Posted by Mike Rinder1
February 5, 2018Clearly, David Miscavige is feeling the mounting pressure on his most cherished treasure: tax exempt status bestowed on scientology by the IRS in 1993.
It takes considerable effort to get a letter published about a relatively obscure subject in a major paper like the LA Times. It is apparently a response to an op-ed piece that ran last November. 3 months of work to get this miserable piece of misleading propaganda to run…
Monique “Muffins” Yingling makes a rare appearance to argue on behalf of Miscavige. She has been as out of sight as the COB himself since her fateful appearance on 20/20 bearing a basket of slave labor baked muffins while appearing to be trying to send morse code “Help Me” messages with her constant blinking. For some years she was the most prominent spokesperson for scientology, after Miscavige got rid of any actual scientologist to speak on behalf of his organization (can you imagine a non-Catholic being the public spokesperson for the Catholic church?). She was the only one he trusted other than himself, and he has made clear it is beneath him to trifle with the lowlife “Chaos Merchants.” So he sent his non-scientologist consigliere instead to defend the faith and practices of scientology — of which she has no personal experience.
But now, like all other scientology “spokes”people, she makes no public appearances but delivers exclusively written missives. No more “blinky.” No more off-the-cuff boo-boos.
To be fair, she WAS intimately involved in the ultimately successful effort to get the IRS to reverse itself and the Supreme Court and grant religious tax exempt status to scientology. So at least she knows something about the subject (as opposed to her claiming disconnection is a “personal choice” and “Fair Game was canceled.”) Then again, I was also intimately involved. Though scientology likes to pretend I held no senior positions and know nothing, I attended numerous meetings at the IRS during the exemption process and I oversaw the collection and preparation of all the documents presented to the IRS. So, I have a few opinions I would like to express in response to Muffins.
Here is her op-ed in its entirety:
In a Nov. 16 Los Angeles Times op-ed article, Daily Beast correspondent James Kirchick asks, “In the world of religious tax exemptions, does Scientology measure up?” The answer to that question is a resounding yes.
I was the Church of Scientology’s primary tax counsel in its successful efforts to obtain federal tax exemption, a status it fully and fairly earned and continues to merit. Unlike Kirchick, I know exactly whereof I speak.
The Church of Scientology is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as tax exempt because it established to the agency’s satisfaction that it is organized and operates as a charitable religious organization. The church did not engage in a “ruthless battle to win a religious tax exemption”; rather, it simply worked continuously to demonstrate that it should be treated the same as other religious denominations.The examination process resulting in exemption in 1993 was fully documented through an extensive administrative record that was then and is still available for the public to review; at 14 feet tall if the papers are stacked, the IRS’ record on the church is the largest in the history of exempt organizations. The IRS determined that the church’s operations fully qualified as tax exempt then, and its operations continue to warrant that determination today.
Scientology’s acceptance as a world religion has come quickly by historical measures.
Kirchick’s claim that “America’s recognition of Scientology as a religion stands as an anomaly in the Western world” is not true. There are judicial decisions from the highest courts in Australia, the United Kingdom and Italy, in addition to numerous decisions from lower courts in dozens of other countries, including Spain, France and Germany, all holding that Scientology is a religion. Indeed, many of these decisions have provided the modern definition of religion in their respective jurisdictions.
The Australian High Court’s unanimous decision in 1983 stands as the leading precedent throughout the British Commonwealth for the definition of religion and charity status. In another unanimous decision, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court in 2013 not only recognized Scientology as a religion but also replaced that country’s Victorian-era definition of religion with a modern one that fully embraces Scientology. In 1997, the Supreme Court of Italy not only recognized the religiosity of Scientology, but also found the church’s fundraising practices to be fairer than those of the Roman Catholic Church. Scientology has been recognized as a religion by courts and governments across the globe, including most recently in Colombia last May and Mexico in November.
Kirchick did get one thing right in observing that Mormonism “was long considered a cult (its adherents the targets of episodic violence) but is now increasingly accepted by mainstream society as just another branch of Christianity.” This experience, however, is not unique to Mormons: History shows that virtually every new religious faith has been defamed, persecuted and suppressed by the society from which it emerged.
Before Constantine, the Roman Empire considered Christianity an obscure Jewish sect and a dangerous one at that. Genuine religions weather these storms and emerge even stronger because their adherents find sufficient value in the religious teachings to endure the attacks of religious bigots and the prejudice and discrimination they produce. This has proven true of Christianity and Mormonism and is continuing to prove true of Scientology.
Indeed, Scientology’s acceptance as a world religion has come quickly by historical measures. The church increasingly enjoys cooperative relations with numerous governments worldwide as well as with like-minded religious, social and humanitarian institutions in the communities it serves. Lost in a tabloid obsessed, click-bait culture is the real story of Scientology.
Monique Yingling is the Church of Scientology’s tax counsel.
Now, let’s consider a few of her statements and some of the glaring omissions.
The unaddressed elephant in the room and the big thing missing from the IRS review: no mention of the enormous amount of money spent by scientology to spy on and try to destroy whistleblowers and critics.
The money is disguised and difficult to trace because it is paid through law firms and scientology spends a LOT of money on lawyers. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars a month. This is NOT a valid use of tax exempt funds (if it was just an isolated and occasional incident that is part of a lawsuit it might be acceptable but not a repeating, consistent pattern). It IS enough for the exempt status of scientology to be terminated.
The IRS did ask in general terms about scientology’s violations of “public policy” and the allegations of abusing critics — it was all sloughed off as “that was just the renegade activities of the Guardian’s Office which we disbanded.” There was no mention of the fact that the policy written by Hubbard has not changed and remains in force and followed today. The IRS did not review the policy. They did not delve into the activities or how much money was thrown at PI’s and covert operations.
Second thing the IRS did NOT know is how scientology is accumulating empty buildings. The basic concept of tax exemption is that the money you bring in is spent on things which benefit society. You cannot start up a tax exempt entity and simply accumulate billions of dollars. One valid expense is providing facilities for the membership and the community at large. Normally a religious organization (or any organization for that matter), acquires or builds facilities that it needs. The IRS doesn’t contemplate that if an organization is opening facilities “to serve its congregation” that these are not needed and that the tax exempt entity has simply converted itself into a real estate holding company.
In fact, the accumulation of empty buildings, if they are NOT used, is really no different than accumulating money in a bank account.
Scientology would prefer to buy buildings than spend money on normal “charitable” activities because they money STAYS on their balance sheet. The IRS is blind to this scam — there is an inherent fear within government agencies of being accused of intrusion into religious affairs in violation of the First Amendment. So they tend to ignore this.
But let’s look a bit broader. The entire basis of Muffins piece is this: Where bad arguments against scientology’s tax exemption go to die: courts of law
Yet nobody has challenged scientology’s exemption in a US Court. The US SUPREME court determined that payments to scientology should NOT be tax deductible because they are a quid pro quo transaction and not a donation (See Hernandez v. Commissioner). With this as the law of the land it would be interesting to see how a court would rule on a challenge to the IRS determination that such donations ARE deductible and scientology entities are tax exempt. I suspect the bad arguments of scientology would go to die in a US court, just as they did in the Hernandez case.
Ms. Yingling conflates two things that she KNOWS are not the same. Determination that scientology is or is not a religion is NOT the same as a determination whether it qualifies for tax exempt status under the religious exemption contained in the Internal Revenue Code. Muffins proclaims “it should be treated the same as other religious denominations” — not so fast Muffy. You can be a religion and NOT qualify for tax exempt status. All religions are NOT the same. Your religion might well be recognized by scholars, but if your activities are violating public policy (for example, ingesting cocaine as a religious sacrament while claiming God is manifested in the leaf of the coca plant) then you are NOT entitled to tax exempt status. Let’s not forget, Scientology is NOT like other religions — they don’t have written policies to destroy critics, harass them with PI’s and operate a dirty tricks department.
The examination process resulting in exemption in 1993 was fully documented through an extensive administrative record that was then and is still available for the public to review; and you will find no mention of how much money is spent on harassing/intimidating/threatening whistleblowers or critics. Nor copies of the Hubbard writings about this. Nor information on how much money is spent annually on these activities. The “largest record in the history of the IRS” is missing some extremely important information. Scientology overwhelmed the IRS with information — they lost sight of important factors in the deluge of paper.
The IRS determined that the church’s operations fully qualified as tax exempt then, and its operations continue to warrant that determination today. How about the lies that were told the IRS in the course of the proceedings? Even beyond the omissions. Like this one:
It has been a long-standing policy of the Church that if someone is dissatisfied with their Scientology services and asks to have their contributions returned within a three month period, these amounts will be returned. Likewise, if the person asks for return of contributions for which no services were received (i.e. an advance payment), there is no three month limitation period. Anyone newly enrolling in services at a Church of Scientology is informed of the policies and signs an agreement to abide by them. As a further condition of receiving a refund or repayment, the person understands that they may not again receive services from the Church.
Within the Church, there are two separate terms: A “refund” refers to a return of contributions to a parishioner within 90 days of participating in religious services while a “repayment” refers to a return of a parishioner’s advance payment before he or she has participated in religious services. For simplicity, the following discussion will use the term “refund” to describe both types of transactions, because both involve a return of parishioner contributions.
The Church’s refund policy is exceedingly fair. If someone isn’t happy with Scientology — which is a very small minority of people — he simply has to make a proper request for his donations back, agree to forego further services and his donations will be returned. For the Church, in addition to the fact that this policy aligns with Scientology principles of exchange, it also serves the purpose of allowing our churches and the parishioners who are very happy with Scientology, to carry on without the unhappy few in their midst.
Clearly, this is NOT what scientology actually does. There are plenty of other things the IRS was NOT aware of and didn’t ask about like the relationship of the IAS to participation in scientology. Another key issue the IRS was hoodwinked about.
There are judicial decisions from the highest courts in Australia, the United Kingdom and Italy, in addition to numerous decisions from lower courts in dozens of other countries, including Spain, France and Germany, all holding that Scientology is a religion. Indeed, many of these decisions have provided the modern definition of religion in their respective jurisdictions. Here she goes again, conflating two things that are NOT the same, pretending they are (and of course NOT mentioning the highest court in the United States).
Scientology is specifically NOT exempt from taxation in the UK and other countries, even though for other purposes it may be recognized as a religion. Why? Because tax exempt status does not automatically flow from religious status. In fact, there is a public benefit test to qualify for tax exemption conducted by the “Charity Commission” in the UK. If you cannot demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Charity Commission that your religious organization benefits society beyond whatever claimed benefit it provides its members, you are not exempt. This is the fundamental theory of tax exemption. Governments do not tax activities that are providing a public benefit because were they NOT being provided by that entity, the government would have to provide those services. Such a test is not part of the law in the US — though it should be. The principle is similar and some of the rules are similar in the US — as in you cannot be engaged in activities that are in violation of “public policy” and you cannot accumulate too much money instead of using it for the public good — there is no public benefit test.
The Australian High Court’s unanimous decision in 1983 stands as the leading precedent throughout the British Commonwealth for the definition of religion and charity status. More of the straw man argument. This decision does NOT bestow tax exempt (charitable) status on scientology organizations in the vast majority of the British Commonwealth, including the seat of the Commonwealth in the United Kingdom.
Genuine religions weather these storms and emerge even stronger because their adherents find sufficient value in the religious teachings to endure the attacks of religious bigots and the prejudice and discrimination they produce. This has proven true of Christianity and Mormonism and is continuing to prove true of Scientology. Well, no it is not. Scientology is smaller today than it was 10 years ago, and 10 years ago it was smaller than it was 20 years ago. Scientology has been shrinking since the 1980’s. It is not emerging stronger. It is fading away. While accumulating more and more money.
The church increasingly enjoys cooperative relations with numerous governments worldwide as well as with like-minded religious, social and humanitarian institutions in the communities it serves. And once again, this has NOTHING to do with whether it should or should not have tax exempt status. As an aside, it also not true.
For 25 years, scientology has rested its legitimacy (and a lot of its income) on its tax exempts status. Clearly, this is a huge vulnerability — lose it and the pretense of being legitimate dies. And it will happen — eventually scientology’s Fair Game chickens are coming home to roost. Miscavige knows his house of cards is built on quicksand and it’s toppling and he is desperate to avoid this at all costs. Watch the madness and lies escalate as the inevitable draws closer.
The only question is what will be the final catalyst: a lawsuit? A criminal investigation? Congressional action? Or the IRS awakening from its quarter century slumber?
Mark Rathbun: on Gerald Feffer (May 28, 2013)
My presentation horrified the team of criminal attorneys. They were hired because of their conservative, Reagan administration contacts. They did not want anything to do with such an aggressive investigative move. They were concerned about the propriety of the means Ingram and I had utilized to obtain the evidence, and thought it would reflect badly on their own reputations. One attorney who represented Miscavige personally took me aside, though. He said he did not know how to use it at the moment, but that the evidence I had obtained would ultimately save the day for Hubbard, Miscavige and the church. Gerald Feffer was the former Assistant Deputy Attorney General for taxation during the Carter administration. He was becoming a dean of white-collar criminal case dismissal prior to indictment. He would become a senior partner in the venerable D.C. law firm Williams & Connally. Gerry told me to work with some of our more aggressive civil counsel to figure out a way to make the information public, and he would use it to make the IRS criminal case go away.
Rathbun, Mark (2013-05-28). Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (pp. 260-261). Amazon Books. Kindle Edition.
Ultimately, our aggressive investigation and litigation tactics resulted in the demise of all criminal prosecution threats. The most serious of them, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division probe, lived two years beyond Hubbard’s death . The IRS continued to attempt to make a case against Broeker , Miscavige and the church. Miscavige convinced himself that that case died because his personal attorney, the late Gerald Feffer of the D.C. law firm Williams & Connally, had called in chips with his friend, then Assistant Attorney General Roger Olsen. But later freedom of information act request documents revealed otherwise. The case died because when Department of Justice lawyers studied the Armstrong op videos we had obtained and publicized, they concluded that Armstrong, and Flynn’s stable of witnesses by association, were worthy of the lowest credibility ratings possible. They could not make a credible case when their critical witnesses had such a lack of credibility – at least not under a criminal standard of proof. 1
Rathbun, Mark (2013-05-28). Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (pp. 313-314). Amazon Books. Kindle Edition.
Notes
- See Letter from FBI Director William N. Webster to Chairman, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights Don Edwards (August 6, 1985); Letter from Assistant FBI Director William N. Baker to Senator Alan Cranston (July 19, 1985); Letter from FBI Director William N. Webster to Senator Lawton Chiles (June 4, 1985); Letter from Assistant FBI Director William M. Baker to Senator Slade Gorton (July 3, 1985). ↩
Mark Rathbun: The Juggernaut (May 28, 2013)
Chapter Twenty-One
Juggernaut: in colloquial English usage is a literal or metaphorical force regarded as mercilessly destructive and unstoppable. – Wikipedia
For all of his alleged faults, L. Ron Hubbard was a keen observer and writer on the human condition. He once noted that “the bank follows the line of attack.” “Bank” is Scientologese for the reactive mind, the stimulus-response portion of the mind that seeks destruction of others for survival of self. With the devastating strike upon Ron and Scientology delivered in Los Angeles, all roads to L. Ron Hubbard’s bunker led through Flynn and Armstrong. It seemed that anyone with a score to settle was drawn like a magnet to the duo. Those combined forces took on the appearance of an overwhelming juggernaut.
The DOJ duplicated Flynn’s latest legal tactic: ask courts in Scientology litigation to order the church to produce L. Ron Hubbard as the “managing agent” of the mother church. Flynn assisted the DOJ to procure sworn declarations from his growing stable of former high-level official witnesses in support of the move.
David Mayo, the expelled former auditor to L. Ron Hubbard and erstwhile top technical authority in Scientology, had created a thriving Scientology splinter operation in Santa Barbara, California. Former high-level messengers – including two former Commanding Officers of CMO Int (Commodore’s Messenger Organization International) served as executives of his operation. Until the Armstrong affair, they had steered clear of the L. Ron Hubbard-bashing Flynn/ FAMCO circles. But by 1984 they were supplying declarations to the DOJ and Flynn in support of their motions to compel Hubbard into depositions in lawsuits across the country.
Breckenridge’s Armstrong case decision, bolstered by a dozen declarations by former Hubbard messengers and aides, made the allegation of Hubbard’s “managing agent” status virtually uncontestable. Miscavige and Broeker were clearly established as the last links to Hubbard, but they could not provide countering declarations because it would subject them to depositions – which would lead Hubbard’s enemies directly to him.
Worse, the Breckenridge decision destroyed any chance of winning, in courts across the U.S., our vast array of pending motions to dismiss Flynn’s lawsuits on the basis of First Amendment rights to freedom of religion. The twenty-one-page Breckenridge indictment was devastating to our three years of expensive efforts at positioning much of the Flynn litigation for pre-trial dismissal.
Worse still, the decision pumped new life into what we thought by then to be criminal investigations losing steam. The Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) had been actively investigating the church, as well as LRH, Pat and Ann Broeker, David Miscavige and other church officials as named targets for criminal charges. Until the Breckenridge decision we had kept the CID somewhat at bay through litigation combatting their summons power, and a team of lawyers attempting to negotiate with IRS counsel and DOJ officials. But our intelligence lines were reporting that the LA-based CID group was once again gearing up to indict Hubbard and his aides.
The Ontario Provincial Police had, after their March, 1983 raid, steered clear of targeting Hubbard. Now they were reconsidering, in light of the outcome of the Armstrong case.
Our intelligence network reported that Gerry Armstrong was feeling drunk with power, given the sudden attention he’d received and his new importance in the anti-Scientology community. It seemed Armstrong and Flynn had worked their way up to being the axle to which all anti-Scientology spokes were linked. Per reports, Armstrong was talking of bringing all Scientology’s enemies together in a concerted effort to take over the church. The man who had prevailed in his case because of his alleged “fear for his life” was beating his chest and promising to take the very life of our church, and convert all its assets to outside control.
Our only shot at staving off indictments against LRH across North America, and of keeping him out of the couple of dozen pending lawsuits was to take out the axle and so depower its spokes. It was this desperate state of affairs that drew me directly into the shadowy world of intelligence. Throughout his litigation Armstrong had remained in periodic communication with a Scientologist who knew a thing or two about intelligence. Dan Sherman had published a number of spy novels, and had struck up an acquaintance with Armstrong. Armstrong looked up to Sherman and envied his literary success and intelligence acumen. Armstrong believed that Sherman – like so many other Scientologists during the tumultuous early eighties – was disaffected with the church and no longer considered himself a member. In fact, Sherman was cultivating a friendship with Armstrong in order to glean intelligence from him about the enemy camp. Up through the trial their communications were infrequent and mundane. All that changed when Armstrong became an overnight anti-Scientology sensation. Because of Armstrong’s newly won stardom, Sherman began giving him more face time. Armstrong began sharing some of the details of his activities as a coordination point for all camps inimical to the church, from the Ontario Provincial Police, to the IRS CID, to the DOJ, to the Mayo splinter movement. Armstrong asked Sherman to see whether he could locate some church insiders who might aid in a take-over coup inside the church.
Gene Ingram and I concocted a rather elaborate game plan. Gene would tap one of his old LAPD comrades to obtain written permission to covertly video record conversations with Gerry Armstrong. Technically, it was a lawfully given permission since we had a witness attesting that Armstrong was suggesting taking over and destroying the church by questionable means.
Gene obtained a recreational vehicle which had a wide rear window with reflective coating, making it one-way vision. A high-powered camera could record what was going on outside without being seen. We planned to record meetings with Armstrong to obtain evidence showing that not only was he not afraid for his life, he in fact was a well-backed aggressor and an operative of government agencies out to get Scientology. After taking circuitous routes to lose any possible tails, Sherman and I met Ingram in the RV in Long Beach. We worked out every detail of Sherman’s cover. We would bring in a former GO operative and have Sherman introduce him to Armstrong as a church insider, plotting the overthrow of the Miscavige regime and willing to play ball with Armstrong, Flynn and their government allies. That would hopefully prompt Armstrong to repeat and elaborate on some of the provocative takeover and take-down ideas he had alluded to in earlier conversations.
The chosen venue for the meetings was Griffith Park, inside LAPD jurisdiction and with plenty of opportunities for positioning the RV to capture the action. Sherman met with Armstrong and whetted his appetite. He told him he had made contact with an ally who had a number of well-placed contacts, currently on staff in the church. He told Armstrong he could only be identified by his first name, Joey, for security purposes. Joey was formerly of the Guardian’s Office and was connected to a number of former GO people who were bitter about being ousted by Miscavige, and sympathetic to Armstrong and the Mayo splinter movement. Armstrong was visibly overjoyed at this opportunity gratuitously falling into his lap.
Sherman arranged a meeting between Armstrong and Joey to take place on a park bench in Griffith Park. Joey wore an audio wire which transmitted the conversation back to the RV, parked a hundred yards away and video recording the event. Armstrong and Joey both wore sunglasses; both attempted to look as nonchalant as could be, as they introduced themselves.
Joey explained that there was serious disaffection within the church, and a forming cabal of veteran staff ready to take out Miscavige and the current management. He called this cell the Loyalists. Armstrong was clearly excited, and believed Joey’s cover – no doubt because of Sherman’s story-telling skills and credibility with Armstrong.
Armstrong shared with Joey the master plan, which he represented as his brainchild, along with Michael Flynn. He explained that the plan was backed by the Ontario Provincial Police, the DOJ and the IRS. Flynn would prepare a lawsuit on behalf of the Loyalists, asking the Attorney General of California to take the church into receivership on their behalf. The DOJ, FBI, and IRS would conduct a raid on church premises to get fresh evidence of illegalities, in support of the Loyalist action. The raid would be coordinated to coincide with the filing of the receivership action. The public relations fallout and the possible arrests of leaders would all but cripple the church.
Joey played his role well, feigning fear and nervousness that Armstrong could make good on the government back-up. In order to prove his representations, Armstrong opened a notebook and started naming his government contacts, representing that each was briefed, coordinated and ready to roll with the plan. He cited the following agents as close personal friends and in constant contact and coordination with him and with Flynn:
Al Ristuccia – Los Angeles office of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division
Al Lipkin – Los Angeles office of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division
Richard Greenberg – U.S. Department of Justice, lead counsel in defending civil litigation brought by the church against DOJ, FBI and IRS
Tom Doughty – DOJ associate of Greenberg
Al Ciampini – Ontario Provincial Police
Armstrong provided Joey with phone numbers for each, including home numbers for some – and urged Joey to get in touch with his team members from these agencies.
Over time, Armstrong told Joey that the IRS CID was the most active government participant, and served as the main coordination point between agencies. He told Joey the CID agents had been briefed about Joey and the Loyalists, and were excited and supportive. The CID would grant them informant status, offer immunity for any crimes they might commit in assisting the government, and had even talked of providing safe houses for insiders. Armstrong then asked Joey to get his contacts to go into church files and find evidence of illegalities, so that the IRS and DOJ would know where to search. Joey then brought into the mix someone whom Gerry had known from his Sea Org days. Mike Rinder was a Commodore’s Messenger who had once worked directly with Ron. He was then heading up the U.S. branch of the Office of Special Affairs. Joey introduced Mike to Gerry. Mike reported to Gerry that the files were relatively clean – there were no big smoking-gun documents being created after the 1977 FBI raids. At this point Armstrong’s macho bravado provided what would be our greatest defense against the indictments being issued against Hubbard, Miscavige, et al. Armstrong suggested that the Loyalists create evidence of illegalities and plant them in church files for the IRS and DOJ to find in a raid, and use against church officials.
All of Armstrong’s representations about government conspiracies to take down church leadership and close down the operation were duly recorded.
David Miscavige was ecstatic with the results. He had me make a presentation of the evidence to a team of criminal lawyers, assembled to represent L. Ron Hubbard, Miscavige, Pat Broker and Lyman Spurlock (Hubbard’s accountant at ASI) to prevent IRS CID indictments and convictions – the potential charges we took most seriously. These attorneys – most from white-shoe Washington, D.C. law firms – were scaring the hell out of Miscavige. They were suggesting the IRS CID case was so serious that they recommended working a deal with the IRS for Miscavige and Spurlock to do time in halfway houses, so as to prevent indictment of Hubbard. At the root of the IRS CID case was the evidence of millions of dollars of church monies being funneled to Hubbard through fraudulent means. And at the heart of the case would be the infamous MCCS taped conference in which church attorneys and staff acknowledged the fraudulent nature of the transfers.
My presentation horrified the team of criminal attorneys. They were hired because of their conservative, Reagan administration contacts. They did not want anything to do with such an aggressive investigative move. They were concerned about the propriety of the means Ingram and I had utilized to obtain the evidence, and thought it would reflect badly on their own reputations. One attorney who represented Miscavige personally took me aside, though. He said he did not know how to use it at the moment, but that the evidence I had obtained would ultimately save the day for Hubbard, Miscavige and the church. Gerald Feffer was the former Assistant Deputy Attorney General for taxation during the Carter administration. He was becoming a dean of white-collar criminal case dismissal prior to indictment. He would become a senior partner in the venerable D.C. law firm Williams & Connally. Gerry told me to work with some of our more aggressive civil counsel to figure out a way to make the information public, and he would use it to make the IRS criminal case go away.
Another disclosure from the Griffith Park meetings cut to the quick with both Miscavige and me. Armstrong had told Joey that another Department of Justice player was in on the grand plan to close down Scientology: Bracket Deniston III. Armstrong said that Deniston was not investigating to find out who attempted to pass Hubbard’s check, and he was not investigating the evidence we had provided to him. Instead Deniston was out to nail our investigator, Gene Ingram. Deniston had represented to Armstrong that he was setting traps to nail Ingram and the church for attempting to frame Flynn with purchased evidence.
This was particularly disconcerting, given events in the check investigation while all this Armstrong business was going down. After I had been ordered out of Boston by Deniston, I had been lured back in by a man being prosecuted by his office. Larry Reservitz had been charged in a case very similar to the one involving LRH’s check. One of Reservitz’s connections who had access to Bank of New England records had used his access to fraudulently transfer money from random accounts to Reservitz. While under indictment, Reservitz reached out to me for the $ 10,000 reward we had previously advertised in the New York Times, claiming he had inside information on the Hubbard case and could identify the inside man at BNE. We had a number of phone calls and several meetings attempting to negotiate the deal. The jockeying was due to my suspicion that Reservitz was shaking us down, and I was searching for facts that would indicate he knew what he was talking about. Reservitz was continually attempting to characterize my questioning as an attempt to make the deal an exchange of cash for handing us Flynn.
In the meantime, Robert Mueller, Denniston’s superior and head of the Boston U.S. DOJ office fraud division, had flown to Italy to visit Ala Tamimi. He bought Tamimi’s retraction of his original statement in exchange for dropping a number of outstanding indictments the DOJ had pending against Tamimi for a variety of fraudulent schemes he had previously executed. I attempted to confront Mueller with what we had learned, but he refused to meet with me. Deniston outright denied that any visit or deal had been carried out by Mueller. In either event, Tamimi’s retraction caused Miscavige to turn up the heat to get me to turn up fresh evidence of Flynn’s involvement in the crime.
I was caught between a rock and a hard spot. Miscavige wanted Flynn at any cost. Yet I felt that Reservitz might be attempting to frame me for attempting to frame Flynn. I walked a tight rope between pursuing the investigation to Miscavige’s required degree of aggressiveness, and not stepping over the line with Reservitz. I even visited the Boston FBI agent in charge of the Hubbard check investigation, Jim Burleigh. I pointedly accused Burleigh of having covertly made a deal with Reservitz to attempt to sting me. Burleigh brought in another FBI agent to witness his categorical denial that the FBI or DOJ had made a deal with Reservitz: “We would never cooperate with the likes of Larry Reservitz.” Deniston likewise denied that Reservitz was working for the DOJ. Still, I had my suspicions, particularly when we learned Deniston had become pals with Armstrong and Flynn.
With the sharks circling in and our waning confidence in our civil lawyers (having their heads handed to them in the Armstrong case) and criminal lawyers (advising Miscavige that he resign himself to doing time, at least in a halfway house), Miscavige ordered I find a new breed of lawyer. He wanted someone tough as nails, not some nervous Nellie. He wanted someone who could figuratively kick Flynn’s butt in court, and scare the hell out of his DOJ and IRS backers. After an exhaustive nationwide search and many candidates eliminated, I thought we had finally found our man – in, of all places, Boston.
Earle Cooley was bigger than life. He was a big, red-haired knock-off of L. Ron Hubbard himself. His gravelly voice was commanding. His wit was sharp. He was perennially listed in The Best Trial Lawyers in America. He could spin a yarn that charmed judges and juries and took easy, great pleasure in viciously destroying witnesses on cross examination. After I had interviewed Earle and reported to Miscavige, I arranged for us to watch Earle in action. Miscavige and I flew out to Boston to see Earle perform in a high-profile art theft trial. We saw him decimate a seasoned criminal government informant so thoroughly on cross examination that the fellow, in a trademark Cooley expression, “didn’t know whether to shit or wind his watch.” Earle’s client – whom the government had dead to rights, and who was as unsympathetic a defendant as could be – was acquitted by the jury. We had found the horse for the course.
Earle was like a breath of fresh air to Miscavige. He took a similar black-and-white view of matters – we are right and good, the enemy is wrong and bad. Miscavige had long since lost his patience and his tolerance for our teams of civil lawyers and the civil-rights-experienced civil-rights-experienced opinion leaders among them. He referred to them as the “pointy heads,” short for “pointy-headed intellectuals.” To him, our only problem was our counsels’ timid, second-guessing, defensive frames of mind. And Earle reinforced that view. Cooley attended a few civil litigation conferences with our other counsel. He ruffled their feathers by readily agreeing with Miscavige’s simplistic sum-up of what was wrong and the solution to it, aggression. The existing lawyers’ nervous objections and eye-rolling reactions to Earle’s sermons only reinforced Miscavige’s view. “They are nothing but a pack of pussies,” he regularly groused to me; “what we need is for Earle to sink his teeth into those Flynn witnesses and that’ll be the end of this nonsense.”
Miscavige was nothing if not resilient. While never giving a hint that the overridingly important goal was the attainment of All Clear, by late 1984 it was quite evident to all involved that we were fighting an entirely different battle now. It was a fight for survival. We were desperately staving off the barbarians storming the walls of whatever compound L. Ron Hubbard might reside behind. It was evident too that Hubbard himself might have quit fighting – we no longer received any dispatches from him about the legal front. He was only sporadically sending ASI advices concerning his personal business, and to the church about Scientology matters. Miscavige had a team feverishly marketing Hubbard’s new science fiction books, the Mission Earth series. He was putting just as much pressure on church marketing folks to market Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, the broad public re-release of the 1950 book that had launched the entire movement. All titles were making it back onto the New York Times bestseller lists. So the incongruity created another level of cognitive dissonance. How could government officials across the continent be so feverishly pursuing a man who was so wildly popular with the public at large? It would be years before I would find out that the sales were given a mighty boost by teams of Scientologists sent out to bookstores to buy them in bulk. In the meantime, Miscavige was adept at keeping me and the troops motivated, inferring that we were buying Ron time to bail out the church’s disastrous public image and to complete his final researches at the highest levels of Scientology.
With Miscavige’s solving of the “why” behind our failures to attain an All Clear – i.e., the outside lawyers’ blatant counter-intention to Hubbard’s advices on using the enemies’ tactics against them, only more cleverly and more aggressively – our defeat-battered hopes were rehabilitated. Earle Cooley, the great Scientology hope, would soon be unleashed.
Notes
- Rathbun, Mark (2013-05-28). Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (pp. 255-64). ↩
- GA: I mentioned Rathbun’s Chapter 21, which he titles “The Juggernaut,” in a recent letter to Dan Sherman. http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/1082 The whole chapter is Rathbun’s spin on the Armstrong Op, or more specifically the 1984 Griffith Park videotaping part of the op. The operation, which was clearly concocted to use or misuse the videos for nefarious purposes after the videotaping, still continues. Rathbun’s book shows the op continues by continuing it. Even though he calls it a memoir, and recounts different events or incidents in his Scientology career that appear unrelated to the op, the whole book is his spin on it. The book is also a fantastic late act, one more contemptuous fair game nastiness in the same old sick op.
Most importantly at this time, Rathbun’s spin, and his facts propelling it, are virtually identical to the spin and facts the Miscavige Scientologists give to their description of these events in their black propaganda publications, in their filings in their legal proceedings, in their submissions to the IRS, or to governments and people around the world. The difference is that Rathbun says Miscavige ran and runs it all, and Miscavige and his corporate underlings either do not say or say the same thing. ↩
CSI 1023 Submission: Response to Question 3(d) [re Guardian and GO] (November 23, 1992)
Question 3(d)
3(d). Did the Guardian’s Office exist on December 31, 1989, or any date since then? During that period, has there been a Guardian? If the answer is yes to either or both of these questions, please list the name(s) of the Guardian(s) and describe the role of the Guardian and the Guardian’s Office. If no, is there any entity that performs functions or operates in a manner similar to the former Guardian’s Office?
Introduction:
In this question and question 10(a), the Service seeks information concerning the Guardian’s Office. Because of the close relationship of this question with question 10(a), we answer both questions fully here.
There are straightforward answers to these questions. The Guardian’s Office (“GO”) was disbanded in 1982 and 1983. A thorough purge of Guardian’s Office staff was conducted at that time: those convicted of illegal acts were dismissed and are prohibited from ever returning to Church of Scientology staff in any capacity. During 1981 through 1983 the Church conducted its own internal investigation and dismissed from its employ anyone found to have been in any way involved with or condoning similar activities. Such individuals are also barred from ever again serving on staff in any Church of Scientology. There is no Guardian currently and there has not been one for over a decade.
No entity replaced the GO. However, certain functions the GO was originally formed to conduct are now carried out by the Office of Special Affairs (“OSA”), the International Finance Network, the LRH Personal Public Relations Network and the Association for Better Living and Education (“ABLE”). Specifically, OSA.deals‘with legal matters; the International Finance Network sees that Church organizations maintain proper financial records and accounts; LRH Personal Public .Relations Office International handles ,public relations; and ABLE deals with the community outreach social betterment programs of drug rehabilitation (Narconon), criminal rehabilitation (Criminon), education (Applied. Scholastics) and raising moral standards in society (The Way to Happiness Foundation).
As discussed in greater detail below, none of these activities operate in a manner similar to the old Guardian’s Office.
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Background:
The Guardian and Guardian’s Office were first established in March of 1966 because legal and other external facing matters were consuming the time and resources of churches of Scientology. In particular, church leaders were being distracted from their primary functions of ministering to the spiritual needs of their expanding religious communities and building their organizations. The first Guardian was Mary Sue Hubbard. Over the next several years, Guardian’s Offices were formed at local churches of Scientology around the world. These local GOs assumed responsibility for each church’s external affairs, with the purpose of freeing their executives and staff to practice and proselytize the religion without distractions. In January of 1969, Mrs. Hubbard appointed Jane Kember as Guardian worldwide, the highest position in the Guardian’s Office, and Mrs. Hubbard assumed the position of Controller, which was senior to the Guardian’s Office.
In 1966, when the GO was formed, the ecclesiastical management headquarters for the Church of Scientology was located in England, at Saint Hill Manor. The highest ecclesiastical body at that time was Executive Council Worldwide. The office of the Guardian was then physically located with the rest of Church management. Mr. Hubbard resigned his position as Executive Director of the Church in September 1966, in order to devote his time to researching the upper levels of spiritual awareness and establishing a base where these levels could be delivered to Scientology’ parishioners.
Needing an environment free from the workaday distractions of Saint Hill, Mr. Hubbard along with his family and a few trusted Scientologists relocated aboard a ship in the Mediterranean. This marked the beginning of the Sea Organization.
The Executive Council Worldwide and the Guardian’s Office Worldwide remained in England and continued to perform their functions from Saint Hill. Within a couple of years it became clear that Executive Council Worldwide was not adequately performing its functions and that the Church was experiencing a decline. In August 1971, after various attempts to correct the perceived problems, the Executive Council Worldwide was disbanded and the ecclesiastical management of the Church was taken over by Sea Org members in the recently formed Flag Bureaux aboard the Sea Orq ship Apollo.
While the Executive Council Worldwide was disbanded in 1971, the Guardian’s Office Worldwide (“GO WW”) continued to be headquartered in England where it was managed and directed by Jane
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Kember. By the 1970s then, GO WW was physically separate from Scientology ecclesiastical management. The reporting and command lines in the GO were also entirely separate. G0 offices were locked and off limits to non-GO staff. The GO thus had become an autonomous network, separate from the rest of Church management.
Within the GO there was yet a further segregation — a group called the Intelligence Bureau (“B1”) kept its activities confidential even from other parts of the GO, particularly those activities it considered sensitive.
During the middle 1970s, the Scientology ecclesiastical management structure continued to evolve with the formation of the Commodores Messenger Organization, the move of the Flag Bureaux from the Aggllg to a landbase in Clearwater, Florida, in 1975, and other changes. Throughout this period GO WW remained in England, becoming more and more distant from Church management. The Guardian’s Office was not Sea Org. Their operations, activities and premises were inaccessible to Sea Org members in Church management — or anyone else not in the GO.
Guardian’s Office Illegalities:
In July of 1977, the FBI conducted massive raids on offices of the GO in Los Angeles and in Washington D.C.. Michael Meisner, who had worked in the Information Bureau of the GO, both in D.C. and Los Angeles, had gone to the FBI and provided detailed information about infiltration of government offices by GO staff and/or volunteers, for the purpose of obtaining documents those offices had on the Church. Litigation over the legality of the raids commenced immediately. Criminal indictments were returned against eleven individuals, including Mary Sue Hubbard and Jane Kember.
Because of the autonomy of the Guardian’s Office, and the secrecy within its Intelligence Bureau, the truth about G0 misconduct remained unknown to the rest of the Church and even to other segments of the Guardian’s Office for several reasons. The GO executives involved.with the criminal activities suppressed this information within the Church and characterized the raids and criminal prosecutions as simply the latest in a long history of attacks on the religion. This explanation was supported by the fact that government (especially FBI and IRS) disinformation about the Church was rampant in the 1960s and 1970s and Scientologists
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had become somewhat inured to it. 1/ Church management and staff were concerned with the practice of the religion and were not involved with the GO indictees. This combination of circumstances made it possible for someone like Jane Kember to hold herself out as a martyr being unjustly persecuted and yet remain credible with Scientology management. 1/
Indeed the Government Prosecutor in the D.C. criminal trial testified in deposition that only a small percentage of the people within the GO even knew about the illegal acts that were committed by the GO staff.
Church Investigation of the Guardian’s Office:
In late 1979 and throughout 1980 Church management began to receive indications that there were problems within the Guardian’s Office:
1. The Mission network which was the responsibility of the GO (and which was its primary source of funding) was experiencing an ethical decline. One of the largest missions became embroiled in litigation and a number of mission holders were found to be involved in unethical activities when they arrived at the Flag Service Organization for auditing. Instances of GO staff opening businesses and employing Church staff to the detriment of local churches were reported. When this situation was reported to GO WW and to Mary Sue Hubbard, the response was a GO investigation and intimidation of the Sea Org staff who had received the reports.
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1/ For example, internal FBI and IRS documents from this period falsely accused the Church of trafficking in illegal drugs and weapons, promoting rampant drug use and.promiscuity, conducting paramilitary operations and plotting civil insurrection .2/ Mrs Kember recently testified at a trial in Canada that she and her Deputy Guardian for Intelligence, Mo Budlong, confronted with attacks that they believed threatened the very survival of the religion, decided on their own to use illegal intelligence measures to locate the sources of the attacks and defend the religion. She confirmed that these activities were only known to a small number of people within the GO because she knew that these activities would not have been condoned by Church management.
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3. In the Fall of 1980, after having had no communication with the Church for several months, Mr. Hubbard wrote to the Commodore’s Messenger Organization International (“CMO INT”) about a wide range of subjects including an inquiry about whether there were any lawsuits against him that he should know about.3/ When asked about this subject, Mary Sue Hubbard gave only a terse response that there were a number of suits, it would take years to resolve them and that the GO did not welcome anyone’s help or inquiries.
The above, combined with the always bothersome general secretiveness of the GO, were interpreted by CMO INT as very alarming behavior. Accordingly, a full time Special Project was initiated by CMO INT to investigate legal matters and the GO’s ineffectiveness in dealing them and the extent to which the GO had departed from its original purpose and design.
The Special Project’s attempts to get information were thwarted by Mrs. Hubbard. She informed the Special Project that she did not appreciate their investigation of the GO and that if one were needed she would do it. In March 1981 she cut all communication lines to the GO except through herself. It must be noted that Mary Sue Hubbard believed her position as Controller and as the Founder’s wife to be unassailable and beyond reproach by anyone but Mr. Hubbard – who was not around at the time. This, plus her absolute control of the GO made it difficult for the Special Project to get anything done.
In April 1981, in an unprecedented move and without Mrs. Hubbard’s knowledge, Special Project sent a mission to GO WW to inspect the Legal Bureau under the guise that they had been authorized by Mrs. Hubbard. What the mission found confirmed their worst suspicions. They found the Deputy Guardian for Legal involved in unethical sexual activities, not doing his job and desiring to leave the GO to go into private practice as an attorney. An inspection of files showed the legal suits to be severely neglected with overdue motions and pleadings. There was almost no evidence of standard Scientology administrative policy being applied.
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3/ As discussed in the response to Question 10(d), in early 1980, Boston attorney Michael Flynn initiated a series of duplicative personal injury lawsuits against the Church and Mr. Hubbard. Part of the Flynn litigation strategy was to name Mr. Hubbard in these suits in the belief that he would not personally appear and thus force the Church to settle or alternatively face default judgments.3-39
During May 1981 the Special Project’s investigation of the GO intensified. The original mission to the Legal Bureau GO WW brought back a great deal of damaging information. Mary Sue Hubbard, in order to save face, could not admit to her staff that she had not authorized the mission. A second mission fired to GO WW in May and removed the Deputy Guardian for Legal, Charles Parselle, from post and put other GO WW executives and legal staff through Scientology ethics procedures in an effort to correct them and make them more productive.
With increased access to the legal area, in June, 1981 the Special Project discovered startling information. Appended to pleadings by plaintiffs suing Scientology were documents detailing GO criminality which had been seized in the 1977 raid. These documents contained appalling evidence of GO criminality – infiltration of government agencies and harrassment campaigns against those the (K) considered enemies. When further investigation proved the documents to be authentic, CMO INT decided that it would have to take charge of GO WW and the GO network until it could be reformed and corrected.
CMO INT planned a complete take-over of the GO.
There were a number of obstacles. Mary Sue Hubbard was still asserting her position as Controller. Mrs. Hubbard and other GO executives suborned the then Commanding Officer CMO INT, Dede Reisdorf, to call off the investigation. Mrs. Hubbard also befriended Laurel Sullivan who was working on a corporate sort out project for the Church and convinced her to restructure corporate affairs so that she and others in the GO would own the trademarks of Scientology. Sullivan was encouraged and assisted by Gerry Armstrong, who sought a position in B1 as his reward.
Sullivan’s mission was immediately terminated and she was put on menial physical work pending ethics and justice actions. Reisdorf was removed from post by her peers. Armstrong was investigated for having falsified documents within the Church. These GO sympathizers later left the Church and became government informants and witnesses against the Church in civil litigation as set forth in detail in the response to question 10d.
David Miscavige gathered a couple dozen of the most proven Sea Org executives from around the world. He briefed them on what had been discovered in investigating the GO. Together, they planned a series of missions to take over the GO, investigate it and reform it thoroughly. The stakes were high because they faced expulsion from Scientology if they were unsuccessful and the GO prevailed.
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Accordingly, on July 13, 1981, with no advance warning to the GO, a coordinated series of five CMO missions were sent out to take over the Guardian’s Office.
The first of these missions, headed by David Miscavige, met with Mary Sue Hubbard to convince her to resign. This was essential as the GO consisted of around 1,500 staff who were loyal to Mrs. Hubbard. During a stormy meeting she refused to cooperate. She finally relented when Mr. Miscavige told her that regardless of what authority she attempted to invoke, when both public and staff Scientologists were briefed on the crimes of the GO they would demand the GO leadership step down. It would result in a war of wills involving the entire congregation. She would lose, and there would be a lot of bad blood created to the detriment of the religion. Realizing the outrage that would ensue and that the GO would lose any such struggle, she wrote her resignation.
The other missions were then sent out as soon as this resignation was obtained. One mission was sent into the Intelligence Bureau with its principal objective to uncover any and all illegal activities and the persons responsible. Another mission was sent into the Office of the Controller, comprised of assistants under Mrs. Hubbard for each of the areas of Legal, Intelligence, Public Relations and Finance. The Deputy Controller and the Controller Assistants for these areas were all removed from post. They, along with Jane Kember and a number of the individuals who were directly involved in the criminal proceedings were then turned over to another separate ethics mission. This mission, aptly titled the Crim (criminal) Handling Mission, commenced internal ethics and justice actions on these individuals and began the process of removing them from Church employ. Any staff determined by any of the missions to have been involved in any illegalities were put under the charge of this ethics mission to determine more fully each person’s situation and to remove them from staff.
The fifth CMO mission sent at that time went to GO WW to organize that area as most of the executives who had been over it had been removed.
Within a day of Mrs. Hubbard’s resignation, senior Guardian’s Office officials including Jane Kember and the head of Intelligence, Jimmy Mulligan, secretly met with Mrs. Hubbard and conspired to regain control of the GO. Mrs. Hubbard signed a letter revoking her resignation and condemning the actions by the CMO. Scores of GO staff responded, locking CMO INT Missionaires out of their premises and were intending to hire armed guards to bar access to the Sea Org. Mr. Miscavige confronted the mutineers,
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and persuaded Mrs. Hubbard to again resign which ended the last vestige of resistence. While the GO still existed, it was now operating under the direct supervision of CMO missions.
In early August 1981 a Scientology ecclesiastical justice action was convened concerning eleven Worldwide and U.S. Guardian’s Office senior executives who had been removed from their positions, including Jane Kember and three of the other persons who had been charged in the criminal case. In early October each of these individuals formally resigned their staff positions.
It was not until September 1981 that Mr. Hubbard was informed about what had taken place with the Guardian’s Office, when he again contacted the CMO requesting to be updated on current activities in Scientology. He expressed shock at what had been found in the Guardian’s Office and praised those in the CMO who took action on their own initiative.
CMO INT missions and investigations into GO WW in England and the United States Guardian’s Office in Los Angeles continued through the end of 1981 and into 1982, weeding out anyone found to have had any part in anything that appeared to have been illegal or who had knowledge of and condoned the GO’s illegal acts. Anyone found to be in this category was removed from Church employ.
Beginning in October of 1981 missions were also sent to the other continental Guardian’s Offices, such as Canada and Europe, to find out what, if any, illegal activity had occurred there. This process continued throughout 1982 with missions going to virtually all GO offices around the world. Any GO staff who had taken part in criminal activities as well as any staff who believed the GO should operate autonomously and without regard to Church policy were dismissed. During this period the staff of the GO network was reduced by hundreds. Directives were issued that required all orders or communications affecting churches of Scientology originating from the GO to go through the Watchdog Committee of CMO INT.
After the completion of over 50 Sea Org missions into all echelons of the Guardian’s Office, in early 1983 it was decided that cleaning up and maintaining the Guardian’s Office was not workable and that it needed to be disbanded altogether. This was accomplished by a new series of CMO Int missions sent to GO offices around the world. The pattern of the missions was to remove all GO staff from their positions and put them on estates work and physical labor around the Church. Concurrently, each person was
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required to make a full confession of past misdeeds (not limited to illegal acts but also any other violations of Church policy) as part of his or her ethics handlings. Depending on what was found, the person was either dismissed from staff or put on a rehabilitation program. In some cases if the person was relatively clean and willing to abide by Church policy, he or she was retained on church staff but in a lower position on a probationary status. All GO directives and issues of any kind were cancelled across the boards.
Before being disbanded the GO’s Finance Bureaux had monitored some aspects of the Church’s finances, including the production of and maintenance of accounts and financial records. With the disbanding of the GO, this function was taken over by the International Finance Network where it remains. Public relations activities were put under the direction and supervision of the LRH Personal Public Relations Officer International and his staff. All GO social betterment functions – drug rehabilitation, criminal rehabilitation and education reform, were taken over by a new organization known as Social Coordination. Later this function was assumed by Association for Better Living and Education (“ABLE”). To administer legal affairs, the Office of Special Affairs (OSA) was formed from a mixture of Sea Org staff who had been on one or more of the missions that had disbanded the GO, new staff recruited to work in the area and some former GO staff who had survived investigation and scrutiny and had undergone ethics clean-ups relating to their former affiliation in the GO.
The Office of Special Affairs is not an autonomous group. OSA International is part of the Flag Command Bureaux and the highest OSA management position is that of CO OSA INT. The Watchdog Committee has a WDC member, WDC OSA, whose sole job is to see that OSA INT effectively performs its functions and operates according to Church policy. Continental OSA units are part of the Continental Liaison Offices and local OSA representatives, called Directors of Special Affairs, are staff at their local church subject to the supervision of its Executive Council.
These measures guarantee that the office handling legal matters for the Church will never be autonomous.
Since the disbandment of the GO further steps have been taken to make sure that the negative influences of the GO that were eradicated can never again arise. In 1986 the Church instituted firm policy which makes it mandatory for any former GO staff member to request and get permission from the International Justice Chief before being allowed employment. Any staff who were dismissed
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because of involvement in illegalities are not permitted to return to staff under any circumstances. In 1987 another policy was implemented governing the eligibility of Ex-GO staff for advanced level Scientology religious services as parishioners. Such parishioners are required to request permission from the International Justice Chief and must demonstrate to him that they have been rehabilitated, completed their ethics handlings, are leading ethical lives and that they have made significant contributions toward the overall welfare of the Church.
Summary:
The illegal acts of the GO and its perversion and abandonment of Church policy were not taken lightly by Church management once they became known. It required many months of investigation and severe measures by dedicated members of CMO INT to finally cleanse the Church of this corruption. There are no longer any autonomous groups or networks within the Church. All staff are measured against a standard of compliance with church Scripture and against their performance in advancing the religion in terms of ministering to the Scientology religious community and in attracting new members.
In early 1983, the Service was advised, in response to a similar request, that none of the eleven individuals convicted of involvement in criminal activities was then on staff at any church of Scientology, nor was any of them eligible to be on staff in the future.
This continues to be true today and will remain so. Additionally, the Church dismissed a number of others who were determined to have had some part in illegal activities and, although never charged or convicted, are not eligible to be Church of Scientology staff members in the future.
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Notes
CSI 1023 Submission: Exhibit III-10-Q: [Loyalist Program illegal video transcript excerpts] (November 23, 1992)
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