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From: milne@crl.com (Andrew Milne)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: What was the Guardians Office?
Date: 9 Oct 1995 15:42:52 -0700
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            You will sometimes see references to the Guardians
      Office posted to ars.  It no longer exists.  It was
      permanently disbanded in the early 1980s by current Church
      management.

            The Guardian's Office, known as the GO, was initially
      created in 1966 as a unit to deal with the Church's legal and
      external affairs.

            The GO had been infiltrated and set up to fail in its
      mission to protect the Church.  It was influenced to abandon
      its original mandate and established itself as an independent
      autonomous unit, answerable to nobody.  It was isolated not
      only from the mainstream activity and management of the
      Church, but even from the Founder of the religion.  Some GO
      executives actually tried to gain exclusive control over
      Church corporate and financial affairs.

            The first warning that all was not well with the GO
      came in the late 1970s.  Representatives of Church management
      realized that the GO no longer had the best interests of the
      Church and its Founder at heart.  The GO's management of the
      Church's external affairs was notably deficient and many
      parishioners and staff began to suspect that matters for
      which the GO was responsible were not being dealt with in
      accordance with the teachings of Mr.  Hubbard.  In fact, by
      this time, the Guardian's Office had abandoned any pretense
      of following the principles described in Mr.  Hubbard's
      writings.

            It subsequently came to light that a handful of GO
      staff members had been influenced to adopt an "anything goes"
      approach in dealing with government discrimination against
      the Church.  These dupes infiltrated and burglarized several
      US government offices to obtain copies of files maintained
      and circulated about the Church.  Obviously such activity was
      illegal and directly violated Mr.  Hubbard's policies.

            However, while such illegal conduct was afoot, the GO
      managed to keep its operations secret from Church management,
      staff and membership.  Its autonomy shielded it from
      accountability.  Most Scientologists were altogether unaware
      of GO clandestine activities.  Even the government prosecutor
      in the later criminal case that arose from this illegal
      conduct, testified that only a handful of people in the GO
      had engaged in or even knew about these illegal acts.  The
      rest, including thousands of staff and millions of
      parishioners, had no involvement or knowledge of such
      unlawful activities.

            When the GO's criminal activities were discovered by
      those who today form the core of the Church's leadership, the
      GO was disbanded, no small feat since it was the GO officials
      who held corporate control.  Its functions were completely
      reorganized and brought under the control of the Church's
      ecclesiastical management officers.  Many of the GO staff
      were not involved in any of the unlawful activities and,
      wanting to conduct their affairs in accordance with the
      Founder's teachings, abandoned their former GO leaders.  They
      then gave their full support to Church management in the
      clean out and disbanding of the GO.  Those who participated
      in or knew of the GO's illegal conduct in any way were
      removed from Church staff and forever banned from future
      Church employment.
 
            Sadly, there were also some people in the Church, but
      outside of the GO itself, who sympathized with the GO because
      of their own agendas to achieve autonomy and gain control of
      the Church's finances.  In some cases, it was the Scriptures
      themselves they wanted to pervert for their own ends.  Given
      these people had proven themselves to be avowed enemies of
      L. Ron Hubbard and the religion, they were excommunicated.

            Today, some of these same people, no longer part of the
      Church, are loudly and bitterly critical of the Church's
      current management.  It is these few apostates who are most
      often the ones who spread vitriol about Scientology and
      Church leaders.  When they make allegations of wrongdoing,
      they are referring to the acts of the GO, of which many of
      them were either a part or in sympathy with.  They fail to
      mention their involvement or the fact that they were kicked
      out of the Church because of their GO involvement -- or the
      fact that the very people they now try to tarnish with their
      allegations are the very people who permanently rid the
      Church of those who committed or supported such misdeeds.

            This clean-up of the GO was led by Mr.  David
      Miscavige, who removed all corporate control from the hands
      of the GO, and dismissed all personnel who had been involved
      in illegalities or attempts to alter Mr.  Hubbard's
      technologies.  Mr.  Miscavige and a team of church executives
      then set up an entirely new corporate and administrative
      structure for the Scientology religion which has since served
      to keep the religion pure and in accordance with the
      teachings laid out by its Founder.

            Outsiders familiar with these events leading to, and
      culminating in, the disbanding of the GO, have often
      commented on the decisive and thorough manner in which the
      entire situation was managed.  Relations with the U.S.
      government have been restored and the Church has obtained
      full recognition and tax-exemption as an exclusively
      charitable, religious endeavor from the Internal Revenue
      Service.

            Virtually all major religions have gone through periods
      of trial and upheaval, especially during their formative
      years.  The Roman Catholic Church, for example, underwent
      numerous schisms which splintered the faith.  Sometimes
      history lingers.  It took its leaders hundred of years to
      come to terms with and acknowledge the Inquisition was wrong.

            One of the steps taken to ensure that nothing like the
      GO could ever occur within Scientology again was the
      formation of Religious Technology Center (RTC).  RTC is
      responsible for ensuring the purity of the religion and the
      Scientology scriptures, and provides a self-policing
      mechanism for the Church.

            Indeed, the reorganization of the Church in the wake of
      the GO debacle marked the beginning of a new era.  The
      Scientology religion not only successfully weathered the
      storm; it emerged stronger, more stable, larger and more
      influential than ever before.  In 1980, there were 328
      churches, missions and groups around the world.  Today, more
      than 2,300 such entities span the globe.  Dianetics and
      Scientology books are on bestseller lists all over the world,
      with Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health having
      sold four times as many copies since 1980 as it did in the
      whole of the prior 30 years.

            Today, the Church's executive structure is firmly
      established and it enjoys the wholehearted support of its
      membership.  Most of the Church's senior executives have held
      their positions for more than a decade.



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