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AFFIDAVIT OF GERALD ARMSTRONG

    I, Gerald Armstrong, depose and state:

    1. I am a citizen of Canada and reside in San Anselmo,

California, USA.

     2. I am by trade a writer, artist and philosopher. I am

also a paralegal and I am working in that capacity in the

law office of attorney Ford Greene in San Anselmo. I am presently

involved in litigation concerning the Scientology organization

, hereinafter referred to as "the organization," as a paralegal,

witness and defendant.

    3. I am writing this affidavit at the request of Reader's

Digest to provide some of my knowledge regarding certain charges

first made about the organization in the Time magazine article,

"The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power," condensed in the Reader's

Digest article, "Scientology: A Dangerous Cult Goes Mainstream."

    4. I was a member of the organization from 1969 to 1981

and held several staff positions in various organization

locations and units. During that period I gained an intimate

knowledge of organization structure, policies and practices. In

1982, I was declared an organization enemy and have been involved

in organization litigation and the target of organization attacks

ever since.

    5. From February 1971 until September 1975 I was, except

for short periods when I was sent on organization missions

ashore, stationed on board the ship "Apollo," then the " flagship"

of the Sea Organization. The Sea Org is the organization's

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paramilitary arm, members of which sign a billion year contract.

Throughout the time I was on board, L. Ron Hubbard, the

organization's founder and the Sea Org's Commodore, ran all of

Scientology internationally from the ship, through his aides, the

management bureaux and his Commodore's Messengers.

    6. From the beginning of 1972 until 1974, I held the

position of Ship's Representative or legal officer. In 1974 I

held the positions of Port Captain and public relations officer.

From the fall of 1974 until I left the ship in 1975 I was posted

as the ship's Intelligence Officer. During those years I dealt

with the immigration, customs, police and port authorities in all

the countries the ship visited, and was actively involved in and

knowledgeable of the ship's relations and problems in those

countries. During 1974, the ship was ejected from Portugal and

denied entry into Spanish ports. In 1975, the ship was denied

entry into Barbados and ordered to leave Trinidad. I also

learned through the study of organization documents while

assigned to legal or intelligence positions on board, and the

study of Hubbard's personal records when I was assigned to do the

research for his biography in 1980 through 1981, that Hubbard and

the ship had fled from England, that Hubbard was prohibited from

entering England, and that the ship had been ordered to leave

Greece. The ship experienced problems of social or official

rejection in virtually every port it entered. Based on my

experiences and my knowledge of organization operations, I formed

the opinion that the rejection in each instance stemmed from

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Hubbard's and the organization's dishonesty. On Hubbard's orders

all of the over four hundred people on board were required to lie

about who we were, what we were doing, who ran the organization

and what our intentions were. Hubbard's and the organization's

insulting deceitfulness precipitated the antagonistic reactions

in all the ship's ports of call.

    7. Hubbard and the topmost clique of his organization

enforced his policies and orders inside the organization and

acted toward critics or any designated enemies outside the

organization with threats, intimidation and force that is similar

to the way the mafia is reputed to control its members and deal

with perceived threats to its operations and leaders.

Internally, Hubbard used the organization's prison system, known

as the Rehabilitation Project Force or RPF, and threats of

punishment or actual punishment, which could range from

performing menial tasks as "amends," to being locked up in the

ship's anchor chain locker or thrown overboard. Individual

organization members whom Hubbard considered crossed him in any

way would be forcibly ordered to the RPF, a humiliating existence

where even the few rights of non-RPF organization members were

stripped from them. While inside the organization, I was locked

up and guarded on Hubbard's orders and assigned to the RPF on one

occasion for seventeen months for allegedly antagonizing Mary Sue

Hubbard's secretary, and on another occasion for eight months

because Hubbard considered that I was joking about his movie-

making abilities. I personally know of hundreds of good people

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who were assigned to the degrading conditions of the RPF for the

sole purpose of breaking their will in order to make them

unthinkingly compliant with Hubbard's and his emissaries' desires.

    8. Hubbard and the Sea Org seniors which ran the

organization employed a broad array of techniques, some blatant

and some insidious, but all reminiscent of totalitarian regimes

or criminal groups, in order to maintain psychological and

behavioral control over organization members. Members spied on

each other and reported secretly any observed deviation from the

enforced norm of unquestioning obedience. Members were routinely

ordered to be security checked, or "sec checked," an invasive

interrogation procedure employing an electropsychometer, or E-

meter, as a lie detector. Members were also routinely ordered to

write up their overts and withholds, (O/Ws), which are also

called "crimes," and might include actual felonies for which the

members could be prosecuted, thoughts critical of Hubbard or the

organization, or even desires which deviated from organizationlly

defined intentions. Members' lists of O/Ws and confessions

extracted during sec checks were maintained in organization

intelligence files and used as a threat to ensure obedience as

well as to intimidate and suppress members should they ever leave

the organization and speak out against its abusive practices.

For public relations purposes, the organization insists that

statements of persons undergoing counseling, or "auditing," are

confidential between them and their "auditor," but these

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statements or confessions were routinely provided to organization

intelligence and enforcement personnel, and would be used by the

organization in any manner that suited its purposes. Organization

members were also regularly and publicly labeled by higherups

with names such as "traitor," "enemy" or " saboteur." Members

were also required to publicly so label themselves and even

accuse themselves of horrible imaginary "crimes," such as

threatening the future of all mankind. Members were kept inside

the organization by the threat that to leave, or even plan to

leave, is a criminal act for which they would be declared an

enemy and made subject of the "fair game law."

    9. In the organization's early years Hubbard formulated a

philosophy of opportunistic hatred, which he called "Fair Game, "

in order to justify his bullying and terrorist tactics toward

anyone or any group he didn't like. In his published fair game

doctrine he stated that anyone declared an enemy "may be deprived

of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without

any discipline of the Scientologist...may be tricked, sued, lied

to, or destroyed." To carry out covert operations pursuant to

his fair game policy, Hubbard established within the organization

an international intelligence bureau which he patterned after

Nazi Germany's intelligence apparatus. I am very familiar with

the organization's intelligence system and operations because I

worked within it and have been its target since leaving the

organization. Hubbard and the organization also employ private

investigators (PIs) to harass, intimidate and ruin, by whatever

5

means are available, perceived critics. These PIs are often

former police officers or off-duty police officers with ties into

law enforcement agencies. Since I left the organization I have

been tailed, spied on, threatened and assaulted by organization

PIs. One PI attempted to involve my wife and me in a freeway

accident, one threatened to put a bullet between my eyes and

others have made false sworn statements about me. Organization

operatives attempted to inveigle me into the commission of a

crime, and videotaped me, claiming they were permitted to

electronically spy on me by a fraudulent authorization from a

corrupted Los Angeles Police Officer, who was suspended six

months from the police force for giving organization agents such

false authorization.

    10. Pursuant to Hubbard's fair game doctrine the

organization also employs countries' justice systems to harass,

intimidate, silence and destroy its critics. Since I left the

organization it has sued me twice, taken my deposition for

purposes of harassment for more than twenty-five days, brought

false contempt of court charges against me on three occasions,

and attempted to have false criminal charges brought against me

by the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles District

Attorney and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. The

organization also employs corrupt lawyers to terrorize its

critics with false charges, frivolous lawsuits, abuse of the

legal process, manipulation of the courts and senseless legal

actions intended to overwhelm and to bring about the perceived

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critics' financial decimation. Organization lawyers have filed a

multitude of perjurious statements about me in courts

internationally, and have aided the organization in its attacks

on my person and reputation, both directly and by acting as

cutouts between the organization and its intelligence and PI

operatives. Organization lawyers have participated in the

culling of my "confidential" preclear folders in order to use the

"confidential" materials in court against me. Organization

lawyers also spearhead the organization's attacks on its

opponents' lawyers. My own lawyer in the organization litigation

until December 1986, Michael J. Flynn of Boston, Massachusetts,

was sued by organization lawyers at least fourteen times and

hounded with concocted bar complaints. Organization lawyers

participated in an international effort to frame him with crimes

and to destroy his reputation and career. In December 1986 as a

direct response to organization threats to his life, family and

business, Mr. Flynn capitulated, withdrawing completely from

representation of anyone involved in litigation with the

organization.

    11. The organization's public defense line to the

accusations of criminal, bullying and antisocial behavior is that

a new group of leaders had taken over in 1982 and thrown out the

old group of "criminals," who had been responsible for the

organization's legal problems. Indeed the old group, including

Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, had been involved for many

years in criminal, and antisocial acts and conspiracies, and Mrs.

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Hubbard and ten of her coconspirators were convicted of federal

crimes and sentenced to prison. L. Ron Hubbard, however, who had

in truth established Mary Sue's criminal network and was behind

all the felonies for which the "criminals" had been convicted,

continued to run the organization. He merely replaced Mary Sue's

group with another, even more ruthless, coterie of Sea Org

members. He changed the name of the organization arm Mary Sue

had headed, the "Guardian's Office," which included the

intelligence bureau, to the "Office of Special Affairs." The

functions remained the same, and the new agency continued

Hubbard's practices of attacking and smearing critics,

terrorizing members and non-members, abusing the legal process,

destroying civil rights, and perpetrating assaults, theft,

blackmail, and whatever else served their purposes, in the name

of "fair game."

    12. In December 1986, I entered into a settlement agreement

with the organization which was to compensate me monetarily for

my claims against the organization resulting from the many years

of abuse and the attacks since I left in 1981, and to end the

attacks and continual threats. The organization, after it

removed my lawyers from defending me, however, did not honor the

agreement, but renewed its policy and practice of opportunistic

hatred toward me. Since the settlement the organization has

filed numerous false statements about me in courts

internationally and accused me of crimes which the organization

itself manufactured. It has libeled me to the press and public,

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spied on, videotaped, and terrorized me, sued me for acts it

forced on me and is actively trying to destroy my job and

livelihood and have me removed from my residence.

    13. Attached hereto is a copy of my valid Canadian

passport.

    14. In delivering this testimony I know that it is destined

to be produced in Court. I also know that false statements are

criminally punished.

[signed]
Gerald Armstrong

 

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