This is wishful thinking on the part of OSA.

Karin and I attended a hearing of the House International Relations Committee on June 14 of this year (personally escorted in, actually, by one of the chairman's aides). As far as we could tell, we were the only non-Scientologists in the hearing room. Most of the members of the audience wore buttons proclaiming "Religious Freedom for Europe," a Scientology public relations campaign. Bill Walsh, a Washington, D.C., attorney who has been on Scientology's payroll since the Guardian's Office days, was there, along with a number of other Scientology professionals. Former PR Secretary OSA Int Leisa Goodman was also there, looking nervous but lovely in a peach blazer.

Washington, D.C., OSA operatives Sylvia Stanard, Sue Taylor, and Thierry Duchenac (my apologies if I've misspelled that) sat behind and next to Karin and me. They also followed us afterwards, although neither Karin nor I caused any disturbance at all during the hearing. We just sat and listened.

I believe there are about fifty members of the committee, but only a handful attended this particular hearing. The rest, I assumed, did not want to be associated with what seemed to be clearly a Scientology-orchestrated show.

The witnesses had obviously been handpicked by Scientology. Long-time Guardian's Office legal staff member Craig Jensen was one of them. Craig was kicked off staff in 1982 when Miscavige took over the Guardian's Office. As Miscavige did with many of the Guardian's Office executives, such as Henning Heldt, Duke Snider, and others, he ordered Craig Jensen to start a business that could serve Scientology's interests. Jensen started Executive Software that same year. Not surprisingly, Jensen didn't mention his Guardian's Office background during his testimony. Another witness was the young woman who stars on the television program JAG. Forgive me for forgetting her name. She read a statement by Anne Archer. Why Anne Archer could not be present to read her own statement was never explained. Chick Corea was supposed to make an appearance but never did. Again, there was no explanation, but it seemed to me that this was why Leisa Goodman was looking so nervous.

Half the front row was filled with German Scientologists. They were introduced, each with a dramatic story, as having had to flee Germany because of religious discrimination. One of the Germans was Antje Victore, presented to the committee as the first German to be granted asylum in the United States for religious discrimination. She is the one, you may remember, who was exposed in Stern magazine shortly afterward as having obtained asylum by presenting fraudulent documents, created as a favor to her by fellow Scientologists, to a judge in Tampa.

The hearing was all about Scientology trying to get economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. Congress against Germany, France, Austria and Belgium for so-called "religious discrimination" against Scientologists. This cry of religious discrimination is Scientology's latest strategy to use the U.S. government to bring these recalcitrant European countries under control. As you probably know, there is a policy called, I believe, "Dept of Govt Affairs" in which, if memory serves me well, Hubbard instructed his followers to gain control of governments by "high level ability to control or, in its absence, by low level ability to overwhelm." So far Scientology doesn't seem to be doing very well at applying this policy to Europe. Despite what appeared to be a well-rehearsed, impassioned defense of Scientology by a committee member named Salmon (including a vehement attack on the LMT as a hate group, by the way, which Karin and I assumed had been written into the script especially for our benefit when we made our surprise appearance), the hearing did not result in any sanctions, or any other actions against Europe that I know of, for that matter.

Much to OSA's chagrin, no press showed up for the hearing, nor was there any published media about the event, despite the Scientology starlet from JAG. For the sake of the media stats, it was really too bad that Chick didn't show up.