He was in on some of Scientology’s biggest intel operations: And now he’s talking

In May, journalist Peter Reichelt brought us something remarkable, his translation of a 1994 print interview that Scientology leader David Miscavige had given to a weekly investigative magazine in Vienna, Profil. Bringing us that fascinating piece was just part of an impressive comeback that Peter has made to the subject, some 25 years since he landed one of the more startling contributions to Scientology journalism when he flew a helicopter over the secretive management headquarters near Hemet, California for a German documentary.

When he gave us that translation of the Profil article, Peter revealed to us that he had been interviewing one of the people responsible for it, a former high-level Scientology figure who had essentially run the organization’s legal and intelligence operations in Europe. Klaus Büchele is a name that may not be very familiar to American Scientology watchers, but as you’ll see in Peter’s interviews with him, Klaus was a member of the inner circle around David Miscavige, Marty Rathbun, Mike Rinder and others, as he had high levels of responsibility in both the Guardian’s Office and then the Office of Special Affairs, Scientology’s secret power networks.

He’s coming forward now for the very first time, and we think you’ll find his revelations about Scientology at the highest level to be fascinating. Peter conducted several interviews with Klaus in recent months. He translated them from German into English, and then we rearranged some sections for chronological sense. Today, we have the first half of their discussion.

Peter Reichelt: Klaus, you had a pretty astonishing career in Scientology and it’s not well known by the public. How did you get from Vienna, and then from Munich, to Los Angeles to basically transform the Guardian’s Office into the Office of Special Affairs after the huge scandal of the Snow White Program? And why did Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard choose you, an Austrian, to do it?

Klaus Büchele: That’s a good question. It was like this. I started in Scientology in Munich in 1973. Since I knew English well and there was a great shortage of translators, they first sent me to Copenhagen to translate Hubbard’s tapes. I didn’t know anything about the Guardian’s Office yet. But in August 1973, Scientology wasn’t particularly big in Germany. The main headquarters were in Munich and there were various missions as well. Stuttgart was also quite big back then.

Scientology was already under attack in the media there at that time. The authorities were already dealing with us. I was soon approached by the director of the GO, Susan Haselberger. I didn’t know her at all. They took me into a closed door meeting and advised me that they absolutely needed someone to translate things that could be presented to the authorities to prove to them that Scientology was simply a bona fide religion that was entitled to religious recognition. So that was my next translation project.

My first translation for that project was a book, “Scientology, The Religion of the 20th Century” from English into German. Then they asked me afterwards if I wanted to continue with the Guardian’s Office. I said yes.

Then I was sent to England to be trained in the legal department there so that I could later take over and manage the legal cases for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. There, I met Charles Parselle and all the other senior bosses from the Guardian’s Office in Saint Hill in East Grinstead. It was actually a relatively small team there. There were about 200 people in Saint Hill in total. So it was quite a family affair There were lots of students from different countries.

I finished my training at GO there in June 1974 and went back to Munich. Then I took over the legal cases for Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. But months later they sent me back to England and I was promoted and reassigned to the legal department of the GO at the end of 1975. That’s where I started as Legal Research Europe, Worldwide (WW). That was the headquarters, at Saint Hill, the headquarters of the Guardian’s Office. They were officially responsible for the whole world. There was the legal department, the finance department, the public relations department and the intelligence department. And I was in the legal department.

We all worked in one big room. There were probably 20 or 25 of us in GO. We were legally responsible for the whole world, yet it was quite informal. There was no big fuss about Sir this and Sir that. Not formal at all. It was just very different back then. We were simply a team that was convinced that we could make the world a better place.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with Charles Parselle. He was a famous man in the Guardian’s Office at the time. He was responsible for all the legal work in the late 60s and 70s. And I studied under him and I did my internship under him before I went to Germany.

Charles was an English barrister, and there were many, many other highly educated people there in the 70s. We weren’t stupid. We weren’t rotten guys who didn’t know what to do. We young people turned everything upside down. In this respect, it’s always interesting for me to analyze why I got into Scientology in the first place. I would never, ever have stuck with it if this Hubbard thing hadn’t made sense to me. It really gave me the impression that we could somehow make the world a better place. But not in the Hare Krishna sense of somehow praying and dancing all day. We really thought that Hubbard had come up with a method that really had the possibility in a modern world of combining Asian and ancient Indian knowledge with the technical knowledge of the new world, the Western world.

As a result, we were of course absolutely thrilled that there might really be a completely new solution that transcends the religious and can address the spiritual commonality of all people and also transcends the psychological. So we somehow saw it as a further development, an upward development away from the psychological, not as an alternative psychology, but rather a further development out of philosophy, religion, and psychology into something better and higher.

So that was really my true motivation. The whole Scientology world in the 70s was very, very different from the 80s, when people like Miscavige and other assholes — I have to be honest — the Scientology teenagers, who knew everything better and made us old Guardian’s Office people out to be criminals.

Scientology went downhill after that, but it was just that Hubbard — in retrospect, which is always the best view — you can see how Hubbard was a big psychotic himself with his Sea Org fantasy and all his upper echelon stuff on the Bridge.

Hubbard was a genius psychotic because he wasn’t actually on a high horse himself like Miscavige was. Hubbard didn’t live luxuriously. Not like Miscavige. Hubbard ultimately died in a caravan. He did have a ranch, but there were only a few people who helped him. So in that respect, he didn’t snatch up the millions like Miscavige is doing now. It was somehow very different under Hubbard.

The truth is that the GO was already breaking into government offices in the 70s and the crimes were already being committed under Hubbard in the USA. I wasn’t aware of this at the time, even though I worked in the GO’s legal office. And it’s like, I suppose, the CIA and FBI, where a lot of people within the intelligence agencies don’t really know what’s going on in their agency in detail. And it was similar in the Guardian’s Office back in the 70s.

We in Europe were not aware of the real crimes of the GO, which were mainly committed in the US. In the 70s, we actually only felt persecuted as a new religion, which was now being attacked by the established Catholic Church and Protestant Church. It appeared, in typical establishment fashion, they had the feeling that we were somehow coming up as competition. That’s how we saw it at the time, that we simply had to put down roots within society and gain recognition so that we could fulfill our mission.

That was the starting point of our work. But Hubbard himself, in retrospect, certainly approved of the fact that the Americans broke into offices and stole documents and did all sorts of illegal things. Then they were exposed in the mid-70s and of course everything went haywire as a result and Mary Sue Hubbard and ten others ended up going to prison.

Peter: And was Hubbard also there in Saint Hill at the time in 1975?

Klaus: No, no. He was already gone. I never met him in person.

Peter: You never saw him in person?

Klaus: No, not at all. He was already on the ship, on the Apollo in the Mediterranean. I think England refused to renew his visa for his stay. And we were, I was actually in England illegally, because Scientology was banned. Scientology was banned in England. But foreigners couldn’t get a residence permit for Saint Hill. We could enter as tourists without saying that we were doing Scientology. And when we had to cross the border abroad, for example, we always made sure that we didn’t have anything with us that would link us to Scientology. We looked at every piece of paper that was in our pockets in case we were searched. It was such a routine. It was all kind of secret, even though it was the headquarters there, in Saint Hill.

During that time, the early 1980s, I held the highest position and was nominally responsible for all the legal matters around the world. David Gaiman was my supervisor back then. You know Neil Gaiman, don’t you?

Peter: I know him. And David was Neil’s father?

Klaus: Yes, that was his father. Neil Gaiman was an auditor in the 70s, he audited me too. His mother, Sheila Gaiman, is one of the… How do you say? One of the strongest Scientologists in the East Grinstead area. And his sister and brother-in-law, they’re still big guys in the Scientology org in London to this day. Neil Gaiman was actually based in Woodstock, New York with Amanda Palmer, when we lived there. I met Amanda there but not Neil.

In the spring of 1981, Mike Rinder was at Saint Hill for three months babysitting David Gaiman to make sure he didn’t somehow turn against management. And during that time, David Gaiman was in charge of the whole show because Jane Kember, who was the Guardian at the time, was in Washington D.C. She was there preparing for the GO trial, for the hearing. And she ended up in jail, never came back on post.

Hubbard worked out a strategy that in Jane Kember’s absence, a committee had to advise David Gaiman. That was formed as the Guardian Committee. I was the Guardian Assistant for Legal within the eight-person committee. Jeff Miller was the man who was in charge.

Jeff was directly under David Gaiman. And there was an assistant for each division of the Guardian’s Office. For example, Guardian Assistant for Legal, Guardian Assistant for Public Relations, Guardian Assistant for Investigation. And I was the legal man. We had our own office and we had to advise David Gaiman directly and help him run the show. We were similar to a cabinet. The committee didn’t exist when Jane Kember was in charge. And that was Hubbard’s idea, Hubbard’s strategy.

And he offered Norman Starkey, who is now deceased, the job. Starkey was a very important Scientologist. He is older than Miscavige. Starkey could have deposed Miscavige. But he didn’t. He was on a mission to the Guardian’s Office Worldwide in Saint Hill at the time to turn Hubbard’s strategy into reality.

And that’s when I went from being Charles Parselle’s junior to being his senior for a short time. Before that, Charles was directly under Jane Kember while she was Guardian WW. But after she was extradited to DC, Hubbard set up the Guardian Committee which would directly advise Gaiman. Charles was still a Deputy Guardian, but he no longer reported directly to the Guardian WW. The committee was senior.

All through that I actually worked with David Gaiman and we were quite close friends. So I know the background of Neil Gaiman. And I have a bit more insight into his family life than the average citizen.

Peter: Yes, that’s very exciting. And where exactly was your office? Where were you together?

Klaus: Our office? Have you ever been to Saint Hill?

Peter: No, I’ve never been there.

Klaus: That’s difficult to describe. Saint Hill has several buildings. But the most important building there is the Manor House. There are two floors, with offices upstairs and offices downstairs.  There’s a main entrance and there’s a side entrance.  The side entrance is typical of an English manor house, and on the entire first floor there were offices for the Guardian’s Office Worldwide. We had one of the rooms on that floor.

Then David Gaiman was deposed in 1982, and then I was the last temporary Guardian in World Wide for three or four months before it was all disbanded. In November that year, I was brought to Los Angeles, and at the beginning they didn’t know what they wanted to do with me.

Nobody knew what was going to happen to the GO. And finally the decision was made to disband the Guardian’s Office. That was when Vicky Aznaran was in charge of the RTC. David Miscavige was not yet the big man. Then the GO was disbanded and they gave me a choice, either you leave Scientology or you have to do an RPF [Rehabilitation Project Force, the Sea Org’s prison detail] to clear your name. Then I told them, there you go, I’m a Scientologist, I’ll do it and then I went on the RPF in January 1983.

Then they promoted me to Gold RPF at Int management after a few weeks, so “Over the Rainbow” [to the secret location of Gold Base near Hemet, California]. It was a big secret thing back then. I finished the RPF in August 1983. After the RPF, I went back to England and sold my house. I closed the whole place down and then I was brought back to the US and I was on a mission in Flag in Clearwater for three months under Mike Rinder. Mike was my mission senior in LA. The task of the mission in Flag was to handle the external influences and to train the staffs on how to handle all the enemy lines and external influences. After that I came back to L.A. at the end of 1983 and it was then decided to establish the Office of Special Affairs. I was actually the last Guardian in the Guardian’s Office. In June 1982, the Guardian’s Office was already under CMO INT Missions.

Peter: Was the name “Office of Special Affairs” your suggestion?

Klaus: Was that my idea? Partly, yes. I remember when the name OSA finally came up. There was a policy from Hubbard in 1964 about the Department of Special Affairs. That was the predecessor of GO, the Guardian’s Office Worldwide. The Guardian’s Office Worldwide began on March 1, 1966; it’s a wonder why I can still remember that exact date. Before the Guardian’s Office, there was the Department of Government Affairs. That was the predecessor of the GO. And the Department of Government Affairs became the Department of Special Affairs. And that was the root of the name Office of Special Affairs. That was a group effort by us few remaining former GO employees to find the new name, which was ultimately derived from Hubbard policies. That’s how it went. Yes, very few people actually know that. I don’t think there’s anyone else who can tell the story of OSA apart from me. Yes, that’s how it happened.

The missions that I led in the USA, they were mainly focused on David Mayo and other apostates. There was a big breakaway going on. My missions were mainly concerned with somehow keeping the renegades in check. And then something went wrong with one of my missions. Yeah, it’s a long story. But in any case, Vicky Aznaran put me in the RPF. But then it was canceled a few months later. They put me in the RPF from the end of 1984 until August 1985.

Peter: Where exactly were you in the RPF during that time?

Klaus: Again near Gold.

Peter: So you were back at Castile Canyon School? At the Int Ranch?

Klaus: Yes. That was actually quite a good time. I quite liked it because it was quite relaxed. It wasn’t as crazy and bad as it was later on. And we built the studio, the L. Ron Hubbard Film Studio. I was responsible for all the planning things in the RPF. I was the middle man between the planners and the people on the deck who were working and the architect, I forget the name of the architect. We had an architect. And we had a really great construction team, with about 50 people, 60 people, who built the studio, mainly RPFers. We learned an incredible amount there. We were somehow among ourselves, a really close-knit team. Of course, we RPFers were totally separate from the other Sea Org staff, but there was no brutality, shouting, violence or anything like that back then.

Anyway, in August 1985 I was called back to OSA Int. And then I was the Action Chief again. I was responsible for the missions again. And then all the stuff in Italy blew up. I think that was in ’86.

My main focus within OSA has always been on Europe. I got Heber Jentzsch out of prison in Spain. I worked on the Spanish case for years. And what was happening in Greece was my business. So I was less involved with the legal issues in America because I just had my desk full of European matters. Spain, Italy, Greece and also Canada. I was only marginally involved in American matters because OSA Int is only a small team. Of course, we always talked about everything and knew about all the projects going on at OSA Int. And as I was right at the top of the executive, I was of course aware of a lot, but personally my main focus was on European matters. That has always been the case.

Peter: How far did Miscavige interfere in the assignments, what kind of projects or missions had to be carried out, like against critics?

Klaus: I can only say how it normally went in OSA. And it went like this. Certain legal things, mainly just in America, Miscavige was directly involved with that. I was in Canada when we had a big case in the 80s and Miscavige had to testify as a witness. So Miscavige was involved. And in all the big US cases, when it came to a lawyers’ conference at OSA headquarters, Miscavige was always there too. He did not care much about the rest of the world. That was fine with me as I never liked nor trusted him.

But apart from the legal side, where he is more protected because he is always surrounded by lawyers. He always did it in such a way that he had an intermediary. That was Marty Rathbun. And Marty Rathbun reported to him almost every hour, or at least two or three times a day.

Marty would go into some OSA conference room and talk to Miscavige on the phone for an hour. He was Miscavige’s right-hand man, and in this way Miscavige had influence over all the activities of OSA without having to appear himself, and without coming into legal danger himself. Hubbard did the same thing. Miscavige learned that from Hubbard I am quite sure. That’s why it’s so difficult to sue Miscavige. You just need an intermediary. Marty Rathbun was his go-between, also Mike Rinder and Mike Sutter. It was exactly like that. Miscavige, Rathbun, Rinder for PR stuff, and Kurt Weiland also for PR stuff and coordination, and Linda Hamel for the dirty work, investigation and intelligence. This is an absolute secret OSA Shadow Org Board, as it really was, for decades. On paper, it doesn’t work that way. But in reality, it usually goes very differently.

Peter: And that was the way you said it is now.

Klaus: Yes, it’s not like in the military, where only one person is allowed to talk to the other. It wasn’t like that in OSA INT. Depending on what was going on. communication was direct and fast. Miscavige was occasionally on the phone with me only if he wanted to know info only I could give him regarding US or Canada. Miscavige simply knew who specialized in what and sought direct contact on those occasions.

If it was intelligence stuff in the US, they went directly to Linda Hamel. When it came to coordinating missions, sending an OSA mission and doing a bigger thing in the US or Europe, it went to Kurt Weiland.

Mike Rinder and Kurt Weiland were always very good friends. Just like Kurt Weiland and I were always very close friends. It was kind of like a shadow government. We knew exactly who we could rely on. Kurt Weiland could rely on me, Mike Rinder could rely on Kurt Weiland. David Miscavige could rely on Marty Rathbun and Mike Sutter and Rinder. Depending on who had what to do where, there was always a fire burning somewhere. One of us was responsible for putting out the fire.

Peter: How long was Linda Hamel the Invest boss of OSA?

Klaus: Indirectly in the shadows, she was always the head of Investigation for decades.

Peter: Who gave you the orders to act as action chief and to carry out these various orders? Who was your boss? Miscavige?

Klaus: No. In the OSA organization it starts at the top with the Commanding Officer. That was mostly Kurt Weiland and later other people. And then under the Commanding Officer there were the Deputies. So just like a chancellor, he had his chancellor’s office with his deputies, and the commanding officer had his deputies, the DCOs, Deputy Commanding Officers. And there is one who is responsible for production and then there is one who is responsible for the establishment and so on and so forth.

The basic structure of OSA, I’m almost certain, hasn’t changed to this day, and I see no reason why it ever will. It is a fixed structure, invented by Hubbard, and what Hubbard says is of course the Bible for all Scientologists.

There were various top leaders under Hubbard and later Miscavige who were responsible for the various branches of Scientology. They were the Watchdog Committee, WDC. And that was the official leadership. For example, there was a WDC for Scientology, which was responsible for all the Scientology organizations worldwide. And a WDC for Social Coordination, which was responsible for all the Narconon and other programs. And there was also the WDC OSA, the Watchdog Committee Office of Special Affairs. And Mike Rinder and his team were responsible there. But they weren’t as directly involved in things as Kurt Weiland, Linda Hamel, or myself

Miscavige took power. Miscavige kicked out many people from the RTC and the WDC, disempowered them, but he didn’t want to get rid of them completely. They then dropped down a level and shortly afterwards turned up in Los Angeles in OSA. That was Weiland and a few others.

In OSA Int, everything was also shaken up and those who had been disempowered by Miscavige now also took up leading positions there and so the new structure slowly developed. So Weiland stayed mainly in Los Angeles in the 80s and 90s until he finally disappeared into “The Hole.”

I was always in Los Angeles, I was never actually in the higher Int and WDC structures, although of course I always had to deal with them, because just like when you’re an archbishop, sometimes you have to go to the Vatican.

Peter: Who gave you the orders for your missions? Did Miscavige ever call you directly, by cell phone or by phone? Or came to your office and said, watch out Klaus, we have to do something in Germany, for example?

Klaus: Not so directly. Miscavige called me several times to get answers to certain questions. But he didn’t give me orders directly, because he had his liaisons for that. For example, when there was a big attack against Scientology, Miscavige called me, but he didn’t give me orders, he just wanted to be informed in detail.

Peter: But there were only two liaisons, that was just Kurt Weiland and Mike Rinder. There were no others over the decades.

Klaus: Yes, there was another one, that was Miscavige’s right-hand man, that was Marty Rathbun.

Peter: OK, he was actually the boss, if you like, of Mike Rinder in the 90s.

Klaus: Yes, in principle and in reality too. There was always so much going on in OSA back then. Scientology was quite big back then and Miscavige was officially only responsible for keeping the religion clean. And of course he had his own people, his own deputies. And his right-hand man, as far as external affairs were concerned, was Marty Rathbun. And he dealt very, very directly with us, with OSA Int.

He often came directly to Los Angeles, although he should have turned to Mike Rinder. But he didn’t respect that. And Rathbun came when things got really hot somewhere, especially in matters that were somehow dangerous for Miscavige himself. These were mainly legal matters in the USA. And then Rathbun would come directly to Los Angeles to talk to individual people and discuss strategic matters. I had more to do with Mike Rinder because the German Task Force also did a lot of public relations work.

Peter: So propaganda for Scientology against Germany?

Klaus: Yes, against Germany. Gottfried Helnwein was also embedded and active in our campaign.

Peter: Helnwein was probably very, very important. He’s been a Scientologist for 50 years.

Klaus: Yes, but the importance of celebrities was not based on the number of years in Scientology, but on how much money you have and which important personalities you know and what influence you have on them. And if Helnwein has a lot of connections to politicians, or because he paints a lot of famous people, then of course he is very important for OSA because he can open a lot of doors for us. He has done that. But if you’re a famous singer, for example, who has nothing to do with politicians, then it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in Scientology. But then you are not interesting for OSA.

Peter: But Helnwein also helped plan the big campaign against Germany, or at least he played a leading role in it. He appeared in Washington for OSA and testified there against Germany as an allegedly “persecuted Scientologist,” that he was being persecuted in Germany, etc. That must have been precisely coordinated with someone in OSA at the time.

Klaus: Yes, absolutely right. That was agreed with Leisa Goodman and Mike Rinder back in 1996 and 1997. And partly also with Kurt Weiland. So not with me directly, I was only marginally involved. Of course I was involved in everything.

Peter: You were the head of the, what is it called? You were the German Task Force In Charge in OSA International, you were the boss of the whole operation against Germany and Austria. How did you come to this high position, Germany Task Force In Charge OSA Int, that you became the boss of this extensive action in 1994? Whose idea was it? Did Miscavige personally have the idea to conduct this huge campaign against Germany?

Klaus: I can’t remember exactly who came up with the idea. It must have been Miscavige, Marty Rathbun, and Mike Rinder, that’s just how it was. We had to do something big about Germany. And it was then that Kurt, Mike and Marty met with Miscavige and the three of them explained to him in detail that this was a special, very important thing for us and it had to be handled. They suggested to Miscavige that we set up a task force, put together a special team. And then Miscavige certainly said, yes, that’s a very good idea, do it. Who can do that? And then the question came up, who knows what and who in Europe?

And after dealing with legal matters in Europe all my life in Scientology, it was clear that either I or my wife Edith would do it. Back in the 90s, there were only two or three people who could do that. And since I was in another position that wasn’t so important in the legal department, I was told that we were creating a new team and that you were responsible for it. “You have to make sure that the Germans get a real fire under their asses, that they stop persecuting us.” And that’s how I got the job.

Peter: Yes, and the letter that you wrote on May 4, 1994, to “all CONTS and all DSA Offices, German Task Force, Call to Arms Germany.” Did you write the letter yourself or was it submitted to you by Miscavige?

Klaus: I hardly know the letter anymore, but I can still vaguely remember it. And I think I wrote it myself. It probably had to be signed off, I assume, by Kurt Weiland, but otherwise I already had the authority to write such a letter on my own responsibility.

Peter: And what does “To all CONTS” mean? What are CONTS?

Klaus: These are the continents, these are the archbishops. So there’s a Europe continent, an Africa continent, a West US continent, an East US continent. So these are the bigger things, where a larger OSA organization, it’s divided like this. In the local organization there is a Deputy DSA, a Deputy Special Affairs man, and officially he should report to the “Continental Level”, so in Europe to Copenhagen. And Copenhagen officially reports to Los Angeles, to OSA Int.

Peter: CONTS is practically Copenhagen, the AOSH, or what is it called?

Klaus: Well, yes, and no. There is the AOSH, the Advanced Organization Saint Hill. That’s a service organization, that’s a church that provides higher services, higher courses. But alongside the church, there is also a management department that is responsible for continental management, and in this department, there is a part that is responsible for the various churches, i.e. for the whole continent. And then there is a part that is responsible for all the DSAs, such as the Viennese, the Zurich and the Munich ones, all of which report to OSA Europe. This is part of the European management, which acts on the side of AOSH, but is not part of AOSH. The management has nothing to do with the delivery of higher courses.

Peter: But what’s funny is that Helnwein, for example, was always in telex contact with your wife at the time, Edith Büchele in Copenhagen. They exchanged ideas and he reported to the DSA Munich.

Klaus: You know more about Helnwein than I do.

Peter: And Mike Rinder also gave me information. But even Mike Rinder keeps saying, ask Kurt Weiland about OSA in Europe. He says “I had nothing to do with Germany and Europe.” But Kurt Weiland has disappeared since 2007.

Klaus: I’m telling you, Kurt Weiland wouldn’t know that in detail either, because that’s the art of Miscavige, that you somehow package it into categories so that certain people are only allowed to know certain things. Only the bare essentials. It’s probably similar to the FBI or CIA. That means that when it comes to the real secret service stuff, the dirty tricks, it’s Linda Hamel who knows everything about it. If she ever spilled the beans, she’d be a goldmine for you. She knows much, much more than Kurt Weiland, for example, when it comes to details. And even Linda Hamel doesn’t know everything. But just like in the FBI or the CIA or anywhere else, for security reasons it’s all compartmentalized so that only certain people know certain things.

And they report individually to their superiors afterwards. But only certain things, not necessarily everything. And when it came to intelligence matters, Linda Hamel, for example, might know all the details and write a report to Miscavige almost every day. But in the report to Miscavige, a lot of things, names and stuff, details are not mentioned, just left out so Miscavige doesn’t know what’s really going on to protect him. If he somehow gets into a deposition, then he can correctly say, I have no idea about that. And that’s true. But certain people, very few people, know the details, like Marty Rathbun back then. And he would answer many other questions to Miscavige in private. That’s why, for example, Marty Rathbun would sit in a room with Linda Hamel in the HGB to find out more secret details that perhaps not even Kurt Weiland knows.

Peter: This is madness.

Klaus: Linda Hamel has been a very, very important figure in OSA for decades. Almost nobody knows that. Linda Hamel was in the Guardian’s Office. Yes, Linda Hamel was in the Guardian’s Office US. She was in charge of the Snow White Program, responsible for planning and implementation. And Linda Hamel was always practically the shadow executive over all the OSA Invest stuff, so she was primarily responsible for all OSA’s dirty campaigns. She knows all the skeletons in OSA’s closet.

Peter: So Linda Hamel knows everything and is mainly responsible for all the dirty tricks?

Klaus: Yes, she knows everything and knows all the smear campaigns OSA has run. She mainly wrote the daily OSA reports to Marty Rathbun, Mike Rinder, and David Miscavige for many years. Yes. Her secret reports were personally delivered to Gold by courier. And she was always in charge of Invest.

Peter: So practically the very dirty side of Scientology.

[The only photo of Linda Hamel we’ve been able to obtain. From a 2015 article here at the Underground Bunker. — ed.]

Klaus: Yes, exactly. The dirty and most important side. That was the side that Marty Rathbun and David Miscavige were always most interested in. Back in the ’80s, ’90s, whenever Marty Rathbun would come to Los Angeles from Gold, he would spend all his time with us with the Linda Hamel. Linda Hamel had her own team, which later hired the various PIs.

Klaus: Under Linda Hamel was Ben Shaw. He’s now the president in Clearwater and all the non-official stuff. His name keeps coming up in public relations stuff in Clearwater. And I laugh about it because I know that Ben Shaw was in charge of intelligence for a long time, directly under Linda Hamel.

I’ve also spoken to lawyers in the USA after I left, because I’ve always said that I wasn’t prepared to appear in the media until now. But I am and was prepared to appear as a witness. And there were a few legal cases where the lawyers came to me in New York to debrief me, to do an interview and to see what I know, as they are doing now, in order to somehow work out afterwards whether I could somehow help them in a case, and in all the conversations I kept emphasizing that they should bring Linda Hamel as a witness. And bring her into the deposition so that she has to testify under oath. Nobody ever does that, even though Linda Hamel would be the woman who knows everything, all the dirty OSA campaigns, all the dirty tricks of the last decades.

Peter: But why doesn’t anyone do that?

Klaus: I don’t know. I’m not involved in these matters. That’s why I can’t say what the lawyers’ strategic decisions are, I can only give you well-intentioned tips.

In part two, Klaus describes the end of his Germany operation, and then the steep price he paid to leave Scientology.

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Chris Shelton is Going Straight Up and Vertical

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