Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Hubbard spent quite a bit of time researching in the library of Congress, reading up on black magic
and the occult, and most days he took a walk in Rock Creek Park, where he believed that FBI
agents were trained. He bought a trick camera with a lens that looked sideways and amused
himself by taking pictures of trainee agents for future reference. Kima Douglas thought he was mad
to take the risk.
Coincidentally, Rock Creek Park was also the chosen venue for a fake hit-and-run accident which
the Guardian's Office set up in an attempt to end the political career of the troublesome mayor of
Clearwater. Gabriel Cazares by then figured prominently on the Church of Scientology's hit-list and
the Guardian's Office had been trying to dig up some dirt on him for weeks. Scientologists had
gone back to his home town of Alpine, Texas, trawled through public records, nosed around the
courthouse and even checked the headstones in the local graveyard, without success. But then it
was disclosed that Cazares would be attending the national mayors' conference in Washington
from 13-17 March and the Guardian's Office made hasty plans to give him a welcome.
A Scientologist posing as a Washington reporter sought an interview with Cazares and introduced
him to a friend, Sharon Thomas, who offered to show the mayor the sights of Washington. Miss
Thomas was, of course, working for the Guardian's Office. Driving with the mayor through scenic
Rock Creek Park, she temporarily lost control of her car and ran into a pedestrian, who crumpled
dramatically. To the mayor's horror, Miss Thomas accelerated away without stopping, leaving the
injured man lying on the road.
A Guardian's Office memo the following day discussed ways of using the accident to discredit
Cazares and concluded: 'I should think the mayor's political days are at an end.' Curiously Cazares
was also on the Commodore's mind. On the very same day, Hubbard scrawled a note to the GO:
'Cazares - is there still some possibility the Cubans in Miami might get the idea he is pro-Castro?'
The 'victim' of the hit-and-run accident was a young man called Michael Meisner, a Scientologist
since 1970. Meisner was the key figure in Operation Snow White: he was 'running' all the GO
agents who had been infiltrated into government agencies in Washington, had personally taken
part in several burglaries at the Department of Justice and organized the copying of tens of
thousands of secret government files. For almost eighteen months, GO agents had been sneaking
in and out of government buildings without hindrance, but on the evening of 11 June 1976, things
started to go wrong when the FBI discovered Meisner and Silver in the US Courthouse Library at the
foot of Capitol Hill. They were waiting for cleaners to vacate an office from which they were going to
steal files, but they told the FBI agents they were doing legal research. They presented fake
identification documents and were allowed to leave.
Next day, in the brownstone on Q Street, an agitated Hubbard showed Kima Douglas a telex from
Mary Sue and asked, 'What am I going to do about this?' 'The essence of the report,' said Kima,
'was that they had caught the man who had been getting all this great information for us from the
tax files.' Although no arrests had yet been made, Hubbard surmised, correctly, that there was
trouble in store. His instinct, once again, was to flee.
A bolthole had been established on the other side of the country in anticipation of just this
eventuality. On the following morning, Kima Douglas checked in at National Airport with her elderly
"father", for a flight to Los Angeles. Travelling under false names, they sat together in the first-class
cabin and watched an adventure movie, featuring a spectacular hang-glider rescue, which the old
man very much enjoyed. At LAX, they were met by a limousine and driven to Overland Avenue in
Culver City, where Gerry Armstrong had rented four adjoining apartments. Back at the brownstone
on Q Street in Georgetown, the occupants were toiling in and out of the house, loading boxes into