Paulette Cooper (born July 26, 1942) is an American author and journalist whose writing against the Church of Scientology resulted in harassment from Scientologists.

She endured many years of attacks from church leadership and their agents, including lawsuits, smear campaigns, overt and covert surveillance, outright threats, and even a criminal frame-up.

She countersued them three times before finally settling with the church in 1985. Cooper has authored or co-authored nearly two dozen books, covering a wide range of topics including travel, missing persons, psychics, and pets, in addition to Scientology.

[1] Cooper's birth parents were Chaim and Ruchla (née Minkowski) Bucholc, Polish Jews who immigrated to Antwerp, Belgium, in the late 1920s.

Family friends kept Paula and her older sister Sarah in hiding for months, but Nazi troops eventually found them.

An American Jewish couple, Ted and Stella (née Toepfer) Cooper, arranged for Paulette to come live with them in New York City in 1948.

[3][2]: 146-152 Though she spoke only French when she arrived in the United States, Cooper adopted English quickly, reading voraciously and writing by age 8.

[2]: 12-14,17 [4][5][6] Cooper, thinking she may have stumbled on an intriguing story subject, signed up for an introductory "Communication Course" at the local Scientology "org".

She later said of her motivation to write about Scientology: "I had a master’s degree in psychology and had studied comparative religion at Harvard for a summer and what I learned during my research about the group founded by L. Ron Hubbard was both fascinating and frightening.

When the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raided the Washington, D.C., church in 1963, agents and police seized thousands of pages of documents, from which Cooper gleaned additional insights.

Shortly after its publication, Cooper received two anonymous, telephoned death threats warning her to stop writing about Scientology.

[2]: 37-38 [6] Cooper leveraged her research for the magazine article to produce a 22-chapter book, The Scandal of Scientology, subtitled "A chilling examination of the nature, beliefs, and practices of the 'now religion'".

Its Appendix "The Scientologist's Story" included author questions with answers provided by David Gaiman, then the Public Relations Director of Scientology in England.

Soon after publication, the church sued Cooper for libel over the Queen magazine article, though Harper's Bazaar settled the matter quickly.

While she was visiting Scotland for a travel story, dozens of strangers staked out her hotel, and some followed, photographed, or called her; David Gaiman, also a GO operative, even met her at the airport with fake writs for libel.

[2]: 63 Also in March, Cooper was named as one of 18 defendants in another church lawsuit, which alleged a conspiracy to produce Robert Kaufman's book Inside Scientology.

[2]: 63,71–72,75,82 Internal GO memos suggest the organization considered plans to ruin Cooper's father Ted's finances and diamond business, "thus cutting off one of P.C.

[2]: 87 A critical sequence of developments and suspicious events occurred in December 1972:[2]: 98-100,163 In February 1973, anonymous flyers appeared all over Cooper's new apartment building accusing her of various sexual perversions, including pedophilia.

Cooper suspected her ex-boyfriend from BBDO had provided the Church of Scientology with certain details mentioned in the letter—details also hinted at in the first bomb threat.

Dubbed Operation Freakout, its goal was to have Cooper "incarcerated in a mental institution or jail or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks.

"[12] The plan included staging multiple tightly coordinated incidents involving imposters, false reports, and planted items.

al., filed in December 1971 in Los Angeles Superior Court, the plaintiff alleged that The Scandal of Scientology made "untrue, libelous, and defamatory statements about the Church."

As part of the deal signed on December 5, 1976, Cooper surrendered the copyright for her book to the church and agreed to no longer comment on it publicly.

[14] In the first article, author Ron Shaffer wrote: "The 'attack and destroy' campaign carried out by the Church of Scientology's 'Guardian's Office' to silence critics has involved illegal surveillance, burglaries, forgeries and many forms of harassment, according to sources close to an intensive federal investigation of the Scientologists' activities.

"[15] The Church of Scientology of California falsely accused Cooper of helping prepare the Post stories, an alleged violation of the 1976 settlement terms.

[2]: 306,340–350 The Church of Scientology had been plotting to take over the city of Clearwater, Florida, since 1975, looking to establish a literal safe harbor for L. Ron Hubbard.

The church's litigious response to a 1991 TIME magazine article caused the mainstream media to avoid stories about Scientology for about fifteen years.

[2]: 361-364,367–368 In the 2000s, mainstream media interest in Scientology began growing again, in part due to the antics of celebrity adherent Tom Cruise.

[2]: 258,320,393 [18][19] Cooper has also authored or co-authored nearly two dozen books, covering a wide range of topics including travel, missing persons, psychics, and her favorite subject, pets.

[18] Her 1973 book The Medical Detectives, an early and thorough exploration of forensic science, earned Cooper an Edgar Award in nonfiction from Mystery Writers of America.