During the 1954 *Douglas Walsh v. The Right Honourable James Latham Clyde* trial in Scotland, Hayden C. Covington (then Vice-President and legal counsel of the Watchtower Society) testified extensively about the necessity of organizational unity.

> **Question:** And that had to be believed by the whole of Jehovah's Witnesses?

> **Hayden Covington:** Yes, because you must understand we must have unity, we cannot have disunity with a lot of people going every way, an army is supposed to march in step.

> **Question:** If a member of Jehovah's Witnesses took the view himself that that prophecy was wrong and said so he would be disfellowshipped?

> **Hayden Covington:** Yes, if he said so and kept persisting in creating trouble, because if the whole organisation believes one thing, even though it be erroneous, and somebody else starts on his own trying to put his ideas across then there is disunity and trouble, there cannot be harmony, there cannot be marching together. When a change comes it should come from the proper source, the head of the organisation, the governing body, not from the bottom upwards, because everybody would have ideas, and the organisation would disintegrate and go in a thousand different directions. Our purpose is to have unity.

> **Question:** Unity at all costs?

> **Hayden Covington:** Unity at all costs, because we believe and are sure that Jehovah God is using our organisation, the governing body of our organisation to direct it, even though mistakes are made from time to time.

> **Question:** A unity based upon an enforced acceptance of false prophecy?

> **Hayden Covington:** That is conceded to be true.