The Armstrong Op

Scientology's fair game on Gerry Armstrong

Introduction 

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David Kluge

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David Kluge
David Kluge

Mark Rathbun: The Juggernaut (May 28, 2013)

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Chapter Twenty-One

THE JUGGERNAUT  1 2

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

  1. Rathbun, Mark (2013-05-28). Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (pp. 255-64). ↩
  2. 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. ↩

Declaration of Gerry Armstrong (March 7, 2006)

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28. Scientology leaders had used the same Ken Hoden in a similar attempt in 1985 and 1986 to have me prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney on charges

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that the organization itself manufactured. Scientology ran a covert operation on me from 1982 through 1984 involving a writer Dan Sherman whom organization leaders operated to befriend me, get close to me, and set me up in a series of secretly recorded and videotaped meetings with other covert agents. Mr. Sherman and the other agents claimed that there were people inside the organization who wanted to reform it and stop Fair Game, but they were afraid for their lives and so sought out my help. The other agents David Kluge and Michael Rinder, pretending to be reformers, attempted to entrap me into the commission of crimes, without success. The recordings were made without my permission or knowledge and were illegal, and were in no way evidence of what Scientology claimed they were. Nevertheless, Scientology edited the recordings and used Mr. Hoden and others to try to get the LA DA to prosecute me, as well as my attorney Michael Flynn. Appended hereto as Exhibit C is a true and correct copy of the letter dated April 25, 1986 from LA DA to Mr. Hoden, et al. fortunately refusing prosecution or further investigation of Scientology’s claims.2 Scientology claimed that its covert videotaping operation was legal because it was authorized by the LA PD. As mentioned above, a Scientology agent had paid an LA PD officer at least ten thousand dollars for a series of phony “authorizations” to wiretap and eavesdrop on Mr. Flynn and me. Appended hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a public announcement of April 23, 1985 from the LA Chief of Police denouncing the “authorizations” as not from the LAPD3 Despite the scathing denouncement from the Chief of Police, and the corrupt officer being suspended from

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the LA PD, Scientology has continued to this day to justify its unlawful entrapment operation and the false charges it sought with the lie that the videotaping was approved by the LA PD.

29. At the time he attempted to have me prosecuted on Scientology’s trumped up charges, Mr. Hoden was part of the organization authorized and directed to handle or treat or Fair Game SPs. Scientologists in such positions are expected to lie, including under oath, to obstruct justice, and do what is necessary and can be gotten away with to harm the people organization leaders want harmed, like Mr. Henson and me. I believe that Mr. Hoden was used specifically in the efforts to have us prosecuted because he has been willing to lie, testify falsely or otherwise Fair Game us, whereas other Scientologists might not be so willing. I believe that my knowledge of Scientologists lying and testifying falsely as a practice, and specifically Ken Hoden lying, to have the organization’s SP victims prosecuted and jailed or otherwise harmed, was very relevant in Mr. Henson’s terrorism case, and if the jury had heard that testimony he would have been found not guilty on all counts.

30. The scriptural principle given by founder Hubbard that Scientology is following in its actions in the legal arena against people like Mr. Henson and me states:

The DEFENSE of anything is UNTENABLE. The only way to defend anything is to ATTACK, and if you ever forget that, then you will lose every battle you are ever engaged in, whether it is in terms of personal conversation, public debate, or a court of law. NEVER BE INTERESTED IN CHARGES. DO,
yourself, much MORE CHARGING, and you will WIN. And the public, seeing that you won, will then have a communication line to the effect that Scientologists WIN. Don’t ever let them have any other thought than that Scientology takes all of its objectives.4

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The charges that the Scientologists and their agents who execute the Suppressive Person doctrine bring against their SP victims are often false charges. Scientology sought to have me falsely charged by the LA PD in 1982 for theft. In 1985 and 1986, as shown above, Scientology tried to have me prosecuted by the LA DA. In 1985 and 1986 Scientology tried to have me prosecuted by the FBI in Boston on a charge Scientology manufactured that I had impersonated an FBI officer.5 In 1992 through 1994, Scientology sought to have me punished for contempt of court on false charges. In 1997, Scientology was successful, as shown above, in having me punished with a fine and jail for reporting the organization’s threat to me after I was subpoenaed. In 1998, Scientology was successful in having me fined and ordered to jail for twenty-six days for expressions expressed in Canada and Germany.6  In 2001, Scientology was again successful in having me found in contempt of court for more religious expressions in Canada.7 In 2001, Scientology also sought to get me in trouble with the FSB, the Russian intelligence service that succeeded the KGB, and tried to have me picked up by U.S. agents in Moscow.8 In 2002, Scientology sought to have me charged by the Ekaterinburg, Russia prosecutor on the basis of false statements by Scientologists that I had trespassed in their office in that city. In 2004 and 2005 a Scientology agent leased an office across the street from my apartment in Chilliwack, B.C. Canada, spied on my wife throughout that period, and tried to trick us into making a video recording to later be used against us.9

31. I am convinced that Ken Hoden and any Scientologists who testified that they were frightened by Keith Henson possibly bombing them or hurting them in any way are lying as part of a conspiracy run by Scientology’s leaders to deprive him of his rights in violation 18 U.S.C. § 241, and in violation of other state and federal criminal statutes. What Scientology is trying to do in silencing me judicially and

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extra-judicially demonstrates the same, and the list of beneficiaries of Scientology’s efforts to deprive me of my civil rights shows that the conspiracy is organization-wide. Since Scientology is demonstrably inter alia a criminal conspiracy against rights, Mr. Henson has every justification in the world to interfere with the conspiracy, even if the conspirators call their conspiracy religion.

[…]

Notes

Declaration of Gerry Armstrong (February 20, 1994)

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I, Gerald Armstrong, declare:

1. I am making this declaration in response to allegations made by Scientology organization leaders, attorneys and agents in court proceedings and public media around the world concerning a 1984 organization intelligence operation targeting me, which has been called the “Armstrong Operation.” I am copyrighting this document prior to its use in court because it will, in addition to putting the organization’s allegations into a proper context, form an outline for a screenplay I am writing. It is my story.

2. After I left the organization at the end of 1981, the organization intelligence bureau assigned Dan Sherman, a Los Angeles spy story writer and intel operative, to get close to me and become my friend, which he did. I had been the intelligence officer on board the “Apollo” with the organization’s founder and supreme leader L. Ron Hubbard, had studied his intelligence policies and Guardian’s Office 1 intelligence materials, had an

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appreciation for that literary genre, and I was myself a writer, so Sherman and I had a real basis for a real friendship.

3. Sherman told me he was no longer involved in Scientology, wanted nothing to do with it, saw it as a personal waste of time, and also saw that its leaders were ruthless and dangerous, and claimed to be afraid of them finding out that he was friends with me. Sometime in 1982 or 1983 he told me that he was still in communication in a limited way with some of his old friends still in the organization. He described these friends as smart, reasonable and not fanatics. They were still Scientologists and worked on staff, but felt that organization leaders were criminals. Having no allegiance to these leaders, Sherman’s friends would occasionally tell him about conditions inside and their desire to end the organization’s criminal activities. They said the conditions inside were oppressive and chaotic and they were at risk even talking to him because sec checks2 were rampant.

4. During the 1984 trial of the organization’s case against me, Church of Scientology of California and Mary Sue Hubbard v. Gerald Armstrong, Los Angles Superior Court no. C 420153 (“Armstrong I“), Sherman told me that one of these friends, whom he called “Joey,” had told him that there was an

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actual group inside the organization who were dedicated to reforming it because management had become suppressive. They called themselves the “Loyalists,” claiming to be ” loyal” to the preservation of the ideals of Scientology, “what worked.” They also recognized that its leaders were criminal, crazy, dangerous, and not dedicated to those ideals but were acting to destroy them. The “Loyalists” wanted to take control in a well-planned, effective and peaceful action before some tragedy happened. They claimed to know of criminal activities and a key part of their plan was the documenting of these activities.

5. Sherman said they were 35 in number, or at least there were 35 who knew they were “Loyalists,” all smart, reasonable and not fanatics. Some of them were his old friends from B-1. Such persons tended to be smart, reasonable and often were not fanatics. The people whom I knew to be, including Hubbard, the organization leaders, prided themselves on their recognition of unreasonableness as a virtue, and maintained an abiding fanaticism to justify their abuses and keep their positions of power. Sherman was smart and gave every appearance of being reasonable and unfanatical. He said the Loyalists knew he was in communication with me and wanted to talk with me but were afraid for their lives. This was not surprising to me because I knew from my own experiences that the organization had a brutal side and its leaders were dangerous, armed and desperate. Thus the first communications with the Loyalists were a few messages relayed by Sherman. They said that I had a proven record against

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the organization, that my integrity had been unshakable and they wanted my help.

6. A few days after the Armstrong I trial ended, Joey, who, I later learned, was actually one David Kluge, made the first direct contact with me, a phone call to my home in Costa Mesa, California. He said the Loyalists knew I wanted my pc folders,3 was the head of the Guardian Office for years and among other things, authored the infamous order ‘GO 121669’ which directed culling of supposedly confidential P.C. files/folders for the purposes of internal security.” “The practice of culling supposedly confidential ‘P.C. folders or files’ to obtain information for purposes of intimidation and/or harassment is repugnant and outrageous. The Guardian’s Office, which plaintiff [Mary Sue Hubbard] headed, was no respector of anyone’s civil rights, particularly that of privacy.”]4 that my folders were being moved on a certain day and that I could get them if I wanted. I told Kluge that even though the folders were mine the organization would claim, if it was discovered I had them, that I was accepting stolen property, so I had to decline his offer. I was also already booked, on the same day the Loyalists said they would get me my pc folders, to fly to London to testify in a child custody case5 involving

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Scientology, and I told Kluge that I couldn’t change my plans.

7. When I returned from the UK, where, incidentally, I had been harassed by a pack of English private investigators working for the organization, Kluge reestablished contact, and I communicated with him or Sherman several times over the next few months. I was happy to be in communication with them, because I’m happy to be in communication with anyone, and my relationship with the Loyalists, who were admitted Scientologists, seemed a spark of hope in the seemingly hopeless and threatening Scientology situation.

8. I have believed and stated that when Scientologists have the freedom to communicate to the people their leaders label “enemies,” Scientology will cease to have enemies. The organization’s leaders prohibit their minions from communicating with me, thus I am their enemy. This prohibition is enforced with severe “ethics” punishment, which could easily include “declaring” the person who dared to communicate with me a “suppressive” person, thus making him the target of the organization’s philosophy and practice of opportunistic hatred Hubbard called “fair game.”

9. I had lost my law office job because of the Armstrong I trial, which really ran from April into June, 1984, and I did not get another job for some months, so had considerable time on my

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hands in the fall of 1984 to meet with Sherman and the Loyalists and do some of the things they wanted. I had begun to draw and write seriously during this period, and some of my writings concerned the Scientology battle and the Loyalists. My situation with the organization and the Loyalists was bizarre and psychologically traumatic, and this is reflected in my writings of the period. Thanks to, I believe, my growing faith in God I was given the gift of a healthy sense of humor and that too is a facet of my communications and writings during the period.

10. In late July, 1984 the organization fed to the media the story, and filed papers in various court cases, including Armstrong I, charging, that Michael Flynn, who had fought the organization’s fair game tactics for five years, who had been my friend and attorney for two years and had just successfully defended me in the Armstrong I trial, was behind a plot to cash a forged check for $2,000,000.00 on one of Hubbard’s accounts at the Bank of New England. Sherman and Kluge communicated that the Loyalists knew Flynn was not involved, and that the organization leaders knew Flynn was uninvolved but were framing him with the forgery. The Loyalists said that they were working inside the organization to acquire the proof of the frame-up, and that when they proved Flynn’s innocence they would be in a position to effectuate the reforms they sought. This was fine with me, because I fully believed that Flynn was innocent, and that the organization was framing him just to be able to attack him to eliminate the threat he represented to its antisocial practices

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and nature.

11. Over the next few months Sherman and Kluge communicated with me regularly about the Loyalists’ progress in documenting the truth about the Flynn frame-up. They claimed that all staff were searched before they could leave OSA or management offices, so it was hard to get any documents out. Nevertheless, on a couple of occasions Sherman and Joey gave me a page or two that had been smuggled out. I learned that a US Attorney in Boston had become involved in the investigation of the frame-up, and I passed whatever I got from the Loyalists to him through Flynn.

12. One of the ideas which developed with the Loyalists in the early fall of 1984 was the possible filing of a lawsuit to take control of the organization from the “criminals.” I saw this as an idea with merit, and could be the effective action the Loyalists said they were looking for to avert a major organization tragedy. I told Flynn what they wanted and he drafted a “bare bones” complaint which I passed to them. Sherman, Kluge and I discussed the lawsuit concept on several occasions, both of them asking me for my ideas and I helped as I could within the limits of my knowledge, ability and imagination.

13. The Loyalists then began discussing with me finding a financial “backer” for their lawsuit, basing this need on the likelihood that the bringing of the suit would freeze organization accounts, and the Loyalists would need operating capital. They claimed that the leaders had lots of money they had skimmed from the organization and squirreled away in their

7

own bank accounts, and the Loyalists were all staff members and thus broke. I couldn’t help them with money, and knew of no one who might finance whatever they did, so they said that, because I understood the situation so well, and had a proven record, they wanted me to talk to and encourage some prospective backers with whom they were in touch. One day I got a call from Kluge, asking me to fly to Las Vegas to meet with such a person, a “rich Scientologist” who had been mistreated by the organization and was aligned with the Loyalists on their goal of reformation.

Although on Kluge’s instructions I purchased a plane ticket, I called off the trip before leaving because my lawyers warned me that I could be walking into a trap.

14. There were many times during this period when I considered the possibility that I was walking into a trap. The thought arose in all my meetings with Kluge, and later with Mike Rinder, the second Loyalist I would meet. Their communications often didn’t jibe with what they or Sherman had said on earlier occasions, and sometimes they said things which were downright stupid. I had no way of originating a communication to them, had no telephone numbers, no locations, no names, and no idea what any of them did. They had my address, phone number, knew exactly what I did, and could call me any time they wanted. They told me almost nothing, and wanted to know everything I knew. They claimed I had to be kept in the dark because of their fear for their lives, and for that reason I went along with their, even to me, strange behavior.

8

15. Because of their fear for their lives they depended on secrecy, duplicity and intelligence procedures and goals. Although I had been in intelligence in the organization and had the essential quality for the field; i.e., native intelligence, I had, after leaving the organization, come to the conclusion that Scientology’s brand of intelligence; i.e., the secret world of data, duplicity, stealth, hidden intentions and hidden identities, was ineffective, unhealthy, unholy, and not my choice for how I would make my way through life and deal with my problems. Even inside the organization, which is an intelligence-based group, I had urged those who were in positions to do something about it to open up, stop lying, disclose its leaders, divulge its secrets; because I felt that its lies, secrets, and secret orders from its secret leaders would only bring upon it more problems. After leaving the organization, a factor in my life which led to my faith in openness and freedom as opposed to secrecy and leverage, was all the testifying I did, in trial in Armstrong I and in B & G Wards, and in many days of depositions in several more Scientology-related cases. Also I knew that the organization’s leaders, who had an undeniable determination to harm me, possessed my pc folders which contained every embarrassing incident or thought in my life, and my lives back umpteen impossibillion years. These facts had resulted in a tendency in me at times during this period to not care what happened to me and to act a little wild and silly.

16. Sometime during 1984 it came to me that what I was

9

following, and what was a far superior technology and faith than intelligence, or perhaps perfect intelligence, was guidance. I had been given, before and after my asking, a desire to know my Creator, and I believe I received during this period some of His communications to me. Hubbard in his writings put no faith in his Creator, but put it in something of his own making, an intelligence apparatus in which he was the secret leader with secret bank accounts, secret communication lines, secret codes, secret intentions, and secret lawyers to keep them all secret. I had come to know God a little, and understood that no matter how scary things got I was in hands in which I was in no real danger. I could be shot, my body could be destroyed, I could be defamed and ruined, and I would still be in no real danger. And things did get scary for me in my dealings with Sherman and the Loyalists during this period. I picked up surveillance on a number of occasions, and there was the nagging strangeness of the Loyalists’ communications and the movie-like quality of this play in which I was being played with. I still retained my intellect and acted with good sense most of the time, but a shift was occurring in my mind and soul. I began to walk deliberately into danger, but I was also new at this approach to life, and as yet a little foolhardy and undisciplined, and these facts too are reflected in my writings and actions of the period.

17. Sherman’s and Kluge’s interest was intelligence and they didn’t want to hear much of my philosophy of guidance, courage and openness, so I turned my mind to the intelligence

10

game, and as always happens when I turn my mind to any subject, I had ideas. Some of these ideas I communicated to the Loyalists, some I wrote down, some were only funny. Our meetings had a secretive, spy story feel to them, partly because of the danger the Loyalists said they were in and the danger I was in anyone would say, partly because of the subject matter we discussed, and partly because of the settings in which we met. Sherman insisted that I couldn’t come to his home, so we met on many occasions in the bird sanctuary in Griffith Park. My first meeting with Kluge was in a cemetery in Glendale. I met him two more times in early November at different locations in Griffith Park, and then met with Rinder two times in late November at two more locations in the park.

18. Sherman told me around October, 1984 that the Loyalists had found a potential backer, a woman named Rene, another “rich Scientologist,” who he said had been horribly hurt by the organization. He said he knew her personally and considered her a good and trusted friend. He said that she owned a publishing company which printed calendars, that he had told her about my artwork and writing, and that she wanted to see some of my materials for possible publication. Following our first meeting in Griffith Park Kluge took me to the Sheraton Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles to meet her. I took along a file of some of my work and left it with her. In my meeting with her she wanted to know my perspective on the lawsuit idea and my thoughts on removing the organization’s criminal leadership.

11

19. While claiming that the Loyalists wanted to take legal action to bring about a safe transfer of power, both Sherman and Kluge also claimed that they didn’t know anything about legal matters, nor any of the organization’s litigations, and that there were other people higher up in the Loyalist network who were trained in legal, stayed abreast of the organization’s litigation battles, and had an understanding of the Loyalists’ legal options and an overview of their plan which Sherman and Kluge didn’t have. Coupled with their claimed need to keep me in the dark for fear of their lives, their assertions of ignorance of legal matters caused considerable frustration in me and in our communications. As a result, I requested in a number of communications to speak to their “best legal mind.”

20. Finally the Loyalists said that their legal expert would meet me and a rendezvous was set up, again in Griffith Park. The “legal expert” turned out to be Mike Rinder, a person I had known in the organization, who had held various lower level administrative posts. Rinder, it turned out, also professed ignorance of legal concepts, and my meetings and communications with him were even more frustrating.

21. Some time after my last meeting with Rinder, which occurred November 30, 1984, I received a phone call from Kluge, advising me that the Loyalists did not trust me and would not be communicating with me again. I then wrote them my final communication, a copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit A6, and gave it to Sherman to give to them.

12

22. During my cross-examination7 in the spring, 1985 trial of Julie Christofferson v. Scientology, Circuit Court of the State of Oregon, Multnomah County, No. A7704-05184, the organization broke the fact that Sherman, Kluge and Rinder had been covert operatives, the Loyalists were invented, and that my meetings with Kluge and Rinder had been videotaped.8 The organization called the whole more than two year affair the “Armstrong Operation.” Organization lawyers, Earle Cooley and John Peterson, claimed the Armstrong operation had been authorized by the Los Angeles Police Department, and they produced a letter dated November 7, 1984, a copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit B 9, signed by an officer Phillip Rodriguez, directing organization private investigator Eugene M. Ingram to electronically eavesdrop on me and Michael Flynn.

23. On April 23, 1985, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates issued a public statement, a copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit C10, denying that the Rodriguez letter was a correspondence from the Los Angeles Police Department, denying that the Los Angeles Police Department had cooperated with Ingram, and stating emphatically that all purported authorizations directed to Ingram by any member of the Los Angeles Police Department are invalid and unauthorized. On information and belief, the officer, Phillip Rodriguez, who signed Ingram’s letter was paid $10,000.00 for his signature. Also on information and belief, following a Los Angeles Police Department Internal Affairs Division investigation and a Police

13

Department Board of Rights, Officer Rodriguez was suspended from the Los Angeles Police Force. Eugene Ingram had himself some years before been drummed out of the Los Angeles Police Department. He is reputed to have been busted for pandering and taking payoffs from drug dealers. He is a liar and a bully who has been involved in organization intelligence operations against its perceived enemies for many years. During the period I was involved with the Loyalists Ingram called me at my home and threatened to put a bullet between my eyes.

24. Initially the presiding judge in the Christofferson trial Donald F. Londer refused to admit the tapes because they had been obtained illegally. Then he viewed them in chambers and when he returned to the bench stated that “the tapes are devastating, very devastating to the church.” Then he admitted them into evidence.

25. Despite Judge Londer’s ruling and comments, and despite Chief Gates’ repudiation of the Rodriguez “authorization,” the organization has continued in press and courts around the world to claim that the videotape operation was “police-sanctioned.”

The organization has continued to claim that I originated the “plot to overthrow ” church” management” and that I initiated the contact with the organization members, who merely played along with my plan while remaining “loyal” to the organization. It also has continued to claim that the videotapes show me plotting to forge documents and seed them in organization files to be found in a raid, show me creating “sham lawsuits,” show me urging

14

the Loyalists to not prove anything but “just allege it,” and show me seeking to take control of the organization. The videotapes show none of those things. The tapes show that in the fall of 1984, during the reign of the organization’s present supreme leader David Miscavige (DM), the fair game doctrine was alive and as unfair as ever. The tapes show a mean-spirited, mendacious and malevolent organization using well-drilled operatives and electronic gadgetry to attempt, unsuccessfully, to set up an unwitting, funny, sometimes silly, clearly helpful, at times foul-mouthed, but otherwise ordinary human male.

26. The organization’s refusal to stop telling these lies is not surprising, however, because its leaders have put so many of their eggs in their dirty tricks basket. These leaders are unbalanced and in a very precarious situation. Having lied about the Armstrong Operation in so many courts and publications and to so many people, including their own followers, these leaders risk their positions of power, and in their minds their very lives, if they ever admit the breadth of those lies. Yet it is in the acknowledgement of the truth behind those lies where ultimately their safety will be found.

27. It has not ceased to be embarrassing to me whenever the organization trots out the Armstrong videotapes, because I do say some silly and raunchy things. But the organization has never been able to embarrass me into silence and it won’t now.

28. The Scientology legal war has almost run its course. The organization’s leaders can never rewrite all history.

15

Scientologists of good will everywhere can be free.

I declare under the penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed at San Anselmo, California, on February 20, 1994. 11
[signed]
GERALD ARMSTRONG

Copyright © 1994 Gerry Armstrong

16

Notes

  1. The Guardian’s Office (“GO”), headed from 1966 to 1981 by Mary Sue Hubbard, who reported to and was controlled by L. Ron Hubbard, consisted of five bureaus: Intelligence, Public Relations, Legal, Finance and Social Coordination (front groups). The GO was responsible for hiding its money and its actual command lines, defending the organization against attacks and for eliminating all opposition to its progress. Hubbard patterned its intelligence bureau, B-1, and the organization’s total espionage mentality on the work of Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s spy master. On Hubbard’s orders, after the conviction of 11 top GO intelligence personnel, including Mary Sue, for criminal activities against the US Government, Scientology’s second major arm of power, the Sea Organization, in a 1981 putsch took control of the GO’s functions and subsequently renamed the GO arm the Office of Special Affairs, “OSA.” ↩
  2. Sec checks are accusatory interrogations using Hubbard’s electropsychometer or E-Meter as a lie detector. Sec checks could be brutal, could go on for many hours or days, could involve several people asking questions, threatening and badgering, and could have disastrous results for the interrogee. ↩
  3. Pc folders, also called preclear or auditing files or folders, contain the record of processes run and questions asked by the auditor (psycho- therapist), E-Meter reads, and answers given and statements made by the preclear (or patient) during Scientology auditing (or psychotherapy) sessions. It was well known that I had opposed and exposed the organ- ization’s misuse of information divulged by the organization’s “preclears” (what were essentially psychotherapist-patient confidences) in auditing. I had been attempting to get the organization to deliver to me my pc folders throughout the Armstrong I litigation, and the misuse of auditing information was an issue in the Armstrong I trial. Judge Paul G. Breckenridge, Jr. stated in his decision following the 30-day Armstrong I trial: “[Mary Sue Hubbard ↩
  4. See The Breckenridge Decision, filed June 22, 1984. ↩
  5. This Royal Courts of Justice case, known as Re: B and G Wards resulted in a Judgment on July 23, 1984 issued by Justice Latey in favor of the non-Scientologist parent. The Judgment, which was upheld on appeal, contained a scathing condemnation of organization policies and practices. ↩
  6. Exhibit A: Letter to the Loyalists ↩
  7. See Excerpts of Proceedings in Christofferson ↩
  8. See Illegal Videos ↩
  9. Exhibit B: Illegal authorization November 7, 1984 ↩
  10. Exhibit C: Public Announcement by LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates ↩
  11. Also see related Declaration of Gerry Armstrong (February 22, 1994). ↩

Declaration of Gerry Armstrong (February 20, 1994)

by

FIND A BETTER BASKET

A Literary Work Created and Written
by
GERALD ARMSTRONG

FIND A BETTER BASKET
Copyright © 1994 Gerald Armstrong
All Rights Reserved
Contact:
The Gerald Armstrong Corporation
Copyright © 1994 Gerald Armstrong
© 1994 Gerald Armstrong

FIND A BETTER BASKET

    I, Gerald Armstrong, declare:

1. I am making this declaration in response to allegations made by Scientology organization leaders, attorneys and agents in court proceedings and public media around the world concerning a 1984 organization intelligence operation targeting me, which has been called the “Armstrong Operation.” I am copyrighting this document prior to its use in court because it will, in addition to putting the organization’s allegations into a proper context, form an outline for a screenplay I am writing. It is my story.

2. After I left the organization at the end of 1981, the organization intelligence bureau assigned Dan Sherman, a Los Angeles spy story writer and intel operative, to get close to me and become my friend, which he did. I had been the intelligence officer on board the “Apollo” with the organization’s founder and supreme leader L. Ron Hubbard, had studied his intelligence policies and Guardian’s Office 1 intelligence materials, had an

1

appreciation for that literary genre, and I was myself a writer, so Sherman and I had a real basis for a real friendship.

3. Sherman told me he was no longer involved in Scientology, wanted nothing to do with it, saw it as a personal waste of time, and also saw that its leaders were ruthless and dangerous, and claimed to be afraid of them finding out that he was friends with me. Sometime in 1982 or 1983 he told me that he was still in communication in a limited way with some of his old friends still in the organization. He described these friends as smart, reasonable and not fanatics. They were still Scientologists and worked on staff, but felt that organization leaders were criminals. Having no allegiance to these leaders, Sherman’s friends would occasionally tell him about conditions inside and their desire to end the organization’s criminal activities. They said the conditions inside were oppressive and chaotic and they were at risk even talking to him because sec checks2 were rampant.

4. During the 1984 trial of the organization’s case against me, Church of Scientology of California and Mary Sue Hubbard v. Gerald Armstrong, Los Angles Superior Court no. C 420153 (“Armstrong I“), Sherman told me that one of these friends, whom he called “Joey,” had told him that there was an

2

actual group inside the organization who were dedicated to reforming it because management had become suppressive. They called themselves the “Loyalists,” claiming to be ” loyal” to the preservation of the ideals of Scientology, “what worked.” They also recognized that its leaders were criminal, crazy, dangerous, and not dedicated to those ideals but were acting to destroy them. The “Loyalists” wanted to take control in a well-planned, effective and peaceful action before some tragedy happened. They claimed to know of criminal activities and a key part of their plan was the documenting of these activities.

5. Sherman said they were 35 in number, or at least there were 35 who knew they were “Loyalists,” all smart, reasonable and not fanatics. Some of them were his old friends from B-1. Such persons tended to be smart, reasonable and often were not fanatics. The people whom I knew to be, including Hubbard, the organization leaders, prided themselves on their recognition of unreasonableness as a virtue, and maintained an abiding fanaticism to justify their abuses and keep their positions of power. Sherman was smart and gave every appearance of being reasonable and unfanatical. He said the Loyalists knew he was in communication with me and wanted to talk with me but were afraid for their lives. This was not surprising to me because I knew from my own experiences that the organization had a brutal side and its leaders were dangerous, armed and desperate. Thus the first communications with the Loyalists were a few messages relayed by Sherman. They said that I had a proven record against

3

the organization, that my integrity had been unshakable and they wanted my help.

 6. A few days after the Armstrong I trial ended, Joey, who, I later learned, was actually one David Kluge, made the first direct contact with me, a phone call to my home in Costa Mesa, California. He said the Loyalists knew I wanted my pc folders,3 was the head of the Guardian Office for years and among other things, authored the infamous order ‘GO 121669’ which directed culling of supposedly confidential P.C. files/folders for the purposes of internal security.” “The practice of culling supposedly confidential ‘P.C. folders or files’ to obtain information for purposes of intimidation and/or harassment is repugnant and outrageous. The Guardian’s Office, which plaintiff [Mary Sue Hubbard] headed, was no respector of anyone’s civil rights, particularly that of privacy.”]4  that my folders were being moved on a certain day and that I could get them if I wanted. I told Kluge that even though the folders were mine the organization would claim, if it was discovered I had them, that I was accepting stolen property, so I had to decline his offer. I was also already booked, on the same day the Loyalists said they would get me my pc folders, to fly to London to testify in a child custody case5 involving

4

Scientology, and I told Kluge that I couldn’t change my plans.

7. When I returned from the UK, where, incidentally, I had been harassed by a pack of English private investigators working for the organization, Kluge reestablished contact, and I communicated with him or Sherman several times over the next few months. I was happy to be in communication with them, because I’m happy to be in communication with anyone, and my relationship with the Loyalists, who were admitted Scientologists, seemed a spark of hope in the seemingly hopeless and threatening Scientology situation.

8. I have believed and stated that when Scientologists have the freedom to communicate to the people their leaders label “enemies,” Scientology will cease to have enemies. The organization’s leaders prohibit their minions from communicating with me, thus I am their enemy. This prohibition is enforced with severe “ethics” punishment, which could easily include “declaring” the person who dared to communicate with me a “suppressive” person, thus making him the target of the organization’s philosophy and practice of opportunistic hatred Hubbard called “fair game.”

9. I had lost my law office job because of the Armstrong I trial, which really ran from April into June, 1984, and I did not get another job for some months, so had considerable time on my

5

hands in the fall of 1984 to meet with Sherman and the Loyalists and do some of the things they wanted. I had begun to draw and write seriously during this period, and some of my writings concerned the Scientology battle and the Loyalists. My situation with the organization and the Loyalists was bizarre and psychologically traumatic, and this is reflected in my writings of the period. Thanks to, I believe, my growing faith in God I was given the gift of a healthy sense of humor and that too is a facet of my communications and writings during the period.

10. In late July, 1984 the organization fed to the media the story, and filed papers in various court cases, including Armstrong I, charging, that Michael Flynn, who had fought the organization’s fair game tactics for five years, who had been my friend and attorney for two years and had just successfully defended me in the Armstrong I trial, was behind a plot to cash a forged check for $2,000,000.00 on one of Hubbard’s accounts at the Bank of New England. Sherman and Kluge communicated that the Loyalists knew Flynn was not involved, and that the organization leaders knew Flynn was uninvolved but were framing him with the forgery. The Loyalists said that they were working inside the organization to acquire the proof of the frame-up, and that when they proved Flynn’s innocence they would be in a position to effectuate the reforms they sought. This was fine with me, because I fully believed that Flynn was innocent, and that the organization was framing him just to be able to attack him to eliminate the threat he represented to its antisocial practices

6

 

and nature.

11. Over the next few months Sherman and Kluge communicated with me regularly about the Loyalists’ progress in documenting the truth about the Flynn frame-up. They claimed that all staff were searched before they could leave OSA or management offices, so it was hard to get any documents out. Nevertheless, on a couple of occasions Sherman and Joey gave me a page or two that had been smuggled out. I learned that a US Attorney in Boston had become involved in the investigation of the frame-up, and I passed whatever I got from the Loyalists to him through Flynn.

12. One of the ideas which developed with the Loyalists in the early fall of 1984 was the possible filing of a lawsuit to take control of the organization from the “criminals.” I saw this as an idea with merit, and could be the effective action the Loyalists said they were looking for to avert a major organization tragedy. I told Flynn what they wanted and he drafted a “bare bones” complaint which I passed to them. Sherman, Kluge and I discussed the lawsuit concept on several occasions, both of them asking me for my ideas and I helped as I could within the limits of my knowledge, ability and imagination.

13. The Loyalists then began discussing with me finding a financial “backer” for their lawsuit, basing this need on the likelihood that the bringing of the suit would freeze organization accounts, and the Loyalists would need operating capital. They claimed that the leaders had lots of money they had skimmed from the organization and squirreled away in their

7

own bank accounts, and the Loyalists were all staff members and thus broke. I couldn’t help them with money, and knew of no one who might finance whatever they did, so they said that, because I understood the situation so well, and had a proven record, they wanted me to talk to and encourage some prospective backers with whom they were in touch. One day I got a call from Kluge, asking me to fly to Las Vegas to meet with such a person, a “rich Scientologist” who had been mistreated by the organization and was aligned with the Loyalists on their goal of reformation.

Although on Kluge’s instructions I purchased a plane ticket, I called off the trip before leaving because my lawyers warned me that I could be walking into a trap.

14. There were many times during this period when I considered the possibility that I was walking into a trap. The thought arose in all my meetings with Kluge, and later with Mike Rinder, the second Loyalist I would meet. Their communications often didn’t jibe with what they or Sherman had said on earlier occasions, and sometimes they said things which were downright stupid. I had no way of originating a communication to them, had no telephone numbers, no locations, no names, and no idea what any of them did. They had my address, phone number, knew exactly what I did, and could call me any time they wanted. They told me almost nothing, and wanted to know everything I knew. They claimed I had to be kept in the dark because of their fear for their lives, and for that reason I went along with their, even to me, strange behavior.

8

15. Because of their fear for their lives they depended on secrecy, duplicity and intelligence procedures and goals.  Although I had been in intelligence in the organization and had the essential quality for the field; i.e., native intelligence, I had, after leaving the organization, come to the conclusion that Scientology’s brand of intelligence; i.e., the secret world of data, duplicity, stealth, hidden intentions and hidden identities, was ineffective, unhealthy, unholy, and not my choice for how I would make my way through life and deal with my problems. Even inside the organization, which is an intelligence-based group, I had urged those who were in positions to do something about it to open up, stop lying, disclose its leaders, divulge its secrets; because I felt that its lies, secrets, and secret orders from its secret leaders would only bring upon it more problems. After leaving the organization, a factor in my life which led to my faith in openness and freedom as opposed to secrecy and leverage, was all the testifying I did, in trial in Armstrong I and in B & G Wards, and in many days of depositions in several more Scientology-related cases. Also I knew that the organization’s leaders, who had an undeniable determination to harm me, possessed my pc folders which contained every embarrassing incident or thought in my life, and my lives back umpteen impossibillion years. These facts had resulted in a tendency in me at times during this period to not care what happened to me and to act a little wild and silly.

16. Sometime during 1984 it came to me that what I was

9

 following, and what was a far superior technology and faith than intelligence, or perhaps perfect intelligence, was guidance. I had been given, before and after my asking, a desire to know my Creator, and I believe I received during this period some of His communications to me. Hubbard in his writings put no faith in his Creator, but put it in something of his own making, an intelligence apparatus in which he was the secret leader with secret bank accounts, secret  communication lines, secret codes, secret intentions, and secret lawyers to keep them all secret. I had come to know God a little, and understood that no matter how scary things got I was in hands in which I was in no real danger. I could be shot, my body could be destroyed, I could be defamed and ruined, and I would still be in no real danger. And things did get scary for me in my dealings with Sherman and the Loyalists during this period. I picked up surveillance on a number of occasions, and there was the nagging strangeness of the Loyalists’ communications and the movie-like quality of this play in which I was being played with. I still retained my intellect and acted with good sense most of the time, but a shift was occurring in my mind and soul. I began to walk deliberately into danger, but I was also new at this approach to life, and as yet a little foolhardy and undisciplined, and these facts too are reflected in my writings and actions of the period.

17. Sherman’s and Kluge’s interest was intelligence and they didn’t want to hear much of my philosophy of guidance, courage and openness, so I turned my mind to the intelligence

10

game, and as always happens when I turn my mind to any subject, I had ideas. Some of these ideas I communicated to the Loyalists, some I wrote down, some were only funny. Our meetings had a secretive, spy story feel to them, partly because of the danger the Loyalists said they were in and the danger I was in anyone would say, partly because of the subject matter we discussed, and partly because of the settings in which we met. Sherman insisted that I couldn’t come to his home, so we met on many occasions in the bird sanctuary in Griffith Park. My first meeting with Kluge was in a cemetery in Glendale. I met him two more times in early November at different locations in Griffith Park, and then met with Rinder two times in late November at two more locations in the park.

18. Sherman told me around October, 1984 that the Loyalists had found a potential backer, a woman named Rene, another “rich Scientologist,” who he said had been horribly hurt by the organization. He said he knew her personally and considered her a good and trusted friend. He said that she owned a publishing company which printed calendars, that he had told her about my artwork and writing, and that she wanted to see some of my materials for possible publication. Following our first meeting in Griffith Park Kluge took me to the Sheraton Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles to meet her. I took along a file of some of my work and left it with her. In my meeting with her she wanted to know my perspective on the lawsuit idea and my thoughts on removing the organization’s criminal leadership.

11

19. While claiming that the Loyalists wanted to take legal action to bring about a safe transfer of power, both Sherman and Kluge also claimed that they didn’t know anything about legal matters, nor any of the organization’s litigations, and that there were other people higher up in the Loyalist network who were trained in legal, stayed abreast of the organization’s litigation battles, and had an understanding of the Loyalists’ legal options and an overview of their plan which Sherman and Kluge didn’t have. Coupled with their claimed need to keep me in the dark for fear of their lives, their assertions of ignorance of legal matters caused considerable frustration in me and in our communications. As a result, I requested in a number of communications to speak to their “best legal mind.”

20. Finally the Loyalists said that their legal expert would meet me and a rendezvous was set up, again in Griffith Park. The “legal expert” turned out to be Mike Rinder, a person I had known in the organization, who had held various lower level administrative posts. Rinder, it turned out, also professed ignorance of legal concepts, and my meetings and communications with him were even more frustrating.

21. Some time after my last meeting with Rinder, which occurred November 30, 1984, I received a phone call from Kluge, advising me that the Loyalists did not trust me and would not be communicating with me again. I then wrote them my final communication, a copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit A6, and gave it to Sherman to give to them.

12

    22. During my cross-examination7 in the spring, 1985 trial of Julie Christofferson v. Scientology, Circuit Court of the State of Oregon, Multnomah County, No. A7704-05184, the organization broke the fact that Sherman, Kluge and Rinder had been covert operatives, the Loyalists were invented, and that my meetings with Kluge and Rinder had been videotaped.8 The organization called the whole more than two year affair the “Armstrong Operation.” Organization lawyers, Earle Cooley and John Peterson, claimed the Armstrong operation had been authorized by the Los Angeles Police Department, and they produced a letter dated November 7, 1984, a copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit B 9, signed by an officer Phillip Rodriguez, directing organization private investigator Eugene M. Ingram to electronically eavesdrop on me and Michael Flynn.

23. On April 23, 1985, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates issued a public statement, a copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit C10, denying that the Rodriguez letter was a correspondence from the Los Angeles Police Department, denying that the Los Angeles Police Department had cooperated with Ingram, and stating emphatically that all purported authorizations directed to Ingram by any member of the Los Angeles Police Department are invalid and unauthorized. On information and belief, the officer, Phillip Rodriguez, who signed Ingram’s letter was paid $10,000.00 for his signature.  Also on information and belief, following a Los Angeles Police Department Internal Affairs Division investigation and a Police

13

 Department Board of Rights, Officer Rodriguez was suspended from the Los Angeles Police Force. Eugene Ingram had himself some years before been drummed out of the Los Angeles Police Department. He is reputed to have been busted for pandering and taking payoffs from drug dealers. He is a liar and a bully who has been involved in organization intelligence operations against its perceived enemies for many years. During the period I was involved with the Loyalists Ingram called me at my home and threatened to put a bullet between my eyes.

24. Initially the presiding judge in the Christofferson trial Donald F. Londer refused to admit the tapes because they had been obtained illegally. Then he viewed them in chambers and when he returned to the bench stated that “the tapes are devastating, very devastating to the church.” Then he admitted them into evidence.

25. Despite Judge Londer’s ruling and comments, and despite Chief Gates’ repudiation of the Rodriguez “authorization,” the organization has continued in press and courts around the world to claim that the videotape operation was “police-sanctioned.”

The organization has continued to claim that I originated the “plot to overthrow ” church” management” and that I initiated the contact with the organization members, who merely played along with my plan while remaining “loyal” to the organization. It also has continued to claim that the videotapes show me plotting to forge documents and seed them in organization files to be found in a raid, show me creating “sham lawsuits,” show me urging

14

the Loyalists to not prove anything but “just allege it,” and show me seeking to take control of the organization. The videotapes show none of those things. The tapes show that in the fall of 1984, during the reign of the organization’s present supreme leader David Miscavige (DM), the fair game doctrine was alive and as unfair as ever. The tapes show a mean-spirited, mendacious and malevolent organization using well-drilled operatives and electronic gadgetry to attempt, unsuccessfully, to set up an unwitting, funny, sometimes silly, clearly helpful, at times foul-mouthed, but otherwise ordinary human male.

26. The organization’s refusal to stop telling these lies is not surprising, however, because its leaders have put so many of their eggs in their dirty tricks basket. These leaders are unbalanced and in a very precarious situation. Having lied about the Armstrong Operation in so many courts and publications and to so many people, including their own followers, these leaders risk their positions of power, and in their minds their very lives, if they ever admit the breadth of those lies. Yet it is in the acknowledgement of the truth behind those lies where ultimately their safety will be found.

27. It has not ceased to be embarrassing to me whenever the organization trots out the Armstrong videotapes, because I do say some silly and raunchy things. But the organization has never been able to embarrass me into silence and it won’t now.

28. The Scientology legal war has almost run its course. The organization’s leaders can never rewrite all history.

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Scientologists of good will everywhere can be free.

I declare under the penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed at San Anselmo, California, on February 20, 1994.
[signed]
GERALD ARMSTRONG

Copyright © 1994 Gerry Armstrong

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Notes

 

  1. The Guardian’s Office (“GO”), headed from 1966 to 1981 by Mary Sue Hubbard, who reported to and was controlled by L. Ron Hubbard, consisted of five bureaus: Intelligence, Public Relations, Legal, Finance and Social Coordination (front groups). The GO was responsible for hiding its money and its actual command lines, defending the organization against attacks and for eliminating all opposition to its progress. Hubbard patterned its intelligence bureau, B-1, and the organization’s total espionage mentality on the work of Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s spy master. On Hubbard’s orders, after the conviction of 11 top GO intelligence personnel, including Mary Sue, for criminal activities against the US Government, Scientology’s second major arm of power, the Sea Organization, in a 1981 putsch took control of the GO’s functions and subsequently renamed the GO arm the Office of Special Affairs, “OSA.” ↩
  2. Sec checks are accusatory interrogations using Hubbard’s electropsychometer or E-Meter as a lie detector. Sec checks could be brutal, could go on for many hours or days, could involve several people asking questions, threatening and badgering, and could have disastrous results for the interrogee. ↩
  3. Pc folders, also called preclear or auditing files or folders, contain the record of processes run and questions asked by the auditor (psycho- therapist), E-Meter reads, and answers given and statements made by the preclear (or patient) during Scientology auditing (or psychotherapy) sessions. It was well known that I had opposed and exposed the organ- ization’s misuse of information divulged by the organization’s “preclears” (what were essentially psychotherapist-patient confidences) in auditing. I had been attempting to get the organization to deliver to me my pc folders throughout the Armstrong I litigation, and the misuse of auditing information was an issue in the Armstrong I trial. Judge Paul G. Breckenridge, Jr. stated in his decision following the 30-day Armstrong I trial: “[Mary Sue Hubbard ↩
  4. See The Breckenridge Decision, filed June 22, 1984. ↩
  5.  This Royal Courts of Justice case, known as Re: B and G Wards resulted in a Judgment on July 23, 1984 issued by Justice Latey in favor of the non-Scientologist parent. The Judgment, which was upheld on appeal, contained a scathing condemnation of organization policies and practices. ↩
  6. Exhibit A: Letter to the Loyalists ↩
  7. See Excerpts of Proceedings in Christofferson ↩
  8. See Illegal Videos ↩
  9. Exhibit B: Illegal authorization November 7, 1984 ↩
  10. Exhibit C: Public Announcement by LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates ↩

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