Clearwater Sun - Editorial - 'Nancy and her Neo-Nazis' - 12/79 and 20 years later an apology

Clearwater Sun

Nancy and her neo-Nazis

December 1979

So here come these Scientologists dressed up as Nazi storm troopers, goose-stepping along Myrtle Avenue toward the offices of the Clearwater Sun.

And with them comes Nancy Reitze, their stony-eyed Madonna of propaganda, bearing a sheaf of off-the-wall prose that talks about persecution and Nazis and Jews and pre-war Germany.

The entire procession, looking as if it had just escaped from a Munich beer hall, stops in front of the Sun and proceeds to seig-heil and orate and just have a marvelous time trying to embarrass the Sun and our editor and reporters and whomever might be standing around.

It happened at 2 p.m. Friday in broad daylight, and at last Clearwater and the world got a chance to see Scientology in its true colors.

Thanks, Scientologists. We needed that. We knew that sooner or later you’d take off those civilian clothes and wear your natural plumage. But we didn’t think you’d call in the TV cameras and other news media to witness your doing it.

Nothing we can write could describe Scientologists any better than they did themselves on Friday. In their attempt to point an accusing finger at the Sun, the cult further convicted itself.

The cult’s members are, shall we say, miffed at the Sun for telling the truth about Scientology. The wienerschnitzel follies they staged on Friday was their way of diverting attention from themselves.

Thousands of Suncoast residents switched on their TV last night and witnessed the Scientologists-Nazis. Newspaper readers awoke this morning to find the story on their front lawns.

We predict the reaction of most viewers and readers was the same as the bystander near the Sun on Friday who wanted to slug one of Ms. Reitze’s Wehmacht.

He said he’d fought those so-and-so’s in World War II, and he was ready to do it again.

If the Sun was supposed to be intimidated by all these antics, we aren’t. We feel the same way about the Scientologists, only moreso.

Readers who wish to express their own feeling about Scientology may do so today at 11 a.m. at Clearwater city hall.

A rally and parade will be held. It will a chance for all of us to exercise our freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and our freedom from fear.

Persons who attend this event will be showing they are fed up with Scientologists, with out-of-town interlopers and their neo-Nazi charades, with vacant-eyed men and women who walk our downtown streets with their engrams dangling.

Friday, Clearwater got its clearest view of the Scientologists.

This morning, we hope Clearwater will show the Scientologists a clear, unmistakable view of us.

END of Clearwater Sun Editorial

Read Gary Weber's apology
Twenty years later, the man pictured above in that uniform contacted this writer, and wrote his apology, for the deceitful actions he engaged in while he was under L Ron Hubbard's hypnotic spell, to John Travolta, Mayor Gabe Cazares, writer Richard Leiby and the good citizens of Clearwater Florida, which we webbed here - LINK His apology was covered by an article LINK in Capitol Hill's "The Hill" newspaper.

This wasn't the last time the Scientologists wore the Nazi uniform, in 1997 they used it at a choreographed "protest" in Australia of Chancellor Helmut Khol of Germany's visit. See the creepy images from their Millenium New Years Event also. Scientology still, routinely, uses Nazi and anti-semetic allegations against it's enemies.
Scientology's hypocrisy is eclipsed only by their unmitigated gall. The author of the 1971 book, The Scandal of Scientology, Paulette Cooper, decided to do an expose' about Scientology, because she recognized in Scientology the same spectre of evil that killed her own parents in Aushwitz concentration camp. Ms. Cooper was set up by Scientology for a fake bomb threat in an elaborate series of operations, one of which was called OPERATION FREAK OUT, she was sued a total of 19 times by Scientology in their relentless pursuit of silence. I am proud, now, to consider her to be my freind. - Arnie Lerma - Ex-Financial Manager for what is now called 'Scientology Bridge Publications (tm)'
NEW! After 30 years since writing Scandal of Scientology, Paulette Cooper finally told her story, in June 2007, of her ordeal, in her own words, on Lermanet.com Exposing the CON - HERE