A Few Loose Ends

Now that four years have passed, a few aspects of the betrayal of Bob Minton can be examined not only in more detail, but with less passion.

1. Scientology
2. Bob Minton
3. Critics
4. Critics who were interested in evading consequences of their financial dealings with Bob Minton

It's obvious now that the last answer is true.

The three parties who gained from this propaganda war against Bob Minton were Ken Dandar, Ursula Caberta and the makers of "The Profit," a failed anti-Scientology movie. The one person assoiated with all three of these groups is Patricia Greenway, which is why the efforts against Minton have been labeled "The Greenway Theater Group" elsewhere in these pages.

Four years after Minton's disagreement was made into an international scandal, was it worth it?

1. Ken Dandar's case against Scientology in all likelihood ended up just about the same way it would have had Minton never given Dandar more than the original $100,000. The case was settled with a gag agreement.
2. While Caberta was cleared of corruption charges within a matter of weeks of Berry's hatchet job, since then she has served as a brilliant example of government ineptitude. Her office, the department of the Hamburg Interior (Spy) Ministry that surveils Scientology, has gone steadily downhill year after year since then. The main factor for this is that Caberta went to Florida and she told the Scientology lawyers that she accepted money from Bob Minton. Her doing this cannot be blamed on Bob Minton, Scientology or the critics.
3. "The Profit" movie never got its head above water. It is too anti-Scientology and therefore will appeal only to the most minute segment of society -- the people who are willing to have the Scientologists photograph them as they go into the theater, whether this happens or not. There could not be a greater contrast between the failure of "The Profit" and the success of Renate Hartwig's book for young adults, "Gefaehrliche Neugier" ("Dangerous Curiosity"). Her book has been distributed in German schools. In reverse gratitude radical German anti-Scientologists took her photograph from a web site that talked about the appearance of her book (it was a big event) and used it on a "critical" page denouncing her as a Scientology apologist, thus pushing her even harder towards defending her fellow dissidents, the cult.

In addition to blowing the disagreement with Minton out of proportion, having this unfortunate misunderstanding be the last bit of news about the Lisa McPherson case implicitly gives the false impression that Bob Minton was responsible for the lack of success in that case. If this had in fact been a disagreement among friends, there would have been no need to trumpet news of Bob's "reversal of testimony" around the globe, any more than it was necessary to describe the charges of corruption against Ursula Caberta in the international press as the "Minton improper loan."

By no means was Minton absolutely right. But the gist of his contention that Dandar was not a lawyer that he wanted to deal with was indisputably proven by the ensuing scandalous maelstrom which involved unreleased court records. The gist of Stacy Brooks' contention that there are a boatload of unethical anti-Scientologists was proven by the further fanning of the flames by a German official who may have been guilty of nothing more all these years than poor judgment. Of how many of us could this be said?

The first step to overcome these obstacles is to recognize what went wrong.

Sincerely,

Your friends at Lermanet