WCG Paratroopers of 1979 – 1980
By Wes White
The March 7, 2019 post in Banned about the re-capture of alleged child-molester Kevin Owen Dean (brother of UCG evangelist Aaron Dean) brought back some old, old memories. Especially the comment which said: “I remember him (Kevin Dean) coming to KC one time… he accompanied Raymond McNair as they were going around to try and give ‘correct’ info when CA sued the WCG.”
This comment was talking about the Paratroopers who operated in 1979 and 1980. Does anyone remember the Paratroopers? I was one of them.
This PR operation was created as a result of the Receivership crisis which began on January 2, 1979. We were called Paratroopers because about twelve to fourteen of us would load up on the church’s G-II on a Friday afternoon. We would fly to a region of the US and we would be dropped off (usually in pairs) in various cities of that region. We would attend morning Sabbath services in one city and then afternoon services in a nearby city. We would be picked up Sunday morning and returned to Pasadena that afternoon or evening.
Each two-man team was typically composed of an older minister and a younger guy who may or may not have been ordained. Obviously, I was one of the younger guys.
I actually found some of my old Paratrooper files and I am looking at them as I write.
The “younger guys” consisted of people like Fred Stevens (Accounting Department), Jim Snook (Facilities and step-father of the Dean boys), Mike Feazell, Contardi, Aaron Dean, Kevin Dean, Joe Katora, Robin Webber, and Wilbur Berg.
The “older ministers” consisted of people like Bob Fahey, Jack Kessler, Dean Blackwell, Dibar Apartian, Raymond McNair, Larry Salyer, Ellis LaRavia, Carn Catherwood, Leroy Neff, Joe Tkach Sr., Dick Ames, Richard Rice, John Halford, Frank Schnee, Sherwin McMichael, and K. Walden.
At the church service in a local area, the older minister was tasked with just giving a sermon. That’s all. He didn’t need to necessarily promote the party line regarding the Receivership. If it had been required that the older minister speak glowingly of resisting the Receivership, a lot of these older guys wouldn’t have participated in the program. Guys like McNair and McMichael and Neff were not on board with the resistance to the Receivership. They were still steeped in the old WCG condemnations of sit-ins, demonstrations, and resistance. That was liberal hippy stuff and “liberal” was a very bad word in WCG.
So it was the younger guys who were given the job of doing the heavy lifting of rallying the local church to support WCG as it fought the Receivership. From my notes, I can see the following were the responsibilities of the “second man:”
n Introduce the film about the Receivership that had been created by the WCG Television Department.
n Even though this is a church vs state conflict, remember that it is NOT the job of the Paratroopers to get the membership to hate the state of California. We don’t want the church to be turned into a group anti-government nuts. We don’t want to be promoting any weird conspiracy theories.
n Don’t bad-mouth GTA or anyone else who has provided information, assistance, and encouragement to the California Attorney General’s Office. Example, in private conversation with the local leaders, it is inappropriate to refer to GTA as Garner Terd Armstrong. If they say things like this to you over lunch or dinner, discourage it. Don’t refer to the “Receiver” as the “Deceiver.” Don’t make jokes about Judge Wiseman (the Receiver) by quoting the hymn, “Not Many Wise Men Now Are Called.” Be respectful of authority even when it is wrong.
n Be prepared to truthfully answer all questions about exactly what is happening at HQ. Don’t embellish. Don’t try to read more into what actually happened. Don’t say anything that is factually incorrect because some brethren will be recording this church service. Anything you say that is incorrect will be used against us later. Telling the truth is important.
Here are just a few of the questions we received during our trips:
Isn’t the demonstration and the sit-in wrong?
Who are the plaintiffs?
What does the lawsuit demand from the Church?
Why does Stan Rader insist on going after GTA in lawsuits?
GTA claims he has tried to call his father many times, but the
phone is left off the hook when it is answered. Why is this so? Is
it true?
Do you think HWA will ever set foot in California again?
What is the origin or story of this mysterious tape that has fallen
into the hands of Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes?
Who is Mr. Bagley?
Why are some of our local ministers confused about the suit
against the church?
How probable is it that this case will be brought before the
Supreme Court?
Does the church file forms with the government each year?
Has the Big Sandy campus sale fallen through?
How much money has been paid by the church to the Receiver
and his staff?
Why wasn’t Quest sold? I thought Mr. Armstrong said he was
going to sell it.
Why doesn’t Mr. Armstrong say Worldwide Church of God instead
of AICF when he travels?
Is AICF taking over the church? Why do we allow it to print bad
articles?
What is the plastic company I heard about in Texas?
What happened to Rod Meredith? What is the real reason he is in
Hawaii?
Who runs Mr. Armstrong? Is he drugged?
Forty years later, I would answer a lot of these questions differently than I did back then. And, as I have pointed out on Banned on several occasions, I have repented of many of the things I believed, said, and did while I was WCG from 1971 to 1981.
However, I still believe that the California Attorney General’s Office was wrong to use an ex parte court hearing to set up a receivership that took over the WCG. This was wrong in 1979 and would be wrong to do today. History has proven that this was a wrong act in that it has not happened since.
We now know from hindsight that this receivership happened mostly for two reasons:
The first is that GTA and his family and his supporters were pushing for it. They provided tons of documents to the state of California along with doom and gloom predictions that the members of WCG were about to do some horrible things to themselves and their families.
The second reason why this happened is because the memory of the Jonestown massacre was still fresh in the minds of many people.
Rader was correct when he publicly stated that, if he was doing something illegal, the LA County District Attorney should have him handcuffed and taken downtown for booking. That never happened because no one could ever prove that what Rader (and HWA) did was illegal.
Let me explain.
The rich people who run things in this country are usually too smart to do anything illegal. They and their experts know the law well enough to know they can get just about everything they want legally. They simply don’t need to steal.
The laws of this country are set up where people (whether we’re talking about Rader or the Clintons or the Trump family or the Kennedys or the Bushes) usually hire the best minds to guide them as they reap financial benefits LEGALLY.
Some have said, “Of course the government couldn’t prove that Rader was a thief. He kept the church’s financial records secret.” Not true. At the time, all WCG and AC offices were leaking like sieves. There were people in just about every department who were unhappy with the WCG. Employees were constantly leaking information to the Ambassador Report and to government agencies. Remember that it was Bill Sprouse (Director of AC Security) who unlocked all the doors for the Receiver on January 2. Yes, he was fired for it shortly thereafter. But he let them in everywhere they wanted to go – including the fourth floor executive offices of HWA and Rader.
Then there were several weeks between the initial take-over by the Receiver’s people on January 2 and until they lost control of the property during the sit-in. During that time, the Receiver’s staff had access to all the financials.
You can promote all the conspiracy theories you want, but (in the end) until someone is convicted in a court of law, he is to be presumed innocent. Yes, until he is actually found guilty by a judge and jury, we cannot say with assurance that he is guilty.
Yes, I have heard all the stories about John Kineston supposedly hauling off gold in the middle of the night from the basement of the Hall of Ad. But the truth is that Kineston was out of town when that supposedly happened.
Rader didn’t need to steal. He carefully followed the law and got what he wanted without stealing. He set up corporations that did business with the WCG. And he made millions from these corporations along with his generous salaries (plural) and expense accounts (plural). Was the set-up and usage of these corporations and salaries and expense accounts ethical? Probably not. Were they moral? Probably not.
But legal? Yeah. They were legal.
So, if someone doesn’t like what WCG and HWA and Rader did, the laws regarding church corporations need to be changed. Setting up a Receivership in an ex parte court hearing is not the appropriate way to solve the very real problem that was WCG, HWA, Rader, GTA, RCM, RFMc, et al.
Wes, if you are answering questions, I’ve got one based on some information I recently ran across. I was no longer traveling in WCG circles by 1979, because for me personally 1975 was the final defining nonevent of Armstrongism. So, all that I know about the receivership era came from the newspapers at the time, and some of the anecdotes shared on the various forums and blogs over recent decades.
ReplyDeleteHowever, part of Stanley Rader’s narrative after the fact involved what he described as the spontaneous arrival of many members from other states to the campus at a critical point in the protests. He painted this as if this outpouring were a complete surprise both to himself and the higher ups. I found that characterization to be rather dubious. My question for you is did the paratroopers have anything to do with orchestrating this “pilgrimage”, or was it totally unexpected as he indicated?
Thanks,
BB
Interesting how power hungry ministers teaching passivism to its members, left them struggling to deal with the receivership crisis. This is another example of the unofficial church doctrine of pretending that the only world that exists is life inside church world. No matter that members spend most of their time outside church attendance. Moral teachings aren't based on living in the real world, but rather based on trying to create a Disnesyland for sinners inside the church. It's like the recent Westworld TV series. It's insanity!
ReplyDelete"..church’s financial records secret.."
ReplyDeleteI quit after reading about Tkach's $500,000 salary in A.R.
Legal, perhaps, ethical , well that is another question. The line between "personal inurement" and the use of a charity were a lot more blurred at that time, and not resolved until the "Petris Bill" legislation that came about later on.
ReplyDeleteRader getting a loan from the church of $1million to purchase a privately owned and used property, (I believe it was in Beverly Hills) which was then flipped by him for $5 million a few scant years later, with Rader claiming "I paid the church back the $1 Million dollars" while keeping the profit, is very unethical. Since when is a church a "bank" that can lend money on speculative investment, with funds from sacrificing middle to lower income people, ethical? It's not.
Or taking a skim from "leasing companies" or travel agencies, that the church used for the jets, fleet cars, and member travel. A corrupt pile of crap, that confirms that ALWAYS where there is money and power, there are shenanigans.
On a different note... Kind of cool that Richard Rice and Wes White were teamed together! It was a WHITE RICE sabbath! Did Frank Brown and Richard Rice team up the next week, so that they could have a "healthier" lineup of a BROWN RICE Sabbath??
Hi Byker Bob. If I am remembering the chronology correctly, the Paratroopers had nothing to do with the sit-in. The sit-in (I think) took place about three weeks after the state took over on January 2. The Paratroopers didn't begin till March. So the Paratroopers were not a catalyst in any way.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, let's address the claim that the sit-in was spontaneous. You said that claim was "rather dubious." Worst than that. This claim was malarkey. It was all orchestrated by Kevin and Aaron Dean. And the way they did it was despicable.
I have the typed notes from a 2/13/1979 meeting between Don Davis, Kevin Dean, Aaron Dean, and Marvin Plakut. I believe Marvin was student body president and he was being called on the carpet by the Dean boys because not enough students were participating in the resistance. Again, the students were getting mixed messages because not all the ministry and faculty were on the same page.
Anyway, according to these notes taken by Marvin and typed up by one of my faculty secretaries (I wasn't at the meeting), the Dean boys berated Marvin and made statements such as this:
Kevin: "...I've heard from many students we're not getting any support from (Dean of Faculty) Mr. Walker. And he's even a board member, so what he says and does carries a lot of weight with the faculty."
Kevin or Aaron: "We were going to call Mr. Armstrong this morning and inform him that we have no faculty support and that very few students are supporting the Church. And I know Mr. Armstrong, he would have closed the college immediately."
Kevin: It's just like an incident a couple of weeks ago in the field, I called a minister and told him to do a certain thing, and he simply said NO! So I said, well look, if you don't do it, I'll call your deacons to get the job done. And if they won't do it I'll simply call any of your church members. It doesn't matter, but we're going to get the job done."
Kevin and Aaron used fear and intimidation to get support for the sit-in and the demonstration. It was NOT spontaneous.
Again, I was part of this using wrong tactics for a good cause. The lesson for the Armstrongite churches (that they still don't get) is that the end does NOT justify the means.
--Wes White
Wes is right that the sit-in was not a spontaneous event. I remember getting phone calls at home to show up at certain times for the thing. They also deliberately had women and children sit with their backs to the windows to taunt the police in case they came to break the glass to get in. On one of the days, they deliberately set up long tables in front of the Hall of Ad with spaghetti and salad in order to taunt the police and receiver once again. People sitting in the sit-in would come out and get food while the police were on the street watching it all. Landscape and other workers were to continue working in areas in front of the police and receiver as if nothing was happening.
ReplyDeleteI did forget about the snake Don Davis and his hands in the mess.
There another thing that went on at this time was the evesdropping van that was outfitted with high tech listening devices that the would drive around and park outside "dissident" homes and homes of " suspect" individuals who did not support all of the lies floating around. They would also photograph people coming and going from these homes as well as photograph license plates of cars. They then would have James Snook and the SecurityOffice perform CA license searches to see whose cars they were. These people were then disfellowshipped.
ReplyDeleteThese were all actions by the church who claimed it was practicing first century Christianity.
ReplyDelete“We now know from hindsight that this receivership happened mostly for two reasons: The first is that GTA and his family and his supporters were pushing for it. They provided tons of documents to the state of California along with doom and gloom predictions that the members of WCG were about to do some horrible things to themselves and their families.”
Here are a few paragraphs from Herbert W. Armstrong's June 8, 1979 letter to members and co-workers of the Worldwide Church of God:
“When my son called my sincere offer 'hush money' he was deliberately using a term that implies WE were the sinners--not him. We have nothing to hide--we are the loyal servants of Jesus Christ, being used of Him doing His Work. There is nothing in THIS WORK OF THE LIVING GOD TO HIDE--BUT RATHER TO OPENLY DECLARE TO THE WHOLE WORLD! It is Garner Ted who has sins to HIDE--and which Christ, in His mercy, has led His apostle to COVER in LOVE--because as God says, 'LOVE COVERS'--and in James 5:20 it shall 'hide a multitude of sins.' This I have tried to do for a rebellious son.”
“I dislike more than I can tell you to have to write things like this. But my son prompted and engineered this massive assault on God's Work through the California Attorney General's office, though he managed craftily to keep his name out and let other stooges take the blame.”
“I would gladly welcome Ted back into my arms if he would REALLY REPENT.”
“Was the set-up and usage of these corporations and salaries and expense accounts ethical? Probably not. Were they moral? Probably not.”
ReplyDelete“But legal? Yeah. They were legal.”
That unfunny clown Ronald Weinland with all the sick prophetic jokes was so stupid to spend three and a half years in jail for his wrongdoing. If he had simply shared his ill-gotten gains with “good accountants” and with “good lawyers” (yeah, LOL), he could have totally gotten away with everything.
That babbling psycho David Pack gets to legally steal virtually everything from his followers merely by doing it all in the name of religion and by getting “good accountants” and “good lawyers” (yeah, LOL) to aid and abet him.
That arrogant runt Gerald Flurry recently legally bought a jet airplane with stolen tithe and offering money by doing it all in the name of religion and by getting “good accountants” and “good lawyers” (yeah, LOL) to whitewash his actions.
One saying is that, “Only stupid people go to jail.” The really slick crooks are out enjoying their ill-gotten gains.
Thanks, Wes and Gary. All interesting information. I had my suspicions, but never knew the extent of involvement of the Dean brothers. I knew about the spying, the van, and that the AC dorms were actually bugged, starting from the time that the first splinters were emerging (Dr. Martin’s meetings, Al Carrozo, and other prominent dissidents)
ReplyDeleteWhat surprised me was that the sit in even took place at all. The hippie thing was happening bigtime in the outside world during the years that I was insulated at Ambassador College. I had listened to the ministers condemn all of the hippie tactics, and to actually blame their actvities on communist agitators, branding them as anti-American (which may well have been true). And then, the first time the government appears to be oppressing the church and college, they fall back on the hippie tactics that had been in the news for the previous 10 years! It is absolutely hilarious that so many of the AC students refused to be hippies for them! But, as I read about all of this in the newspapers, and saw the pictures, the main word that came to mind was “hypocritical”.
If Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, and Crosby Stills and Nash had made an appearance, it would have completed the total about face of everything HWA had taught us about respect for the civil authorities who were put over us, and how we as a church would be reacting to the persecution as the events of the endtimes unfolded. Very weird times, and apparently many unintended consequences.
BB
The nickname paratroopers is an insult to real paratroopers. The nicknames of WorldWide Mafia that was commonly used then behind closed doors suited them more.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the ex parte procedure was wrong. But the justification for the haste and secrecy was a boast by the man who was trying to buy that Big Sandy campus that it was worth more than twice what he was paying for it. When that boast, made to a reporter, appeared in print, the plaintiffs and their lawyers claimed that someone was taking a bribe to sell the property for a price far below its value and the court had to intervene to stop the sale to protect the church's assets (which they claimed were public assets). Without that boast, the lawsuit would have proceeded in some different fashion.
ReplyDeleteBut even if the church were being defrauded by sale of the campus, there was no need to take action in early January. Sure, the sale was originally scheduled to be completed in January but the December issue of the Worldwide News stated that the buyer had asked for and had been granted a delay of two or three months to complete arrangements for financing. The plaintiffs had either not read their WN or had ignored the news thinking that an ex parte proceeding would be to their advantage.
Here’s a new wrinkle: GTA and his wife Shirley would have undoubtedly had an emotional tie to the Big Sandy complex, because that had been Hammer family land. Could it be that the secret feed of documents was intended to totally halt the sale? Is this something GTA could have done for the family? I knew some Imperial students who had practically been raised on that land. And, there were some who were cousins to each other through the Hammer family. My family was not part of that family, but some of my younger siblings attended Imperial in Big Sandy. There were probably some who likened the sale of that land to Israel giving up or losing some of their covenant lands!
DeleteBB
Even back then, Tkach-Feazell was a team. How that would affect WCG years later.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteHWA: "We have nothing to hide"
Then publish all the big salaries/perks you charlatan!