Playing Dirty:
The Secret War Against Beliefs

by Omar V. Garrison

On the morning of July 8, 1977 a small army of FBI agents -- the largest number ever mustered for a single operation -- descended upon three religious centers, two of them in Los Angeles and one in Washington, D.C. Using battering rams, sledgehammers and buzz saws, they smashed and cut their way into rooms and offices of the church buildings, where they conducted the most massive search and seizure in American legal history. During the long day, and far into the night (21 continuous hours), they ransacked church files, seizing and carting away almost 100,000 items. A 517-page report inventory was required just to list the things seized.

Did a search for the 161 allegedly stolen documents named on the warrant justify such a violent, large-scale incursion? Or were the raids and act of revenge by a powerful, centralized Government, whose corruption and malfeasance had repeatedly been challenged and exposed by the Church of Scientology during the past two decades? Was such a razzia -- in the police-state mould -- meant to be an objective lesson to any other group or individual who might dare to defy the growing tyranny of federal agencies?

In this informative and at times impassioned book, the author seeks the answer to this and to other urgent problems confronting everyone today. He reveals for the first time the full inside story of the raids, as told by eyewitnesses who were present when they were carried out -- both church staff and the FBI agents who testified later in court. Also related in this documented detail are the dramatic events which lead up to and follow the FBI forays.

One section of the book is devoted to "the incredible caper" in which, the Government claims, undercover operatives from the Church of Scientology infiltrated federal offices to steal documents pertaining to their church. U.S. officials remarked in awe that the operation would have done credit to the intelligence agency of a major country.

With the penetrating insight of a seasoned journalist, the author also examines the legal proceedings which led to the conviction of nine church leaders, now on appeal. Noting that two federal judges from the same U.S. district issued rulings diametrically opposite -- one declaring the FBI raids illegal and "Constitutionally intolerable," and the other in supporting them, Mr. Garrison writes:

"The issue joined in these two judgments, and the events leading up to them, extend by implication into every church, every newspaper office, every home in America."

PLAYING DIRTY should prove an invaluable documentary not only to civil libertarians and religious leaders, but to all readers who share their concern about the encroachments of big government.

Playing Dirty : The Secret War Against...

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