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1980 Pulitzer series #11
Church tried to infiltrate Pinellas police agencies
-- by Charles Stafford
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Now note this date: Dec. 17, 1975.
That was a full month before the Church of Scientology announced it had
purchased that old Clearwater landmark, the Fort Harrison Hotel. Citizens
of the city were still being fed nonsense about some ecumenical group
called United Churches of Florida occupying the building.
But the Guardians of Scientology had already moved into Clearwater and
were looking for places where they could insinuate themselves into the
community fabric to establish listening posts for gathering information.
On that Dec. 17, Jimmy Mulligan, an assistant to Commodore Staff
Guardian Mary Sue Hubbard, wrote Dick Weigand, deputy guardian for
information U.S., about a visit he had made to the Clearwater Police
Department.
In the letter -- one of the thousands of church documents recently made
public by a federal court in Washington -- Mulligan said he had learned the
Clearwater department planned to combine its communications with those of
police departments in Dunedin and Largo.
"The way this will work," he said, "is that all calls to the police of
any of these towns will come into the Clearwater Police communications
center, and the various police cars of the various police departments will
be dispatched from there.
"The main point is that at that time -- April 1976 -- the
communications center is going 'all civilian.' In other words they are
going to relieve the uniformed policemen of those clerical duties so that
they can get onto production posts, and staff the communications center
with all civilians. At present, it's about half and half. The civilians by
my observation are all lovely young ladies -- 100 percent foxes.
"I think this is an excellent opportunity for us and I would like to
see us represented in that communications center."
Information was the lifeblood of the Guardians' covert operations
against those whom they perceived to be enemies of Scientology, information
they could use to defame and discredit the enemies.
The St. Petersburg Police Department became an enemy about mid-February
of 1976.
Church officials in Clearwater had filed requests with virtually every
state, county and local agency in the Tampa Bay area for copies of
everything in their files about Scientology. They made their requests to
federal agencies under the Freedom of Information Act and to state and
local agencies under Florida's public documents disclosure law.
The St. Petersburg Police Department reported it had no files on the
church. But the Guardian learned from an informant that the department's
intelligence division had two Scientology files, Numbers 251 and 164.
Henning Heldt, deputy guardian for the United States, decided that an
example should be made of the St. Petersburg police. He ordered an
operation against them.
"The idea here is to get the police and other agencies involved in the
illegal evasion to lie and thus box themselves in, then expose the lie
(possibly through State Ethics Committee action) with maximum PR (public
relations) and legal exposure of government overts re FOI evasion," he
said. "A Watergate set up."
Having made a national splash, he said, the church could then target
other police departments, such as that in the District of Columbia, for
similar operations.
For some reason, the operation wasn't carried out. But the Guardians
learned from one of their agents what the police files contained. This was
reported in an analysis dated July 13.
State Atty. James Russell became a nonfriend of Scientology as a result
of the guns case, which began in early August and stretched on into 1977.
For a time in '76, the church occupied one building of the King
Arthur's Court Condominiums in Dunedin. It appears from the court-released
documents that founder L. Ron Hubbard lived there for a time.
The problem was reported by Joe Lisa, assistant guardian for
information for Flag, in his daily report of Aug. 5:
"Situation: The missing guns belonging to the Boss have shown up in the
custody of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), and ATF
knows that some of these guns belong to the boss.
"Why: The investigation to find the guns omitted a thorough search of
King Arthur's Court ...
"Handled: Got the story of what occurred from two ATF agents from the
Tampa ATF office: Several days ago the guns were discovered in Apt. No. 1
at King Arthur's Court by cleaners; the cleaners informed the owners of
KAC, a local bank; the bank reported the guns to the Dunedin Police
Department, who in turn reported it to ATF Tampa. Due to an inventory list
packed with the guns, and an engraving on one of the guns, they know the
Boss owns some of the guns.
"Legal got a description of the guns from ATF as well as what is needed
by ATF in order to claim the guns. A fast handling will be done."
But it wasn't fast. One of the guns was a German-manufactured Mauser
machine pistol. The law requires registration of this type of weapon. The
church attorneys argued however, that it was an antique rather than a
serviceable weapon. Not until late in the year did ATF drop its
investigation, and even then the case wasn't closed.
In April 1977, a report on a Guardian investigation to find out why it
was continuing said: "On the local level the State US Atty., James Russell,
has been investigating the base (church headquarters in Clearwater) since
it started, and has connections to almost all the major SPs (suppressive
persons) in the area. It was found that Russell had been in on the
investigation re the guns scene from the beginning. He started taking an
active role at the point the BAT&F investigation failed. This looks like
BAT&F were ready to drop the cycle, but Russell with his vested interest
stepped in and kept the area hot. Documentation of this is needed, as our
data does not contain this ...
"It looks like Russell is going for a big win like he had on the Dare-
To-Be-Great group prosecution he did a few years back, and considers
Scientology just such a group; so I don't think he will fade into the
woodwork without some planning on our part."
Documents do not indicate whether the Guardians ever took any action
against Russell.
But, in another case, the Guardians managed to take a microphone away
from Bob Snyder, a talk show host for radio station WDCL, with their
standard strategy for handling media people who make their enemies' list.
But he kept on talking.
In early February 1976, Snyder was fired by WDCL. He said the station
was threatened with a $5-million suit if it did not stop him from
criticizing the church.
WDCL's general manager, Ross Charles, said the station attorney advised
that Snyder be fired because of litigation expenses that "a little station
in Dunedin" could not survive.
Snyder was rehired a month later with the understanding that he would
not discuss Scientology on his program.
However, he began writing a newsletter and organized several public
forums in which he criticized the church. In June, Fred Ulan, an assistant
public relations official for the church, reported to public relations
director Artie Maren that not enough was being done to silence Snyder. To
make up for this shortcoming, he said, FREEDOM, a Scientology publication,
was preparing an article "tying Snyder in with Interpol as he has stated he
supports them, and using the one-world rule button which Snyder hits us
with saying Snyder now supports Interpol which supports one world rule by
its very nature."
Joe Lisa reported to Duke Snider in a March 31 daily report that Snyder
had been in communication "with Paulette Cooper and that Cooper plans to be
in this area in two weeks for the next Snyder event."
It so happened that the very next day the Guardians drew up a new
operation to handle their old nemesis Paulette Cooper, author of The
Scandal of Scientology, a book highly critical of the religion. They called
it "Freakout."
Its goal was "to get P.C. incarcerated in a mental institution or jail,
or at least hit her so hard that she drops her attacks."
Recently, the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia
described this plan in the "Sentencing Memorandum" drawn up following
conviction of nine Scientologists in a case involving the theft of
government documents and efforts to cover it up. The government said six of
the defendants were involved in the scheme against Miss Cooper: Henning
Heldt, Duke Snider, Dick Weigand, Greg Willardson, Mitchell Hermann and
Cindy Raymond.
The memorandum said: "In its initial form Operation Freakout had three
different plans. The first required a woman to imitate Paulette Cooper's
voice and make telephone threats to Arab Consulates in New York. The second
scheme involved mailing a threatening letter to an Arab Consulate in such
a fashion that it would appear to have been done by Paulette Cooper.
Finally, a Scientology field staff member was to impersonate Paulette
Cooper at a laundry and threaten the President and then Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger. A second Scientologist would thereafter advise the FBI of
the threat ...
"Two additional plans to Operation Freakout were added on April 13,
1976 ... The fourth plan called for Scientology field staff members who had
ingratiated themselves with Cooper to gather information from Cooper so
Scientology could assess the success of the first three plans. The fifth
plan was for a Scientologist to warn an Arab Consulate by telephone that
Paulette Cooper had been talking about bombing them.
"The sixth and final part of Operation Freakout ... (was) to obtain
Paulette Cooper's fingerprints on a blank piece of paper, type a
threatening letter to Kissinger on that paper, and mail it."
Once before the Guardians had gotten Ms. Cooper indicted -- the charge
was later dropped -- with a fabricated threat to bomb a Church of
Scientology office. But this time the plan was not carried out.
Time ran out for the Guardians.
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