly the same. They all are run by the United States Guardian's Office, which is in Los Angeles. All orders and all procedures that come into any Guardian's Office come from the United States Guardian's Office. They operate the standard policy. There's no difference between the one here and the one in Las Vegas or Utah or wherever.
And the Hartwells were — were subject — subjected to this mission that came up from Los Angeles. They were — they had several meetings with a man by the name of Alan Hubbard, who was taping their conversations, although the Hartwells were not aware of that.
Mr. Hartwell's auditing information — copies of the auditing information were made and circulated all over the United States and out of the country. They also went to the Worldwide Guardian's Office, which is in England.
At one point, his auditing information was — excuse me. It was being used against him, in other words. He was also accused of trying to extort Church money from the Church. This was based on mainly hours of taped testimony that had been taken and edited down to a very small cassette tape.
On Tonja Burden, her auditing information was sent in to — it was sent here — or to Las Vegas from the Guardian's Office here in Clearwater, confidential auditing information that she had given. It was accompanied with an order to the Public Relations person in Las Vegas to take to the Review Journal, which is a newspaper, in an attempt to discredit her to show that she was this bad person, supposedly, based on this information.
On Mrs. Van Schaick — she already spoke about the program that was written up called Shake and Bake.
Basically, this — all programs that were written up were given names. That just happened to be the name of that one. And the purpose of the program was to — in fact, it was either the first or second step listed on the program. The wording was: "Plant seeds of doubt in her mind concerning her attorney, Michael Flynn, and in her husband's mind regarding her character."
I really don't have — on that particular area, unless you have some questions.
MR. LeCHER: No. I'm just — I just find it that you were the one —
MS. PETERSON: Oh, yes.
MR. LeCHER: — that audited some of the witnesses who were brought before this Commission. And —
MS. PETERSON: That I audited them?
MR. LeCHER: Well, that you were the — pardon me, you were in the Guardian's Office that did some dirty tricks with the Hartwells and others that —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
Also, on the Shake and Bake program, a man by the name of Barry Clingler was sent to Boston to attempt to what they call handle her, in other words, to get her to be quiet, to disassociate herself from her attorney, to drop the lawsuit, and to keep her mouth shut, basically. He was sent because he was a friend — had used to be a friend of hers. Also, Pam Bevin, who she already testified was her auditor, was sent because it was felt that she would respond to Pam Bevin where she might not respond to anyone else.
MR. LeCHER: When you used these — what you learned through auditing about a person, an individual like Hartwell for one, and others that you have mentioned, you concised it down and gave it to the press, did the press use these — use this, normally? Or did they check it out and find out who you were, who the Guardians were, and become suspect?
MS. PETERSON: Well, an instance on Tonja Burden, the press did not use it, in fact — well, did not use it. I don't know if it was used in Clearwater; in other words, I do know that it was not used in Las Vegas.
MR. LeCHER: But, specifically, did the press — or generally speaking, not mentioning Clearwater or any other — did they use this information that you gathered through auditing against an individual as a filler for a slow day or whatever reasons they used them?
If the press didn't use it, then, why — who did you give it to?
MS. PETERSON: Who did we give it to?
MR. LeCHER: This information. Their spouse, their loved ones, or — I think Mr. Hartwell said his information, confidential information, ended up in the newspapers.
Apparently, the Guardian's Office gave that information to the newspaper.
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: Was that commonplace that newspapers would use information supplied to them by the Guardian's Office by the newspaper?
MS. PETERSON: I — I really — I don't know on a general basis. It was only done a few times while I was in the Guardian's Office.
MR. LeCHER: So, you don't know if the newspapers generally do this?
MS. PETERSON: Yeah. I really don't know.
MR. LeCHER: We have an outline here.
Would you like to go into the Fair Game and suicides, the Blown Student Doctrine, et cetera? Or would you rather us just ask you questions?
MS. PETERSON: Well, basically, on the Fair Game Policy, I was always told that the Fair Game Policy was cancelled, and I believed this to be true until I went to the Guardian's Office. And upon entering the Guardian's Office, I found that, indeed, it was not cancelled. The actual words "fair game" were not — to my knowledge, not spoken, at least when I was around, however, the practices were: inasmuch as there was a man, Mr. Walters, who had been in Scientology for some time and he was under suspect from the Guardian's Office.
He was, basically, unhappy with some of the things that were occurring and he was speaking out against them to other Scientologists. And investigations were being done, when I first went into the Guardian's Office, into Mr. Walters' background. They were looking for his so-called crimes. There's a policy by Mr. Hubbard in the Guardian's Office called "Attacking Scientology," where it says that if anyone says anything bad about Scientology, you look into their past, whether they have what is called "blood-dripping crimes." So, Mr. Walters' preclear folder, his auditing information, was to be gone through looking for that.
He was expelled and declared a Suppressive Person, and a list of people, including his wife and his stepchildren, was issued, stating that these people were called what's called Potential Trouble Sources; in other words, they were connected to Mr. Walters and either they — either had to disconnect from him or they would be also expelled from Scientology. There was a list of about thirteen or fourteen people.
He was —
MR. LeCHER: Are you talking about Mr. Walters now?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
He — there was a — oh, again, I'm referring to the Fair Game Policy. There was a man whose name was Don Cooper, who was a plant, in other words a spy, on Mr. Walters and his friends. He had a code name of Mack. He infiltrated Mr. Walters' group of friends and became very good friends with Mr. Walters and his wife — family and friends.
And Mack would call the Guardian's Office, at least once a day, with information on what Mr. Walters and his friends — this includes the Hartwells and Tonja Burden — as to what they were doing.
There was also another plant, what they call plant — they either call them plants or friends. His code name was Oscar. He later turned out to — his name was — actually, his last name was Bill Broderick. His main purpose was to spy on Tonja Burden.
At one point, they — the United States Guardian's Office was getting upset because not enough information was coming back on Miss Burden's activities. So, he was flown to Boston to Mike Flynn's office under the guise of being a disaffected, unhappy Scientologist, and he was trying to get Mr. Flynn to represent him so that he could get sort of inside, privy information as to what was going on. And at one point, it was even considered that, perhaps, he would then — after a lawsuit was filed and all that, he would then — Mr. Broderick would then drop the suit and accuse Mr. Flynn of malpractice and raise the point.
I don't know if that was ever totally decided, but it was at one point discussed.
Another — another man by the name of Russ Andrews was brought into Las Vegas from Utah, where he was established in Miss Burden's apartment building. And he was going to become friends with her and give information back to the Guardian's Office regarding Miss Burden, also. That was never —
MR. LeCHER: How old is Miss Burden at this time?
MS. PETERSON: At this time?
MR. LeCHER: Yes.
MS. PETERSON: About nineteen, twenty.
MR. LeCHER: In your outline you have "Scientology" — number three, "Scientology Policies and Practices: Potential Trouble Source, PTS, and Disconnect," if one uniformly appeared, and, number two, "policies applied to personal experience, divorce, husband — give children to husband."
Is that something that you could — that personally happened to you or is it a common policy?
MS. PETERSON: That's something that was applied to me.
At one point, when I was in the Guardian's Office, my husband wanted me to leave the Guardian's Office. He did not want me to leave Scientology; he just simply didn't want me to work so many hours and be away from my children so much. And I was sort of undecided as to whether I should do that or not. He and I began having a lot of problems over it. I — basically, I just felt that I didn't want him to push me into a decision. I wanted to make it on my own. And it was causing some problems. I was quite ill at the time. I was having stomach problems and various problems because of this pressure.
I was sent to the United States Guardian's Office in an attempt to do what they call handle it. And I was given what they call a Chaplain's Court, basically, where a so-called minister of the Church comes and gives you counseling, marriage counseling. He — his name was Paul, Paul Sheffield.
I was told at that time by Mr. Sheffield, at the very beginning of the interview, that he basically didn't care whether my husband and I stayed together. And the purpose of the counseling was to keep me on staff because I was needed very badly. He then wrote up a program of how my husband and I were supposed to handle our differences.
And I was then called into the office and one of my seniors, one of my bosses, told me that the problem between my husband and I was becoming totally out of — totally out of control, totally out of hand, and that, basically, he — what he wanted me to do and what I should do and what others had done was to divorce my husband. And since I had two small children and I was — financially, I would have been unable to support them, I should give them to my husband because he could support the children and I could leave the children all day long. And that if I did not do that, that I was letting the whole organization down and that there would be ramifications.
MR. LeCHER: What did you do?
MS. PETERSON: I left the Guardian's Office within a few weeks after that.
MR. LeCHER: Did you leave Scientology or just the Guardian's Office?
MS. PETERSON: The Guardian's Office. I left Scientology about a year later.
I still did work for the Guardian's Office; I wasn't on staff.
MR. LeCHER: Is your husband still in Scientology?
MS. PETERSON: At that time?
MR. LeCHER: At this time.
MS. PETERSON: No.
MR. LeCHER: You both then left?
MS. PETERSON: We both left at the same time.
Okay. In the Guardian's Office — there's two I'm going to point out — there are various bureaus called Information Bureau, Eagle Bureau, Public Relations Bureau, Social Coordination for various organizations.
My position was Social Coordination, which was, basically, in charge of Scientology front groups. However, it was a very small Guardian's Office and they were under what they call attack by the Hartwells and Mrs. Van Schaick and various other people. So, I carried out a lot of duties that normally I would not have done. In other words, in a large Guardian's Office, usually Social Coordination doesn't get into those activities, but because of our limited personnel and all the problems that we were having, I took on other duties.
MR. LeCHER: Okay.
You've got Scientology front groups: Apple Schools, Narcanon, ASI, Citizens' Commission for Human Rights, CCHR, Gerus Society, and the Safe Environment Fund.
These are all front groups for Scientology?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: Are these used to get new recruits or to gain respectability for the organization?
MS. PETERSON: Yeah. Basically, the purpose of the groups is to — the stated purpose is to — so that Scientology becomes indispensable to the community.
In other words, an Apple School would be set up and you will have non-staff members set up the school, however, these are dedicated Scientologists and they're usually hand-picked.
MR. LeCHER: Do you have any information if any of these five or six front groups are currently operating in Clearwater?
MS. PETERSON: I believe there's a Gerus Society. I'm not sure what all there is.
MRS. GARVEY: There's a Narcanon.
MS. PETERSON: A Narcanon.
MR. LeCHER: Okay.
Many people don't know why in Scientology you have these front groups.
What is an Apple School? Is that — that sounds like the Beatles group. I know the Beatles have a corporation called Apple, and they would use this for their own promotional material. But I — what is an Apple School? I mean, does that have anything to do with the Beatles or is it — I'm sure it doesn't, but I — and Narcanon, what is that? How effective is Narcanon in treating drug abuse?
MS. PETERSON: Well —
MR. LeCHER: In your view.
MS. PETERSON: Okay.
Apple Schools are schools that are set up by Scientology, the purpose of which is to gain respectability and to make the public aware of how normal Scientology is supposed to be.
MR. LeCHER: Can non-Scientology children attend an Apple School?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: Is that encouraged?
MS. PETERSON: Most of the time, yes, because the fees for Apple Schools are the same as most other private schools, and most of the time Scientologists don't have the money to pay it. In other words, a staff member's child certainly wouldn't go because they wouldn't have the money to pay for it.
MR. LeCHER: Do teachers in an Apple School have certification? Are they certified by the state as to educational standards and practices?
MS. PETERSON: It depends on the state; in other words, it depends what the state laws are regarding certification of teachers in private schools.
MR. LeCHER: Are you going to tell me about Narcanon?
MS. PETERSON: Narcanon is a rehabilitation drug program which is run by Scientology. My experience with it was that it was not very successful. I really don't know about any of the other — all these groups are set up and there's various programs in the Guardian's Office on how to set them up.
Also, part of the training received while you're in the Guardian's Office is that if you're asked by anyone if the Guardian's Office runs these schools, you're to tell them, "No." You're to say that you're involved with or that you help out or that they use the technology of Scientology. However, you're never to tell, outside of the Guardian's Office, that you are, in fact, running it or that the money goes into the Church of Scientology from these groups.
MR. LeCHER: Was the Church of Scientology successful in getting Narcanon in any one of — in Pinellas County or throughout the country, were they successful in getting this?
MS. PETERSON: You mean, successful in establishing it?
MR. LeCHER: In establishing it and setting up business.
MS. PETERSON: I really don't know.
MR. LeCHER: What is an ASI?
MS: PETERSON: Applied Scholastics Institute is —
MRS. GARVEY: I didn't —
MS. PETERSON: Applied Scholastics.
MR. LeCHER: What is the purpose of ASI? Why a scholastic institute?
MS. PETERSON: It — to — people that are having problems in certain areas in their studies or —
MR. LeCHER: Primarily for school children or for college-age children or for adults —
MS. PETERSON: It's primarily for school children; however, they do accept people of all ages.
MR. LeCHER: Citizens' Commission for Human Rights. What is that? Is that a civil rights group?
MS. PETERSON: It's a group that its purpose is to expose psychiatric abuses and to cause what is called black PR, which is bad public relations for psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health: to do everything necessary for — everything that's possible to get rid of psychiatry and psychiatrists.
MR. LeCHER: It has nothing to do with civil rights or human rights as we know it?
MS. PETERSON: It's only to expose —
MR. LeCHER: It's to expose —
MS. PETERSON: — psychiatric abuses.
MR. LeCHER: Nothing to do with minority rights.
Gerus Society. Is that for the elderly?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. And this is just to expose problems within — that the elderly people have.
MR. LeCHER: I have personally heard members of the Gerus Society at various talk shows around Pinellas County at various times.
MS. PETERSON: The whole purpose of — all these programs were set up particularly by Mary Sue Hubbard under the direction of Mr. Hubbard, and they were to gain good public relations for Scientology.
MR. LeCHER: The Safe Environment Fund. What is that?
MS. PETERSON: The Safe Environment Fund was a fund that was set up to collect funds and support for the convicted — or the indicted — executives of Scientology: Mary Sue Hubbard and those people.
At all times we were told that this was a big conspiracy by the government, that these — that was the reason these people were indicted, and that these people had, at no time, ever done anything wrong or not legal, that, the government had no information that was correct. We were not told that they were, indeed, guilty of the crimes or that they even later pleaded guilty to the crimes.
MR. LeCHER: Back to the Guardian's Office: Did you see the programs — you mentioned programs in the Guardian's Office. Did you see the programs in the Guardian's Office? You mentioned the word "programs."
MS. PETERSON: Oh, yes, there were many programs. Everything you do in the Guardian's Office is written — is off of the program. You don't do anything on your own.
MR. LeCHER: Did you participate in them; did you see them; and can you tell me about them?
MS. PETERSON: Well, there were so many of them, I — you know, I — everything you did, like I say, was based on program. If you were going to set up a Narcanon drug program, you worked off of the program. If you were going to go to the police station and try to get Mr. Hartwell arrested for extortion, you worked off of a program.
Everything was from a program.
MR. FLYNN: On that point, I might — I might mention that, before the hearings conclude, we will be introducing a packet of Guardian's Office programs, City of Clearwater, Florida, which is probably about two-inches thick, a copy of which will be given to each Commissioner. That was just Clearwater during a specific period of time and only the documents that we could get our hands on. There are approximately another eighty thousand documents which were destroyed before they were received, and they're all what they call Red Box Documents, which contain the most sensitive and highly secretive operations of the Guardian's Office.
MS. PETERSON: One program I remember in particular was the gross income of the Flag Land Base at the Fort Harrison dropped to about a million dollars a week or a little below, which was considered to be a heavy drop because they were most of the time making between two and three million dollars. At that time the staff members at the Fort Harrison for the following week, their diet consisted of beans and rice as a punishment for the gross decline of their income.
Somehow, this information — I'm not sure how — leaked out to the public and, I believe, the press, and a program came into our organization in Las Vegas — it's called an Information Line — on how we were supposed to handle with the press this — this fact. In other words, if the press asked us about it, we were to tell them how nutritious, beans and rice were and to also change the subject. In other words, we would say, "Beans and rice are nutritious, however, you know, the abuses of psychiatrists are really something to talk about," if you get my meaning. I mean, it was like, you know, a little bit of information, then, drop it. That was part of the public relations training.
If they asked you — if somebody asked you if the wall was blue, in other words, you might or — you might or you might not admit to that. But you would then talk about how horrible the pink wall was, in other words.
MR. LeCHER: Throw the blame on someone else?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: In your Narcanon and other programs, did you ever have any MDs or DOs or anyone on your staff that has passed the state board?
MS. PETERSON: On the staff, no. Although, you were supposed to send the addicts to a doctor if there was problems.
MR. LeCHER: How did you get credibility without anyone running these programs having an educational background to back these up, these principles up?
MS. PETERSON: Well, you know, I really don't have too much experience with other drug programs. But it was basically PR, you know. You'd go in and — you had to get all the licenses by the state and follow the rules and regulations set by the state or the city. But — and you would also assure them that, you know, a medical doctor was available and that type of thing.
Okay. Basically, a lot of these setups and the questions you're asking in that area were part of what they call B1, which is Branch 1, which is the Information and Intelligence Bureau. I was not real involved in that, I so I really don't know how exactly they would go about it.
MR. LeCHER: Just for my curiosity: When and why did you get in the Guardian's Office?
MS. PETERSON: Well, it was considered a promotion basically. And —
MR. LeCHER: Did you feel like you were a bunch of elitists, that you —
MS. PETERSON: Oh, yeah, you were told that. The requirements to get into the Guardian's Office were quite high. In other words, you had to — very intensive testing before you could get in. You had to be a true blue Scientologist, you had to have a certain IQ, you couldn't have a history of real heavy drug use or — you had to have a stable background.
MR. LeCHER: Apparently, you had to be rather bright to get into the Guardians and — why do, then, the Scientologists prefer to have their people uneducated?
MS. PETERSON: I really don't know.
MR. LeCHER: School is evil or bad, I've heard from other witnesses.
Were you trained to be a Guardian?
MS. PETERSON: Oh, very heavily.
MR. LeCHER: Can you tell me something about the training that went into becoming a Guardian?
MS. PETERSON: Okay.
As I said, when you're first — normally, you would be approached to come into the Guardians. Someone would approach you, like, the Assistant Guardian who's in charge of the Guardian's Office. And after this intensive testing, you would be accepted. And they have various training levels. You had just a general training level which would show you kind of the inside scoop on the Guardian's Office.
One of the very first things — first of all, you were locked up and you couldn't have any windows open because of security. They were very heavy on security in the Guardian's Office.
One of the very first things that you would be taught would be shredding, what they call shredding, which, basically, was just take a piece of paper, perhaps, that you didn't want anyone else to see because of what was contained on that and put it in the shredding machine. Also, there's a procedure called vetting, and that was — when you get these various programs or orders, anything that you didn't want anybody, other than a Guardian's Office staff member to see, you would take a razor blade and cut that portion of it out.
Now, included in that would be anything that would show who the order came from. In other words, if I would receive an order from my boss, I would shred out or vet out, rather, the area that showed who the order came from, also, who the order went to. Then, you had to have a code so that you wouldn't get all these orders confused. You had your own personal code. So, you might put a little star by — if it came from one person or a little, you know — another type of mark if it came from someone else.
MR. FLYNN: For the record, Exhibit 16 is the policy, The Vetting Hat Write Up, to which the witness has just referred.
MS. PETERSON: Okay.
Anything else that might be vetted is anything that would be considered sensitive. In other words, on some of these programs of the Citizens' Commission on Human Rights, there was a couple of lines in there about obliterating psychology or psychiatrists or something. You would vet out that area so that anybody looking at it would think, "Oh, this is a really nice program just designed to help people who've been harmed." In other words, the real purpose of it would be vetted out so that it wouldn't show.
Another thing that we were trained on was how to avoid subpoenas, how to handle the press, because —
MR. LeCHER: How were you taught to handle the press?
MS. PETERSON: Always attack, never defend. Mr. Hubbard said that it was impossible to defend, so you would always attack.
That's also — there was also training on how to handle your attorneys, which was basically just to tell them what to do. And if you ran into an attorney who wouldn't do what you told him, you then would fire him and find someone else. How to handle public officials —
MR. LeCHER: How do you handle a public official?
MS. PETERSON: Well, basically, it depends on what they're after — or what you're after, really.
If they make any kind of a comment that you think is a slur on Scientology, then, you attack them.
Any public official that you were going before, an investigation would be done by the Information Bureau. Their background would be checked out very, very thoroughly. And let's say, for instance, you found out that there was something in their past that perhaps they think wouldn't be known, rather than coming right out and saying it, you would make an insinuation about it, rather than coming right out.
Another kind of training was what they call FBI Raid Drills, which you would pretend that the FBI was coming to raid your organization and you would practice on how you would take care of that. Also, whoever was in charge of the Information Bureau — whoever would answer the door, in other words and let's say the FBI was there, whoever would answer the door would stall while the Information Bureau man would take all the real sensitive material that was in what's either called the Gray File or Red Box — would take that information and shred it while stalling the FBI.
Also, if there was any threat of the FBI or the police or anybody coming to the organization, the Gray File/Red Box information was taken to what's called an outside location, which only, maybe, two or three people within the organization even knew about or knew where it was at.
That was the usual training that we had.
MR. LeCHER: Were you trained in actual dirty tricks?
MS. PETERSON: I —
MR. LeCHER: Or were you trained in dirty tricks like breaking and entering?
MS. PETERSON: I was never trained in dirty tricks; however, the Information Bureau was trained on that. In fact, one of the — one of the drills — what they call drills, in other words, practices to give — in the Information Bureau was a drill called "Tell A Lie." The purpose of this was to learn to lie well. That was for the Information Bureau; we were never — I was never personally taught that. But I observed Intelligence people doing it.
MR. LeCHER: Okay.
I have many questions, but I'm going to give — turn it over to my colleagues.
Mr. Berfield, I think we start with you this time.
Before we start, do you have something for the Commission?
MS. PETERSON: Okay.
At the time I was in the Guardian's Office, there was a girl who I had been friends with for many years. Her name was Carole Garrity; she was in charge of Public Relations. She had a lot of information regarding the various activities that myself and other people have testified to. She was actually the person who would do public events and that type of thing.
MR. LeCHER: Do you have any information that dirty tricks are going on with the city government now or with the city officials within the City of Clearwater?
MS. PETERSON: Within the City of Clearwater?
MR. LeCHER: Yes.
MS. PETERSON: I — no.
MR. LeCHER: You have no knowledge of that or the answer is "No."
MS. PETERSON: I have no knowledge of it.
MR. LeCHER: Mr. Berfield.
MR. BERFIELD: Yes.
Mr. Flynn made reference to this Red Box and you later alluded to it. What would there be in something like that?
MS. PETERSON: Well, I was in the Guardian's Office, but I really didn't know, other than the fact that it was obviously very, very sensitive because it was kept someplace separately. When I heard reference to it made, I asked the man that was in charge of it and he said that I wasn't allowed to know what was in it.
MR. BERFIELD: Listen, what — I'm still not sure what motivated you to get into Scientology, in personally?
MS. PETERSON: In Scientology?
MR. BERFIELD: You personally.
MS. PETERSON: Oh, a friend of my husband's came up and discussed Scientology, the benefits and all the problems that he had and how much it had helped him. I was having — I had a history of having headaches, occasionally. I also had a condition called hypoglycemia which is a medical condition, low blood sugar. He told me that that could be — it was found that that was a psychological-type problem, that it could be cured.
He said that they had a lot of classes and a lot of different things that would help me with me my children, that I'd be able to communicate better, you know, raise your IQ; a lot of different things. He gave me a book, entitled Miracles for Breakfast, which is about children, and it seemed like a good book. And I just decided to check it out.
MR. BERFIELD: Now, these books, were they what they call auditing courses —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. BERFIELD: Did you ever take one of these courses?
MS. PETERSON: I took — at one time — up until New Era Dianetics came out, which was delivered here at the Fort Harrison a couple of years ago, I had taken the largest amount of auditing that anyone could get.
MR. BERFIELD: And what did they do to help you?
MS. PETERSON: What did they do to help me?
MR. BERFIELD: Yes.
MS. PETERSON: Oh, I mean, I still have the problems. I still get headaches and I still have hypoglycemia.
MR. BERFIELD: Now, all of the things that they told you they would help you with they did not help you with; is that right?
MS. PETERSON: That's right.
They told me I'd be able to communicate better when, in fact, from my own personal experience and my observation of other Scientologists, they can't communicate as well because you learn a whole different language and other people don't understand. I couldn't even communicate with my own mother who I had always been very close to. She didn't understand what I was saying, and I didn't know how to tell her what it meant, really.
MR. BERFIELD: When you were taking all these auditing courses and found out they didn't help you and you went on, as I understand, to help other people regarding — wasn't there some doubt in your mind as to the validity or the deception of these courses?
MS. PETERSON: I believed that I would get handled at a different — at the next level. In other words, when I would complain about that I'd be having problems, I was told that it was the next level. And then I was told that, you know, well, particularly, I would go clear, what they call clear, which is described in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, that this would take care of all the problems and that somewhere along the line it would get taken care of.
So, I believed this to be true at the time. After I went clear and then I did above clear, which is what they call OT Levels, one of the — I know you don't want to go into kind of the beliefs of it, so I'm a little hesitant to go into it too heavily, but there's a certain level that you reach that for me was very damaging as far as my dependency upon Scientology.
After I took that particular level, I believed that I needed more and more auditing to take care of the problem. It was not a problem that I had entered Scientology to handle; in other words, it — I hope I make myself clear. But it's like I went in for various reasons. As I went higher and higher, I began to forget about the reasons why I came in and I became almost consumed with handling this one certain area.
MR. BERFIELD: So, the purposes for which you went into Scientology — you never really accomplished them?
MS. PETERSON: That's correct.
MR. BERFIELD: But, yet, you kept on with these courses in hopes that they would help you; is that correct?
MS. PETERSON: That's correct.
I spent about forty thousand dollars in trying to handle them.
MR. BERFIELD: Now, you made reference to Hubbard saying — was this direct conversation with him, or was this just something communicated to you?
MS. PETERSON: Well, it would be — I never had a direct communication with Mr. Hubbard, but there was many, many tapes by Mr. Hubbard. And there's also policies that were written by Mr. Hubbard.
MR. BERFIELD: Now, we had a lot of testimony on policies. Now, you — I think you said Clearwater was the Flag Ship or the head ship; is that correct?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR.. BERFIELD: And you were in Las Vegas?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. BERFIELD: So, you were, to a degree, in a regional office, then; is that right?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. It's called an outer area is what it's called
MR. BERFIELD: I guess what I'm trying to get straight in my mind is: How did you know for sure that the policies that you had were Hubbard's policies? And why didn't you tell him to stick them in his ear or something like that?
MS. PETERSON: Well, I knew they were Hubbard's policies because they were signed by — you know, with his name, and because Scientology operates on Mr. Hubbard's policy. I mean, Scientology belongs to Mr. Hubbard, and nothing is done without Mr. Hubbard's written consent. I mean — you know, it's not like Joe Blow decides, you know, to do something; it's all Mr. Hubbard.
MR. BERFIELD: Well, there's a comparison here: If it were the corporate world —
MS. PETERSON: The what? I didn't —
MR. BERFIELD: If you were in the corporate world and you had a policy and you disagreed with it, you'd work on changing it or doing something about it.
Did you ever think about that?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. BERFIELD: Why didn't you do something about it?
MS. PETERSON: I tried many times.
MR. BERFIELD: But again, did you have a right to challenge these policies, to write back — I guess, I have to use the expression: How did you know that it wasn't some clown like Jim Berfield that was writing up these policies for you instead of L. Ron Hubbard?
MR. FLYNN: I might — that's a good question. But I might just point out at this point: The inquiry is into the organization, so the relevancy of whether it was Hubbard or the organization — that's a proper focus. But if the organization is practicing it, that's what the focus of the inquiry should be. So, whether it was a clown or whether it was Mr. Hubbard is somewhat irrelevant if the organization did it from a legal point of view.
MR. BERFIELD: Okay.
But that's what I'm getting down to is that, you know, that you just practiced it because it was Hubbard's policy?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. You wouldn't — there was orders — all the orders were based on Hubbard's policy.
MR. BERFIELD: Do you know if — did everyone practice this — whatever the policy would be that Hubbard had proclaimed?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. It — all over. They're all uniform. Scientology is Hubbard, as far as I'm concerned. Anything else was considered what they call out tech, in other words, out technology.
If you did something that's not based on Mr. Hubbard's policy, you'd be sent either to Ethics or what they call Cramming where you would be shown that you were not practicing Scientology. It was called either out tech or it was called squirrel tech.
MR. BERFIELD: Now, in some of your earlier testimony, you also made mention of Mr. Walters and Mr. Hartwell.
Are those the same two people who testified earlier here.
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. BERFIELD: Do you know that to be a fact that they are the two who testified —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. BERFIELD: And in these — you also said that you were told that the Fair Game Policy was done away with, but then when you got in there, you found out that it still was in effect; is that correct?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. BERFIELD: Didn't you at that time challenge the truth and — well, the truth of the whole organization that they're telling you, "We've done away with it, but, yet, we're still practicing it"?
MS. PETERSON: I was told that it caused bad public relations to use the name Fair Game.
Also, I did at various times doubt many of the things that were happening within the organization and within Scientology in general. However, I still believed mentally that I needed Scientology to get rid of the problem that I had.
MR. BERFIELD: Now, I also understand you to say that you were involved in the attacks on the Hartwells; is that correct?
MS. PETERSON: Not publically, but sort of behind the scenes, yes.
MR. BERFIELD: Didn't — didn't you in your own mind wonder whether there was something fair or square about that?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. BERFIELD: Did you do anything about it?
MS. PETERSON: No.
MR. BERFIELD: You just accepted it as being the way the company should be run or —
MS. PETERSON: I didn't think it should be run that way; however, I felt there was nothing I could do about it. And I — at that point I was so indoctrinated into Scientology that I felt that if I left Scientology that I would die.
MR. BERFIELD: Did you actually — this was in your own mind that you would die?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. There — that's part of some of the training I received, that if certain phenomena occur within a person that it means that they are out of control and that they could die from that. And I believed that that was conceivable that that would happen to me.
MR. BERFIELD: Were you ever involved in any of these blown student situations?
MS. PETERSON: I was aware of the policy; however, I did not practice it. I didn't agree with it. I was — at the time I was in charge of the training in the organization, which is where the Blown Student Policy is applied, I was not as indoctrinated as I was later and I did not agree with the policy, therefore, I did not practice it.
MR. BERFIELD: This thread that seems to run through a lot of the conversation — Scientology: If your marriage comes between you and Scientology, then, Scientology comes first; is that a fair —
MS. PETERSON: That's correct.
MR. BERFIELD: I have no more.
MR. LeCHER: Mrs. Garvey.
MRS. GARVEY: You said you joined Scientology because you thought it would do something for you.
Were you impressed with Mr. Hubbard's background as published?
MS. PETERSON: Very much so, yes.
MRS. GARVEY: Were you — when you joined, did you — were you told that auditing was confidential?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MRS. GARVEY: And that it was based on those scientific techniques?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MRS. GARVEY: When you started in the Guardian Office and saw how this information was being used, did that not bother you in relationship to your own auditing information?
MS. PETERSON: Yes, very much.
MRS. GARVEY: But you didn't have any — there wasn't anything you could do about it?
MS. PETERSON: I didn't feel at the time that there was. I did do some questioning of the — the man that was in charge of the Information Bureau, basically — they gathered all the information. In other words, the Public Relations Bureau would take it to the press or whatever. The Information Bureau would gather it.
There's also filed what are called B1 Files, which is Branch 1 Files. And a short time after I was in Scientology, I was asked to help go through these files. And at that time I found that — well, let me just back up a little bit. When I first went into the Guardian's Office and I saw auditing information being used, I was told that it was because these people were enemies of the Church and that they were attacking the Church and that they had to be stopped, which I didn't agree with totally. But somehow, if you can understand the state of mind I was in, it made some sense to me and I accepted it to a degree mentally.
A short while later I went through the Information Bureau files, at which point I found that it wasn't just the enemies or the people that were complaining about Scientology. Scientologists who were actively in Scientology contributing great amounts of either time or money or both, files — auditing information would be kept in files on them. Anything that was considered to be out security, which would mean that they left the back door open to the fact that they had sex with someone other than their husband, or that they had homosexual experiences in their background, or that they were involved in anything that Scientology considered to be something that could be used against Scientology.
MRS. GARVEY: When you challenged some of these policies, what happened to you?
MS. PETERSON: I was sent to Ethics on various occasions and sent to Cramming.
MRS. GARVEY: You were sent to Cramming? What happened in Cramming?
MS. PETERSON: That's where you're shown policies on whatever it is you're complaining about, why it's okay, why it's okay to be done, until you have this realization. Whether it actually happens or not, you say you do. If you say you do, then, it's fine.
MRS. GARVEY: So, you — have you actually seen written policies on the Fair Game and the Blown Student and some of the other techniques by Mr. Hubbard?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MRS. GARVEY: Have you seen a written policy that is in the Guardian Office on lying?
MS. PETERSON: I haven't seen the actual policy; I've just seen it practiced.
MRS. GARVEY: What were you told when you joined the Guardian Office that your duties were going to be?
MS. PETERSON: It was going to be establishing Apple Schools and Narcanon drug programs was my main — the Citizens' Commission on Psychiatric Abuses was also mentioned. I didn't realize exactly what it meant at the time.
MRS. GARVEY: So, your job — you were told your duty was going to be to establish these worthwhile community organizations?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
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Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:42 pm
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Part 5 of 15
MRS. GARVEY: How much were you paid for that?
MS. PETERSON: It varied, depending on the gross income for the week. I was one of the highest executives for a three-state area, and I made anywhere between nothing to maybe twenty, twenty-five dollars. An average week would probably be about six dollars.
MRS. GARVEY: You were the highest paid, good, good.
MS. PETERSON: No, one of the highest paid for three states.
MR. CALDERBANK: Three states.
MR. LeCHER: Twenty-six dollars, you say?
MS. PETERSON: No. The average income was about six. I said, sometimes — some weeks you were paid nothing or maybe twenty, twenty-five; the average was about six.
MRS. GARVEY: How many hours a week did you work?
MS. PETERSON: Again, that varied. Probably, twelve, fifteen hours a day most of the time. Sometimes — during one time period when the Hartwells were causing what's called in Scientology a flap — in other words, they were going to the press and that type of thing — we worked for about twenty-three or twenty-four days without a day off, twelve to fourteen hours a day. And myself and Carole Garrity, who I already mentioned, became ill at that time; we became — we had bad colds. And we were taken into the Assistant Guardian's Office, who's in charge of the Guardian's Office, and we were told that the reason we had become sick was because of the FBI.
MRS. GARVEY: What year was this, do you remember?
MS. PETERSON: The Hartwells were — I believe it was '79.
MRS. GARVEY: When you — you said you got out of the Guardian Office. Were you routed out or did you just walk out?
MS. PETERSON: Well, I — I simply just said that I was leaving, and that — I had signed what's called a two and-a- half-year contract — I wasn't on a billion-year contract and my contract expired, and I worked for some weeks without being on a contract. I activated a new contract, but because it was only, in effect, a couple of weeks — and I just simply said I was going, that I would help, but I couldn't continue the schedule I was and maintain my marriage. And I wanted to stay married and keep my children. So, I just basically walked out and —
MRS. GARVEY: So, they allowed you back?
MS. PETERSON: Yeah, I was allowed back in. And I did quite a bit of work for them. That was —
MRS. GARVEY: How —
MS. PETERSON: — part of the agreement.
MRS. GARVEY: How much longer before you left?
MS. PETERSON: About a year.
MRS. GARVEY: And why did you leave? What finally freed you from the organization mentally?
MS. PETERSON: Well, I guess it was just an accumulation of many things. I saw so many things and I saw it becoming worse and worse. I also saw that the people who had been represented to me as honest, ethical, law abiding people were, indeed, guilty of crimes, which I certainly did not agree with.
I saw that — after being sort of free from there, even though I was connected to a degree, I began to be able to look at exactly what was happening in myself and the people that I knew. And I saw that I was certainly no better than when I got in Scientology; in fact, I was much worse.
I was terrified to even discuss the possibility of leaving Scientology with my own husband. I was afraid that he would stay in Scientology. I was afraid that he would write me up to the Guardian's Office and that they would then come and take me away somewhere because I had so much information. Guardian's Office staff members were heavily, heavily under security at all times. And I signed — I don't know how many — waivers of how I would never, ever talk about the Guardian's Office to anyone, and if I did, I would have to pay them a lot of money.
MRS. GARVEY: Your husband, obviously, was having doubt at the same time?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. I was unaware of it at the time, until we discussed it.
MRS. GARVEY: Can you describe a little bit of the harassment that you received once you left, and were you given a freeloader's debt?
MS. PETERSON: I was never given a freeloader's debt, no.
I — once I left, I received a lot of phone calls where people would just call and hang up. I also received a note in my car with the words "Watch it" on it. Also, a note was left in my mailbox that said, "Die." And I received several phone calls that — in the middle of the — my husband works at night, and I would receive phone calls at one or two in the morning where a male voice would say, "Die," and then they would hang up. Also, at various times during the night, someone would knock at my front door and there would be nobody there.
MRS. GARVEY: Did you have to fill out a security check —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MRS. GARVEY: — the thing that's got a hundred some questions or something like that on it?
MS. PETERSON: Many of them, yes.
MRS. GARVEY: Many of them.
MS. PETERSON: Oh, also, on the harassment-type thing: Once — after I had left Scientology, the man that was in charge of the Information Bureau, who I have already mentioned — he and I were quite good friends — he and I got together, even though I had left Scientology. I trusted him to — in other words, I wasn't really afraid to meet with him; I didn't think that he would try to kidnap me or anything.
But when we got to discussing the harassment that I had received, he tried to convince me that my attorney, Michael Flynn, was the one responsible for it.
Oh, yeah, before I came here — I'm afraid to fly — and before I came here, I received a phone call of a crash. I assume it was supposed to be a plane crash; I don't know exactly what it was, but it was just a crash.
MRS. GARVEY: And you needed that before you flew like —
MS. PETERSON: I thought about it as the plane took off.
MR. FLYNN: Evidence of that type may be relevant.
MRS. GARVEY: Oh, yes, who would know of your fear of flying?
MS. PETERSON: It was in my auditing files.
MR. FLYNN: And referring to the Mayor's earlier comment about whether the leopard has changed its spots, that particular evidence in the last five minutes would be relevant right up to —
MRS. GARVEY: That came today — or this week.
MR. LeCHER: When did you —
MRS. GARVEY: What was —
MR. LeCHER: — leave — let me just — when did you leave — I just want to get this in the right time frame. When did you leave the Guardian's Office?
MS. PETERSON: I left the Guardian's Office in 1979, officially, as a staff member. But I was connected in various ways up until July of 1980.
MR. LeCHER: You left Scientology July of 1980?
MS. PETERSON: That's correct.
MR. LeCHER: Thank you.
Mrs. Garvey.
MRS. GARVEY: Did you actually see the written report on the Fair Game against a number of people: Mr. Walters, Mr. Hartwell — Mr. and Mrs. Hartwell?
MS. PETERSON: I saw —
MRS. GARVEY: You actually did see some of those?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
I also saw copies of Mr. Hartwell's preclear, auditing information, copies being made of it. And there was an order on Tonja Burden to take her information to the press, and attached to the order was a copy of her auditing information.
MR. LeCHER: Mr. Hatchett.
MR. HATCHETT: Listening to you, I think this is a good question to ask you: Were you aware before coming here that certain people were going to testify that you yourself did elicit the order or were involved in the dirty tricks? Did you know you were going to face them when you came here?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. HATCHETT: Congratulations; that's what I want to say to you. You must be very much dedicated to consent to come in and testify under such conditions. That's my personal comment to you.
MS. PETERSON: Thank you.
MR. HATCHETT: Seeing, in the Guardian's Office, the heavy security, that must have been a place of great power. Did you have that feeling at the time?
MS. PETERSON: Yes, only to the outside world of Scientology, in other words, to other Scientologists and to the outside world.
As far as feeling powerful within the Guardian's Office, I suppose there are those feelings of that. But you always knew that you were under orders from the higher ups.
MR. HATCHETT: Can you give me an idea, after looking at that order of some of those people, from the best of your memory, what, for example, the Guardian Office attack on Michael Flynn — it must have been written up: step one, step two, step three?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. There was — there was also a program to get Michael Flynn disbarred. I can't remember if it was the same program as the — what was called the Oscar Program or not, but I can remember — I didn't read all the steps on it, but there was steps on there to get him disbarred. There was also a step to send letters to former colleagues of his about how horrible he was, that he had this bizarre background that maybe they weren't aware of.
MR. HATCHETT: So, this Guardian Office, undoubtedly, had a large budget to do all the things that were supposed — able to do.
Can you give us an idea of what it cost to run these types of clandestine operations?
MS. PETERSON: I really — I don't know how much it cost; it cost a lot of money. I know that if there was ever any money for — if there was ever a request for anything, plane fares to go back to Boston or to fly in somebody from Salt Lake City to spy on Tonja Burden, there was always money. When I was in the organization, in the actual organization as opposed to the Guardian's Office, you couldn't even get paper, money for paper, to write down the auditing information. In other words, the auditor — when you're auditing, you would write down what the person was saying. And staff, who made any — where between nothing and six dollars a week, had to chip in money to buy paper for this to occur.
MR. HATCHETT: Yet, there was always plenty of money to do these other operations?
MS. PETERSON: Yeah, there sure was.
MR. HATCHETT: And, also, in a timely fashion, you never had to wait?
MS. PETERSON: You could get it right away.
MR. HATCHETT: It's interesting to listen to you about the vetting of material.
I think Mr. Flynn stated that he was going to introduce this as evidence, did you not, Mr. Flynn?
MRS. GARVEY: He already did.
MR. CALDERBANK: He did.
MR. HATCHETT: Okay.
MR. FLYNN: I beg your pardon, Mr. Hatchett?
MRS. GARVEY: No, that's —
MR. HATCHETT: I've got my answer already, thank you.
I have an idea about the Safe Environment Fund for the protection of indicted Scientologists, that's something of a heavy fund, too —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. HATCHETT: — in terms of —
MS. PETERSON: Yeah, there was — I'm not sure exactly how much, but many, many thousands of dollars.
Another really interesting thing is that we were drilled to tell any public official, the press, or anyone that we did not operate the Safe Environment Fund while we were on what's called Post Time; in other words, we were to say that it was totally separate, it was something we were doing on our time. We were not allowed to say that, in fact, it was a big part of our job.
MR. HATCHETT: The Guardian Office was directly responsible to operate the Apple Schools —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. HATCHETT: — yet, they denied this?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. HATCHETT: Did they tell you why?
MS. PETERSON: We were told that the reason why was that if the government and various officials found out that Scientology was running, that there would be a lot of problems because the government was out to get Scientology.
MR. HATCHETT: Do you know for a fact whether or not these schools may have been up to any state accreditation standards?
MS. PETERSON: The ones that I was responsible for were, yes; they were supposed to be. Whether they were or not, I don't know, you know, everywhere else. But I know, at least, mine were.
MR. HATCHETT: By the licensing agent, you know, from some state or county or what not?
MS. PETERSON: Yes, we were. All — as I said, all the schools that I was responsible for all met up to all the codes and everything.
MR. HATCHETT: All right.
Can you give me an idea what the average parent may pay for the education of their child at that particular school under your jurisdiction?
MS. PETERSON: It was — I think it was about a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty dollars a month, which, at the time, was about what everybody was paying for other schools in the area; it was about the same.
MR. HATCHETT: That's all. Thank you.
MR. LeCHER: Mr. Shoemaker, do you have any questions?
MR. SHOEMAKER: Yes.
Mrs. Peterson, I'd like to reiterate a couple of the comments that you've made because I think they're extremely significant. So, if I'm being repetitive, please bear with me.
MS. PETERSON: Sure.
MR. SHOEMAKER: Can you describe the overall purpose of the Guardian's Office, please?
MS. PETERSON: Well, as I said, it's various bureaus, and each bureau has sort of a different purpose. But the main purpose — there's a couple — the main one is to keep everybody, other than Scientologists, away from Scientology. In other words, if a public official walked in through the front door of the Fort Harrison, the person that then comes over to take you on a tour is a Guardian's Office staff member, if they know that you're a public official.
They don't want anyone outside of Scientology to know what's going on. In fact, the Guardian's Office — other Scientologists don't even know. Most Scientologists have no idea, for instance, what happens to their preclear information.
Another thing is to take care of the press, to make sure that Scientology is well thought of so that they can expand it and grow.
MR. SHOEMAKER: And your responsibilities, while you were in the Guardian's Office, were running the conditions relating to these various types of special groups
MS. PETERSON: Yes. Although, as I said before, I got involved in a lot of other things because of the —
MR. SHOEMAKER: Right.
MS. PETERSON: — lack of personnel.
MR. SHOEMAKER: But your responsibility, though, was, in fact, control over those groups?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. SHOEMAKER: And that includes the Apple School, Narcanon, Applied Scholastic Institute, Citizens' Commission for Human Rights, Gerus Society —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. SHOEMAKER: — and Safe Environment Fund?
MS. PETERSON: Right.
MR. SHOEMAKER: And it was all — it would be uniformly set up throughout the country — throughout the world that those types of activities would be in the Guardian's Office?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. SHOEMAKER: You had made reference to the fact that Mr. Hartwell's auditing files and so forth were sent to the Las Vegas office.
Could you tell me where they came from, if you know firsthand, and the year that they were sent?
MS. PETERSON: Okay.
MR. SHOEMAKER: I'm sorry, Burden; I beg your pardon.
MS. PETERSON: Oh, Tonja Burden?
MR. SHOEMAKER: Yes.
MS. PETERSON: That was sent from Clearwater. Actually, it was sent from Clearwater to Los Angeles, to the United States Guardian's Office, and then sent to the Las Vegas Organization. That was in, I believe it was, 1979.
MR. SHOEMAKER: The —
MS. PETERSON: Either '78 or '79.
MR. SHOEMAKER: The types of operations that you described, would your boss or who was head of the Guardian's Office in Las Vegas have the authority to do one of those himself, write one up and do it himself without any instructions from higher up?
MS. PETERSON: No. You could write up a program, however, it had to be sent to the United States Guardian's Office to be approved. You weren't allowed to do anything on your own.
In some instances, it would not only go to the United States Guardian's Office but it would go to the Worldwide Guardian's Office. It would depend on the type of program and who was involved in it.
MR. SHOEMAKER: So, any of those types of organizations would have had to have been signed off on by someone — by the headquarters of the Guardian's Office?
MS. PETERSON: That's correct.
In fact, most of the training the Guardian's Office staff members received was received at the United States Guardian's Office.
MR. SHOEMAKER: The — you had made reference a while ago that some of the conversations that Mr. Alan Hubbard was having with Mr. Hartwell was, in fact, being taped.
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. SHOEMAKER: And Mr. Hartwell had no knowledge of that.
MS. PETERSON: As far as I know, he didn't, no.
MR. SHOEMAKER: How do you know that they were being taped?
MS. PETERSON: I saw the taping equipment on Mr. Hubbard at one point and I also heard Mr. Hubbard transcribing them several times.
MR. SHOEMAKER: And it was the type of equipment that would be hidden under clothes?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. I happened to walk into somewhere that I wasn't supposed to at one point and he had his shirt off and he was pulling this off.
The tape was edited down, also, at one point.
MR. SHOEMAKER: And the Safe Environment Fund, which was set up, I believe, as you described it, for the purpose of — was it donations, or how were the funds being raised for this Safe Environment Fund to provide legal funds for the Scientologists that were indicted?
MS. PETERSON: In a variety of ways. They would have rallies and meetings and that type of thing and talk about the indictees and how much money it was costing. And then, the people were to give donations.
MR. SHOEMAKER: Were they — was it given or would it have been forced on individuals?
MS. PETERSON: I don't think it was ever probably physically forced, but they were made to feel that if they didn't donate the money, that they were letting down the organization. And what would happen to the organization if these top people weren't there to defend them against the government, what would happen?
MR. SHOEMAKER: Were records kept or any kind of published list in terms of who gave what or anything such as that? I mean, that would be available, for instance, to just the general membership.
MS. PETERSON: You mean, to other Scientologists?
MR. SHOEMAKER: Yes.
MS. PETERSON: I really don't know; I don't remember if it was or not.
MR. SHOEMAKER: Are most of their efforts directed towards the members in the Church or towards the public people — I mean, the people that are outside of Scientology — in terms of rallies and so forth?
MS. PETERSON: Mostly, other Scientologists, although, I believe that they made some sort of an affiliation with other groups that were interested.
MR. SHOEMAKER: But it was clearly stated that that was the purpose of raising this money?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. SHOEMAKER: Mr. Mayor, I don't have any more questions.
Thank you very much.
MR. LeCHER: Mr. Calderbank, do you have any questions?
MR. CALDERBANK: Yes.
Just very quickly, then: Do you substantiate the testimony of Mr. — of the Hartwells, Walters, and Van Schaick as far as dirty tricks and activities that you saw come across the Guardian Office desk?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: And do you substantiate that the Guardian's Office tried to frame or plant criminal activities on people that they described in sworn testimony?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: And you also said that there was a lot of editing of tapes of undercover taping that were edited to mislead people, like, the papers in Mr. Hartwell's extortion attempt to make it seem like there was a criminal activity being done?
MS. PETERSON: I know of one — the one instance that I discussed; I don't know about many times —
MR. CALDERBANK: Okay.
But that one specific instance —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: — they edited it down for that?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: To follow up on Mr. Hatchett and Mr. Shoemaker's comments, the money for the GO — you said substantial amounts of money were used for this operation, that you could get typewriters when auditing couldn't even get paper; isn't that true?
MS. PETERSON: For typewriters?
MR. CALDERBANK: Yeah, or for other equipment. You said substantial money came in the Guardian's Office or they spent a lot of money on training to tickets to the equipment that was used to tape Mr. Hartwell.
MS. PETERSON: Oh, yeah, I was — I suppose typewriters, also. But I, mostly, was referring to; like, airfares and paying the rent of Russ Andrews in Tonja Burden's building, even getting in a certain amount of money so that he could survive; that type of thing.
MR. CALDERBANK: Where did the money come from?
MS. PETERSON: It was sent from the organization; in other words, a certain amount of money would go into the Guardian's Office.
MR. CALDERBANK: So, you got — what organization are you talking about?
MS. PETERSON: Well, as people would come in the front door and they would pay for their auditing training, it was in the — it was in the actual organization. And then, a certain amount of that money was sent each week over —
MR. CALDERBANK: All right.
MS. PETERSON: — to the Guardian's Office. There was a — there were separate accounts and that type of thing, three or four different accounts.
MR. CALDERBANK: Oh, so, the money that came in from say, auditing, then, directly went — or was part of the money that the Guardian's Office used?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: And that money, then, may have been used to bug Mr. Hartwell or set up Mr. Flynn in Operation Oscar?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. That's where all the money came from; it was from the money that people either paid for auditing, training, or books. It didn't come from outside sources; it always came from auditing —
MR. CALDERBANK: These money sources, did you know at the time that you were in the Guardian's Office that they were elicited as donations?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: Did you know that these were tax-exempt donations for a tax-exempt organization?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: Was it common knowledge throughout the organization that this money was being used for these purposes —
MS. PETERSON: Oh, no.
MR. CALDERBANK: — even in the GO Office?
MS. PETERSON: In the Guardian's Office, yes; in the regular organization, no. Most staff members have no idea.
There's a booklet written by Mr. Hubbard, called "What Your Fees Buy," and it tells you about how you give it to run the organization with the money and it's used to help pay attorneys' fees against the attacks by the government and that type of thing. But it doesn't say anything about what your fees really do buy.
MR. CALDERBANK: And you heard — when did you first hear the Hartwells? Did you hear the Hartwells' testimony, the other testimony that was given to this body when they gave it?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: Who was your AGPRO during the time that you served there or the Guardian's Office Public Relations Officer?
MS. PETERSON: Who was my what?
MR. CALDERBANK: AGPRO?
MRS. GARVEY: The Assistant Guardian —
MS. PETERSON: Oh, the Assistant Guardian for Public Relations?
MR. CALDERBANK: Officer, right.
MS. PETERSON: Carole Garrity.
MR. CALDERBANK: Carole Garrity?
MS. PETERSON: Yeah. Although, some people came in from the United States Guardian's Office to help handle the problems at various times.
MR. CALDERBANK: Who was your AGI during that time, your Assistant Guardian of Intelligence?
MS. PETERSON: Well, there was three. It started out, first, Hamilton in the beginning, and then — Bruce Hamilton was taken out of the area because he didn't handle the problem, and a girl was sent in from the United States Guardian's Office by the name of Julie Bergman, and then a guy by the name of Dan Zalens then took over.
MR. CALDERBANK: Okay.
And because of policy, well entrenched policy, you're saying that these people could — had to have known as to what was happening during their time, what was happening to people like the Hartwells with the Fair Game Policy being put into effect?
MS. PETERSON: Are you asking: Did other Scientologists know about it?
MR. CALDERBANK: No. Did these people that were in charge know about it?
MS. PETERSON: Of course they knew about it; they ordered it.
MR. CALDERBANK: And I see a pattern shaping up with the GO and it goes back to the training routine of how to lie to someone.
Even though you set up and ran the schools, the Gerus Society, et cetera, you were actually told that they were not — that you were not involved, basically, that you would help, et cetera, that you sere told directly to say, "No," you did not run them, you did not set them up, et cetera?
MS. PETERSON: That's correct.
MR. CALDERBANK: And when you worked on these programs, Scientology covert programs, you were told that you were doing it on your own and you were not part of the organization, it was your own time; is that correct?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: And — so, basically, adhere to that policy of lying to government officials or lying, that this is an example of it being carried out?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: Would this policy be deviated from at all in Scientology?
MS. PETERSON: No.
MR. CALDERBANK: All —
MS. PETERSON: As a matter of fact, I mentioned about Don Cooper, who was an agent on Mr. Walters and the Hartwells. He — when his cover was blown, after myself and Carole Garrity left Scientology, he signed an affidavit, which I later saw, that said that he was acting pretty much on his own; in other words, he volunteered that he was — he was doing it.
MR. CALDERBANK: But you knew firsthand that that was not the case, that he was part of a program financed by Scientology?
MS. PETERSON: That's true.
He later — also, after his cover was blown, his freeloader debt was cancelled. He owed a great deal of money. He had left on the ship and had a humongous freeloader debt, and because of his dedicated service, spy service, his freeloader debt was cancelled.
MR. CALDERBANK: And so, getting back to Mr. Berfield's position on policy, you know, your policies always have a reward and punishment in the corporate structure.
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: And if you follow policy — or was policy always followed from the Source? Or did the Source always write policy, L. Ron Hubbard?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: And was what the Source said followed throughout the world in every organization —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: — his policy was followed?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
Now, there were some policies that were written by other people, but Mr. Hubbard's policies always took top priority. In other words, if there was conflicting information in two policies, you'd always follow Mr. Hubbard's; his was the senior on the area.
MR. CALDERBANK: And did you ever see a policy ever not rigidly adhered to?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: You did? And what was the punishment for that? Was there a punishment for not following policy?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. You were either sent to Cramming or Ethics.
MR. CALDERBANK: And was it a severe punishment for Scientologists?
MS. PETERSON: It would depend on the severity of the problem.
MR. CALDERBANK: So, if you did not follow policy as a corporate structure throughout the entire Scientology organization, there was a specific punishment? And if you did follow policy, such as following out a program, Operation Oscar, to get Mr. Flynn disbarred, you were given an award or reward?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: And that was a pretty well structured policy in itself, reward and punishment?
MS. PETERSON: Yes. It fact, it's in some of the Ethics policies: it talks about rewards and punishments, and rewarding what they call upstats, which is up statistics, people who follow policy. It's in the Ethics policies.
MR. CALDERBANK: Is the Fair Game considered one of the punishments for out policy people?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: And you said that you questioned some of the policies or some of things you were doing but you decided not to change it or you couldn't change it.
Why is that? Was it so rigid — or why?
MS. PETERSON: Well, it was rigid and it was what Ron wanted.
You have to understand that the people in Scientology do what Ron wants. And if they think that Ron wants whatever it is they're doing, whether they personally disagree with it or not, they'll do it anyway. The ones that don't leave or they get kicked out.
MR. CALDERBANK: But if they don't leave and they're not Fair Game at the time, then, people do not do things as a lark; they do it as a result of a specific policy and a specific program laid out in Scientology. And this is the way it goes no matter where you are in the country?
MS. PETERSON: That's correct.
MR. CALDERBANK: And, finally, in the area of these schools and front groups: Would you say front groups is an apropos description of them?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: The Gerus Society: We have a very elderly population here in Pinellas County. Is the Gerus Society active here in Pinellas County?
MS. PETERSON: I really don't know.
MR. CALDERBANK: Did you ever see the Gerus Society in Pinellas County?
MS. PETERSON: No.
MR. CALDERBANK: Okay. That's all I have.
MR. LeCHER: At the peak of your career and your earning power, with all this study, you were making twenty-six dollars a week, correct?
MRS. GARVEY: On a good week.
MR. LeCHER: On a good week.
MS. PETERSON: That would have been a real good week.
M. LeCHER: Yet, you testified that you paid forty thousand dollars into Scientology while you were working there?
MS. PETERSON: Between my husband and myself, yes.
MR. LeCHER: I just wonder how you can make, at the peak of your career, twenty-six thousand dollars and you had forty thousand — twenty-six dollars a week, yet, you had forty thousand dollars spent.
Is that something that accumulate prior to becoming a Scientologist?
MS. PETERSON: Well, my husband and I had been married for several years before we got into Scientology.
MR. LeCHER: Yeah.
MS. PETERSON: And we had some money, and we had a house that we could finance.
MR. LeCHER: So, then, you had to — you refinanced your house and things like that to afford to get this money —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: — to take more courses?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: How long were you in the Guardian's Office?
MS. PETERSON: I was a staff member almost a year and then almost a year, also, as a — just as a worker.
MR. LeCHER: As I understand, as a member of the Guardian's Office, you learned to lie and to give misinformation.
How do we know you're telling the truth now? And do you think any of the witnesses that have testified could possibly be dead agents?
MS. PETERSON: Well, first of all, that — as far as you — how do you know whether I'd lie or not, I guess — you just have to take my word for it. I mean, I would hardly, realistically, fly all the way down here when I'm afraid to fly and sit in front of a bunch of people and, you know, in front of television and admit to all the things that I was involved in that I'm certainly not proud of.
As far as the other people being dead agents, I don't know exactly what you mean.
MR. LeCHER: Well, I may be using the term wrong, but dead agenting to me meant that we may be set up, that someone may have come forward to testify to put Scientology in a negative light when, actually, they may be setting us up, to be outrageous, which then could be verified if they were not telling the truth and make Scientology look good.
MS. PETERSON: Oh, I see what you mean.
I don't know. The people from Las Vegas that I personally know, I realize that they're — I mean, I know they're on the square.
MR. LeCHER: As far as you know, this is not —
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: You mentioned a public official's background could be checked.
How would you check the background of any public official on this front table?
MS. PETERSON: Well, there's two ways of doing it. The first way is called overt data collection, where you would go to — I don't know — the public library and look at some newspaper clippings and voters' registration. You'd check to see if they have any kind of an arrest record. You'd check around to find out if they were connected in any way to a mental health organization. That type of thing.
There was also — it was called covert data collection. I really don't know how you do that; I was not allowed to know that.
MR. LeCHER: If you had something on me, how would you disperse that to the people to embarrass me?
MS. PETERSON: Well —
MR. LeCHER: To the press or to the people at large.
MS. PETERSON: The Information Bureau would collect the information in one of the two ways I mentioned and they would then send it over to Public Relations. And it would just depend on what the problem was, how it was handled. I mean, perhaps, if the PR person was confronting you and they knew that you had a mistress or something, they might just, in passing, mention something about people that have mistresses or something. That would be one way.
MR. LeCHER: Okay.
Just one more and then — you did all these things — well, then, you went along with all this mistreating of people to get Scientology — or to get more into it because of the — I shouldn't say faith, but — the belief in the organization; is that correct?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: One other thing: What about coded telex with reference to Betty Orsini, who, I believe, was for the Saint Petersburg Times, and did a story originally exposing the Church of Scientology. I see here you sent reviewed coded telexes about Betty Orsini.
Can you tell me anything about that?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
There was a time period when I was receiving and sending all the telexes. And at one point we received a telex from the Fort Harrison Guardian's Office and it was coded and I then decoded it. And I can't remember the exact terminology of it, but it was something to the effect that Betty Orsini was in town and — or, no, it said that she was coming to town and what time she would be arriving and she had to be kept an eye on.
I gave this information to Alan Hubbard, who I already mentioned., and Julie Bergman, who I also mentioned, who worked in the United States Guardian's Office. And I asked them who Betty Orsini was, and they told me that she was one of the biggest SPs in the planet and that they were going to have find somebody really trustworthy to follow her and that type of thing to see what she was up to.
They were afraid that she was going to get in contact with the Hubbards — or with the Hartwells and Mr. Walters. As a matter of fact, they were very concerned about that.
MR. LeCHER: I see.
Okay. That's it, unless you have something you want to add, Mrs. Garvey.
MRS. GARVEY: Just one: Do you have any knowledge whether Broderick and Cooper were ever trained in Clearwater?
MS. PETERSON: Don Cooper is in Clearwater right now; I saw him last night.
MRS. GARVEY: That must have made you feel good.
MS. PETERSON: The interesting part about it was that I was with Mr. Walters at the time. Mr. Walters and I were taking a walk and we saw him. He came out and said "Hi."
MRS. GARVEY: Were any other of the higher ups in the Guardian Office in your area have any training here in Clearwater that you would know of or spend any time?
MS. PETERSON: Well, a man right now by the name of Bob Anderson, who is the Assistant Guardian in Las Vegas — he came originally from the Guardian's Office here. He held a position here; I'm not sure whether he was the Assistant Guardian here or not, but he was in the Guardian's Office. He was sent to Las Vegas to take care of the problem.
MR. LeCHER: Well, so, I guess, in conclusion, you might be saying that Scientology has been trying to dupe the press or the people for quite a long time?
MS. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: Thank you.
I appreciate your coming, my colleagues, too, and you shed a lot of light on the issues, especially, from coming from the Guardian's Office and how it relates to the Hartwells and the other people who we have listened to.
Thank you.
MR. FLYNN: Mayor, at this time, I would point out, for the record, that some or the documents pertaining to covert data collection have been marked as Exhibits 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and, specifically, the document on lying, TRL, has been marked as Exhibit 13. I will have testimony at a later point on the individual who was in B1, who did covert data collection through such things as breaking and entering.
Affidavit of Carole Garrity
At this point in time, I would like to introduce an Affidavit of Carole Garrity, to whom the witness has just referred, and I will read that affidavit into the record.
"I, Carole Garrity, being first duly sworn, depose and say: I was a member of the Church of Scientology from April 1975 through July 1980, and during that time I became a staff member and worked full-time for the Scientology organization from August 1976 through July 1980.
"Between November 1978 and July 1980, I was a member of the Guardian's Office of the Church of Scientology. The Guardian's Office is more commonly referred to as the GO by Scientologists. It's responsible for intelligence gathering, covert operations and activities, spying, and public relations. The Guardian's Office administers front groups, such as schools and drug programs which are designed to make money. The Guardian's Office headquarters in the United States is in California. However, the Guardian's Office has the power to go into a local Scientology church and literally take over any section of it or the entire local church, if necessary. This is covered in the policy letter written by L. Ron Hubbard, entitled 'The Guardian.'
"The Guardian's Office activities are conducted pursuant to a Scientology policy entitled the Fair Game Doctrine which states: The Fair Game may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist, may be tricked, sued, or lied to, or destroyed.
"I have personal knowledge of Scientology organizations actively and covertly conducted operations against Attorney Michael Flynn in an attempt to destroy him and thereby eliminate him as a representative of those individuals victimized by the Scientology organization. One such operation occurred between January and July 1980, where the Guardian's Office conducted a series of covert operations to infiltrate the law office of Michael J. Flynn by placing a plant whose code name was Oscar and whose real name was William Broderick. The Guardian's Office devised a second covert operation to stop Attorney Flynn's client, LaVenda Van Schaick, from speaking out against the Scientology organization. The program was code-named Shake an Bake and pursuant to program, GO agents were sent to Massachusetts to interrogate Ms. Van Schaick and try to encourage her to divorce her husband and to fire Attorney Flynn.
"The Guardian's Office perused Ms. Van Schaick's auditing files, which contained the most personal and intimate details of her life, and extracted confidential disclosures for the purpose of blackmail and extortion. The practice of reviewing confidential auditing files and extracting private and intimate details of an individual's life is a common Scientology practice. The data gleaned from an unsuspecting individual's files are transmitted to California headquarters for extortion and blackmail. This practice occurs regularly.
"I have personal knowledge of auditing information being sent to Clearwater and transmitted through Clearwater for this purpose. On one occasion I received a Guardian's Office order instructing me to remove confidential information from Tonja Burden's file, a woman suing the Church of Scientology, and release it to the media. I executed the order and brought the information to the Las Vegas Review Journal.
"I became upset and in fear when I learned that eleven top leaders of Scientology had been convicted of felonies, including Mary Sue Hubbard, the Founder's wife. I do not agree with Scientology practices which condone burglaries, electronic surveillance, spying on former members and others to deceive the critics of Scientology, and all the other unlawful and underhanded conduct that the release of the documents in the FBI raid revealed to the national media.
"I left the Church of Scientology on July 18, 1980.
"Dated this 28th day of April 1982, Carole Garrity."
This will be marked as the next exhibit.
(The Affidavit of Carole Garrity was marked as Exhibit No. 46, as of this date.)
MR. LeCHER: For information, do you want to break or do you want continue on going at this point in time?
MR. FLYNN: Perhaps, if we could take a shorter break than our usual break, an hour instead of two hours?
MR. LeCHER: We normally come back at two.
Commissioners and staff, would you like to come back at one?
Is that all right with Vision Cable?
This meeting is recessed for one hour.
(Whereupon, the luncheon recess was taken.)
Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
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Posted:
Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:42 pm
by admin
Part 6 of 15
SHARON McKEE
Afternoon Session
MR. LeCHER: Commissioners, staff, consultants, and ladies and gentlemen, press, welcome back to the second half of the hearings today in the city with respect to the Church of Scientology.
Again, we will have the -- give the same opportunity to the Church of Scientology this Monday and hope that they will participate.
We are waiting now for the Commissioners to return from their lunch break.
Do you have about another additional three or four witnesses, Mr. Flynn?
MR. FLYNN: I do. But I'm going to call a very short witness who's going to make a statement about one thing. We're not going to go into her background; it's very extensive and she could say a lot of things about the entire subject matter. She's going to be called for one specific purpose, and her testimony will probably take a minute or two minutes, and you can ask her, as always, whatever you like. And then, we're going to seek to corroborate that testimony at a later date, the day that it's going to be sent to the Commission.
We just recently learned about the information, and I'd just like to get it on the record. It's hearsay, but this is an investigative proceeding, so it could lead to these affidavits from other individuals who could not be here today. So, I'm just going to put her on for two minutes for that.
MR. LeCHER: Should all the witnesses still be sworn in?
MR. FLYNN: Absolutely.
MR. LeCHER: All right.
Will you bring in your witness, Mr. Flynn?
MR. FLYNN: Sharon McKee, please.
SHARON McKEE, a witness herein, having first been duly sworn by a Clerk for the City of Clearwater, was examined and testified as follows:
MR. LeCHER: Mrs. McKee?
MRS. McKEE: Yes, Sharon McKee; I'm from Connecticut.
MR. LeCHER: You're from Connecticut.
Mrs. McKee, I must ask you the same standard questions that I've asked every other witness.
Number one: Are you appearing here to day to testify under oath voluntarily?
MRS. McKEE: Yes, I am.
LeCHER: Have you been paid by anyone for your testimony, other than the expenses for coming to Clearwater?
MRS. McKEE: No, I haven't.
MR. LeCHER: Do you have a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology?
MRS. McKEE: No, I do not.
MR. LeCHER: Does the Church of Scientology have a lawsuit against you?
MRS. McKEE: No.
MR. LeCHER: Has anyone suggested to you that you should state anything but the truth or has anyone suggested that you change your testimony for any reason?
MRS. McKEE: Absolutely not.
MR. LeCHER: Thank you.
Mr. Flynn.
MR. FLYNN: Go ahead.
MRS. McKEE: This would be in the end the end of the summer or the beginning of the fall of 1981. A friend of mine -- his name was Gordon Karas -- had recently come home from Los Angeles. He'd been on his advanced courses, and out there he met a lady named Elaine Segal and they just had become friends.
Elaine Segal works for Branch 1 of the Guardian's Office, the Investigative Bureau in Boston. My friend went up to Boston, I think, just to visit and stopped into the Church there and saw her and they started chatting. What she said to him is that she would like him to move up to Boston for the purpose of not actually becoming a student, but Elaine would provide documents in a local college to prove that he was -- give him a background, a cover story -- that he was actually a student in a Boston college, and she wanted Gordon to go out with Michael Flynn's secretary.
I don't know that she specifically said to gather data or not, but Gordon is a very personable, handsome young man and she wanted him to start dating this woman, and get to know Michael Flynn's secretary, hopefully to become involved.
MR. FLYNN: That's all at this point. And at that time I was working with the city in preparation of the report to this Commission, the period of time in which she testified about. And at a later point in time we'll try to tie the information together for you.
MR. LeCHER: Apparently, you're trying to establish a pattern with this?
MR. FLYNN: That's correct.
I have -- this is hearsay information -- I have had information from some that the Church of Scientology had the report to this Commission sometime in advance of its public presentation.
MR. LeCHER:. Thank you very much.
Is there anything -- I guess that's it, then.
MR. CALDERBANK: Mr. Flynn, did the Church have any documents or any other thing in its possession at any time since we or since you first made contact with the city that would show that they have been collecting data or looking into the city's activities with respect to this?
MR. FLYNN: The Church, pursuant to a variety of legal proceedings in which we are involved, produced, pursuant to court order, some eight thousand documents of which the Church -- which are directly from the files in my office. The Church claims they were taken from a dumpster, which is on a locked compound -- a locked condominium compound -- with a twenty-four-hour security guard on -- in my office compound.
That matter is now in litigation. And at some point it could become a subject of investigation by the appropriate authorities in Pinellas County, because some of the documents pertained to correspondence and communication with members of this Commission, the City Council, the City Manager, the City Attorney. And some of the documents pertain directly to my work with this city and some documents pertain directly to contact that I had with the -- Mr. Russell's office, the Pinellas County State's Attorney.
MR. CALDERBANK: So, they were confidential?
MR. FLYNN: Absolutely. And they were in possession of some -- eight thousand of them were in the possession of the Church when the court ordered them to be turned over.
Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
![Post Post](./styles/prosilver/imageset/icon_post_target.gif)
Posted:
Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:43 pm
by admin
Part 7 of 15
SCOTT MAYER
The next witness is Scott Mayer.
SCOTT MAYER, a witness herein, having first been duly sworn by a Clerk for the City of Clearwater, was examined and testified as follows:
MR. LeCHER: Scott Mayer is it?
MR. MAYER: Yes, sir.
MR. LeCHER: Mr. Mayer, are you appearing here today to testify under oath voluntarily?
MR. MAYER: Yes, I am.
MR. LeCHER: Have you been paid by anyone for your testimony, other than expenses for coming to Clearwater?
MR. MAYER: Not at all.
MR. LeCHER: Do you have a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology?
MR. MAYER: No.
MR. LeCHER: Does the Church of Scientology have a lawsuit against you?
MR. MAYER: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: Has anyone suggested to you that you that you should state anything but the truth or has anyone suggested that you change your testimony for any reason?
MR. MAYER: Not at all.
MR. LeCHER: Would you like to make a statement?
MR. MAYER: Yes, I would.
I find it a little bit difficult to distill twelve years of experience with the Church, and I was a senior executive with the Church for approximately seven of those years. So, to distill all of that information into a small period of time is kind of difficult.
So, I prepared an outline of things that I would like to touch on and — in kind of a rapid sequence — and after that's through, I'm willing to answer questions about any of these areas I touch on, if that's agreeable to you.
MR. LeCHER: Yes, sir.
Why don't you just follow your outline and we can ask you questions when you complete your outline.
MR. MAYER: All right.
I, basically, just wanted to let you know what I was doing. I worked on an on-call basis as a legal assistant and an administrative assistant for the City of Santa Monica in the City Attorney's Office and the Environmental Services area, and I worked for — also, as a consultant to the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S. tax case that's been going on for some time now. And I worked with the senior counselor for the IRS during that tax case as consultant.
The tax case I'm referring to is the time period 1968 through '71 in the U.S. Tax Court, Judge Sterrit presiding. It's the Church of Scientology against the Internal Revenue Service.
In terms of getting into the Sea Organization, I entered the Sea Organization as a result of having a ship's master training program being offered to me. At one time, during the Viet Nam War, I was on a navigation team flagship in the Seventh Fleet and used to run aircraft carriers in and out of various harbors around the world, so I had quite a bit of ship experience when I was first exposed to Scientology. And I was offered a training program that would get me a master's certificate, and I went in on that basis, that and an educational program.
What I want to do real quickly here is just give you some sort of a background on what I did because I went all over the world for the Church for a long time, and, basically, on a trouble-shooting basis. And the main point that I think I really want to stress here — bring out from an insider's point of view — is the overall administrative structure of the Church.
There's a great deal of publicity that's put out that your individual churches are corporate bodies unto themselves with their own board of directors. And many of the boards of directors are on the planet that they publicize, and I worked with those directors. And they were just common, everyday staff members who signed papers when it was necessary.
So, I want to kind of go over the post areas that I've held in my job so that you can see what kind of a background I had. And it will probably make it a little bit easier for you to ask direct questions later.
I have been at one time or another everything from a bodyguard to the now deceased Quentin Hubbard to the fleet captain for the Hubbard cruiseships on the west coast; I was an executive trouble-shooter for top management of the Church; I went on a few missions out of Clearwater under control of the Church of Scientology; and as an administrative director, in other words, as a command team.
The basic command of the organization, for the entire Church of Scientology, when I left in 1966, was situated right here —
MRS. GARVEY: '76.
MR. MAYER: — excuse me — was situated here in Clearwater, and had been on the Flagship Apollo. I was the ship's manager just prior to the move here, and part of my job was getting the ship ready to come in here.
I did approximately eighteen successful missions for the senior top management of the Church all over the world, including South Africa, Scotland, Manchester, Saint Hill in England. I worked with Guardian's Office staff members. I worked with Jane Kember; I worked with Mo Budlong. I did an intelligence mission in Scotland for the Church while I was there.
Jane Kember was the Guardian for the Church of Scientology, the head of the Guardian's Office below Mary Sue Hubbard. Mary Sue Hubbard was Commodore's Staff Guardian, which the Commodore's Staff were the assistants to the Commodore, to Ron, in each of the divisional areas of the Church: finance, dissemination, public relations. Ron had a staff member, Commodore's Staff, for each one of those areas.
Here in Clearwater, they did evaluations on a weekly basis for the entire worldwide network of the Church. On the basis of the financial well-being of the various organizations around the world, missions — people who were top-management trained — would go out to various organizations to back the income back up if it was down. And your whole control or command information center for those evaluations centered in Tampa after they moved here and then Flag was moved into the Fort Harrison Hotel.
So, that's just a little kind of a background on the type of thing I did. I acted, primarily, as a trouble-shooter, and as things were going on, I was sent out.
The reason I left Scientology, by the way, was because of the things that I saw and participated in through my tenure with the Church. It got to the point where I could no longer in my own mind justify what the Church's policy in handling government agencies and society was; they were allegedly there to save. I could no longer reconcile that with the stated aims of the Church. So, I resigned from the Sea Organization while on leave of absence in 1976, and I was subsequently expelled from the Church.
Part of the reason I wanted to come down here is that I had talked to Martin Cohen, who's the senior counselor for the IRS in the tax case, about a week or so ago. And I asked him if there was anything that I could, you know, do for them while I was down there in terms of bringing back information. One of the things that he said to me is "You know, Scott, you've been a year at this now" — and I'm still on an on-call basis as a consultant. He said, "If I had realized what you were trying to tell me a year ago, we could have had a whole different tack in this case."
And I have a — and I have to admit to you that I've stayed pretty well in hiding for the last three years, after I had an experience when my car was blown up on Christmas Eve in 1978 in front of a place where the Church thought I was staying, but I was living elsewhere. I had planted that information with the Church so that I'd know if they were trying to contact me.
So, I've stayed pretty much in hiding. And I feel that these hearings are a chance for a little bit of light to come out on this so that people who are out in the field now — and I know a lot of them. I'm small potatoes compared to what some others out in the field have done, things that they've done and experienced. And I would like very much for them to feel free to be able to rejoin society and contribute to it, because that, in essence, was their main concern and reason for going into the Church in the first place: it was to help evolve the planet.
There's a tendency to kind of group Scientologists together in terms of the reflection that the top management presented, but the average staff member is nothing more, as far as I'm concerned, than a psychological — a psychopolitical dupe. The organization is structured in such a manner that everything is done on a neat basis, much like security in the military. So, all those — and evaluations are done to keep various areas of the Church from operating on their own goals and purposes without really knowing what's going on in another area, although, there is an incredible grapevine that goes through the Church of Scientology.
And I had an amusing incident about a week ago where I told a story to someone who was no longer in Scientology at a place in Los Angeles, California, and within a week, the story had gone across country through some Scientologists and back through my wife's — a friend of my wife's and back to me. And the person that I talked to could no longer get any information about the Church. But it took a week, just person-to-person, to get the story. I won't bother with the story.
Getting back to my original point: I'm, basically, here today to try to impress you with the magnitude of the operation that you are facing. And I want you to know in no uncertain terms that there is constant evaluation of this hearing going on and all of the things that have happened up to now. And right over here in the Combat Information Center — if that's where they've still got it — evaluations are being done on how to handle you. And I would like to see the tables turned for a change, because I don't think that they're going to be successful.
The points that I would like to cover today are, basically: violations of clear cut — of policy, such as registration and operation of maritime vessels, violations of those rules; transportation of funds in and out of the United States illegally; the violation of Federal Communications Regulations on the use of telex and radio communication equipment; transportation of personnel into and out of the country in violation of immigration laws; conspiracy to impede the IRS; the use of cruel and unusual punishment; and the attempt to defraud the United States Postal Service. And I have personal experience with the Church in all of those areas. Also, the ill treatment of children, parishioners; living conditions — I've travelled to almost all the organizations around the world, and Clearwater is just another step in the whole game.
In accounting, you know, you talk about the normal course of business and business papers, things that are written out and done standardly pretty much on a day-to-day basis, and you don't deviate. Well, the Church has a standard operating basis, and it has an incredible amount of policy that it can show you to tell you that it's not doing anything, but to someone who's really well trained in the policy, they can show you policy that makes it be all right. So, you continuously have a facade being put forth to the public about what's Church policy, but there is corollary — corresponding policy that would make it all right to violate that policy.
MR. CALDERBANK: Superseding policy?
MR. MAYER: Yes.
Well, it happens to be a crime in the Church to impede Scientology. And any staff member, you know, is severely punished in terms of the organization for impeding the progress or the expansion of Scientology. That's called High Crime Policy; the Fair Game Policy is part of that, which is allegedly cancelled, but I have never found a Church official that could show me the policy that cancelled it because it would have to be written by L. Ron Hubbard and, you know, specifically deny that policy, not a little caption printed down at the bottom. I printed those captions; I used to be Deputy Post Chief US in the early seventies. We put them on all the policy letters, which didn't cancel anything, certainly not the way an Ethics Officer would handle a person who's trying to impede the progress of the Church.
In terms of the Fair Game Policy itself, of course, I have no way of proving that the Church of Scientology blew up my car. I just have the knowledge within myself that that's where I told them I was and that's where it got blown up. The fact that I didn't live there was to my credit, not theirs.
In testifying before the U.S. Tax Court, the day after my address went on the record, I was sued by the Church by my ex-wife, who, I assume, is still in Scientology. The transcript hadn't even been published yet and they had my name and address and had a little kid come out and serve me papers. So, I was being sued, and I subsequently moved. I was under IRS protection at the time, anyway; they stayed at the house. So, I moved and I've been moving ever since.
They also pulled out my — what's called a B 1 File, during the Scientology hearings. And what it basically is is a list of the things that I have done wrong in the past that came out of my confessional folder.
I'm kind of getting a little out of sequence here in terms of what I wanted to talk to you about, but since the point has been brought out, there is a statement by the Church that confessional folders are not available to anybody but the auditor or the minister. And I can't tell you the number of folders that I looked at when I was going around in various organizations trying to get the income up, because I had to know what was going on with them in order to get them back on line and get them doing their job.
So, they brought out my B 1 File. I didn't even know it was that thick; I was rather flattered. I didn't know they could get that much stuff out of it. And there were a couple of files sitting right next to me with — in the courtroom that had my name on it, and they didn't have anything but my confessional folders and my B 1 File. The B 1 File comes out of the confessional folder. It's a time sequence — day/time sequence — list of all of the things they feel they can use.
That's a very good point. This was during the second day of the trial in Los Angeles, California that the files appeared.
MR. LeCHER: Which trial is that?
MR. MAYER: This is the U.S. Tax Court trial. The approximate time would have been around February of last year; it was about February of last year.
I was — about two days into it — you have to realize that my function during the trial was — when a Scientologist would get up on the stand and tell their version of what was going on in the Church, whenever they would either directly lie or when they would present a policy letter that was supposed to tell what kind of — what their policy was on the subject that was being discussed, I would reach over to Mr. Cohen and I would direct him to the policy letter, the definitions that opposed that. So, I was not very popular with the Church's attorney, because we were shooting holes in their stories.
For the next couple of days, my folders arrived. And it was just nothing more than the standard attempt to intimidate me and let me know that they were going to try to make public what was in my confessional folders. Well, I would willingly let any one of you read them now, because there isn't anything that anybody's going to do to me anyway. I did what I did; I've been what I've been, and I've either learned from it or I haven't. So, I don't have any secrets that way. But it was an attempt to intimidate —
MR. LeCHER: Was that about when your car was blown up?
MR. MAYER: No. That was 1978, and I had been moving around.
In addition, several Guardian's Office members appeared at friends of mine's houses looking for me during the trial. In fact, the day before I was supposed to appear, I got a telephone call from a Karen Kyper, who had — was originally out of the Minneapolis Organization and married to Bob Kyper, also a Guardian's Office staff member. She and another girl harassed a friend of mine down at Laguna Beach; they were trying to get in touch with me before I went in and testified.
The other areas that I would like to cover with you, is how Scientology actually operates against the best interests of the community and, possibly, touch on some things that I think would help you in the incredible job you've got of making ordinances out of all this. So, I'd like to get back to the use of various telex equipment and so on and so forth.
During the course of my time in Scientology, as senior executive, I was on call twenty-four hours a day. I could be on course in Los Angeles and be ordered into briefing because a set of Flag Mission Orders had come in, ordering me to Austin, Texas or Boston or Florida or South Africa. And I'd have about fifteen or twenty minutes to get my stuff together and get into briefing.
And, incidentally, one of my jobs when I first got into the upper level of the executive structure was briefing couriers on how to get things in and out of the country. I'm — I probably have a hundred briefing tapes of people, couriers, that I briefed on how to-get through the various immigration and customs officials, postal officials, attempts to get things out of the country. I have been personally involved with people who have brought money in and out of the United States.
My ex-wife and I smuggled two thousand dollars worth of rand apiece into this — into Clearwater on our last mission from South Africa in 1976.
MR. LeCHER: Two thousand dollars worth of what?
MR. MAYER: Rand, krugerand —
MR. LeCHER: Oh.
MR. MAYER: — that's the name of the currency there.
So, I'm familiar with the fact that it isn't just an accident that some money gets out of the country. It's a regular, established procedure.
There' s an interesting thing about the procedure, too, because on the — on the face of it it looks like everyday business activities and students coming in and out and so on and so forth. It's just exactly what it's supposed to look like. A Scientologist, for instance, in Los Angeles who was going to come to Clearwater to get some training would be taken into the briefing room in Los Angeles and briefed on techniques of getting through various government agencies. They would even go so far as to clay demo; they would do clay demonstrations of the ways they were going to do it: what if this happened. And I would grill them on all the possibility — all the things that I thought that they could run into, until I was certain that they could pass a security check, which is nothing more than a lie detector test. And they could go down and they could say that they understood their mission and they knew how to carry it out, and they had no other reason for going than to carry the mission out.
This was routine. They were routinely checked on a lie detector to make sure they actually got what I was trying to tell them and, you know, didn't have any other reasons for doing it. We might send out twelve or fifteen people in a week to Clearwater and to other places earlier where Flag was.
I was also at the time — my cover was called Operations in the United States. I was directly under what was then the Continental Commander for the United States area. I handled external communications, telex transmissions, church management across the United States on a supervisor level, and data evaluations, organization analysis. I would analyze things that were going on in various churches around the country and devise programs or plans that people could be sent out to raise the income level of the organization.
So, I might brief ten or twelve people a week to go out to Flag. And my External Communications Chief would have pre-wrapped, using two sets of wrappers — the first wrapper for whatever was going out would have the liaison office address on it for wherever the package was going to go through before it was mailed — before it got to Flag, and the second one would be a phony address with a phony corporate name on it.
And at one time — when I first inherited the job, we maintained five different phony companies that things were shipped out of Los Angeles to various parts of the world. And all the packages that I sent had an outer wrapping and then an inner wrapping, so that when the courier successfully got out of the country, the wrapping could be taken off at the liaison office and then forwarded to the next checkpoint.
The — after the couriers were briefed by me, they were sent down to Finance where they would be given packages to courier to Flag. None of the couriers, because of the fact that the packages were pre-wrapped, knew who had the loot or who had what. And they were all instructed to act as though they were just corporate papers, and that was part of the standard, everyday briefing.
And people — well, I was briefed on three missions here in Clearwater, and I took documents out of the country. I was sent out as a tourist to South Africa and England and Scotland from Clearwater and came back here and debriefed and then went out again.
I have to say that in all kindness that when I — I stumbled across a little of an invoicing fixing project when I was at Flag. I was the ship's manager of the Apollo before it came into Florida. The Church was doing a little invoice changing project right underneath our office on the ship. And I got — my wife and I got sent out on a mission because I didn't want to be here when the IRS got into — when they got into Clearwater. So, I was probably not quite the perfect Scientologist in that respect. But I just couldn't see how they could get away with it. As it turns out, they're not.
MR. FLYNN: I'd just like to make a legal point to the Commission here. His background — the relevance or importance of all his testimony is that the allegations in the report and the considerations of the Commission are that the goals and purposes and representations, policies of the Church are misrepresented to people here in Clearwater as to what they're paying for, what the nature of the organization is. And that these policies with regard to what the nature of the organization is are uniform. And, therefore, important for your consideration is whether there are uniform policies that have been practiced for many years right up to the present time here in Clearwater, which are in direct contradiction to those represented policies as to the nature of the organization for which people are paying millions of dollars for here in Clearwater.
So, from a legal point of view, all of this testimony is extremely important.
MR. LeCHER: Mr. Calderbank has a quick question.
MR. CALDERBANK: Yeah, I've got a legal point, Mr. Flynn.
One of the newspaper reporters that's reporting on this legislative hearing continually refers to allegations of fact, your allegations, as these witnesses come up. For the benefit of the public and the viewing public, especially, at home, I'd like to have that, if it need be, corrected.
Is this testimony and are these documents coming in before this City Commission — are they as the paper says? And are they your allegations or — what are they? What do we consider them?
MR. FLYNN: Well, first of all, I haven't been sworn under oath, yet; I'm not the one testifying. So, obviously, they're not mine.
Secondly, perhaps, whoever you're quoting should go to law school to realize the significance of what's being done.
MR. CALDERBANK: So, this — it is evidence?
MR. FLYNN: When the final report is prepared and the items of evidence that have been introduced so far and will be introduced the rest of the afternoon are presented to the Commission, together with the proposals for the ordinances, the significance of it will become quite plain.
MR. CALDERBANK: So, they're not allegations, they're evidence?
MR. FLYNN: That's correct.
MR. LeCHER: That's a good point, Mr. Calderbank. Many people have read those allegations, and I'm glad it's cleared up and now understood.
MR. CALDERBANK: Thank you.
MR. LeCHER: Mr. Mayer.
MR. MAYER: I'd like to say something about what just transpired here.
I have not heard any of the testimony that's gone on before me, except a couple of minutes of the last person, as it was closing.
I am not here to make any legal allegations in terms of the trial or anything like that. I am here to state to you in no uncertain terms that there is only one Church of Scientology; there's only ever been one Church of Scientology. Its entire management operation has been run from Ron Hubbard to Mary Sue Hubbard to the Guardian's Office to the Sea Organization, which is the arm of the Church that carries out on the administrative policy demands. It has always been that way. There has never been a board of directors that has ever operated autonomously within the Church in any organization that I have ever been in, and I've been in almost all of them.
One of the — one of the persons that — I did a mission — for instance, Dennis Goggly, in Saint Hill, England, is allegedly one of the officers of the Church of Scientology. I did a mission with him; he was nothing but a clerk. We did a mission to Scotland to handle a guy that was messing up an organization there. And we used his confessional file and his B 1 file and knowledge of Communist activities on his part and involvement that he had had with a stolen goods ring to run him out of the area and stop interfering with the Church operations.
Mr. Goggly had never, ever been in a position — he was kind of a laughable kind of a guy, as a matter of fact. There was no way that he was intellectually capable of being an officer of a worldwide organization, let lone the mother Church in England.
MRS. GARVEY: Would you just — would you have him define "mission," what he is talking about?
MR. MAYER: A mission — a mission is a specific set of objectives. If I say I went on a mission, that means that there was a specific area that needed to be handled within one of the churches, and a step-by-step sequence of actions for rectifying that situation was laid out. And I was very thoroughly briefed on what to do and how to do it.
I could walk into the organization and remove the executive director, whether he was the president of the church in that state or not. I could walk in and show him my Mission's Orders and say, "You're on your way to Flag. Be ready in a half hour." And there wouldn't be anybody that would give me any flap about it.
Maybe I'm being strong in my language about it, but I'm trying to get across to you that a Sea Org. member on a Flag Mission Order or an L. Ron Hubbard Personal Mission — which I have been on — has unlimited Ethics power in the organization, unlimited ability to walk in and remove the directors and send them packing to appear before what the Church calls a Committee of Evidence and have their confessional folders brought out, gone through, and charges made, and have them go to Committee on it. Nothing to it. That was just standard, everyday stuff.
Any — the Church is very fond of telling you that nobody has access to those confessional folders. It's just not true. Any missioner can order them. I used to order them brought into me so that I could see which people I wanted to take the time — because it's very lengthy process to do a lie detector test, especially, to the degree that the Church does: to get into their personal history, their personal — it's just — it's looking for crimes against the Church is what it's looking for.
See, it's against policy to overtly impede the progress of the Church. In fact, it's a crime not to practice Scientology; you impede the Church by not practicing it. So, it's very standard procedure to find out who's been doing what, bring then into the office, and let them know that you know what they've been doing, what's been going on.
One of the techniques that's also used is to go: "Listen we know where there were some errors in your auditing. We know where there are some case problems here. Don't worry about it. As long as you produce, as long as your production is up" — if a person was a registrar, their sales were up for the week — "as long as you're doing that, don't worry. You'll get your auditing and we'll make everything all right for you."
So, I just want to really get that point across to you that there is no separation in the — of the various churches.
If I — in fact, before I left, I used to go into the data files, while being briefed for a mission, and I could pull out — the Church is very fond of saying there's no connecting financial reports, yet, I could walk into the files and get a complete financial report on any organization around the world. Of course, we stuck pretty much to what we were doing for that particular mission, what we were supposed to do there. But it's just simply not true that there are no AC 2 forms, which are the Church's — a breakdown of the gross income that comes into the Church are standardly sent every Thursday night to what's called Data Files so that, over that weekend, evaluations can be done by the Commodore's Staff. And if the income had dropped sufficiently in an area, a couple of people like myself would be gotten together and sent out as a team to straighten the area out and get the income up again.
MR. FLYNN: One more legal point: The significance of the record-keeping process of the Church of Scientology, of which the witness has just testified, one — one little, part of — is extremely significant, and he could testify for weeks on that subject alone.
It's very significant for this Commission because, if the Church of Scientology does produce any witnesses, you may rest assured that any subject matters that the Commission wishes to question them on — there have been extensive records kept on any of those subjects, as this witness is testifying now, pursuant to corporate policy, for many years.
So, if there were records pertaining to any educational processing that's been going on at the Fort Harrison, clinics, patients being taken care of, people being taken care of, what they were treated for, children that were in the nursery, what type of education they've received, what type of grades they received, Guardian's Office operations, any of hundreds of varieties of issues, you can rest assured, as the witness will testify, that there has been an extensive record keeping about that issue. And so, if a witness is brought onto the witness stand, he could be questioned in detail as to, for instance, if there, was a school at the Fort Harrison, where the school was, what dates the school was run, who attended the school, and what records there are pertaining to all of those items.
MR. MAYER: I think I can give you a real good example of how confessional folders are normally used. I was fired on a mission from Clearwater into Saint Hill, England. Flag had arrived at that point in time — and this ties in with the misuse of telex to mislead government officials, too, because all of our missions were operated by Mr. Hubbard's son-in-law, who was sitting over here — or was sitting over here — at the Fort Harrison, by telex. There was daily telex transmission from wherever we were in the world into Clearwater into what was called the Action Bureau, where missions would be evaluated on a daily basis.
As I said earlier, there were some problems in an organization in Scotland and in Manchester. I was for a short time on loan to the Guardian's Office Intelligence Bureau in Saint Hill, England. I was shown a B 1 file, an intelligence file, that came from the preclear folder or the confessional folders, of the person we were going to deal with, which dealt with sexual misconduct, orgies, and so and so forth about — of an executive director in the Manchester Organization. His wife had already come — had split from him and had come down to Saint Hill to more or less turn herself in and get back into the good graces, and she had supplied a lot of information.
We walked into the organization, and I sat the man down and told him what we knew and told him he was on his way to Saint Hill and that if he ever got back in the good graces of the Church, he could probably have his organiza[tion] back. The man was a medical doctor, who was also the executive director of one of the organizations.
But I knew of at least a half a dozen people who knew about the information that was in his confessional folder. And it was used to remove him as the executive director and get him back down to the Saint Hill Org. for quote, unquote handling.
Those operations were monitored via telex from the United States, from your city. Right here.
There has never been a command line anywhere in Scientology that did not go through, either, the Guardian's Office or the Commodore's Staff to Ron and to Mary Sue. Wherever they have been, their aides have passed down their orders to the rest of the organization. When it moved here to Clearwater, it was no exception; the whole operation was here.
There were just literally thousands and thousands of files. There was a room bigger than this one filled with file cabinets with — that they pulled off of the ship that contained the data of all of the missions that had been sent Out from Flag. All that information was available right here in your city. I read it; I used it and did my job. I couldn't have done my job without it. I had to know what was going on in the organizations in order to be able to handle the people we were having trouble with.
MR. BERFIELD: Those files were here in —
MR. MAYER: Here.
MR. BERFIELD: In Clearwater?
MR. MAYER: In the bank building right over here. That's where I was briefed.
I would like to make —
MR. FLYNN: The potential legal ramifications of much of this witness' testimony, as was Mr. Walters' testimony, although not known at the time, are broad ranging, and at a later point in time they'll be made plain. All of this testimony is extremely important with regard to those ordinances.
MR. MAYER: I have a photostatic copy of the original — and by the way, the data that I'm going to talk to you about is available to the counselor, so if you need copies of it, you're more than welcome to it.
I may have to translate this somewhat for you, but — because of the terminology; however, the terminology — you can look it up in your own version of the Scientology dictionary, when you get the telex later on.
But this telex was sent to the LRH's — L. Ron Hubbard's personal secretary in the United States by L. Ron Hubbard's personal secretary on Flag, which was then located in the Netherlands Antilles. This was in, I believe, 1974 or '75. The name of the person was Ken Erkhardt; he's well known as the LRH personal secretary.
With translations, it reads: "To the LRH personal secretary OB regarding the ship." At this time I had just inherited the flotilla of ships in the — on the west coast, and I became the fleet captain. I'm qualified to run any tonnage in any ocean in any weather. So, I was a qualified skipper. And I had just taken it over. But the ships were in very poor shape. They were run by an unqualified personnel who didn't know what they were doing, didn't know how to maintain them, and they were placing the Church at risk, basically.
I had taken aircraft carriers through renovations while I was in the service. And I took the Apollo through one, so I knew what I was doing. And I was appointed as the captain. However, there were — the ship was sitting alongside the dock. You have to realize this ship cost — it was one hundred eighty-five feet long and it had a couple hundred crew members on it, and it was costing the Church five thousand dollars a week to sit there. That was our budget per week, five thousand dollars.
The Church wanted it out, cruising up and down the coast, doing recruiting, doing events, public events, where we could introduce people to Scientology and then usher them into the local organizations where the registrar would be signed up for courses.
The telex reads: "Leave the threat of the Rehabilitation Project Forces hanging over them for now." And this was with regard to the staff, the ship's officers that I inherited when I took on the post: the Public Officer, the Finance Officer, the Chief Officer. These are people who had not, quote, unquote, made it so far; it was costing a lot of money.
It says: "Leave the threat of the Rehabilitation Project Forces hanging over them for now. Have their confessional folders gone through, listing all crimes found. Crimes must be verified and not auditor errors, and the criminals with the greatest treasonous actions put on the Rehabilitation Project Forces. The remainder are told that they have one more chance to come clean and go straight. Have their folders summarized and programmed for vital corrections and then a security checking. If there are no more changes, they go to the Rehabilitation Project Forces.
"Regardless of any auditing or security checking, those not going to the RPF are to get on the ball and pull their weight and complete the ship's programs by the deadline already given. There's going to be no Captain Bill to reward you. They make it or they don't. And if they haven't woken up to that, wake them up.
"Love, Erk." Ken Erkhardt.
Like the line in their own telex form, they ordered people to go into confessional folders. They make it obvious.
MR. FLYNN: For the record, we will be presenting numerous, actual telex operations and operations with confessional folders on the overhead projector at the appropriate time.
Again, the significance of that issue — where, probably, per year, thousands, perhaps, tens of thousands — numbers unknown by this Commission at this point — are coming to your city and paying millions of dollars, believing that all of that information that is being given to this organization is highly confidential is of obvious legal significance.
MR. MAYER: The next point that I'd like to talk about in relation to what was just gone over is the Church's free use of telex lines and confessional folders and breaking and entry in order to gain an advantage in the community.
In 1971, when I was running operations for the Church, I was involved with a man whose name I don't care to give now — unless it's all right with you.
Okay. His name was Bill Foster. One of the people that he worked with on that operation is here today, so he could be called up to corroborate what I'm going to say to you.
I received a call from Bill Foster, while in New York. I had been sent from the Apollo, which was operating in the Antilles at the time, to New York with my wife to operate the eastern seaboard for the Church on a management mission.
Mr. Foster had allegedly been expelled a couple of years earlier for misconduct or something in Boston.
I received a call from Bill Foster, and he came into the org. — we had been very close friends. And he came in with an incredible story. He said that he had, in actual fact, been operating the Guardian's Office out of Boston and Washington and involved in a break — breaking and entering team. His cover had been blown because one of the operatives had been compromised — at the time I didn't know who that was — and the Church was going to leave him high and dry. In other words, they were not going to acknowledge the fact that he had been working for them. They were upholding the story that he had been expelled and was doing it on his own.
He came to me because, at that time, I was the senior executive authority on the eastern seaboard for the Church and in direct contact with Flag management. My mission was being run by telex on a daily basis. When he asked me if I could assist him, I called the person who was then in charge of the Guardian's Office in Boston — this is Bob Raimer, who had also been a friend of mine, I had worked with him on a mission some years earlier in Boston — and I said: "Look it, Foster's here, this is what he told me. Is it true? Has he been working for you in the field?" And he said, "Yeah. Yeah, he has."
And I said, "Well, just on the basis of misuse of policy in handling the man, I thought that I could help him out with Flag management." And I started to get a lot of heat down by telex lines about him and what he had done and so on and so forth. So, I go him out of the country; I sent him to a mission in Canada, where, up to a few months ago, he was still residing, not being willing to come back to the United States, I suppose, until the statute of limitations runs out on his activities.
MR. FLYNN: Some more detailed evidence pertaining to that particular subject will also be introduced at a later time. The legal significance of that testimony may relate to the disowning of the policies of the corporation to disown information or responsibility for the actions of its operatives, such as Mary Sue Hubbard and the other top ten people who have just been convicted.
And the significance for this city is the fact that the corporation is now disowning responsibility of those people for any of the things that took place here in Clearwater or around the world. And that disowning of responsibility process began last summer and is taking place right up to the present time. The inferences that could be drawn from the testimony of this witness regarding that policy to disown are becoming apparent on their face.
MR. MAYER: To elaborate on that even further, I'm not here to complain about what the Church has done to me. Understand that. I'm here to really impress upon you what you're actually dealing with, the magnitude of what you're dealing with.
In 1971, we had — and, of course, this ties into the treatment of children, too, actually, because, in 1971, we had a base in Mexico, and it had been put there as a training camp for Sea Org. members, missioners, and a place to put what was called the Cadet Org., the children's org. Children were routinely transported from Los Angeles to the Mexican base and berthed and housed there under the care of various base personnel so that their mothers and fathers could get on with their business within the Church. A lot of them had staff positions and senior executive positions in the Church in Los Angeles.
We were having a great deal of problems at that time with the city officials. I don't know what the laws are here in Florida, but in Los Angeles, 1.1 person in a one-bedroom apartment, excluding kitchens and bathrooms, is considered overcrowded, anything over that. Of course, the Church doesn't normally have bathrooms and kitchens in this little room, so quite frequently — in fact, almost all the time — those rooms are incredibly overcrowded. So that it was a place to get kids out of the country and out of the way of production.
Mexico, of course, is — had at that time — ten years ago is still pretty long — in fact, there were bandit groups roaming the hills. And they used to come down to the base. The base fell under my sphere of responsibility as an operating project; I was in charge of operations. Bandits were coming in at night and they were stealing grain and they were stealing saddles and whatever wasn't tied down, whatever they could get away with, and they were causing a lot of commotion.
And I was asked to go down with another ex-member of the Church, whose name I don't care to give you because he's still around — we were asked to go down there and eliminate that. That person and myself have had extensive intelligence and, I think, counterintelligence activities in the armed forces. The person at that time had free access — in fact, was dealing in arms at the time and was routinely used by the Church on various Guardian operations.
We were asked to go down and did go — actually, went into briefing to go down and set up a little infrared sniper scope in the middle of the night and make sure the bandits didn't bother us anymore. Fortunately, for me, the lady — one of the ladies who was managing the children's org. at the time shot one of the bandits — I believe it was the leader — through the front door when they were trying to break in and they dispersed and the mission was subsequently called off.
I just want to get across to you that, at that point in time with the Church, that sort of thing — that they were impeding Scientology. They were nothing but bandits and had to be gotten out of the way. And that was the way it went.
I don't know what else to tell you about it. You can ask questions about it if you'd like. All I can say is at the time I was willing to go. I don't necessarily feel good about that now, but at the time I didn't think of it.
I think, since I've already mentioned children — I have, in addition — I could say without any reservation that the food, the supervision of children, the education of children, in every organization that I have ever been in in the Church, has been terrible.
I got into an incredible fire fight with a person named Fran Broker, who was in charge at that time of financing the various operations in —
MR. SHOEMAKER: Mr. Mayer —
MR. MAYER: — Los Angeles.
MR. SHOEMAKER: — what do you mean by "fire fight"?
MR. MAYER: Well, I was trying to get money for the base and she had the power of the pen, all right? And I had to convince — I had to make a plea for monies to adequately feed and house the children. And the problem that I had — it's a kind of a funny story in a way, but at the time for me it was really serious.
The caretaker used to come up from Mexico on a weekly basis to get money to bring back down for day-to-day purchasing in Mexico because of the price difference. The area was incredibly infested with scorpions, snakes, tarantulas, spiders. The area around the base house was — had a lot of shrubbery up against the house, and the place had never really been put — you know, made habitable.
The man brought me up a jar full of scorpions, tarantulas, and later he said, "Look it, we've got to have money to clear this brush out, so these kids — if one of these kids gets bit, you know, you and I are the ones that are going to be in trouble because we're responsible for the area. The rest of the Church is going take the rap of getting us killed down here."
So, I brought — I took the car and I brought it into the woman and I plopped it down on her desk, and I said, "Here they are. What I've told you is true, and I'm laying it on you. I'm not going to be responsible anymore for the care of those children if you are going to deny me the funds to get the tools necessary to clean around the house and to take all the brush and stuff away and make it safe for them." And I eventually got the money, by the way, but I was no longer in — and it was a little hard for me.
That persisted wherever I went. Staff members were always ill-fed, ill-clothed. I had a personal situation where I had an abscess in my tooth and I was being audited for it. I'm ready to go to the dentist, and I was being audited for it. And I spent about a week, week and-a-half, doing various auditing assists — what they call touch assists — to get rid of the pain and get me out of it. And, finally, it just — I was just delirious and — well, there wasn't any money for the medical is what it boiled down to. They didn't have the money to take me to the dentist, so they were trying to handle it with Scientology.
I went to the dentist, and this was in San Pedro — although, I don't recall the name of the dentist, the records are certainly still available if it came to that — he told me I had just made it. It was abscessing and it was, you know, up into my gums and stuff, and if it had been another day or so, I wouldn't be here to talk to you.
You wanted to know about conditions here in Florida in your own city. When I first came back from — well, my last mission to South Africa, when I came back, I was very, very disgruntled with the Church's operations. I refused to take posting because it just was not within my sense of ethics. So, I went back to what was my original job, which was management.
And the person that I had trained to replace me, when I went off on mission, was now the manager for the Fort Harrison. His name will probably come back to me: Nick something. Anyway, he had — I had been his senior, and I came back and I said, "Look, I'm fighting this posting. Until it's handled, I don't want to do anything except do what the policy says, which is I have a right to my old job back when I come off of a mission. But I don't want to take your job, so just put me to work and, if you're willing to fight for me as a staff member, well, I'm not going anywhere."
So, for several weeks before I managed to get out of Clearwater and go back to Los Angeles on a leave of absence, I set up bunk beds in the Fort Harrison Hotel up to the ceiling and just packed them in like rats.
MR. HATCHETT: You mean, people.
MR. MAYER: People.
There were rooms that were — that were smaller than the division of this area here that had bunks in them five high and clothes strewn all over, sea bags full of clothes just — in fact, my wife and I were stuck in a room that was already occupied by somebody because they were out on another assignment for a couple of days, and we had to — we had to coexist with all of their things in the room in crowded conditions. We didn't even have a place to hang our clothes.
And this is routine. I'm not talking about something that happens once in a while.
When I was in charge of operations in Los Angeles, I used to drill the staff members — we very often had people that were sympathetic to the Church that would apprise us of inspections that were going to take place. And when we'd get a forewarning of it, we had drills set up to pull the bunk beds out, move the dressers out, ship them over to one of the other houses until the inspection was over, and then bring them back and pack them back in again.
MR. BERFIELD: That was here in Clearwater?
MR. MAYER: No. I didn't do the drilling here in Clearwater. But that is part of one of the regular drill that the Sea Organization has on what is called station — it's naval terminology. They have drills on repelling enemy mortars. Sea Org. members are routinely trained on how to do this.
So, if, for instance, security here in the Fort Harrison was apprised that there was going to be an inspection, there'd be more Guardian's Office personnel running round than you could think of making sure that everybody got all the evidence out of sight. It would be swept clean before anybody got there. And then, a couple of Guardian's Office staff members would be on the inspection to feed them false data, maybe give them reports of their own about the conditions, and just generally distract them from carrying out their duties.
And this is not something that happens just once in a while. It's a drilled thing; it's a training process. It's a common, everyday, garden variety training drill.
I think — I'm open right now for anything you want to ask about it. I do have some other things, but I think it would probably be —
MR. LeCHER: All right. I'll start out with a few questions and then turn it over to my colleagues.
I think you're probably the best one to answer this question that I've asked about two others: Why Clearwater? And why the United Churches of Florida, and why not Tampa, Brooksville, or Miami? And why not Scientology? The climate's not right?
MR. MAYER: Yes, in more than one sense of the word. And you're talking about — when you're talking about setting up a base where L. Ron Hubbard might actually come, you're talking about an area that is very, very heavily evaluated in every sense of the word. Who's in local offices? What have they done?
And I want you to know that every single person on the City Council was very, very thoroughly — their background was very, very thoroughly checked to see if there was any stuff in the woodwork that could be used against you.
I happen to know the man that purchased the Church grounds here in Clearwater at the time. His name was Ron Strauss. He was a musician on Flag in the band when he was selected for the mission and said he would do it.
These evaluations, of course, were done — they're all done in advance. All this stuff was done in advance.
I was personally sent out on a mission with a man by the name of Commander Bob Young, by Ron Hubbard, to find a base for the Apollo. It was only a rumor; but it was pretty solid to everybody that was on the ship at the time, that Mary Sue had had enough of running around on Ron's rusty old yachts and wanted a nice place where, you know, she could have herself a little chicken farm or something. It didn't, of course, work out that way.
I ran all over the Caribbean with another man looking for locations. We went into the places on a cover story.. The cover story was, basically, that Operation Transport Corporation, which is now and never has been anything else but the Church of Scientology, was going to set up a training center where they could do their business management consulting out of.
There was another operation going on at the time called Universal Media Organization, which was a promotional organization: television shows, slide shows. We did some work for one of the government officials on Aruba, I believe it was; we did a project for them. This was all laying a cover so that, when the Church came in, all the questions that could be asked and all the investigations that could be done to discourage them from coming in had been done on an organization that really didn't exist anyway, except as a facade to waste your time on. By the time you'd finished running around trying to sort all of that stuff, then, we were already here, if I remember correctly.
MR. LeCHER: Well, I remember the story in 1975, when you arrived, and I first was in office — but the story I had was that you bought the Fort Harrison for a religious retreat for retired ministers.
MR. MAYER: Yes. Well, the actual fact of the matter is what we were trying to do at that time — Bob Young and myself, Bill Azzeroni — I don't know where he is now — we were the ones that — and Ron's personal secretary or assistant at the time; her name was Liz Osley. We conceived the idea of the media organization in order to get Ron back out into the public. We all felt at this time that he get out in the public.
The idea was — and I used to read the scripts. We'd write the scripts for what was going to go on and we were shooting scenes that were going to go on, and would go through this to Ron and/or Mary Sue and be approved, the actions. And the idea was to get Ron out here in the community as a religious leader. In fact, I believe he did a couple of radio shows with some local Baptist ministers when he first came in here. And the whole idea was, of course, to use the opinion leader policy of the Church, which is to get a trained Scientologist alongside of someone — not necessarily the governmental head of an agent, but who he listens to.
Who do you go to when you have — when you need advice, as a counsel? You have people that you — you respect their advice.
Well, it's a little too obvious to put a trained Scientologist in the mayor's office. Well, if you can find somebody that the mayor talks to and get a trained Scientologist next to him, boy, you're in good shape. You can just feed anything you want to him along that line. And I assure you that's done every day.
I personally brought sixty people up to the governor's campaign in, I think it was, 1974. I was asked by the Guardian's Office to provide Rehabilitation Project Force personnel to back one of the gubernatorial candidates in California. He lost, by the way, but, nonetheless, I had them up there, and I got a commendation for it — I still have it, by the way — for my actions in bringing Scientology into more good favor in the State of California.
And they stuffed flyers and they handed out flyers and brought people in to be talked to. These were the criminals of Scientology.
MR. LeCHER: Why Clearwater? Why not Tampa? Why — was Clearwater the right size, under a hundred thousand people? Was Tampa too big or was, say, Brooksville too small or —
MR. MAYER: Politics.
The reason — we found some beautiful locations for the base in the Netherlands Antilles and ran smack into a man who was in the Guardian's Office at the time — I don't know if he still is. His name was Brian Rubenick. And Brian was always a little paranoid. But he was a Guardian's Office personnel, and he was very, very afraid of the political situation in the Caribbean. At the time, as I recall, they were storing a lot of oil over there while we were having a warm winter and didn't need it here. So, there was a lot of political things going on in that area to make sure that nobody knew that there was more oil and gas around than anybody could possibly have dreamed of.
So, the political situation in every area was looked at very, very closely and evaluated.
You had a situation here at that time, as I recall, tourist business wasn't doing all that good, there was plenty of property available at a good price, a lot of people wanted to get some money back from the investments that they had made; Clearwater wasn't booming at the time.
I believe they did find some things to attack the mayor's office with at the time, although, I was running in and out of Clearwater at the time, so, I — I, you know, I wasn't directly involved, except for people would tell me things in confidence because they knew that I wouldn't squeal on them if they told me something that they couldn't cope with.
Understand that a lot of the things that I heard, I heard from close, personal friends who would have been in an awful lot of trouble had anybody known that they had disclosed what they were doing to me. In terms of the rules of evidence, I think you realize what that means. It's not hearsay.
MR. LeCHER: So, you investigated the personalities and the temperaments of the local officials, either appointed or elected, correct?
MR. MAYER: No.
Understand, a set of mission orders of the magnitude — in fact, it was an LRH Executive Directive 500 series. I don't remember the last couple of numbers on it. But this was probably a fifteen- or twenty-page set of step-by-step things that had to be done before the Guardian's Office would approve the move, all right?
So, you didn't have the Church just willy-nilly walk in here and set down. All of these things were very carefully evaluated long before they went into Daytona and started to get into trouble there.
As far as I'm concerned, from what I've been able to piece together from the people that I knew that were involved in it, this was just a politically — a nice place.
MR. LeCHER: A nice town.
Before we get on to other questions: You said that we are having a hearing against the Church of Scientology, and they are back in the office trying to figure out how to handle us.
How do you think they may handle us? What should I be aware of? What should my colleagues up on this —
MR. MAYER: Well, I'll tell you, I sure wouldn't want to have any skeletons in my closet; I'll be very frank with you.
MR. LeCHER: Now, you tell me.
Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
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Posted:
Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:43 pm
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Part 8 of 15
MR. BERFIELD: Mayor, may I ask one question?
MR. MAYER: I — they're not of any value once they're — once they've been used.
MR. BERFIELD: If you got a phone call in the morning and the phone call consisted of: "I heard you talking with a gentleman before. I know you have two daughters and they go to such and such a school," would you consider that a threat, if the facts in the case were the truth?
MR. MAYER: In my case, it certainly would be. It's —
MR. BERFIELD: If that phone call came to me, would you take that phone call seriously?
MR. MAYER: Oh, sure. In fact, if — it would already have gone past the point where you should have been doing something about it.
MR. BERFIELD: You mean, if you were me —
MR. MAYER: It's hard to —
MR. BERFIELD: If you were me, you would not be sitting here, you would be with your family?
MR. MAYER: You have been classified as an active enemy of the Church. There are passive and active enemies, and this is part of their GO intelligence training. And I've done their Intelligence PR course. I've been trained how to handle you guys if I wanted to — if you were attacking me. In other words, I've been trained to present the Church's position in a favorable manner. I've been trained to take everything that you say and turn it around against you, if that's what I needed to do.
In your particular case, they would have already classified you as an active enemy. You would have done something that impeded the expansion or the progress of Scientology, and you would have gone from somebody who just in disagreement with the Church or was interested in finding out what it was all about into somebody who was doing something about it.
The minute you became active, then, you go under the area of observance of GO Intelligence. That's when they start gathering the data, when you become active.
I didn't get sued until I testified. As long as I hid for three years after I got out — and the IRS didn't know where I was and nobody else — nobody bothered me. But the IRS found me, and I agreed to work with them. And as soon as I did, the day after I put my testimony on the record — it hadn't even been released yet —
MR. LeCHER: Well, Mr. Berfield is obviously —
MR. MAYER: — they were right on my doorstep.
MR. LeCHER: — concerned about the threats he has had. I have — well, unfortunately, I no longer live with my family, but I'm concerned about that, too. That's why I'm asking you, as a person who has done these things, what — how they handle — how may we expect to be handled?
MR. MAYER: Well, a friend of mine's daughter a week ago turned her in to the Church of Scientology for dealing with me and a bunch of other Scientologists who had gotten together outside of the, you know, the authority of the Church to discuss the things with me that they didn't like that were going on in the Church. Her daughter is a Sea Org. member and went straight into the Church and turned her in for the activities, and they pulled her in and grilled her.
In fact, she has a lot of money still with the Church, so they sent a couple of registrars along to try to get her to go back in here to Clearwater and get her, quote, unquote, case handled so that she would be no longer in disagreement with the Church.
That's a standard qualifications action of the Qual Division. Anybody that becomes disaffected with the Church, their confessional folders are immediately gone through in an attempt to get them back in session, being audited to come back on line.
MR. LeCHER: A standard procedure, then, would be to, in order to stop these hearings — would have been to find skeletons in the closets of the five Commissioners and, possibly, the attorney behind it.
Would that be the normal way of —
MR. MAYER: That —
MR. LeCHER: — having some point of influence to stop these hearings before they started?
MR. MAYER: If you want to know what the Church of Scientology will do to you, read The Art of War by Lao Tzu, because that's one of the required books on the training manual for an intelligence operative.
MR. FLYNN: The whole — part of all the intelligence operations, drills and policies, as I mentioned at the beginning and a number of times, will all be put into evidence. Some already have, but there are hundreds more to put into evidence.
MR. LeCHER: Well, I've alerted my family just to watch themselves and Mr. Berfield has alerted his family, and I'm sure the other Commissioners have done the same, letting them know that I know if anything does happen.
MR. MAYER: Sir, if I may, one of the points that Counsel has just reminded me of that I wanted to bring up was that: While I was on leave of absence from the Church in Los Angeles, I was approached by a Guardian's staff member. My wife at the time, Riva Bittelman, had parents that lived in Miami; her father had been a successful supermarket owner. They were very well known and thought of in the Jewish community.
We were asked if we would consider infiltrating all the local charities as fund raisers, using the father's, you know, influence in the community to get — you know, go through the family ties, the lines. And what we were supposed to do was infiltrate the charities, do a lot of good fund-raising things, bring some money in, and at the same time, you know, impress the local charities with our competence and gradually gain some sort of control over them.
It was decided about three weeks after we were approached that, because we were so well known as Scientologists around — we had travelled extensively for fourteen months for the Church's top management, bailing orgs. out of financial trouble. They decided that we were too well known, so they were going to use somebody else to do it.
I'd check your local charities. You may have somebody operating in there like I was asked to do.
MR. LeCHER: Okay. Let's get on a little different track, then.
You said that you could pass a lie detector test; you were trained to pass a lie detector test.
If you're that well trained, how can you — could you also, then, pass an E-Meter test?
MR. MAYER: That — that's the same thing.
MR. LeCHER: I know that —
MR. MAYER: An E-Meter —
MR. LeCHER: You were — you were — you trained people to lie —
MR. MAYER: Yeah.
MR. LeCHER: — to lie so convincingly and so convincingly well that you could pass a lie detector test.
MR. MAYER: No. That they could pass a lie detector test on whether they could do it or not.
MR. SHOEMAKER: Oh.
MR. HATCHETT: Oh.
MR. MAYER: And they couldn't go out until they'd do it. That's how well trained they were. They knew in no uncertain terms, when they left, that they could get through any customs officials and complete their mission. That's with officials — immigration officials, authorities, porters, whatever.
MR. LeCHER: They knew their —
MR. MAYER: Job cold, so cold that you could put them on a lie detector and they were reading.
When I say "a reading," I mean, the lie detector test would show that they were not lying when they said they could do it.
MR. LeCHER: Then, how could you possibly fail the E-Meter test when you were put back on that, like, for auditing?
MR. MAYER: Well, if you had something that you had done against the Church and had never told anybody about it, that would read on the lie detector. It's an area that you —
MR. LeCHER: You're taught to lie for specific reasons for a job or a mission?
MR. MAYER: Okay.
There is a difference between active use of Scientology intelligence technology and the use of the E-Meter to find out whether or not a person's doing what they're supposed to be doing. In one form you have, like, a security check when somebody goes into a company. Often — now companies like Radio Shack, Tandy Corporation, now uses a lie detector test with regard to the application form that you fill out for employment. So, it's on that order of magnitude.
A staff member could be brought in at any time. HCO — Hubbard Communications Office — had the right to call in any staff member and put them on a Meter and find out whether they had been doing their job, whether they had been using Scientology standardly or not, and if they failed, take whatever measures necessary to correct that.
On the other hand, you had training somebody so well that you knew that they could do their job, and to verify that they themselves knew that, put them on a lie detector. And if the didn't feel a hundred percent confidant, it would read.
The — I can't begin to tell you how many hours some of these people spend. I used to — I'm sure you've all heard the term "tone scale," emotional tone scale. Maybe you — oh, you haven't gotten into that.
Well, basically, what it is is it's a set of techniques where you can bring somebody emotionally up or emotionally down by being able to ascertain what they're basically not confronting in life, what they're not willing to face, take responsibility for. And I used to drill with flash cards with another Guardian's Office staff member on being able to move somebody involuntarily up and down that scale by simply spotting where they were really coming from in terms of their ability to confront life.
Those drills are constantly run on Scientology people that deal in public lines. They're done on auditors and they're done on GO intelligence personnel, only they're modified with GO intelligence personnel for situations like a reporter: "Is a reporter bugging you," to just, you know, take him up and take him down and just confuse the hell out of him and get him out of your hair. It's not all that hard to do. I've —
MRS. GARVEY: If you're having a problem with a reporter?
MR. MAYER: And, listen, I've worked in intelligence, Naval Intelligence, and it's not technology that's unknown in this world. It's just modified for the use of the Church. It's not something that L. Ron Hubbard just made up on his own; it's standard intelligence procedure, standard brainwashing technique.
MR. LeCHER: When you took money out of the country in phony packages, did you take it out in cash?
MR. MAYER: The incident — the biggest incident that I know of personally was a fifty thousand-dollar cash shipment that went to Flag when Alex Bersky was called to Flag in 1971. There are other people that I know of that took it back and forth — this is a situation where I was in the office and he said, "Yeah, I'm going to bring Ron fifty thousand bucks." I think we made five hundred thousand dollars that week in gross income.
In fact, I don't know whether you know it or not, but, when I left Scientology, the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, Florida was — had a gross income of five hundred to seven hundred thousand dollars a week. And I know you people didn't see any of that money.
MR. LeCHER: Neither did the tax collector.
How much of a skimming do you think in Clearwater?
MR. MAYER: Well, you know, the policy of the — of LRH is to try to run an organization on twenty-five percent or less of the gross income. Just how successful they are now or anything, I don't know. But I know a lot of staff members that ate potatoes and beans while there was money being shipped off to the Guardian's Defense Fund to handle the next enemy that they had created for covert operations.
MR. LeCHER: So that's — if you made a million dollars, then, you would be a month — a week, you would be spending twenty-five — two hundred and fifty thousand dollars here, and the rest would go to L. Ron?
MR. MAYER: It would be filtered probably through Worldwide, when Flag was not here in Clearwater, of course.
Well, during the course of the IRS, probably there were some twenty some — at one time thirty some bank accounts in other countries where money could be sent to. That came up in the IRS. At the time we did that trial last year, they still had about twenty accounts that were active, still had money in them.
MR. LeCHER: Well, the previous witness said about ten percent is taken off the top.
MR. MAYER: That's just for the Guardian's Defense Fund; that combats the kind of hearings we're having right now.
MR. LeCHER: I'm — who gets to start off again, Mrs. Garvey?
MRS. GARVEY: I don't know where to start. I want to keep him —
MR. MAYER: I have to catch a plane at five-thirty; so that's all the time I've got. I wish I —
MR. CALDERBANK: You hadn't said that?
MRS. GARVEY: Let me first start on his background or the outline.
What — one on here was see check, operation see check; underneath it's got E-Meter, lie detector —
MR. MAYER: It probably should be sec check, not see check; that's a typographical error.
MR. HATCHETT: Security.
MRS. GARVEY: Okay.
MR. MAYER: Security check.
MRS. GARVEY: Okay.
LA officer with a security check.
Then, you go down, there's one under large amounts of cash out of the United States: inflating OTC expenses.
What are — what's OTC?
MR. MAYER: Well, OTC was what Flag was outside of this country.
When I first joined the Sea Organization, I thought I was joining the Church of Scientology Sea Organization to go through a ship's master training program. When I went into my initial training, the first thing I got was the policy letters or Flag orders that told me what I had actually done was sign a contract with a corporation called Operation Transport Corporation.
In the 1970's there was another corporation which had been set up called Operation Transport Services, which allegedly was another corporation that provided management services and facilities, the lease of ships, to the Sea Organization. It was all one thing, OTC, OTS, Sea Organization, all the same animals.
In fact, we had to take people who were new to Scientology that were going to Flag, and that was part of my briefing job — was to brief them on the fact that they were really OTC when they got out of this country, and there was nothing anywhere in writing that could be used to prove otherwise. OTC was always run by L. Ron Hubbard and always has been.
MR. FLYNN: I might note for the record at this point, this particular item has legal significance for a logical reason, which will become significant for logical reasons at a later point in time.
It has personal significance for Mr. Meister, because the Church of Scientology of California, which owned all buildings — the Church of Scientology of California, which is a corporate entity, which owned all of the buildings in Clearwater, Florida until last December 13th, wrote a letter to Mr. Meister involving the situation of the death of his daughter under their letterhead of the corporate entity. They say, "I'm sure you understand that the ship's company, an independent Panamanian agency, is under no obligations to the Church of Scientology of California to provide information that it might deem goes beyond the scope of a reasonable inquiry by bereaved parents."
The independent Panamanian agency of the ship's company is the Operation Transport Corporation, of which the witness just referred.
MRS. GARVEY: Well, under the next one: Buildings of the Church of Scientology of Clearwater — mean, you'd — from the operation of OTC, you'd build a church?
MR. MAYER: Let me explain this to you. I have a letter, as a matter of fact, on OTC letterhead that introduces me as the captain on one of the vessels. It was written by Lieutenant Commander Bob Young, who was the US Fleet Captain at the time. He was a Sea Org. Scientology staff member. But he was also, in terms of this letterhead, the US Fleet Captain for the Board of Directors of OTC, Limited, Panama.
I have it. I have the original with the seal, the OTC seal on it, too.
What would happen is the Church — every — either twice or once a month, they would do what was called financial planning. At that point in time the people that were on the Flagship would requisition money to ship's operation, all right? I don't know if any of you have the remotest idea how much it costs to keep a ship going.
But it's incredibly easy to have — in a ship the size of the Apollo, which had about four hundred crew members on it — it was, roughly, about three hundred fifty feet long — you can lose eighty thousand dollars in the engine room in the spare parts bin. It's really simple. Food costs.
We had an organization called OTS — which we were instructed to no longer mention — which was actually part of the Church, and was billing for services that it then delivered to OTC. And the people who were delivering the services were Scientology staff members and Apollo crew members.
I don't have to — I don't think I have to go any farther with showing you how it — there is another point though.
The Church uses a finance system which basically breaks down into weekly income packets. Originally, there was supposed to be an invoice log in all churches that showed with invoice packets and number that were given to Treasury so that the logs — so people couldn't mess around with the invoices.
What had basically ended up happening was the Church had Scientology printers that would print up a couple of sets of invoices. And I noticed after — we did a convention on it in 1970 that I was a part of, and the IRS was making an inquiry into the Church's finances at the time. I never saw a log book in any organization after that point, all right? My wife's handwriting, later on in '74, was on invoices that she couldn't possibly have written. In other words, what I'm saying to you is income packets can be pulled out on even so small a thing as a weekly basis and totally altered, and there will never be a record anywhere else that says that there was anymore money coming into the Church. It's all on an invoice machine and it's done deliberately.
MRS. GARVEY: The next question I was going — again down this outline is you talked about — or mentioned that you were placed in Enemy Condition.
When was that? And we've all been hearing about RPF. What was RPF?
MR. MAYER: Well, you could be assigned to a — primarily, it has to do with a lot of crimes against Scientology. And those crimes could be things like not applying the policy letter when you should have, not having a good gross income for the week, not having it go up steadily, maybe it went down for six weeks or something like that. So, you could be pulled off of a post and put on the Rehabilitation Project Force. You were held up to ridicule by literally everybody in the organization, you were not allowed to communicate to or — communicate unless you were first communicated to by somebody.
MRS. GARVEY: What —
MR. MAYER: I spent time in bilge one time for being late from coming off liberty, and I spent twelve hours in bilge water that deep in the bottom of one of the ships, cleaning the scum off of the hull because I was late. And I went without sleep at that particular time for about thirty-six hours giving my amends to the Church for my crime of not being on post in time.
I observed people in a chain locker on this ship for a week on bread and water. A lady named Holly Judd in a place called American Saint Hill Organization in Los Angeles spent something like nine or ten days in a closed room on bread and water, writing up all of her crimes against humanity for the last trillion years, and the Ethics Officer would throw them back into her and say that wasn't enough.
MR. FLYNN: A point of correlation in terms of corporate policy: You may correlate that testimony that you just heard to the testimony of David Ray in the dumpster with the garbage up to his chest.
MRS. GARVEY: Right.
You're also going to testify to some of the undercover criminal operations as to breaking into offices, burglarizing, planting false information —
MR. MAYER: Well, that had to do —
MRS. GARVEY: — as part of your missions?
MR. MAYER: — with the Bill Foster story. I mean, let's face it, I helped a man who was wanted by the federal government get out of this country, and I got him out real fast.
MRS. GARVEY: That's —
MR. MAYER: I don't know if the statute of limitations is up or not.
I'm not here to defend myself. I've done what I've done and you can make do with whatever you want to of it. But I'm here because I know of a lot of very, very decent people who've been jacked around by this organization, their families disrupted, their lives — I have not been able to live in one place for the last three years. I had to structure my whole occupation not around what I can do but around what I am limited to doing in order to avoid my background with the Church from being exposed to an employer. And that's commonplace.
And I would like to see people, like — the stuff I've got is nothing. There are people that I know of that have got things that would really curl your hair, and they're afraid to step out. And I hope that these hearings will discourage off a little the staff right now in handling all of the flaps and, hopefully, all of the things that happen will make them too undermanned to resort to anything silly like, you know, physical harm to people. And the people who would like to come out, would like to resume their place in society and become productive members of the community, could come out and do it without being chastised for having made a mistake in joining the organization.
MR. FLYNN: As City Consultant and having been involved in the investigation of this organization for three years, I can tell you that the individuals — some of the individuals whom Mr. Mayer refers to — or many, have contacted my office. I am under confidentiality with regard to their identity.
But I can simply say, as the City Consultant, in my investigation efforts, not only specifically for this project but for the last three years, many, many, many such individuals would like, in fact, to come out, but they're in fear.
MRS. GARVEY: One of the vicious policies that we've heard about in the past — and it seems to relate to you, also, is the disconnect with your wife.
MR. MAYER: Mm-mm.
MRS. GARVEY: Is there something about Scientology material demanding divorce?
MR. MAYER: Well, initially, when I — now, this goes back to 1969, when I was on staff in Tustin, California; I was still married at the time. I was introduced to Scientology through a friend and heard lectures and so on and so forth.
Because I had had a background in public speaking in the United States Navy — for sometime I explained my submarine warfare techniques to Annapolis. Cadets that would come out of the training crews — and, understand, this was during the Viet Nam War and we were the Flagship for the Seventh Fleet. So, part of my daily duties was to take a group of officers and train them on how to do various things, and I had quite a bit of experience in talking with people.
As a result of that, I was offered a job in the Tustin Organization to teach their Communications course. And I was just told that if I was willing to come in and do it, they wouldn't charge me for the course or anything, they'd give me the training on how to do it and I would just do it. And I, subsequent to that, became their Communication Course Supervisor, and I gave introductory lectures to public every Friday night that would come in and sign up.
So, I was having a lot of marital problems at the time, as a result of my association with Scientology. So, I was asked to bring my wife in. There was an attempted handling on her; she was put on a Meter and asked a bunch of questions. And after it was all said and done, she said, "I don't want to be a part of this." She didn't know why; she just knew that she didn't. I don't want to go into that any further.
But as a result of that, I was — I was considered to be what is called PTS, or a Potential Trouble Source to the Church. The policy very clearly says, "Handle or disconnect." And I said, "Well, she's not going to become a Scientologist." "That's right." What else is there is to do? Disconnect.
So, at that point in time, you have to realize, I had — I had gotten into this a bit to the point where I actually believed that part of my spiritual future was involved with the Church. My wife was very heavily into drugs at the time, and I had just come off of them. In fact, one of the things that I had to do, in order to get the job — I'm not going to try and tell you that I came back from Viet Nam in good shape; I didn't. And it was years before I could stop hearing the gun at night. So, I had to write a letter, promising that I would no longer use drugs, in order — and that I was clean from them — in order to be allowed on staff, all right?
So, basically, my wife was just another one of your garden variety humanoids that was socked into drugs, and I was better off without her. And I went for it. Whether that was right or wrong to decide on that, I did. And that marriage was ruined as a result of my believing the Church policy on the matter, that I couldn't reconcile a marriage unless my wife was a Scientologist.
MR. FLYNN: For the record, that policy is Exhibit 2.
MRS. GARVEY: How much pay did you get over — or your average salary?
MR. MAYER: Well, I had the tendency to make a little more at it because I had bonuses that I would get; I was a senior executive. But probably — I probably didn't average more than between fourteen and twenty dollars a week for six years.
MRS. GARVEY: That was for the first six years. What about the latter —
MR. MAYER: Well, I got a few bonuses. I got a hundred and twenty-five dollar bonus for raising the income at Saint Hill when I went over there with my wife.
And I tried to collect my earlier mission bonuses; some of them were up to two hundred dollars for — well, I went into the Boston Organization and brought the income up from about two thousand dollars to sixty thousand dollars; I went into the Hawaii Organization and brought the income up from about six or seven hundred dollars to sixteen thousand dollars; Austin, Texas from nine dollars and fifty cents to three thousand dollars a week.
I was supposed to be getting bonuses for that; you know, just a nice little way to say, "Thanks for your contribution."
MRS. GARVEY: How much bonus would you get if you —
MR. MAYER: I never got it.
MRS. GARVEY: Oh.
How much bonus would you have gotten if you had gone down to Mexico to take care of the bandits?
MR. MAYER: Well, if it was a power mission — in other words, there was no more problem — there could have been up to a couple of hundred dollars, maybe two hundred fifty dollars.
MRS. GARVEY: Oh, that was good.
MR. MAYER: But when I say "power," I mean, there's no situation to be handled; it's terminatedly handled. In fact, that was what a mission was to do.
You didn't go out to do continuing handling on an area; you didn't go out to provide progress reports about what you were doing to overcome the situation there. You went out there —
MRS. GARVEY: And did it.
MR. MAYER: — to turn in a done; "I handled it. The situation no longer exists."
The org. — in fact, my — the success of a mission or not was judged on how well the income did for six weeks after I left. If it dropped, I hadn't trained the people that I put in to take over again well enough, and I would have been considered a failed missioner, I would have been made mission ineligible. Quite frankly, I would have probably had to do a few amends' projects and a lower condition assignment.
There — there's just no end to it. I don't know many incidences I could tell you of things like this to get across to you that this is common, everyday, operating policy, always has been.
MRS. GARVEY: How much influenced were you by L. Ron Hubbard's background —
MR. MAYER: I probably —
MRS. GARVEY: — as getting in and staying?
MR. MAYER: Well, an awful lot, because I had come out of the United States Navy.
And then, understand something, from the time I was a little kid, my father was an Intelligence Aide to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. He was with Army Intelligence for twenty-five years. All I had heard about all my life was Army, Navy, war games, this sort of thing. And I had always wanted to be a captain of a ship. I had had some success with the navigation of the flagship that I was on.
It was my chance — you know, it takes eight years or more to get a certificate through the U.S. system, and at times it's questionable about who controls that, through the maritime system. Here I was offered a chance to get my master's papers just by working — you know, in exchange for the work that I did. And in addition, I was promised that I would get business degrees and — I've been very highly trained in business management technique.
I don't have a degree to show for it and, therefore when I go out for a job now, I have to hide those abilities. I can't bring them out. I have no way of qualifying that because, if anybody calls OTC or the Church of Scientology to verify my employment, I'm the worst guy in the world.
MRS. GARVEY: I'm assuming that when you first got into auditing, you assumed it was confidential.
Did you do any auditing yourself, once you realized that it could be used against you?
MR. MAYER: You know, this is an interesting thing: I was so busy being trained and going around doing administrative things that I got very, very little Scientology auditing, until my very last portion of time in the Sea Organization. I didn't go on the clearing course until I went to Saint Hill in ‘75, which was probably six months before I was — I got out; I went on a leave of absence.
So, consequently, I didn't necessarily at that time know an awful lot about the technology I was selling, but I sure had been trained to sell.
MRS. GARVEY: But you also were using auditing information?
MR. MAYER: Oh, certainly.
MRS. GARVEY: I mean, if you weren't audited, they wouldn't have gotten any information out of you to use.
MR. MAYER: Well, no, not true; not true.
MRS. GARVEY: Not true.
MR. MAYER: Every Sea Org. member signs up, goes through a security check —
MRS. GARVEY: All right.
MR. MAYER: — on a Meter, your whole background. There's — at the time I went in, they were calling it a Johannesburg Form, and it was just pages and pages of questions about, you know: "Have you ever killed anybody? Have you ever done this? Have you ever done that? Have you ever infiltrated an organization? Are you here to infiltrate us?" All done on a lie detector.
All of that data is then sent — and I was apprised at the time that that data would be sent to Worldwide — to the Guardian's Office Worldwide for an International Ethics Clearance. If I passed — if they could not find any connection with what I had said on this form — and I mean, they asked some pretty personal questions.
MRS. GARVEY: Can you —
MR. MAYER: My sex life in Scientology is so well documented that I can't even begin to care about it; you know, it just wouldn't be worth it.
MR. FLYNN: That's Exhibit 6 in the record. The Commission has seen some of those questions.
MRS. GARVEY: Yes.
MR. LeCHER: On his sex life?
MR. FLYNN: The Church of Scientology has been after me for three years, and draw your own conclusions.
MR. MAYER: So, to answer — in answer to your initial question, all that initial data was sent to International Ethics in Saint Hill, England. From that point on, if I ever got into any trouble with the Church, and there were a number of occasions when I did get into trouble with various people, that information — in fact, at one point in time Ron Hubbard said, "Okay. We're going to forgive you, you Scientologists, of all of the things you've done against the Church." Well, they had us writing up things that we had done throughout our entire lifetime.
I sat for probably three days trying to think up all the things, you know — chopping the vines off my mother's bushes, you know, when I was a little kid. And that wasn't enough. They came back to us and said, "It's not finished. Make sure it's finished." That all went to the Guardian's Office and into our B 1 files. And we had to do that to get the amnesty; we had to do that to get forgiven. And that was not in a confessional session; it was not done in session or the Meter.
MRS. GARVEY: Mm-mm.
MR. MAYER: That was: "Sit down and turn it over to the Guardian's Office when you're done." The Assistant Guardian of every organization collected them, and they were forwarded to the files.
MRS. GARVEY: So, everyone in the Sea Org. had to do this?
MR. MAYER: Any Assistant Guardian in any organization of Scientology can call up the Secretary, the Technical Secretary, and order your folders brought in, your confessional folders brought into his office. He can have one of the Guardian's Office's own technically trained people go over it and list all the crimes. That's how they get the B 1 files. All the B 1 file is is a time record, a day/time sequence of all the nasties you've either done to others or to Scientology, and it's right there on the cover and it's indexed just like a legal file. I'm sure you've all seen legal files; it's just like it.
So, if you get into any trouble anywhere, that information is used for bringing you around in line.
MRS. GARVEY: To answer the question, though, knowing that —
MR. MAYER: Sorry.
MRS. GARVEY: That's okay.
MR. FLYNN: I'll just make a point.
As the evidence will show as we proceed, the processes of collecting information — by which this organization collects information — are not just limited to auditing information. As Ms. Peterson testified, there's overt and covert data collection.
And the essential purpose of all of these processes is to get information, whether you do it by breaking and entering or breaching the fiduciary obligations with regard to confidential auditing information.
MRS. GARVEY: The question that I was trying to get at: Knowing that, that the auditing file will be used against you — would not be kept confidential — did you take any auditing after that?
MR. MAYER: Oh, sure.
MRS. GARVEY: Why?
MR. MAYER: Well, if I had refused the auditing, I would have been refusing to apply Scientology myself and I would have been expelled.
MRS. GARVEY: Okay. That —
MR. MAYER: I applied — while I'm on the subject, I myself have used data in a person's confessional folder against him, all right?
One of the missions that I did — it was a Flag-originated Mission; Flag was not in Clearwater at the time — there was a staff member there who had been doing some stuff with some animals. And the woman that was sent — she was in the country illegally, by the way; she was sent with me. We brought the guy into the office and just laid it out in front of him and said, you know, "You either get on the stick or you're going to be expelled, and that's your spiritual future." I've done it myself.
MRS. GARVEY: Were you promised any kind of cures for problems at any step you went?
MR. MAYER: I was promised that I would become a world being, capable of operating with or without a body. And the — actually, actually controlling, being able to control, things and create effects in a room such as this without having to be physically present.
MR. LeCHER: That could be characterized as religion.
MR. SHOEMAKER: How about your — any type of physical condition —
MR. LeCHER: What about Paul Hatchett? Do you have a —
MRS. GARVEY: Well —
MR. LeCHER: We should follow in line.
MR. SHOEMAKER: I'm sorry. I was just trying to follow through on Mrs. Garvey's question.
MR. MAYER: I lost track of what the question —
MRS. GARVEY: Any physical ailments that they promised they'd cure or any mental problems that they promised that they would cure for you, in particular?
MR. MAYER: Not me in particular, no.
MRS. GARVEY: But they did promise other — I mean, that's standard practice?
MR. MAYER: Oh, yes.
MRS. GARVEY: The arthritis, cancer —
MR. MAYER: That's — that's — that is standard. I mean, in fact, that's a very well publicized bit of information in Scientology, that the medical profession itself will admit to seventy percent plus of illnesses being caused by psychosomatic conditions within a person, and it was always hinted, in fact, that it was a hundred percent, you know, in Scientology. Ron has stated it on tape; he has it all taped. The road out of all that stuff is already well mapped, we're the only ones that have it, we don't owe it to anybody else, and they're going to pay for it.
That's part of the training that you receive in the Sea Org.
MR. LeCHER: Okay.
Paul Hatchett, I'd like to hear from you, sir. Do you have a question — any questions?
MR. HATCHETT: Mr. Mayer, you were a senior executive, you know, for several long years, and you got real close to Mr. Hubbard personally; is that right?
MR. MAYER: I worked directly with him on some projects, but I wouldn't say that I was a close, personal friend of Mr. Hubbard's, no.
MR. HATCHETT: Okay.
Why this Apollo? Apparently, it was used for retreats, right? Was it ever used for a retreat while you were captain of it?
MR. MAYER: I was the ship's manager of the Apollo.
It was not a retreat; it was a training center where high — allegedly high-level services could be delivered to the Church parishioners. And that could be anything from a Flag Executive Briefing Course, which was how to make a super-executive for an organization, to some of their spiritual counseling. It could be — we used to routinely send — in fact, we would be ordered at times and billed for it to send staff members from various churches for special events and training courses, management rundown, big league sales courses. Up registrars would be sent to get a big league sales course, which would teach them how to effectively handle opposition to sell Scientology.
I sold Scientology as a Flag Service Consultant myself for a while.
MR. HATCHETT: Were you ever — on the Apollo, did it ever set sail through the Mediterranean, Africa, or anywhere —
MR. MAYER: No, not there.
MR. HATCHETT: Just the eastern part of the United States?
MR. MAYER: Yes.
MR. HATCHETT: Can you give me an idea of some ports you stopped in along the eastern coast?
MR. MAYER: Well, the only ports that I was involved in before I left was, basically, the Netherlands Antilles area: Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire. And I was subsequently sent off on a mission from there before I was able to do anything — at that time they were in the process of getting ready to come into the United States or go somewhere to have a Flag Land Base.
MR. HATCHETT: Thank you.
If I understood you correctly in your testimony, you mentioned something about that you were aboard ship and you observed people being in chain lockers?
MR. MAYER: Yes. A chain locker is where the anchor chain goes down into the very rusty, scummy, dirty area of the ship, because mud that comes up from the anchor chain and through the hawse pipe goes down — falls down into it. So, it's notoriously the filthiest place that you can find on a ship. Well, that's where somebody would be sent to think it over.
MR. HATCHETT: Okay.
MR. MAYER: You'd get bread and water until you come out and your thinking was in line with the goals and purposes of the group.
MR. HATCHETT: Can you just help me a little bit how you regularly defraud the American government and customs?
MR. MAYER: I really?
MR. FLYNN: Regularly.
MR. MAYER: Oh, regularly?
MR. HATCHETT: How you —
MR. MAYER: Well, because there were regular shipments that went from — all of the churches in the — for instance, in the United States, at the time I was active in the Church, sent all of their weekly income statistics — how much they'd spent, how much they made, how many hours of auditing they had delivered — sent it to the central location, which was called a Flag Operations Liaison Office. From there, all the data would be compiled, checks — whatever they were going to send.
And what took place within that liaison office is called External Communications. The person who directly ran External Communications was the only person that was allowed to know either where the Flagship was or where to send that material to another liaison office so it could be then forwarded on to the Flagship.
So, you're talking about everyday trips out to the airport. Everyday trips out to the airport may be anywhere from six to ten couriers a week going out. And this is for years. So, there's an incredible amount of Scientology traffic all around the world, and most of it is done under the guise of tourism or students.
I sent Japanese nationals to the United States for training when I ran a project in Tokyo, Japan. Gee, it was easy to get Japanese to sign a billion-year contract, because they sign life contracts over there anyway. If you'd ask them to go to work for three years, they'd think you were crazy. See, so, it's real easy to sign them up.
All you would do is provide them with a letter for Immigration, stating they were either coming for a visit or they were going to get some training at the local Church, and then they would be — well, most of them didn't stick around; they — it — what was really funny was the living conditions were too crowded for even the Japanese.
MRS. GARVEY: But they're small people.
MR. HATCHETT: Thank you.
MR. LeCHER: Mr. Shoemaker.
MR. SHOEMAKER: Mr. Mayer, we had testimony before about the — there are certain groups which are in the Church now, which were referred to as front groups, the Gerus Society for the elderly — several types of services who were actually located under the Guardian's Office.
MR. MAYER: Right.
MR. SHOEMAKER: I don't know what they were called at the time that you were in the Church, but —
MR. MAYER: I can tell you one right now that has to do with children: Applied Scholastics.
MR. SHOEMAKER: That one's still in, yes.
Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
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Part 9 of 15
MR. MAYER: All right.
A good friend of mine, Amanda Ambrose, who was at one time a singer — Amanda was a Sea Org. member. I worked with her — she worked with me out of a Celebrity Center; we socialized together. She's a black singer. She did a very successful run in one of the productions in Los Angeles; the name escapes me.
But she was loaned by the Sea Organization to the Guardian's Office as the Executive Director of Applied Scholastics. Her husband was the educator; in other words, he had all his degrees, all his qualifications and stuff. But she was the one that ran the show, and she was a Sea Org. member. She took her order, her project, from the Guardian's Office. And she was a Sea Org. member on loan to them as Executive Director of Applied Scholastics.
That's a direct incident that I know, because I had — I took one of my friend's children that was having trouble with reading and had him put through the program.
MR. SHOEMAKER: What was the basic purpose of those kinds of programs, do you know, at the time?
MR. MAYER: Infiltration in the community.
That — I think, maybe, I could sum this all up with a quote from LRH that I got out of one — I think it was Control of — it's called SCS: The Mechanics of Control. And it comes from chapter fourteen, and it says: "Man has too long suffered under a school of thought, miceology, which teaches one to conform to the environment. A Scientologist, however, knows that the real victory can only be achieved by commanding the environment, and this is the task that we have on our hands."
That's a direct LRH quote.
MRS. GARVEY: Control —
MR. MAYER: And I'm talking about your community being infiltrated on a regular basis by psychopolitical operatives who have been well trained. And that is the basic simplicity.
And everything that I have said today is to try and drive that point home to you. It is no accident.
I trained some, and I know some of them. And now I would like to see that facade all broken apart because Scientology does not deliver what it promises.
MR. SHOEMAKER: Mr. Mayer, you had referred before that, when you were up here in Clearwater, that there was a department that was actually changing invoices and had an invoice machine and so forth.
Would I be correct in saying that they did not keep regular types of accounting books of the accounting?
MR. MAYER: Oh, no. There's specific policy forbidding it.
MR. SHOEMAKER: So, there are no books which say — or ledgers which show —
MR. MAYER: Standard accounting procedures are forbidden: too easy to rectify.
MR. SHOEMAKER: Well, how do they —
MR. MAYER: Every sale that is made by the Church is written down at one time on this four-part — and I believe it's five-part now — invoice.
One of the invoices is supposed to be a running record, okay, it's supposed to be unbroken. But the fact of the matter is that they're broken up into weekly and monthly packets so that they can be retrieved very easily, all right? The various copies go to various places in the organization. A copy would go to the Public Division so that name would be on file and that person could be contacted for services later on.
A couple of the parts were kept — one went into the Purchasing Files so we would know who the vendors were, who we bought from, prices and things like that. The other one was, of course, your regular copy that you saved for your records.
Other than breakdowns done for the Guardian's Office, there were no ledgers kept as you would in standard bookkeeping procedures. And as a result of what I went through with the Church and what I testified to in the IRS, those documents are very, very easily changeable. All you have to do is take out one week's income packet and slap in a new one with the same number. When you've got your own printer and a printing press, it's pretty easy to make two sets of invoices or three or four.
I can't prove the extent that they did it. But the figures that I gave to the IRS, in terms of the Church's overall income during the time I was responsible for it, did not jive with the reports of the Church of Scientology. And they're still looking for the money.
Okay. Cash flow goes from the Church to the Banking Officer. Every organization has an Assistant Guardian for Finance and a Flag Banking Officer or a Finance Banking Officer. The Finance Banking Officers are under the charge of the Commodore's Staff for Finance, which was last year Fran Broker, and each organization has an Assistant Guardian for Finance. And that data goes up through Worldwide to Herb Parkhouse, who is the Guardian of the Church and its funds. And then from there it goes — reports are sent back to wherever she happens to be. For a while, it was here in Clearwater.
But the point I'm getting at is that that money is traceable from the organization directly to the Flag Land Base or to wherever Flag is or Mary Sue or whoever's in charge of finance.
Now, understand, it is a policy of the Sea Organization to be baiting you. To put an organization like Saint Hill there, that you think is the organization that runs the Church on a role-model basis, and, while you're busy trying to get something out of them, all the records can be put on a ship and moved somewhere else in the world.
One of the — one of the jobs that I had as the station ship captain on the west coast was to have that ship ready at any time to go into LA harbor and cart all the files off, plus whatever executive staff we could fit on the ship, to take them — part of the land base was to have a land base in Mexico where we could scoot into LA and load them all up. The Excalibur was bought for that purpose: to load the executives and files up and right down the coast into Ensenada and set it up and move it on out from there.
MR. FLYNN: You will recall, when I stated earlier, that all of the Red Box data, some, probably, eighty to a hundred thousand documents, were missed by the FBI because they went, first, to one location and the Red Box data was somewhere else.
MR. SHOEMAKER: Mr. Mayer, you had indicated that you worked with the IRS on their particular tax case in Los Angeles and, also, that you worked — did some legal research, I believe you said, to the — City Attorney, did you say?
MR. MAYER: Oh, that's private. I do legal administration —
MR. SHOEMAKER: Right.
I was just going to ask, though: Have you testified before any other governmental agencies or have you talked to any federal authorities, like, the Postal Service or —
MR. MAYER: For the last several years, the only two people — and I say "people," because I'm grouping Mr. Flynn and his associates together — the only two persons that have known where I am, including my family a great deal of the time, was Martin Cohen of the IRS and Mr. Flynn and his associates. And whenever I would move, I would call them up and tell them how to get in touch with me.
You have to understand, I was very reticent to testify for a long, long time because I wanted to have a chance of enjoying my life after I did so. And I think that there's been enough light shed on the operations of the Church now where they'd have to be a fool to start knocking people off.
And I know people — I know a person that was asked to do away with somebody that's still out there. And one of the — and Mr. Allard, who testified at the IRS trial, had been searched for by that person for quite some time and actually had met. So, there are people — I went through a self-defense training course with one of the Guardian's Office black belt people when I went to get Quentin Hubbard's body back. You know, I said, "Well, I've already had self-defense training from the service," and so on. And he said, "Well, listen, what do you think they're — you better be able to defend yourself. What do you think that they're going to do when they find out what you guys are doing? You better know how to defend yourself."
MR. SHOEMAKER: Do you — this doesn't really, I think, have anything to do with our hearing but — do you have any idea of what, in fact, happened to Quentin Hubbard?
MR. MAYER: I — I have a very strong personal feeling about what happened to Mr. Hubbard, based on some things that were told to me in confidence from his confessional folder by my wife, my ex-wife. And I don't know whether it's all right to get into that area or not.
MR. LeCHER: That's immaterial to these hearings.
MR. MAYER: I don't believe that —
MR. SHOEMAKER: Thank you.
I don't have any further questions.
MR. LeCHER: Jim Calderbank, do you have any questions?
MR. CALDERBANK: Yeah.
I'm going to follow up on something Mr. Berfield has been using quite a bit. And that's, number one, your credibility, Mr. Mayer.
You come before us and you talk about — I want to get this straight, first. You talked about some very, very criminal acts, conspiracies, racketeering charges, international crimes. And, you know, you have to first see who's saying it.
MR. MAYER: What's that?
MR. CALDERBANK: You have to first try to establish who is saying it.
Now, you've been a witness for the IRS in their tax cases?
MR. MAYER: Yes, sir.
MR. CALDERBANK: Was that under oath and —
MR. MAYER: Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK: — was the testimony utilized extensively in their case?
MR. MAYER: Yes, sir.
MR. CALDERBANK: What is your — what is your reason for coming here today?
MR. MAYER: Because I want to go back to living a normal life. And an incredible amount of decent people that went into Scientology in good faith have been betrayed and they are no longer able to live normal lives and they have to fear for their family, because of the fact that they're afraid of getting bumped off for what they know.
And that's what it really boils down to. You know, I'm probably being heavy bearing on this fact, but I don't let anybody know where I'm living. And I can't get married until I'm certain that I know that my daughter, who is hidden — well hidden somewhere — and my wife, Bedie, are going to be able to live a normal life.
And if you want to know about my credibility as an executive, I have it in writing from Ron Hubbard. And I have it here in my pocket.
MR. FLYNN: On that point, I might also say that many people that Mr. Mayer has referred to — our office has encouraged many people and told them that, perhaps, the best approach to the whole problem, to which he just referred, is to go public, be public in the public light. And that may be their — in fact, forever, their best protection.
MR. CALDERBANK: Mr. Mayer, we just — that — that wasn't on you personally. We've asked that of every witness because the City of Clearwater might be well educated to what has been happening over the years, with documents all the way to this hearing. You know, there are other people in other government agencies after this that may be looking at these hearings and they're not as familiar with this type of thing as we are. So, that's why for each witness we try to also establish some credibility.
MR. MAYER: You have to realize, too, that during the course of the IRS trial, I had been through all of the federal government's documents on Scientology, I mean, stacks of them, and I read them all.
With regard to the other thing, I have a letter from L. Ron Hubbard, my ex-wife and I, that states, I quote: "I want you and Scott placed where you can do the most for Scientology. You are both very capable executives and you well know how merited this is." And it's signed by L. Ron Hubbard and it's dated 12th of July 1975.
MR. CALDERBANK: On the — you were talking about records and how quickly they can be moved, destroyed, falsified, changed.
If this is true and you do get records, and records are — are records meticulously kept of times, places, people? How do you tell which records are true and which records are false?
MR. MAYER: Well, I would guess that would be in relation to the area that you were examining. I personally would not look at — I was sitting in an office with Marty Greenberg, who was a CPA for the Church, when he told us how they were beating the IRS investigation.
MR. CALDERBANK: So, why —
MR. MAYER: So, I certainly wouldn't place any confidence in their financial records at all.
MR. CALDERBANK: You're saying the IRS was investigating the Church of Scientology and the Church employed a CPA that actually falsified the records?
MR. MAYER: Yeah. He's a member of the Guardian's Office.
MR. CALDERBANK: And you also said that —
MR. MAYER: He wasn't any way — he wasn't available for testimony during the IRS trial for some reason.
MR. CALDERBANK: When these couriers went through customs, were any caught?
MR. MAYER: As in — well, in one particular instance that I recall, one of the couriers misplaced a package with about twenty-five thousand dollars that was coming into Los Angeles, and it got — I believe it was recovered, but it was lost on the plane for a while.
I don't know of any incident where anybody was caught in terms of — as a crime.
MR. CALDERBANK: What did Mr. Foster do? You stated that you helped him escape from the country when he was under federal indictments or he had warrants out for his arrest. Can you get into that?
MR. MAYER: Yes. But I wanted him connected to the Church when I did it, do you understand —
MR. CALDERBANK: Right.
MR. MAYER: — because he was very, very afraid of being left high and dry. So, I sent him out as a Church staff member to Canada, across the border, as a tourist. And in actual fact, he was going to take over an organization in Canada at that time, and did so.
MR. CALDERBANK: Well, what was his — what did the officials in this country want him for?
MR. MAYER: Breaking and entering. He was part of the team that did all the busting into the newspaper offices and Mr. Flynn's office at the time. His cover had been blown.
MR. CALDERBANK: Okay.
And then, so, you — when you —
MR. FLYNN: I'd like to correct that for the record. There will be testimony from the individual — from another level individual, who Mr. Mayer didn't know at the time, who is in the room here who will be testifying about the offices — some of the offices — in his group that were broken into.
MR. CALDERBANK: And — okay. Let's get back to the money leaving the country.
You said most of the money either came through Flag or was generated from Flag, which is Clearwater, Florida?
MR. MAYER: You know, we're talking about a seven-year time span wherein the exact location of Flag was moved many, many times.
What I was telling you about was the procedure, and this is what I think is really important because we're dealing with day-to-day business activities: a system that is used to take records, money, anything, personnel, transport personnel under the guise of one thing when, in actuality, it was another thing.
I could not testify, for instance, as to the exact number of thousands of dollars that were couriered out. I just know that we didn't have it to spend in Los Angeles after we made it; it was gone.
MR. CALDERBANK: And in — how — which money was this? How did they get the money?
MR. MAYER: Well, it's — understand, all of the income from every organization is reported to the Guardian Finance personnel and the Banking Officer on a weekly basis. Those persons — for instance, Mike Smith, who was the Flag Banking Officer at the time — he was US Flag Banking Officer — would be given quotas. He would be telexing quotas of money to send to Flag. And as a result of what requirements were, I would be required to brief couriers to have that sent out.
MR. FLYNN: One more clarification for the record: In 1970 and '71, I was in the law firm of Bingham, Dana & Gould; I'm not currently in that law firm. One of the Guardian's Office operations was to steal documents from the firm of Bingham, Dana & Gould, to which I am no longer affiliated. At the time, of course, I didn't know it; I didn't know anything about the Church of Scientology.
The individual who was involved in that particular operation, or some of those operations, is in the courtroom. But substantiation has to be made on the record between my present office and the firm of Bingham, Dana & Gould, to which I used to be attached.
MR. CALDERBANK: Okay.
You mentioned a lot of military references: mission, elimination, check operatives, security checks, mission completed, and that type of thing.
Did you ever see or use any stolen government equipment? How did you get these intelligence procedures from the U.S. government?
MR. MAYER: Where Mr. Hubbard got his original information, I have no idea. I'm — what I was referring to — these were — these are techniques which you yourself as a hearing committee can go out and research and read about yourself, now.
The point I was trying to make is that they're not something that was just dreamed up out of the sky as some supertechnology. It's pretty standard stuff.
MR. CALDERBANK: And very interesting.
What would you say as your final comment to the people in Clearwater? You said you wanted to remove the facade? What would you say to Clearwater and what would you say to the Pinellas County tax authorities? What would you say to people that should be interested in the Church of Scientology?
MR. MAYER: Well, I've got probably about eight or nine points down here.
I think that — understand something, having worked with a municipal government — like I said, I'm on call to the Environmental Services in Los Angeles and the City Attorney's Office — I'm familiar with a task force type of activity. The City of Santa Monica has established within the several advisory departments of the City Attorney's Office, an office called Consumer Affairs, whereby people in the community who have been mistreated by businesses may call up and make a complaint and they will be contacted by the Consumer Affairs person and a hearing will be set up and arbitration will be attempted, all right?
I recommend that very highly to this city, unless you can provide a communicational line and someplace safe for all the people that are sitting over in that hotel right now who would get out if they thought they'd stand a chance of making it, you know, without getting hung for criminal activities. I think they'd start popping up like crazy, and they've got stuff that I never even, you know, came close to doing.
MR. CALDERBANK: My last question is what the Mayor was asking about why you moved into Clearwater. It's just a personal question.
You mentioned about politics when they came in. And at the time the City Commission — did they feel, either by having skeletons in the closet or by inactivity, that they would not be as hotly pursued?
MR. MAYER: Well, I can't answer that in terms of what they or the operations officers at that time were doing.
The simplicity of it is is that it's the goal of Scientology to make every single person on this planet a Scientologist and to get the technology that Scientology has, quote, administrative and counseling technology integrated into the society. And every single person that signed one of those billion-year contracts was willing to put their life on the line to make sure it happened for a billion years.
MR. LeCHER: You asked him a question, Mr. Calderbank, and I don't know if you completed your answer, Mr. Mayer, but you asked him for advice. And you were going to give us eight or nine points.
MR. MAYER: Oh.
MR. LeCHER: I'd like you to give us those eight or nine points.
MR. MAYER: All right.
MR. CALDERBANK: And also, advice on what we should do if we feel there are any dirty tricks up the road.
MR. MAYER: Okay.
I firmly believe that you should have either a volunteer or someone appointed but operating from the City Attorney's Office in terms of a consumer complaint line.
You're talking about — when somebody plops down eighty thousand dollars to come to Flag — and I've sold packages that big — to come here, to get services and they don't get them, where are they going to go to deal with that, religion or no religion? I don't believe for one second that Scientology is a bona fide religion.
MR. SHOEMAKER: We can't —
MR. MAYER: So, you know —
MR. LeCHER: We don't want to get into that.
MR. MAYER: So, there ought to be a place where somebody that's mistreated by the Church can call to get some assistance, to be able to lodge a formal complaint. Unethical sales practices are unethical sales practices no matter what product you're using.
I think that a hotline could be established, much like the hotlines that people use for turning in crimes or if there's a suicide line or something like that. Perhaps, one of the lines could be made available to people who have complaints or are being what they — they feel they're being held against their will. And I think that those kinds of calls, once the person is safely outside, in other words — I think that stuff should be publicized.
Perhaps, halfway houses could be — to contact a volunteer to provide a place to stay for a staff member that wanted to make — have a reasonable chance of getting to that airport and out back to — some of them haven't seen more than ten dollars in their pocket for years. And most of that was spent on, you know, little things they just needed. So, where are they going to get the money to get out of here?
All you do, you see, when you allow them to stay here is to allow the Guardian's Office to get into its thing about handling them and continue to make this sort of thing grow. So, if there was a reasonably safe line established where people who wanted to get out — Scientologists who didn't want to be in the community to get out. That would be really great for them.
I think you could have a research team look into legitimate counseling techniques, legitimate professionals in the area that could be called upon to do volunteer work or could be advertised or promoted by your city information area to let people with problems know that there are legitimate counseling groups around that can help them, so they won't have to feel like they have to stay within the Church of scientology in order to handle whatever it is that's bothering them. There could be lists published of people where people could go.
I think that you could well make use of your Fire, your Zoning, your Building Inspectors to ensure that local regulations, the municipal ordinances, that you have are complied with. And I very highly advocate that those are surprise, frequent, not standard inspections, but be done on a basis where you just walk in and go through it: you list the violations and they're recorded and you issue your warnings and so on and so forth, and come back and check it out, not only when it was supposed to be done but maybe a week after it was supposed to be done and you received evidence. Go back and see if it's still there. You might have ten people in a room that you certified as now being habitable — a week after you — they've reported compliance.
So, I think you could use those ordinances to — the main point that I'm trying to make here is that if you are willing to be responsible for making Scientology behave in an ethical manner in this community, they are going to have to do it. They — I don't think that they have the guns anymore. I think there's too many people leaving the Church too fast for them to cover all of the areas that they're already in non-compliance with in terms of local breaches.
I think you could inform the Customs officials out here, Immigration officials that there are regular shipments of people that are coming in and out allegedly as students or tourists who are not in the country legally. And make sure that those get — make sure that — check it out and see whether or not there aren't four or five different businesses out here at Tampa Airport that are — don't really exist but are shipping out Scientologists, materials, money —
MR. CALDERBANK: Mr. Mayer, thank you very much.
MR. MAYER: Yes, sir.
MR. LeCHER: Mr. Berfield, do you have any questions?
MR. BERFIELD: Yes, just a few.
Mr. Mayer, you made mention of these files that were brought in here about the size of this room.
The last time you were in Clearwater, do you know if those still existed?
MR. MAYER: The last time I was here in Clearwater I used them.
MR. BERFIELD: You used those files?
MR. MAYER: Sure. I was being briefed here for a mission. I went out of here on a mission to go handle another area of the world. All of the data on those organizations resided here. It was used to evaluate the situation so somebody could determine that I had to go in the first place.
I didn't just get — somebody didn't just indiscriminately call me from a job of fixing up the Flagship Apollo to send me to South Africa to handle a situation. There were a lot of reports that were sifted through, evaluated. The local political scene in South Africa, at the time I went — I left when twenty thousand Africans were marching on Johannesburg during the Zaire riots. I got out of town the day that happened, all right? So, the political scene was evaluated. And I was ordered to get my eh-eh out of there.
So, it's no accident that those files were there, and they were used for the purpose of evaluating Church operations.
MR. BERFIELD: But are these files that we're making reference to files that are here in Clearwater from people all over the United States and, possibly, all over the world? And they're files that could be used for covert actions, is that correct, blackmail, or whatever you wish to call it?
MR. MAYER: Anything they wanted to do with it.
That's a good point. It would be pursuant to the policy of the Church at the time.
MR. BERFIELD: Whatever the Church policy, there's sufficient information in these files to —
MR. MAYER: Understand that Church policy is a very malleable tool, all right? There is a staff of people that work — have worked under Ron Hubbard and Mary Sue to carry out their intentions, their goals and purposes, on a planetwide basis.
Every little treasury secretary in every organization around the world reports, at least once a week, to a Guardian's office staff member and a Flag staff member here to Clearwater that is responsible for that area. Here it would be, like, CS 3, Commodore's Staff.
Commodore's Staff means, "I do this action for L. Ron Hubbard." That's the job. And the assistant for that area evaluates the overall International scene with all the other assistants from various areas to come up with what is called The Weekly Battle Plan, and it's not misnamed, either. It is a weekly battle plan on how Scientology is going to be expanded in all its operations all over the world.
MR. BERFIELD: This is just kind of a curious question: Did you ever get your mate's papers from —
MR. MAYER: I have them, but —
MR. BERFIELD: — U.S. Customs, U.S. Coast Guard papers, or —
MR. MAYER: No. I was — I am registered as captain in the Honduran and the Panamanian Merchant Marines.
MR. BERFIELD: Do you know — you had mentioned — I call them shell or front for paper companies.
Do you know whether or not the Church of Scientology has any shell or paper companies here in the State of Florida?
MR. MAYER: In present — at the present time, no. I haven't had anything to do with Clearwater since I left in ‘77 — ‘76.
MR. BERFIELD: Now, I don't mean to sound harsh on this, but in what you have told us, you have a tremendous background in Scientology and you've given us a lot of facts and figures.
And one of the things that Mr. Calderbank tried to elicit from you — and I'm not sure we got it all from you — is: With all of this information and the fact that your family or your child's life is at stake and, possibly, your future is at stake, what would provoke you from coming down here — not provoke you, what caused you to come down here?
If I could go a step further —
MR. MAYER: A coward dies a thousand deaths. And I don't intend to run from Scientology for the rest of my life. We're going to have it out; that's all there is to it.
I'm not going — I'm not going to destroy my life; I'm not going to be away from my family; I'm not going to remain away from my daughter because there's some organization that puts out the picture to everybody in it that it's powerful enough to come out and do them in if they don't play ball. And I think it's time for that kind of stuff to stop.
All they — I made it through Nam. My life's been blessed since then, all right? I don't have anything to lose except my life, and I've lived a very full life. And I don't intend to spend the rest of it running from the Church of Scientology, period.
MR. BERFIELD: The story that — the story that you have told us sounds like something that one of our novelists might be able to write if they took the time. And I guess what I'm trying to say to you is: It is so fictitious — not fictitious. It is so fantastic and incredible —
MR. CALDERBANK: Bizarre.
MR. BERFIELD: — and, as Mr. Calderbank just said, bizarre that, unless the people are watching television —
MR. MAYER: You can't see the forest for the trees.
MR. BERFIELD: — this story will not get out to the public. How can we get it out to the public?
MR. MAYER: You guys have just scratched the surface; you haven't — you haven't even touched any of the good stuff, yet. You're just getting to it. And, hopefully, what's going on here will bring people out of the woodwork that can tell you stories that make my stuff look like small potatoes.
MR. BERFIELD: One other question that I have and then I'll leave you alone because it appears like I'm trying to crucify you: Did you know what these hearings were about before you came down here?
MR. MAYER: All I knew was that hearings were being conducted. There were people that I had known in Scientology that were going to be here. And — well — see, I made my commitment when I went — when I agreed to testify for the IRS.
Commander Bob Young, who I was in business with at the time — a business outside of Scientology, but we were in business together — was also approached by the IRS. Mr. Young chose to take a trip around the world and become no longer visible to the Church of Scientology, and I had to decide at that time whether I wanted to stay in hiding another three, four, five, or six years until somebody found out enough about what was going on to give me a running chance.
Now, I'm not asking for police protection for the rest of my life. I just want a reasonable chance to be able to continue it without having to be looking over my shoulder all the time and worrying about whether my daughter is going to get into some kind of trouble at school or whatever. Maybe it's only a possibility, but would you take the possibility with your daughter?
MR. BERFIELD: That's not even a good question with my daughter.
MR. MAYER: Well.
MR. BERFIELD: Just a couple of questions and then I'll leave.
You had mentioned the possibility of a safe haven for counseling or something like this. And this is one of the questions that I asked several of the previous witnesses, you know, where did they feel that they could go in the city to feel safe. Most of the answers that I recall writing down that, mentally, they felt they couldn't go anywhere.
MR. MAYER: Well, they're supposed to feel that way.
So, I mean, if this is the mecca for the most advanced technology on the planet for all of the birds in flight, then, where else could you go? And that's the whole point that I'm trying to bring about.
You are supposed to be at the only place you can go for help in the whole world, in the universe for that matter. And all the rest of you guys are gadabouts. You're just simple, everyday, garden variety humanoids, and you haven't got what it takes to do the job. And that's the attitude that scientologists come here with. You are the enemy. We're the oriental gentlemen, WOGS.
I don't particularly feel that way, but, when I was in Scientology, I treated you like that and got commendations for it.
MR. BERFIELD: I have just one parting comment — and I don't know if you had it written down or it's off the top of your head there — that — and I couldn't take it down fast enough. That was: That you had trained all of these people to commit all these acts and you were concerned about the people of Clearwater.
MR. MAYER: The people of Clearwater?
MR. BERFIELD: Yes.
MR. MAYER: I think the people of Clearwater can deal with Scientology for a long time. How effective you are at it, I have no — I'm trying to give you suggestions about it.
But understand, when I left Scientology, I left eight years of friendships, people that I love and respect, who, I know, came into the Church of Scientology with good intentions: to do something constructive for mankind, for the communities that exist or that they were a part of for their friends and their families, and they have been sold down the tubes.
I can't talk to people that I dearly love now because they're still in Scientology. If I got anywhere near any one of them, I'd have more Guardian's Office staff members around me than Carter's have liver pills. They are forbidden to communicate with me.
And I don't know how long I've got to sit and take that kind of crap. I think I'm done with it. I may have to continue on and go through more hearings and stuff like that, but sooner or later people that I know and love — and who, in turn, love me and respect me that are in the Church — are going to graduate from Scientology. If I've done anything to help that along, that's what I'm here for.
MR. BERFIELD: Would you — and this is it — would you say that the health, the safety, and the welfare of the people in Scientology — that their health or their safety or their welfare is at risk or in danger?
MR. MAYER: They're ill-fed; they're ill-housed; they're ill-clothed; they get horrible dental care; they get horrible care for their children.
I have a personal friend who was left in the middle of one of their Scientology drug rundowns incomplete and committed suicide a couple of weeks before I could get to him in Hawaii. Lavonne Jentz, who is no longer with us, was a very, very close friend of mine. In fact, part of the problem I got into with the Flag people was I was trying to go to her office and be in her office. She's dead now because she depended on Scientology technology to cure a tumor. I can't ever talk to that woman again. She's dead because she went to a Scientologist instead of a doctor.
If that doesn't indicate danger, I don't know what does.
MR. BERFIELD: Thank you, Mr. Mayer, very much.
MR. LeCHER: I just have two quickies.
You mentioned Marty Greenberg. Does Marty Greenberg keep and maintain an accurate list of the income data of the organization?
MR. MAYER: I couldn't answer that question. I don't know the extent of the files that the Church keeps in LA at this point in time; that's been too many years.
MR. LeCHER: But if you take in all this money and you put it in one big hat, somebody must know where the records are, even though they may not be records that you and I would recognize from Accounting I, accounting principles.
MR. MAYER: I'm sorry. I don't —
MR. LeCHER: Somebody must maintain records, some sort of records; they may not be recognized standard accounting principles.
MRS. GARVEY: Of how much money is in —
MR. MAYER: Well, all of the organizations would have, in their treasury — you know, they would have invoices, their copies of invoices. Remember I told you —
MR. LeCHER: Yes.
MR. MAYER: — it's like a five-part form? They would have their copies and stuff, all right?
Now, they might be ordered to send all of those copies to Flag or to a — like they did in the early sixties and change all of those records — or in the late sixties, they changed those records.
I mean, how hard is it to take out a week's worth of invoices and put in another set, when you've got a nine dollar and fifty cent a week labor cost?
MR. LeCHER: Okay.
Within the organization, do you think that they would ever disown Mrs. Hubbard and the other eight or nine that were convicted?
MR. MAYER: Well, you want my personal —
MR. LeCHER: Well, that's why I asked the question.
MR. MAYER: I believe it depends on how well they've gone about disappearing the money that everybody's suing for now. In other words, I firmly believe that, if it was for the best interest of the top management of Scientology to disconnect — if Scientology could dis-establish — they'd do it in an instant.
I don't think for a moment that they would stop operations. You might not have the Church of Scientology, but there would be something else. And then, again, there have been an awful lot of government agencies for a lot of years trying to nail them down and haven't done a very good job of it. So, how long do you think it's going to go on? It's anybody's guess.
I know they've been taking ten percent of the organization's income for many, many years and putting it in the Guardian's Defense Fund, specifically, to handle all this kind of stuff.
MR. LeCHER: Can Scientology exist without deception and fraud —
MR. MAYER: I don't know how —
MR. LeCHER: — as a viable organization?
MR. MAYER: — because it couldn't compete in the rest of the mental health community.
MR. LeCHER: That's a good answer.
One final one: What would you compare this organization to?
MR. MAYER: I think it's — I think it's — you have to realize something: My father operated in the intelligence community. I have told him stories that, when I first started getting the heavy, training, he was just — I mean, he was shocked at what I was — how I was being trained. We would sit down and go over how those techniques were the same — my father did security for the Nuremburg trials, so he's no slouch. You know, he was an intelligence advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.
I have never had any problem asking him questions about whether or not this was intelligence technique and getting an answer out of him. He wrote some of the training manuals, all right?
So, you are dealing with an organization that has taken the most effective techniques of all the intelligence services, not only taken those techniques and used them to train their own personnel but, then, taking those personnel and putting them into those organizations as operatives.
I've heard, for instance, Artie Maren brag about people in congressmen's offices that called up and reported to the Guardian's Office on a daily basis. These are secretaries who do this. I personally know a couple of ladies from Vermont that were on a senator's line that routinely gave information to the Guardian's Office.
So, they're much more effective in most cases because of the fact that they operate under the illusion of a religion, so you can't touch them.
MR. LeCHER: We can't talk about that, either.
MR. MAYER: Exactly. That's my point.
MR. LeCHER: That's right.
Thank you very much. You're a very bright, articulate man.
MR. HATCHETT: I have a —
MR. LeCHER: All right.
One quickie. Mr. Hatchett would like to ask you about one —
MR. HATCHETT: Mr. Mayer, I purposely left this question until the end.
As I observe the Fort Harrison operation and some people going back and forth, I don't see what I physically would call the minorities, you know, in the Church of Scientology. I want to know about the Clearwater operation outside, you know, what I observe. Can you account for this reason in any way?
We thought that they were streetwise — and we defined that one time —
MR. MAYER: I know what street — I was born in Chicago.
MR. HATCHETT: All right.
Can you —
MR. MAYER: I went to school through — I fought my way to school through your neighborhood.
MR. HATCHETT: All right.
MR. MAYER: I know what streetwise is.
MR. HATCHETT: All right.
MR. LeCHER: Why did —
MR. MAYER: I think you're probably quite right. I don't know of an awful lot of black people and minority people in Scientology. I don't know what the statistics are, certainly, over the last six years, but there were very few when I was involved with the Church.
MR. HATCHETT: See, the thing about the low wages, you know, you're talking about a labor force, we've been accustomed to that for years and years.
MR. MAYER: And it pays less than unemployment.
MR. HATCHETT: Right.
MR. LeCHER: We want to thank you —
MR. HATCHETT: We just don't go for that —
MR. LeCHER: — for being a good witness and being very articulate, and you have a very engaging personality and you've —
MR. MAYER: Thank you.
MR. LeCHER: — shed a lot of light on the issues.
We have four more witnesses to see in the next two hours, so let's take a little quick break and then we'll come back and run right through it.
(Whereupon, a recess was taken.)
(Whereupon the hearing resumed.)
MR. LeCHER: Well, we are waiting for the — Mr. Hatchett and Mr. Calderbank. Mr. Hatchett is here.
Mr. Calderbank, are you out there?
All right.
Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. The officer will close the door.
We have had a very interesting four days. We want to conclude by six, ladies and gentlemen. We have four more witnesses. I ask that the Commission, and that includes myself, will not be repetitive, in questions.
So, we will go immediately to Mr. Flynn and his next witness.
MR. FLYNN: Okay.
Affidavit of Stan Herrin
First, I'm going to read quickly an affidavit, just on a corroborative point, and read it into the record and it will be marked as an exhibit, the next exhibit. It's an Affidavit of Stan Herrin.
"I, Stan Herrin, reside with my wife, Annette Herrin, in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was involved with the Church of Scientology from the summer of 1972 through 1978.
"During the time I was a member of the Church in Las Vegas, Nevada, I had gone on board L. Ron Hubbard's, the leader of Scientology, ship, the Apollo. I paid more than thirteen thousand dollars to Scientology. I paid this money to L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology after being told by Church members and reading L. Ron Hubbard's books representations concerning L. Ron Hubbard's background and the benefits of Scientology.
"Some of the benefits I was promised in Scientology included a higher IQ, faster reaction time, total recall, complete physical health, and perfect thinking. I was told L. Ron Hubbard researched, discovered, and developed cures for illnesses using the technology of Scientology. I was told L. Ron Hubbard was a nuclear physicist, he had graduated from the finest institutions in the United States: Princeton University and George Washington University. I was told that L. Ron Hubbard was one of the most decorated heroes of World War II, he was a world traveller, a discoverer of far off cultures, and was able to heal himself after being crippled and blinded from a wound received in battle in World War II.
"While in Scientology, I joined a force known as the Sea Org. The Sea Org. works to carry out Hubbard's orders from aboard the ship, Apollo. While on board Hubbard's ship, the Apollo, I was trained as a Finance Banking Officer for the organization. As the Finance Banking Officer, I was familiar with the gross income of the Scientology orgs. Orgs. were required to file weekly reports to Church headquarters and to L. Ron Hubbard. At one point, I was responsible for insuring at least ten percent of funds from a particular Scientology org. was sent to Hubbard.
"One primary task I had while on board the Apollo concerned accompanying George Beasley, the head Flag Finance Banking Officer, as a courier for L. Ron Hubbard of huge sums of cash in bank-wrapped bundles and carried in a briefcase to the ship from banks on shore. George Beasley told me that Hubbard had accounts in Switzerland and Africa. He told me the money was from funds sent to the Operation Transport Corporation and then, subsequently, transferred to numbered accounts in Switzerland and Africa.
"Conditions on board the ship were extremely harsh; sleeping quarters were dark, damp, and crowded. Only thirty-second showers were allowed. Worst of all, any person who disobeyed any of Hubbard's orders was placed in the RPF, Rehabilitation Project Force. The Rehabilitation Project Force was Hubbard's internal prison for those Scientologists who disobeyed his orders. All mail to and from the ship was censored for I was told ship's security. During this time, I received only a couple of letters my wife sent to me; she received only one of about six I sent her. Hubbard ordered the censoring to prevent Scientologists from writing and exposing facts about L. Ron Hubbard's broken arm, colds, sicknesses, et cetera.
"Signed under the pains and penalties of perjury this 27th day of April 1982, Stan Herrin."
(The Affidavit of Stan Herrin was marked as Exhibit No. 47, as of this date.)
Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
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Part 10 of 15
ROBERT DARDANO
MR. FLYNN:
The next witness is an individual named Robert Dardano, and he'll give a statement. And after that, we'll read portions of the Affidavit of Tonja Burden.
MR. LeCHER:
Would you have Mr. Dardano sworn in, please.
Madame Clerk, swear the witness.
ROBERT DARDANO, a witness herein, having first been duly sworn by a Clerk for the City of Clearwater, was examined and testified as follows:
MR. LeCHER:
Mr. Dardano, I want to ask you the same five questions: Are you appearing here today and testifying under oath voluntarily?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes, I am.
MR. LeCHER:
Have you been paid by anyone for your testimony, other than expenses for coming to the City of Clearwater?
MR. DARDANO:
No, sir.
MR. LeCHER:
Do you have a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology?
MR. DARDANO:
No.
MR. LeCHER:
Does the Church of Scientology have a lawsuit against you?
MR. DARDANO:
No, sir.
MR. LeCHER:
Has anyone suggested to you that you should state anything but the truth or has anyone suggested that you change your testimony for any reason?
MR. DARDANO:
No.
MR. LeCHER:
Thank you.
Proceed however you want. Do you have a statement to read or do you have an outline or whatever?
MR. DARDANO:
I'm working from an outline.
I became a member of the Church of Scientology in '71, and was on staff as a staff member from '71 to '73. In '73, I left the Church because of family problems. And my mother had attacked the Church through the Better Business Bureau, so I was immediately taken off staff because of her legal threat to the Church.
During the summer of '73, I was working in Worcester, and I was shortly — in August of '73, I was contacted by a member of the Guardian's Office and asked to do covert data collections.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Did you say "overt" or "covert"?
MR. DARDANO:
Covert.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Covert.
MR. DARDANO:
This was happening in Boston, Massachusetts.
The group that I joined was seven people. We were all assigned — we all got our orders from the Boston Church, directly from the Guardian's Office. And we had people in the Boston Public Library that would collect information and data on individuals that were attacking the Church. That would be the overt data collections.
The covert data collections consisted of doing surveillances on people, such as newspaper reporters, other individuals that were attacking the Church at the time.
The covert data collections had made placements in various government offices, such as the Attorney General's Office, the Better Business Bureau, the Consumer's Council, and the Law Assistance — LEAA, Law Assistance — Law Enforcement Assistance Association.
During the year that we operated together, we were able to pull off quite a few operations on different people; some of them were successful. One of the more successful operations was stealing Paulette Cooper's medical files from her doctor's office in Belmont, Massachusetts.
Along with this, we also were to — were able to interrupt the correspondence between the Boston Globe and the attorney's office. The law office was Bingham, Dana & Gould, and we placed an agent in the building to clean the law offices at night, and he was able to review the files daily to see what correspondence was going on between the Globe and the Scientologists. That was 1974.
We also worked with letter-writing campaigns to smear people, individuals, who worked on Project Freak-Out, Operation Snow White. This was some of the programs given to — the programs that were national and worldwide programs developed by the Guardian's Office for the protection of Scientology.
Paulette Cooper's file was — we were able to find out what doctors she was seeing and locate the office that the files were in, and it was just a matter of walking in, taking it, xeroxing it, and bringing it back in, putting it back in the file. There was a mistake made that we kept the file out of the office for a longer length of time than we should have. Other than that, the file probably would have never been missed.
The group of people that I was with — there were seven people, and we rented a house about thirty miles north of Boston. We operated like a — like the Church would operate under the Church policies. Our deadline — our week ended on Thursday at two o'clock, as the Church did. We all kept statistics on particular products that we were supposed to produce. Our products were connections and instances.
For instance, if there was someone who was attacking the Church, we would try and find as many connections they had to other individuals, other groups, what they did on a daily basis. And those would all be counted as statistics and sent, first, into Boston and then up lines, eventually, to Flag.
The file was — Paulette Cooper's file was stolen on a Saturday afternoon. It was just a matter of driving down to the office. A couple of people got out of the van, went into the office. They were able to jump over a small partition wall and get into the office and look her name up in the file, pull the file, and just walk out of the building. There was no great security.
Most of the files and most of — in fact, just being in these offices, it's very easy to pull anything you want out of this office. It's security — people don't realize what Scientologists are after or why they may be after it in the first place. And it's very easy just to walk into most places and get any information that they want because it's not considered valuable and it's not very well protected.
David Grace was the agent who was placed at the cleaning company at the lawyers' — the Boston lawyers' office. He was in the lawyers' office at Bingham, Dana & Gould, and he was able to go in the file, take the information that he wanted, use their Xerox machine, xerox it, bring it back in the morning, and we could send it up lines to the GO in the Boston Church.
Any money that we needed for things that needed to be done, such as xeroxing or traveling expenses, the Church would give us to use what we had to.
The people that were in the Better Business Bureau would interrupt complaints coming from public people about the Church. And, basically, it was turned right around and sent right back to the public with no satisfaction, although the public felt they were being satisfied because they had reached someone in the Better Business Bureau.
The Attorney General's Office agent was — he had uncovered a couple of attacks coming from public people. And his cover was finally blown by the fact that he requested information on the Church from the Justice Department. This — Mr. Mayer mentioned Bill Foster's name before. Bill Foster was the head of this — he was the captain of this particular group, and he had been there since 1971. He was operating the overt data/covert data collections from '71 to '76 in Boston. And it wasn't until George Bristol's cover was blown at the Attorney General's Office that the line was disbanded and the group of seven people were sent to different parts of the country.
Nancy and Bill Foster went to New York; George Bristol went to Canada; two other people went out to California; and a couple of others, David Grace and his wife, Nancy Grace, went to the Sea Org. in LA. So, the Church has just an ability to move people around very quickly to get them out of sight.
We used code names and our reports were written in code names, normally. It could have been at the point where we were or where we were coming from.
The letters that were written in the smear campaigns — the typewriters were stolen and usually used just for a short time and then the typewriters were destroyed and new typewriters were gotten. Everything was done with plastic gloves so that there wouldn't be any fingerprints or things like this.
My position on the line was — initially, it was — I was the head of the overt data collections and I handled, roughly, five people in the Boston Public Library. We'd use all different sources to gather information on public officials, senators, whoever the Church — we would get a list from the GO's office of who we had to investigate that particular week, and we would go ahead and get as much information as we could on those people.
Shortly after that, the rest of the people in overt data collections understood the — what they were doing, so I was able to train someone and they took over that particular post. And I moved into covert data collections.
From the covert data collections — this is where I would handle people like George Bristol, who was in the Attorney General's Office, Nancy Foster, Consumer Affairs, Nancy Grace was in the Better Business Bureau. And each week then people would file reports of what went on on a daily basis in each one of these offices.
The — it was very difficult for a public person in Boston to make a complaint about the Church and have it go anywhere. We had all the bases covered. They couldn't — if they called the Attorney General's Office, George Bristol was sitting there and he's handling all Scientology cases. So, it was just "Fine, ma'am, we'll take care of it," and it wouldn't go anywhere from there.
Anything that was even a hint or a mention of Scientology was brought out, as much information as — we would immediately look into that individual that brought up the issue of Scientology and he was completely investigated to find out what he did. We put people under surveillance to find out where they were going and what they would do.
MR. FLYNN:
Oh, incidentally, I think I said this before, but it's rather an amusing anecdote from my point of view: My old law firm was Bingham, Dana & Gould — and it was burglarized, and my present law firm has just surrendered some eight thousand documents to the same organization.
MR. DARDANO:
The one thing about scientologists is that they are there because they think they are buying themselves spiritual freedom, and they are totally committed to the organization and to their goals. It takes an individual a long time after he's left the Church to be able to have the freedom to believe that he's going to be okay without Scientology.
You've got to — as a Commission, you are going to have a tough job in trying to decide what to do with this group.
That's about all I have to say.
MR. LeCHER:
In the interest of time, I'll only ask you one question: Do you feel that there is now in the City of Clearwater, or has there been, a smear or cover up, either of any civil officials — city officials or by any city officials with respect to Scientology?
MR. DARDANO:
A cover up by a city official or —
MR. LeCHER:
By city or county or state or any local officials, if you know of any?
MR. DARDANO:
No, I don't know of anything like that. But Scientology operates standardly with every org. and every mission, and it's certainly going on; it's just that it hasn't been uncovered.
MR. LeCHER:
Well —
MR. DARDANO:
There are probably undercover agents here now from the Church.
MR. LeCHER:
Since you had your — you had every act — your act covered in Boston, I wonder if the act is covered here, too.
MR. DARDANO:
There's a good possibility, but it's very hard to tell.
MR. LeCHER:
I will — again, because of time, I will yield to the next Commissioner. Is that Mr. Hatchett?
MR. HATCHETT:
I haven't any questions.
MR. LeCHER:
Do you have any questions, Mr. Shoemaker?
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Mr. Dardano, how did you leave the — or what made you decide to come to Florida to testify?
MR. DARDANO:
Well, I had been — I have been in contact with Mr. Flynn for almost two years now, so it was just a matter of knowing that.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Why did he come to see — why did you go to see Mr. Flynn?
MR. DARDANO:
I wanted some way out of the — that I was really trapped and not being able to live my life freely the way that I had been before I got into Scientology. You're brainwashed. A Scientologist is a person that's been brainwashed.
It was very difficult to get back into the mainstream of life, and there's usually a lot of things that bother the individual just as far as our own personal life is concerned.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Did they attempt to use the information that you were involved in covert activities against you to try to keep you in the organization or to keep you quiet or —
MR. DARDANO:
No.
They — I had to sign — as all Scientologists, if you're causing any sort of flap, you have to sign documents saying that you will not attack the Church in any way.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Have they interfered since you've left with your life in any way that you're aware of?
MR. DARDANO:
No, not that I'm aware of.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
To be clear on this: What, in fact, you're stating is that you have firsthand knowledge of criminal activities occurring in the City of Boston against various people; is that correct?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes, sir, that's correct.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
And you — so, you actually saw it; it's not something that somebody told you about —
MR. DARDANO:
We did it —
MR. SHOEMAKER:
— on that basis.
MR. DARDANO:
— as a group. We were a conspiracy formed by the Church against the Boston Globe, the Attorney General's Office, the Better Business Bureau. We considered every — anyone and everyone an enemy of the Church. And Paulette Cooper.
Paulette Cooper was a major — a major task to work on for a long time. Beside — just — not just the fact that we had stolen her medical files, but a lot of other types of operations were done against Mrs. Cooper.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
You had indicated that the captain of the group was Foster, Bill Foster —
MR. DARDANO:
Yes.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
— who had been alluded to earlier.
Who was over him?
MR. DARDANO:
He was run by Deac Finn, who was head of B 1, Bureau 1.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Bureau 1.
And could you explain what you know of Bureau 1 to be?
MR. DARDANO:
Right.
Bureau 1 is — B 1, it's the collections — the Information Bureau of the Guardian's Office.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
And who was over that person?
MR. DARDANO:
That would be the AG in Boston, the Assistant Guardian.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
And do you know where they went after they left Boston?
MR. DARDANO:
The individuals?
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Yes.
MR. DARDANO:
You're going to love this. Deac is down here working in Florida. I don't — he's not in Clearwater, but he's within one of the missions close by.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
He's here in Florida —
MR. DARDANO:
Yes.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
— someplace?
MR. DARDANO:
I believe he's working in the group called WISE.
MR. BERFIELD:
What was that name, again?
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Called what?
MR. DARDANO:
WISE.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Wise, W-i-s-e?
MR. CALDERBANK:
That's a business, business community of Scientologists.
MR. DARDANO:
It's the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises. It's a group that sells Scientology technology to businessmen. You get the businessmen to use Scientology data and technology in their business.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Are you aware, Mr. Dardano, at any time of confidential information from auditing files or something such as that being used against individuals?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes, I'm — well, it's just the — it's one of the major lies of Scientology. The auditing files — they're passed around the org. all the time. It doesn't make any difference who you are. Just about anyone can get information out of the auditing file.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Did you personally ever —
MR. DARDANO:
And I —
MR. SHOEMAKER:
— see anyone else go in the file?
MR. DARDANO:
No. I never had anything to do with it.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Thank you.
MR. LeCHER:
Okay.
Mr. Calderbank, again, I'd like —
MR. CALDERBANK:
Three brief questions.
Where did you learn your burglary skills?
MR. DARDANO:
Mostly from books and practicing.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Where did you get the practice and the books?
MR. DARDANO:
Just around the house that we were living in, the lock picking; we'd get practice lock picking.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Scientology taught you and supplied you with the information you needed to help train you?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes, sir.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Is that a policy of the Church to do that or —
MR. DARDANO:
Yes, they're very specific: intelligence packets that are — intelligence are trained specifically on how to do breaking and entering, how to lock pick.
MR. CALDERBANK:
And this is supported by the policy of Scientology?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes.
Nothing we did — we had quite a few — we would go in and look for information under the guise of students doing research or — basically, lying to get information, using cover stories to get information about people or places.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Is this a policy that's done worldwide in the Scientology organization or utilized worldwide?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes. It's done under the training of Bureau 1 in the G — in the Guardian's Office.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Any information or communication, while you were in Boston engaged in these activities, come from or go to Clearwater?
MR DARDANO:
Yes, it did because all — Clearwater is Flag, Flag Land Base.
MR. CALDERBANK:
So, in —
MR. DARDANO:
Virtually all information across the planet comes to Clearwater.
MR. CALDERBANK:
So, we control these type of criminal activities all over the world from Flag here, Clearwater?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes, sir.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Okay.
The person that ran the criminal practices — what's his name, Deac —
MR. DARDANO:
Deac Finn.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Deac Finn is now, to the best of your knowledge, here in Clearwater in a local mission running the WISE —
MR. DARDANO:
WISE — just — I'm not sure what city it is; it's not Clearwater.
MR. CALDERBANK:
But it's in Florida somewhere?
MR. DARDANO:
In Florida, somewhere within an hour to an hour and-a-half from Clearwater.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Working with W-I-S-E —
MR. DARDANO:
Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK:
— which is selling Scientology technology to private industries, private businesses?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK:
That's all.
MR. LeCHER:
All right.
Mr. Berfield.
MR. BERFIELD:
Just a couple of quick ones: You said you had a lawsuit against the Scientologists?
MR. DARDANO:
No, I don't —
MR. BERFIELD:
Do they have one against you?
MR. DARDANO:
No, sir.
MR. BERFIELD:
Can you tell us just very briefly what made you come down here today?
MR. DARDANO:
Just for the fact that I know it's important. Scientology has been putting the screws to a lot of people for a long time. And I spent six years and fifteen thousand dollars.
The kids — the people that are being indoctrinated into the Church are — they're being duped into it. Most of them are just swallowed up by the Church. They're not allowed to think for themselves. You go into the Church and you're immediately fed with L. Ron Hubbard's data. You're not allowed to use any of your own information and experiences to evaluate the present situation. You're completely isolated from society.
You think you're doing the best thing in the world. You think you're going to help tie world. And you become so dedicated and ingrained in the doctrine of L. Ron Hubbard.
MR. BERFIELD:
How would you describe the practice of Scientology?
MR. DARDANO:
How would I describe it?
MR. BERFIELD:
Yes.
Are they honest, deceptive —
MR. DARDANO:
They're just — money making; that's all they want to do, just make a buck.
MR LeCHER:
Okay.
Mrs. Garvey, any questions?
MRS. GARVEY:
Yes.
Just — sir, why did you leave? What finally was the break point?
MR. DARDANO:
I was — after the line was broken up because of the out security and George Bristol's cover being blown in the attorney General's Office, I went down to FOLO, Flag liaison office in New York. And I was trained there for — to become a missioner. But Deac Finn and I had several personality conflicts. He had called me back to Boston and I was security checked for about six hours.
And after that — security checking is — it can get pretty brutal at times, and I had just had enough and decided to leave.
MRS. GARVEY:
Why — what was your justification for your burglarizing and stealing of files?
MR. DARDANO:
I thought Scientology was going to save the planet and free the world and we were right and everyone else was wrong.
MRS. GARVEY:
Did you see — did you receive detailed reports that you had to follow on your —
MR. DARDANO:
No. Our reports were all typed and handwritten. We didn't receive any written information from the higher sources. It was all given verbally or it was given in written form, but all of the written form was destroyed immediately after it was received.
MRS. GARVEY:
That's it.
MR. LeCHER:
One just quick question for the record: You mentioned someone recruited you into the dirty tricks movement from the Guardian's Office.
Would you like to give me that name of that person who recruited you?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes. It was Gary Brown.
MR. LeCHER:
Gary?
MR. DARDANO:
Gary —
MR. LeCHER:
Gary Brown.
MR. DARDANO:
— Brown.
MR. LeCHER:
Okay.
Again, because of the time constraints we're under, we're going — that's all the questions we have.
MR. CALDERBANK:
I've got just one question.
So, your beliefs in Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, and the policies that come from that organization induced you into criminal activities in Boston?
MR. DARDANO:
Yes, sir.
Mr. Flynn has asked me to clarify: At the time that I was involved in these activities, Flag was not located at Clearwater; Flag was still on board the Apollo, because these activities ended in — well, as far as I was concerned, they ended in early '76.
MR. LeCHER:
Okay. Thank you very much.
MR. FLYNN:
I'd like to see if we can clarify that date.
What's your best memory as to when — whatever your best memory is —
MR. DARDANO:
I believe it in 1976.
MR. LeCHER:
Thank you.
Do you have a witness, Mr. Flynn?
MR. FLYNN:
I do. The next witness is going to be Paulette Cooper.
I'd like to put a couple of documents quickly on the overhead projector, if I could.
MR. LeCHER:
How many documents do you have, Mr. Flynn?
MR. FLYNN:
We'll put —
MR. LeCHER:
Approximately?
MR. FLYNN:
We'll put about five or six on.
Kevin, why don't we start with Project Owl.
This — in interest of time, we're going to really narrow this down. We're going to put the entire exhibit into evidence. Some of the exhibits involve the Ops Checksheets on clay demoing things, like Mr. Mayer was talking about: how they do it, the documents they have to read. Some of the documents involve how to commit a burglary, the various steps; discussions and lessons on lock-picking devices, how to use them, with descriptions.
Some of the documents involve things like making an evaluation of what has been a successful and an unsuccessful action. And they include things like: burglarizing, larceny, smearing, covert third-partying, launching anti-press campaigns, tracing individual reporters, various types of harassment, and things like that.
It's a — they're multi-page documents, and I'm not sure we have the time to go into them. The Commission will have them all at their disposal.
For instance, one of the documents is lists of agencies across the country that the organization is going to burglarize to steal documents from, and it contains the name of just about every national agency that you could probably think of.
The first exhibit on the projector is an operation called Project Owl. And in that operations, I would refer you to the second page — well, you see under — there's an example up there, a major target. To handle the — to handle the attack being generated on Wise refund cycle, both with Wise and his attorney and at the Suffolk County DA's Office, and then it goes through various primary targets. And there's names: "Deac, Gary B., Kathy B.," all of which the witness could give direct testimony on, if we took the time.
If you go over to the second page, you'll see a heading under "Vital Targets," and then going down to "Operating Targets," you see: "ODC and time tracks done on the following" — that's overt data collections — "Stanley Cath, Attorney John Lynch, John Wise, John Wise's father, Reverend Steves," and then there's some others penciled in there, including "Thomas Dwyer," who happens to be a colleague of mine from law school, who was then in the Assistant District Attorney's Office.
Then, number two, you will see: "Obtain Cath's files on" — then in parentheses — "(by FSM" — which is field staff member — "or other means as appropriate)" — of which there's been testimony — "a, John Wise, b, Scientology." And Dr. Cath is a medical doctor from Boston or Belmont, Massachusetts upon which Miss Cooper will testify because it was her doctor. And then number c is: "others as needed" — parentheses — "(including Paulette Cooper material not previously obtained)," which would suggest that they had already gone in before then.
"Cliff Stanton files, Cath personal files, material on deprogramming, Mrs. Elaine Lieberman, Van Roeschmann, International Foundation for Individual Freedom" — IFIT — IFIF — "Return to Personal Choice, Dr. Taylor and Ted Backer. Do CDC" — that's covert data collections — "on Cath for data on his book, fish for leads that Cath knows Wise and/or Stanton, use Cath to establish lines to other areas for CDC," et cetera.
What the Commission needs to be aware of in the context of all of this information is that this is just one project of which we're getting a little more specific. And that entire project will go in as the next exhibit.
(A copy of Project Owl was marked as Exhibit No. 48, as of this date.)
MR. FLYNN:
Operation Freakout is a multi-page exhibit, which the Commission can read with regard to very specific instructions as to who was to do what in order to carry out this operation, which — the reading of which is rather remarkable.
The first item of attention is — under "Major Target," right at the top, "To get PC incarcerated in a mental institution or jail, or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attack."
I would suggest to you that the Project Owl was a part of Freakout when they attempted to obtain Miss Cooper's psychiatric files from Dr. Cath in order to put her in a mental institution or in jail, of which she will testify.
And I would also — I would also direct the Commission's attention — we'll have to go back to Owl and put the last page of Owl on the transparency. And as you can see, there's all kinds — there's very specific instructions on what they do, when they do it, et cetera, et cetera.
But going down to the bottom, you'll see a name at the bottom, "Mike Cooper." Mike Cooper is Mitchell Hermann, who is one of the individuals who has been convicted and is now in jail, and he was the Guardian of the Southeast U.S. Sect, during this period of time, which was Clearwater. And this particular project originated in your city.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Mike, these people seem to have an affinity for infiltrating district attorneys' offices. Would you give any information or any documentation — I've seen some — as to the information or infiltration that was either gained or the office infiltrated for our State Attorney General, Mr. Russell, or for the local office? Was it ever targeted, or do you have documentation to that effect, Clearwater documents?
MR. FLYNN:
Yes. There — as I said, we've got a whole separate package just on Clearwater, which is two or three inches thick, which is, I would suggest to you, just a mere sampling of some of the documents. All of the Red Box data was never received. Another seventy or eighty thousand documents are up in the Clerk's Office in Washington, D.C. under seal. These documents are not under seal. And the documents that have been under seal have never been viewed by my office — and I don't know who else they've been viewed by — but I would suggest that there may be other documents pertaining to Clearwater.
MR. CALDERBANK:
I'd just like the people to know that our DA offices, also, are a target — or at least in a document — a projected target for infiltration.
MR. FLYNN:
Oh, yes. The exhibits that are in the Clearwater packet start right at the beginning with Operation Normandy to take over the City of Clearwater, outlining all of the offices that are going to be infiltrated and documents are going to be stolen from, people are going to be planted in. There's probably thirty or thirty-five such offices. We'll reach that at another point in time. But they're all laid out very clearly in Operation Normandy. And you might remember that Normandy was a beachhead for — in World War II, and Clearwater was a beachhead for Mr. Hubbard.
Okay. We'll now go forward with Paulette Cooper. I will have these other documents marked on how to commit burglaries, evaluations of which types of covert operations are successful and unsuccessful, as well as the drills that one goes through, such as Mr. Mayer, Mr. Dardano, Mrs. Peterson, Mr. Walters, and others have described as to how you're trained to do very specific things.
(A copy of Operation Freakout was marked as Exhibit No. 49, as of this date;
Documents on how to commit burglaries, evaluations of covert operations, and drills were marked as Exhibit Nos. 50, 51, and 52, as of this date.)
Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
![Post Post](./styles/prosilver/imageset/icon_post_target.gif)
Posted:
Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:45 pm
by admin
Part 11 of 15
PAULETTE COOPER
MR. LeCHER:
Would you like to call your next witness, now?
MR. FLYNN:
Miss Cooper, please.
MR. LeCHER:
Miss Cooper, will you be sworn in, please?
PAULETTE COOPER, a witness herein, having first been duly sworn by a Clerk for the City of Clearwater, was examined and testified as follows:
MR. LeCHER:
Miss Cooper, are you appearing here today and testifying under oath voluntarily?
MS. COOPER:
Yes.
MR. LeCHER:
Have you been paid by anyone for your testimony, other than the expenses for coming to the City of Clearwater?
MS. COOPER:
No.
MR. LeCHER:
Do you have a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology?
MS. COOPER:
Yes.
MR. LeCHER:
Does the Church of Scientology have a lawsuit against you?
MS. COOPER:
Yes.
MR. LeCHER:
How many, eighteen?
MR. FLYNN:
And for the record, the Commissioners may remember that one of the earlier exhibits on the purpose of a lawsuit, which was read, to harass and discourage and to destroy the person.
MR. LeCHER:
Has anyone suggested to you that you should state anything but the truth or has anyone suggested that you change your testimony for any reason?
MS. COOPER:
No.
MR. LeCHER:
How do you defend yourself against eighteen lawsuits?
MS. COOPER:
I work day and night to support the lawyers.
MR. LeCHER:
I don't know how you could simply afford it.
MS. COOPER:
I figured out just recently that it's cost over fifty thousand dollars for legal fees on the suits.
MR. FLYNN:
For the record, I haven't received any of that.
MR. LeCHER:
Start at the beginning, please.
MS. COOPER:
Okay.
I'm a freelance writer; I live in Manhattan. I'm the author of several hundred articles, two of which are about Scientology; I'm also the author of six books, one of which is The Scandal of Scientology. I have been studying Scientology since 1968.
The last couple of years, the Scientologists —
MR. LeCHER:
I don't think they can hear you, Miss Cooper, in the back of the room.
MS. COOPER:
Okay.
The last couple of years, the Scientologists have been telling the people of Clearwater that they've changed and they've advanced a lot in the last couple of years. I certainly haven't noticed it. As I said, the eighteenth lawsuit was just served on me last week.
I am being sued now repeatedly by individual Scientologists, who, in some cases, I don't even know, suits for supposedly distributing literature at functions I didn't even attend.
Part of the purpose in harassing people with lawsuits is to keep deposing them and preventing you from writing or making a living and making you show up at legal depositions. I've been, deposed for nineteen days total since this started, with four more coming up in a couple of weeks.
There has also been some other harassment in the past six months or so: continued calls to me, calls to my family. The Scientologists find out what the person's buttons are, as they put it, and the way to get to them. And they know that a way to get me is to harass my parents. So, they have been under a great deal of harassment, as well as my harassment.
They've put out libelous publications about me; they've sent letters saying that I was soon to be imprisoned. And you saw the Operation Freakout and attempts that have been made to put me in prison. They've sent false reports about me to the Justice Department, the District Attorney's Office, the IRS. As you know, government agencies have to investigate any complaints that they get. So, then, Scientology sends out press releases that I am under investigation by the Attorney General's Office, I am under investigation by the DA, and so on.
They have put detectives on me; they have put spies on me. A few months ago, they put an attempted spy on my mother to try to get information about me from her and to fix me up with the woman's son, so they could get direct to me. They cancelled my plane to — well, somebody cancelled my plane to Florida about a month ago, and that is the third time that happened to me this year while I was traveling.
I'd like to say that this was a very good year compared to the previous years. And I'd like to discuss a little bit what it was like to fight Scientology alone, starting in 1968, because I was the only one who was speaking out. This is a wonderful thing that there are people speaking out now. But when I started, absolutely nobody else did it. And I was the only person until — from 1968 until 1973.
In 1973, Nan McLean joined, and the two of us spoke out publically. And then in 1976, Gabe Cazares joined, and there were the three of us.
When I started in 1968, there was no support from the press, there were no rallies, there were no grand juries looking into scientology, there were no lawyers like Mike, Mr. Flynn. There was no peer acceptance about what you were doing; there was just no understanding that anything was wrong. It was somewhat like a social group that people were joining and it had a veneer that everything was going along well, although, based on the testimony you've had here, you know, these dirty tricks were going on. But if I said that they were, people thought that I was the one that was making these things up about them.
I'd like to give a little background as to how I got interested in the subject. I never was a Scientologist. My basic interest is as a writer; I like investigative things. In addition, I have a Master's Degree in Psychology, and I studied Comparative Religion at Harvard for a summer.
A friend of mine, in 1968, joined Scientology and he ended up in a mental institution. I'm not saying that one caused the other, but it certainly peaked my curiosity.
When he escaped, he came to visit me and he told me that he was Jesus Christ. I then had —
MR. BERFIELD:
He was who?
MS. COOPER:
Jesus Christ. And he'd been a pretty normal person before then.
I then called our mutual friend who had gotten him in and said, "He thinks he's Christ." And my friend said "Well, he really is." So, I thought, "Well, this bears some investigation."
I went in and took their weekend course. During the time, I wandered away from the group where they were teaching the particular, well, TRs, as they call them, and I came upon a list of people, who — I don't remember for sure if it was a Fair Game Order, but I think it was, because these people were being declared enemies of mankind. And it was very odd terminology. I remember one woman's name was on there and it declared her enemy of mankind for pushing five men down a flight of stairs. And what — how could she do that? It just didn't ring like true.
And I decided to contact some of these people when I came home. And I think I took about five names, the five top people, and every one of them had an unlisted number, disconnected phone. Well, this is 1968, and the people it was attracting were twenty-two, twenty-three years old. And just by chance, a whole group of people are not going to have five unlisted numbers unless there's a reason for people to unlist their number.
So, it began to bother me that, you know, was this so-called respectable Church perhaps harassing people? And in that one weekend, I had noted that they had lied about certain things, and I wondered about a church lying to people. And I decided to look in the library and see if I could get any information, any book. And I discovered that all the stories had been clipped out of every single magazine pertaining to Scientology, and I wondered whether this Church was, perhaps, possibly stealing things.
Well, I spent the next couple of years doing research into Scientology. And my first article came out in December of 1969. That's also the month that I received my first death threat. And then a number of mysterious events occurred, both then and during the time within the next year and-a-half until my book came out. I was followed on several occasions; we found a phone tap on my phone; I was being multiply sued already at that time. A number of — oh, people kept calling me and trying o take me out, and it seemed like people were trying to get to me.
And this went on for four unpleasant years, including four lawsuits, one of which was for somebody else's book. And when that happened, I got really annoyed. And I became the first person to sue them for harassment, and this was actually shocking to them because Hubbard had written that an enemy of — that no one would ever sue Scientology, that they had too much to hide and that the people were criminals whoever attacked the Church, and, therefore, we were going to just wither away and die.
So, they then decided — as we know later and I'm going to discuss this later — at that time that they were out to get me and they would have to silence me because, after my book came out, I began to receive very, very disturbing calls. And the type of things that you've been hearing for the last few days were the type of things that people would call and tell me what — mysterious things happening to them, that — all kinds of very unpleasant things. And that everybody had a sort of paranoid feeling and they were afraid to speak out; people were very afraid to speak out. And yet, when enough people who don't know each other tell you the same thing happening to them, you begin to realize that something is going on.
Well, about October of 1972, they started a big campaign to finally silence me or attempt to stop me. The — that month I received the second of what was ultimately to be five anonymous, absolutely disgusting smear letters about me. This particular one called me a part-time prostitute, and you can imagine how upsetting it is to open up something like that and read it.
During this same period of time, there were a large number of attempts to get into my apartment, which was on the ground floor of the building that I lived in at the time; it was not well guarded, and I was quite concerned. I received a tremendous number of really disgusting calls, and I remember one day counting eleven calls.
Remember that I work as a freelance writer. That means that if I get upsetting calls and I'm unhappy, it's very hard to just pick up and to write what you were working on. A lot of abusive calls then and over the years, just the sort of — you pick up the phone and somebody says, "Oh, what are you doing?" And they'd hang up and call back, so you have to take the phone off the hook. And if you're trying to reach somebody, they can't call you back.
Well, I finally decided that I was going to move to a higher-security apartment, even though I really could not afford to do so at the time. I moved on December 15th. On December — the person who took over the apartment was my second cousin. We bore a physical resemblance, but — basically, because we're about the same age and she was very petite and we both had short, brown hair at the time.
And a series of mysterious circumstances occurred. The important thing was that she opened up the door to someone who had flowers and rang my bell. And I was no longer living there, although, my name was still on the door. And so, Eddie Walters told you about R2-45, and you've heard the policy. When Joy opened the door to get, these flowers, he unwrapped the gun — he unwrapped the flowers and there was a gun in it. And he took the gun and he put it at Joy's temple and he cocked the gun, and we don't know whether it misfired, whether it was empty and it was a scare technique, what happened, but, somehow, the gun did not go off. And the — he started choking her, and she was able to break away and she started to scream. And the person ran away.
And so, she called a detective and he said, "It's a very wild attack because there doesn't seem to be any motive for it." There was no attempted rape, there was no attempted robbery, and why should somebody just suddenly try to kill her.
The — about a week or two later at my new apartment, I received a visit from the FBI. And they informed that the public relations person for Scientology had claimed that she had received a couple of bomb threats and asked — and had named me as somebody likely to send bomb threats. So, the — I didn't take the whole thing very seriously, and the FBI asked me if I would mind being fingerprinted. And I said that I would not, and I was fingerprinted.
At the same time my cousin Joy's boyfriend had been very, very upset about what happened. And he said, "Boy, you better let your Scientology spies know that you have moved and where you are because I don't want anything to happen to her again." And I did.
And shortly thereafter, in my — to my new building, half the tenants, which is approximately three hundred tenants in the building, received a very, very disgusting anonymous smear letter about me, trying to get me kicked out of the apartment, and saying that I had venereal disease, that I would sexually molest little children. The only thing that was true in the letter was my age, which was not something I wanted known anyway. And it was very, very embarrassing. As I was walking through the building — and I've heard people talking about me in the elevator, and I was just sort of slinking along and I was really — a month later my parents received an anonymous smear letter about me, accusing me of practicing sexual perversions with their clergyman. These were not very good months.
So — and I was called for grand jury around this time. At least, I didn't think this was anything very serious and did not bother to retain a lawyer, had very little money because I had used all my money to move to this more expensive, higher-security apartment.
And when I got there, they told me that I was the target of an investigation into the bomb threats. And I went and had to hire a lawyer, and every lawyer wanted — the least we could get was five thousand-dollar retainer, which, in those years, was like paying ten thousand dollars, you know, today. And to suddenly have to pay this sum of money and find out that you're in serious trouble, and no one would — the government would not tell my lawyers what the evidence was against me. They wouldn't show me the letters.
Anyway, finally, I went before the grand jury, an I tried to answer every question as truthfully as I could. I never took the Fifth Amendment. And they kept asking me again and again, "Did you ever see this letter? Did you ever touch it? Do you know who might have?" And I said, incidentally, "Yes," that I suspected they might have sent it to themselves because we had some unpleasant confrontations in the press.
And then they asked me to step outside the room. And when I came in, I knew I was in very serious trouble, and they asked me what my social security number was, whether I was on drugs, and did I realize what I had said so far. And again, they asked me the same series of questions.
And then they said, "Well, Miss Cooper, if you've never touched this letter before, could you tell us how your fingerprints got on it?" And I felt like a grand piano had just hit me on the head. I — I fainted sitting up; the whole room just turned upside down and I didn't know what to do. And then, of course, the lawyers wanted more money.
And on May — let's see, May 19th, 1973, I was indicted on the three counts of sending bomb threats through the mail; two counts were for two letters. One was for perjury for saying before the grand jury that I hadn't done it and that I thought this public relations person might have done it. On May 29th, ten days later, I was arrested and I was arraigned.
The next eight months were a terrible, terrible nightmare in my life that I still feel sometimes that I suffer from to this day. I had fifteen years in jail over my head and fifteen thousand dollars in fines. I was petrified about going to jail, more so, perhaps, because of my small frame and the fact that I heard that women's federal prisons were rough places.
I risked having my career totally destroyed because — and I had been successful. And as an a free-lance writer, what editor is ever going to give an assignment to someone who's been indicted or convicted for sending bomb threats to someone they opposed?
I was very concerned about the indictment and the trial coming out in the newspapers. The public does not know the difference between indict and convict, and they think that if you're on trial for something, you must have done it or where there's smoke, there's fire. I was left with the terrible public humiliation that every person I ever knew in New York would read the details of the trial and these accusations.
I was most concerned about my parents, who had adopted me when I was six years old, an how humiliating it would be for them and their friends to have to explain and to go through a trial like this.
During this period of time, I went through a terrible, terrible depression and a number of my friends, which I can't blame them for, did not stick by me. I was depressing to be with. I had been seeing a man for five years and had intended to marry him, and he left as a result of my depression. I was released on my own recognizance, but I was not allowed to leave the state. And this made it difficult because I had friends in Connecticut and in New Jersey, and it was just all I could do to get away for a weekend. But it was so humiliating to have to go to the court and ask permission to go twenty miles away that I couldn't do it.
I went through a period of very, very acute anxiety. I would go to sleep — I couldn't fall asleep till about four in the morning and I'd wake up about six with my stomach just in my throat and worrying about what the next day would bring and what was going to happen at the initial hearing. And this went on for eight months, and I was just totally exhausted, sleeping two to four hours a day. I couldn't drag myself around anymore.
All the money I had had gone to lawyers, and I went into debt to try to continue to pay for them. The — in the end, just the main lawyers cost nineteen thousand dollars.
I was totally unable to write during this period. I was — the depression was very, very bad and I couldn't concentrate. I attempted to write, but it was really very bad writing. And I stopped eating because I was filled with such nausea and exhaustion. I tried to force myself to have — I took a sixteen ounce-glass of tomato juice each day and two eggs. About half the time, I would just eat it and then go to bathroom and throw it up; I just couldn't hold food in my stomach.
Oh, a year earlier I had been operated on and a lot of the — I was physically ill as well during this period. Mentally, I just totally fell apart about half way through. I developed, for the first time in my life, acute agoraphobia; I couldn't leave the house. I think that this really started with this attempted murder that I felt had been intended for me. But then, you have to remember, I didn't want to walk around my building because I was hearing people talking about the lady with VD.
And I had been very concerned when they were going to arrest me that they were going to arrest me in the lobby of my building and humiliate me among my neighbors further. So, this was the genesis of a sudden inability to go out.
And some of my friends were very, very good. They would come over and try to force me to get out and get my mind off what was going on. It worked for a while. Around September/October, it didn't work anymore. One friend came over, alarmed that I had not left the house for a week, and he said, "You've got to walk around the block." And I remember we stepped outside about two or three steps and I just started crying and I said, "Don't make me. I can't do it; I just can't do it." And then 1 went home and I stayed inside for about two more weeks.
And meanwhile, during this period of time, there was a friend, a new friend, who I met under somewhat mysterious circumstances, but he was very, very helpful. And I obtained an apartment for him in my building, and he did some of the food shopping that I could not get out and do. And his name was Jerry Levin.
And everybody — the worst period of time was approximately two weeks before the trial. My lawyers informed me that, with a federal case, it was a ninety-five percent chance of conviction. They then gave me the good news that, for the trial, they wanted my parents to be seated in the front row and watch the entire proceedings. And I kept saying, "You can't do that to them. It's going to be awful enough for them to read it in the paper." And they said, "You don't understand, if you're parents don't show up, the jury doesn't realize," you know, "that this is what you want. They're just going to" — they felt that the one circumstance that might get me acquitted was the mutually close relationship with my parents.
On top of that, going through some Scientology material that I had obtained, there was the name of Jerry Levin. Now, I felt horribly betrayed, but at the same time I simply did not want to believe it. I was very naive, and his name was a very common name, especially, in a city like New York.
Meanwhile, we had tried every single move possible to get the trial stopped. And — but I was in a very, very nervous state and it was impossible for me to be tested correctly. And we went to some doctors who said that they felt the only thing that might work would be if I would go into a state where I didn't know what was going on, meaning sodium pentothal or truth serum, because to do that, you have to be — you're unconscious; it's like an operation.
So, the problem was we couldn't find a doctor who would give me a sodium pentothal test because, by this time, I weighed eighty-three pounds; I had started about ninety-eight. And it became very, very dangerous to go and put somebody under, as if for an operation, and do that. And I just said I didn't care if the operation — not the operation, but if the sodium pentothal killed me because, if I had to stand trial for what I didn't do and humiliate everyone and go through this humiliation, that I would just as soon be dead anyway.
And we finally did find a doctor two weeks before trial who gave me a sodium pentothal test. I was unconscious for seven hours. I don' t know what I said during that. I do know that, when I came to, my mother was standing there and I said, "What happened? What did I say?" And she just said, "It's okay. It's all over. There won't be a trial."
The government wanted to save face because they don't like to admit that they've made a mistake. So, the said that they wouldn't actually — they would postpone the trial, but they would not actually drop the charges at that time. They also ordered me to see a psychiatrist which I thought was very humiliating.
The government did not drop the charges and, for two years after all this, I still had to worry on a daily basis whether one day there was going to be a trial and all of these things that I was afraid of, the prison and so on, was going to happen.
The next year was 1974, and there were a number of new lawsuits against me. Oh, continued harassments, including harassments of my family and their clergyman, new spies. By the summer, which was about seven months after the worst period of this whole thing, I remember that one of my friends said that that was the first time he had seen me smile in a year and-a-half.
And so, I decided, in fact, that I was going to try to get back this gentleman that I was interested in. And I threw a birthday party to have an excuse to invite him to something and I sent an invitation, and he then wrote me the most incredible letter back. And what I found out was that there was then a fifty anonymous smear letter about me, this one sent to him and his bosses, and he would never talk to me again; and he never has.
In 1975, the charges against me were finally dropped. But during this period, they started a new type of harassment. And then I began receiving things in the mail, such as copies of — I had kept a diary from when I was seventeen to about twenty, and there was my diary suddenly coming back to me, copies of letters that I had sent out — or my carbon copy of it — and a psychiatrist's report that Mr. Dardano explained that he stole.
In 1976, the charges were — no, excuse me. In late ‘75, the charges were finally dropped. At that point some very bizarre things happened that, it wasn‘t until later, I would learn were part of another attempt to put me in jail. But — for example, people were — somebody was calling a number of my close friends, imitating my voice to a degree that was good enough that some people stopped talking to me, others called and yelled at me: why should I have called and been so rude and so on. And I said, "I didn't call." And then I went to a writers' meeting and someone said, "Gee, how was Washington?" I said, "I haven't been to Washington in two years." They said, "You called from Washington." I didn't understand at the time why these things were being done.
Also, at a — I was with a group of writers and someone showed me a joke, and I realized afterwards that it appeared to be an attempt to get my fingerprints again. And I became very, very upset because, after all, I had a, quote, record, end quote. And I was very concerned about the possibility of more bomb threats.
In — there were many, many more things that were done to me over the years, but this is — I'm trying to summarize a little bit.
In December of 1976, I became very, very tired of it all. By that time there were nine lawsuits against me. Right before I went to court, all the stuff was remailed to me that was mailed in the past, sort of a subtle blackmail: "This is what's going to happen if you don't settle." Scientology wanted me to settle quite badly.
Also, they convinced me at that time that they changed and that they really were a very nice organization, and that, by my continued statements and stance against them and my book, I was preventing them from doing the good deeds that they wanted to do or that they were doing by bringing up the bad things all the time. And in December of ‘76, I agreed, in a sense, that — it's easier to just say that I agreed, in a sense, not to bad mouth them and they agreed not to bad mouth me.
While they were telling me that they had changed, unbeknownst to me, there was a man named Michael Meisner and he had been a top GO operative — and they were holding him under gag and handcuff. And this man knew that I had been criminally framed and he knew about a lot of things that had been going on.
In the summer of 1977, the FBI raided the three Scientology organizations. On October 12th, 1977, the FBI called me. Now, remember, this was a five-year period that I had never been able to prove my innocence; the government considered me a criminal; I had a, quote, record, end quote. And the FBI called out of the blue and said, "We have just received evidence that you were innocent of this — those original charges." And I hung up the phone and cried and I, in fact, tried to reach that person that was no longer talking to me, but he had since remarried.
I worked with the FBI for the next couple of years. I did learn before — in the investigation that was going on that the murder attempt on Joy was seemingly intended for me by Scientology. I learned that they had broken — Scientology had broken into my New York lawyer's office and — this was one of many lawyers to break into, but that was the first one. And I learned, which was, to me, the most important thing, that they had framed me in 1972.
And — let me skip ahead a little bit to some of the stuff that — there were more lawsuits.
Anyway, at the end of 1979, I finally saw the documents that had been seized. There were twenty-three thousand documents. And there were documents — I'm sorry, twenty-three thousand that were available to the public. And there were two documents that finally made it very clear that I had been criminally framed, and it was very important to me that, at last, I was publically able to proclaim my innocence and not worry about the — what anybody would say, and that I no longer — I always felt that I had to hide the fact that I had been arrested. And if I would meet someone and if they had any political ambitions, I wouldn't tell him why but I would quickly stop seeing him for his sake. So, it was something that I was hiding, and it was affecting my life in various ways.
We found one document that, apparently, indicated that they were considering the use of the Mafia on me, but that they decided instead to criminally frame me, so that Scientology would not look bad. We found a document that — we found a number of documents that proved that this fellow who had been helping me, I thought, during the period that I was, oh, having such a bad time — he was calling a diary into Scientology as to what I was doing, how close I was to suicide, and, you know, cheering me on, like, you know: "She can't sleep again, that she talking suicide. Wouldn't this be great for Scientology?" It's very strange from reading the diary of somebody that you think is a friend and is wishing you dead and working in your behalf towards that direction.
Incidentally, this particular fellow, who's name was Jerry Levin — they changed his name to Don Alberto, and he became one of the biggest dirty tricks operatives down in Clearwater. He also was the person that was sent to Washington and planted the bug in the IRS.
We saw a document called Operation Freakout, which Mr. Flynn started to show you before. Remember, I mentioned these very bizarre phone calls, people posing as me? We think that they were trying to test my voice because, part of Operation Freakout — Operation Freakout consisted of six different ways to try to get me jailed again, since the charges had been dropped. One of the ways was to call in bomb threats in a voice that would sound like mine; another was to write bomb threats very similar to the original ones but pasted on Writers' Digest stationery, so that they would come to the conclusion that — so that the FBI would come to the conclusion that this must have been done by a writer.
Operation Freakout consisted of plans to have somebody pose as me — find out what I was wearing, have someone dress like me, look like me, and they would crack up publically and they would try to get me arrested for that person threatening to bomb various places.
The other document that I saw was that a number of these lawsuits against me were being maliciously created. For example, they were bringing my book, The Scandal of Scientology into countries where it had not even been published and they were saying — you know, so — "brought the book in so we can sue."
The reason for those terrible calls that I had mentioned was that they had out my name up on walls throughout Manhattan and — with my phone number, so that people would give me these calls.
Operation Owl was in there. I don't know if I mentioned that Operation Freakout originated in Clearwater, even though the basis of the attack was against a New York resident, namely, me.
Mr. Flynn showed you Operation Owl, which also originated in Clearwater.
Oh, a copy of my diary — the one that had been mailed to me — was found in a file marked "National Council of Churches." They had hidden a lot of their — the stuff that they shouldn't have had. And there were also things that I didn't even know that they had gotten. For example, my mother once complained to me that she couldn't figure out why for the last few years my father kept being audited again and again, and nothing ever turned up; he's an excruciatingly honest person. And there was an order to give an anonymous tip to the IRS that my father was evading taxes, and I don't know if that was the cause of it. But I'm saying that it was this type of thing.
I also learned from the documents that they were suing me for things that were true. For example, they repeatedly sued me for saying that Charles Manson was a Scientologist, and there were fifty to a hundred documents showing how they were trying to hide the fact that Charles Manson had studied Scientology.
There were surveillance reports. I think I had mentioned that I'd been followed at various times and was pretty sure of it. It's kind of spooky sitting there and reading, you know, "She turned up Aken Street, walked for five minutes there, stopped in the candy store."
And there were reports that my friends were being harassed. There was a notation to cause trouble with this gentleman that I mentioned. There were spies' reports and taped transcripts of telephone conversations that I had had with people.
The — I think I spoke to 60 Minutes when I was down here in. Clearwater last, and I said then that I had been saying that these types of things had been going on and people kept saying, "Well, what is she talking about? This is a church." And it was incredible vindication to look at these documents and see that everything I had said about Scientology since 1968 was true, and that they had turned out to be worse than anything I had said or even imagined.
Now, Scientology, at that time, had said that they had changed. And I know because Gabe — mayor Cazares mailed me the same things from the Clearwater Sun, and I read what they told you.
While they were saying that, they had learned where I was in Washington, D.C., at the Washington Hilton, and planted a bug by my bed there and, also, a bug on the telephone, during this period of time while they were making these statements in Clearwater about how they had changed.
And I do not believe that they have changed, and that — this is one of the reasons, or the main reason, why I wanted to come here and warn you, because I have been studying this for many years. And I have heard them say that they have changed and, gee, they don't — they may be issuing that kind of statement after this is over: "Well, you know, there were some things that were said, but, you know, we don't do that anymore" kind of thing.
And I've heard before — even before I started researching Scientology — they were saying this. For example, in 1965, there was something called the Australian Inquiry, a Commission to look into Scientology. Anyway, after studying Scientology, the Commission came to the conclusion that Scientology — quote: "Scientology is evil, its techniques evil. Its practice is a serious threat medically, morally, and socially. Its adherence often establishes it with the mentally ill." And at that time Scientology issued a statement that, of course, they had changed.
In 1968, I believe, with the Foster Report, when the English held an inquiry to look into Scientology, and Scientology issued a statement that Fair Game had been cancelled, that the Disconnect Policy had been cancelled, and that everything had changed.
In 1975, they had World Prayer Day, and the press all believed at that time that they had changed. In December of 1976, when I settled with them, I believed they had changed. In 1977, when the FBI raided them, they said that they had changed. In ‘79, when statements came out about what was in the documents, and in 1980, again, they were telling people that they had changed.
And my final point is that I believe that they haven't changed. I believe that their basic policy, ever since the policy was first written, has been the Fair Game Policy. The policy is to trick people; the policy is to sue people; the policy is to lie to people and to destroy them. And I certainly know from a personal standpoint.
And I've only briefly told you some of the things that they've done to me, so that you're not deceived by their true nature. I've been studying them for fourteen years and, unfortunately I've been a victim of this cult for fourteen years. And I believe that Scientology has never changed, will never change, and will keep issuing statements to people saying that they've changed.
MR. LeCHER:
Thank you for your —
MR. FLYNN:
If I could just make one point of information for the Commission that I believe is significant: The most relevant portion of Miss Cooper's testimony is the fact that for years she suffered from harassment and framing, which was — has been proved by some of the documents already in evidence, to which she's testified, and the documents that we put in evidence before this Commission.
The final area for this Commission to examine is that of deception on all of the items that I mentioned earlier: deception of confidential auditing information, Mr. Hubbard's background, the goals, policies, purposes, and practices of the organization to the thousands of people that are coming here to Clearwater and paying millions of dollars.
Miss Cooper's evidence vividly describes the policy of the Church to utilize the Fair Game Policy, of which most Church members who are paying millions of dollars do not know. And that policy has been described, from 1968, in her testimony right up to the present time.
And the Commission will be able to derive whatever inferences are appropriate from her testimony with regard to the practice and deception regarding the goals and purposes and operations of the Church of Scientology in this city.
MR. LeCHER:
I'd like to say: Thank you for your story and thank you for the evidence that relates specifically to Clearwater.
I have at various times talked to members of the Church of Scientology who have told me that they‘ve changed, too, as recently as Hebert Jentz a few months ago, who said that they had changed.
And I thank you for telling us your story. I don't — every story today seems to get more incredible as the people come on.
And I don't know how you could survive what you have survived, and I think that you must be one hell of a woman.
I — I really have no questions. I don't know how you even — you can trust anybody anymore: a man that you might meet that he is one of them and trying to get you again. That must prey on your mind. And what with — even with just day-to-day contact with business associates and females and family members.
So, I don't want to put you through any more of your story. You've relived it, an aberration for these many years.
And I will then refer to my colleagues, and I hope that they will also be sensitive to that fact and also be brief.
Who do I start with?
MR. BERFIELD:
I have — I have just one question, and it's not so related to what happened to you there. But you said you've spent fifteen years in studying Scientology?
MS. COOPER:
Well, I started researching in 1968; it's fourteen years.
MR. BERFIELD:
In this study —
MS. COOPER:
Yeah.
MR. BERFIELD:
— without any reference to religion —
MS. COOPER:
Mm-mm.
MR. BERFIELD:
— and going back, have you found out where they picked up these deceptive ideas from or whose — were they L. Ron Hubbard's or did he get them from somebody else or what?
MS. COOPER:
Well, when I researched the book, I went through a tremendous number of early policy letters by Hubbard, things that he wrote about in the early 1950's, even when it was Dianetics. And the fraud was just started way back; Hubbard excelled in it. He was constantly lying to his people. You find that, you know, that one thing just totally negated another. And I think the deception and the lies all stem from Mr. Hubbard.
MR. BERFIELD:
Thank you.
MR. LeCHER:
Okay.
Does anyone have any questions?
Thank you very much.
Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
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Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:45 pm
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Part 12 of 15
EDWARD WALTERS
MR. FLYNN:
At this point I'd like to show on the easel a document — all right. We'll put into evidence the outline of the organization. And if Mr. Walters could come forward — he's still under oath — to simply explain to the Commission what the outline of the organization is and precisely where, at this point, for instance, Mitchell Hermann would fit in with regard to Flag.
MR. LeCHER:
What is that chart, again, that you have, Mr. Flynn or Mr. Walters? What are you showing us?
EDWARD WALTERS, a witness herein, having previously been duly sworn by a Clerk for the City of Clearwater, was examined and testified as follows:
MR. WALTERS:
Right here is the organization, the top of the organization for the Guardian's Office.
MR. LeCHER:
Why don't you go over it with your pointer.
MR. WALTERS:
All right.
It starts at the top with L. Ron Hubbard; he's listed as Commodore and Founder. Below him is the CSGs, Commodore's Staff Guardians, CF 6, there are seven divisions: that's Mary Sue Hubbard, by the way.
Now, I'll go down this way, first. Right below her is Guardian Worldwide, which is England, Jane Kember. She has been the Guardian for — since the inception. It's a lifetime appointment, which is interesting, because she just got sentenced and she's in jail.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Do they still have these posts?
MR. WALTERS:
Yes, they do. And your headquarters now is in Clearwater.
MR. CALDERBANK:
So, convicted felons are serving on an administrative hierarchy chart?
MR. WALTERS:
No. These eleven that got indicted —
MR. CALDERBANK:
Convicted?
MR. WALTERS:
— convicted were in Scientology until they were put in jail. People who have been trained by them have replaced them and are here in Clearwater.
All right. Below Jane Kember is your divisions for Worldwide Divisions. Information, which is really intelligence, is Mo Budlong. He's the name you saw in a lot of those documents. Anything done in Clearwater — and you'll see correspondence, the FBI has it, I've seen it — is in correspondence between Mo Budlong and Clearwater concerning operations.
David Gaiman, Legal, just what it says; Finance is Herbie Parkhouse. This man here probably knows more about the financial structure of Scientology. You will not see him on the RPF.
Now — it should be David Gaiman; is says Sheila Gaiman. Social Coordination is David Gaiman's wife. David was — oh, you've got David over here for PR. David handled all Public Relations Worldwide, and his wife handled the Social Coordinations.
And these divisions, by the way, are the same throughout the world, throughout the United States. For example, in Las Vegas, Information was Chuck Reese; I told you about it. Oh, okay.
But I just want to make a point —
MR. FLYNN:
Kevin, put that back up.
MR. WALTERS:
— that this organization you see here is the same everywhere; the structure is exactly the same: L. Ron Hubbard's here, Mary Sue, it goes down. And then in your orgs. you have the exact same positions. So, to familiarize you with Clearwater, so you can understand your Clearwater operation, in Clearwater, you will have a Director of Information, you'll have a Director of PR, which, I believe, is — no, I think he's out.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Will you give us also —
MR. LeCHER:
I heard he's doing missionary work.
MR. WALTERS:
Yes.
I'll tell you who's here.
MR. FLYNN:
I think it's —
MR. WALTERS:
Wilhere.
MR. FLYNN:
— Wilhere.
MR. WALTERS:
Yeah, Wilhere.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Okay.
Will you connect those people with testimony that we‘ve had before, such as Director of Information — he was the person —
MR. WALTERS:
All right.
Director of Information is involved in all the codified and overt intelligence operations for collecting information on enemies of the Church. So, in Clearwater, I would say, and I say it under oath, that the Director of Information in Clearwater has the files on all of you people.
The Director of Public Relations is here in Clearwater; you have a Legal Bureau here in Clearwater; you have Finance here in Clearwater; you'll also have Social Coordination: that directs WISE, [Narconon], et cetera. They will not tell you it's run by the Guardian's Office, but I'll guarantee you it is.
All right. Going back to the Worldwide organization, below them you have your Deputy Guardians. Deputy Guardian in the US, that was in Los Angeles; it was Henning Heldt. He was indicted and is in jail at the moment. Below him was Duke Snider; he was his assistant.
Then, again, you have Information/Intelligence —
MR. LeCHER:
Not the baseball player?
MR. WALTERS:
No, no, no, no. This is another Duke Snider.
Information in the United States; then you have PR for the United States, which was Artie Maren, who, when I was in, used to be sent here to handle quite a few things. Legal, Mary Rezzonico; Finance Mary Heldt, which is the wife of Henning Heldt.
You'll notice that it's a very close-knit organization.
Director of Social Coordination is a good friend of mine, Laurie Zurin, who, I will say — it should get her in a lot of trouble — she's going to be out and appearing some day.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Mr. Walters —
MR. WALTERS:
She's a good girl.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Mr. Walters —
MR. WALTERS:
Yes.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
— the — just for clarification, now, the top row that you went through there, which was the Worldwide —
MR. WALTERS:
Right.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
— Guardian's —
MR. WALTERS:
That's in England.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
— Office, that's in Clearwater?
MR. WALTERS:
No. That — this — the one I'm showing you is England.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Is in England.
MR. WALTERS:
In England.
The Worldwide is officially at East Grinstead, England.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Okay.
Now —
MR. WALTERS:
But here's the thing: You see, this man up here runs the operation.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Right.
MR. WALTERS:
All right.
An intelligence agent can't do anything unless it runs through the thing to L. Ron Hubbard. So, the real base of operations is where he is, and the connection to him is through Clearwater.
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Now, that's located in England.
Now, the United States section that you just went through, is that still in Los Angeles now?
MR. WALTERS:
Information is in Los Angeles; US is still — Artie's in Los Angeles; Mary's in Los Angeles; Heldt is in Los Angeles; Laurie Zurin is still in Los Angeles.
But that's — that is an organization point of view; the operations are still run out of Clearwater —
MR. SHOEMAKER:
Right.
MR. WALTERS:
— as the senior Flag of all of them.
As you know, the guy up here — these people are all in England, the United States. This man cannot be found. So, there are operatives that work through him wherever he is — is where they run. And my best knowledge is that the operation is from Clearwater directly to him, because I can give you a bit of information — is it okay to say it?
MR. FLYNN:
You're — yeah, you're under oath.
MR. WALTERS:
All right.
I don't know — they have just — this is what I hear from insiders. Insiders tell me Mr. Hubbard is very harsh when things do not go right. Apparently, the Guardian's Office was supposed to stop you people from this trial — these hearings. They did not stop you. A lot of them have just been sacked. He has brought in his young crew of CMO, Commodore Messengers Org. These are all the young kids that have, been trained by him since they're thirteen years old. They are now going to put Ethics in on Clearwater.
MR. BERFIELD:
Question: Is this the same group that one of the witnesses the other day referred to as almost in terms of the Gestapo?
MR. WALTERS:
That's right.
These young kids are starey-eyed, devoted to Hubbard, and mayors and people like you will not scare them.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Another witness already mentioned that these CMO people have had so little contact with the outside world, they don't recognize governmental agencies or policies or laws.
And these people, according to hearsay, now are in charge of the entire operation. Can you comment to that?
MR. WALTERS:
Yeah.
I know some of them; they started on the ship. They've had no outside schooling at all. They know these policies inside out; they can quote them verbatim. They've been trained by Hubbard. They are tough little cookies, I'll tell you.
MR. LeCHER:
What does Ethics mean on Clearwater?
MR. WALTERS:
Ethics means that, apparently, there are attacks — they look at this open hearing as an open attack, and Ethics will be to come and clean this up.
MR. LeCHER:
Explain this a little better, "clean this up."
MR. WALTERS:
Well, that means that — I'll tell you exactly what —
MR. LeCHER:
What will happen?
MR. WALTERS:
All right.
This is what'll happen: This division over here will go through all the files that they have, covert and overt on you, and find out what they can use. This division will start a campaign written up to make it look like a beautiful church. This division will sue all of you individually, collectively, and probably the City of Clearwater.
MR. LeCHER:
They've done that already.
MRS. GARVEY:
They've already done that.
MR. WALTERS:
They have?
MRS. GARVEY:
Yes.
MR. WALTERS:
The Finance Bureau will have to do whatever they can to make sure the records are safe. The Social Coordination Bureau will have to set up things that show that [Narconon], et cetera, are not part of Scientology.
MR. CALDERBANK:
You mean, Sammy the Seagull, Gerus Society, [Narconon] will be on call to help the publicity throughout Clearwater?
MR. WALTERS:
Yes.
MR. CALDERBANK:
The PR will —
MR. WALTERS:
It will be a massive campaign set here.
MR. CALDERBANK:
It's in operation —
MR. WALTERS:
Oh, it's in operation already?
Now, if you want to know what — I know that some of this stuff sounds like I'm trying to make up things, you know.
Here is an actual document marked "Secret," concerning Clearwater. It's an operation done by Deputy — Deputy Deputy Guardian US. It says here that "Duke" — Duke Snider, you saw his name on the other board — "you asked for a chart for enemy lines used up to this point for Clearwater attack after research of the files was done." This is the files they have on you people.
"Attach this chart; it looks complete to me. From this, I see the areas of priority to infiltrate are" —
MRS. GARVEY:
The Saint Petersburg Times.
MR. WALTERS:
— "Saint Petersburg Times, Mayor" —
MR. CALDERBANK:
Gabe Cazares.
MR. WALTERS:
— "Channel 13 TV, Bruce Snyder" — is there a Snyder here?
MRS. GARVEY:
He‘s a radio —
MR. LeCHER:
He's a radio personality.
MR. WALTERS:
Has he been handled? Is he still around?
MRS. GARVEY:
No.
MR. WALTERS:
"Florida Attorney General's Office, Florida State Attorney General Russell.
"As things have been quite hectic with the first few days, I wanted to send you this to go over. Any change or additions you want to add would be okay."
I would suggest they've probably added quite a few now.
MR. FLYNN:
For the record, that — this exhibit on the easel is part of one of the hundreds of documents in an exhibit which will be entitled "Scientology Operations in Clearwater," of which we have made a copy for each of the Commissioners. And that's just one of the documents.
That's not Operation Normandy to which I referred. That's just a piece of correspondence about a particular operation. Operation Normandy, which you'll see right at the front of your exhibit, lays out all the areas of infiltration.
This particular — at this particular time and date, they put that down as a priority.
MRS. GARVEY:
This is dated 1976.
MR. FLYNN:
That's correct.
MR. BERFIELD:
I have one more question —
MR. WALTERS:
Yes, sir.
MR. BERFIELD:
— it'll be a loaded one.
In your opinion, if this new guard comes in, how would you define them?
MR. WALTERS:
As young, tough, highly trained, elite, totally dedicated to Scientology.
MR. BERFIELD:
Rational?
MR. WALTERS:
Well, not — not rational or sane in our sense. But do not underestimate their cleverness and dedication to duty.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Mr. Walters, we've heard evidence that shows that policy is still being adhered to.
Is that what leads you to believe that this type of thing is happening in the city today?
MR. WALTERS:
Oh, yes.
You see, one of the key words for me and a tech person is "prediction." See, the Guardian's Office gives prediction to an area. You must know what your enemy is going to do. By keeping files on you people and on the city, they can predict what you're going to do. In fact, the whole Guardian's Office Information is — that's their goal; it's called prediction.
And if you fellows ever do anything that they did not expect, that Hubbard gets surprise at, then, most of the fellows here get their heads slapped.
MR. LeCHER:
Are you saying that local government is in danger?
MR. WALTERS:
To Scientology? Of course it is.
MR. LeCHER:
Because — yeah —
MR. WALTERS:
Yes.
MR. LeCHER:
— we are in danger?
MR. WALTERS:
Yes.
MR. LeCHER:
To whatever the young and elite may do?
MR. WALTERS:
I would not be surprised if you have some new secretaries coming in looking for jobs or have had in the past. Because Hubbard is not fooling around.
MR. LeCHER:
Okay.
MR. FLYNN:
Why don't you just describe what — where Hermann's position is. Where is it?
MR. WALTERS:
Oh, okay.
All right, Mitch Hermann here — you're familiar with him; he's had a lot to do with Clearwater things. He's in the Guardian's Office, handling the Southeastern Section. I see there's an assistant —
MRS. GARVEY:
That's Mike Cooper that —
MR. WALTERS:
Yeah.
Anyway, this shows he's directly on the Intelligence/Information line, and he's well known. I mean, there's no doubt who he is to anybody that's in Scientology.
MR. LeCHER:
Okay.
We have another witness. Ladies and gentlemen, we have two more witnesses.
MR. FLYNN:
What I think I'll do at this time — I don't know what the Commission — how late the Commission intends to go.
There are some documents that I think need to be shown in order to put some of the issues of — or one of the issues in perspective, which kind of translates into a lot of the other issues in front of the Commission. It's particularly important because of the fact that there are auditing files of thousands of individuals sitting over in the Fort Harrison. All of the people that came here to this city thought that they would be confidential, and, as you know, one of the fundamental issues before the Commission is that one particular consideration.
So, I'm going to put into evidence at this point some of the — just a few of the documents that were seized by the FBI with regard to auditing information. And I again caution you that this is simply a sampling.
Very quickly this is a project that the entire exhibit will show regarding — Mary Sue Hubbard, regarding the using of the files, as operating targets: "To make use of all files in the organization to effect a major target. These include the personnel files, Ethics files, dead files, central files, training files, processing files, requests for refunds."
It's simply one of their programs with regard to one of the files to give you an idea of the program.
This is — you'll note the date 27 September ‘76; this pertains to one individual who they were checking out for whatever reason.
"Donna's auditing files start in July 1963 at Saint Kill, United Kingdom, where she was on the" — some type of briefing course, Mr. Walters would know. "She was being run on GR 6 processing at that time. During this auditing, she worked with rock slam" — RS means rock slam, which, basically, means to substantially fail a security check, where the needle on the Meter slams against the side, which means you've got a very serious withhold or a very serious condition that has to be looked into — "on Jane Kember, LRH, Herbie Parkhouse, and Fred Hare." What that means is she was asked questions and security checked about Kember, Hubbard, Parkhouse, and Hare. And it immediately became very significant because she rock slammed on that particular part of the security check.
"Donna has been in Scientology since at least 1952; she attended the Doctor's course in Philadelphia at that time. While at the PDC, she was promiscuous; she slept with four or five men during the course, two of them on the org. premises. She has quite a record of promiscuity in these early years. With three male PCs, she let them touch her genitals during sessions because they got into sexingness. She has masturbated regularly since she was eight years old. Mentions doing it with coffee grounds, doesn't say how, and once had a puppy lick her."
As you can see, the whole thing goes through. And it's just to give you an indication of the type of information that's being used and —
MR. GREENE:
Read number three, Mike.
MR. FLYNN:
And in three, you'll see an "Enemy Formula Writeup" done at ASHO, that's the American Saint Hill Organization. "She mentions leaving her husband, Mo, in May 1952, but she does not give his last name. There is no mention of it in our files. She was also married to Bill Fisk, who was shot while she was on the" — that briefing course — "at Saint Hill. Bill had been sleeping with Phoebe Hjelm and Helaine Grimes, now Simmons, before he got shot for sleeping with a student at Seattle Org. Donna had agreed that he could sleep around while she was away. Donna denied him sex even when she was with him and would masturbate to satisfy herself."
Yeah, there's another indication there that they were also using the Ethics files. And you'll note the date, 27th September ‘76, when the Church was in this city and Mr. Mayor Cazares was trying to find out who they were.
There is a succession of these documents; there are hundreds of them. That's an example. We'll put a number of them into evidence, but it will give you an idea.
MRS. GARVEY:
Is it all the same flavor in all of them?
MR. FLYNN:
They're all basically the same flavor; some have crimes, some have sex, some have drugs, some involve specific operations to blackmail: how they're going to do it, extort, some of them are against news people, some of them are against news reporters who tried to conduct investigations that worked where the news reporters dropped their investigations; the Scientology investigations disclosed extramarital affairs, whatever.
MR. LeCHER:
All right.
You have told that they may — you or Mr. Walters. I wonder about the newsmen that are covering this event.
Do you think they should take special care themselves?
MR. FLYNN:
I would say that, you know, they're on, as Mr. Walters would describe, they're on the PR end, and they've just been getting hit with heavy PR day in and day out. Probably, for the last three or four months, every other hour, someone has been going down to the Clearwater Sun and the Saint Pete Times, Clearwater Station, and just hitting the reporters constantly with PR. They sent out that booklet in Clearwater, "The Way to Happiness," you know, the —
MRS. GARVEY:
He meant from the other side, the harassment side.
MR. LeCHER:
I mean harassment.
We may all be able to indicate a few things that we suspect, but I wonder about the reporters, they may have to be on their guard, too.
MR. FLYNN:
It depends whether they're cooperating or not.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Dianetics —
MR. FLYNN:
If they still pose a threat, then, they would go, as Mr. Walters and as many witnesses have testified, they go to the next level of operation. If they still pose a threat, they go to the next level of operation.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Mr. Flynn, how would you characterize, say — Austin, Texas was mentioned by Mr. Mayer. And there is an article in one of the newspapers today about Austin, Texas having a — what is it —
MR. FLYNN:
Proclamation.
MR. CALDERBANK:
— Proclamation, proclaiming how great Dianetics was. Now this appeared in the paper.
Is this an example of reporters and the heavy PR that they are fed day in and day out? How can something like that occur?
MR. FLYNN:
You can draw your own inferences from the evidence based on policy. The — it significantly appeared next to the Clearwater the article about Scientology in today's paper. You can draw your own significant — your own inferences from the evidence that you've heard to this point.
MR. LeCHER:
I believe I owe their mayor a letter.
Re: CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH O
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Posted:
Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:46 pm
by admin
Part 13 of 15
JOHN G. CLARK, M.D.
MR. FLYNN:
Jack Clark, please.
I say Jack Clark because I've come to know him; it's Dr. John Clark, and he's one of the — well, I won't state his credentials.
MR. LeCHER:
Dr. Clark, will you be sworn in, please.
JOHN G. CLARK, M.D., a witness herein, having first been duly sworn by a Clerk for the City of Clearwater, was examined and testified as follows:
MR. LeCHER:
I must also ask you the same five standard questions, sir.
Are you appearing here today and testifying under oath voluntarily?
DR. CLARK:
Yes. Yes, I am.
MR. LeCHER:
Have you been paid by anyone for your testimony, other than expenses for coming to Clearwater?
DR. CLARK:
No.
MR. LeCHER:
Do you have a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology?
DR. CLARK:
No.
MR. LeCHER:
Do they have a lawsuit against you?
DR. CLARK:
Yes.
MR. LeCHER:
They do
Has anyone suggested to you that you should state anything but the truth or has anyone suggested that you change your testimony for any reason?
DR. CLARK:
No.
MR. LeCHER:
Thank you.
Mr. Flynn, do you want to present your witness? Or Dr. Clark — how you would like to proceed.
MR. FLYNN:
The purpose of this testimony is basically in the line of expert testimony, because there are mental health conditions involved in this city. There are mental health issues that have been presented before the Board.
In addition to that, there's a level of harassment, which goes to some of the policy considerations I mentioned earlier, that Dr. Clark has been subjected to. But his basic testimony is of an expert nature with regard to some of these mental health issues.
MR. LeCHER:
Since you are an expert witness, state your qualifications.
DR. CLARK:
My name is John G. Clark, Jr., M.D. I have been an M.D. from 1953, at the time that I graduated from Harvard Medical School. I have been trained in psychiatry in the Boston area in the Massachusetts Hospital and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, also a part of the Massachusetts General Hospital. I have worked on the staff — I want to say on staff — on the staffs of these two hospitals, as well as another organization in the same area. I am now in private practice since 1973.
My work has been very, very wide, mostly clinical and having to do with people from adolescence on up, as well as community work in various places around the Boston area.
My interest in Scientology came along at the same time as my interest in rapid conversions and the processes that led up to those conversions. This is not a well-known area in the psychiatric world.
MR. LeCHER:
Explain "rapid conversions."
DR. CLARK:
Rapid conversion tends to be a massive change of personality, of belief systems over a very short time, brought about by usually deceptive practices of the people who want to get these people. There are also very many other kinds of conversions which are expected, useful, sometimes related to real illness, such as temporal lobe epilepsy, for instance. It's a very, very interesting area.
I showed my interest two years after I began to do some studying. I studied as a result of being asked by a fellow physician for help; he had problems with his son, who was a disturbed young man, who had gotten himself involved in the Hare Krishna doctrine — cult. Two years later, approximately, I had begun to believe these astounding things that I was hearing about and actually seeing. It was very hard to believe. In other words, I did not go into this study clearly knowing what I wanted to hear.
I then spoke — gave testimony — to the Special — a group, the Special Committee of the Senate of the Vermont Legislature in '76. And from that time the pan has been in the fire because I did mention, among a few other people, the Church of Scientology. I found out much later, just very recently, that they had been worried about me before I even got to that particular place to speak my words.
From that point on there has been an unrelenting kind of harassment, whatever they wish to try to do to me to try to get me out of this business. They seem to be very, very frightened of somebody legitimate, as a Harvard professor, who could possibly talk in a negative way about their group.
I might say in this regard that I am not interested in religion itself; I'm interested in the behavior of groups and the relationship of those behaviors to what I would consider to be harmful results, and especially through the process of conversion. And I will not have time to give you the entire view of that.
I would like to first show you how hard it is for any kind of a professional to look into this area. This is very much like an anthropologist who decides that he must go up to see the river in New Guinea in order to look into the mating processes of the — of some of the natives up there who are still eating one another to a degree. Now, I don't mean to put down their culture; their culture in some ways is just as valid as ours. But the people who, come in from the outside are not necessarily going to be treated all that well. And it was my interest of looking into the cultures of these groups to find out what had happened to the individuals who had been taken into them and why had they changed so much and why had they become so mean.
Now, if I can give you a brief listing of what has happened: In my writing, I have put down some of the attacks on me. In '77, the — I got my first letter from them, telling me that I had said the wrong things in the Vermont legislative — the hearing and I'd better stop it. I got a series of calls, which I pretty much ignored. They, also, quite simultaneously, wrote a whole series of letters to the Deans at Harvard Medical School and the head of the Massachusetts General Hospital.
In '78, three of my patients were investigated enough so that their places of work and their places of living were known to Scientologists, who then called them and asked them about my behavior in treating them. To a doctor, that is extremely bad business, just terrible.
Shortly after that, in about '78, I was called a Communist because of their interest in my daughter and my having gone to Russia to visit. And they put that into some very interesting fiction which they had put together from all of their investigations of my neighbors and friends, which they then presented to the legislative committee that was beginning to look into some matters of other cults.
They also tried twice to keep me out of England by sending a very strong protest to the proper authorities in England, looking into the matters on Ron Hubbard.
In 1979, I and a number of others were picketed by the Scientologists twice, once in Pennsylvania at a meeting we were having, talking about cults, and one at the then IMH where we were having the only meeting on the cults that the government has been able to put together so far.
In 1978, they lodged a complaint to the Board of Registration of Medicine. This is the Board that gives us our right to practice medicine, and that's in Massachusetts. This had to do with my behavior in court on a case that had to do with the original family that brought me into this, quote, business in the first place. That particular problem with the Board of Registration stretched on for a very long time.
By 1979, they were in Montreal passing out flyers at the place where I was giving my lectures at McGill. This time they were calling me a Nazi.
In 1980, they were sending an article to all kinds of people very high up in my profession, purporting to be something rather favorable to me, except that it was about ECT, electroshock treatment, and it had some material in it that claimed to be direct quotes from me saying that deprogramming could be brought about by the use of electroshock treatment. Fortunately, I have friends who called me up and said, "What's this all about?" But I'm still quite sure that some people think that I'm advocating ECT.
They began to blow hard in various ways toward me in their magazine or their Freedom paper. And we have one copy of the most recent ones, '78 to '81. They call me a Nazi and one of the leaders of the ARM, as they call it in their own internal records, and that's the Anti-Religious Movement.
Several people approached my professor, one a college student who was looking for information and just happened to mention me in some way that was really quite derogatory, a patient who tried to get into my office and talk to me, somebody on one of the television shows from the Citizens' Commission on Human Rights talked about my use of drugs and ECT and my terrible attitude toward these people. Another — in about '80, another student wanted to study deprogramming, and it was quite clear, when we checked up, that was certainly not what she was interested in. It goes on and on and on.
In 1981, another complaint was lodged at the Board of Registration, and in this attempt — a second one was also lodged, a third one now lodged against me, both of them very, very clear — one from a Scientologist and the other one, again, purportedly from a Moonie; however, it had all the earmarks of the Scientology capacity to mischief.
By the way, all of these complaints have been dismissed. The first one was dismissed with a little bit of nastiness on the part of the Board, who could not — which could not understand what was going on. The last two, which recently came to me, are clear, clear releases from any obligation at all.
This past year from last July, there has been a fire storm of attacks. There's almost something once or twice every week coming. Because I haven't answered to them, they can't do some of the things they did to Paulette. But they did a few other interesting things, such as picketing the Mass. General Hospital and passing out some very interesting leaflets, offering a twenty-five thousand dollar-reward, for instance, for information leading to my conviction. This was done several months. They approached every newspaper, every TV outlet —
MR. CALDERBANK:
They wanted —
MR. LeCHER:
They only offered four thousand nine hundred fifty for ours.
DR. CLARK:
Well, that's beginning to make me think that I'm bigger than I really thought I was. I was thinking, as I was listening to everybody here, "I'm a pretty small potato."
These are all — it even goes on further. They also informed me, in the midst of all of this, of the kangaroo court Ethics trial last fall, and they had — I guess you could probably believe that they convicted me. They offered me the possibility of some kind of release if I would just admit that I was wrong. And so it goes on and on and on.
And it's obvious that this organization does not want to be criticized, and the way of handling criticism is the ad hominem attack, which is what we've been talking about all along. It is very, very unlikely that they will really argue on the basis of the facts or of the allegations against them. They will simply try to do what they have done before, that is, to make life too painful for anybody to go on with this kind of attack, which they are launching on me.
They consider me someone with some sort of animus against them, of course, that they will try to prove in these various cases against me. As a matter of fact, they make their own enemies, obsessively make their own enemies. They try very hard not to let anybody know that, but anybody who even, begins to look into this and speaks out at all is going to find that the enemy situation has once again arisen.
I would like now to talk a little bit about what happens from a clinical view. I'm really not all that happy just to talk about my own predicament, the degradations against me. I'm surviving them and — but I think they are somehow illustrative of —
MRS. GARVEY:
We know what we're going to have to go through.
DR. CLARK:
You might as well face up to it, you're becoming heroes whether you like it or not. We'll talk about suggestions for them maybe later.
What happens, and in general, what happens to the people who go into Scientology? Why do they change so much? How does it happen? What is there about the human mind that most of us do not want to know that does it make it possible for one of our children, who has been thoroughly healthy in every way, to be caught up in one of the groups and, suddenly or over a few months, are simply lost to the parents and to the community?
The change in these people tends to be very, very large. The parents who have said to me that "My two older kids got into drugs, sex, and they led me on a merry chase. But I knew that was just sort of added on, applied, to them. And my younger daughter, who was the nice one, behaving herself, went into the Divine Light Mission. The change was integral." This is also true of the changes of people who go into the Church of Scientology. In fact, in some ways it — the changes are even more complete.
It's no wonder, for instance, that they tend not to like to have people in and amongst them whose parents and family do not agree with their choice, if you want to call it choice; they're PTSs, and often they do not allow them to stay in. It's much easier to bring about these changes and have it not noted — or them not note it — if the parents don't — either don't give a damn or they sort of like the quiet, controlled people that have now stopped taking drugs and are very, very busy doing what they're supposed to do.
But, in fact, the human mind is capable of an enormous amount of change in a short time. It can, as I said, happen from natural forces. It's quite commonly seen in temporal lobe epilepsy, and sometimes — I should also mention just for your imaginations to work on — that the people with temporal lobe epilepsy are also characterized by their absolute need to write, constantly write: turn out poetry and they just write in a descriptive manner. I'm not suggesting that anybody we have talked about might have this.
It's very clear that at some point these people who also go through various kinds of conversions do have — that those who go through conversions naturally do have real changes in their brain structure. But you don't have to have that. You can be an ordinary kid who's just going through a bad time, and that's why the late adolescents are the best marketplace for cults, in general.
The process is quite fairly simple to bring them in. First, get their attention, entice them into someplace where they can then be bombarded with information; it's a closed system where all the information is controlled and where the seduction can be set up. Over a period of time — and it can be very short from minutes to two weeks — the attention of the individual is very carefully narrowed, just narrowed. These various processes that are used in Scientology, for instance, are attention narrowing processes. It requires the individual to attend to only the task for a very, very long time.
There is in this a great relationship to formal hypnosis; in fact, exactly the same is just done to them. And the object is to push the mind, the attention, to a narrower and narrower state until something kind of breaks. It's a system — the mind is a system that is highly flexible. But with any flexible system, there is a limit of elasticity. If you push it hard enough, you'll crack, snap, whatever you want to call it. Any one of us, under certain circumstances of very high pressure, might find themselves cracking one way or another.
Then, if the person who has brought about this cracking, this changing, this snapping, this trance state, can manage that state for a time, can manage it and keep it under control — in other words, the person's old mind has been taken down under this heavy pressure, a kind of emergency — if they can keep it under control long enough, the individual must then identify with those people who are managing the whole system; they identify with everything. They begin to take in information: the rules, the language, everything. It's like falling in love. It's the same process, except that it's managed differently.
That's why this is so mundane in one respect: There's nothing about this that is really, really spooky. But if this management is done just the right way by very intense processes and by people who signal their intent to control — which, again, applies to this matter today — the individual, as I said, becomes almost as all those other people. The only way to survive, for the mind to survive, is to become as much like the persons who have begun to hold you as hostage as possible.
There has been a lot written about the Stockholm effect in hostage taking, where the people who are with the hostage for a long time in a very ambiguous state, not knowing whether or not they're going to be killed or tortured or something — they're — these people sometimes fall in love with the person who has held them hostage. Again, go back to the fact that most of this is normal but it is manipulated.
It must be remembered that in almost all — in fact really in all of those organizations which are most dangerous, nobody is told in advance what is going to happen. There is no argument about the virtues of the organization — and it's interesting — until after the change of the mind or conversion. It's a snapping, it's whatever you want, a leap into another world.
Now, this means that these people who have gone that far are now in a different state of mind, essentially, a separate personality; it's a dual personality. The first personality is put on hold. Again, it sounds like science fiction, but it can be done and it can be replicated; it's been done in — by hypnosis. And it has to be managed by more and more and more processes, so that the whole thing just sort of gels and people just can't get out of it; they cannot get out of it.
But it's made easier for them to stay in if they are kept with their own people, so they don't have a chance to sort of talk — talk it out with people completely outside. And this is what happens.
Now, in this state, these various kinds of cults become the most dangerous of all people, that is, they take on as a mass the we/they psychology. That is, "We exist and we're real; they" — they're all of you — "you don't understand us." And because they're so focused and cannot remember any of the tenderness of their earlier times toward parents or friends or others, they are extremely intolerant, extremely intolerant. They are behavior paranoia in their simplicity of thinking and are easily pushed — well, they're totally pushed around by the leaders.
This means that within two weeks individuals who have first come into the Moonies have signed checks for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to go to the Moonies. You see, it isn't just the Church of Scientology that can get a lot of money out of people in a hurry.
The — in these groups, almost — in almost every case — it's almost a real rule — the people who run them are living still; they're the living leaders who are charismatic individuals who have found out how to manipulate other people's minds. It's very hard for most cults to continue to go on; probably, 99.9 percent of them die within one generation for very good reasons, often because the children don't go along with it.
They are in this state, the we/they state, entirely non-charitable. They do not see others as valid; they're not real. In the case of the Church of Scientology, those who, have gone far enough through their processing cannot believe that it is important to be a human being; they're something else. And those of us who are human beings are — have no regard from them; our lives are of no importance whatsoever. It's something else. Perhaps, you'll say that's getting into their religious beliefs, but sometimes you have to know something about the nature of belief in order to understand behavior, especially, as egregious as that which we are talking about today
Another factor in this is all too often the reason that individuals come out in a really hurt state, and that is, they reject all magic except their own. Now, I'm saying that somewhat ironically. They think, for instance, that medicine is bad magic and, thus, the — because they also reject the scientific view of knowledge, they are unable to understand the medicine, medical position on anything. Thus, too many of these groups — and, again, I'm talking about Scientology in particular — are not at all capable of approaching doctors effectively, and they're often too late when they do. They have a few captured physicians working with them, and I say this with no prejudice to the — to them, that many, many chiropractors have been gotten in.
It is necessary in the case of all of these groups that they isolate these people that they have just brought in, the proselytes — isolate them from their families — because their families remind them too much of the past, and they can sometimes break into the mind control state.
And one other little thing, just — I'll just mention the TRs and the bull baiting, which are seen as — by me, as managing the focusing of the mind. There are many, many ways of doing that. I think that the particular ways the Church of Scientology does this can be extraordinarily damaging over the long run and over the short run.
These are exercises involving two people across the table with the E-Meter in the middle, with the face of the E-Meter to the auditor. And, thus, certain kinds of processes — questions are asked over and over again in such a way that it is impossible for the individual to answer them really quite right, depending a little bit on what the auditor wants to get from these persons. Well, this is also eye-to-eye contact. The individual who is brought in must pay absolute attention to the auditor or will have to flunk and go back to the beginning of the rather painful processes. And by the time the individual gets through with this — the mind is already controlled. And by the time they go through the first auditing courses successfully, they are entirely under control of the auditor himself and will take almost any order from that person.
One of the more heavy auditing processes that I have heard of is the one of sitting knee-to-knee for about eight hours, looking at one another, and saying nothing and not blinking or answering some absurd question over and over and over and over and over, perhaps, sometimes with bull baiting, which means they'll have to answer these questions correctly no matter what else is going on in the room, whether or not there are personal touches, some kind of laughing, some kind of nasty statements, sexual approaches. The person being audited cannot even begin to show any movement on the E—Meter or any in the face; it must absolutely be flat. In other words, that person must not respond emotionally to anything.
This kind of treatment of the individual, to cut out any response to, for instance, conscience or the outrageous processes that are going on, simply empties them of this capacity to act really in a human way.
Now, for a while it feels fine. But often these people have gone through an enormous amount of pain to get to the point where they think they're beginning to be happier. And, in fact, very few of them are happy; they're just reaching for that which they have been promised but never comes.
There is much to say about the Church of Scientology that may not sound exactly scientific, but it is nonetheless, sort of conclusional. One is that what they do is in general, very hurting, often to the detriment of the mind. A number of people have come out of Scientology with no minds at all, no flow of consciousness. It has taken years to reinstate the mind. And all they remember as they come out is hurt, hurt, hurt. Almost every one of these processes, unless you happen to be a celebrity, is extremely painful.
If you are doing the wrong thing, just like the child you are subjected to punishments. Many of these things we've talked about today are very much like a punishment to a bad child, except it goes so much further. But here, when the mind begins to fail and is entirely held up by the processes and by the orders of an organization like this, if something goes wrong within that system — that is, that the biological self, which cannot always be kept completely programmed, or the system itself, which has its own glitches — the individual maybe suddenly put out on a ledge, as it were, with nothing holding — nothing to hold on: the mind emptied of any natural flow of consciousness, of memories of the past, of an adequate control of the English language. Yes, they almost never seem to be able to put a document together that is in decent English language. And these individuals either must go flat out mad or — in several cases we've heard about, probably many cases that have been lost — in suicide.
Fortunately, for a lot of people who have come out by themselves, after a while — as with the other cults — their minds will reassemble themselves over a period of time, at least a year is necessary. The first year or so may be one of great pain, much anxiety for all of the rest of the family, and it gets even worse when they realize how much of the world they have lost, how much of a chance for a happy life they have left behind.
Thank you.
MR. LeCHER:
Thank you.
Is an E—Meter similar in controlling your emotions to a bio-feedback machine?
DR. CLARK:
Yes, it is. And it's — it's a lie detector, in effect.
One of the great achievements of the Church of Scientology is that it seems to be able to teach people how to beat the polygraph, and I have my reservations about the worth of that. But that's essentially what it is.
It short circuits the certain kinds of mental processes, if used by a very trained person, that is, that they can appear to be a little magical about their understanding of what's going on in the person who is being audited. They get that person's attention more and more focused. It's very simple to do without the E-Meter, as a matter of fact.
But almost all of us know that in hypnotism — the old-fashioned mesmerizers used to do this kind of thing with some kind of device to center the mind on, and this is really what the E-Meter is all about.
MR. LeCHER:
If those that are so committed, so hooked, can somehow read the newspaper or watch these hearings, do you think they'd have enough to be questioning their lifestyle and want to get out?
DR. CLARK:
I somehow think the threat of the cult conversion and the kind of dreadful things that happen after are not as likely to lure a victim as, for instance, drugs, because they believe that they can handle drugs over a shorter period of time.
However, drugs are not being handled by quite such clever people as the cults. And the cults also have the friendship of the Civil Liberties Union and some of the leaders in the major denominations to sort of stand behind them and stand aside of them, saying this is also legitimate religions of whatever kind.
In that sense, I can't answer your question really yes or no.
MR. FLYNN:
If I may just interject one minute: The city received a letter from Branch — it was the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation, which was sent to Mr. Shoemaker, and it opposed these hearings. There are — there is at least one name, perhaps, two names — but definitely, one name of an individual attorney on the list of that National Committee Against Repressive Legislation who defended Mary Sue Hubbard and other defendants in the Washington criminal case. And upon various items of information that we have received, the legal fees in connection with that defense were in the range of four to six million dollars.
MRS. GARVEY:
We're in the wrong business.
MR. BERFIELD:
You better well believe it.
MR. LeCHER:
What — all right, I know we're getting late but — what suggestions can you give us? What should we do and what can we do as elected representatives of a fair-sized city taken over by a large organization that has much more, frankly, money than we have?
DR. CLARK:
That's right.
I did not mention at the very beginning that I have been facing two nuisance suits for conspiracy, and they are nuisance suits. And, indeed, the nuisance suits will be a part of the future.
It's up to us to rally our allies, the people who believe in the open society, who can smell tyranny when they hear about it. It's about time in this particular period that we admit that we're, as a country, in a lot of trouble, and countries in a lot of trouble have always had business with cults all through history. But, now, it's time to stand up and say that "This isn't working."
Now, these are groups who do not like to deal with the truth about them. They believe in what they're doing, but they know that from another point of view what they're doing is impermissible. What we can ask of them in meetings like this, when they have their time, is to speak to the issues instead of attacking individuals — which they will do, they'll attack individuals — so that they can compete in the marketplace of ideas and beliefs, and we'll let them compete all they wish. But we must not forget we're talking about their behavior which is, essentially, terrorist.
MR. LeCHER:
I think that's very well put. What you're saying is that — do not attack individuals but compete in the marketplace for ideas, and I think that's very well put, and I appreciate it.
Do you want — Commissioners, do you want any questions? I know it's getting late and —
MR. CALDERBANK:
How would you guide us? This Commission is very concerned about the difference between church and state and secular or religious interest. How would you guide us on — you mentioned behavior. How would you guide us? How would you give advice to this Commission on how to proceed?
DR. CLARK:
I face that right now. It evolved — in this country, the behavior of religious organizations is not somehow guarded by the First Amendment. There's a lot of nonsense about that. This whole country is not set up in order that religions can do whatever they wanted to do; we're really quite frightened of the word "religion."
On the contrary, the First Amendment has two sides: It's there to protect us from religious zealotry and fanaticism, as much as the other way around. How many of our first immigrants were running away, not from government but from religious persecution by religions?
This is going to be the problem of the next generation of religious organizations and new organizations of minds and groups. Now, sometimes, they will not call them religious organizations, but right now in this country, because there's a First Amendment, it is useful to do so.
In the case of the Church of Scientology, you can almost say that it is an ad hoc religion; it became a religion because it realized that it was convenient to be a religion.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Do you feel your First Amendment rights have been impeded by their actions?
DR. CLARK:
Well, in —
MR. CALDERBANK:
Freedom of speech.
DR. CLARK:
— my case, I don't think they have. I think they've blown it so far. They've just simply made me more interested in what they're doing.
MR. CALDERBANK:
Last question is: We've heard belief and behavior, and we've had a lot of people say their behavior is either criminal or fraudulent.
How would you characterize their behavior?
DR. CLARK:
I think I would characterize this organization by the definitions of the court of their leaders: it's a criminal organization. And, certainly, the behavior toward Paulette Cooper and to many others is truly criminal. Their willingness, their readiness to do anything criminal in order to do what they want to do is characteristic of their criminal mind.
MR. LeCHER:
Thank you.
We have a — Commissioners, I'd like to get to the last witness. If you have something you must ask Dr. Clark, go ahead.
Thank you very much, sir. You have summed it up very well.
We have one more witness that won't last too long, but because of things beyond our control we're going to take a five-minute break and come right back.