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The Globe and Mail
May 17, 1978
Church kept 'enemies list'
Raid on Scientologists netted CIA documents
by John Picton
WASHINGTON - Secret documents from the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency were discovered when offices of the Church of Scientology
in the United States were raided by federal agents last year,
according to reports published here yesterday.
The reports said that apparently original Internal Revenue Service
documents were found during the raids, as well as confidential
letters between members of the U.S. Cabinet.
Also, it was discovered the church kept an enemies list, which
included files on Senator Edward Kennedy, Jacqueline Onassis, five
federal judges (including John Sirica of Watergate fame), the U.S.
Better Business Bureau and the American Medical Association.
These details, according to The Washington Post, have been
summarized in a 525-page inventory filed in court by the U.S.
Government in an action involving the church.
The inventory has been compiled from documents seized under
subpoena when investigators searched church offices in Washington
and Los Angeles last summer.
Seized, too, were a lockpicking kit, electronic eavesdropping
equipment, two .22-calibre pistols and a leather blackjack.
According to a Government affidavit, the reports said, top
Scientology officials were aware of and participated in a campaign
to silence critics of Scientology.
Among them was the head of the church's Guardian Office, which was
said to be responsible for conducting covert operations to acquire
Government documents and to discredit and remove from positions of
power all persons whom the church considers to be its enemies.
Scientology , founded in the late 1940s by L. Ron Hubbard, claims
to be a religion in which people are cleared of troubling
experiences in sessions with counsellors.
Fees for the sessions and courses in the movement's philosophy can
cost thousands of collars.
Following last year's raids, its leaders claimed the church has
broken no laws and that it was a victim of a Government conspiracy
to destroy it.
They said Government documents in its possession were obtained
legally under the Freedom of Information Act.
Some of the documents were marked FOIA, investigators said. Others
were marked non-FOIA.
The reports said that some of the seized documents indicated that
church members staged a fake hit-and-run accident in Washington in
an attempt to compromise a visiting Florida mayor who had opposed
the Scientologists in his community.
They also said the church had forged an embarrassing news story
under the name of a Florida reporter to discredit him, and had
faked a bomb threat to frame the author of a book critical of
Scientology.
Information was gathered on the personal habits and courtroom
conduct of U.S. judges, several of whom are said to have handled
some aspect of cases brought by or against the church.
The reports said some of the information was obtained from the
judges' private files. Other information came from interviews in
which Scientologists masqueraded as students or reporters, a
tactic that church documents referred to as suitable guise
interviews.
U.S. Government interest in Scientology files was heightened last
year when Michael Meisner, a high-ranking official in the church,
began telling Federal Bureau of Investigation officials about
covert activities being conducted by Scientologists.
Mr. Meisner had been sought by the FBI in connection with his
alleged illegal entry into the U.S. District Courthouse in
Washington.
He since has become a key Government witness and is being held in
protective custody.
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