Operation Freakout

Common card · No. 381825

Operation Freakout, also known as Operation PC Freakout, was a Church of Scientology covert plan intended to have the U.S. author and journalist Paulette Cooper imprisoned or committed to a psychiatric hospital. The plan, undertaken in 1976 following years of church-initiated lawsuits and covert harassment, was meant to eliminate the perceived threat that Cooper posed to the church and obtain revenge for her publication in 1971 of a highly critical book, The Scandal of Scientology. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) discovered documentary evidence of the plot and the preceding campaign of harassment during an investigation into the Church of Scientology in 1977, eventually leading to the church compensating Cooper in an out-of-court settlement. On June 11, 1976, two Scientology agents were caught in the act of attempted burglary at a courthouse in Washington, D.C., as part of an operation to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The Guardian...

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