Lies Debunked: Operation Snow White

Scientology's® Claims

From: Public Relations (publicrelations@scientology.org)
Subject: Snow White
Date: 1998/09/11

RE: Snow White

"Snow White" has been brought up on ars numerous times by those who have never been in Scientology, know anything about it and intentionally interpret it in an odd way so it becomes confusing for everyone.

To clear this up, below is an accurate accounting of what "Snow White" really is:

The "Snow White" program was written in 1973 by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Scientology religion.

Mr. Hubbard wrote the Snow White program because it had become apparent that certain government agency officials, primarily in the United States and Britain, had distributed numerous false reports about Scientology that then ended up in government files in other countries, including Germany. The term "Snow White" was adopted because these government officials were in fact spreading a "fairy tale" with no basis in fact.

These false reports were rarely if ever checked by the officials in the receiving countries. Had this been done, their untruth would have been exposed and much inconvenience to the Church as well as to the governments of those countries could have been avoided. Instead, at the time the program was written, such false reports in government agency files were increasingly being acted upon to justify discriminatory and harassive treatment of the Church.

The situation which gave rise to the program was succinctly described in 1985 by the Supreme Court in Ontario, Canada. The Court noted that, "it is not without significance that the affidavit of Fletcher Prouty... makes it appear that he formed the conclusion, as a highly placed official of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, that since 1950 there has been a definite campaign of harassment against this organization (Scientology) for nearly thirty years primarily by means of the dissemination of false and derogatory information around the world to create a climate in which adverse action would be taken against the Church and its members. Defense against this type of activity was, of course, the stated objective of the Snow White program."

The program called for actions to be taken by the Church to "legally expunge" these false reports from government files around the world. In fact, the Ontario Supreme Court (Judge Osler) sharply censured a Canadian police officer for purposely or recklessly omitting the word "legally" from the phrase "legally expunged" in a description of the program, so as to convey the false impression that the program had called for anything but legal activity.

The Snow White program definitely helped to clear up these false reports that had been circulated to government agencies around the world.

Today, when the Church encounters false reports about Scientology in government records, it still acts vigorously to correct them. And, to further assist others to locate and correct false reports about themselves in government files, the Church has not only become a champion of freedom in the United States but has helped to bring about Freedom of Information legislation in France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy and Belgium.

For more information about Scientology and Freedom magazine which covers these and other issues go to:

http://www.REMOVEscientology.org
http://www.REMOVEfreedommag.org