On July 8, 1977, based on information from Meisner, the FBI
raided Church of Scientology properties in Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C. alleging that Scientology officials from 1974
through 1976 conspired to steal documents belonging to the Federal
Government and conspired to obstruct justice by covering up these
crimes during a grand jury investigation for a burglary of the
office of an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S.Courthouse in
Washington, D.C.
About 90,000
pages of documents, burglary tools and eavesdropping equipment were
seized in the raid. Scientologists dressed in clerical garb stood
around during the raid to be included in press photos in an attempt
to portray themselves as a persecuted religion.
The documents seized in this raid exposed an incredible array
of cloak and dagger operations undertaken by Scientology’s
Guardian’s Office, including bugging the Justice Department,
stealing documents from the IRS, setting up author Paulette
Cooper on bomb threat charges, and attempting to destroy the
reputation of Clearwater Florida’s mayor Gabe
Cazares.
An overarching program called Operation Snow White controlled
the clandestine operations, and thus this case became known as the
Snow White case. The goal of Operation Snow White was to clean out
governmental records detrimental to Scientology and to L. Ron
Hubbard through overt and covert means.
Mary Sue
Hubbard
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Eleven
Scientologists, including the founder L. Ron Hubbard’s wife Mary
Sue, went to federal prison for their part in these actions. L. Ron
himself was in hiding but was listed as an unindicted
co-conspirator.
The Snow
White Program was begun April 18, 1973 by Scientology founder L.
Ron Hubbard. He wrote in Guardian’s Order 732 WW that some
countries were preventing some of Scientology’s activities, based,
according to Hubbard, on false reports about
Scientology.
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Several countries were denying port access to Hubbard’s ship
the Apollo, where he was headquartered. The Snow White strategy was
to:
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Bring legal
pressure by litigation in every possible country (where there has
been a false report or offence) against England and the US as well
as in England and the US so that the sum total will be to place
these countries in a villainous light, not to be trusted as to
data, and to cancel out all tendencies to false report as well as
amend old ones. And then tackle them through the two International
Commissions.
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