In the 1970s, the Church of Scientology Corporation used a front group, called the "United Churches of Florida", to purchase the
Fort Harrison Hotel for $3 million. The church established their headquarters in the Fort Harrison Hotel, and dubbed it their
Flag Land Base. In 1977, an
FBI raid on Scientology headquarters uncovered internal
Church of Scientology documents marked "Top Secret" that referred to their secret operation to take over Clearwater as "Project Normandy". The document states its purpose as "obtain[ing] enough data on the Clearwater area to be able to determine what groups and individuals B1 will need to penetrate and handle in order to establish area control". The document says its "Major Target" is "to fully investigate the Clearwater city and county area so we can distinguish our friends from our enemies and handle as needed". On November 3, 1979, the
Clearwater Sun ran an article with the headline "Scientologists plot city takeover" and later stories claimed that the Scientologists also had international plans to
take over the world. The
St. Petersburg Times won a
Pulitzer Prize for one of their stories that exposed some of the criminal wrongdoings of the Church of Scientology. The Church of Scientology targeted Cazares, attempting to entrap him in a
sex scandal. Scientology also staged a phony
hit-and-run accident with Cazares in an attempt to discredit him. Cazares and his wife sued the Church of Scientology for $1.5 million. The church settled with Cazares in 1986. ==See also==