Otto Roos graciously answered several questions I posed to him in September 1996. My questions, below, are followed by his answers.
(1) In what year were you born?
(2) Why did you write "The O. J. Roos Story"?
Did someone ask you to write it, or suggest that you should?
If yes: Who?
(3) When did you begin to write it?
(4) Where did you write it?
(At David Mayo's Advanced Ability Center, perhaps?)
(5) In your Story (page 8), you write:
He was upset about student goofs. I had intended the [new
VIII] course to be for VII' auditors with loads of experience,
=====
but he insisted on making the "perfect auditor" in 3 weeks.
Even experienced auditors hit the overboard regularly with all
the new data, and required perfection.
Is the "'" (prime) a typographical error?
If no: What was a Class VII' (seven-prime) auditor?
(6) In your Story (page 11), you write:
ENEMIES: He could be ferocious. July '68 saw a very special
Mission, personally and at length briefed by LRH. Myself I/C
and Jerry McDonald (very tough ex US Marine) assistant. To go
find and weed out Maffia Connections in Scn LA and to gather
together and collectively cave in the Charles Berner group by
completely playing out OT 3. (We hired a Hollywood Studio,
set the whole thing up, got the people in and ran the whole OT
3 story.)
The Maffia part was a cinch. It made me a lot of enemies in
LA, that was the "unreasonability" of the early SO days.
What did you mean by "got the people in and ran the OT 3 story"?
What were the "Maffia Connections"?
Was the Italian or Sicilian Mafia (organized criminals) involved
somehow with Scn in LA?
If yes: How did you handle the Mafia? Why was it "a cinch"?
(7) Last year, on 27-Nov-1995, someone anonymously posted this on the
Internet (Message-ID <49bgia$2ud@camelot.ccs.neu.edu>):
He [Jerry McDonald] once told us how he and Otto Roos had been
sent on an 'R2-45 mission' by the Commodore, against Chuck
Berner and his Abilitism splinter group. They were quite
willing to carry it out if necessary, but when they assessed
Abilitism as not much of a threat, they suggested to LRH that
he downgrade the mission. He agreed. Instead, they recruited
LA Org students for a 'third-rate burglary' (my phrase), in
which they broke into the Abilitism center, stole the
E-meters, and trashed the rest.
Did LRH ask you and Jerry McDonald to murder someone in LA? ('R2-45' mission)
If yes: Were you indeed willing to do the murder?
Did you persuade LRH *not* to order the murder?
Did you recruit students from the LA Org to break into Berner's
Abilitism center, steal E-meters, and vandalize the property?
Finally, Mr. Roos, if you wish to write an update or epilogue to "The
O. J. Roos Story" -- or another kind of commentary -- I will be
pleased to publish it at my website alongside your 1984 manuscript.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.
-- Dean Benjamin
Mr. D. Benjamin,
510 McNair Ave #2-F,
Pittsburqh, PA 15221,
USA.
18th September 1996
Re: your communication
Dear Mr. Benjamin,
[I received] a letter from you concerning myself and the placing of
the O.J. Roos Story on Internet.
Your document contained a few questions.
1) My year of birth. 1934. I am still (very much!) alive.
2) I wrote the story for Jon Atack. Later there was also an author
who wanted to know some data. He wrote a book about LRH.
3) I started and ended it in September 1984.
4) I wrote it at home.
5) Typographical errors. I'm sure there are tons of them. I did not
have a computer/word processor back then, nor was I (and I'm still
not) an experienced typist. I wrote it on an old bomb of a type
writer, made, I'm sure, lots of typos, did not have a spelling checker
(English is for me a foreign language), nor an eraser. So there may
well have been items like "", ', '', @, * placed in error.
The O.J. Roos Story may have contained a lot of "Scientologese",
i.e. a use of language as it was used on the Flag ship. Abbreviations
and naval terminology may also have been included.
---
A Class VII is an auditor trained in running the power processes.
This was a senior item in SHUK in the mid 60's. These processes were
initially developed by LRH and John McMaster. I compiled, wrote, test
ran, and had the multiple flows of these processes introduced on the
Flag ship "Apollo" when I was the first Flag Class VIII Senior C/S in
the Sea Organisation (Org).
6) "Got the people in" meant getting the members of the Charles Berner
group into a Studio/Theatre we had hired in Hollywood. (Such
locations and the means of contacting the Berner people were organised
by Jerry McDonald as he, an American, knew his way around LA, whereas
I didn't).
"Running the OT 3 story" means that we had the whole scene set up like
Las Palmas, with mountains, the sound of storms, thunder and the
ocean, darkness, flashes of lightning, large Sea org signs and emblems
to key people in, etc. For the necessary equipment we had to hire a
theatre.
Jerry and I were dressed in Sea Org Officer Uniforms (which were new
and apparently very frightening in those early days of the S.O.) with
our peak caps, standing centre stage in the light. I then, with
"thunderous voice", had to throw lines from the Clearing Course
materials into the public in order to cave them in.
The above is what we were sent out to do and which is what we did.
There was no other orders, nor were there any other actions
connected to the above.
Jerry and I left LA immediately after completion of the above
to return to the Flag ship in Melilla, North Africa.
SPECIAL ORDERS
LA staff helped in setting up the Studio, etc. There was no order to
commit burglary ("third-rate" or otherwise), there was no burglary
planned, no staff hired for such purpose, no burglary committed, no
E/Meters stolen, or a rest thrashed, at least not to my knowledge. If
Jerry stated this, either he had special orders separate from mine, or
a misunderstood, or yet another reason to have thought and said thls.
Even if Jerry had separate orders to the above effect, they were not
carried out during this particular Mission, nor have I ever heard them
to have been carried out at any other time.
Did LRH ask me and Jerry McDonald to murder someone in LA? He
certainly did not ask me. If he ever asked Jerry, I knew
nothing about it. I may add that I would not have believed it if
somebody had told me. In answer to the question if I would be willing
to commit such a deed, I can only say, no, under no condition!
Did I persuade LRH not to order the murder? No, as he never ordered
it.
Did I recruit students to break in? No, the only thing LA helpers did
was to help set up the Theatre.
---
While in LA we had another job to do strictly separate from the above,
and that was to find Mafia Connections who according to LRN's data had
infiltrated the LA Org. Some individuals who had those connections
were found. Jerry McDonald had the people concerned physically
removed from the premises. In some cases he may even have ejected
them himself.
The purpose was to remove such elements in order to get the statistics
up. That was done. LRH was very pleased with the results.
This was not an R2-45 Mission, nor was it ever implied to be that.
There has been no suggestion from me to LRH "to downgrade" the
Mission.
The sole purposes of the Mission were to handle tho Berner group and
to get some some unwanted people who had undesired connections out of
the Org to thereby enable the Org to get on with its work without
being disturbed by enturbulating elements.
STORIES
It has come to my notice that some horror stories in which I was not
involved were attributed to me. Having read these, it seems that in
some cases there may have been a mix up of identities for the very
simple reason that the person concerned just wasn't me. One of the
Masters at Arms on the Apollo was the person who carried out some of
the disreputable activities I became "credited" with.
I'm also credited with being involved in the Freezone, using physical
intimidation as "part of my programme". Apart from having visited
David Mayo in Santa Barbara and Sarge Gerbode in San Francisco twice,
I have attended some congresses in Switzerland and in the UK. These
visits were of interest to me as I re-found old friends. Apart from
these visits and occasional letters to old Scn. acquaintances, I have
not involved myself with any "freezoners" in any professional or
business way. I am a subscriber to "the Free Spirit" and to "Ivy",
two independent magazines. I run no Scn. group.
---
Yours sincerely,
[signature]
(O.J. Roos)
ps: I use British spelling.