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My name is Virginia (Ginger) Ross Breggin. I was recruited into Scientology in May of 1970 and remained a member of the group until 1982. I was in the Guardian's Office from 1971 until 1981 when I departed staff without authorization.
I came onto staff at the Detroit Church of Scientology in May of 1970, and approximately a year later was promoted to Assistant Guardian, Detroit. I spent three months training for this position at the USGO and then assumed my position of AG Detroit, remaining there until 1974.
In 1974 I complained about monies being transferred from the local Detroit organization to East Grinstead. Soon after I was ordered to USGO in Los Angeles, and informed that I must remain in Los Angeles if I wanted to remain in the G.O.
I was ordered at that same time by Ann Snider DG Service Bureau, to break off my engagement with a Scientologist and attorney who was in Detroit.
I became the Telex Operator, USGO for two years and was privy to a number of confidential matters that were occurring at the time including the purchase of the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida, and the attack on the Sea Org ship. I was also trained as a "special telex operator" and operated the encoding equipment that was installed between USGO and World Wide and the Controllers Office.
Eventually I was allowed to transfer to the PR Bureau at USGO where I was first the DG PR Communicator, then the Freedom Editor, then the Specialist Secretary, and finally the DG PR Communicator again, before I departed staff. I witnessed the FBI raid and the resulting actions taken in the PR bureau and the GO to counter it, including the massive shredding and vetting projects that were organized immediately after the raid occurred.
For a period of time after the raid I was placed as the local staff member in charge of the special PR project ordered by Mary Sue Hubbard, where every seized document was reviewed, all potentially damaging information analyzed and arguments to counter the damaging information were developed. My conclusion as the documents were reviewed was that there was no way to counter the dreadful and damaging information available in those documents (which included data about the extensive attacks on Paulette Cooper and others).
My contract expired while I was on that project and I attempted to route off staff and was persuaded to resign a new contract with the provision that I would be able to spend evenings with my daughter who was a toddler at the time. I became DG PR's Communicator and worked with Ken Whitman for a period of time. But the disillusionments mounted, especially surrounding the organization's lack of interest and support toward my responsibilities as a mother. So, I left staff without authorization, since doing so made me ineligible to return and prevented GO personnel from attempting to further pressure me.
At the time I was married to Freddie Ulan (1976-1983). He was head of the Safe Environment Fund and was fundraising for the defense of Mary Sue and other indicted Scientologists. After leaving staff I made a genuine year-long attempt to salvage the marriage but it was beyond saving and we separated in 1982 at which point I also left Scientology.
I experienced many personal and traumatic episodes while in Scientology which I will not bother to detail in this letter since they appear to fall outside the realm of the information requested. My experiences are common to other staff and GO members and include being placed in lower conditions, working huge numbers of hours, being required to suppress personal needs for the sake of the group, and so forth. The scars will last a lifetime.
Following are incidents about which I have knowledge that fall within the framework of the Factnet investigation:
Note of the HTMLizer: the following list seems to be edited.
I. Quentin Hubbard's death. I was working in the DG PR US office when Quentin died. Artie Maren was ordered to Las Vegas to "handle" the situation. I believe he went with one or two B-1 personnel. That is the extent of my knowledge. Quentin's death was kept quiet, even within the G.O.
II. Alleged deaths on the "Purification Rundown." I met and dated Terry McCaan in 1983, prior to leaving Los Angeles. Terry was a public pc on ASHO lines, in his early forties, and seriously diabetic. Terry was also blind when I met him. His blindness developed when his retinas separated while he was doing the required purification rundown prior to our meeting. When I knew him Terry was very depressed about being blind and wanted to die. He resented deeply having been ordered to do the purification rundown. He was struggling with various disorders that were resulting from his diabetes, including the loss of toes due to poor circulation. He was not receiving regular medical care and on one occasion I and two other friends had to convince him to see a doctor when I discovered festering sores on the bottoms of his feet. He had a wife and son and was separated from the wife, who's name I don't know. After we stopped seeing each other and I moved to Maryland, I heard that Terry died in June of 1984.
VIII. Allegations of Persons Becoming Psychotic: During the time I was working on the PR special documents project, I heard a rumor that one of the small rooms we were using had been used to imprison a person who had gone psychotic while on auditing. The small room had a large hole in the wall where the psychotic individual had apparently repeatedly run his head into the wall. This occurred in the main hospital building that had just been purchased, prior to its renovations. I have no further details about this episode.
X. Alleged neglect causing deaths of members. Two women in the G.O., Sandra Meirsdorff and Mary Stouffer (who was AG Sacramento at one point) died of breast cancer in the early '80s. They were both in their early forties. This is the extent of my info as the deaths occurred after my departure. I have also heard that Brian Rubineck (B-1 exec and former SFO GO staff) died, perhaps of cancer.
Child neglect and abuse issues: When I was training as AG Detroit at the USGO in 1974, I visited the Sea Org housing where the small children were cared for by nannies. These children lived in filthy, subnormal conditions. Many of them had multiple open sores and skin conditions. I remember Emily Rubineck at PR US was preparing a report on the poor conditions to get them corrected at that time.
When I was pregnant in 1978 I was forced to work 13 or more hours a day, despite my doctor's orders to the contrary. I worked these hours up until the day I went into labor.
I was instructed to stop breast feeding and return to post four weeks after the birth of my child. At that time, I was still bleeding and exhausted from the birth.
Immediately after our daughter was born, I decided not to return to staff. My husband, Fred Ulan, left when she was less than two weeks old and went to Flag for more upper level auditing (maybe the Ls). I was a new mother, cut off from all my friends and any support network. My infant began crying one night and did not stop. She cried for over three hours. After trying everything I was horrified to discover that I was thinking about dropping her off my second story balcony. I quickly and gently laid her in her crib, and called my sister-in-law who came over and helped me for a couple of hours. I felt like I was going crazy and became convinced that I needed some auditing to address the horrendous impulse I had had and went to the service bureau at USGO. I was placed in lower conditions due to having declared I was not returning to staff, and had to work through conditions and return to staff prior to receiving any auditing. During this time my husband, away at Flag, was refusing to speak to me and providing no emotional support, because of my lower condition and the fact that it could risk his auditing.
This is the extent of my information.
Sincerely,
[signed]
Ginger Ross Breggin