Operation Freakout

In 1971, a woman by the name of Paulette Cooper published "The Scam of Scientology", a book that exposed every dark detail of the cult. In a conspiracy code-named "Operation Freakout", Ms. Cooper discovered just how true every word she had written was. As the cult employed every possible tactic (both legal and illegal) to silence Cooper without making her a martyr, the author came to realize that Scientology was worse than she could have ever imagined. If not for FBI raids, the name of Paulette Cooper could easily have remained harsh blow to all who dare to criticize the cult. With the discovery of Operation Freakout, however, Ms. cooper's name has exactly the opposite properties.

In 1971, the cult sued Cooper for defamation and libel. Cooper responded by counter-suing the CoS. Unfortuantely for Ms. Cooper, this was just the beginning. Cooper's phone number was painted on walls so that she recieved calls of a lewd and obscene nature, she was subscribed to pornographic magazines, and she and her neighbors and friends recieved threats and hate mail. This is what even the smallest critic can expect once they catch the eye of the CoS; what Paulette Cooper was about to go through was far worse.

In 1972, a woman came to Cooper's home, claiming to be soliciting funds for United Farm Workers. The next day, Cooper had discovered some of her stationary to be missing and the CoS "recieved" bomb threats...presumably from the writer they had come to hate so passionately. Naturally, the cult charged Cooper for the crime and she was caught up in yet another lawsuit. Put on display before a grand jury, Cooper's name was dragged through the proverbial dirt to the point where her own lawyer urged her to plead guilty. In 1975, Cooper recieved a pardon after taking a lie-detector.

This alone would have been enough to validate every word of Cooper's infamous book, however the CoS still seemed unsatisfied. Driven by some strange desire to incriminate themselves even further, the CoS once again charged Cooper with libel and even went as far as to import her book to countries where laws regarding such charges were more strict. Determined to see Cooper's reputation destroyed the cult finally initiated Operation Freakout.

The stated goal of the operation was to "get P.C incarcerated in a mental institution or jail, or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks." Seized documents record how the CoS told its most trusted operatives to watch Cooper and learn everything about the author in order to better impersonate her. In order to incriminate Cooper, the CoS drafted three parts to the operation. In the first phase, a Scientologist was to imitate Cooper (who was Jewish) and threaten Arab consulates in New York over the telephone. In the second phase, a letter was to be sent to this same Arab consulate. finally, the CoS planned to have an impersonator threaten the president as well as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Before these plans were put into action, an FBI investigation uncovered the plot among many others. In 1985, Paulette Cooper finally reached a legal settlement with the cult, despite the fact that Operation Freakout had been uncovered almost a decade before. Cooper came out of this battle tired and weary. At one point, she confessed to an operative who had gained her trust that she was considering suicide. A friend of six years deserted her as he broke under the pressure of the cult, and her other friends were also harassed.

There are many ways in which Scientology has attempted to silence its critics over the year, and many cases are far uglier than this. Better known critics have been slandered and lied about. Less well-known critics have been killed. Tory Christman, also known as Tory Magoo, said in one YouTube video that she had tolf Shawn Lonsdale he needed to stop what he was doing and that the nature of the things he was meddling in were bound to result in his death--these are the words not of a critic who spent their carrer on the outside looking in, but of a woman who was once a high-ranking member of the CoS.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout

http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/CoS/docs/pcof1.html

http://www.xenu.net/archive/go/ops/ops.htm

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Scientology-1751/Operation-Freakout.htm

http://weblog.timoregan.com/2007/10/are-you-feeling-paranoid-operation.html

http://home.snafu.de/tilman/krasel/cooper/