Gcc, I think that Freewilly's assessment is on the money. Here's what I think happened:
In 1990 the Society's Writing Dept. learned that it could easily get specialized information through the U.N. and that it was easier to get this information if it had a regular U.N. library card so as to have access to the library without going through the non-member access rigamarole. I believe that the editor of Awake!, Harry Peloyan, and a Writing Dept. researcher, Ciro Aulicino, worked together to get the library card. Aulicino, you may know, is listed on the 1992 U.N. NGO application document as the Watchtower Society contact. Peloyan is too slick to leave such a paper trail, but I believe that he was the mover behind getting the card. Once they found out about NGO's, they found that it was fairly easy for the Watchtower Society to become an associated NGO, and so they worked to convince the Governing Body (or at least, GB member Lloyd Barry) to allow them to join. Barry was listed on the NGO application as the corporate director authorizing the membership. Shortly after the Society quit its associated status, I called both Aulicino and Peloyan to see if they had anything to say about it. Aulicino simply hung up the phone after saying, "I won't talk to you!" Peloyan became angry and so flustered that he could hardly speak. He said that "you apostates" (he had no idea who I was so this was an unwarranted assumption) were "making a mountain out of a molehill" because all that they had in mind was getting a library card. After a few more seconds of virtually incoherent ranting, Peloyan hung up without waiting for a reply from me. I think that it may have been true at the very beginning of the idea, just to get a library card, but that once the political advantages of being an associated NGO became clear, the Society used this to its political advantage in the area of human rights, and in other areas.
That the Society knew early on what political advantages could come from being an associated NGO is shown by an Awake! article (Sept. 8, 1991?) that, for the first time in WTS history, seemed to praise the U.N. for many humanitarian activities. The last few paragraphs of the article, however, contained JW code-speak that informed the JW community that the article was actually tongue-in-cheek for unspecified reasons. A non-JW would not get the implications of the code-speak, but would interpret it as high praise of the U.N. and its goals. Over the years, more Awake! articles (and at least one Watchtower article) followed, which praised the U.N. or some of its activities. In 1992, with the 1991 Awake! article as "proof" of its attitude toward the U.N., the Society received its "associated" NGO status.
The Society took advantage of its new political clout, via its associated NGO status, many times during the next decade. Often Watchtower spokesmen appeared before the European Human Rights Commission, and agents of various political bodies such as the Swedish government and various U.S. congressional committees, and so forth. You can find details in various online writeups such as the one done by Randy Watters.
One might object to the claim that the Society involved itself in politics by becoming an associated NGO and by lobbying various political bodies. One might claim that all they were doing was working for human rights. (Of course, they only work for human rights when these are to the Society's advantage, but certainly not for the human rights of individual JWs.) But consider this: Martin Luther King worked for human rights for blacks in America, and worked to influence various American institutions to uphold constitutional guarantees. Would anyone dare to argue that King's actions were not entirely political in nature? I think not. Lobbying politicians for human rights, or for anything else, is by definition political activity. So the Society not only violated its longstanding claims about avoiding getting involved specifically with the U.N., but meddled in politics.
A good bit of evidence that Watchtower leaders knew perfectly well that their associated NGO status was grossly hypocritical is that they kept it secret from almost everyone else in Bethel, except from those who needed to know in order to do their assigned jobs. I know this for a fact because not long after the NGO story broke, I called a number of Watchtower officials, including men in the Legal, Writing and Public Affairs departments, and asked them for comments. Most of them had no idea what I was talking about. Later, after the Society withdrew from the U.N. and issued its misleading justifications, I followed up on a few of these and the reaction generally was one of embarassment followed by a justification along the lines of, "Well, Jehovah directs the Governing Body and so I won't second guess them."
The most telling proof that Watchtower leaders knew they were practicing gross hypocrisy is that within a few weeks of the public exposure of their involvment with the U.N., Watchtower corporate directors withdrew their membership. If they had nothing to hide, if they were convinced they were doing nothing wrong, then they would not have withdrawn. They would simply have affirmed their reasons having to do with a library card, issued letters to inquirers explaining and justifying their stance, and that would have been that. But they knew that only the JW community would buy that excuse, and so to prevent continuing criticism by "apostates" and secular and religious journalists, they withdrew.
AlanF
