Rob Williamson posted this on Scientology Deprogramming:
GERRY ARMSTRONG
I felt compelled to write this. I know Gerry will read it.
I remember back on the ship, the good ship Apollo, when Gerry was Transport I/C and ran the Fiat in and out of town, picking people up at the airport and so on. Well, I took over that post from him when he went on to work with Peter Warren in the Port Captain’s office and PR.
I became the SPARE DRIVER. 🙂 That’s our beginning, some 50 odd years ago. So here he is now, an ole man with his love (Espousa)… still fighting. Trying to get people to grok what’s wrong with this cult. How to avoid it. How to win over it. How to do what they do, and disconnect from it. He’s gotta be close to 70, like me, and he’s still fighting.
I guess you could say… he’s determined.
He’s also right, no matter what anyone else says, like Rinder, who’s first priority should be to pull his head out of his ass as oppose to spending time denigrating a truly good man.
Rinder is just afraid. I’ve known him too, pretty much just as long. There was a time he wasn’t this bad. He was a good guy, but I think he forgot about all that.
I just spoke to Gerry. I want you to know he reads “Deprogramming”. Yup, we’re in touch once in a while. So happy he’s ambulant and sucking air. So glad he’s here.
Feel free to say what you want to him. He’ll hear it, kinda like the S.O.1 line (that’s a joke, Gerry).
I so admire what he’s done.
Thanks, Rob!
Your memory of our mutual Ship’s Driver experience on the Flagship “Apollo” and my transfer to the Port Captain’s Office made a present-time connection for me that might also interest others.
I was first posted in the Port Captain’s Office in the Flagship Org as Deputy Ship’s Representative or D/Ship’s Rep, not PR. The Ship’s Rep, also called the Legal Officer in various contexts, was Geary Titus. Peter Warren was the Port Captain. Not long after I was assigned, Titus was busted (I don’t recall to where) and I became the Ship’s Rep.
I mentioned my Ship’s Driver hat in this 1999 post to Usenet group alt.religion.scientology:
From February, 1971 when I went on board the Flagship until April, 1971 we sailed from Tangiers to Casablanca, to Safi to Agadir to Safi to Casablanca to Tangiers. In April in Tangiers Hubbard assigned me to be the driver of the ship’s car, a Fiat 500 cc wagon, which we had taken out of Commodore’s Storage in one of the holds and put ashore. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/ars/ars-1999-02-24.html
You would recognize some of the Sea Org facts in that old a.r.s. post.
In early 1972 I was transferred to the D/Ship’s Rep post. Then after maybe a month I was on the Ship’s Rep post, and stayed there for about the next two years. You would have dealt with me many times because I would have many times used your valuable final product: something like “safe, courteous, on-time transport of ship personnel to their proper destinations.”
The Port Captain’s Office had three departments, the same as the key three Guardian’s Office bureaus and the key three Office of Special Affairs sections: Intelligence, PR and Legal. As the ship’s Legal Officer, I was responsible for clearing the ship in and out of port, clearing people and stuff on and off the ship, maintaining the crew list, ship’s articles, seaman’s books, passports, dealing with police, customs, immigration, the ship’s agents, chandlers, tugs, pilots, the harbor master, contracts, SOLAS requirements, that sort of thing, plus, of course, the often-arising security threats and shore flaps.
Sometime in 1974, I was assigned to the Ship PR post briefly, and to the Port Captain post also briefly. This was during a period when Deputy Commodore Captain Bill ran the Flagship Org. The Port Captain post at that time was largely a PR hat, and despite my best intentions, I was not and am not a PR personality. Fortunately, I suppose, it was a series of Hill 10s or PR flaps when I was on these PR posts that enabled me get off them. I got assigned to a number of “Port Setup Missions” before, while and right after the ship crossed the Atlantic. I’ve written and testified about all this before.
In the Caribbean, after port setup missions to Bermuda, the Bahamas and Jamaica, I was posted as the Intelligence Officer, or, in various contexts, the “Information Officer.” When we came ashore in 1975, I was posted in the Guardian’s Office Intelligence Bureau in Daytona Beach. I was busted because my freewheeling mother was targeted as a threat and I was deemed a security risk. But I moved on to all sorts of other Sea Org posts, up and way down the org board, for another six years.
Anyway, Rob, your mention and knowledge of my Port Captain’s Office assignment reminded me of this bizarre black PR line by Jeffrey Augustine in 2011 that I had been embellishing my Sea Org résumé, because there were no Legal Officer and Intelligence Officer posts on the “Apollo.” Augustine claimed these facts, which are false, came from Mike Rinder and Karen de la Carriere. These two leaders of the controlled opposition, who black PRed me for pay, bonuses and the joy of creating pain when they were in the Sea Org and OSA, have continued to black PR me ever since they announced they were out of the Miscavige Scientology sect and finally telling the truth.
I wrote about Augustine, Rinder and de la Carriere’s attack on my “résumé” in an article, “Armstrong v. Grieboski: Defamation Analysis (January 12, 2012),” which I published in response to cult collaborator Joseph A. Grieboski’s parallel black PR about my Sea Org posts:
On December 9, 2011, a Scientologist or collaborator “J. Swift,” also identified to me as Jeffrey Augustine, posted on the Scientology-related “Operation Clambake Message Board” some résumé black PR:
Because Gerry is a high level critic, I had uncritically accepted for years that what he had written was the gospel truth. Imagine my shock, then, when I discovered that Gerry had instead offered the Critics Community his highly distorted version of events that is not congruent with the Court records or even former Apollo Crew:
For example, Gerry claims he was the Legal Officer and the Intelligence Officer on the Apollo. There were no such posts on the Apollo according to Karen#1 and Mike Rinder. Why has Gerry embellished his resume?
http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=45452&start=15In the same thread, my wife Caroline, who then participated on that board, challenged “Swift’s” black PR on my post history:
For a malevolent purpose – to black PR Gerry as an embellisher of his resume — you assume or invent facts of which there is no evidence. Please identify where Karen [de la Carriere] and Mike Rinder stated that Gerry was not the legal officer or intelligence officer on the Apollo, or where they stated that there were no such posts on the ship. If they stated this to you orally, please say what exactly they stated, and when.
“Swift” refused to support his assertions, and Caroline nudged him:
In any case, you just made the factual claims that (1) “according to Karen#1 and Mike Rinder,” “there were no such posts on the Apollo” as “Legal Officer and Intelligence Officer,” and that (2) Gerry “embellished his resume.” You based the resume embellishment charge on the factual claim that Rinder and Karen had made a statement of fact that the posts Gerry had occupied and put on some — also so far unproduced by you — resume, never existed on the Apollo.
[…]
You should either provide a link to Karen and Rinder’s statements (they are awfully specific), or provide the statements, or acknowledge that they didn’t say what you say they said, or back pedal, or get them to back pedal. Feel free to back pedal all you want, and you’ve got quite a track of false claims of fact, lies and black PR to back pedal from.
Caroline requested twice more publicly that “Swift” support his assertions, and he did not, but added more black PR to his attack on both of us.
I have testified about my Scientology organization positions or posts in many legal proceedings, and have identified and described them in sworn statements I have written. I have always told the truth about these posts to the best of my ability, none of which had the title “clerk.” I was indeed, at different times, the Deputy Legal Officer, the Legal Officer, the Intelligence Officer and the Public Relations Officer on the Scientology ship “Apollo.” I was also, at different times on board, Dishwasher, Storesman, Deck Project Force Member, Boats and Transport In-Charge, the Driver, and the Port Captain.
Still in Scientology, but on land after the “Apollo” period, my posts included, chronologically, Intelligence Officer, Mimeo Operator, Hubbard’s Deputy External Communications Aide, the Bosun in the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) Scientology’s penal and reprogramming camp, RPF Section Member, Hubbard’s Proofreader, Set Builder, Lighting Assistant, Props In-Charge, Location Scout, Cine Services Chief, Assistant Producer, RPF Section Member, RPF Master-at-Arms, Hubbard Renovations Purchaser, Hubbard Renovations In-Charge, Deputy Commanding Officer of the Hubbard Household Unit, Hubbard Biography Researcher and Archivist.
https://armstrong-op.gerryarmstrong.ca/2012/01/
Another scrutable connection is that Grieboski was attacking my credibility and character with the old cult canard that I was nothing but a “clerk.” Often this is paired with the recognition, for its insignificance, that I also “drove a car.” That was a feat actually: driving the Fiat Giardiniera around Morocco, Portugal, Madeira without an accident, stuffing late-fired missionaires and their bags into it up to the gunwhales, getting them through immigration and customs to the airport on time, making it go right when so much of what we were doing was so wrong.
For decades, “Gerry-the-clerk” was Rinder’s positioning-from-contempt for me as to my experiences and knowledge. The earliest the meme was used publicly that I know of was by Heber Jentzsch, old GO PR and OSA PR, to Penthouse in 1983. And Jentzsch was then married to de la Carriere.
[Grieboski] 4. Gerald Armstrong is a former clerk in a Scientology organization.
[GA] This is a ridiculous bit of resumé black PR that the Scientologists and their collaborators have been generating for decades. The intention is to make nothing of my actual history and resumé in Scientology and so disparage the experiences and knowledge I acquired while occupying positions that were not just being a clerk. The June 1983 Penthouse, e.g., contained an interview with Heber Jentzsch, identified as “president of the church,” which included this exchange:
Penthouse: The allegation has been made that the Church of Scientology has hounded ex-members who have spoken out negatively about the church.
Jentzsch: Can you give me the names?
Penthouse: Gerald Armstrong is the first that comes to mind.
Jentzsch: Mr. Armstrong is my step-son-in-law; I know him quite well. He was a clerk, and he also drove a car. And that’s all he ever did. When he left, he sort of tried to raise his status.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/penthouse-1993-06-9.html
Jentzsch was never on the Flagship or on staff where I was, but he knew far more than enough about me to know he was lying to Penthouse. Same with Rinder, de la Carriere and Augustine about my The evidence they have about my actual experiences and knowledge is overwhelming, and includes my Legal and Intelligence posts on the “Apollo.” Although Jentzsch is, and will forever be, my ex-step-father-in-law, I don’t think de la Carriere will ever be my ex-step-mother-in-law. That is because she was never my step-mother-in-law.
Here’s another small auto irony courtesy of Rinder:
From: Gerry Armstrong
Sent: March 4, 2020 11:56 AM
To: Mike Rinder
Cc: Alanzo, Stefani Hutchison, Corey Andrews
Subject: Your thumbs up for Stefani HutchisonDear Mike:
I have been referred to something you published in support of Ms. Hutchison’s article “A Commentary on a True Tribal Mentality” and joining her in black PRing a set of her targets, which includes me, already your biggest victim. I thought I should let you know I had seen it. You write:
This is a terrific piece. My hope is everyone will simply ignore these people. Azhlynne said it all. Nothing more is needed. Don’t be distracted from the time and effort required to end #scientology abuses trying to talk sense into this clowncar of losers. They’re not interested. [Bold mine]
For decades in your black PR campaign against me for Hubbard and Miscavige you included the deranged disparagement that I was but a clerk and I drove a car. Now you have me driving a clown car.
Hutchison writes:
Gerry Armstrong has never moved forward a single step from the day he physically left Scientology. He doesn’t want help, he doesn’t want to heal, he doesn’t want to live. He wants to wallow in the past.
He spends his days nursing at the breasts of the Algea and his nights wrapped in the cold embrace of Oizys.
He hates.
That is his purpose.
His raison d’être.
You call her lie-filled philippic with all its fake erudition a terrific piece. And you say you need nothing more from her. Just wow!
You should help Ms. Hutchison. Tell her the truth. And stop using her for your cowardly needs.
Sincerely,
Gerry Armstrong
But when you think about it, you and I, Rob, really did drive a clowncar.
You were on board and rubbed shoulders with Port Captain’s Office Intel, PR and Legal crew. What we were doing was hokey, we did it on a shoestring, and we probably weren’t fooling anyone who counted, but it was intel, PR and legal. Really nice of you to come along and recognize a bit of my history, which has been so impugned for so long by so many.