President George H.W. Bush dies at 94, and we remember a fateful October 1991 day

Unlike L. Ron Hubbard, George Herbert Walker Bush was an actual World War II veteran with combat experience, a decorated Navy pilot who would go on to a distinguished political career as congressman, CIA director, UN ambassador, vice president and then president of the United States from 1989 to 1993. He died yesterday at the age of 94, just 227 days after the death of his beloved wife, Barbara.

This is not a political blog and we’re not interested in debating President Bush’s merits as commander in chief, or that of his son George W. Bush. But we felt that as Scientology watchers the first Bush presidency should be memorialized for at least one important reason: The role it played in granting what David Miscavige and Scientology wanted more than anything else, and that was tax exempt status.

L. Ron Hubbard initially established his movement, then called Dianetics, as the “modern science of mental health” in 1950. It wasn’t until 1953 that he wrote to a follower suggesting they try out the “religion angle,” as he put it. He and his son L. Ron Hubbard Jr. (also known as “Nibs”) signed the first incorporation papers for a “Church of Scientology” in Camden, New Jersey in December 1953. Churches were then established in Los Angeles in 1954 and Washington DC in 1955.

As Nibs wrote later, “calling his group a religion gave him more latitude in regard to corporate structure, made it harder for people and groups to try to get him to curb his activities and gave him tax exemption.” But in 1967 a court ruled that Scientology was a business designed to enrich L. Ron Hubbard, and stripped that tax exemption. As Alex Gibney explained in his 2015 HBO documentary Going Clear, Hubbard refused to pay taxes after that ruling, so in the ensuing years Scientology’s tax debt grew and grew and became a serious liability for the organization.

Hubbard died in 1986, and his young lieutenant David Miscavige soon pushed others out of the way to take over as Scientology’s unrivaled dictator. Miscavige made Scientology’s number one priority to regain tax exemption from the IRS. As Marty Rathbun explain in Going Clear, that entailed a vast effort targeting the IRS and its individual employees in an unprecedented program of constant pressure. Scientology had more than two thousand lawsuits filed by individual Scientologists against the IRS and its employees, harassed IRS officials with dirty tricks programs and surveillance by private investigators, and kept up the hounding year after year.

Then, as Rathbun has explained, on one fateful day in October 1991, he and Miscavige were in Washington DC and got the idea to simply drop in on the IRS without an appointment. They didn’t get past the reception desk, but they were told that if they came back in a week, they could actually meet with President Bush’s then IRS commissioner, Fred Goldberg Jr.

At that meeting Miscavige made his pitch to Goldberg — find a way for the two sides to work out an agreement, and all of the pressure from the church will stop immediately. As the meeting ended, and they were walking out of the office, Rathbun said that Goldberg asked him if it were really true, that if they found a way to work something out, the harassment would go away. Rathbun said it would, and Goldberg’s shoulders slumped, as if a weight had lifted.

Soon after that, Goldberg initiated an IRS study of Scientology’s status as a non-profit organization.

Years ago, when we were working on a story about Scientology in the 1990s, we consulted a tax journalist in DC, an expert in the field who was thoroughly familiar with Goldberg and that history. He assured us that once Goldberg initiated that study, the outcome was assured.

It took two more years, and the IRS put Scientology through a rigorous process of turning over information and going through complex audits, but then in October 1993, under another IRS commissioner, Margaret Milner Richardson, and her commander in chief, President Bill Clinton, the IRS granted Scientology virtually everything it was asking for. Scientology’s billion-dollar tax debt was erased in a settlement that cost the church only $12.5 million, and its many entities were once again tax exempt, enjoying incredibly strong protections against law enforcement interference.

Since then, Miscavige has been able to use that protection to build an empire dedicated to himself. Here’s how Rathbun described it in a 2010 sworn court declaration:

“Between approximately 1993 when IRS tax exempt status was obtained and the present, David Miscavige has been executing a program of his own design that has transformed the Church of Scientology from a recognized religious organization into a commercial operation devoted almost exclusively toward increasing his own wealth, entertainment, comfort, and power.”

President Bill Clinton certainly deserves part of the credit for approving that deal in 1993, and then for using his State Department to advocate for Scientology in other countries, as when it chided the German government for cracking down on the church there.

But we should also remember that Clinton signed off on something that had actually begun under his predecessor, when George H.W. Bush’s IRS commissioner began a process that his predecessors had resisted for years.

“The IRS wrongly, as I believe, entered into a closing agreement with this cult,” Donald C. Alexander, a former IRS commissioner, told us for a story in 2002. “I don’t think the IRS is going to go back and unravel that closing agreement as much as it might be in the public’s interest to do so.” Alexander was commissioner from 1973 to 1977, when Scientology’s operatives were breaking in and stealing from government offices in its Snow White Program. Alexander’s conference room was bugged, and he was unnerved by 2 am phone calls on his unlisted home number. But while he was commissioner, he said, he vowed never to give in to Scientology’s harassing tactics. “One of my successors didn’t feel that way. Maybe [Fred Goldberg] actually believed this thing was a church. Stranger things have happened, but I can’t think of any.”

 
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Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’re building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs.’ We’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them, in order to build a record and maintain a watch as Scientology continues its inexorable decline — and yes, we finally have comments working on these new pages! Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

Today’s Scientology front: Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE)!

 
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Now on sale: Twice the Miss Lovely!

 
Our new book with Paulette Cooper, Battlefield Scientology: Exposing L. Ron Hubbard’s dangerous ‘religion’ is now on sale at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. What a pleasure it is for us to work with her on this after we wrote about her ordeal as a victim of Scientology’s “Fair Game” campaigns in our 2015 book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, which is also on sale in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions.

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] How L. Ron Hubbard used ‘past lives’ to set a trap for Scientologists
[TWO years ago] Leah Remini: Scientology’s new attack has a Katie Holmes angle they aren’t talking about
[THREE years ago] Legoland theme park donates $10,000 to Scientology front on behalf of Jenna Elfman
[FOUR years ago] Hey, Dr. Phil, get a clue about Scientology and stop stiff-arming Lori Hodgson
[FIVE years ago] Scientology Sunday Funnies: Fundraising Mailers Galore!

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on December 1, 2018 at 07:00

E-mail tips and story ideas to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

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