What Happens to Anti-Scientology Books?

Operation Snow White was the name given internally by the Church of Scientology to a program which included the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history. Under this program, Scientology operatives committed infiltration, wiretapping, and theft of documents in government offices...The "Snow White Program" was written by L. Ron Hubbard (LRH) as an attempt to reduce or eliminate unfavorable reports on Scientology, the Church of Scientology, and LRH himself, especially those held by Interpol and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

TACTIC: Stealing books and materials from public agencies. While I was on staff at "Celebrity Center," a Scientology organization in Los Angeles, another staff member (Ken Lee) came to me and proudly announced he had secretly stolen books and articles from the various libraries in L.A. County. This allegedly was part of a Guardian's Office intelligence action to remove books and articles critical of Scientology from the city's library system.

from the A F F I D A V I T of Lawrence D. Wollersheim dated February 4, 1980

September 28, 2006...

"Some news vendors in Los Angeles believe members of the church are buying up multiple copies of Vanity Fair’s October issue, with Tom Cruise’s family pictures on the cover, to make sure that the issue is a huge seller, according to In Touch. Philip Hovan, who owns a Los Angeles newsstand near a number of Scientology-owned businesses, tells In Touch that he has sold three times the number of magazines he normally does. 'People have been buying five or six copies each,'he says."

NOTE: This webpage was published on September 17, 2006. By September 26, 2006 both Internet weblinks to the below are no longer working:

The idea to remove critical books, effectively censoring them is currently being employed, as evidenced by this statement made by Nancy O'Meara, a so-called "Ecclesiastical leader" of Scientology. The "Cult Around the Corner" book is one way $cientology urges members and others to remove books from the library that expose Scientology - and replace them with a Scientology publication. The idea being to remove the books that talk about "brainwashing," a view presented amongst many of the critical books.

On this Scientology website,

"Nancy O'Meara, treasurer of the new Cult Awareness Network, answers questions about her new book and its role in bringing about an atmosphere of religious tolerance in the world.

"Question: What are you doing in the United States?

Answer: Our US campaign is to get The Cult Around the Corner into libraries across the USA-to replace the hate books of the old CAN (there are a few of them on shelves in libraries across America). Librarians work on the same principle that we are familiar with-the most recent writing is the most correct. If there are two books on "cults" they will put the most recent and replace the older book. The old anti-cult/pro-brainwashing books are 10 and 15 years old. This is the most recent book-and includes a chapter quoting the most recent research which debunks the brainwashing/mind control theory-so it SHOULD replace the older books."

In addition to the removal of books or publications that are critical of the organization, Scientology has worked hard recently in television media. As with published media, actions are always to taken to replace something of their own, or try to change the critical facts on hand. Here is one current example of Tom Cruise and South Park Trapped in the Closet episode, and how the reairing of the show was censored, a Parade Magazine Poll tampered and the actors mysteriously unavailable for comment by strange circumstances:

On April 14, 2006 the Star Pulse Blog quoted, "Magazine Parade has thrown out the results of a Tom Cruise opinion poll after they grew suspicious of the surprising landslide majority. Parade's website recently asked online readers if they blamed Cruise or the media for his disastrous public relations last year, and magazine bosses were stunned to find 84 percent of respondents blamed the press.."

The reason for having to fix such polls is explained in the next paragraph of the article, as actor Tom Cruises image and need to recruit for $cientology is by no means the medias fault:

"Cruise was ridiculed in the press for his many public declarations of love for fiancée Katie Holmes and his claims of medical expertise thanks to his controversial religion Scientology...

"Parade publicist Alexis Collado tells website PageSix.com, "We at Parade found this a little bit fishy, so we did some investigating. We found out more than 14,000 (of the 18,000-plus votes) that came in were cast from only 10 computers! One computer was responsible for nearly 8,400 votes alone, all blaming the media for Tom's troubles."Collado added, "We also discovered that at least two other machines were the sources of inordinate numbers of votes. It seems these folks (whoever they may be) resorted to extraordinary measures to try to portray Tom in a positive light for the Parade.com survey. There is even a chance they wrote a special 'bot' program for the sole purpose of skewing the results, rather than casting the votes by hand on a computer."

And, because $cientologist Tom Cruise has no idea what the $cientology public relations department does in order to keep him their "star salesman" to recruit for the cult, here was their explanation about the poll, when questioned:

"Cruise's spokesman insists the actor is ignorant of the survey's existence, saying, "I know nothing about the poll, so we have nothing to comment on."

All we know is that when the public and media wants to ask questions of Tom Cruise or $cientology the secrecy of such issues, like "Xenu" and the South Park "Trapped in the Closet" episode, the need to distance becomes evident:

On November 15, 2005 South Park first airs the Trapped in the Closet episode

On March 17, 2006, things started heating up when a reairing of the Trapped in the Park episode is censored by the efforts of Tom Cruise, as the New York Post reports:

"HOLLYWOOD bully Tom Cruise got Comedy Central to cancel Wednesday night's cablecast of a controversial "South Park" episode about Scientology by warning that he'd refuse to promote "Mission Impossible 3," insiders say."

One month later, in April of 2006 when the censorship issue brought even more attention to the South Park episode, a report of the actors need to protect himself surfaced:

Tom Cruise Invests In Armoured Car After Death Threats

"A source told the Daily Star: “He’s investing in a £100k armoured Jaguar which is bullet proof and gas proof."

Was he physically threatened or was the media just asking too many questions about the issues in the South Park episode?

Similarly, a strange report in January, 2006 said that Isaac Hayes was in the hospital, when in fact he declared otherwise We are sure that $cientology's public relation department and the South Park Trapped in the Closet Episode had nothing to do with this...

More Accounts of What Happens to Anti-Scientology Books

The Santa-Barbara News-Press

Woman claims she set library ablaze 'because books are evil.'

January 26, 1994
By PAMELA LOPEZ-JOHNSON

While being handcuffed before dawn Tuesday, Linda Haggard allegedly told authorities she set a fire that gutted the Carpinteria Library because "books are evil." Haggard, 31, a geology major at UCSB since 1983, was found outside the newly renovated library by Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies called to the scene of the 4:15 a.m. blaze. Haggard admitted setting the fire, according to sheriff's Detective Bruce Pixley. "Yeah, I lit the fire," Haggard said, according to Pixley. When asked why, she replied "Because books are evil."

Haggard had recently become emotionally unstable, said her father, Richard T. Haggard of Goleta. Last month, she told her parents she was going Christmas shopping and instead left town. She was declared a missing person and was found this month using her credit card at a Denny's restaurant in King City, 50 miles north of San Luis Obispo.... "We know she isn't rational." Relatives said they first noticed Haggard was becoming emotionally unstable after she joined the Church [sic] of Scientology two months ago. "This is when she started going haywire," said one relative, who wished to remain anonymous.

Family members attributed her alleged comment about the evils of books to the church.

Holzinger said Haggard was involved in a "purification program" [NarConon] in which she tried to rid her body of toxins. The program involved rigorous exercise and a healthly diet. She showed no signs of being a troubled person, he said. "She always seemed happy, bright and energetic," he said. "She was always smiling." Upon hearing of his daughter's arrest, Haggard said: "Something is wrong. She's got something terribly wrong with her. We are going to get someone to look at her."

Scientology defectors charge 'dirty tricks' in Boston
(Boston Globe, May 31, 1983)

By Ben Bradlee Jr. / Globe Staff

Robert Dardano and Warren Friske were trusted members of the Boston mission of the Church of Scientology in the mid-1970s when they say they were recruited to join a group of other church members intent on carrying out "dirty tricks" against critics and others deemed enemies of the church in this area.

The activities of the group included break-ins, the theft of documents, harassment and misrepresentation, according to sworn testimony by Dardano in Florida last year and affidavits from him and Friske on file as part of pending civil litigation in Suffolk Superior Court and US District Court in Boston.

(...)

Dardano, 32, of Dorchester, was a member of the church from 1972 to 1975, and for part of that time was involved in intelligence gathering and "dirty tricks." Friske, a member of the church from 1972 to 1982, said he was head of internal security for the Boston church and the custodian of its most sensitive files. He is 35 and now lives in Lynn.

The activities that Dardano and Friske alleged in interviews, affidavits, depositions or other sworn testimony that they and others were involved with on behalf of the church include:

*The burglary of the Belmont office of a psychiatrist in 1975 in order to steal the doctor's files on one of his patients, who had written a book highly critical of Scientology.

*The theft of documents from the Boston law firm of Bingham, Dana and Gould, counsel for The Boston Globe, in late 1974 as part of a plan to monitor the newspaper's preparation of a Sunday Magazine article on the church.

*The systematic theft and destruction of books critical of the church from libraries throughout New England.

*The planting of a church member as a volunteer inside the state attorney general's office to intercept consumer complaints about Scientology. They said the volunteer also used his position to call other law enforcement agencies around the country to elicit information the agencies had on the church.

In addition, according to Scientology documents and interviews with Friske and Dardano, some members of the church were also engaged in a campaign to discredit a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School, psychiatrist John Clark Jr., who has done extensive research into cults and who has frequently spoken out against Scientology.

Their activities, according to affidavits and church documents seized by the FBI, were coordinated with the nationwide campaign by the church to combat criticism and investigations of its operations. While the assertions of Dardano and Friske involve activities in the Boston area, nine high officials of the church, including the wife of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, signed an official document in 1979 that detailed their criminal activities, during four years in the mid-1970s, against several federal agencies in Washington that had been investigating the church.

Drawn up by the US Department of Justice, the 282-page "stipulation of evidence" stated that among the acts carried out by church members were: bugging the conference room of the Internal Revenue Service's chief counsel; breaking into private IRS offices; illegal copying of confidential files of the Justice Department, and surreptitious placing of church members in IRS and Justice Department offices in Washington. The nine were convicted on a variety of charges, including conspiracy to obstruct justice, lying to a grand jury and theft of government documents.

According to the Justice Department's stipulation, the operations in Washington were spearheaded by the Information Bureau of the church's Guardian Office, which oversees decision-making for the church. Under the church's hierarchy, each of the major Scientology missions in the United States is run by local Guardian Offices that coordinate their activities with the national and worldwide headquarters.

In conjunction with its investigation of the church, the FBI raided church offices in Washington and Los Angeles in 1977. Among the thousands of documents seized in the two raids was one dated Sept. 18, 1973, that outlined intelligence-gathering plans by the Boston mission of the church.

While the document does not divulge any plans for break-ins, it does call for "future areas of penetration actions" to be carried out at the following agencies: Massachusetts Attorney General's office, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Governor's Office of Human Services and the United Fund.

Dardano said his first covert operation for the church took place in late 1974, and involved the Boston law firm of Bingham, Dana and Gould, which represents The Globe. At the time, a Globe reporter was preparing a Sunday Magazine article on the Scientology Church.

Dardano told the Clearwater commissioners that a church member, David Grace, was able to gain employment as a cleaner in the Boston building where the law firm was located. Daily, Dardano testified, Grace would check the files of James A. McHugh, the newspaper's principal litigation attorney at the firm, to "interrupt the correspondence between The Boston Globe and the attorney's office."

In his recent interview with The Globe, Dardano expanded on his knowledge of Grace's activities.

"He just opened up the file, looked under 'S', and there was Scientology," recalled Dardano. He said he did not remember if Grace actually took the file out of the office or copied its contents on the premises, but in any case, Dardano said he reviewed the file's contents. Grace could not be reached for comment.

Getting a Scientologist hired as a cleaner or security guard in the building where a perceived enemy was located was a favorite intelligence- gathering tactic, according to interviews and the church documents seized by the FBI.

For example, the "Project Owl" document proposed that a church member be placed in a downtown office building as a cleaner or security guard to "obtain" the files of John M. Lynch, the Boston attorney who was then representing a former defector seeking a refund of the more than $30,000 donated to the church.

In addition, a Boston Scientologist was hired in 1974 by the private security company that guarded The Globe building in an attempt to gain information from the reporter who was preparing the article on the church.

According to Friske, another operation of the Boston church in the mid- 1970s was the theft of anti-Scientology books from libraries in New England. In his affidavit, and in a deposition taken last September by church attorney Silverglate, Friske said the book thefts were part of a national program called "Operation Hydra" to purge the country of literature that portrayed the church in a bad light.

Friske said "piles" of the stolen books were hidden behind a false wall on the fifth floor of the Boston church's headquarters, located at the former Chandler School for Women at 448 Beacon St. in 1977, after the FBI raid. Friske said that on orders from his superiors in the church, he destroyed the books, along with scores of other sensitive files detailing church operations against Paulette Cooper and others, which had also been hidden behind the wall.

Entire story HERE

Books Critical of Scientology Stolen and Destroyed
From diconnectd@aol.com Mon Apr 10 13:34:45 BST 1995

The following is an excerpt from a Public Record Court Document
United States District Court Central District of California
Case # CV 91 6426 HLH (Tx)
Declaration of Graham E. Berry re deposition testimony of Garry Scarff
April 4 1994

"Q. Mr. Scarff, have you now located the two exhibits that you had tried to locate with reference to stealing library records?

A. Yes, sir, I did. "

Q. Turning your attention to Exhibit-99, what is that? "

A. This is a letter that I sent to Ginnie Cooper, the Director of Libraries for Multnomah County, which is the county where Portland, Oregon rests. And it is concerning an operation in which I was a part of a -- part of which has been a long time policy within the Church of Scientology to eradicate not only from what I have spoken to already on court files but eradicating from library systems throughout the country, any information that is critical or adverse to the Church of Scientology. " And specifically within the library systems within the City of Portland, Oregon, I as well as other individuals within the Church of Scientology just as a matter of policy were ordered to destroy any and all critical materials adverse to the Church of Scientology. And this letter is to the Director of Libraries informing her that all of such books that are on file at the library which have been listed as "lost" are not lost. They had been destroyed. And I list six books there. "Specifically one book refers to -- entitled "A Piece of Blue Sky" by Jon Atack, who is a former high ranking member of the Church of Scientology who wrote an expose on Scientology. "And I recall there were approximately four to five copies of this book in the library all which were listed as lost. And this letter explains to Ms. Cooper, basically, that the Church of Scientology destroys materials on a regular basis which they consider to be adverse, including if she were to check the library's copy of Time Magazine dated May 6th of l991 they will notice that that article had been cut from the magazine because the Church of Scientology considered it to be adverse. "Exhibit-100 is a response to me from this library director in which she did a full inventory of the books that they had and claims that several of the books appear to be out of print now and the library currently has no copies. I refer to one, the book entitled "Inside Scientology" by Robert Kaufman. She said the library has no copies. "No. 2, "The Scandal of Scientology" by Paulette Cooper. She responds the library currently has no copies. "No. 3, " The Hidden Story of Scientology", by Omar Garrison. She responds there are two copies in the library and there are no copies at the central library. And it is out of print. "No. 4, book entitled "L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Mad Man" by Bent Corydon. She responds there are supposed to be currently 13 copies in the library. However, seven of these copies are currently listed as lost and there are two copies on order to replace the two copies lost at the central library. "No. 5, book entitled "Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard" by Russell Miller. "She responds there are supposed to be four copies in the county library, two of the four copies are listed as lost. And the book is out of print. "No. 6. "A Piece of Blue Sky", she responds there are supposed to be three copies in the county library, two of these three are currently listed as lost. "She refers to the Time magazine article dated May 6th of 1991 and claims that the article is on microfilm and therefore the issue can be found in microfilm, but the print copy is missing. "She also states that she instituted safeguards to protect reordenng these books based upon the letter that I sent her.

"Q. Now, turning your attention to Exhibit-99, the last paragraph on that document, that letter states: 'These missing books were in fact stolen from the library and destroyed in fulfillment of an internal directive by the church which instructs its members to eradicate all published materials critical of Scientology and to replace it with pro-Scientology materials.

A. That's correct.

"Q. How do you know that these missing books were in fact stolen from the library? "

A. Because I was very much a part of the effort to steal the books from the library and destroy them. "

Q. Was anyone else involved in that effort? "

A. Gwen Mayfield was involved. Angie Mann was involved. I know that her husband Charles Mann to have been involved. Like I said, this was an effort that Scientology has long had. I even recall back in '82 that John Carmichael had talked about removing stuff from the library and destroying it. And it was Gwen Mayfield who told me how to remove a book from the library. She showed me that within the binding of a hardback book there is a long, thin, metal strip which sets off an alarm when something like that goes through the sensors in the library and she said all you had to do was take a razor blade, slice along the bindings of the book, pull out the metal strip, rub it into a little ball and flick it away. It takes away the security aspect of this book. It was very easy to get away with it by ripping out the little metal band.

"Q. Gwen Mayfield is part of the --"

A. Gwen Mayfield is an official of the Church of Scientology and director of the Office of Special Affairs whose job in part is to do such activities as I have just described. This would be considered a covert operation. "This is not the first time this has happened although not in a library situation. When Julie Christofferson had her trial in Portland in 1985 one newspaper by the name of Willemette Week published an expose of the Church of Scientology in which the newspaper later learned that approximately, I think the number was, 10,000 copies of the newspaper had been stolen from different places throughout the city because of the desire from the Church or officials of the church not to have any of the readership within the general public to have access to these newspapers. "And it is my understanding that the newspaper later sued the church and the church chose to end and settle the case.

"Q. How do you know about that activity?

"A. It was common knowledge within the church. It was common knowledge in the church at the time because I was involved in one other operation with John Carmichael at that time against Julie Christofferson and you have to understand that within the OSA and any time someone succeeds in pulling off a covert operation, people don't sit around a table and talk seriously about what just happened. It is a celebrative occasion. It is like somebody needs to pull out the wine and cheese and we Will all celebrate because everyone was laughing and John Carmichael thought it was quite comical that people would try to look for a copy of the Willemette Week and there would be none found anywhere within the city. "

Q. Were you involved in the removal of those newspapers?

A . Yes.

Something we can do about this, as expressed by long time activist, Ida Camburn:

What we can do, and so can you, to donate a book that you buy or have read already:

In the future ,efforts must be made to inform our librarians in our own communities to be on the look out for more thefts or any other clandestine action to remove worthwhile books. If you find that you are to busy to make a call personally, letters would be great as would reach all workers including the volunteers.

Ida J. Camburn

Since the Publication of Dianetics, scathing reviews have been written. If the Internet were around in those days, we would have been better prepared to quickly expose this information and defeat the anti-Democratic nature of this cult. In addition to removing critical information, $cientology tries to flood with their published propaganda, in order to catch unsuspecting minds who may not have the opportunity to reach critical information. Please distribute these historical publications and any others in order to make a difference.

NEW

California Institute of Technology, a review of Dianetics"Counting noses of adherents is not evidence"

American Scientist October 1950 Hubbard: like a "child stamping his foot"

Dr Oscar Sachs from Mt Sinai Hospital in NY "old psychoanalytical concepts"

Journal of Clinical Medicine 1951- Editorial - Dianetics

Milton Sapirstein: Hubbard - "the leader of the inner manipulative clique"

JAMA: nonsensical tomfoolery

AmJournal of Psychiatry: Hubbard's own paranoid delusions

Fails Clinical Test of Dianetics

LIBERTY Magazine 1952 - Review of Dianetics

Sources Hubbard copied his ideas from

Martin Gardner on Dianetics from "Fads and Fallacies" Top 20 Pages

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