When the story broke on the Internet that the Watchtower was an NGO affiliated with the UN's Dept. of Public Information (DPI), I was not shocked. And I had no doubts whatsoever that the information was true because in 1991, when I was part of Brooklyn Bethel's Writing Dept., Ciro Aulicino began to visit the United Nations every Wednesday afternoon. However, back then I didn't have a clue as to what was required to get Ciro his "visitor's pass."

Ciro's primary job in Writing was to locate misc. books and journals for the staff from outside of Bethel. He had not been a department staff writer for many years. I went to Ciro's office almost daily, except on Wednesday afternoon when he would take the subway to 42nd Street where the NYC central library was located. He went to that library to do research and pick up books. Ciro would post a note on his door every Wednesday afternoon informing the staff of his whereabouts, which said, "Gone to the City."

Sometime late in 1991 or early 1992, I clearly remember when Ciro told me he had added the United Nations to his schedule of places to go on Wednesday to pick up material for the Writing Department. When I asked him how he was able to get into the UN, he said he had received a special pass so he could use the UN facilities, including the library because the Watchtower was an international publishing concern. Having the pass meant that Ciro could go into certain areas that were off limits to the public and listen to UN meetings, that is, if he wanted to. At the time, I thought it was a great opportunity for the Writing Dept. to have access to the latest information about world affairs directly from the UN. However, I never connected the Sept. 8, 1991 Awake! magazine cover series of articles about the UN with Ciro's trips to the UN. That particular magazine was put in our Bethel rooms early in August and I just didn't think about it later when Ciro told me about his visits to the UN.

Soon after I read that Awake!, Ciro told me he wrote the UN articles and that Lloyd Barry directly assigned him to do so. He also asked me what I thought about them. I told him how impressed I was with his work. The approach was different and I especially liked the last paragraph on page 10 which omitted the negative view JWs had of the UN and endeavored to stir up the reader's interest by stating that the UN will do some very astonishing things that will amaze people. I mentioned that I hoped this statement might cause someone to study the Bible with JWs out of curiosity.

It used to take about seven months, counting from the time a WT staff writer received a magazine article assignment until the printing of the actual WT or Awake!. Accordingly, we can assume that this UN/NGO matter was in the works from the beginning of 1991 or before. Whose idea it was, I have no way of knowing, but I will say that there had to be many people at the very top of the organization who were deeply involved. Although only the Governing Body Writing Committee (at that time made up of GB members, Barry, Barr and Klein), was required to authorize the writing of the articles on the UN, Ted Jaracz also had to know about this UN/NGO business, because one of the signatures on the UN/NGO agreement was Robert Johnson, who was in the Service Department, which department Ted Jaracz directs. Bob was and still is a very important man in the Service Department, and Bob Johnson takes his marching orders from Ted Jaracz.

Although I once counted all of these people as my friends, after being quickly ousted by them from the organization when I went public about their flawed sexual child abuse policies, I was not shocked by their duplicitous decision to hookup with the UN. However, I was amazed that their preposterous conduct came to light, thanks to the Internet.

Barbara