She worked with Scientology's spies and celebs, and still has photos to prove it
Longtime reader Marti Carlson really surprised us with a photo she sent in along with a message. And then, a few days later, she did it again.
We’ll let her start to tell the story about how she took us into some fascinating avenues of Scientology history these last few days…
Over the weekend, I was doing a little digital housekeeping, and was going to copy a DVD onto my new PC. The DVD had old Super 8 movies of my kid, taken in the ‘70s.
To my surprise, I came across a section of video that included a ghost from the past, a man then called Don Alverzo, who attended my son’s first birthday party in August 1978 when we lived near Saint Hill where we worked in the Worldwide Guardian’s Office (WW GO).
During that time, there were a few GO people who came from the US to the UK, I assume to hide out after the government raided scientology in LA and DC on July 8, 1977. I can’t say that’s a fact, but that’s my suspicion.
Um, wow. Thank you, Marti, We can definitely confirm that this is a photo of Don Alverzo, something that is very rare.
We know it’s Alverzo because we spent years tracking down information about him for our 2015 book about Paulette Cooper, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.
Alverzo, real name Jeff Marino, had been a combat helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War who became one of Scientology’s most notorious operatives during the Snow White years in the mid-1970s.
It was Alverzo who planned the break-in of IRS headquarters to place a bug under a conference table. Alverzo who broke into the St. Louis offices of attorneys representing a newspaper that had been investigating Scientology. Alverzo who, under the name Jerry Levin, had moved in as Paulette Cooper’s roommate during the months when Scientology was trying to frame her and get her sent to prison.
In other words, Scientology had called on Alverzo for its most dicey operations, which required someone with ice flowing in their veins.
And almost no photographs of Marino/Alverzo/Levin exist anywhere. But enough do exist that we recognize him in Marti’s photo from 1978 without hesitation.
And what a shot, playing with her one-year-old while, most likely, cooling his heels in England and waiting for the heat from the previous year’s FBI raid — the largest in the agency’s history — to die down. Amazing.
When we were researching Unbreakable, we traced this former Scientology super spy to a business on Long Island, where he was working with family members. We got him on the phone, and he pretended not to know what we were talking about as we asked him about Snow White and Paulette. But there was no doubt who he was.
Stunned that Marti had found such an artifact, we asked her to give us a brief overview of her many years in Scientology…
In the summer of ’73, my then fiancé, a Vietnam vet with PTSD, was going to drop out of society and live on a boat in the Caribbean, but instead his VW Beetle broke down in front of Boston org where he was ripe for plucking by a body router. (His “ruin” then was never resolved despite advancing to the cult’s highest level.)
After a few weeks, he got me into Scientology, we got married, and we went on staff in the Boston Guardian's Office, pounding the bricks as Public Relations officers for the six New England states. There’s got to be an easier gig than PRs for LRH and Scientology!
Three years later, we went to US GO in LA for PR training. While there, my husband and I held posts, mine managing PR programs for social reform (front) groups, his dealt with the Snow White program for the US. (I didn’t know what the program was about, only the name.)
In March of ’77 we went to Saint Hill to be in the PR bureau at Worldwide GO. My functions were largely administrative (stats, reports, files). I eventually became the “establishment officer” for the WW PR Bureau and managed the program to recruit PRs from orgs around the world, bringing them to Saint Hill for training, after which they would return to their org. My husband was involved in the Snow White and post-raid programs. (I had no knowledge of the content of the programs he worked on.)
In spring or summer ’81 I was sent on mission from GO WW to do a reorg of USGO, while my fellow missionaire handled ethics of B1 staff. I wasn’t privy to that data.
The summer or fall of ’81, CMO (Commodore Messengers Org) missionaires arrived in LA to clean up the Office of the Controller and the US GO, in particular B1 (bureau 1 - the spy bureau). I became an admin for one of the missions, headed by Vicki Aznaran. My husband and son moved back to LA from the UK to be with me. Then sometime that same year, David Miscavige arrived on the scene, I’m guessing shortly after Mary Sue Hubbard was removed from post. Prior to his arrival, the working atmosphere was already extremely tense. (I vividly recall being the subject of a “gang bang” security check while connected to an E-meter, during probing questions about my loyalty by multiple CMO missionaires standing behind the auditor.)
After Miscavige arrived, the stressful environment catapulted into extreme toxicity. He was a loud, raving tyrant even then.
In the beginning of ’82, I was told I was to be posted as Executive Establishment Officer for the USGO. I had had enough and wanted to leave staff. My husband and I had signed but not activated Sea Org contracts, and our 5-year contracts came to an end in March, when we routed off staff. That last day when I walked out of Big Blue where the offices were located at that time, I literally kicked my heels up in the air.
After leaving staff, we remained involved in church activities as public parishioners. We moved to Clearwater, Florida in ’85. Both my husband and I moved up to OT VIII. My husband became one of the top field staff members, earning commissions by getting others to donate money for church courses and counselling or the IAS, but not enough to support the family. We ended up having financial difficulties, attributed primarily to involvement in Scientology. My husband became a recluse. He expressed regrets at having pressured people to give money to Scientology that caused them financial difficulties. I had been his administrative support, but then began working for other Scientologists and became the sole income earner for the family. Over time I gradually distanced myself from doing services and participating in activities.
By 2009 I was under the radar, not wanting to raise any red flags, as I didn’t want to jeopardize my employment by my Scientologist boss. But in my mind, I was never going to do another service or give another penny to Scientology. My only connection was editing OT Committee meeting minutes, sent to me by an attendee that would later be published to the membership email list.
The unedited minutes for a mandatory meeting in the spring of 2011 contained reference to a top Flag exec saying, “It is unsuccessful to leave people out of control,” referring to OTs (Scientologists who have advanced to the highest levels in the cult). This sentence would normally have had to be edited out before publishing. I thought my now boss would be interested in the unedited version and emailed it to her. She had become a like-minded friend about Scientology. She then forwarded the email with the minutes to another friend who sent it to Marty Rathbun, who posted it on his blog. Well, that created a shitstorm, and the jig was up. Flag staff and one of Miscavige’s henchmen made unsuccessful attempts to get me back in the fold. (That henchman was Marion Pouw who I knew well when she was Jane Kember’s nanny in the UK and when she and I did the reorg and ethics mission into GO US in 1981.) I eventually received a letter notifying me I was officially declared in February of 2013.
What a fascinating journey, Marti. And congratulations on finally being declared.
As we said, Marti had another surprise for us as she was going through old files. She sent us this photo, and we just had to know the story behind it.
I first met Neil Gaiman in 1977 when my husband and I arrived in the UK for staff and temporarily stayed at his parent’s house and eventually ended up living in his late grandmother’s house. (The parent’s and grandmother’s houses had adjacent back yards.) His parents became my son’s godparents. Neil would come over to our house to watch TV. He was 17 and was a GO WW staff auditor, and at one time gave me auditing sessions. References in media or online that state he wasn’t ever a Scientologist or staff member are false.
My perception of Neil was that he was a typical young man with typical heightened interest in girls, who tested the accepted rules of behavior with regard to personal relationships with fellow Scientology staff members. Violating such rules had consequences that could result in ethics actions taken. I knew his now ex, Mary McGrath. Prior to my leaving the UK in in 1981, I believe she was on staff in GO WW’s Social Coordination Bureau, Scientology’s management arm that was the precursor of what is now known as ABLE (Association for Better Living and Education), the secular management org over front groups Narconon, Applied Scholastics, Criminon, and The Way to Happiness.
Neil’s Wikipedia page says, “He met his first wife, Mary McGrath, while she was studying Scientology… The couple were married in 1985 after having their first child.” While she may have studied Scientology, it conveniently omits that she was a staff member. In that time period, a Scientologist having a child out of wedlock could have resulted in ethics action for the parents, especially if either was on staff and/or having any services (training/auditing).
As is well publicized, Neil subsequently had an open marriage with singer Amanda Palmer, since divorced, and now faces recent sexual assault and misconduct allegations.
— Marti Carlson
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Thanks, Marti! This is just fascinating to outsiders like me.
Thank you Marti Carlson, I bet some of the old timers enjoyed your pics and reminiscences. I find it odd that a 'religion' wants to compartmentalize daily work. But then few religions have a spy and dirty tricks department.