Hey everyone, welcome to the show. Imagine being
targeted by, well, a really powerful organization.
One that will stop at absolutely nothing to silence
you. I mean, even framing you for bomb threats,
it sounds like something out of a movie, doesn't
it? It really does. Almost unbelievable. But
it's a true story. A kind of chilling thriller,
really. Packed with espionage, deception. And
just this incredible fight for survival. If this
kind of deep dive into real life intrigue grabs
you, please do hit that like and subscribe button.
It really helps us bring more stories like this
to you. Yeah, it makes a big difference. So today
we're diving deep into The Unbreakable Miss Lovely
by Tony Ortega. You'll find a link for it down
in the description. Great book. Really compelling.
It absolutely is. And it's not just a gripping
story, right? It digs into some big themes. The
abuse of power, how vital free speech is, and
just, wow, the resilience someone can have when
facing just incredible adversity. Human spirit
stuff. Exactly. This book was actually shared
with us by one of you listening, so thank you
for that. And we're going to unpack the incredible,
frankly terrifying, ordeal. of Paulette Cooper.
She was a journalist who became this major target
of the Church of Scientology. And Ortega, the
author, he really did his homework. He used tons
of sources, interviews with people involved,
FBI documents that got declassified, court records.
It paints a pretty shocking picture. Yeah, meticulously
researched. So our mission today, basically,
understand the key events of what Paulette went
through and figure out what we can take away
from her fight against this this really formidable
group. Right. Where do we start? OK, let's dig
in. Who was Paulette Cooper before, you know,
before she ended up in the crosshairs? OK, so
back in the late 1960s, early 70s, Paulette Cooper
was this really driven, ambitious journalist
making her way in New York City. Her early career
was actually pretty diverse. She spent time at
BBDO, the ad agency, worked on the Campbell Soup
account. Remember that campaign? One plus one
equals new. Encouraging people to mix soups.
Vaguely, yeah. That was her. That was her idea.
Got written up in Madison Avenue Magazine, actually.
Huh. Interesting start. But it sounds like advertising
wasn't quite adventurous enough for her. I read
something about some unusual travel. Oh, yeah.
Definitely adventurous. She actually became the
world's first female stowaway on a cruise ship.
No way. Seriously? Seriously. And then, of course,
being a journalist, she wrote about the whole
experience. Kind of shows her personality, right?
Willing to push boundaries, get the story firsthand.
Definitely shows some guts. So how did this adventurous
journalist first cross paths with L. Ron Hubbard
and Scientology? Her first sort of inkling came
from Martin Gardner's book, Fads and Fallacies
in the Name of Science. Okay. Gardner was pretty
critical of Dianetics, which was Hubbard's earlier
thing, before Scientology. Gardner basically
called Hubbard a crank, lumped him in with other
people he saw as pushing pseudoscience. Right.
I know Gardner's work. Critical stuff. Exactly.
And Paulette read this way back in 1957. She
was only 15. 15. Wow. Yeah. And, you know, she
loved reading, was curious. So that planted a
seed, maybe a bit of skepticism about Hubbard
early on. And that seed grew, obviously. Led
her to investigate and eventually write her own
book. Precisely. Fast forward to the late 60s,
early 70s, and she writes The Scandal of Scientology.
And it was a critical book. No punches pulled.
And that book. That's what really set off the
Church of Scientology's intense, just unbelievable
campaign against her. Right. OK. This is where
it gets really dark. This wasn't just like bad
press releases. They had an actual operation
with a name, didn't they? They did. A really
chilling name. The church orchestrated this whole
campaign specifically to discredit Paulette Cooper,
to silence her. And they called it Operation
Freakout. Operation Freakout. Just saying it
sounds sinister. It was. And this wasn't just,
you know, PR spin. It was planned, multi -pronged,
designed to just break her. And it really shows
something, doesn't it? How powerful groups sometimes
react to criticism, not by debating, but by trying
to destroy the critic. Exactly. Harassment, legal
tricks. Yeah. It's a playbook, sadly. Highlights
how vulnerable individuals can be. So multi -pronged.
What did that actually look like? What kind of
tactics did they use in Operation Freakout? Oh,
it was insidious, truly. One of the most shocking
things, framing her for bomb threats. Framing
her? That somehow got hold of her personal stationery.
The book suggests maybe through her cousin Joy
Heller, possibly. Okay. Then they typed bomb
threats to Scientology offices on her stationery
and mailed them. The goal was obviously to make
it look like she did it. That's, I mean, that's
next level. And this fake evidence, it... actually
worked she got arrested it worked based on those
planted threats paulette was arrested indicted
for making the threats and then when she denied
it which was the truth they hit her with perjury
charges oh my the toll on her emotionally psychologically
it was immense the book mentioned she actually
contemplated suicide during this time wow just
hearing that it really drives home the human
cost doesn't it how do you even keep going through
something like that it's hard to imagine and
besides these terrifying legal attacks. They
were hitting her from other angles too, right?
Trying to just dismantle her life. Oh, absolutely.
It was relentless harassment, surveillance, threatening
phone calls. She suspected her phone was tapped.
Which it probably was. Which it later turned
out it was. They distributed these smear leaflets
just full of lies all around her apartment building
in her neighborhood. And there was this underground
scandal sheet that circulated even wilder totally
false accusations about her living under that
constant pressure that fear and it wasn't just
external stuff they tried to get inside her life
too yeah infiltrate her circle that's right These
two women, Margie Shepard and Paula Tyler, almost
certainly Scientologists, they deliberately became
her friends. Oh, creepy. Yeah. The idea was probably
to gather information, maybe plant more evidence.
And then later, a guy named Don Alverzo, using
the alias Jerry Levin, he actually moved in with
her as a roommate. He lived with her. Lived with
her. The belief is his whole purpose was to spy
on her, gather anything they could use against
her. So she's in her own home. And the people
around her might be actively trying to destroy
her. It's like a spy novel, but horrifyingly
real. Absolutely. And that scheme with the Arab
consulates? That sounds particularly twisted.
Oh, it was. Just Machiavellian. The plan, cooked
up by the Guardian's office, was to mail a threatening
letter to an Arab consulate, but make it look
like it came from Paulette's address. Okay. And
they faked a phone call, too. Trying to link
her to Israeli intelligence and this bombing
threat against the consulate just paint her as
completely unstable and dangerous. The Guardian's
office. You've mentioned them a couple of times.
Tell us more about who they were, like the church's
own intelligence agency. That's a pretty good
way to put it. The Guardian's office, or Jingo,
was basically Scientology's intelligence and
PR arm. Think like internal police, spies and
public relations all rolled into one. And these
attacks on Paulette, they weren't random. They
were planned, executed by the Jingo under orders
from L. Ron Hubbard and his wife, Mary Sue Hubbard.
So top level stuff. Definitely. And it's important
to know Operation Freakout wasn't an isolated
thing. It was part of this much bigger, much
more sinister program called the Snow White Program.
Snow White Program. Which involved like. Widespread
infiltration of government agencies, stealing
documents, all sorts of illegal activities targeting
anyone Scientology saw as an enemy. Paulette
was just one target, albeit a major one. So this
wasn't just about one journalist. It was systemic.
Right. Wow. But despite facing all this, this
coordinated onslaught, Paulette fought back,
right? She didn't just fold. She fought back
with incredible determination. It's truly amazing.
Facing prison, constant harassment. She refused
to be silenced. What do you think kept her going?
It says so much about, you know, human resilience.
It really does. She hired lawyers, good ones
like Paul Reingold, Charles Stillman, later Virgil
Roberts, who really went to bat for her. And
she had support from friends like Barbara Lewis
and other journalists who saw what was happening
was just fundamentally wrong. Right. Now, this
whole saga involved a lot of people, some helping
Paulette, some definitely not. Can we touch on
a few of the key players? Sure. There's L. Ron
Hubbard Jr., known as Nibs, later Ron DeWolf.
His relationship with his father was very strained.
He actually worked with Paulette on a book for
a while. And interestingly, there was some suspicion
the wording in those forged bomb threats sounded
a bit like his writing style. Hmm. Okay. Who
else? James Meisler. He was a Scientology PR
guy. pretty aggressive in trying to intimidate
other critical authors. And he was vocal in accusing
Paulette of the bomb threats. Right. Robert Kaufman,
another author targeted by Scientology. He was
a friend of Paulette, so he really understood
the kind of pressure she was under. Must have
been good to have someone who got it. Definitely.
Michael Sanders, he worked at the Justice Department,
apparently gave Paulette some useful info kind
of discreetly. John Seffern, a lawyer for some
other people suing Scientology, had a huge stash
of Scientology documents. But later he got tangled
up with this operative who was actually working
against Paulette. Yeah, a guy named Richard Bast.
He pretended he was helping Paulette fight the
church, but secretly he was working for them,
recording their conversations. Unbelievable.
Deception everywhere. Pretty much. Then there's
Michael Flynn, another key lawyer who eventually
represented Paulette and others suing Scientology.
Maury Breacher, an editor at the National Enquirer,
actually gave Paulette writing assignments when
things were really tough for her professionally.
A lifeline. That's got to hear some support there.
Yeah. Elaine Vietz, a reporter who wrote about
life on Hubbard's ship, the Apollo. Dr. Arnaldo
Bengelsdorf. He was the psychiatrist the court
ordered Paulette to see. She ended up trusting
him and he seems to have helped her cope with
the immense cycle. Right. And the book also mentions
David Miscavige, who was then a sort of rising
figure in Scientology, obviously becomes much
more prominent later. Quite the cast of characters.
So with all this going on, all the lies and infiltration,
how did the truth about the frame up finally
surface? How did she get vindicated? The big
break came in 1977. The FBI raided Church of
Scientology offices in L .A. and D .C. A raid.
Why? It was part of investigating the Snow White
program, the infiltration stuff. And during these
raids, they seized just tons and tons of internal
documents and buried in those documents. Detailed
plans and records for Operation Freakout. Proof.
Irrefutable evidence of the conspiracy against
Paulette laying out exactly what they did. It
finally showed she was telling the truth all
along. Wow. So the documents just laid it all
bare. What happened then? Consequences? Oh, yeah.
Big consequences. The discovery led to more legal
action. Mary Sue Hubbard and several other high
-ranking borough officials were indicted. Convicted,
actually, for their roles in Snow White and related
crimes, including the stuff against Paulette.
So finally some accountability. Finally. The
truth about how Paulette was framed became public.
Her story even got featured on 60 Minutes. There's
this moment where the church spokesman at the
time, David Gaiman, is shown the actual documents
on camera. He just looks stunned. Couldn't deny
it. Vindication. But after years of this fight,
did she finally reach some kind of closure with
the church legally? A settlement? Yes, she did.
Actually, back in 1976, before the FBI raid fully
exposed everything, but after years of fighting
her case, Paulette settled her lawsuits against
Scientology. Okay. What were the terms? Well,
part of the deal was she had to agree not to
republish the scandal of Scientology, and she
couldn't comment on it publicly anymore. So she
was silenced in a way, even in victory. Kind
of. In return, the church paid her outstanding
legal fees, which were substantial. So it ended
the intense legal battle. Yeah, it came at the
cost of her ability to speak freely about her
own book and experiences, at least contractually.
A bittersweet ending to that chapter. What happened
to Paulette after that? Did she manage to move
on, keep writing? She did. Despite everything,
all the trauma, she continued her writing career.
She later married a man named Paul. The book
touches on her reflections looking back on it
all. It's clear it was a defining, harrowing
experience. Understandably. And sadly, yeah,
several of the other figures in the story, Nibs,
John Suffer, and Robert Kaufman, they've passed
away since then. Pauli Cooper's story is just,
it's incredible. And deeply disturbing. What
do you see as the main takeaways, the bigger
lessons here? I think it's a really stark, powerful
example of how far powerful organizations might
go to crush dissent. It just hammers home how
vital a free press is and the right for individuals
to speak out, to criticize. Without fearing that
kind of terrifying retaliation. Yeah. It shows
how vulnerable critics can be when facing powerful
institutions. And it reminds us we always need
to be vigilant about protecting those basic rights.
You know, freedom of speech, freedom of the press.
They're not guaranteed. Absolutely. Well, this
has been a truly gripping and I think really
important deep dive into the unbreakable Miss
Lovely. Thank you for taking this journey with
us. What part of Paula Cooper's story hit you
the hardest or what was the most shocking revelation
for you? Let us know down in the comments. We'd
love to hear your thoughts. Yeah, definitely
share your takeaways. Please do. Let's keep this
conversation going. And if you found this story
as compelling as we did, please share this deep
dive with others who might appreciate it. And
now, maybe a final thought to leave you with.
Think about the power that information holds
and the extreme lengths some people, some organizations
will go to control it. What responsibility do
we all have, really, to seek out the truth and
maybe, more importantly, to support those who
dare to speak it, even when they're facing immense
pressure? Something to chew on.