# The Cult Phenomenon in the United States (1979)/Biographical Sketches

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PARTICIPANTS – INFORMATION MEETING ON THE CULT PHENOMENON IN THE UNITED STATES, February 5, 1979, 318 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. [Between pages 18-19 of Transcript of Proceedings].
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PARTICIPANTS – “THE CULT PHENOMENON IN THE UNITED STATES”
February 5, 1979
318 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C.
Joel Alexander – Former coal miner; set up debriefing center in Tucson, Freedom of Thought Foundation, presently unable to operate due to numerous lawsuits; has highest success rate of any team of debriefers; both senators from Arizona have written to concerned constituents and directed them to Mr. Alexander; working now to make conservatorship legal in order to continue work.
Robert Boettcher – Former foreign service officer with the State Department in Washington, D.C., Japan and Vietnam; staff director of the Fraser subcommittee on international organizations, investigation Korean-American relations, specifically ties between Rev. Moon and the Korean government influence-buying campaign in the United States; currently writing book on subcommittee findings.
Dr. John Clark – B.A. from Macalester College, 1949; graduate of Harvard Medical School in psychiatry; Harvard Student Public Health Service; presently in private practice, working with ex-cult members for past five and one-half years; associate Clinical professor for Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General.
Flo Conway – Co-author with Jim Siegelman of the book “Snapping”; Saturday Evening Post production manager until 1966; graduate of University of New Mexico; M.A. and Ph.D. work, University of Oregon, where she pioneered one of the first interdisciplinary programs in communications; co-author with Jim Siegelman, of upcoming article, “Snapping: Welcome to the ‘80s,” to appear in March issue of Playboy magazine.
Rabbi Maurice Davis – Senior rabbi of the Jewish Community Center of White Plains, N.Y.; faculty member of Manhattan College; actively engaged in combating cults for over five years; responsible for separating 128 young people from cults.
Daphne Greene – Past chairman of the Graduate Theological Union; appointed to Advisory Committee for National Parks; resigned from all employment to investigate reporting regarding cults; does some deprogramming; past director of Society of Ethics and Life Sciences of the Hastings Institute.
Jeremiah S. Gutman – Director of American Civil Liberties Union and currently a chairman on the privacy committee; director of the New York ACLU and Council; worked with Lawyer Constitutional Defense Commission, a civil rights organization, 1964-1967, in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi; author of article “Constitutional and Legal Dimensions of Deprogramming; has represented in court numerous organizations and various members (Unification Church, Church of Bible Understanding, People’s Temple, Hare Krishna); has represented many synagogues and Methodist federations; attorney with firm of Levi, Gutman, Goldberg and Kaplan of New York City.
Father James LeBar – Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of New York; priest at parish of St. Catherine Laboure in Ulster County, N.Y.; director of communications of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and upstate counties; did preparatory work for archidiocese at Cathedral College; philosophical and theological studies at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers.
Barry Lynn – Ordained minister with United Church of Christ; member of D.C. bar; M.A. in psychology from Boston University; J.D. from Georgetown University; legislative counsel for Office of Church and Society, United Church of Christ.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES – Page Two
Ted Patrick – Raised in Chattanooga, Tenn.; involved in civil rights movement in San Diego, southern California area from 1950s on; active in local Democratic politics and organizer of political club that registered 10,000 minority voters in less than 30 days; led picketing and protest against area chain stores, supermarkets and schools; Governor Reagan appointed him in 1968 to special representative for community relations for San Diego and Imperial counties; organized first anti-cult group, Free-C.O.G. (Parents Community to Free Our Sons and Daughters from the Children of God); has been active deprogrammer of cult members, regardless of legal ramifications.
Professor Herbert Richardson – M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University; M.Div., Boston University; ordained minister of United Presbyterian Church of U.S.A.; theological consultant, Unification Church; professor of religious studies, University of Toronto, 1968-1979; author and editor of the following: “Deprogramming: Documenting the Issue,” “A Time for Consideration: A Scholarly Appraisal of the Unification Church” (with D. Bryant), “Proceedings of the University of Toronto/Toronto School of Theology, Conference on Deprogramming,” “Religion and Political Society” (with J. Moltmann et al), “Toward American Theology.”
Jim Siegelman – Co-author with Flo Conway of the book “Snapping”; graduate of Harvard; awarded the Fiske Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge; his writings have appeared in New Times, Playboy, Harper’s Weekly and a national newspaper syndicate; co-author with Flo Conway of upcoming article, “Snapping: Welcome to the ‘80s,” to appear in March issue of Playboy magazine.
Jackie Speier – For past three years was legal counsel to the late Rep. Leo Ryan of California; accompanied him to Guyana and did preliminary investigation in to cults regarding their tax exempt status; B.A. political science from University of California, Davis; J.D. from Hastings College; worked on U.S. Court of Appeals; law clerk in federal magistrate’s court in North California district; employed in San Francisco city attorney’s office; conducted meetings with Scientology members.
Rev. Dr. George W. Swope – American Baptist clergyman; adjunct professor of psychology and sociology at Westchester Community College, New York; advisor to more than 100 young people who have left cults; speaker on TV and radio and to college and community groups.
James E. Wood Jr. – Since 1972 has been executive director of Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, representing eight national bodies of the United States; B.A. in philosophy from Carson Newman College; M.A. in history of religion from Columbia University; B.D. Ph.M., Ph.D., in history of religions from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; post-doctoral studies at Yale in East Asian studies and Naganuma School of Japanese Studies in Tokyo; professor of history of religion from 1950-1955 in Japan; professor of history of religion and director of Interdepartmental studies at Baylor University; founding editor of “Journal of Church and State,” widely written articles and books on church-state relations and history of religion; latest book was “Nationhood and the Kingdom.”
Neil A. Salonen – President, the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (Unification Church).
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
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## External links

* Public Relations a Factor As Sen. Dole Opens Session, Washington Post, February 6, 1979; Page A14, T. R. Reid
* Cults Hearing Noisy, Tense, Washington Post, February 6, 1979; Page A14, Marjorie Hyer
* Breaking the Spell That Binds, Washington Post, February 6, 1979, Page B01, Henry Allen