[FONT=Arial Narrow]OPERATION: FREAKOUT[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial Narrow]Paulette Cooper, a freelance journalist and author, began researching Scientology in 1968. She went on to write a critical article on the church for the British magazine Queen (now Harpers Bazaar) in 1969. Scientology promptly sued for libel, adding Queen to the dozens of British publications that it had already sued.
Undeterred, Cooper expanded her article into a full-length book, "The Scandal of Scientology (sub titled A Chilling Examination of the Nature, Beliefs, and Practices of the Now Religion.) Tower Publications Inc. published it in 1971. The church responded by suing Cooper in December of 1971, demanding $300,000 for "untrue, libelous, and defamatory statements about the church."
Cooper was clearly seen as a high priority target by the church’s Guardian Office. As early as February 29, 1972, the church’s third most senior official, Jane Kember, sent a directive to Terry Millner, the Deputy Guardian for Intelligence United States (DGIUS) directing that he find out information about Paulette Cooper so that she could be "handled".
Cooper counter-sued on March 30 1972, demanding $15.4 million for the on going harassment. The church however stepped up the harassment, painting her name and phone number on street walls so that she could receive obscene phone calls, and subscribing her to pornographic mailing lists. She also received anonymous death threats and her neighbors received letters claiming she had a venereal disease.
In December 1972 a woman claiming to be soliciting funds for the United Farm Workers stole a quantity of stationary from Cooper’s apartment. A few days later, the New York Church of Scientology "received" two anonymous bomb threats. The following May, Cooper was indicted and arraigned for a Federal Grand Jury. The threats had been written on her stationary, which was marked with her fingerprints.
The charges were eventually dropped in 1975 with the filing of a Nolle Prosequi order by the local US Attorney’s office, but it was not until of 1977 that Federal agents discovered that the bomb threats had been staged by the Guardian’s Office.
The church sued Cooper again in 1975 in the United Kingdom, and the United States, and in Australia in 1976. According to one source, the church itself had imported Cooper’s books into foreign countries with the express purpose of suing her in jurisdictions where the libel laws were stricter than the United States.
In the spring of 1976, the Guardian Office leadership decided to initiate an operation with the goal to "get PC incarcerated in a mental institution or jail, or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks."
In its initial form Operation Freak Out consisted of three different plans (or "channels" as the Guardian’s Office termed them.)
1. First would be a woman to imitate Paulette Cooper’s voice and make telephone threats to Arab consulates in New York.
2. Second, a threatening letter was to be mailed to an Arab consulate in such a fashion that it would appear to be done by Paulette Cooper. (Who is Jewish)
3. Third, a Scientologist volunteer was to impersonate Paulette Cooper at a launderette and threaten the President and the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. A second Scientologist would there after inform the FBI of the threat.
Two additional plans were to be added to Operation Freak Out on April 13 1976. The fourth plan called for Scientologist agents to gather information from Cooper to access the success of the first three plans. The fifth plan was for a Scientologist to warn the Arab consulate by phone that Cooper planned to bomb the embassy. A sixth and final plan had been added subsequently. It was basically a re-run of the 1972 plot, requiring Scientologist’s to acquire Paulette Cooper’s finger prints on a blank piece of paper, type a threatening letter to Henry Kissinger and mail it.
Ultimately, Operation Freak Out was never put into effect. On June 11, 1976, two Scientologist’s, Michael Meisner and Gereld Bennett Wolfe, were caught at a courthouse in Washington DC as part of the Guardian’s Office ongoing project, Operation Snow White. For the next year the Guardian’s Office was preoccupied with trying to hush up the scandal, even going to the lengths of kidnapping Meisner and holding him incommunicado to prevent him from testifying. The church sought a quick finish with the Paulette Cooper dispute, and in December of 1976 proposed to settle with her, on condition that she was not to republish or comment on "The Scandal of Scientology" and agree to sign the books copyright over to the Church of Scientology in California.
Although in the end, no one was brought to justice for the harassment of Paulette Cooper, the more wide spread criminal activity was successfully prosecuted by the United States Government. The Church of Scientology filed at least 19 lawsuits against Cooper through out the 1970’s and 1980’s, which Cooper considered part of "a typical Scientology dirty tricks campaign." Cooper’s attorney, Michael Flynn said the lawsuits were motivated by L. Ron Hubbard’s declaration that the purpose of a lawsuit was to "harass and discourage". Cooper discontinued her legal actions against the church in 1985 after receiving $400,000 in an out of court settlement. [/FONT]
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