Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Clearwater was fast becoming an empty shell, epitomized by the fading grandeur of the town's
major landmark, the eleven-storey Fort Harrison Hotel. With its chandeliered lobby overlooking a
kidney-shaped swimming pool and its tier upon tier of forlornly empty rooms, the Fort Harrison
marked the passing of an era and it was a surprise to no one that it was up for sale.
Its purchase, in October 1975, by Southern Land Sales and Development Corporation, occasioned
no more than passing interest, although the attorney acting for the owners confessed that it was
'one of the strangest transactions' he had ever been involved in.[4] Not only did Southern Land pay
the $2.3 million purchase price in cash, the corporation was so secretive it would not even admit to
having a telephone number. A few days later, Southern Land also bought the old Bank of
Clearwater building, not far from the Fort Harrison, for $550,000, also in cash.
Reporters on the two local newspapers, the Clearwater Sun and the St Petersburg Times, naturally
began making routine inquiries about Southern Land's intentions and were surprised to discover
there were no records anywhere of a Southern Land Sales and Development Corporation. Then a
middle-aged man wearing, it was reported, a 'green jump-suit', arrived in Clearwater and
announced that an organization called United Churches of Florida had leased both buildings for
ecumenical meetings and seminars. This failed to clear up the mystery, because there were no
records of United Churches, either.
Although Hubbard had not yet seen his latest real estate acquisitions, he had little doubt, from the
detailed reports he had been receiving at Daytona Beach, that Clearwater would be an ideal
headquarters for Scientology and a base from which the church could grow and prosper. He
considered moving into the penthouse at the Fort Harrison - there was a drive-in garage on the
ground floor and direct elevator access to the upper floors - but decided it would be safer to stay out
of town. Frankie Freedman found four empty apartments in a condominium complex called King
Arthur's Court in Dunedin, a small town on the coast about five miles north of Clearwater. Hubbard
and Mary Sue, accompanied by a discreet entourage of messengers and aides, moved in on 5
December 1975. That location, too, was supposed to remain a closely-guarded secret.
There were a number of compelling reasons why Hubbard wanted to stay in hiding and continue
the charade, for public consumption, that he had no influence or responsibilities in Scientology.
One of them was that he had no desire, at the age of sixty-four, to risk going to prison.
Operation Snow White, the impudent plan to launder public records that he had dreamed up three
years earlier, was progressing rapidly and with a degree of success that few would have believed
possible. By the beginning of 1975, the Guardian's Office had infiltrated agents into the Internal
Revenue Service, the US Coast Guard and the Drug Enforcement Agency. By May, Gerald Wolfe, a
Scientologist working at the IRS in Washington as a clerk-typist, had stolen more than thirty
thousand pages of documents relating to the Church of Scientology and the Hubbards . He was
known to the Guardian's Office by the code-name, 'Silver'.
Within the hierarchy of the Church of Scientology, ultimate responsibility for the activities of
Operation Snow White rested with Mary Sue Hubbard, the controller, but it was inconceivable that
she was acting on her own initiative or not discussing progress with her husband. And although
the amateur agents had discovered it was ridiculously easy to infiltrate, bug and burgle US
government offices, the risks were considerable, both to the agents themselves and their church
superiors. Hubbard was not too worried about who would take the rap if Operation Snow White was
exposed, as long as it was not him.
A few days before he moved to Dunedin, he approved a Guardian's Office proposal to infiltrate