Paulette Cooper
Paulette Cooper is an American author and journalist whose writing about the Church of Scientology resulted in harassment from Scientologists. An early critic of the church, she published The Scandal of Scientology in 1971. She endured many years of attacks from church leadership and their agents, including lawsuits, smear campaigns, overt and covert surveillance, outright threats, and even a criminal frame-up. Church founder and leader L. Ron Hubbard was reportedly obsessed with her and personally plotted against her. The Church of Scientology instituted a total of nineteen lawsuits against Cooper from all over the world. She countersued them three times before finally settling with the church in 1985.
Cooper has authored or co-authored nearly two dozen books, covering a wide range of topics including travel, missing persons, psychics, and pets, in addition to Scientology. Her books have sold close to half a million copies in total. She has had her articles published by Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, and the National Enquirer. She was nominated for an Edgar Award for her 1973 non-fiction book on forensic science. She has also served as a ghostwriter for Margaret Truman, a daughter of President Harry S. Truman.
Early life
Cooper's birth parents were Chaim and Ruchla Bucholc, Polish Jews who immigrated to Antwerp, Belgium, in the late 1920s. Paula "Paulette" was born on July 26, 1942, during the Nazi occupation of Belgium. Chaim, a skilled leatherworker, was arrested four days before her birth; Ruchla was arrested that October. Both perished that year at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Family friends kept Paula and her older sister Sarah in hiding for months, but Nazi troops eventually found them. Just before they were to be sent to Auschwitz in the summer of 1943, friends of Chaim's and other benefactors secured their release by bribing Nazi officials.Paulette and Sarah spent years in various orphanages in Belgium. Sarah was eventually adopted by an aunt who could not afford to support both sisters. An American Jewish couple, Ted and Stella Cooper, arranged for Paulette to come live with them in New York City in 1948. The adoption was formalized in 1950, at which time Paulette was also naturalized.
Education
Following her arrival in the United States, Cooper adopted English quickly, reading voraciously and writing by age 8. She graduated from Brandeis University with a psychology degree in 1964, having also completed a summer course in comparative religion at Harvard. After graduation she returned to Harvard for several months to work on a schizophrenia study. She later earned a master's degree from The City College of New York.Early career
Early in her career, Cooper distinguished herself in her work for advertising agencies, including the prestigious BBDO. She enjoyed the challenge of working in the field of copywriting. However, she soon began to pursue magazine writing and the colorful lifestyle surrounding it. By age 26, she had already sold stories to TV Guide, Cosmopolitan, and The Washington Post. As a freelancer, she was always on the lookout for new and interesting subjects for her writing. In 1970, her writing about her adventure as "the first female stowaway" on a cruise liner caught the attention of several major media outlets.Conflict with Scientology
Cooper's interest in Scientology began with a disturbing visit from a former BBDO colleague. The man told her that through his involvement with Scientology, he had learned he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. After that he announced, "God has decided to rape you," but Cooper managed to get him out of her apartment without incident. She called a former boyfriend who had himself experimented with Scientology and told him about the visitor's claim that he was Jesus. "Maybe he really is," the ex-boyfriend said.Cooper, thinking she may have stumbled on an intriguing story subject, signed up for an introductory "Communication Course" at the local Scientology "org". Between sessions she explored the facility, asking questions and even taking several documents from an office. One document listed people deemed "suppressive persons" enemies of Scientology.
She began work on a Scientology article in earnest. She later said of her motivation to write about Scientology: "I had a master’s degree in psychology and had studied comparative religion at Harvard for a summer and what I learned during my research about the group founded by L. Ron Hubbard was both fascinating and frightening. The story cried out to be told."
''Queen'' magazine article
Through interviews with former church members, Cooper learned much about the organization's internal methods of control and the harassment of those who left. When the United States Food and Drug Administration raided the Washington, D.C., church in 1963, agents and police seized thousands of pages of documents, from which Cooper gleaned additional insights. She also procured a copy of the Anderson Report, a damning 1965 indictment of the church from the Australian state of Victoria, which denounced the church's methods as psychologically abusive and recommended banning it.The church's already litigious reputation made many publications wary of Scientology stories. Nevertheless, London's Queen magazine eventually included Cooper's article, "The Tragi-Farce of Scientology", in its December 1969 issue. While it mainly addressed the harassment of Scientology critics, it was the first Scientology story to delve into sexual misconduct by church auditors. Shortly after its publication, Cooper received two anonymous, telephoned death threats warning her to stop writing about Scientology.
''The Scandal of Scientology''
Cooper leveraged her research for the magazine article to produce a 22-chapter book, The Scandal of Scientology, subtitled "A chilling examination of the nature, beliefs, and practices of the 'now religion'". She pitched this exposé as a trove of "exciting, interesting, unknown, controversial material".Despite multiple lawsuit threats from the Church of Scientology, Tower Publications released the book in June 1971. Its Appendix "The Scientologist's Story" included author questions with answers provided by David Gaiman, then the Public Relations Director of Scientology in England. Soon after publication, the church sued Cooper for libel over the Queen magazine article, though Harper's Bazaar settled the matter quickly. In December, the church followed with a lawsuit against the book itself in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging "untrue, libelous, and defamatory statements about the Church." Tower Publications would buy itself out of the lawsuit in late 1973, to Cooper's disappointment.
A Scientology defector would later claim she saw a copy of The Scandal of Scientology in the lounge of the Apollo, the flagship of Scientology's Sea Org.
Attacks by the Guardian's Office
By early 1971, Cooper was being targeted by the Guardian's Office of the Church of Scientology. This organization, linked to church founder L. Ron Hubbard's wife Mary Sue, was the church's sophisticated spy and intelligence operation. They heard about Cooper's book and tried to stop its publication through various means. They used the church's legal apparatus to threaten her publisher with lawsuits. While she was visiting Scotland for a travel story, dozens of strangers staked out her hotel, and some followed, photographed, or called her; David Gaiman, also a GO operative, even met her at the airport with fake writs for libel.Early in 1972, a GO memo referred to Cooper as "an unhandled attacker of Scientology", and the organization stepped up its surveillance and harassment. They researched her past, her personal life, and even her college grades. Cooper received many obscene phone calls and some threatening ones. Damage to her telephone lines suggested someone had eavesdropped on her.
In March, Cooper sued the New York Church of Scientology for $15.4 million, hoping to stop the harassment.
Also in March, Cooper was named as one of 18 defendants in another church lawsuit, which alleged a conspiracy to produce Robert Kaufman's book Inside Scientology. This connection put her in contact with L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., son of the church founder and a prominent Scientology defector. Together they collaborated on a long essay, "A Look Inside Scientology", while staying with Cooper's parents. Cooper, Nibs, and Kaufman discussed their work on multiple radio and television programs.
Internal GO memos suggest the organization considered plans to ruin Cooper's father Ted's finances and diamond business, "thus cutting off one of P.C.'s financial supports". An imposter had her phone briefly disconnected. A scandal sheet circulated accusing Cooper of sexual deviancy and writing pornography. All this, in addition to the lawsuits, impeded her ability to work. At her lawyer's behest, she began compiling a harassment diary in 1972 to support her lawsuit.
Operation Dynamite / Operation Lovely
In 1972, the GO launched "Operation Dynamite" to " commitment procedures" on Cooper.A critical sequence of developments and suspicious events occurred in December 1972:
- 6th: Cooper signed a petition offered to her by a canvasser named "Margie".
- 8th: The Church of Scientology in New York received the first of two poorly-written bomb threats. The church alerted the FBI, naming Cooper as a possible suspect.
- 13th: The second threat was hand-delivered to the church.
- 15th: Cooper moved to a new apartment.
- 19th: Cooper's cousin was attacked by an armed intruder while staying at Cooper's old apartment.
Soon after, Cooper received a federal grand jury subpoena and learned that she was a prime suspect in the bomb threats. At the hearing, the prosecutor revealed that Cooper's fingerprint was found on the second bomb threat letter. Both letters were also linked to Cooper's typewriter.
Nibs had reconciled with Scientology in the fall of 1972 and probably provided intelligence on Cooper. Details about Cooper in the first bomb threat letter suggested he may have helped write it. He had also had access to her typewriter while they were collaborating. Cooper would later see letters from Nibs to his father in which he claimed to be actively working against his father's "enemies". Such individuals fell under Scientology's fair game policy, meaning they "ay be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist... tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." Cooper's fingerprint on the second letter may have come from Nibs, or from the petition she signed in early December.
On May 17, 1973, Cooper was indicted in connection with the threats. By this time, the GO had come to refer to the campaign against Cooper as Operation Lovely, since her code name in internal GO correspondence was "Mrs. Lovely".
While she awaited trial, Cooper depended heavily on several close friends, two of whom turned out to be agents of the Church of Scientology. "Paula" had been introduced to her by "Margie", the canvasser from December. Paula disappeared soon after Cooper discovered a photo of a woman who resembled her in Scientology's Freedom magazine. "Jerry" often stayed in her apartment and would eventually move in for several months, during which time he reported regularly to the GO. In one GO memo, he noted that if Cooper became depressed enough to commit suicide, "Wouldn't this be a great thing for Scientology?" On several occasions, he tried to coax Cooper to stand with him on the dangerous ledge of her 33rd-floor apartment. "Jerry" disappeared after Cooper found his name in a Scientology publication and confronted him about it. Later, former Scientology operatives would identify him as a man using the alias "Don Alverzo", the Church's most senior spy at the time.
Meanwhile, the smear campaign continued. In March, a smear letter was sent to her parents. Similar letters addressed to her boyfriend, which also threatened his career, would eventually destroy their relationship.
The United States of America vs. Paulette Marcia Cooper never went to trial. Cooper made a deal with the U.S. Attorney's office in which she admitted no guilt. On September 16, 1975, the U.S. Attorney's Office formally filed a nolle prosequi in the case. Though she avoided a trial, she still feared the indictment becoming public and damaging her career prospects.
Cooper had failed a polygraph early on, but she passed a truth-serum test shortly before the indictment was dropped. She was ultimately vindicated when the FBI raided Scientology offices in 1977 and recovered documents relating to the operation.