Scientology: Looking Over My Shoulder by Paulette Cooper

8/16/2019 Scientology: Looking Over My Shoulder by Paulette Cooper

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You may not believe this, but

you can write something thatsomeone doesn’t approve of and then—with the help of thegovernment—be bankrupted

and have a quarter of your life almost ru-ined. And you don’t have to live in Chinaor Russia. It can happen right here in NewYork. I know because it happened to me.

I haven’t previously written aboutthis from beginning to end because it’sstill painful, but here goes.

In 1968, I was a struggling New Yorkfreelance writer, searching for an inves-

tigative story that would make a differ-ence. By choosing to expose a thenrelatively unknown organization calledScientology (and Scientology’s compan-ion, Dianetics), I ended up facing fifteenyears in jail, had nineteen lawsuits filedagainst me, did fifty days of deposi-tions, was the almost victim of a mur-der, the subject of five anonymoussmear letters and endured almost con-stant and continual harassment for

more than a dozen years.

It all started after I wrote an article“The Scandal of Scientology,” for Queen

magazine in the U.K. I had a master’s degree in psychology and had studied comparative religion at Harvard for asummer and what I learned during myresearch about the group founded by LRon Hubbard was both fascinating andfrightening. The story cried out to be told

I received one death threat after the article was published, but decided none-theless to write a book on the subject. Iknew the Scientologists wouldn’t like

what I said but I was naïve and had noidea of the horrors that lay in store for meover the next two decades.

The Scandal of Scientology was released by a small publisher, Tower Publicationsin 1971. After fighting five lawsuits

brought against them (and me) by theChurch of Scientology, the publishersigned an apology and recalled the bookHowever, I refused to be silenced andthe suits were soon directed at me, along

The inside

account of

the story

that almost

killed me.

by Paulette Cooper

looking o ver my

shoulder

o v e r o v e ro



The author, in 1967. Little did she realize the

the turn her life was about to take.

New York Press Club 00



with death threats, pretexting and ha-rassing calls. So why were they soconcerned about what ayoung New York writerhad to say? No hard-hittingexposé had ever been writ-ten about Scientology.

Among other things, I statedthat the crux of Scientology—

their e-meter, a machine that actslike a lie detector—produced ques-tionable results; that Hubbard hadlied about his background; thatCharles Manson had been a studentof Scientology (which was later proven

but which they didn’t want known);and that some auditors had behavedimproperly. I also heavily quoted anout-of-print “Report of the Board of Enquiry into Scientology,” a devastat-ing and detailed document published

by the Australian government in 1965.

Before long, strange people were try-ing to gain access to my apartment.Around this same time, in the basementof the building, I discovered alligatorclips on my phone wires—likely the rem-nants of a phone tap. Then my cousin—who was also short and slim like me, wasthere alone when a man arrived with a“flower delivery.” When she opened thedoor, the intruder pulled a gun out of theflowers and put it to her temple. Fortu-nately, the gun jammed, misfired or was

empty. The man then began to choke her,and when she pulled away and

screamed, he ran off. The police said af-terward that they were mystified, be-cause there appeared to be no motive.

I immediately moved to a doorman building. Not long after, some 300 of myneighbors were sent an anonymoussmear letter about me. Among otherthings, the letter outrageously describedme as a part-time prostitute and saidthat I had once sexually molested a 2-year old baby girl.

A few weeks later, in early 1973, I re-ceived a visit from an FBI agent namedBruce Brotman. He said the spokesmanfor the Church of Scientology in NewYork, James Meisler, claimed to have re-

ceived anonymous bomb threats andnamed me as a likely suspect. The nextthing I knew, I was being called to appear

before a federal grand jury in New York.Pulling together all the funds from my

freelance writing, I hired a lawyer andpaid him a retainer of $5,000. Little could Ihave realized that the firm I hired, headed

by Charles Stillman, would ultimatelycharge me $28,000 for their services—andthen sue me after the case was over foreven more money!

During the grand jury process, theprosecutor, John D. Gordon III

explained to me that I wasfacing five years in jail for

each of the two letters that had supposedly sent, plus five

years if I perjured myself, plus$15,000 in fines.

Then Gordon dropped the rea

bomb. After I truthfully testifiedthat I had never touched or even

seen the semi-literate letters that hepresented before the grand jury

(dated December 8 and December 131972), he asked me: “Then how did

your fingerprint get on one of them?”I was so shocked I think I momen-

tarily lost consciousness, because theroom turned upside down. I (rightly) ex-plained that the bomb threats couldhave been written on a blank piece opaper that I had touched, and threats

typed afterwards by others.But Gordon was unconvinced. On

May 9th, 1973, I was indicted on threecounts (two of sending two bombthreats through the mail and one forperjury for denying sending the threats

by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for theSouthern District of New York.

Ten days later I was arrested—evenmore humiliating—released on my ownrecognizance and barred from leavingthe state without permission “Who’d

want to go to New Jersey anyway?” I joked with my friends. But inside, I wasn’t laughing.

I went into a perpetual pit-of-thestomach panic state. I could barely writeand my bills, especially the legal oneskept mounting. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’tsleep. I smoked four packs of cigarettes aday, popped Valium like M&Ms, anddrank way too much vodka.

Mostly, I worried obsessively abou jail. About fines. About my career. Upto that point, I had been doing pretty

well. I had four books out or soon tocome out: The Medical Detectives, a bookon forensic medicine that today wouldprobably have been a best-seller; a children’s book; and a book on Puerto Ricans in New York.

But once the story of my trial cameout, what editor would give an assign-ment to a writer accused of sending

bomb threats to the people she wroteabout? I had wanted to be a writer sinceI was eight years old, which is why it

I was named as a

likely suspect and

the next thing I

knew I was called

to appear before a

federal grand jury

in New York.

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The paperback cost less than a dollar. But

the price the author paid—both in torment

and in legal fees—was immensely more.




was so painful when it appeared thatmy career was about to be over.

I was also very concerned about myparents. They had adopted me from anorphanage in Belgium when I was six,and I had always tried to make themproud. However, I feared that soonthey would be humiliated by the allega-tions made during the trial.

I knew the prosecutors would stop atnothing to dig up potentially em-

barrassing details of my privatelife and I imagined that I’d befodder for the tabloids during thetrial, which was predicted to lastthree weeks. I volunteered totake lie-detector tests to provemy innocence. But they returnedcontradictory and inconclusiveresults. Not surprisingly, thetests also showed me to be highlystressed.

My depression became so bad that the man I had plannedto marry, a lawyer named BobStraus, left me early that sum-mer. Most of my friends alsostopped calling. Fortunately, aneditor friend at the New York

Times stuck by me and kept meon the phone for hours to stop mefrom continuing to take the entire

bottle of Valium I had started thenight of my thirtieth birthday.

Another loyal friend was anew one, an understandingyoung man named Jerry Levin,who moved in with me late thatsummer.

Since I was too depressed togo out much, he did my errandsand walked my dog while I compul-sively watched the Watergate hearings.Occasionally, he would get me to go upto the rooftop pool with him at nightwhen no one was there. He would leapup to the ledge surrounding the pool and

try to get me to join him.“You have to be brave if you’re going

to take on those bastards,” he’d say. ButI huddled below, a shadow of my for-mer adventurous self. I even becamesuspicious of him, and when I ques-tioned him, Jerry turned on me, saying Ihad become so totally paranoid that Icould no longer even trust my closestfriend. I knew he was right, but it didn’thelp the hurt when he walked out of mylife, leaving me alone to face the trial.

I hired a private investigator, An-thony Pelicano—the same one cur-rently being held in federal detentionin Los Angeles while he awaits trial forracketeering and conspiracy. Not sur-prisingly, back then, he accomplishednothing on my behalf. Meanwhile, thecourt date, October 31, 1973, was draw-ing near.

Shortly beforehand, a university pro-

fessor and researcher from Scotland, a

man by the name of Dr. Roy Wallis cameto interview me as part of a book he waswriting on Scientology. Prior to meetingwith me, he had interviewed L. RonHubbard, Jr. During their meeting, Ju-nior boastfully showed Wallis a copy of a letter he had written to his father, L.Ron Hubbard Sr., right before my frame-up, saying that with one stroke, he could“bring the enemy to their [sic] knees.”

Wallis, who’d been unaware of myimpending trial when he came to see me

brought this letter and more to the U.SAttorney’s office, which had a growingfile on Scientology’s “fair game law”that an “‘enemy’ of Scientology”—suchas me—”May be…injured by any means

by any Scientologist…May be trickedsued or lied to or destroyed.”

Despite this pile of evidence, once thegovernment arrests someone, it doesn’

tend to back off. Nor do prosecutors liketo miss out on high-publicitycases. So, in a last-ditch effort, started searching for a doctor togive me a truth-serum test.

At a mere 83 pounds—fifteenpounds lighter than my alreadylow normal weight and with myhealth horribly off kilter—I wastold that I could die from theanesthesia. But it was my onlyhope. I honestly planned to kilmyself before the trial rather

than humiliate myself and myparents once the news storiescame out. (Up to this point, thepress had not caught wind ofthe upcoming trial, so there had

been no advance publicity.)Finally, neurologist Dr. David

Coddon, of Mount Sinai Hospitain New York, agreed to adminis-ter the serum. After several hoursof questioning me while I wasout, he was so convinced I was

innocent, that he said not onlywould he testify for me, but thahe would chain himself to thecourthouse steps if they proceeded with this case. (Just whatneeded; more publicity!)

On Halloween day, 1973, thegovernment canceled the trial. Betweenthe expert advice of Coddon, an affidavit from Wallis and the informationwe had supplied on “fair game,” thegovernment apparently decided that avictory for the prosecution was far

from guaranteed. The federal attorneysagreed to file a nolle prosequi, on thecondition that I undergo a year of men-tal-health treatment, which I did. Andon September 16, 1975, the nolle prose

qui was filed.But this story was hardly over.During the next four years, I re-

mained broke and bitter, writing articlesfor the National Enquirer to get out odebt. In July 1977, I was thrilled—andshocked—to read front-page stories in

The ledge surrounding the rooftop pool ofCooper’s apartment building: the perfect

spot for an “accident”?



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the Washington Post, the Boston Globe andothers, that indicated the truth might fi-nally be about to come out.

Acting on an inside tip, the FBI hadraided three Scientology offices andseized internal memos and “dirty trick”papers. I rejoiced that the truth—my in-nocence—would at last be known. But ittook me four frustrating years (duringwhich time I wrangled with more

lawyers and unscrupulous private in-vestigators than I care to count) before Ifinally saw those documents. Scientol-ogy fought tooth and nail to prevent thedocuments from being seen by the pub-lic. They knew that such an outcomewould be devastating publicity-wiseand lawsuit-wise

But my tenacity paid off. And when Ifinally reviewed the documents, as I latertold Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes: “Scien-

tology turned out to be worse than any-thing I ever said or even imagined.”

The seized papers contained hun-dreds of dirty tricks, plots and details of infiltration, wiretapping and pretexting

by Scientologists against governmentagencies (FBI, IRS, and so on) who hadangered them.

There were also details of attacksagainst general critics (including Clearwa-ter, Florida, mayor Gabriel Cazares, who

had dared to speak out); the press (The St.Petersburg Times especially) and of course me, since I was the most outspo-ken critic of Scientology in America.

The most bizarre documents referredto “Operation Freakout.” Its goal, theywrote, was to “get P.C., [me] incarceratedin a mental institution or jail or at least tohit her so hard that she drops her attacks.”

It appeared that after the first frame-

up had failed to silence me or land me inprison, they plotted again to make itlook like I was making bomb threatsagainst Scientology and others. Sound-ing eerily like the ‘72 letters, these newmissives were going to go out to Scien-tology, to Henry Kissinger, to Arab em-

bassies (because I’m Jewish) and also toa Laundromat! Go figure.

Other pages in the documents also brought back unhappy memories. Therewas a strange diary of what I did each dayduring the “frame-up” period, and how

close I was to suicide. “Wouldn’t that begreat for Scientology?” the person wrote.

And then I realized the writer couldonly have been Jerry Levin. He had tohave been a Scientologist, someonewho infiltrated my life specifically tospy on me and help Scientology set meup. He and his friends had been in andout of my old apartment back duringthat time period and had access topaper on which someone could haveobtained my fingerprint and then

typed the threats.Furthermore, I’ve always wonderedwhy he wanted me to go up on thatledge with him, thirty-three storiesabove the ground. Did he plan to pushme off? If he had, everyone would havesimply assumed that—in my depressedstate of mind—I had committed suicide.

Operation Freakout indeed.As the ‘70s came to a close, a grand

jury in New York spent three years in-vestigating my frame-up. Although I co-operated with the FBI, the case went

nowhere because the Scientologistssteadfastly refused to talk. Bizarrely,they pleaded the First—not the Fifth—Amendment, claiming freedom of reli-gion. One Scientologist, Charles Batdorf,was jailed for refusal to speak about myframe-up.

But a simultaneous Washington, D.C.,grand jury (and trial) ultimately led to

jail sentences for eleven Scientologistswho were involved in wiretapping, infil-

tration and theft of government documents. Some of those who were jailedhad also been involved in the plots andactions against me.

In 1981, I initiated my own actionagainst Scientology, for their frame-up

of me and for their years of harassment.In 1985, Scientology and I reached an“amicable” settlement of all lawsuits. Iwas engineered by Albert Podell, a bril-liant New York lawyer. Through him, I

became reacquainted with Paul Noble, aNew York TV producer, whom I haddated when I was in my twenties, long

before any of this had happened.Paul and I have been very happily

married for nineteen years now. I havewritten eleven more books do sometravel writing as well as a newspaper

column on pets. While it’s not as “glam-orous” as investigative reporting, it’s anice change of pace. Dogs don’t harassand cats don’t sue.

I also quit smoking, barely drink, andtry to forget what happened. Try. Butwhen I turn on the news and hear of sto-ries such as the pretexting scandal atHewlett-Packard, I’m reminded of theyears of subterfuge I endured. Or I’lcome across more evidence, such as the

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,seen here with the late Gerald R. Ford, was

to have been the target of a threat that Sci-

entologists considered making and pinningon Cooper as part of “Operation Freakout.”

By 1972, the author wears the stress of herordeal in her pained visage.



affidavit I recently received fromMargery Wakefield, a former member,describing her years in Scientology.

“The second murder that I heardplanned was of Paulette Cooper, whohad written a book critical of Scientology,and they were planning to shoot her…”

Other names keep bringing me backas well. My useless private investigatorAnthony Pellicano, of course, is all over

the news. My former attorney CharlesStillman defends big-name clients, includ-ing the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. BobStraus, the boyfriend who left me, wenton to head a large New York organiza-tion for judicial misconduct. AlbertPodell is still my family lawyer. John D.Gordon III is with Morgan Lewis. Dr.David Coddon died in 2002.

L. Ron Hubbard Jr., who died in1991, ultimately saw his late father’s or-ganization for what it was (though helater recanted some of his outspoken

comments against the church). BruceBrotman retired from the FBI and madenegative news stories in 2002 when, asthe incoming director of security atLouisville International Airport, he re-fused to go through the airport’s secu-rity system, reportedly saying, “I makethe rules.” Dr. Roy Wallis died in 1990.And while I’ve never heard further of

James Meisler or Charles Batdorf, Iheard that Jerry Levin—which was defi-nitely not his real name—is still a Scien-

tologist and living in England.One of the last major exposés on Sci-entology was a Time magazine coverstory, in 1991. Scientology sued and lost,though it reportedly cost the publisher

seven million dollars to successfully de-fend the case, which Scientology pursuedon and off for a decade before finally rest-ing when the U.S. Supreme Court re-fused, in 2001, to reinstate the case. Beforeand after the trial, the writer, extraordi-nary investigative reporter RichardBehar, was also miserably harassed.

Unfortunately, my experiences andthose of people like Behar, have had a

chilling effect on press coverage of Sci-entology. (Would you write an exposé of Scientology after reading this?) Thatmay be why they don’t seem to mindthat people can read portions of mystory on the Internet.

I do get a lot of e-mails and I haveno doubt that some of the people whoe-mail me are Scientologists trying tofind out what I’m doing concerningthem. But since I haven’t been writingabout Scientology, they’ve pretty muchleft me alone.

Am I worried that they’ll start upagainst me as a result of this article? Yes.But thanks to the Internet, it’s harder forthem to get away with that sort of ha-rassment—with me or with anyone else.

I would still advise journalists tospeak out if they have knowledge of something that can help other people,

but first to weigh the costs against howmany people they can actually help. Iam often contacted by individuals whowant to write about Scientology for a

small audience, like a college class, or alocal weekly newspaper. And when theyask if they should, I usually discouragethem. I tell them I don’t think it’s worthwhat they might go through to reach ahandful of people, few of whom arelikely to need their assistance.

As for me, I often wish I had neverever heard the word “Scientology.” Butgiven the same situation, I would stilldo it all over again. I would not have

been capable of remaining quiet, be-cause I learned too many scary things

and talked to too many people whowere being hurt.

However, I do wish I had remainedquiet in another way—and not talkedwith others about what I was doingto fight Scientology. I shouldn’t havelet anyone near me or into my apart-ment unless I knew them well. Mymistake was being too trusting andtoo talkative.

I sometimes get discouraged because

Scientology gets so much assistance

and publicity from people like TomCruise and John Travolta. At thesetimes, I wonder whether it was worthwrecking my life when Scientologyseems so powerful again. But then I remind myself that I did reach and help alot of people. My book sold 154,000copies (with the exception of a smaladvance, I never received a dime fromit) and each copy appears to have beenread by many people. In addition, it’snow available free on the Internet and

in several languages.Some of the people that I helped havecontacted me, and that gives me satisfaction. About once a week I receive an e-mail from someone who read my bookor read on the Internet how I stood up toScientology and the person will write totell me that I helped them.

My favorite was the man in hisfifties who wanted me to know thayears ago, after learning the truthabout Scientology from my work, heleft the organization, married, has four

children (two are twins) and runs acomputer company employing fortypeople. He feels that I am responsiblefor the happiness he now enjoys.

That reminded me of why I did whatI did and why journalists do what theydo: we try to tell the truth so that we canhelp others.

Unfortunately, we sometimes pay aterrible price for it.

Given the same

situation, I wouldstill do it all over

again. I would not

have been capable

of remaining quiet.

Cooper says her life is back on track, andthat she is enjoying some well-earned time

away from the Pandora’s box she opened

nearly forty years ago.


Scientology: Looking Over My Shoulder by Paulette Cooper

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