Dear Mr. Davis:
It is also necessary for me to communicate with you about your charge of forgery against me that you are reported making to representatives of the New Yorker.
Davis spoke about Gerry Armstrong, a former Scientology archivist who cop ¬ied, without permission, many of the church’s files on Hubbard, and who settled in a fraud suit against the church in 1986. Davis charged that Armstrong had forged many of the documents that he later disseminated in order to discredit the church’s founder.
To begin with, in the relevant time period, I had permission to copy the documents I copied while inside Scientology, and the necessary permission after leaving.
Why Lawrence Wright would write “without permission” when I specifically had permission, when it mattered, and when he had the Breckenridge decision, I don’t know. “With permission” would have saved three characters. I imagine your black PR binders on me worked some magic for you, otherwise you wouldn’t use them.
From the judgment in the Armstrong I case:
The court has found the facts essentially as set forth in defendant’s trial brief, which as modified, is attached as an appendix to this memorandum. In addition the court finds that while working for L.R. Hubbard (hereinafter referred to as LRH), the defendant also had an informal employer-employee relationship with plaintiff Church, but had permission and authority from plaintiffs and LRH to provide Omar Garrison with every document or object that was made available to Mr. Garrison, and further, had permission from Omar Garrison to take and deliver to his attorneys the documents and materials which were subsequently delivered to them and thenceforth into the custody of the County Clerk.
[…]
The evidence is clear and the court finds that defendant and Omar Garrison had permission to utilize these documents for the purpose of Garrison’s proposed biography.
The files Wright is talking about here were actually L. Ron Hubbard’s files on himself, not Scientology’s files on Hubbard. Scientology first claimed in court in 1982 that the subject documents were the cult’s, which they were not, and then shifted its position and argued successfully at trial in 1984 that it was the bailee of Hubbard’s documents.
The essential reason I’m writing you, however, is your charge that I had forged many of these documents that I later disseminated, to discredit Hubbard or for any other reason. This is a nasty, criminal lie, and I believe you have a duty to tell the truth to reduce the threat you’ve generated.
If you really have Hubbard-related documents that you really believe I forged, then produce them and let me deal with them and my accuser. Otherwise, please acknowledge that you don’t have any such documents, and that you’re lying about me.
A key reason I oppose Scientology is the cruelty of its practitioners. That’s virtually impossible for the majority of Scientologists to get because Scientology is their way of life, and “cruelty” has still not been transformed into a virtue or even neutralized. Therefore to be a Scientologist at all, a person has to deny its cruelty.
It’s an easy concept for Scientologists such as Miscavige, and I’d think you, to get, however, because it’s your job, your hat, your beingness to be cruel. It’s not hard to see that the state of OT has much to do with cruelty. Your willful lying in the face of facts is cruel. Your continuing conspiracy to steal valor is cruel to the people who didn’t lie about their service, wounds or awards. Your forgery charge is false and cruel. Your cruelty is willfully threatening.
Please publicly withdraw this charge.
Sincerely,
Gerry Armstrong