OPERATION SNOW WHITE

Opening

Operation Snow White grew out of Guardian Order 732, issued on 20 April 1973 for the Church of Scientology's Guardian's Office. Its stated aim was to get "false and secret files" on Scientology "brought to view and legally expunged". In practice, Guardian's Office staff got jobs at the Internal Revenue Service and copied its files, broke into Justice Department offices and planned operations against agencies abroad.

The scheme unravelled after two operatives were stopped by FBI agents in a federal courthouse in June 1976. On 8 July 1977 the FBI raided church offices in Los Angeles, Hollywood and Washington. Eleven Scientologists, including Mary Sue Hubbard, were indicted in 1978 and all were convicted by 1980. L. Ron Hubbard was named an unindicted co-conspirator.

Timeline

20 April 1973Guardian Order 732, the "Snow White Program", is issued. The Church's own later account says L. Ron Hubbard wrote it.

1974Michael Meisner becomes the Guardian's Office intelligence chief in Washington and recruits Gerald Bennett Wolfe. Both get jobs at the IRS as clerk-typists, and Wolfe copies files on Scientology.

November 1974The Guardian's Office bugs an IRS meeting on the church's tax-exempt status.

11 June 1976Meisner and Wolfe enter the US Courthouse in Washington to steal files from an Assistant US Attorney's office. A night librarian calls the FBI, and two agents question them. Meisner shows a fake ID. They are released.

End of June 1976Wolfe is arrested for using a forged official pass. The Guardian's Office hides Meisner in Los Angeles.

13 May 1977Wolfe pleads guilty.

June 1977Meisner escapes his Guardian's Office minders, contacts the FBI and agrees to cooperate.

8 July 1977FBI raids in Los Angeles, Hollywood and Washington. The Los Angeles raid uses 156 agents, lasts 21 hours and fills a 16-ton truck. Tens of thousands of documents are seized, including papers on Operation Freakout, a plot against the author Paulette Cooper.

August 1978A grand jury indicts 11 Scientologists on 28 counts. L. Ron Hubbard is named an unindicted co-conspirator.

October 1979Nine defendants, including Mary Sue Hubbard, are convicted on a stipulated record, each on a single count. Most counts are conspiracy.

6-7 December 1979Sentencing. Mary Sue Hubbard receives five years and a $10,000 fine.

November 1980Jane Kember and Morris "Mo" Budlong, who had fought extradition from Britain, are convicted on nine counts of aiding and abetting burglary.

October 1981The convictions of the nine are upheld on appeal.

October 1993The IRS grants the church tax exemption.

Key figures

Mary Sue Hubbard, L. Ron Hubbard's wife, headed the Guardian's Office and was the most senior person convicted.

Jane Kember, Guardian World-Wide, ran daily operations from England and issued Guardian Order 1361.

Michael Meisner directed the Washington operations and, after he went to the FBI, became the government's key witness.

Gerald Bennett Wolfe was the IRS insider. He was sentenced to probation and community service.

The other defendants were Henning Heldt, Duke Snider, Gregory Willardson, Richard Weigand, Mitchell Hermann, Cindy Raymond and Sharon Thomas.

L. Ron Hubbard was never charged. He spent most of the rest of his life out of public view.

Physical and documentary trail

The documentation is extensive and public. It includes Guardian Order 732 and related orders, the 1978 grand jury indictment, the 1979 stipulation of evidence, the sentencing memoranda, the appeal decisions (including United States v. Hubbard, 650 F.2d 293, on unsealing the seized documents) and the British High Court ruling on Kember and Budlong's extradition. A New York Times report in 1993 put the operation's targets at 136 agencies, embassies and consulates in more than 30 countries.

A later order, Guardian Order 1361 from Jane Kember, directed infiltration of IRS offices in Los Angeles and London and of the Justice Department.

An earlier version of this report and its catalogue entry said the word "legally" was later dropped from the operation's own wording. I could not find a source for this, so it has been removed. The documented record is the reverse: the Church's own 1992 submission to the IRS quotes the "legally expunged" line and adds emphasis to the word.

All false and secret files of the nations of operating areas brought to view and legally expunged

Things you might not know

• A librarian caught them. The night librarian at the federal courthouse noticed two men using the photocopiers without signing in, told the US Attorney's Office, and called the FBI when they returned.
• The raid set a record. The 156 agents used in Los Angeles were the most the FBI had ever sent on a single raid.
• The Guardian's Office held its own man. Meisner was kept under guard in Los Angeles. He escaped twice and went to the FBI on the second attempt.
• The plans included a cat. A sentencing memorandum describes an "Operation Cat", a plan to plant records of a pedigree cat in US security computers so that "the creature holds a press conference".
• The defence lost in London. Kember and Budlong argued in Britain's High Court that their offences were political and so not extraditable. The court disagreed.
• The church still defends the order's purpose. Its 1992 IRS submission said Snow White was meant to correct false reports "through strictly legal means".

Competing explanations

A criminal infiltration campaign directed from the top. This is the government's case and the court record. Guardian's Office executives ran it, and prosecutors named L. Ron Hubbard as a co-conspirator.

A legitimate programme carried out illegally by subordinates. The Church's position is that Hubbard's order called for strictly legal correction of false records and that the Guardian's Office went beyond it. The order's wording supports the first half of this. The convictions show the second half happened.

Hubbard's personal knowledge is the unsettled point. He was named but never charged, and the extent of his day-to-day knowledge was never tested in court.

Later life of the case

The Church dissolved the Guardian's Office in the early 1980s and replaced it with the Office of Special Affairs. Snow White and Operation Freakout remain the best-documented examples of the church's covert operations, and the 1993 tax exemption is still disputed by critics who point to this history.

Finding

Snow White is not in doubt. The Guardian's Office planted agents in the IRS, stole and copied federal documents, broke into government offices and planned operations abroad. Eleven people were convicted. The record rests on seized documents, a stipulated trial record and appeal rulings.

What still will not resolve: how much L. Ron Hubbard knew. He was named but not charged, and no court ever tested his role.