Scientology and crime - Johannes Aagaard

In the last issue of Up-Date (p.62) we gave the account of "Scientology in Court" from the Washington Post.

In this issue we are in the extraordinary situation that we can give a description of the theme "Scientology and crime" on the basis of the text, which has been accepted by all the Scientology-leaders who are defendants in the case "United States of America versus Mary Sue Hubbard, et al."

This text, called "Stipulation of Evidence" is "accepted by United States of America, all the defendants and their attorneys, as the uncontested evidence of the United States in the instant case."

The most important dimension in the case is indicated by the fact that the crimes committed are not just done by Scientologists, but by Scientology as such. A lot of crimes are done by Christians, but that does not make the Christian churches criminal. Scientology, however, directly issued the order that the Guardian's Office must:

"through infiltrators or clandestine agents obtain all details of any reports of requests for data on LRH (Hubbard), Scientology, OTC (Operations and Transport Company, the corporation set up by Hubbard which owned the ship Apollo, the flagship of the Sea organisation of Scientology) etc, from US Police and/or US NCB (Central Bureau of Interpol) to IP (Interpol) International or any other NCB or from IP International or any other NCB to US Police and/or US NCB."

Specifically, Guardian Program Order 158 directed the following:

l. Place an agent into the us Attorney's Office DC as a first action as this office should cover all Federal agancies that we are in litigation with or may be in litigation with. AG I DC

 

2. Obtain data an their intended actions toward Scientology, LRH/MSH. AG I DC

 

3. Get an agent into the US Attorney's Office (sic) LA as a simultaneous action...

 

4. Obtain data an their intended actions toward Scientology, LRH/MSH. BR I DIR US

 

5. Place a separate agent into the IRS Office of International Operations (010) (as this office has a case preparation or investiqative action going on LRH personally for income tax invasion or something similar). AG I DC

 

6. obtain their files on LRH/MSH and Scientology and monitor the line continuously of other actions against LRH/MSH. AG I OC

 

7. Continue to monitor tightly the DEA DC, IRS DC and LA, the Coast Guard (soon to go to Immigration and Naturalization) DC. Get any present time data on LRH/MSH. BR I DIR US

 

These orders are in accordance with established Guardian Office procedure for the issuance of Guardian Program Orders, and that must mean that Scientology as such is engaged in criminal activities, and the Stipulation of Evidence proves that beyond any doubt.

 

In this article we are not repeating all the stories about job penetration, i.e. placing of agents in various government offices, burglaries, thefts, forgery, false evidence, bugging etc. etc. stories which are interesting for persons who have suffered from similar crimes. These stories are, however, told in many newspapers and we shall not repeat them in this Up-Date.

 

More important than the actual crimes are the answer to the question: why did Scientology issue the order to commit these crimes? and what did Scientology do to hinder the police in its efforts to disclose the crimes and arrest the criminals?

It is quite clear that a major reason for the order and the following activities was the attempt of Scientology of California to get tax exempt status. The money which is so decisive a motive in all major Scientology decisions is also an important motive in this case. Another motive, which in this case is at least as important, is LRH-Safety. The whole "Judy action" within the the "Judy area" (code-names for the operations within the United States Department of Justice), aimed at getting information about the possible actions "in the area of deposition of LRH" (Hubbard).

The fact that Hubbard himself is not one of the defendants is justified from the fact that not a single letter was found by FBI in the Scientology archives (when the FBI made its raid in order to regain the stolen archives from Scientology) by which Hubbard himself was seen to be implicated in the crimes. But his wife played a major role. Mrs. Hubbard was not inhibited in her active role of inventing cover-up stories and other lies. Her imagination seems to very well developed, even if the stories she proposed were often not very convincing and never worked in practice. She was (proved by the letters found by the FBI) fully aware of all the criminal activities, and she even participated actively in the most amazing part of the drama, when Scientology tried to pacify Mr. Meisner, their own major agent.

Mr. Meisner was put under arrest by Scientology, was handcuffed and isolated and placed under guard and not permitted to leave the rooms in which he was kept against his will and was locked up without any outside contacts. This happened according to instructions by the defendant Henning Heldt who ordered that Mr. Meisner, codenamed Herb, "is to be restrained and guarded. He is not to be permitted to leave". And when this had been done he reported to Mary Sue Hubbard that Meisner was now under guard and that he had "reacted violently to the arrival of persons to insure that he did not blow". The leaders was worried because Meisner in his isolation (which was necessary in order to escape FBI) was not at all happy with the clumsy way in which the Scientologists dealt with his case. Re was thus getting out of their control, and they tried in many ways to "get control" over him again. At the same time they energetically tried to remove all the evidence connecting him to Scientology.

Mary Sue Rubbard herself wrote to Meisner and promised him that if he followed orders, the guards would be eventually removed. At that height of the conflict, when Meisner was to be moved to another department, from which he would be unable to leave, he was handcuffed, gagged and dragged out of the building, and forced into a car, in which he was held down by the feet of one of the guards. When Meisner finally decided to cooperate with his captors he had the guards partially removed and even "accepted auditing", the final "proof" of his putting himself under the control of Scientology again. This was, however, in order to cheat his controllers, and as a result he managed to escaping. He decided to give in to the FBI and was granted protective custody by the United States Marshall Service in which he has been since June 21, 1977.

Among the many criminal acts performed by Scientology during those hot months can be mentioned the fake handwriting samples in lieu of Meisner's true handwriting examples, the harboring of a fugitive whom they concealed and financed in order to protect their own interests and disconnect him from their own organisation, the production of false material declaration to the Grand Jury investigation and preventing the Grand Jury from discovering the actual facts about the involvement of the defendants, and the working out of several coverstories, the one more naïve than the other.

Since all the defendants are highly trained Scientologists and work for the master-mind of this world, Hubbard himself, one should expect to find at any rate some intelligence invested in their intelligence operations, but very, very little of that is found here. All the "super-human" beings appear less than human in this tragic and miserable story, the sad aim of which is "to use any method at our disposal to win the battle and gain our non-profit status" ("the over-all strategy", laid out in the "CSG" order of the 27th May 75. ).

Nothing of this is new. We have an endless number of stories of the same type, describing experiences within Scientology by ex-Scientologists. But this time the stories are signed by the top-leaders of Scientology as part of their evidence. They have admitted it!

That the reason for their admitting these hard facts is the juridical trick, called a Plea Bargain, only adds to the lousy character of the whole trial. It began as a bargain for power and money, and it ended as a Plea Bargain for minimal punishment. 5 years in prison as most of the defendants got, could however mean a period "out of control" during which some of the people could regain part of their human dignity.

P.S. Worth mentioning from the many inside pieces of information, given in the "Stipulation of Evidence" is the instruction about the "Red Box":

"207/Government Exhibit No.219 is the directive regarding the 'Red Box'. It orders that 'all the Red Box material from your areas must be centrally located, together in a movable container {ideally a briefcase), locked, and marked." Appended to that document is the "Red Box Data Information Sheet" which defines 'what is the Red Box Data?' Under that definition 'Red box' includes:

a) Proof that a Scnist is involved in criminal activities.

b) Anything illegal that implicates MSH, LRH.

c) Large amount of non-FOI docs.

d) Operations against any government group or persons.

e) All operations that contain illegal activities.

f) Evidence of incriminating activities.

g) Names and details of confidential financial acts.

Government Exhibit No.219 was seized by Special Agent Aldrich from the defendant Willardson's office at the Cedars Comp1ex."