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A Piece of Blue Sky Scientology, Dianetics & L. Ron Hubbard Exposed By
Jon Atack
PART 4: 2. Heavy Ethics
PART 5: 2. Infiltration
PART 6: 5. The Religious Technology Center and the International Finance Police
CHAPTER ONE
The new Guardian took orders only from the Executive Director of the Church of Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard was appointing a deputy. He kept the new position in the family: Mary Sue Hubbard was the first Guardian, later becoming the "Controller," a post created between the Executive Director and the Guardian. 1 Among the duties of the Guardian was the "LRH Heavy Hussars Hat" (a misnomer, as Hussars were light cavalry). "Hat" was Hubbard's usual term for "job." The Guardian's Office (or "GO") would deal with any "threat of great importance" to Scientology. The tenure of executives in Scientology organizations is usually brief; the Guardian is one of the few exceptions. Jane Kember, Mary Sue's successor, held the position for thirteen years. Mary Sue was her superior, as Controller, throughout that time. The Guardian's Office was responsible for responding to any attack on Scientology. An "attack" might simply be a quizzical newspaper article. The GO is well remembered in London, where the press is still reticent about Scientology stories. The "Legal Bureau" of the GO issued hundreds of court writs, itself losing count. 2 The GO dealt with public relations, legal actions, and the gathering of "intelligence." It conducted campaigns against psychiatry, Interpol, the Internal Revenue Service, drug abuse, and government secrecy, largely under the heading "Social Coordination," or "SOCO." The GO campaign against the tax authorities was not altogether altruistic. On April 30, 1966, the Hubbard Communications Office Ltd. filed its annual accounts with the Inland Revenue in Great Britain. Sir John Foster later commented in his government report: "According to the last set of accounts filed for HCO Ltd., that company seems to have been conducting an unsuccessful garage business [Hickstead Garage]. The auditor's [accountant's] certificate is heavily qualified: various documents could not be traced, vehicles had vanished, 'the sales figure in the trading account cannot be regarded as anywhere near accurate' [according to the Scientology accountant], and there had been litigation with a manager who went bankrupt. The company ended up owing Mr. Hubbard £1,356."
Hubbard went into business in Rhodesia, putting up part of the purchase money for the Bumi Hills resort hotel on Lake Kariba. He also hob-nobbed with the social elite. He appeared on television, telling the audience he was no longer active in Scientology, and had become a permanent resident of Salisbury. He must have been dismayed when that permanence crumbled with the Rhodesian refusal to renew his visa. He put a brave face on it, returning to England in July, to be met at the airport by hundreds of cheering Scientologists. 3 In Rhodesia, Hubbard had prepared the first two Operating Thetan levels. After attaining the state of Clear, Scientologists could now progress toward "total freedom" through the OT levels. Hubbard asserted that an Operating Thetan is capable of operating, of perceiving and causing events, while separate from his body. By doing the OT levels an individual would supposedly liberate latent psychic abilities. From 1952, Hubbard continually insisted that the latest techniques would bring about the state of "full OT." The U.S. Internal Revenue Service was less interested in Hubbard's spiritual motivation than in the mounting evidence of his financial motivation. At the end of July, the IRS notified the Church of Scientology of California that its tax-exempt status was being withdrawn, giving three reasons: Scientology practitioners were making money from the "non-profit" Church; the Church's activities were commercial; and the Church was serving the private interests of L. Ron Hubbard. 4 Hubbard's thoughts were elsewhere, and in a flight of fantasy, he proclaimed John McMaster the first "Pope" of Scientology in August 1966. The title did not endure. 5 It seemed that McMaster was to be Hubbard's public successor. In fact, he was simply an emissary with little real power in the organization. Hubbard maintained the charade of handing over responsibility by resigning as President and Executive Director of the Church. His resignation was announced to Scientologists, but was not actually filed with the Registrar of companies in England for three years. It was yet another public relations gesture. Hubbard still controlled the bank accounts, and still held the undated resignations of the board members of his many corporations. He still wrote the Policy of the Church, and issued his orders via written Executive Directives. Indeed, the post of Executive Director remained vacant until 1981, when Hubbard finally appointed a replacement. Hubbard retained the day-to-day control of his empire of Orgs. 6 Early in 1966, the LRH Finance Committee had been established to determine how much the Church owed Hubbard. In September, Hubbard told the press he had forgiven the Church a $13 million debt. The LRH Finance Committee had however failed to document the millions Hubbard had taken out of the Church. The Committee had appraised Saint Hill as having a business goodwill value of £2 million (the estate itself was valued at less than £100,000). The Committee also included such items as the purchase price of the yacht used by Hubbard for his Alaska trip in 1940. All part of the Hubbard's "research," from which the Church purportedly benefited. 7 In August 1966, the Henslow case exploded into the British newspapers. Karen Henslow was a schizophrenic who had been institutionalized before her contact with Scientology. She had fallen in love with a Scientologist, who promised to marry her. Henslow had worked at Saint Hill, and taken a Scientology course. Then one night she was "Security-Checked" into the small hours, and deposited at her mother's house. She ran into the street in her nightclothes, and ended up at the police station at 3.00 a.m., in a highly distressed state. 8 Hubbard responded to the Henslow scandal by approving a more thorough set of instructions for his tactic of "Noisy Investigation." A list was to be made of everyone associated with a perceived enemy. This was to include their dentist and doctor, along with their friends and neighbors. All of the people on the list were to be phoned and told that the perceived enemy was under investigation for the commission of crimes, having attacked the religious liberty of the caller. The person being called was to be told that alarming information had already been gathered. The primary purpose of this technique was not to collect information, but to spread suspicion about the perceived enemy. This directive was followed by a Hubbard Bulletin called "The Anti-Social Personality, the Anti-Scientologist" (the two being one and the same). Hubbard restated his earlier theory that twenty percent of the population (the Suppressives and those under their influence, the Potential Trouble Sources, combined) "oppose violently any betterment activity or group." He asserted that "When we trace the cause of a failing business, we will inevitably discover somewhere in its ranks the antisocial personality hard at work." In fact, the cause of all disaster at work or at home, according to Hubbard, lies with Suppressive Persons. They are characterized by a majority of the following traits and attributes. According to Hubbard, SPs speak in generalities ("everybody knows"); deal mainly in bad news; worsen communication they are relaying; fail to respond to psychotherapy (i.e. Scientology); are surrounded by "cowed or ill associates or friends"; habitually select the wrong target, or source; are unable to finish anything; willingly confess to alarming crimes, without any sense of responsibility for them; support only destructive groups; approve only destructive actions; detest help being given to others, and use "helping" as a pretext to destroy others; and believe that no one really owns anything. These points are Hubbard's reworkings of the characteristics of the Antisocial Personality, or psychopath, given by Hervey Cleckley, M.D., in his 1950s book The Mask of Sanity. Having failed to secure a "safe-point" in Rhodesia from which to resist the encroachments of the Suppressives, Hubbard planned to take to the High Seas. At the end of 1966, he incorporated the Hubbard Explorational Company Ltd. He titled himself the "expedition supervisor," holding ninety-seven of the 100 issued shares. The stated object of the HEC was to "explore oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and waters, land and buildings in any part of the world and to seek for, survey, examine and test properties of all kinds." 9 Hubbard was still a member of the Explorers' Club of New York, and was authorized to fly their flag on his proposed Hubbard Geological Survey Expedition, which was going to make a geological survey of "a belt from Italy through Greece and Egypt and along the Gulf of Aden and the East Coast of Africa." The survey was intended to "draw a picture of an area which has been the scene of the earlier and basic civilizations of the planet and from which some conclusions may possibly be made relating to geological predispositions required for civilized growth." 10 The expedition never took place. Hubbard was good at promoting expeditions, even at inventing their details, but not so good at actually carrying them out. Having given his last Saint Hill Briefing Course lecture, Hubbard left for North Africa at the end of 1966. On December 5, British Health Minister Kenneth Robinson denied that an Inquiry was necessary, but denounced Scientology as "potentially harmful," adding "I have no doubt that Scientology is totally valueless in promoting health." Hubbard responded in usual form with a twenty-page internal memo, asserting that the crimes of government would prove far more interesting to the newspapers than those of Scientology. Hubbard believed that events could be turned against the representatives of government, putting them into the courtroom rather than Scientology. He wanted nothing short of Kenneth Robinson and Lord Balniel's resignations. The emphases of the attack were to be religious persecution and psychiatric mayhem. Scientology's opponents were simply dismissed as fascists. 11 Neither Robinson nor Balniel resigned their government positions, nor were any psychiatrists stampeded. However, on February 28, 1967, every Member of Parliament received a letter from the Hubbard College of Scientology. The letter spoke of the Karen Henslow case of a few months before: "This unhappy story gave the newspapers and others of a lurid turn of mind the opportunity to further their vehement attack against us with libel and slander. And so the pattern repeats itself, the well worn pattern.'' 12 The letter went on to ask who was "behind this pattern of attack," and after discoursing on Scientologists' friendly relations with medicine in general, concluded with an attack on psychiatry in particular, adding, "Like the Russian authorities, we believe that brain surgery is an assault and rape of the individual personality." The letter inevitably created an effect, but not necessarily that expected by its author. Hubbard's public relations "technology" only succeeded in bringing the boiling oil down upon Scientology. On March 6, 1967, Kenneth Robinson made a further statement about Scientology in the House of Commons:
Meanwhile, Hubbard added "Degraded Beings" to Suppressives and Potential Trouble Sources. While the latter two groups comprised only one in five of the world's population, "Degraded Beings" outnumbered "Big Beings" by eighteen to one. 13 In Hubbard's eyes, Kenneth Robinson was undoubtedly not only a Suppressive Person, but also a Degraded Being. Business was still fair, and the Scientology Church in Britain showed a total income of £457,277 for the year ending April 1967 (an average of almost £9,000 per week). Hubbard gave the following instructions to his subordinates a few months later:
True to these maxims, the 1966-1967 accounts contained several creative designations for expenditure. Directors' fees stood at only £2,914, but £39,426 was justified as "provision for bad debts," and an astonishing £70,000 as "expenditure of United States Mailing List and Promotion." The previous year, £80,000 had been charged under this heading. In 1967-1968 the figure was again £70,000. British action against Scientology was growing. The Ministry of Labour reported that a hundred American teachers of Scientology were to be banned from Britain. In a dramatic move, 500 Scientologists were interviewed by the police as they arrived at Saint Hill. This fiasco resulted in one American being fined £15 for failing to register as an alien, occasioning UFO cartoons in the newspapers. 15
The Enchanter, a 50-foot Bermuda ketch, sailed to meet him in Las Palmas. Her dedicated Scientologist crew of nineteen were known as the Sea Project. Their formation and their departure from England were highly secretive. The Hubbard Expiorational Company started to draw $15,000 per month from the Church of Scientology of California. The Church also paid $125,000 into one of Hubbard's Swiss accounts. 18 From Las Palmas, having just forgiven Scientology $13 million, Hubbard issued orders that every Org set up an "LRH Good Will Repayment Account" at their local bank. Executives who failed to set up such an account would be dismissed as thieves. Hubbard also ordered the Church of Scientology to buy Saint Hill from him. 19 As the British Health Minister had predicted, the "harsh light of publicity" had done its work, and Scientology had been propelled into the public eye. By August, Saint Hill was taking in as much as £40,000 a week, almost five times its income of the previous year. 20 FOOTNOTES 1. Organization Executive Course, vol. 7 pp. 494ff & 503. 2. East Grinstead Courier, 12 August 1983. 3. Foster report, para 32; Evans, pp.85-6; Malko, p.82; Hubbard taped lecture, "About Rhodesia," 18 July 1966. 4. Church of Scientology of California vs. IRS, 24 September 1984 judgment, p.35. 5. Interview, OR, former Sea Org executive; interview, McMaster. 6. Organization Executive Course, vol. 7 p. 579 7. Interview, OR; Laurie Sullivan in vol 19. pp. 3222-3 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153. 8. C.H. Rolph, Believe What You Like (André Deutsch, London 1973), pp.39 & 85; News of the World, 28 July 1968; Wallis, p.194; Evans, p.88; Cooper, p.61; interview with witness 9. Foster report, para 73. 10. Letter from the Explorers Club to John Fudge, 8 December 1966. 11. Exhibit 500-6H, vol. 13, p. 2036-42, Armstrong 12. Rolph, pp.39f 13. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology, vol. 6, p.193 14. Organization Executive Course, vol. 3 p. 63 15. Daily Sketch, 11 March 1967. 16. Interview with Gerald Armstrong, East Grinstead, June 1984. 17. Interview with Virginia Downsborough, Santa Barbara, October 1986. 18. Modern Management Technology Defined, Hubbard, p.72; Clearwater Sun, 7 February 1986; interview, OR; vol 12, p.2021, exhibit 500-5Z, Armstrong. 19. Vol. 12, pp.1997-8, 16, p.2616, exhibit 500-5E, Armstrong.
CHAPTER TWO
"Ethics" were tightening up in the Scientology world. Since the mid-1960s, the Orgs have been managed on a strict system. Staff members add up points to measure their production. For an Auditor this is the number of "Well Done Auditing Hours"; for a Letter Registrar, letters in and out. Some jobs are less readily reduced to statistics: Even students doing Scientology courses keep "stats," where every word checked, every page read, every minute of tape heard, every "clay demo" and every "check-out" has a point value. The stats are graphed, from the income of an Organization, down to the number of toilets cleaned. Staff members are assigned an "Ethics Condition" every week in accordance with their stats. A slight upward trend on the graph is called Normal, while a level graph, or a slight downtrend, is Emergency. From top to bottom the Conditions are Power, Affluence, Normal, Emergency, Danger, Non-Existence, Liability, Doubt, Enemy, Treason, Confusion. For each Ethics Condition, there is a "Formula," through the application of which the individual's star is supposed to rise. Hubbard insisted that his Ethics system should also be applied to "wogs" (non-Scientologists). At Saint Hill this quickly went from the vaguely to the utterly ridiculous. A local caterer who ran a mobile canteen was put into a condition of Liability in part for running out of apple pie. When he failed to apply the Liability Formula, he was declared Suppressive, which meant that Scientologists could not communicate with him, let alone buy his replenished stocks of apple pie. 1 By autumn 1967, Hubbard was living in a villa on Las Palmas, adding the final touches to the OT 3 Course, and putting the Sea Organization (as the Sea Project had become) through its paces. On Las Palmas he tested out his "Awards and Penalties" for Ethics Conditions on the Sea Org. The penalties for lower Conditions included deprivation of sleep for a set time (often several days), and the assignment of physical labor. Hubbard boasted in a September Policy Letter that penalties in the Sea Org were "much worse" than those for the other Scientology Orgs. The milder non-Sea Org penalty for Non-Existence required that an offender "Must wear old clothes. May not bathe. Women must not wear makeup or have hairdo's. Men may not shave. No lunch hour is given and such persons are expected not to leave the premises. Lowest pay with no bonuses." 2 Pay was pitiably low in Scientology Organizations anyway. On September 20, Hubbard spoke of his new Sea Org, and the release of OT 3, in a lecture taped in Las Palmas. Scientologists call this lecture "RJ 67" for "Ron's Journal 1967." Hubbard dubbed the third Operating Thetan level "the Wall of Fire." OT 3 concerned an incident which he said occurred "on this planet, and on the other seventy-five planets which form this Confederacy, seventy-five million years ago." Hubbard claimed that exposure to OT 3 is fatal to the uninitiated: "The material involved in this sector is so vicious that it is carefully arranged to kill anyone if he discovers the exact truth of it. . . . I am very sure that I was the first one that ever did live through any attempt to attain that material." Hubbard claimed he had broken a knee, an arm, and his back during the course of his research. He attributed this to the tremendous increase in "OT power" he achieved doing OT 3, making accidental damage to his body all too easy. While he was certainly accident prone at times (a characteristic of those surrounded by Suppressives, according to Hubbard), the cause was not necessarily paranormal. The evidence does not support any of his claims of injury. In RJ 67, Hubbard spoke of an international conspiracy to destroy Scientology. From the early days Hubbard had felt that a group of "vested interests" was trying to keep both Dianetics and Scientology down. Hubbard's major targets had been the medical and the psychiatric professions. According to RJ 67, the attack on Scientology had achieved epic proportions. It was vital for the Conspiracy which dominated the affairs of the world to crush Scientology. Hubbard claimed that his wife, the Guardian, had unearthed the highest level of the Conspiracy, the ten or dozen men who determined the fate of Earth: "They are members of the Bank of England, and other higher financial circles. They own and control newspaper chains, and they are all, oddly enough, directors in all the mental health groups in the world." Newspaper baron Cecil King was one of the ten (or twelve). Hubbard also claimed that the then Prime Minister of Britain, Harold Wilson, was controlled by these men, as were many other heads of state. Hubbard ended RJ 67 with a message of hope: "From here on the world will change. But if it changes at all, and if it recovers, it will be because of the Scientologist, it will be because of the Organization. . . . In all the broad Universe there is no other hope for Man than ourselves." A larger vessel had been purchased, and sailed with an inexperienced crew to meet Hubbard at Las Palmas. The Avon River was a 414-ton trawler. Her first voyage, from Hull, was reported in the British press after her non-Scientologist captain's return. Captain John Jones and the chief engineer were the only professional sailors aboard. Jones called it the strangest trip of his life:
Possibly this novel method of navigation, depending solely on radio, harked back to Hubbard's 1940 Alaska Radio Experimental Expedition. On Las Palmas, the crew of the Avon River became guinea pigs for Hubbard's most advanced "research" into Ethics, or Heavy Ethics, as it came to be known. New lower Ethics Conditions were issued, each with a series of steps. The individual assigned a low Condition was expected to work through the Ethics Formulas progressing up through the Conditions. The poor woman who assisted Hubbard in his research into the Condition of Liability had to wear a dirty gray rag on her arm, to show her deficiency to her colleagues. In the Condition of Doubt, she walked around with a black mark on her cheek and a large, oily chain about her wrist. The Avon River's radio operator was ordered by Hubbard to remain awake until a new radio had arrived and been fitted on the bridge. The radio arrived after five days, the operator having complied with the "Commodore's" order. Hubbard seemed obsessed with sleep deprivation. It was one of the accusations made against him by Sara Northrup sixteen years before in her divorce complaint. At about this time, one of the Sea Org crew suggested that their six-month contract be extended to a billion years. Hubbard adopted the suggestion with gusto, and Sea Org members still sign a billion-year contract, boasting the motto "We Come Back," life after life. On October 6, new Formulas were issued for the Ethics Conditions. The Liability Formula contained the alarming order to "Deliver an effective blow to the enemies of the group one has been pretending to be part of despite personal danger." The invitation was obvious. The step remains a part of the Liability Formula, and any Scientologist assigned Liability (which happens frequently) must comply with it. The original Treason formula was shorter-lived, and included: "1. Deliver a paralyzing blow to the enemies of the group one has worked against and betrayed. 2. Perform a self-damaging act that furthers the purposes and or objectives of the group one has betrayed." This Formula was abandoned a year later. 4 Twelve days later, Hubbard issued "Penalties for Lower Conditions" which included: "LIABILITY - Suspension of Pay and a dirty grey rag on left arm, and day and night confinement to org premises. TREASON - ... a black mark on left cheek ... ENEMY - SP Order. Fair Game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed [punctuation sic]." 5
A few days later, having docked the Royal Scotsman in Southampton, the owners requested registration as a "whaling ship." Permission was refused, and a detention order put on the vessel, preventing her from leaving port. Reporters were given a handout which said Hubbard had already undertaken successful survey work in the English Channel, and was resuming this work. The earlier survey was allegedly for oil and gas on the sea floor. Yet another Hubbard expedition that failed to materialize. 7 Seeing the failure of his subordinates to extricate the Scotsman from Southampton, Hubbard decided to take command, and flew from Las Palmas with a twenty-man crew. The Royal Scotsman was hastily reregistered under the flag of Sierra Leone. However, the name was misspelled, and the ship became the Royal Scotman. Permission was requested for a single voyage to Brest, where the necessary repairs would be made. Permission was granted on November 28, and the Royal Scotman sailed. The ship followed in the tradition of the Avon River, and ran into fenders in the inner harbor. There were heavy storms in the English Channel, and the ship nearly foundered off Brest. Hubbard ordered her to sail to Gibraltar, where the Avon River was waiting. There was a heavy storm, and the hydraulic steering and the main compass were inoperative. One generator was out of action, and there were women and children aboard, but Gibraltar resolutely refused the Scotman entry. Eventually, emergency steering was rigged up, and the Scotman was steered from the aft docking bridge on directions from the main bridge via walkie-talkie. Finally the ship was allowed to dock at Ibiza, in the Spanish Balearic Islands. 8 The ship travelled from port to port for several weeks before settling to overwinter at Valencia, in Spain. A non-Scientologist crew member said of Hubbard: "He called himself commodore and had four different types of peaked caps .... He told me he thought I was a reporter." This "wog" started the voyage as ship's carpenter, but by being "upstat" ended it as Chief Officer. During the short voyage he had a brush with Ethics. He was put in a Condition of Doubt for "defying an order, encouraging desertion, tolerating mutinous meetings, and attempting to suborn the Chief Engineer." The boatswain was put into a Condition of Enemy for "undermining the Spanish crew, habitual drunkenness, holding nightly and morning meetings, and derogating Scientology." 9 On New Year's Day 1968, Hubbard incorporated the "Operation and Transport Corporation Ltda." [sic] through the Panamanian consulate in Valencia. OTC took over from the Hubbard Explorational Company as Hubbard's principal channel for extracting money from Scientology. He owned ninety-eight of the 100 issued shares. Hubbard created a network of corporations the sheer complexity of which has daunted most tax investigators. The Royal Scotman was re-registered under the Panamanian flag, though she continued to sail under that of Sierra Leone. 10 A glamorous picture of life at sea was presented to Scientologists the world over, and, when the stringent Scientology qualifications for Sea Org membership were abandoned, its ranks swelled. Largely with people completely unskilled in the nautical arts. Sea Org members wore pseudo-naval uniforms, and were assigned naval ranks, from the lowly "Swamper" to Hubbard's own exalted "Commodore." The uniforms and ranks remain, in the largely landbound Sea Org. In January 1968, Hubbard released OT levels 4 to 6. OT 4 was supposed to proof the individual (or "Pre-OT") against future "implanting." Hubbard wheeled out the Clearing Course Implant list, and had his devotees "mock-up" and "erase" the implants yet again. OT 5 and 6 consisted of drills to be done "exterior from the body." Those who audited these levels usually admit later that their "exterior," or out-of-the-body, experience was entirely subjective. A few claim they could do exactly what the materials required, but do not even try to offer proof. Curiously, much of the highly secret material on levels 5 and 6 came from Hubbard 's book The Creation of Human Ability, first published in the mid-1950s. The first Advanced Organization opened aboard the Royal Scotman, to deliver these OT levels on New Year's Day, 1968. It was soon transferred to shore in Alicante, and thence to Edinburgh. The Advanced Orgs (or AOs) were, and remain, the only Church Organizations to deliver the Operating Thetan levels. From the beginning, AOs were supposed to be run solely by Sea Org members. Meanwhile, a Scientology magazine published an interview with an unlikely convert. William Burroughs, author of the controversial Naked Lunch, had trained as a Scientology Auditor, and was a Grade 5, or "Power," release. Burroughs said: "I am convinced that whatever anyone does, he will do it better after processing [auditing]." Burroughs later became Clear number 1163, of which he said: "It feels marvellous! Things you've had all your life, things you think nothing can be done about - suddenly they're not there any more! And you know that these disabilities cannot return.'' 11 Burroughs' enthusiasm for Scientology did not last, and his later work is peppered with abstruse attacks on Scientology. He even wrote a book called Naked Scientology. Scientology magazines were filled with news and photographs of smiling musicians, authors, models, dancers, doctors and scientists who espoused Scientology. Jazz composer Dave Brubeck's son went to Edinburgh to persuade a friend to leave the dreaded cult, and ended up joining the Sea Org. Actress Karen Black waxed lyrical about the benefits of auditing to other Hollywood stars. Bobby Richards, who orchestrated the music for Goldfinger, said "I always get much more out of Scientology than I expect." Scientologist Richard Grumm worked on the Mariner space program. 12 In this climate, Hubbard decided to prove the validity of "past lives" by taking the Avon River on a tour of the haunts of his previous incarnations. The "Whole Track Mission" was recorded in the book Mission into Time. Hubbard would make a plasticine model of an area before sending in a team to verify his predictions. They allegedly opened sealed caves, and found there what Hubbard had predicted. A variety of legends sprang out of the expedition. Among them that Hubbard was relocating caches of gold he had hidden in former lifetimes, especially as a Roman tax collector (it has been suggested that his earlier trip to Rhodesia was to recover the fortune buried in his supposed incarnation as Cecil Rhodes). Far more exciting, and less widely known, however, is the space ship legend. During the "Mission," Hubbard showed the crew some notes about their next destination. It was a hidden "space-station" in northern Corsica, "almost at the junction of the mainland and the northern peninsula and possibly slightly west of the island's meridian," according to one member of the "Mission," where a huge cavern, hidden among the rocks in mountainous terrain, housed an immense Mothership and a fleet of smaller spacecraft. The spaceships were made of a non-corrosive alloy, as yet undiscovered by earthlings. Only one palm print would cause a slab of rock to slide away, revealing these chariots of the gods. The owners of this machinery not only knew about reincarnation, they had even predicted Hubbard's palm print. Tales about this discovery were rife among Sea Org members. Hubbard was going to use the Mothership to escape from Earth. The ship was protected by atomic warheads. It awaited the return of a great leader, and there were rumors about a "Space Org." On the day Hubbard was to be put to this final test, the Mission was abandoned because of the trouble the Scotman was generating with the port authorities in Valencia. Hubbard never returned to collect the Mothership. The Royal Scotman had been asked several times to shift its berth. The ship's Port Captain steadfastly refused. What the Scientologists call a "flap" occurred, and the authorities, probably exacerbated by this quite usual display of Sea Org arrogance, had to be placated. A new captain was appointed, who did well for a short while, until the Scotman dragged anchor and nearly ran aground. Commodore Hubbard stayed aboard the Avon River, promoting his wife, Mary Sue, to the rank of Captain, and giving her command of the larger ship. The fleet moved to Burriana, a few miles along the Spanish coast, for repairs to the Royal Scotman. This time the Royal Scotman did run aground. The Commodore gravely assigned the ship, and all who sailed on her, the Ethics Condition of Liability. For several weeks a peculiar spectacle could be seen travelling up and down the Spanish coast: a ship with filthy gray tarpaulins tied about its funnel. Every crew member wore a gray rag. It is rumored that even Mary Sue's corgi dog, Vixie, wore a gray rag about her neck. Mary Sue suffered the long hours, the poor diet and the exhausting labor with the rest of the crew. Finally, the Royal Scotman rejoined the Avon River in Marseilles. The crew paraded, sparkling in new uniforms, and the Commodore held a ceremony to upgrade the ship from Liability, so ending the "Liability Cruise." Soon after, Hubbard moved with his top Aides to the Royal Scotman, which became the Flagship of the Sea Org fleet. Scientologists called it simply "Flag." 13 In 1968, Hubbard's Ethics was put into action with the chain-locker punishment. A chain-locker is "a dark hole where the anchor chains are stored; cold, wet and rats," to quote one ex-Sea Org officer. The lockers are below the steering in the bowels of the ship. A tiny manhole gives access, and they are unlit. When a crew member was in a low enough Ethics Condition, he or she would be put in a chainlocker for up to two weeks. John McMaster says a small child, perhaps five years old, was once consigned to a chain-locker. He says she was a deaf mute, and that Hubbard had assigned her an Ethics condition for which the formula is "Find out who you really are." She was not to leave the chain locker until she completed the formula by writing her name. McMaster says Hubbard came to him late one night in some distress, and asked him to let the child out. He did, cursing Hubbard the while. Another witness claims that a three-year-old was once put in the locker. Another Ethics Condition had the miscreant put into "old rusty tanks, way below the ship, with filthy bilge water, no air, and hardly sitting height... for anything from twenty-four hours to a week... getting their oxygen via tubes, and with Masters-at-Arms [Ethics Officers] checking outside to hear if the hammering continued. Food was occasionally given in buckets," according to a former Sea Org executive. The miscreants were kept awake, often for days on end. They ate from the communal food bucket with their blistered and filthy hands. They chipped away at the rust unceasingly. As another witness has tactfully put it, "there were no bathroom facilities." While these "penances" were being doled out, the first "overboard" occurred. The ships were docked in Melilla, Morocco, in May 1968. One of the ship's executives was ashore and noticed that the hawsers holding the Scotman and the Avon River were crossed. He undid a hawser, and found himself grappling with the full mass of an unrestrained ship as it drifted away from the dock. Mary Sue Hubbard ordered that the officer be hurled from the deck. There was a tremendous crash as he hit the water. Ships have a "rubbing strake" beneath the waterline to keep other ships at bay in a collision. The overboarded officer had hit the steel rubbing strake! The crew peered anxiously over the side waiting for the corpse to float to the surface. The bedraggled officer was surprised when he walked up the gangplank and found the crew still craning over the far side of the ship. Fortunately for Mrs. Hubbard's conscience, and the failing public repute of Scientology, the officer concerned was not only a good swimmer, but also expert at Judo. Most fortunate of all, he had seen the rubbing strake, and the explosive crash was caused when he thrust himself away as he fell. For a short time, overboarding was abandoned. It is difficult to comprehend the stoicism with which some Scientologists suffered the Ethics Conditions. It is remarkable even to many ex-Scientologists. It is even more remarkable that most Scientologists have probably never heard of the chain-locker, bilge tank or overboarding punishments. Scientologists were used to Hubbard's auditing techniques, where they did not question the reasoning behind a set of commands, but simply answered or carried them out. Many spent their time trying to keep out of trouble, or, when trouble unavoidably came, getting out of the Ethics Condition quickly by whatever means they could. Most Sea Org members accepted these bizarre practices out of devotion to Hubbard. It is impossible to add to these stark details a convincing picture of Hubbard's charisma. The Sea Org saw themselves as the elite, the chosen few, who would return life after life to rejoin their leader in the conquest of suffering. Hubbard released religious and military fervors in his disciples. Back on dry land in East Grinstead the farce of Scientology Ethics, and its applicability in dealing with non-Scientologists, continued with a letter to twenty-two local businesses:
The banned "shops" included a solicitor's firm. Another business was "highly commended" for displaying Scientology books, in the face of local criticism. Hubbard's Public Relations and Ethics "technologies" rebounded in Britain. In July 1968, the British government finally made its move. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: RJ 67; correspondence with Hana Eltringham/Whitfield; interviews with O.R., a former Sea Org executive; interviews with McMaster; interview with Virginia Downsborough; also interviews with Neville Chamberlin, Kenneth Urquhart, Bill Robertson, Phil Spickler 1. News of the World, 28 July 1968; Evans, p.88; interview with witness 2. HCOPL, "Conditions, Awards, Penalties," 27 September 1967 (not in Organization Executive Course) 3. Sunday Mirror, 24 December 1967 4. HCOPL, "Condition of Liability," 6 October 1967 (not in Organization Executive Course) 5. HCOPL, "Penalties for Lower Conditions," 18 October 1967 (not in Organization Executive Course) 6. Garrison, Playing Dirty, p.75; Foster report, para 216 7. Sunday Mirror, 18 November 1967 8. Foster report, para 216 9. The People, 18 February 1968 10. Articles of incorporation OTC; CSC vs. IRS, 24 September 1984 11. Auditor 32, p.5; Auditor 39 12. Auditors 37 & 39 13. Vosper, p. 178; Auditor 43 14. Sunday Express, 14 July 1968
CHAPTER THREE
On July 25, 1968, Kenneth Robinson, the British Minister of Health, made a statement in Parliament about Scientology. Having called it a "pseudo-philosophical cult," he reminded the House of his earlier pronouncement:
Scientology establishments in Britain were stripped of their educational status. Foreign nationals were prohibited from studying Scientology or working in Scientology Organizations, by invoking the "Aliens Act," through which the Home Secretary can deny entry to Britain. The Home Office banned Hubbard from Britain as an "undesirable alien." East Grinstead's Member of Parliament, Geoffrey Johnson Smith, repeated Robinson's earlier statement, originally made in Parliament, that Scientologists, "direct themselves towards the weak, the unbalanced, the immature, the rootless and the mentally or emotionally unstable." He made the statement on television, beyond the bounds of parliamentary privilege, so the Scientologists filed suit against him for defamation. 1 At the end of July, a hundred foreign Scientologists were rounded up, and detained under guard in hotels, pending deportation. Scotland Yard began to investigate Scientology. The National Council for Civil Liberties objected to the use of the Aliens Act on the grounds that it was "objectionable in principle and dangerous in practice." 2 The Scientologists sued four English newspapers, and sought injunctions to prevent further stories. The injunctions were denied. New telephone directories carried a large advertisement for Scientology, and an embarrassed General Post Office announced that no further ads would be accepted. 3 There was a general feeling that although something should be done about Scientology the Aliens Act was not the way to do it. But the expression of public sympathy was restrained. A fortnight before the ban, the Daily Mail had reported the death of ex-Scientologist John Kennedy, in South Africa. Kennedy had left Scientology to set up his own Institute of Mental Health, taking a number of Scientologists with him. He allegedly shot himself accidently while cleaning his revolver, but the coroner returned an open verdict. Hubbard's Auditor magazine recorded the matter simply, and ominously:
This was actually stale news, Kennedy died in 1966, but three days after the Aliens Act was introduced, another South African Scientologist died in mysterious circumstances. James Stewart had been a student at the Scientology Advanced Organization in Edinburgh. He was a thirty-five-year-old epileptic, whose body was found fifty feet beneath his hotel window. The newspapers missed vital information in their reports. A few days before his death, Stewart had completed an Ethics Condition wherein he stayed awake for eighty hours. One of his tasks during this period was to crawl about the carpets picking out bits of fluff. According to Robert Kaufman, in his firsthand account, a bulletin had been posted on the Advanced Org notice board: 5
Stewart's real crime, having had a severe seizure, was telling the hospital that he was a Scientologist, thus supposedly giving Scientology a bad name. He had injured his head, and wore a blood-stained bandage while performing his demeaning "amends project." He was possibly made to crawl across the steep and slippery slates of the Org roof, as a final part of his Doubt Formula. This bizarre practice was quite usual at the time. 6 Shortly before his death, Stewart had been suspended from his course at the AO. On the day he read a funeral notice for Stewart, fellow student Robert Kaufman saw Stewart's widow, Thelma, giving an enthusiastic speech on her completion of OT 2. In his book, Inside Scientology, Kaufman said Thelma "victoriously received the applause of AO members." A Scientology spokesman told the press, "Mrs. Stewart does not know how it happened, but she does know it had nothing to do with Scientology." The press was also told that Mrs. Stewart was a "more serious" student than her husband. In fact, Stewart, described in the newspapers as an encyclopedia salesman, 7 had been a founder of the Cape Town Scientology Org, and was a senior executive there. He was a Class VII Auditor, the highest level of training at the time, Clear number 153 (there were over 2,000 by then), and was on OT 3 when he died. One of his Success Stories was published in the Auditor magazine at around the time of his death. It was headed, "How Scientology Training Has Helped Me In Life":
The Scientologists very readily disown embarrassing members, especially in death. Unfortunately, to them the repute of Scientology is invariably more important than the truth. In a curious twist, Stewart's name was given to the press by the police. In Scotland, the names of suicides were not given to the press. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Stewart was murdered. This bizarre period of Scientology is recorded in stark detail in Robert Kaufman's Inside Scientology. Kaufman was the first who dared to publish details of the OT levels, and his book remains the best description of the Scientology experience. The response to the British Aliens Act ban was fairly immediate. Hubbard announced that his work was finished, saying he had resigned his "Scientology directorships two or more years ago to explore and study the decline of ancient civilization," perpetuating the tale he had told to receive his Explorers' Club flag. Hubbard accused England of being a police state. 8 An Advanced Org was started in Los Angeles to serve Scientologists in the Western hemisphere. But the ban, although rigorously enforced at first, soon fell into disuse. By the early 1970s, most of the students and staff at Saint Hill were foreigners.
Hubbard was interviewed by the Daily Mail, aboard the Royal Scotman, in Bizerte, Tunisia: "He chain-smoked menthol cigarettes, fidgeted nervously .... He taped the conversation .... Outside Scientologists, some in uniform and some young children, stood rigidly to attention .... Hubbard's mood ranged from the boastful - 'You'd be fascinated how many friends of mine there are in the British Government' to the menacing: 'I get intelligence reports from England. You'd be surprised at the dirty washing I have got.' " 10 Hubbard insisted he was no longer connected with Scientology, and told the reporter that everything in the Daily Mail's Scientology file was forged. He knew because he had seen it, through his "spies." Hubbard also gave a rare interview to British television, again looking nervous, and contradicted himself both on the number of his marriages, and whether or not he had a Swiss bank account. Despite his supposed discoveries about communication and public relations, Hubbard fell far short of winning over the press. 11 At the end of August 1968 in New York, Jill Goodman became the world's youngest Clear. Her picture was featured in the Auditor magazine. She was ten years old, and she and her eight-year-old brother were already qualified Auditors. 12 In mid-August, the Royal Scotman had slipped into Corfu harbor. At first all went well. According to one newspaper, the Sea Org enriched the Corfiot economy by about £1,000 per day. They were welcomed by the harbormaster, and the local press. 13
Every Scientology Org was ordered to send two Auditors to be trained as "Class VIIIs." As "VIIIs" their auditing would be "flubless." The course would take three weeks, so previous Ethics procedures were of little use - they took too long to administer. Rather than languishing in the chain-locker for a week, or doing three days without sleep on "amends projects," students were to be subject to "instant Ethics," or overboarding. There is no doubt that Hubbard ordered this (one ex-Sea Org officer says Hubbard even took out his home movie camera and filmed it once or twice). 15 Scientologists who joined after 1970 are often unaware that overboarding took place. Most who have heard of it, and those who were subjected to it, dismiss it as a passing phase; unpleasant, but no longer significant. People who experienced it often shrug it off, and even insist that it was "research." It can take persistence to extract an admission of the reality of overboarding. Students and crew were lined up on deck in the early hours every morning. They waited to hear whether they were on the day's list of miscreants. Those who knew they were would remove their shoes, jackets and wristwatches in anticipation. The drop was between fifteen and forty feet, depending upon which deck was used. Sometimes people were blindfolded first, and either their feet or hands loosely tied. Non-swimmers were tied to a rope. Being hurled such a distance, blindfolded and restrained, into cold sea water, must have been terrifying. Worst of all was the fear that you would hit the side of the ship as you fell, your flesh ripped open by the barnacles. Overboarding was a very traumatic experience. 16 The course lectures too seem to have been a traumatic experience for many. Hubbard lectured from a spotlit dais, surrounded by the female Commodore's Staff Aides in flowing white gowns. The lectures were peppered with the old easygoing manner, but punctuated with tablebanging and bouts of yelling. Later, some of Hubbard's tantrums were edited from the tapes of the lectures. The lectures were "confidential," and only fully indoctrinated Scientologists could attend. Students wore green boiler-suits, and, after a certain point on the course, added a short noose of rope around their necks as a mark of honor. They had little time for sleep, and were inevitably extremely cautious in their auditing. If they made a mistake, it was "instant Ethics," and they were heaved over the side. 17 Hubbard published the purpose of the Class VIII course: "It's up to the Auditor to become UNCOMPROMISINGLY STANDARD . . . an uncompromising zealot for Standard Tech." Sea Org "Missions" were dispatched from Corfu to all corners of the world to bully Org staffs into higher production. Hubbard pronounced that such "Missions" had "unlimited Ethics powers." 18 Alex Mitchell of the London Sunday Times reported that a woman with two children had run screaming from the ship, only to be rounded up and returned by her fellow Scientologists. The journalist also said that eight-year-old children were being overboarded:
Kenneth Urquhart joined the ship at Corfu. From Hubbard's butler he had risen to become a senior executive at Saint Hill. He had resolutely avoided joining the Sea Org, but was finally cajoled into travelling to Corfu. He was amazed at the change in Hubbard. At Saint Hill he had seen him every day. Although Hubbard occasionally lost his temper, Urquhart had only once seen him quivering with rage. Now screaming fits were a regular feature. OT 3 and the Sea Org had transformed Hubbard. Amid the turmoil, and with the pressure of the UK ban, and swathes of bad press, Hubbard cancelled enforced Disconnection. The practice of labelling an individual Fair Game was also cancelled: 20
Shortly after arriving in Corfu, Hubbard had issued a Bulletin to Scientologists abolishing Security Checks and the practice of writing down Preclears' misdeeds. 21 In point of fact the name of Security Checking was changed: first to Integrity Processing and then to Confessional Auditing. However, the Sec Check lists of questions written by Hubbard in the 1960s remained, and are still in use. A record of the Preclear's utterances during an auditing session is made by the Auditor, and kept by the Org he works for.
All was not well on the Scientology home front, in England. An application to local authorities for permission to expand Saint Hill castle had been denied. The Scientologists were ordered to pay the legal costs of three of the newspapers they were suing before they could proceed. The son of Scientology spokesman David Gaiman was refused a place at an East Grinstead school until Scientology had cleared its name. Foreign Scientologists posed as tourists to attend a Congress in Croydon, to evade enforcement of the Aliens Act. Gaiman said, "They disguised themselves as humans." It was fair comment. 22 The English High Court refused to rule against the Home Office's use of the Aliens Act. The Scientologists fought back with more than forty court writs issued for slander or libel on a single day. The Rhodesian government, which had refused to renew Hubbard's visa in 1966, introduced a ban on the importation of material which promoted, or even related to, the practice of Scientology. The states of Southern and Western Australia joined Victoria in banning Scientology totally. The Sea Org seemed to have put to sea just in time. The Western Australian "Scientology Prohibition Act" was far more succinct than that of Victoria:
The Scientologists' response to the bans was in character:
The public seemed perfectly willing to witness the destruction of Scientology. Neither the promised exposure of the "hidden men" nor the destruction of "all churches and churchmen" ensued. Instead, David Gaiman, head of the Public Relations Bureau of the Guardian's Office, issued a "Code of Reform." The severe puritanical and punitive approach was no longer necessary. The Church was going to become a moderate and liberal organization, which would continue its battle against the evils of psychiatry (spokesmen are trained to attack psychiatry as a response to any criticism of Scientology). Thirty-eight libel suits were dropped. And while the press and governments were being assured of this new liberal attitude, the new Class VIIIs were returning to their Orgs and instituting their own forms of overboarding. 23 In the Edinburgh Advanced Org, the miscreant was thrown into a bath of hot, cold or dirty water. In Los Angeles, he or she would be hosed down fully clothed in the parking lot, though later a large water tank was used. John McMaster has said that in Hawaii the offender's head would be pushed into a toilet bowl, and the toilet flushed. The same technique was used in Copenhagen. In the Advanced Orgs in Edinburgh and Los Angeles, staff were ordered to wear all-white uniforms, with silver boots, to mimic the Galactic Patrol of seventy-five million years before. According to Hubbard's Flag Order 652, mankind would accept regulation from that group which had last betrayed it. So the Sea Org were to ape the instigators of the OT 3 incident. By the same token, all the book covers were revised to show scenes from the supposedly lethal incident. "Captain" Bill Robertson, who introduced the uniforms to both Edinburgh and Los Angeles, also ordered a nightwatch in Los Angeles. The crew assembled on the roof every night to watch for the spaceships of Hubbard's enemies. "Captain" Bill has continued his crusade against the invading aliens, the "Markabians," into the 1990s. In Britain, in January 1969, Sir John Foster was appointed to conduct an Inquiry into Scientology. In Perth, Australia, police raided the local Org, and fourteen individual Scientologists, and the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International, were prosecuted for "practising Scientology." In New Zealand in February, another Inquiry got underway. Hubbard was still trying to ingratiate himself with the military junta which controlled Greece. He applauded them in a press interview saying "the present Constitution represents the most brilliant tradition of Greek democracy." To win favor, Hubbard announced the formation of the Help Greece Committee which issued a promotional piece for a "University of Philosophy in Corfu." He boasted that "Most professors of psychology and schools of psychology foresee as part of their lessons [the] subject of dianetics and scientology." The symbol of the Help Greece Committee was a Greek Orthodox cross set at the center of the thirteen-leaved laurels of the Sea Organization. This was not a tactful gesture; Bishop Polycarpos was already concerned about the spiritual influence of Scientology. The British Vice-Consul, John Forte, was more concerned with the material influence of Scientology. He had been receiving complaints since the Scientologists arrived. He later published a booklet called The Commodore and the Colonels describing his experiences. Forte became interested in several defections from the Apollo, including that of William Deitch, who disappeared completely. Early in March 1969, a detachment of U.S. Marines arrived. Colin Craig met a group of them, and described life aboard a Scientology ship. The Marines insisted that he tell his story to the British Vice-Consul immediately. Craig and another Belfast man, Jack Russell, had answered an advertisement for maintenance fitters. Arriving on Corfu, they were assigned to the Apollo's fifteen-year-old Chief Engineer. Russell was attracted to Scientology, but Craig was so alarmed that he feigned illness and locked himself in his cabin. With Forte's assistance they were both repatriated. While this was taking place, Hubbard announced that Scientology was "going in the direction of mild ethics and involvement with the Society. After nineteen years of attack by minions of vested interest, psychiatric front groups, we developed a tightly disciplined organizational structure... we will never need a harsh spartan discipline for ourselves." 24 The Greek government, concerned by the many complaints it had received, peremptorily ordered the two hundred or so Scientologists on Corfu to leave Greek territory. Protests were made that the Apollo was not seaworthy, so the ship was inspected, and declared fit for a voyage in the Mediterranean. The flagship Apollo was given twenty-four hours to leave Greek waters. She left on March 19, ostensibly for Venice. Two days later a young Scientologist arrived, and introduced himself to Vice-Consul Forte. When asked why the Apollo had left, Forte simply handed him Hubbard's printed explanation. The departure was "due to unforeseen foreign exchange troubles and the unstable middle eastern situation." Forte discovered many years later that the Scientologist had subsequently burgled both his office and his villa looking for evidence of Forte's involvement with the Conspiracy. Soon afterwards, an Inquiry started in South Africa. Hubbard turned his back on the "wog" world, and concentrated on introducing a new form of Dianetics, and integrating it into the Scientology "Bridge." He issued a bizarre order to the Sea Org, called "Zones of Action," which outlined his plans. Scientology was going to take over those areas controlled by Smersh (the evil organization fought by the fictional James Bond), rake in enormous amounts of cash, clean up psychotherapy, infiltrate and reorganize every minority group, and befriend the worst foes of the Western nations. Hubbard's stated intention was to undermine a supposed Fascist conspiracy to rule the world. On June 30, 1969, the New Zealand Commission submitted its report. Their attitude to Scientology was sensible. Rather than banning, fining or imprisoning Scientologists, they recommended the cessation of disconnection and Suppressive Person declares against family members. Further, they recommended that no auditing or training be given to anyone under twenty-one, without the consent of both parents (including consent to the fee), and a reduction of the deluge of promotional literature and prompt discontinuance when requested. The Commission recommended that no legislative action be taken. However, it found "clear proof of the activities, methods, and practices of Scientology in New Zealand contributing to estrangements in family relationships . . . the attitude of Scientology towards family relationships was cold, distant, and somewhat uninterested . . . the Commission received a letter from L. Ron Hubbard stating that the Board of Directors of the Church of Scientology had no intention of reintroducing the policy [of disconnection]. He also added that, for his part, he could see no reason why the policy should ever be reintroduced .... This undertaking does not go as far as the Commission had hoped... [it was seen that] the activities, methods, and practices of Scientology did result in persons being subjected to improper or unreasonable pressures." Nonetheless, the New Zealand Government did not outlaw the practice of Scientology. The tide appeared to be turning. In July, the Church of Scientology scored a victory of sorts in their long-running battle with the Food and Drug Administration in the United States. In 1963, the FDA had raided the Washington Org, seizing E-meters and books. The whole affair had been in and out of the courts from that time. Now a Federal judge ruled that although the E-meter had been "mis-branded," and that its "secular" use should be banned, it might still be used for "religious" counselling, as long as it was carefully relabeled to indicate that it had no curative or diagnostic capabilities. To this day the Church of Scientology has never fully complied with the relabeling order, but E-meters do carry an abbreviated version of it. This was not the end of the FDA case, however. Also in 1969, an Advanced Organization was opened in Copenhagen. Now the OT levels were available in England at Saint Hill (the Edinburg AO had moved there), in Los Angeles, in Copenhagen, and aboard the "flagship" Apollo. Up until this time the "First Real Clear," John McMaster, had been the emissary of Scientology. He had braved the incisive questioning of television interviewers, and, overcoming much bad publicity, inspired many people to join Scientology. He had even been sent as a Scientology representative to the United Nations in New York by Hubbard, and managed to secure interviews with several important people. In November 1969, John McMaster resigned from the Church of Scientology. He felt that the "Technology" of Scientology was of tremendous value, but questioned the motives of those managing the Church, most especially Hubbard. McMaster probably feared for his own safety. He had been overboarded several times, and the last time was left struggling in the water for three hours with a broken collarbone. The last straw for McMaster had been the brutal murder of three teenagers in Los Angeles. Two had been Scientologists, the third was disfigured beyond identification. The mutilated bodies were left a hundred yards away from a house where Scientologists lived. McMaster felt that this was an act of retribution for Scientology's duplicity. A few weeks later, The New York Times revealed that Charles Manson had been involved in Scientology. Internal Scientology documents show that Manson had actually received about 150 hours of auditing while in prison. There was a cover-up by the Guardian's Office, which successfully concealed the extent of Manson's considerable involvement. In 1970, the Ontario Committee on the "Healing Arts" pronounced: "With no other group in the healing arts did the Committee encounter the uncooperative attitude evinced by the Church of Scientology... the public authorities in Ontario ... should keep the activities of Scientology under constant scrutiny." However, no recommendations were made for the proscription of Scientology. In November that same year, the Scientologists' libel case against Geoffrey Johnson Smith, East Grinstead's Member of Parliament, finally came to court. The Church produced several impressive witnesses. William Benitez had spent most of his adult life in prison for drug offences by the time he encountered Scientology. His life had been transformed, he had overcome his drug habit, and set up Narconon to help others do the same. Sir Chandos Hoskyns-Abrahall, the retired Lieutenant Governor of Western Nigeria, said of his own involvement in Scientology: "I thought at first there might be something in it. I ended up convinced there was everything in it." But the most startling witness was Kenneth Robinson's former parliamentary private secretary. William Hamling was the Member of Parliament for Woolwich West, and had decided to find out about Scientology for himself. He used the most direct method: going to Saint Hill and taking a Communication Course. In the witness box, Hamling called the course "first rate." He said the Scientologists he had met were normal, decent, intelligent people. He had received auditing, and, in fact, continued in Scientology after the court case.
Instructing the jury Mr. Justice Browne said, "You may think that Mrs. Henslow picked up all the stones thrown at her in the witness box, and threw them back with equal force." He called the love-letters written by Karen Henslow to her Scientologist boyfriend "quite heartbreaking," and added: "You may think it absolutely disgraceful that these letters should have got into the hands of the scientologists, or been used in this case... you have to give those letters the weight that you feel right." The case had lasted for thirty-two days when the jury showed exactly what weight they gave to the letters, and to the Scientologists. They decided that Johnson Smith's statement - that Scientologists "direct themselves deliberately towards the weak, the unbalanced, the immature, the rootless, and the mentally or emotionally unstable' 'was not defamatory; was published "in good faith and without malice"; and was "fair comment." The case had backfired completely on the Scientologists. Costs, which The Times newspaper estimated at £70,000, were awarded against them. Spokesman David Gaiman said there would be no appeal. The decision seemed to have no effect on Hubbard, and two days later, he blithely issued Flag Order 2673 to the Sea Org. It was called "Stories Told," and explained that OTC, which ran the ships, was actually involved in training businessmen, and that is what Scientologists were to say if asked. The crew did tell this "shore" story, avoiding any mention of Scientology. It had become too controversial. So, another layer of deceit was built into Scientology's approach to the "wog" world. But the Scientologists weren't the only people guilty of deceit. In the U.S., devious actions against Scientology were underway. President Nixon had put Scientology on his "Enemies List," and the Internal Revenue Service began to make life difficult for Scientologists. The CIA passed reports (some speculative and inaccurate) on Scientology through U.S. consulates to foreign governments. These underhand tactics all eventually backfired, making sensible measures curbing the Church of Scientology's abuses more difficult. 25 After only three years' suspension, Scientology's hefty Ethics penalties were reintroduced in 1971, unnoticed by the media, or by the governments which had shortly before been so interested. 26 In December, Sir John Foster submitted his report to the British Government. In the introduction he said:
He further recommended that "psychotherapy... should be organized as a restricted profession open only to those who undergo an appropriate training and are willing to adhere to a proper code of ethics." Undoubtedly, the Scientology Ethics Conditions did not meet his criteria for a "proper code." The Foster report was a tour de force, patiently constructed, largely from Hubbard's own statements. However, the British Government did nothing. The use of the Aliens Act carried on, and foreign Scientologists continued to study and work for Scientology in Britain by the simple expedient of not declaring their philosophical persuasion when they arrived. The Guardian's Office gave advice and assistance to secure visas. One ex-Scientologist has joked that if the Home Office had checked they would have realized there were over 100 people living in his small apartment. The treatment of crew aboard the ships did improve in the early 1970s, but only after several years of chain-locker punishments and overboarding. Nonetheless, the Sea Org still worked an exhausting schedule, and obeyed Hubbard's whims. At times he was patient, even tolerant, at other times a bellowing monster. The kitchen staff were known as galley-slaves. They worked disgraceful hours in the heat and stench of the kitchens. In the summer of 1971, a tragic event befell one of those galley-slaves. It is shrouded in mystery to this day. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Rolph; the Auditor; Forte, The Commodore and the Colonels; interviews with Chamberlin, O.R., Urquhart and McMaster. 1. Foster report, para 14; Rolph, pp.74ff 2. Evening News, 31 July 1968; Daily Sketch, 31 July 1968; Daily Telegraph, 7 August 1968 3. Evening News, 1 August 1968 4. Auditor 17, back page 5. The Observer, 11 August 1968; Kaufman, pp. 195--6f; Cooper, pp.81-2 6. Interview with Phil Spickler, Woodside, California, October 1986 7. Kaufman; The Observer, 11 August 1968; Auditor, "Special South African Issue," c. summer 1968 8. Daily Sketch, 2 August 1968 9. Daily Mail, 3 August 1968 10. Daily Mail, 6 August 1968 11. The Shrinking World of L. Ron Hubbard, Granada Television, 1968 12. Auditor 43, pp. 2 & 4 13. Playing Dirty p.75; Commodore and the Colonels, p.19 14. Auditor 41 15. Chamberlin to author, 1984 16. Chamberlin to author, 1984; Commodare and the Colonels 17. Interview McMaster; Interview Chamberlin; Technical Volumes vol. 6, p.276 18. Technical Volumes vol. 6, p.273; Organization Executive Course 1, p.487 19. Technical Volumes vol. 6, p.276 20. Organization Executive Course 1, p.489 21. Organization Executive Course 1, p.486 22. Rolph, pp.63ff; Daily Telegraph & Daily Mirror, 6 August 1968; Daily Sketch, 13 August 1968; The People, 18 August 1968 23. Wallis, p. 196; Daily Telegraph, 25 November 1968 24. Wallis, p. 222 25. Playing Dirty, p.80; CSC vs. IRS, 24 September 1984 26. HCOPL, "Ethics Penalties Re-instated," 19 October 1971 (not in Organization Executive Course).
CHAPTER FOUR Susan Meister was introduced to Scientology in San Francisco in the autumn of 1970. By November, she was working at the San Francisco Org. She was an eager convert, and tried to persuade her parents to become Scientologists. She wanted to be close to the "Founder," and contribute to "Clearing the Planet," so in February 1971 she joined the Sea Org. By the end of the month she was aboard the "Flagship" Apollo. Her stay there was brief and tragic. On May 8, she wrote to her mother:
Four days later, Susan Meister wrote this letter:
Her last letter to her parents from the Apollo was dated June 1971. In it she thanked them for a birthday card, and a variety of gifts, including a new dress. She continued, showing the effect upon a young and impressionable mind Hubbard's obsession with the "great conspiracy" against him:
She once more urged her mother to read Hubbard's books, and take Scientology courses. Ten days after writing the letter, Susan was dead. George Meister, Susan's father, was away from his Colorado home on a business trip when Guardian's Office Public Relations man Artie Maren phoned. George Meister met Maren the next day, and was presented with an unsigned "fact sheet" giving the Scientologists' account of events as a series of numbered statements. Meister told Artie Maren that he wanted the body to be flown back to the U.S. for burial. Meister received a letter from Bob Thomas at the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles explaining that the "Panamanian" owners of the Apollo were not obliged to give information to the Church of Scientology. However, the Apollo's captain, Norman Starkey, had offered to pay for a Christian burial in Morocco, but regretted that they would not pay for the body to be returned to the United States. George Meister, dazed by the news, decided to go to Morocco to try and verify the circumstances of his daughter's death. He was told he would be able to see the body in the morgue in Safi. He left for Morocco on July 14. Meister was met at the airport in Casablanca by Sea Org member Peter Warren, who escorted him to the Marhaba Hotel. Meister met the U.S. vice-consul, Jack Galbraith, and explained the purpose of his mission. During this meeting with Gaibraith, Warren phoned to say he would drive Meister the 120 miles to Sail. Warren said the Apollo was already past its scheduled departure date, but would wait a little longer, because of Meister's presence. Meister arranged to leave the following morning at 6:00 a.m., accompanied by Galbraith, Warren and a Sea Org girl called Joni. Their first stop in Sail was the police station. Meister says the police official he spoke to genuinely tried to help. He showed Meister a photograph taken aboard the Apollo, showing the dead girl. According to her father, Susan was "lying on a bunk, wearing the new dress her mother had made for her, her arms crossed with a long barreled revolver on her breast. A bullet hole was in the center of her forehead and blood was running out of the corners of her mouth. I began to wonder how Susan could possibly shoot herself in the center of her forehead with the long barreled revolver. She would have had to hold it with both hands at arms length. There were no powder burns on her forehead, which certainly would have been the case if the gun was against her forehead as it would have to be to shoot herself as the photograph appeared." The police said the revolver was not available for inspection. Meister was shown the police report, but it was in French, which neither he nor Galbraith spoke. Meister was told that the police were unwilling to release copies of either the report or their photographs. Meister and Galbraith went on to the hospital where Susan's body had been taken. During the autopsy her intestines and her brains had been removed. Meister says that Warren admitted that he had given permission, believing that Susan might have been on drugs. Meister asked to see the body, which he had been told was in a refrigerated morgue. To his amazement, he was told by a doctor that they did not know where the body was. The next day, with Warren and Joni still in attendance, they had an audience with the Pasha of Safi. The Pasha told Meister he could not have copies of the police report, or the photographs. He said he had transferred the records to the provincial capital, Marrakesh. When Meister pressed him to find the whereabouts of Susan's body, the Pasha told him the interview was over. Meister asked Warren if he could see Ron Hubbard. He knew that Hubbard's daughter, Diana, was about Susan's age. In Meister's own words:
Meister and Galbraith returned to Casablanca. Meister found that the thirty or so films he had been carrying with him had disappeared, including the film he had shot of Sail and the Apollo.
Meister was outraged by this suggestion, and told Warren to deal with his attorney. "At the airport, just prior to boarding, I was accosted by a large man in a pinstripe suit carrying a briefcase. He said, 'We are watching you and so are the CIA and the FBI.' " After his return to the U.S., Meister found that his daughter had been buried in a Casablanca cemetery, wrapped in a burlap sack, before his visit to Morocco. He arranged to have the body exhumed and shipped to the U.S. in a sealed tin coffin. His local Health Authority, in Colorado, received an anonymous letter before the body was returned. It said in part:
The Los Angeles Times picked up the story: "According to a Nov. 11, 1971, letter from Assistant Secretary of State David M. Abshire to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - the Apollo's Port Captain threatened in the presence of the American Vice Consul from Casablanca, William J. Galbraith, that he had enough material, including compromising photographs of Miss Meister, to smear Mr. Meister. . . . Meister is said to have left Morocco the day before the threat was made." The Scientologists then launched a campaign against Galbraith, with little success; for example, telling newspaper men that he had threatened that the CIA would sink the Apollo! Meister received anonymous letters saying that his daughter had made pornographic films, and that she had been a drug addict. Meister says he continued to be harassed for six years. The harassment stopped around the time of the FBI raids on the Guardian's Office, in the Summer of 1977. If Susan Meister did commit suicide, several questions remain. She had been aboard the Apollo for four months. During that time, she sent consistently enthusiastic letters to her parents. To commit suicide, she must have undergone a very rapid mood change. She must also have lost her faith in the efficacy of Scientology. If this was so, what had caused this sudden shift of opinion, and why didn't she leave the Apollo? Letters were censored before leaving the Apollo, and the passports of those aboard were held by the Ethics Office. So perhaps she was unable to write the truth of what she had discovered, and unable to leave the ship. Perhaps. There is no concrete evidence to show that Susan Meister's death was not suicide. But the whole affair is compounded by the events which followed. By creating the Sea Org, and taking to the sea, Hubbard had successfully put himself beyond the law. There was no coroner's investigation into the death. It is likely that a verdict at least of foul play would have been returned if there had been such an investigation. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: "Scientology Said Susan Was a Suicide," article by George Meister; George Meister testimony, Clearwater Hearings, May 1982; letter to the author from George Meister, 13 June 1986; also Urquhart interview, correspondence with Amos Jessup.
CHAPTER FIVE Susan Meister's death had no effect upon the Sea Org's relationship with Morocco. The Apollo crew established a land base, called the Tours Reception Center, in Morocco in 1971. They were trying to get into the king's favor, and started training government officials, including Moroccan Intelligence agents, in Scientology techniques. Officials were put on the E-meter and Security-Checked by French-speaking Sea Org members. The Hubbards moved ashore. 1
Hubbard also introduced the "Primary Rundown," where a student would "word-clear" ten Hubbard lectures about study. That meant going through the definition of every word in the lectures in a non "dinky" dictionary (to use Hubbard's expression), and using the word in every defined context until it was thoroughly understood. It was a gargantuan task. The word "of," for instance, has fifteen definitions in the World Book Dictionary, favored by Hubbard at the time. At the end of this arduous procedure, the student allegedly became "superliterate." The South African Commission of Enquiry submitted its report on Scientology in June 1972. It recommended that a Register for psychotherapists be established, as had the Foster Report in Britain. It also recommended that the practices of Disconnection, "public investigation" (i.e. noisy investigation), security checking, and the dissemination of "inaccurate, untruthful and harmful information in regard to psychiatry," should be legislated against. The report added: "No positive purpose will be served by the banning of Scientology as such." Neither this nor any other legislative action was actually taken. 3 The Apollo sailed from Morocco to Portugal in October, for repairs. Hubbard and a contingent of Sea Org members stayed behind. Morocco was as close as Hubbard ever came to having the ear of a government, but relations broke down. In the Scientology world, there is a rumor that the upset had something to do with Moroccan Intelligence, which does lend a certain mystique. A secret Guardian's Office investigation revealed a more prosaic error, however. In 1971, Hubbard had reintroduced Heavy Ethics, and Scientologists continued to use the Ethics Conditions. For being persistently late for their Scientology courses, members of the Moroccan Post Office were assigned a condition of "Treason." To the Moroccans, "Treason," no matter how much it was word-cleared, meant only one thing: execution. The Post Office officials set themselves against the Scientologists, and won. 4 As a grim footnote, the Moroccan official who had negotiated with the Scientologists was later executed for treason. The contacts with Intelligence had actually been with a faction which was to fail in an attempted coup d'etat. The panic, starting from Hubbard's typically exaggerated use of a simple word, ended with an order for the Scientologists to quit Morocco, in December 1972. Hubbard himself was given only twenty-four hours. He flew to Lisbon, and then secretly on to New York. The French had instituted proceedings against him for fraud, so he had to duck out of sight. He was being labeled undesirable by more and more governments. Meanwhile, in Spain, eight Scientologists had been arrested for possession of chocolates laced with LSD. They were held in filthy cells for four days, and interviewed by a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent. As it turned out the chocolates did not contain LSD. 6 Two Sea Org members accompanied Hubbard to New York. The three stayed in hiding for nine months. Hubbard was in poor health. Photographs taken at the time show an overweight, dishevelled man with a large growth on his forehead. Despite his supposed resignation from management in 1966, Hubbard had continued to control the affairs of his Church, usually on a daily basis. Now he had only a single telex machine. His prolific Scientological output ground almost to a halt. What little he wrote shows a preoccupation with his poor physical condition. In July, he published an exhaustive summary of approaches to ill health. He also initiated the "Snow White Program," directing his Guardian's Office to remove negative reports about Scientology from government files, and track down their source. He was convinced of the conspiracy against him, and had no qualms about breaking the law to achieve the "greatest good for the greatest number," meaning the greatest good for L. Ron Hubbard. 7 While Hubbard was in New York, the Australian states began the process which eventually led to the repeal of their Scientology Prohibition Acts. The State of Victoria, which had started the Australian crackdown, even gave the Church of the New Faith (aka Scientology) tax-exemption. In the U.S. the Food and Drug Administration was ordered to return all the materials seized eight years earlier, although the E-meters were still adjudged to be mislabelled, which had been the real issue at stake. Another secret bank account was opened for Hubbard under the name United States Church of Scientology Trust. Hubbard was the sole trustee of this Swiss account, and it received large donations from Scientology organizations throughout the world. 8 In one of the few Bulletins issued during his stay in New York, Hubbard wrote:
Hubbard's hypocrisy knew no bounds. In an issue originally called "What Your Fees Buy" ("Fees" later became "Donations"), Hubbard continued to insist that he did not benefit financially from Scientology, and had donated $13½ million above and beyond the cost of his own research. He claimed that he had not been paid for his lectures and had not even collected author's royalties on his books. Scientologists could take Hubbard's word for it that none of the money they paid to the Church went to him. In August 1973, yet another new corporation was formed, once again with the sole purpose of siphoning funds to Hubbard. Hubbard was to prove yet again that in matters of taxation, the man with the "most imagination" wins, and Hubbard had a very vivid imagination. The Religious Research Foundation was incorporated in Liberia. Non-U.S. students paid the RRF for their courses on the Flagship, so the corporation which ran the ship was not being paid, and the money was going straight into an account controlled by Hubbard. The Scientology Church was again billed retroactively for earlier services rendered. This was the second time the Church had paid Hubbard for these services: retroactive billing was the function of the "LRH Good Will Account" in the late 1960s. The Church paid for the third time in 1982. Millions of dollars paid in good faith by Scientologists for the further dissemination of their beliefs went straight into Hubbard's personal accounts, and were used to keep him in luxury, with a million dollar camera collection, silk shirts tailored in Saville Row, and a large personal retinue at his beck and call. 9 Hubbard rejoined the Apollo at Lisbon in September 1973. He had complained about the dust aboard the flagship, so the crew spent three months crawling through the ventilation shafts of the ship cleaning them with toothbrushes, while the Apollo sailed between Portuguese and Spanish ports. 10
In Douglas' words: "He was revolting to be with - a sick, crotchety, pissed-off old man, extremely antagonistic to everything and everyone. His wife was often in tears and he'd scream at her at the top of his lungs, 'Get out of here!' Nothing was right. He'd throw his food across the room with his good arm; I'd often see plates splat against the bulkhead .... He absolutely refused to see another doctor. He said they were all fools and would only make him worse. The truth was that he was terrified of doctors and that's why everyone had to be put through such hell." While on the mend, Hubbard introduced his latest innovation in Ethics Technology: the "Rehabilitation Project Force." This became Scientology's equivalent to imprisonment, with more than a tinge of the Chinese Ideological Re-education Center. In theory the RPF deals with Sea Org members who consistently fail to make good. They are put on "MEST work," which is to say physical labor, and spend several hours each day confessing their overts (transgressions), and revealing their Evil Purposes. Life in the Sea Org was already fairly gruelling, but the Rehabilitation Project Force went several steps further. Gerry Armstrong, who spent over two years on the RPF, has given this description:
Others verify Armstrong's account. The RPF rapidly swelled to include anyone who had incurred Hubbard's disfavor. Soon about 150 people, almost a third of the Apollo's complement, were being rehabilitated. This careful imitation of techniques long-used by the military to obtain unquestioning obedience and immediate compliance to orders, or more simply to break men's spirits, was all part of a ritual of humiliation for the Sea Org member. Hubbard's railing against the "enemies of freedom" (i.e., the critics of Scientology) continued in a confidential issue: "It is my intention that by the use of professional PR tactics any opposition be not only dulled but permanently eradicated... If there will be a long-term threat, you are to immediately evaluate and originate a black PR campaign to destroy the person's repute and to discredit them so thoroughly that they will be ostracized." 13 Elsewhere Hubbard had defined black PR as "spreading lies by hidden sources," and added "it inevitably results in injustices being done." 14 Most Scientologists remain ignorant of the confidential PR issue. Despite Hubbard's research into the subject, public relations had not improved. In 1974, the Apollo was banned from several Spanish ports. In October, while she was moored in Funchal, Madeira, the ship's musicians, the "Apollo All Stars," held a rock festival. Something went terribly wrong, and the day ended with an angry crowd bombarding the Apollo with stones: a "rock" festival (the pun stuck and is generally used by those who were there). It started with a taxi arriving on the dock, from the trunk of which a small group of Madeirans unloaded stones. Bill Robertson, the Apollo's captain at the time, ordered the fire hoses to be turned on this small group, and soon the dock was milling with jeering Madeirans. The rioters tried to set the Apollo adrift. They pitched motorcycles and cars belonging to the Scientologists off the dock. A Scientology story that a Portuguese army contingent stood by and watched is not confirmed by witnesses. They also failed to mention the response of the Apollo crew, some of whom returned the barrage of stones and bottles. The Commodore marched up and down in his battle fatigues yelling orders, and finally the Apollo moved away from the dock to anchor off shore. Ironically, the Madeirans seem to have thought the Apollo was a CIA spy ship. Scientologists attribute this to CIA black PR. Other observers attribute it to the intensely secretive behaviour of the Apollo, and the ongoing "shore stories" (lies) about her real function and activities. 15 The Mediterranean had been effectively closed to the Apollo through Hubbard's paranoid secrecy and his inability to maintain friendly relations. Now the Spanish and Portuguese were set against her. Hubbard decided to head for the Americas, and it was announced that the Apollo was sailing for Buenos Aries. More subterfuge, as she was actually set for Charleston, South Carolina, by way of Bermuda. The Scientologists have it that a spy aboard the Apollo alerted the U.S. government of her true destination. They do not mention the advance mission of the Apollo All Stars, who usually preceded the ship to create a friendly atmosphere with music and song. After their reception in Madeira, the All Stars should have realized it was time to change their image. Instead they went ahead to Charleston. According to the Scientologists, the welcoming party waiting there included agents from the Immigration Office, the Drug Enforcement Agency, U.S. Customs, and the Coast Guard, along with several U.S. Marshals who were to arrest Hubbard, and deliver a subpoena for him to appear in an Internal Revenue Service case. 16 Just beyond the territorial limit, the Apollo caught wind of this reception committee, and, radioing that she was sailing for Nova Scotia, changed course for the West Indies. The Apollo then cruised the Caribbean. Initially relations were good, but soon, despite all the efforts of the Apollo All Stars, and Ron's new guise as a professional photographer (trailing his "photo-shoot org" behind him), the welcome wore thin. 17 In Curaçao, in the summer of 1975, Hubbard had a heart attack. Despite his protests, Kima Douglas, his medical orderly, rushed him to hospital. While in the ambulance Hubbard suffered a pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in the artery to his lungs). He spent two days in intensive care, and three weeks in a private hospital. While there his food was carried ten miles from the ship. Three Messengers sat outside his room twenty-four hours a day (they had to make do with the hospital food). He did not return to the Apollo for another three months. 18 While the Commodore was incapacitated, several of his U.S. churches recouped their tax-exempt status, and the Attorney General of Australia lifted the ridiculous ban on the word Scientology. An Appeal Court in Rhodesia also lifted a ban on the import of Scientology materials. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: "Debrief of Jim Dincalci on NY Trip with LRH"; What Is Scientology?, pp. 154-8 & 184 1. Sea Org Orders of the Day ("OODs"), 7 June 1971; GA 15, pp.2482-4 & 17, pp. 2847-9 2. Hubbard, The Management Series 1970-1974, p.384 3. Wallis, p.198 4. Interview with witness 5. Vol. 9 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153, p.1436; Playing Dirty, p.80 6. Playing Dirty, p.82 7. Armstrong vol. 17, p.2675f; Schomer in GA 25, p.4480; Technical Volumes vol. 8, p. 189; Guardian Order 732, "Snow White Program," 28 April 1073. 8. CSC vs. IRS, 24 September 1984, p.66 9. Kima Douglas in Armstrong vol. 25, pp.4444ff; Laurel Sullivan in Armstrong vol. 19A, pp.3007, 3018 & 3020; Mary Sue Hubbard in Armstrong vol. 17, p.2776 10. Armstrong vol. 9, p. 1436; Urquhart interview 11. Miller interview with Kima Douglas, Oakland, California, September 1986. 12. Gerald Armstrong affidavit, March 1986, pp.53ff 13. BPL "Confidential - PR Series 24 - Handling Hostile Contacts / Dead Agenting," 30 May 1974 (not in Organization Executive Course) 14. Hubbard, Modern Management Technology Defined, definition 3 15. Playing Dirty, p.82; Interview Urquhart; Miller interview with Kima Douglas 16. Playing Dirty, p. 84 17. Armstrong vol. 9, p.1431; Sullivan in Armstrong vol. 19A, p.3190 18. Miller interview with Kima Douglas
CHAPTER SIX In August 1975, the Apollo returned to Curaçao. The Scientologists allege that an Interpol agent had given the report of the 1965 Australian Enquiry (the Anderson Report) to local newspapers and officials, and that Henry Kissinger had sent an unfavourable memo to most of the United States embassies in the Caribbean. The Dutch Prime Minister demanded that the "ship of fools" be ejected from Curaçao. So in October the Apollo was once again ordered out of port. 1 She sailed to the Bahamas. The crew was divided into three parties, and Scientology moved its headquarters back to shore, in the United States. Two groups established management outposts in New York and Washington, DC, and the third, including Hubbard, flew to Daytona, Florida. Hubbard lectured to a handpicked team of Sea Org members on his "New Vitality Rundown." 2 The Apollo lay at anchor in the Bahamas. Maintaining its usual secrecy, the Church of Scientology started to buy property in Clearwater, Florida. The town's name was obviously too much of a temptation to Hubbard, and he personally directed the project through his Guardian' s Office. In October, a front corporation, Southern Land Development and Leasing, agreed to purchase the 272-room Fort Harrison hotel for $2.3 million. The owners' attorney said it was one of the strangest transactions he had ever dealt with. He did not even have Southern Land Development's phone number. 3 In November, Southern Land added the Bank of Clearwater building to its holdings for $550,000. A spokesman kept up the pretense, by announcing that the properties had been purchased for the United Churches of Florida. He pledged openness. No connection to Scientology was mentioned. The residents of Clearwater had no idea that their town was being systematically invaded. This organization which promised the world a "road to truth" was still treading its own back alley of duplicity and subterfuge. The Guardian's Office was already preparing detailed reports on Clearwater, and its occupants and "opinion leaders." On November 26, Hubbard sent a secret order to the three principal officers of the Guardian's Office. It was called "Program LRH Security. Code Name: Power." The entire Guardian's Office was put on alert, so that any hint of government or judicial action concerning Hubbard would be discovered early enough to spirit him away from potential subpoena or arrest. As Hubbard was staying near to Clearwater, security there was to be especially tight. Despite contrary representations to Scientologists and the world at large, Hubbard was still very much in control of his Church. He said as much in an order to the head of the U.S. GO, complaining that he was not only having to direct the entire Church, but also the Guardian's Office. In the same order, Hubbard laid out strict security arrangements for his own proposed visits to the new Scientology properties in Clearwater. He explained that he wanted to become a celebrity in the area, as a photographer, and that his picture of the mayor would soon grace city hall. GO Program Order 158, "Early Warning System," issued on December 5th, 1975, instituted Hubbard's orders regarding his personal security. Distribution of the Order was highly restricted. Security was to be maintained by placing agents in the Offices of the United States Attorney in Washington and Los Angeles, the International Operations department of the IRS, the American Medical Association in Chicago, and several government agencies in Florida. Agents were already in place in the Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the IRS in both Washington and Los Angeles. This was not a matter of a small persecuted religion infiltrating government agencies to expose immoral actions committed by those agencies. In reality, it was a matter of protecting Hubbard from any inconvenience, let alone any litigation. 4 The Guardian's Office was in full swing, especially its Intelligence section, B-1. On December 5, "Project Power" was issued. Its purpose was to make United Churches indispensable to the Clearwater community. The Guardian's Office was to investigate the opponents of community leaders, using a minimum of illegally obtained information. United Churches would give this information to the community leader in question, and offer to make further investigations on his or her behalf. GO Operations would be mounted against such opponents. The example given in the Guardian's Order concerned a fictitious child molester called Mr. Schultz. Having obtained the mayor's permission to see what might be done to enhance the local park, outraged officials of United Churches would catch Mr. Schultz in the act. A GO Operation would then ruin Schultz completely. There was also an instruction to do a complete survey of the county to determine who was hostile to Scientology. There were to be dossiers on medical societies, clinics, hospitals, police departments, public relations agencies, drug firms, federal, state and local government agencies, the city council, banks, investment houses, Congressional representatives and Florida's two senators. As part of his new image, Hubbard directed a radio show for United Churches. Amazingly, no-one seemed to realize that United Churches was a front for Scientology. Hubbard bustled around wearing a tam o'shanter and a khaki uniform. Reverend Wicker, of the Calvary Temple of God, later said, "They introduced him to me as Mr. Hubbard, but that didn't mean anything to me - they said he was an engineer .... When I saw his picture in the paper, I felt like an idiot." 5
Cazares was added to the Enemies list. He was followed onto it by a journalist at the Clearwater Sun, who ran a story saying that the check paying for the Fort Harrison Hotel had been drawn on a Luxembourg bank. A day later the Guardian's Office put into effect a plan to destroy the career of journalist Bette Orsini of the St. Petersburg Times. She was closing in on the truth about the United Churches of Florida. 6 The Scientologists actually managed to pre-empt Orsini's story by a matter of hours. On January 28, 1976, a spokesman announced that the purchasers of the Fort Harrison Hotel and the Bank of Clearwater building were none other than the Church of Scientology of California. He reassured local people that although half of the mysterious new occupants of the buildings were Scientologists, United Churches would not be used to convert people to Scientology. On the same day, June Phillips (aka Byrne), joined the staff of the Clearwater Sun. Although the Sun paid her salary, she filed daily reports with the Guardian's Office. The next day, the Scientology spokesman said that if United Churches was not successful in its mission to bring harmony to the religious community (!), then the Fort Harrison Hotel would become a center for advanced Scientology studies. Then he made a series of allegations about the mayor, saying his "attack" was motivated by personal profit. Clearwater was the site for the new "Flag," the "Flag Land Base." Even before the buildings had been occupied, a new American Land Base had been promoted to Scientologists throughout the world. United Churches was just another shore story. Suddenly the town was swamped with youths in sailor suits, and a new kind of tourist with a fixed stare. The Hubbards and their retinue had moved into a block of apartments called King Arthur's Court, in Dunedin, about five miles north of Clearwater. 7 Hubbard decided to buy some new outfits. He did not follow his usual procedure, ordering the clothes from England via his personal secretary at Saint Hill. Instead he saw a local tailor, who turned out to be a great fan of Hubbard's science fiction, and promptly boasted about his meeting with the famous author. The newspapers soon followed the tailor's lead. Hubbard was very shy of publicity by this time, perhaps because of his increasingly poor health and appearance. The superman revered by Scientologists could not be seen to be a grossly overweight chainsmoker, with a large pointed lump on his forehead. Worse yet, Hubbard was afraid he would be subpoenaed to appear in one of the many court cases involving Scientology. Taking only three devoted Sea Org members with him, Hubbard fled Dunedin. His photo-portrait of the mayor of Clearwater never did hang in City Hall. 8 Hubbard had continued to direct the Guardian's Office, including the attack on Mayor Gabe Cazares. He personally ordered that Cazares' school records be obtained, perhaps believing that everyone lies about their academic qualifications. In February 1976, the Guardian's Office in Clearwater was a hive of activity. The St. Petersburg Times was threatened with a libel suit. Cazares was more than threatened: A million dollar suit was filed against him for libel, slander and violation of civil rights. As Hubbard had said in the 1950s, "The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win .... The law can be used very easily to harass." 9 Scientologists went to Alpine, Texas, and pored over records concerning the Cazares family at the county clerk's office, the police department, the office of the Border Patrol, and the local Roman Catholic church. They talked with doctors, long-term residents, even the midwife who had delivered Gabe Cazares. The Cazares' headstones in the graveyard were checked. The GO decided that the Gabriel Cazares who had been born in Alpine, Texas, could not possibly be their man. Obviously the accounts did not accord with their image of a Suppressive enemy of Scientology. A GO official assured his seniors that a handling of the Clearwater Chamber of Commerce was also underway (a Scientology agent had already joined). A Scientologist had applied for a job at the St. Petersburg Times. A dossier had been prepared on the Clearwater City Attorney, and data collections had been made on three reporters perceived to be enemies. A radio announcer who had been making broadcasts unfavorable to Scientology was fired after threat of legal action. He was rehired only after promising not to discuss Scientology on his program. These actions were bound to provoke some response. The Guardian's Office probably did not realize that their "enemies" would fight fire with fire. The St. Petersburg Times filed suit, charging that Hubbard and the Scientologists had conspired to "harass, intimidate, frighten, prosecute, slander, defame" Times employees. They sought an injunction against further harassment. Gabe Cazares filed an $8 million suit. He alleged that the Scientologists were attempting to intimidate him and prevent him from doing his job. February had been a very busy month. As we shall see in the next chapter, 1976 proved to be a very busy year.
Quentin had tried to measure up to his father's expectations - he was one of the few top-grade Class Twelve Auditors - but he did not share his father's temperament. By all accounts he was far too gentle to govern Scientology, or indeed to govern anything. All he wanted was to fly airplanes, and he often pleaded with his father to allow him to leave the Sea Org and do just that. He had disappeared several times in an attempt to escape. There was also an aspect of his nature which could never be reconciled with his father's philosophy: Quentin was a homosexual. There is little doubt that his death was self-inflicted, as he had attempted suicide before. 11 Mary Sue broke down and wailed when she heard the news. She later tried to persuade friends that her son had died from encephalitis. Quentin's father's response was cold-blooded, he was furious that his son had let him down. There was an immediate cover-up. Documents were stolen from the coroner's office and taken to Hubbard. In accordance with Hubbard's policy regarding bad news, Scientologists were not told about Quentin's death. Some who found out were told he had been murdered. In hiding in Washington, Hubbard busied himself trying to discover the secrets of the Soldiers of Light and the Soldiers of Darkness. He thoroughly agreed with the old gnostic belief that we are all born belonging firmly to one band or the other. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Documents referred to in text 1. Playing Dirty, p.86 2. Technical Volumes of Dianetics & Scientology vol. 11, p. 236 3. St. Petersburg Times, "Scientology," pp. 7, 2 & 27; Armstrong affidavit, March 1986, p.50. 4. GO Program Order 158; Mary Sue Hubbard Stipulation, pp.90f 5. St. Petersburg Times, "Scientology," p. 8 6. Clearwater Sun, 4 November 1979; St. Petersburg Times, "Scientology" 7. Terri Gamboa in vol. 24 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153, p.4238 8. Interview with witness 9. Technical Volumes of Dianetics & Scientology vol. 2, p. 157 10. Miller interview with Kima Douglas; coroner's reports 11. Interview with Frank Gerbode, Woodside, California, October 1986
CHAPTER ONE
The Office of the Guardian was created by Hubbard in a Policy Letter of March 1, 1966. He gave this as the Guardian's purpose:
In the Policy Letter, Hubbard spoke of the Guardian's role in the collection of information, so "one can predict which way cats are going to jump." The eventual downfall of the Guardian came through her use of methods which showed precisely where certain cats planned to jump.
The headquarters of the Guardian's Office were at Saint Hill in England. This was GO World Wide, or GOWW. In Hubbard's management system, the continents differ from those of the geographers': along with many of its occupants, Hubbard conceived the United Kingdom as a continent, quite distinct from Europe. America was divided in two, not at the isthmus of Panama, nor even along the Mason-Dixon line, but approximately at the Mississippi River. The Continental offices were: U.K., East U.S., West U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and Africa ("Latam" has been added since). The GO had Continental offices in each, run by a Deputy Guardian. These in turn had deputies in every Scientology Org, called Assistant Guardians. The Guardian's Office had six Bureaus: Legal, Public Relations, Information (initially called Intelligence), Social Coordination, Service (for GO staff training and auditing), and Finance. At GO World Wide there was a Deputy Guardian dealing with each of these functions. The Guardian's Office was administratively autonomous, taking orders only from Hubbard or from the Controller, who in turn took orders only from her husband. Usually GO staff did not belong to the Sea Org, and signed five-year rather than billion-year contracts. Hubbard generated a powerful rivalry between the Sea Org and the Guardian's Office. The Guardian's Office image within the Church was of an efficient, devoted group which dealt with threats to Scientology. They would counter bad press articles (often by suing for libel), defend against government enquiries, and promote Scientology through its good works. These good works were monitored by the Social Coordination Bureau (SOCO). They included "Narconon," a drug rehabilitation program; the Effective Education Association, Apple and Delphi Schools; and various anti-psychiatry campaigns. Because Hubbard insisted there was a conspiracy against Scientology, the GO investigated and attacked the "conspirators" tirelessly. By the 1970s, the GO had lined itself up against its "enemies," principally the entire psychiatric profession and civil governments. They produced a newsletter called "Freedom," reminiscent of Fascist and Communist propaganda in its overblown language. On a day-to-day basis the Finance Bureau of the GO oversaw the management of money within the Church. Each Org was supposed to have an Assistant Guardian for Finance who would scrupulously monitor all payments to and from the Org. Local Assistant Guardians would deal with bad press, and make sure no one who had received psychiatric treatment, or had a criminal record, found their way onto Scientology courses without first doing lengthy "eligibility programs." These usually consisted of reading several Hubbard books over a six-month period, and writing testimonials to show that they had applied Hubbard's teachings to their lives. Such people would also have to waive the right to refunds of any type from Scientology. Most Church members knew little or nothing about Branch One of the GO Bureau of Information commonly referred to as "B-1." They gathered information about Hubbard's "enemies." The Information Bureau's Collections Department had two sections: Overt and Covert data collection. B-1 also housed an Operations section, which should more properly have been called the Dirty Tricks Department. B-1 was so self-contained that only the top executives in the other Guardian's Office Bureaus were privy to their activities. B-I was Hubbard's private CIA, keeping tab on friend and foe alike. They also maintained comprehensive files on all Scientologists, compiled from the supposedly confidential records of confessional sessions. At times Hubbard maintained daily, and even hourly, contact with B-1, sending and receiving double-coded telex messages. 3 The Guardian's Office was the most powerful group within the Church. Following Hubbard's rigid Policy, they could not believe in defense: "The DEFENSE Of anything is UNTENABLE. The only way to defend anything is to ATTACK." The GO attacked ruthlessly and relentlessly. 4 During 1968, while they were filing suits against all and sundry for libel, one of the major targets in England was the National Association of Mental Health (NAMH). Several trails crossed there. Lord Balniel, who first raised the question of Scientology in Parliament, and Kenneth Robinson, the Health Minister who invoked the Aliens Act, were both highly involved with the NAMH. Further, the NAMH was a public body which had an influence upon the practice of psychiatry. So through their campaign against the NAMH the GO thought they could kill several birds with one stone. In November 1968, Hubbard issued a peculiar Executive Directive called "The War" where he triumphantly announced: "You may not realize it ... but there is only one small group that has hammered Dianetics and Scientology for eighteen years. The press attacks, the public upsets you receive ... were generated by this one group ... Last year we isolated a dozen men at the top. This year we found the organization these used and all its connections over the world .... Psychiatry and 'Mental Health' was chosen as a vehicle to undermine and destroy the West! And we stood in their way." 5 The Church of Scientology dropped thirty-eight complaints in Britain, and told the press this was "in celebration of the fact that we now know who is behind the attacks on Scientology in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Britain." It was an "international group" that had just moved its headquarters to Britain. 6 In December, a group calling itself the Executive Committee of the Church of Scientology went to the National Association of Mental Health's offices in London, and demanded a meeting with the Board of Directors. Being told that the NAMH was governed by a Council of Management, none of whom was in the building, the Scientologists deposited a list of questions, and departed. Many of the questions were loaded. For instance: "Why do your directors want to ban an American writer from England?" and "Besides the human rights of English Scientologists, who else's human rights were you attempting to restrict or abolish?" The "American writer" was presumably not unconnected with the Scientology Church; Hubbard had been labelled an undesirable alien and denied re-entry to Britain only a few months before. The Council must have been perplexed by the tenor of the questions. What on earth were the Scientologists suggesting? But then, the Council had not seen LRH Executive Directive 55, "The War," and they probably did not know that they were perhaps the most important channel for the "World Bank Conspiracy," as Hubbard had dubbed it. In February 1969, shortly after Hubbard's announcement that Scientologists were to develop their image as "the people who are cleaning up the field of mental healing," the NAMH was offered a settlement in a pending suit. A few days later, the Scientologists started a series of demonstrations outside the NAMH's offices. They marched with catchy slogans such as "Psychiatrists Make Good Butchers" on their banners. 7 Then came Hubbard's bizarre secret directive "Zones of Action," 8 instructing the takeover of Smersh and psychiatry. After a pause of several months, the Guardian's Office took heed of Hubbard's order, and orchestrated the takeover of the National Association of Mental Health. The plan was simple, as NAMH membership was open to the public. The NAMH was governed by a Council, elected each year at the Annual General Meeting. Time was a little tight, but five weeks before the meeting, Scientologists started joining the Association in droves. The plan was a little too simple. The NAMH noticed the sudden explosion of applications, from ten or so a month to over two hundred. They also noticed that many of the Postal Orders paying the subscription bore the stamp either of the East Grinstead or London's Tottenham Court Road Post Office, the locations of the two principal English Scientology Orgs. Five days before the election, the new Scientologist members nominated eight of their number for the Council of Management, among them a Deputy Guardian. Just two days before the vote, the NAMH demanded the resignation of 302 new members. The Guardian's Office responded by seeking an injunction to prevent the Annual General Meeting. After elaborate proceedings, Justice Megarry eventually ruled against the Scientologists. C.H. Rolph, in his well researched book about the attempted takeover, Believe What You Like, described a later tactic. In November 1970, the Scientologists offered a deed of covenant to the NAMH of £20,000 a year for seven years, if the NAMH would discontinue its support for shock therapy, resign its membership of the World Federation of Mental Health, and support a Scientology Bill of Rights for mental patients. The NAMH was to "make no public announcement of any sort" if it accepted the covenant. The offer was rejected. Soon afterwards the NAMH received a copy of an article detailing nineteen of its alleged shortcomings. To take up the story from Rolph: "among the latter being the sad story of a house for mentally confused old ladies in which the luckless residents were punished for misbehavior by being made to scrub floors. The grounds of this sinister place were patrolled . . . by men with shotguns; though it did not say specifically that their task was to shoot down any of the aged occupants caught running away." Mary Sue Hubbard's deputy, Guardian Jane Kember, was a fanatical Scientologist. It is worth quoting one of her Scientology Success Stories. It was written in 1966, before the GO really gathered steam.
No wonder Kember later ran the Guardian's Office with steely and unswerving devotion. In 1971, Alexis, Ron's twenty-one-year-old daughter by his second marriage, attempted to find him. Ron sent instructions to Jane Kember to deal with what he saw as a potential embarrassment. Alexis is undoubtedly Hubbard's daughter, but he had lost all paternal feeling for her, and had dropped contact with her after his divorce from her mother in 1951. On Hubbard's instructions, two GO agents visited Alexis, and read a letter to her. Kember had followed her orders exactly. The letter had been typed on a "non-general-use" typewriter, which is to say the typewriter was used solely for this letter and then ditched. 10 The letter that Hubbard sent to Kember for her to relay to Alexis came to light in the Armstrong case. Hubbard's description of events, as given in the letter, is manifestly different from the facts. He claimed that Sara had been his secretary in Georgia, at the end of 1948. In July 1949, she had arrived in New Jersey, where Hubbard was supposedly working on a film script, flat broke and pregnant. Hubbard referred to Sara's involvement with Jack Parsons, and claimed to be unsure who she had lived with in Pasadena. He further claimed that Sara had tried to take the Los Angeles Dianetic Foundation as part of a divorce settlement. Hubbard said that Sara could not obtain such a settlement, because legally they had not been married. 11 The wording is crucial. Hubbard did not deny his marriage to Sara, simply its legality. He was technically correct, the marriage, being bigamous was illegal, but that was hardly the fault of either Alexis or Sara. Under Jane Kember's direction, the Guardian's Office ran scores of operations, many illegal, many more simply immoral. She irrefutably received her orders from the Hubbards. Written orders survive. In 1976, the GO was determined to silence all opposition in the City of Clearwater. Mayor Cazares was its chief target. A GO agent, posing as a reporter, interviewed the mayor when he was on a visit to Washington, DC. The "reporter" introduced Cazares to Sharon Thomas, another GO agent. She offered to show Cazares the sights of Washington. While they were driving, they ran into a pedestrian. Sharon Thomas drove on. The mayor did not know that the "victim" of the accident was yet another GO agent, Michael Meisner. 12 The GO was sure that it could use Cazares' failure to report the accident to its advantage. The next day an internal dispatch gloated that Cazares' political career was finished. That same day, Hubbard sent a dispatch asking whether the Miami Cubans could be persuaded that Cazares supported Castro. 13 The GO initiated "Operation Italian Fog" which was to bribe officials to put forged documents into Mexican records showing that Cazares had been married twenty-five years before. The Scientologists could then accuse him of bigamy. To gain information for an inside story, an editor at the Clearwater Sun enrolled on the Communication Course in the Tampa Org. The staff at the Sun did not know that their every move was being leaked to the GO by agent June Phillips. The Scientologists saw the editor's move as "infiltration" and Phillips reported that the editor was traumatized when a suit was filed against him and the Sun for a quarter of a million dollars. The Scientologists charged that he had caused their members "extreme mental anguish, suffering and humiliation." "Op Yellow," launched in April 1976, was to consist of sending an anonymous letter to Clearwater businesses congratulating the mayor for his Christian hostility to Scientology, and for keeping the Miami Jews out and the Clearwater negroes where they belonged. After the publication of her book The Scandal of Scientology, in 1971, Paulette Cooper became a major target for harassment. Distribution of her book was severely restricted through a series of court actions in different states, and even different countries. Cooper simply did not have the legal or financial resources to defend against all of these actions. As a result of a GO Op she was indicted for making a bomb threat against the Church of Scientology. The GO wanted to finish her off for good. Operation Freakout was intended to put Cooper either into prison or into a mental hospital. A U.S. Court Sentencing Memorandum gave this description of Operation Freakout:
Two additional plans to Operation Freakout were added on April 13, 1976. The fourth plan called for Scientology field staff members who had ingratiated themselves with Cooper to gather information from Cooper, so that Scientology could assess the success of the first three plans. The fifth plan was for a Scientologist to warn an Arab Consulate by telephone that Paulette Cooper had been talking about bombing them.
GO operations were burgeoning. Operation Devil's Wop was an attack on an Arizona senator who had supported anti-cult groups. The Clearwater Chamber of Commerce had been infiltrated. Agents had been inside the American Psychiatric Association for several years. The GO had penetrated anti-cult groups and newspapers, and was beginning to move into U.S. government agencies, including the Coast Guard. However, the vehement application of Fair Game, and the use of the law to harass were making trouble for Hubbard. Those on the receiving end wanted Hubbard himself to testify in court, which had to be avoided at all costs. Elaborate precautions were taken to prevent process servers from reaching Hubbard. His location was kept secret, and his retinue was ready to whisk him away at a moments notice. In May 1976, Hubbard fled, shrouded in secrecy, from Washington, DC, to Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles. With him were only his wife and a few dedicated Sea Org staff. His new location was codenamed Astra, and it maintained contact with, and control of, Scientology through telex links to Church management in Clearwater, and to the Guardian's Office in Los Angeles. In June 1976, the GO received the first blow against its elaborate and highly successful Intelligence machine. A GO agent who had infiltrated the IRS was arrested. For a month the GO carried on with their Ops, confidently believing that the agent's connections would never be traced. Mayor Cazares was running as a congressional candidate. As a part of "Op Keller" his opponent was offered supposedly damaging information about Cazares. When the opponent declined the offer, a letter signed "Sharon T" was mailed to politicians and newspapers in Florida. It sought to implicate Cazares in the fake hit-and-run "accident" staged in Washington. To cover the exits, an anonymous letter was sent to Cazares' opponent, Bill Young, saying the "Sharon T" letter was Cazares' work, and that he would claim it had been a dirty trick on Young's part! Young turned the letter over to the FBI. In July, the GO instituted "Operation Bulldozer Leak" which was supposed to convince the press and governments that Hubbard was no longer involved in the management of the Church. Hubbard moved to a hacienda in La Quinta, near Palm Springs in California. The hacienda was codenamed Rifle. About him he assembled the Controller's staff (Mary Sue's assistants), a few chosen teenage Commodore's Messengers, and his Household Unit. For a while, they took a vacation from Scientology, fulfilling the pretense of Hubbard's lack of control. There were no Scientology books at the hacienda, and the speaking of Scientologese was briefly forbidden. While the Commodore fiddled, the Guardian's Office was beginning to burn. Hubbard had been in such a rush to leave Florida that he had left part of his gun collection behind. Shortly after "Op Bulldozer Leak" the Assistant Guardian for Flag [Clearwater] reported that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had discovered some of Hubbard's guns, which had been mislaid in the flight from Dunedin. One of the guns was a Mauser machine-pistol, which should have been registered. Somehow the GO managed to avert prosecution. But on the day the report on Hubbard's guns was made, the FBI issued a warrant for the arrest of one Michael Meisner. The FBI was beginning to make the necessary connections. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: C.H. Rolph, Believe What You Like (André Deutsch, London 1973); St. Petersburg Times, "Scientology." 1. Organization Executive Course, vol. 7 pp. 494ff 2. Organization Executive Course, vol. 7, p. 503 3. Interview with former Hubbard telex encoder 4. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol. 2, p. 157 5. Hubbard Executive Directive 55, "The War," 29 November 1968. 6. Rolph p.63; Daily Telegraph, 26 November 1968 7. Organization Executive Course, vol. 7, p. 521; Rolph, pp. 102 & 52f 8. Sea Org Executive Directive 26 March 1969 9. Auditor 15, p.7 10. Sara Hollister to Paulette Cooper, 1972; vol. 12 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153, p.1940 11. Armstrong exhibit 500-4L, Armstrong vol. 12, pp. 1946ff 12. Sentencing memorandum in U.S.A. vs. Jane Kember, District Court DC, criminal case no., 78-401, p.25 13. St. Petersburg Times, "Scientology," p.9 14. U.S.A. vs. Kember, p.23
Michael Meisner took his first Scientology course in 1970. He was so impressed that he left college before taking his finals, and became a full-time staff Scientologist. In May 1973, he was recruited by the Guardian's Office, and assigned to the Intelligence Bureau, shortly to be renamed the Information Bureau. From July to October 1973, Meisner was in Los Angeles learning the complicated internal procedures followed in all Scientology organizations, and other procedures peculiar to the Guardian's Office. He was indoctrinated in Information Bureau techniques. He was taught how to conduct covert investigations, how to recruit undercover agents and place them in "enemy" organizations, as well as techniques of surveillance. This was nothing new. The GO had been placing "plants" in organizations perceived to be hostile for some years. From 1969 the GO had infiltrated the Better Business Bureau and various mental health organizations including, in 1972, the American Medical Association. The pattern was well established. In November, Meisner became Director of Branch 2 (B-2) in Washington, DC. Branch 2 dealt with internal security. It monitored Scientology itself, looking for infiltrators, and weeding out anyone who was a "potential trouble source." Independent, or "Squirrel" Scientology groups were also the province of B-2, which would do anything in its power to destroy such groups. At about the time Meisner was posted, Guardian Jane Kember wrote to tell Henning Heidt, her deputy in the United States, that the GO had illegally obtained documents relating to lnterpol. She now ordered Heldt to acquire Ron Hubbard's file from the lnterpol Bureau in Washington. Meisner rose quickly through the ranks. In January 1974, he was promoted by Kember to Assistant Guardian for Information in Washington, DC. From this position he oversaw both Branch 1 and Branch 2. In her letter to Heldt, the Guardian had said the GO Legal Bureau had made Freedom of Information Act requests for certain documents, but because the legal approach took too long, B-1 should obtain them anyway. Meisner was given the job. Some Scientologists claim he was a government agent provocateur, who instigated the use of illegal tactics. As we've seen, infiltration and the theft of files was well underway before Meisner began his incredibly successful career. Meisner's orders came from the Guardian, and the theft of government files was an extension of the program written by Hubbard himself in New York in 1973. He had called it Operation Snow White. In 1974, Kenneth Urquhart, who was "L. Ron Hubbard Personal Communicator" at the time, overheard a conversation between Ron and Mary Sue about an agent working in the IRS in Washington. 1 Meisner initiated a "project" to obtain all Interpol files relating to Hubbard and Scientology which called for the lnterpol National Bureau to be infiltrated by a Guardian's Office agent. The project was approved by Meisner's direct senior, Duke Snider, and Meisner assigned it to his B-1 Director, Mitchell Hermann. No immediate action was taken. In the late summer of 1974, Cindy Raymond, who was the GO Collections Officer U.S., ordered Meisner to recruit a Scientologist to infiltrate the Internal Revenue Service. Prospective candidates were interviewed, but no one with the right psychological makeup was found. In September, Raymond sent her own choice, Gerald Wolfe, to Washington. It took Wolfe, codenamed Silver, a while to find a job as there was an employment freeze at the IRS. He started work as a clerk-typist on November 18, 1974. Shortly before Silver started his job, GO agent Don Alverzo flew to Washington from Los Angeles. On the afternoon of October 30, following a briefing by Alverzo, Meisner and Hermann walked into the main IRS building looking for the Chief Counsel's Office. The Scientologists had heard from their lawyers that there would be a meeting to discuss Scientology litigation there on November 1. On the appointed day, Alverzo and Hermann went into the Chief Counsel's Office before the meeting, and installed an electronic bug. They taped the proceedings via a car FM receiver. Then Hermann went back into the office (on the fourth floor), and retrieved the bug. At first, Silver did not do well on his IRS mission. In fact, he did not do anything. After a month, Meisner decided to coax him by showing just how easy it was. Meisner and Hermann went into the IRS building on a week day at four in the afternoon. They waited for the building to empty out, and then at about seven went into the offices of the Exempt Organization Division of the IRS, and stole a file on Scientology. The file was photocopied and Hermann returned it the next day. At the end of December, three weeks after Meisner's little mission, the Silver lode opened up. He was asked to steal and photocopy files from the office of IRS official Barbara Bird. Meisner reviewed the copies, and sent an edited version to his superiors. In January 1975, Meisner was also supervising an agent in the U.S. Coast Guard, Sharon Thomas, and another in the Drug Enforcement Administration, Nancy Douglas. Thomas was placed in the Coast Guard in compliance with Kember's Guardian's Order 1344. Later, Thomas and Meisner also performed the fake hit-and-run accident for Mayor Cazares. In May 1975, Meisner received a copy of Project Horn from its author, Gregory Willardson. Willardson was B-1 Director U.S. "Project Horn" was meant to create a cover story whereby stolen documents could be publicly released, without revealing the identity of the thieves. Meisner's team was to steal documents which did not relate to Scientology. They were also to steal IRS stationery, so that a fictitious disgruntled ex-employee of the IRS could release these documents to the organizations and individuals they concerned. The Church of Scientology would also ostensibly receive letters from this "former IRS employee," along with a wealth of documents, which would help in their fight against the immoral steps the IRS had taken against them. Having banished his initial hesitance completely, Silver stole, copied and replaced a ten-foot stack of documents from the IRS by May 1975. About 30,000 pages. Jane Kember's Guardian's Order 1361 ordered the theft of documents from the Tax Division of the United States Justice Department. Meisner set to work in April 1975. The Guardian's Office Legal Bureau told Meisner that attorneys Harold Larsen and Stanley Krysa had represented the government in litigation against Scientology in both Hawaii and Florida. Meisner ordered Silver to go into their offices, in the Tax Division of the Department of Justice, and steal all files relating to Scientology. On three successive Saturdays in May 1975, Silver went into the Star Building, to the offices of the Tax Division. He used his IRS identification card. He stole and copied twelve files relating to litigation against the Church. He passed the copies to Meisner at their usual rendezvous, Lums restaurant in Arlington, Virginia. As usual, Meisner wrote a synopsis of the material, and sent this to his seniors. The Controller, Mary Sue Hubbard, was among those informed of the thefts from the IRS. A letter in her hand approving the strategy was later used in evidence against her. On June 11, 1975, Meisner wrote "Project Beetle Clean-up," the purpose of which was to obtain copies of all the Washington IRS files on the Hubbards and Scientology. This included files held in both the Intelligence Division and the Internal Revenue Service's Office of International Operations. The project was approved by Meisner's senior, Wi!lardson. Silver set to work immediately. The IRS was about to begin a major audit of the Church of Scientology of California--the then "mother church." During this audit, between two and three million pages of material would be reviewed. Heading the audit was Lewis Hubbard of the IRS Chief Counsel's Office. So Silver broke into Hubbard's office and made copies of everything he could find, even his daily jottings. Now the Guardian's Office knew the IRS strategy, and which of the Church's many weaknesses it would have to defend. In July, Cindy Raymond told Meisner that the Church had brought a Freedom of Information Act suit against the Internal Revenue Service, charging that the IRS had failed to give proper access to files on Scientology. Meisner was ordered to obtain documents from the office of Charles Zuravin, the IRS attorney who would be defending the Freedom of Information case. The Church created a pattern, bringing suits against agencies, then penetrating their attorneys' offices to see how the agencies proposed to defend themselves. In the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suits, these attorneys had access to the very files which the Scientologists were suing to obtain. Eventually, the Scientologists stole far more material than they were ostensibly trying to gain through legal action. Silver added Zuravin's office to those he was monitoring. Zuravin was amassing documents relating to Scientology from IRS offices throughout the United States, so he could prepare an FOIA index. These documents represented the dealings of the IRS with the Church over twenty years. Zuravin's task was awesome. He had to prepare a Vaughn Index (listing every document potentially subject to an FOIA request). Zuravin also had to explain IRS reasons for non-disclosure for each document the IRS had refused to release. The IRS was doing the GO's work for it. All Silver had to do was copy the documents as they came in, and the GO would have every scrap of information from the IRS files, indexed at IRS expense, with the added bonus of the list of IRS reasons for non-disclosure. In September 1975, Guardian Jane Kember issued "commendations" (yet another military term used in Scientology) to those who had worked on Guardian's Order 1361; those who had committed the criminal acts of burglary and theft for the good of the cause. In October, attorney Zuravin completed his index. Every document was numbered, giving the GO an excellent reference work. The index was handed over to Scientology attorneys. Within days it had been edited, so Silver would only steal the "exempted" documents, not wasting his time on those already obtained through FOIA requests. Silver went to Zuravin's office, and in a single weekend stole some 3,000 pages of documents. Even this haul did not net all of the denied documents. At the end of November 1975, before Silver had completed his work, Zuravin's office, and that of Lewis Hubbard, were placed within a "red seal," or high security area, inside the main IRS building. From this point the doors were locked at all times. Zuravin's papers were moved into a locked file room. At the beginning of December, Meisner flew to Los Angeles for a conference with his superiors. He was shown the newly issued "Guardian's Program Order 158 - Early Warning System," which the Guardian had approved. This program had come into being as a direct result of a Hubbard order. Its purpose was to keep Hubbard out of the hands of the courts. The GO were to anticipate any law suit against or subpoena on the Hubbards. The Order directed that an agent be placed in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, DC. Any Federal agency which was in litigation with the Church, or was planning litigation, would report to the U.S. Attorney's Office. An agent was also to be placed in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. Another agent was to be infiltrated into the IRS Office of International Operations (OIO), because they were preparing a tax case against Hubbard. This last agent was to steal any files on either of the Hubbards, and to report any developments. Close liaison was to be maintained with the agents already in place in the Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, DC, and the IRS in Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Back in Washington, Meisner started his compliance with the Order. The internal procedures of the GO required that all major actions be "okayed" in writing by a senior. These Orders, and Meisner's responses to them, were reported step by step through the hierarchy to Mary Sue Hubbard, the Controller. Mary Sue Hubbard was living with her husband at this time, and no doubt kept him informed of Meisner's spectacular offensive against the United States government. Meisner and Silver performed a series of burglaries on the Justice Department. They stole documents from the offices of Paul Figley and Jeffrey Axelrad in the Civil Division's Information and Privacy Unit. Figley had been assigned to the defense of the Freedom of Information Act suits brought against government agencies by the Church of Scientology. Meisner and Silver went into the Justice Department library using Silver's IRS identification card. They waited until after office hours, and went into Figley's office. As ever, they used the nearest photocopier. On two occasions they stayed in the building until 10:00 p.m., copying files on Scientology, and every Interpol document they could find. Further burglaries of Figley's office were committed by Silver, with GO agents Joseph Alesi and Richard Kimmel. On Saturday, January 17, 1976, Don Alverzo again flew to Washington. The next evening, accompanied by Silver and Meisner, he entered the main IRS building, using Silver's IRS identification. They went up to the third floor where Lewis Hubbard's office and Zuravin's file office were. Silver stood guard while Alverzo tried to pick the lock on Hubbard's door. Meisner worked on Zuravin's door. Their GO training, the "Breaking and Entering Hat," did not serve them well. After about an hour and a half, the exasperated Meisner forced Zuravin's door. The three went into the office, stole the remaining "exempt" documents from Zuravin's index, and took them to a photocopier on another floor. After a while, Meisner and Alverzo left Silver to the copying and returned to Hubbard's office. Eventually, Alverzo managed to force the latch with a strip of cardboard. They took all the files which had not previously been copied. The party left at two in the morning with a one foot stack of documents. Alverzo returned to Los Angeles the next day. At the beginning of February, Meisner again flew to Los Angeles for a conference. There were representatives from the Guardian's Office Legal and Finance Bureaus at the meeting, as well as Church accountant Martin Greenberg. The meeting discussed IRS strategy with regard to the Scientology audit, as revealed in the stolen documents. Meisner was instructed to look out for any documents dealing with the Religious Research Foundation, a front through which Scientology monies were paid to Hubbard. Mary Sue's Office was informed. In Washington, Meisner relayed his instructions to Silver. The offices of the Exempt Organizations Division were to be monitored for files. The GO wanted advance warning in case there was an adverse ruling on Scientology's current attempt to regain tax-exempt status. They wanted to know before it was finalized, so they could prepare their next line of defense. Meisner had ordered Sharon Thomas to leave the U.S. Coast Guard, and find a job at the Department of Justice. After initial difficulties, she finally managed to do this, and started work there on February 29, 1976. Silver had to be slightly more inventive than usual to get into Joseph Tedesco's suite of offices. During the day, Silver removed the knob from a door which led into the suite, and disabled the lock. The door was not normally in use, so the ploy went unnoticed. That night Silver returned and carried out his usual procedure. Silver also stole files relating to the American Medical Association's tax-exemption, as ammunition for Scientology's long standing battle against the AMA. At the beginning of March, Meisner decided to refine the GO operation. He and Silver went into the main IRS building, again using Silver's legitimate card, in his real name, Gerald Wolfe. They went to the IRS Identification Room on the first floor, and forced the door. While Meisner read the instruction booklet for the photo equipment, Silver typed two fictitious names for himself, and two for Meisner, onto cards. They then used the photo equipment to put their faces to the names. Meisner selected numbers from the log of previously issued cards. During the next few months, false identification cards were made for four other GO agents. In March 1976, Mary Sue Hubbard approved a Program written by Cindy Raymond, for the collection of what were termed "non-FOI data" - i.e. documents not available through the Freedom of Information Act. Raymond, who was the GO Collections Officer U.S., planned to infiltrate no less than 136 government agencies! She also ordered Meisner to obtain material relating to proposed amendments of the Freedom of Information Act. In April, Meisner and Silver returned to the Justice Department. Meisner used an identification card made out to "John M. Foster," while Silver used his own genuine IRS card, which later proved to be a crucial mistake. They burgled the office of Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Harold Tyler, and copied memoranda which the Justice Department was about to send to Congress outlining its position on proposed amendments to the FOIA. The office door was forced to gain entry. A few days later, Cindy Raymond wrote to Meisner explaining that the Justice Department had just conclucted an investigation of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The distribution of the "DeFeo Report" was designated "severely limited." The Church had just lost an FOIA case against the DEA. Raymond told Meisner to steal the DeFeo Report. Meisner knew where to go, having noticed the Report during his last raid. Meisner put "Operation Chaos Leak" into action. The DeFeo Report was highly critical of the DEA, so leaking it would create adverse press. The GO believed a scandal might help to color the judge's view in their appeal against the DEA decision. Half of the DeFeo Report was given to the Village Voice in New York by Meisner, who pretended to be a disaffected Justice Department employee. Meisner had been ordered to obtain all files relating to Ron and Mary Sue Hubbard from the Office of International Operations of the IRS (OIO). Silver and Meisner, the latter using his "Foster" identification, entered the OIO building, and went to the tenth floor to burgle the office of Thomas Crate. The door was locked. One of the cleaning ladies told a security guard there were two suspicious characters on the tenth floor. Silver and Meisner fobbed the guard off with their IRS identification cards. The cleaning lady then opened Crate's office for them. By this time, Meisner had nerves of steel. They found more documents in a locked cabinet belonging to Crate's superior, Howard Rosen. They could not find a photocopying machine in the OIO building, so took the files to the main IRS building, and copied them there. During the next few months, Sharon Thomas stole files from the Information and Privacy Unit of the Department of Justice relating to pending Scientology initiated FOIA suits. Files relating to the Church's FOIA suit against the Energy Research and Development Administration were also stolen. The lnterpol Liaison Office was raided, and the safe broken into. The material stolen included lnterpol files on terrorism. Meisner had been instructed to take all and any lnterpol files, so that material obtained could be used to show Interpol's "criminality." Several thousand pages of Interpol documents were taken. In a chambers hearing of a Scientology FOIA case, Judge Hart asked Justice Department attorney Nathan Dodell whether he had considered taking L. Ron Hubbard's deposition. The Scientologists' attorney, Walter Birkeli, reported back. In the panic, Meisner was ordered to check Dodell's office to see what he was planning. He was also ordered to find information which could be used to remove Judge Hart from the case. Safeguarding Hubbard, even from an appearance, was the GO's top priority. Early in May, Silver and Meisner reconnoitered the United States Courthouse building. They went first to the Bar Association library, on the same floor as Dodell's office. They found the nearest photocopy machines, and then went to Dodell's office. The door was locked, and the tool they usually used failed to lift the latch. For once, they left a mission incomplete. A few days later, Silver phoned Meisner from Dodell's office. No doubt in hushed tones, he excitedly told his superior that a secretary had left her keys on the desk. Silver and Meisner found a locksmith, who made copies of the keys for them. Once again GO operatives had waltzed through the security system of a U.S. government agency. On the evening of May 21, Silver and Meisner presented themselves at the U.S. Courthouse, showing the security guard their fake IRS credentials. They were given permission to do legal research in the Bar Association Library. They went up to the third floor and signed the log. Putting a few books out on a table at the back of the library, they left through the back door, which led into the hallway outside Dodell's office. Using the duplicate keys they entered the office. With a flashlight they peered at the files on Scientology. After copying about 1,000 pages, they returned the originals, and went back to the library, leaving at about 11:00 p.m. The documents were the Interpol files which had been withheld from Scientology by the National Bureau of Interpol. A week later, Silver and Meisner again went to do "research" in the Bar Association Library. They had signed in as "John Foster," and "W. Haake" (perhaps an elaborate joke since Sir John Foster and F.W. Haack were both critics of Scientology), and copied about 2,000 pages of documents relating to Scientology, most from Washington, DC, police files, and Food and Drug Administration files. All were taken from Dodell's office. They were replacing the originals, when librarian Charles Johnson stopped them. He asked if they had signed in, and told them not to come back without the permission of a chief librarian. Having braved this challenge, they had to sneak back to Dodell's office and replace the stolen originals. FOOTNOTES Principal source: Stipulation of Evidence in U.S.A. vs. Mary Sue Hubbard et al., District Court, DC, criminal case no. 78-401. Additional sources: Sentencing memorandum in U.S.A. vs. Jane Kember; interviews with former B-1 agent; documents quoted in text. 1. Interview, Urquhart
CHAPTER THREE
Early in June 1976, the GO issued "Project: Target Dodell." Dodell was too successful in the defense against the Scientology FOIA legal suits. Meisner was ordered to steal files from Dodell's office which could be used to formulate an operation to remove him as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. By this time Meisner had requested and received written permission to use the Bar Association Library. At seven o'clock on the evening of June 11, Meisner and Wolfe (Silver) signed in. This time Wolfe was using a card in the name of "Thomas Blake." Meisner showed librarian Johnson the written permission he had obtained. They followed their usual route through the back of the library, but found that cleaners were still at work in Dodell's office. While Meisner and Wolfe were waiting at the back of the library, two FBI agents approached them. Librarian Charles Johnson had reported their earlier visit to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Little was made of it at the time, but Johnson was instructed to call the FBI if the two suspicious IRS men returned. Meisner presented his false IRS credentials, and said he had since resigned from the IRS. One of the agents stayed with Meisner and Wolfe, while the other went to find an Assistant U.S. Attorney. Meisner said they were doing legal research, and had been using the photocopier to copy legal texts. He gave an address, a few doors from his own, to FBI agent Christine Hansen. After about fifteen minutes of questioning, Meisner asked if they were under arrest. When he was told they were not, he said they were leaving. The other agent, Dan Hodges, saw them on his way back to the Library. Meisner called to him to say Hansen had given them permission to leave. Once again Meisner had faked out the enemy. They walked for several blocks to make sure they were not being followed, and then took a taxi to Martin's Tavern restaurant. Meisner phoned his superior, Mitchell Hermann, in Los Angeles, and in a roundabout way told him they had been stopped. Hermann told him to call him back at a public telephone. In the subsequent conversation, Hermann told Meisner to wait at the restaurant, and phone back an hour later, so Hermann could contact the Deputy Guardian for Information U.S., Richard Weigand. Meisner's incredible luck had finally turned. The GO operation in Washington was finished. A "Church" had penetrated U.S. government agencies willy-nilly. They had come and gone undetected for eighteen months, copying tens of thousands of pages of government files, including very sensitive and restricted material. It is little wonder that when the FBI raid against the Church of Scientology finally came, a year later, it was a show of strength. Few people would understand the reason for such a show. It was intended for those in the Guardian's Office, who would understand only too well. The GO ordered Wolfe to turn himself in, as part of the operation to conceal their involvement. He was arrested at his desk at the IRS before he had a chance to surrender. The FBI had simply checked every record where "John M. Foster" had signed into official buildings. Then they had checked the identifications given by the man with him. "W. Haake" and "Thomas Blake" had not turned up anything, but sometimes Wolfe had used his real IRS credentials. He was arrested for using false credentials the other times. The FBI proved that the monolithic U.S. government agencies were not quite as stupid as the GO had come to believe. Wolfe told the FBI he had been doing legal research under his own steam, and said he had never known the other man as anything other than "Foster." The story was manufactured in the GO, and Wolfe was drilled on it. He maintained it through a grand jury hearing, adding perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice to his other crimes. Two months later, at the end of August 1976, an FBI agent arrived at the Church of Scientology in Washington with a warrant for the arrest of Michael Meisner. In the Courthouse library, he had given an address a few doors from his own. The FBI had traced him by talking to his neighbors. Instead of turning Meisner in, the GO added harboring a fugitive to its growing list of crimes. The GO was in a state of panic, and suggestions of how best to handle the situation multiplied. The first plan was to fly Meisner to Europe to wait it out. His appearance was immediately changed. He was to look like a middle-aged man trying to be fashionable. He was to shave his head, wear contact lenses, have a tooth capped, lose or gain weight, and wear "earth shoes" to change his posture. He went through a rapid succession of identities, becoming first "Jeff Burns," then "Jeff Marks," and then "Jeff Murphy." Controller Mary Sue Hubbard wrote to one of her juniors that it would be safest for Meisner to disappear in a big city. Mary Sue Hubbard also acknowledged receipt of a copy of Meisner's arrest warrant, and continued to discuss various concocted alibis for Meisner with Guardian Jane Kember and other GO officials. The FBI discovered these exchanges in their 1977 raid. Lieutenant Warren Young, a Scientologist in the San Diego police, checked the National Crime Information Center computer records to see how the hunt for Meisner was progressing. The FBI questioned Young, who claimed he had arrested Meisner for a pedestrian violation. The GO in Washington supplied false samples of Meisner's handwriting to the FBI. These were to be compared to the signatures in the logs of various government buildings. Mary Sue Hubbard requested a list of buildings illegally entered by Meisner. It was impressive, eleven were listed in the reply: the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of International Operations, the Post Office, the Labor Department's National Office, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of the Treasury, U.S. Customs, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the offices of the American Medical Association's attorneys, and the offices of the St. Petersburg Times' attorneys in Washington. One of Meisner's seniors even toyed with the idea of creating a cover for Meisner whereby he would claim to have been researching the poor security of government buildings. By the end of October, Meisner, in hiding in Los Angeles, was expressing concern at the vacillations of his superiors. He was assured that Mary Sue Hubbard was working on his case personally. Indeed she was, and a few days later she suggested that Meisner turn himself in, saying the whole affair had arisen out of his jealousy of his wife's consistently superior performance in the Guardian's Office. To outdo her, he had organized the burglaries of government offices, unbeknown to any of his GO colleagues. Then it was suggested that Meisner turn himself in, plead guilty, and take the Fifth Amendment (refuse to answer questions because they might incriminate him) if asked about his superiors. Meisner was willing to be the scapegoat, and willing to go to prison, such was his devotion to the cause: but the sooner the "shore story" was settled the better. Otherwise the FBI might hit paydirt. He was fearful of the consequences for Scientology, and aware that his own fate could only be worsened by delay. While in hiding, Meisner continued to work for the Guardian's Office, and to receive Scientology auditing. His pleas for a swift resolution were repeatedly rejected, and he threatened to leave, for either Washington or Canada, if decisive action was not taken. This was the situation in April 1977, ten months after the Courthouse library incident. He had been a fugitive for eight months. The GO responded to Meisner's threat by transforming his "case officer," Brian Andrus, into his jailer. Andrus and three heavies, accompanied by two high officials of the Guardian's Office, visited Meisner. He was told that from now on he would have to follow orders. His apartment was searched, and anything which might conceivably connect Meisner to Scientology removed. As usual, Mary Sue Hubbard was informed. A month later, Andrus visited Meisner and told him he was going to be moved to another apartment. He refused to leave, and the "two guards handcuffed him behind his back, gagged him and dragged him out of the building. Outside, they forced him onto the floor in the back of a waiting car. In the car, one of the guards held Meisner down with his feet." This account comes from the Stipulation of Evidence signed by Mary Sue Hubbard and eight senior GO officials, as do all of the principal details of this chapter. There is no conjecture. There are reams of uncontested documents. Meisner gradually persuaded his captors that he was willing to cooperate, and by the end of May he was down to a single guard. One day, Meisner broke away and leapt into a taxi. He went to a bus station, and from there to Las Vegas. Despite everything, Meisner was still devoted to Scientology. He felt his captors had failed to take the proper course for the good of Scientology, and wanted time to think the situation through. The next day, Meisner phoned the GO and told them he was in Las Vegas. They had already worked out a new angle or "shore story" in case Meisner had gone over to the "enemy." Cindy Raymond suggested that the FBI be told that Meisner was trying to blackmail the Church, by threatening to pretend that it had harbored him after the warrant for his arrest was issued. Meisner agreed to meet one of his former guards, Jim Douglas, in Las Vegas. At the meeting, Meisner refused to return to Los Angeles. It was too late, the GO had found out where he was staying, and another official met him there, and persuaded him that everything had changed with the removal of a senior GO executive. The Scientologists constantly excuse reprehensible acts by blaming them on a Suppressive who has subsequently been removed. Hubbard had first used this scapegoat approach as early as 1952 with his outlandish attack on Don Purcell. This is what comes from believing in the evil influence of Suppressives, and their magical power for disruption. Most Scientologists accept the excuse every time it is trotted out. Meisner did, and he returned to Los Angeles. In fact, Andrus had ordered that a new apartment be found for Meisner. Meisner was to be put in a room either with a window too small for him to escape through, or no window at all. He was to have no further contact with the outside world. Meisner was installed in the apartment immediately upon his return to Los Angeles. In June 1977, in Washington, DC, Gerald "Silver" Wolfe was sentenced to probation and community service, having pleaded guilty to the forgery of credentials. On the day he was sentenced, Wolfe was subpoenaed to appear the same afternoon before a grand jury, which had been investigating the entries into the U.S. Courthouse. The FBI was hot on the trail. Wolfe paraded his carefully drilled story, claiming he had gone to the courthouse library to educate himself in legal research, so he would be able to get a better job. He said his accomplice was only known to him as "John Foster." After his appearance, Wolfe was meticulously debriefed by the GO. Meisner managed to ingratiate himself with his captors again. From June 17, 1977, he was no longer guarded at night. Three days later, he collected a few clothes and left the apartment. He watched his back carefully to make sure he was not being followed, and changed buses twice en route to a bowling alley. From there he made a collect call to an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, pretending to be Gerald Wolfe, just in case the GO had an operative in the Attorney's office. Two hours later, Meisner surrendered himself to the FBI. While the GO was concocting a story about Meisner having tried to blackmail them after setting up the Washington operations on his own initiative, the FBI, with Meisner to help them, was moving at full speed. Meisner contacted the GO to say he was thinking things over. They were put off guard. In fact, Meisner had at last thought things over, and concluded that there was something very wrong with an organization which resorted to the criminal tactics of the Church of Scientology. He had broken out of the Kafkaesque nightmare, and made his confession, this time not to a Scientology Auditor, but to the FBI. On July 7, 1977, the FBI carried out one of the largest raids in its history: on the Guardian's Office of the Church of Scientology, simultaneously in both Los Angeles and Washington, DC. As a result eleven GO officials, including Guardian Jane Kember and Controller Mary Sue Hubbard, were eventually imprisoned. FOOTNOTES Principal source: Stipulation of Evidence in U.S.A. vs. Mary Sue Hubbard et al., District Court, DC, criminal case no. 78-401.
PART SIX:
In the late 1960s aboard the Apollo, Hubbard used the children of Scientologists to run messages. He set them up with their own "Org," and their own child Ethics Officers, one of whom was only eight years old. Eventually they came to be known as the Commodore's Messenger Org, or CMO. They grew up around Hubbard, usually separated from their parents.
The story of Messenger Tonja Burden is compelling. Her parents were enthusiastic Scientologists, and encouraged their daughter to join the Sea Org in March 1973, when she was only thirteen. A few months later, she was separated from them and sent to the Apollo. In September, her parents left the Sea Organization, and Scientology. Tonja remained in the custody of the Sea Org. Legally she was beyond their reach, on a Panamanian vessel far from U.S. waters. She was told that her father had been declared Suppressive. Nonetheless, she wanted to go home, and tried to persuade her seniors that she could convince her parents to rejoin Scientology. She says she was told to Disconnect, which "meant no more communication with my parents. They told me that my parents would not make it in the world, but that I would make it in the world." She was assigned to "Training Routines" to teach her the duties of a Commodore's Messenger:
This is how Tonja summed up her days in the CMO: "I was in Scientology from the age of thirteen to the age of eighteen. I received at some times $2.50 per week pay, and at other times approximately $17.20 a week. I received no education." Tonja Burden remained in the Commodore's Messenger Org until November 1977, when, aged eighteen, she made her escape from Scientology. In 1986, the Scientologists paid her an out of court settlement to abandon a suit she had brought for kidnapping. In October 1975, when the Apollo finally ran out of ports in which to berth, Hubbard flew ashore with a small CMO unit. When he fled to Washington, DC, in 1976, he was again accompanied by a small CMO unit. The CMO became Hubbard's eyes and ears in the new Flag Land Base, from whence the Scientology Church was controlled. They were known as CMO CW for Commodore's Messenger Organization, Clearwater. Hubbard was at "Winter Headquarters," codenamed Rifle, his hacienda in La Quinta, from October 1976 until July 1977. In one of the few Scientology "technical bulletins" written while there, he took a characteristic swipe at the medical profession: "Doctors are often careless and incompetent, psychiatrists are simply outright murderers. The solution is not to pick up the pieces for them but to demand medical doctors become competent, and to abolish psychiatry and psychiatrists as well as psychologists and other famous Nazi criminal outgrowths." 1 This was the view of the outside world which Hubbard implanted into his naive, adolescent Messengers. Commodore's Messenger Anne Rosenblum joined Hubbard's retinue at La Quinta in the late Spring of 1977. His appearance surprised her: "He had long reddish-grayish hair down past his shoulders, rotting teeth, a really fat gut, and I believe at that time he had a full beard for 'disguise.' He didn't look anything like his pictures." 2 In July, with the FBI raids of the Guardian's Offices in Los Angeles and Washington, Hubbard went into even deeper seclusion. One of his two controlling lines into Scientology had been through the GO in Los Angeles. He fled with three of his Messengers. It was obvious to Hubbard that for the GO to have been caught it must be riddled with Suppressives. Communication to the GO was therefore dangerous, and the CMO became his only remaining link with the Church. The young Messengers had not suffered the corruption of the outside (or "wog") world. They were the children of Scientologists, often indoctrinated since birth, and many had spent their formative years in the company of the Commodore. Now the key Messengers, nearly all girls, were in their late teens, and ferociously dedicated to their Commodore. From this point, Hubbard would increasingly place his trust in them. Hubbard, with three Messengers, left for Sparks, Nevada, in the dead of night, in Hubbard's station-wagon, Beauty. They drove away from the hacienda with their lights off, so pursuit could be readily detected. Hubbard had stomach trouble throughout the trip. Perhaps his old "wound," the ulcer which still provided him with a veteran's pension, was acting up? A scheme went into effect almost immediately to camouflage Hubbard, and keep him hidden from the world. The two older Messengers were married, under assumed names. The marriage was bigamous for both of them, but legal considerations rarely stopped close devotees from serving Hubbard. The bigamists then claimed that Hubbard was their elderly grand-uncle, and the third Messenger a cousin, and set up house together. Hubbard stayed in seclusion for almost six months, maintaining control of the Scientology Church through his Messengers. He used the time to outline thirty-three Scientology training films, writing the scripts for fifteen. He also wrote a peculiar screenplay called Revolt in the Stars. Despite his admonitions that OT3 was lethal to the uninitiated, Revolt in the Stars centered on the supposed incidents of seventy-five million years ago, providing many new details. The evil prince Xenu, perpetrator of the massacre of millions, was apparently assisted in his malicious deeds by the Galactic Minister of Police, Chi, and the Executive President of the Galactic Interplanetary Bank, Chu. Along with Chi and Chu, we find Mish, one of the few "Loyal Officers" to survive the catastrophe, the Lady Min, and the heroic Rawl, whom one suspects is the Hubbard character. By December 1977, Hubbard could no longer resist the temptation to turn his scripts to celluloid. The would-be spectacular Revolt in the Stars was too ambitious, and would require the skills and budget of the movie Star Wars, but he could make a start with Scientology promotional and Tech films. The Tech films were to be demonstrations of good auditing practice. Hubbard moved back to winter HQ at La Quinta. Two properties were purchased in Indio, California. A ten-acre ranch, codenamed Monroe, became a barracks for the CMO crew who made the Tech films. The 140-acre ranch where shooting actually took place was called Silver, a popular codename, it seems. In the grapefruit orchards of Silver, a huge barn was built, camouflaging Hubbard's film studio. A recruitment drive was launched in the Scientology world for professionals experienced in music or film. At the age of fifteen, VerDawn Hartwell left school to join the Commodore's Messenger Organization. Her older sister had been involved in Scientology for several years. Their parents were accomplished dancers, and had just finished the introductory Communication Course when they were approached by recruiters for the "CMO Cine Org." They were lured out to the desert with glib promises of excellent pay, exciting work and a beautiful location. They were even shown photographs of the resort hotel they would be staying in - in Clearwater. Instead they ended up in the desert in the squalor of Monroe, with the rest of the Cine Org. Adell and Ernie Hartwell had given their family and friends the address of their supposed destination. They were surprised when the Scientologist who met them in Los Angeles checked to see if the car was bugged, and drove down sidestreets to make sure they were not being followed. He explained that the precautions were because Hubbard's whereabouts were top secret. Ernie was startled when they arrived: "I was absolutely shocked to see everybody running around in shorts, ragged clothes, dirty, and unkempt .... They put us in a ... little three-room shack on the edge of the ranch ... We go inside and what a mess . . . the place was totally overrun with bugs, insects ... The facilities consisted of a mattress on the floor . . . when somebody turned the lights on, of course, it stirred up all the bugs and everything began to fly all over the place." The Hartwells set to work, initially on a schedule starting at seven in the morning and finishing at eleven or twelve at night. In spite of their protests, they were given no free time, even on weekends. They were told the recruiter who had lied to them about the wonderful pay and working conditions was being disciplined. The same old Scientology excuse, "he's been removed." It did not help. Adell Hartwell was confused by the set up:
All outgoing mail was censored, and all incoming mail came via Clearwater. Ernie Hartwell was a Navy veteran, so Adell had not led a sheltered life, even so she was startled by Hubbard's turns of phrase:
Ernie confirmed this: "He was a screaming maniac .... He'd tell you to do one thing and turn around two minutes later and tell you not to do it." Many people who were once close to Hubbard have remarked on his screaming fits.
In keeping with Hubbard's dust phobia, the set had to be washed down, with special odor-free soap, before he arrived each day, and rinsed four times over with clean water. A "white glove inspection" would take place. This could be problematical when sets had just been painted. The crew would desperately use anything at hand to dry the paint, after a lookout atop a pole sighted Hubbard's car in the distance. Sets which would have taken Hollywood weeks to prepare had to be built in a single day. Filming was usually done at night. People with a fever would be "quarantined" in a ten by twelve foot room. Adell Hartwell says that at one time there were thirteen teenagers crammed in, all running fevers, and all still smoking (cancer being the result of engrams or body thetans or whatever, supposedly granting Scientologists immunity). Hubbard would arrive at eight in the evening, and the crew would slavishly follow his screamed instructions until seven the next morning with a single half-hour break, but nothing to eat or drink. As a makeup assistant, Adell Hartwell helped Hubbard to satisfy one of his obsessions. Gallons of imitation blood were prepared:
This film about the FBI was shown to U.S. Scientologists through the time leading up to the trial of Mary Sue Hubbard and other Guardian's Office staff. On one occasion, Hubbard ordered so much gore that two actors had to be cut out of their clothes which had stuck fast. The Commodore would explode into furious tantrums. According to Adell, "I actually saw him take his hat off one day and stomp on it and cry like a baby. I have seen him just take his arm... and throw it wild and hit girls in the face .... One girl would follow him with a chair. If he sat down, that chair had to be right where he was going to sit. One girl missed by a few inches; he fell off of it, and she was put in the RPF." The crew was kept under intense and constant pressure. Even Hubbard's cook would work from six in the morning to ten at night simply to prepare three meals to the Commodore's satisfaction. Hubbard frequently complained that the crew was overspending. At one time they had to use pages from phone directories for toilet paper, because of the supposed extravagance. Conditions were dreadful even for the crew who were in "good standing," but for those on the Rehabilitation Project Force conditions were well nigh impossible. RPFers kept their few clothes in boxes, and slept on mattresses thrown out in the open through the few daylight hours allotted to them. Adell's teenage daughter was put on the RPF, and Adell was traumatized when she was not even allowed to talk to her: "I would see her dragging her mattress from one shade tree to another. I said, 'Why are you doing this?' And she was ill and she couldn't be in with the others, and so she was hunting shade . . . it's 117 degrees." Ernie Hartwell takes up the story: "We were not programmed into Scientology; we were not brainwashed. We were not following a great guiding light or any great pull that L. Ron Hubbard had .... All the other people... accepted those conditions .... They didn't mind the bugs and the snakes... the lousy food, the lousy living conditions, all the dirt." The Hartwells decided they were not going to take any more, and were told they would have to appear in front of a "Board" before they could leave. They were kept waiting for two weeks. Throughout this time the Scientologists worked on Adell, and on the day they were due to go, she told Ernie she was staying behind. They had been married for nearly fifteen years. She was ill, and both of them felt that Scientology auditing would help her. Ernie resolved to go back to Las Vegas, and find a job to help pay for any medical treatment that Adell needed to supplement her auditing. Ver-Dawn was determined to stay close to Hubbard. Ernie said, "It seems like they do everything they can to destroy families and happiness. For me... it was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life, leaving them there in the condition that they were in and leaving them with a man that was totally insane." Back in Las Vegas, Ernie found work. About six weeks after he left the CMO Cine Org, he was visited by a Scientologist "chaplain," who accused him of disclosing Hubbard's whereabouts. Having done this, the Scientologist produced the Hartwells' marriage license, and said Adell wanted a divorce. Ernie was speechless. Then he was asked if Adell and Ver-Dawn could use his address for passport applications, as they were leaving the United States. Adell had been told that because Ernie had given away Hubbard's location, the whole crew would have to go overseas. She was told that her marriage license would be needed to obtain a passport. She knew nothing about any divorce. The recruiters had promised that Adell Hartwell would be given special auditing and proper medical care for her illness. No treatment was given, and her condition was growing progressively worse. One day she worked without eating. It was 102 degrees in the shade:
Nearly three months after their separation, Adell Hartwell left the film crew, and rejoined her husband. Their next shock was receiving a "Freeloader Bill" for the auditing and training Adell had received during her five month stay in the desert. The bill was for $5,500. When Ernie complained to the Las Vegas Guardian's Office, he was told that they had neglected to bill him the $5,000 he owed, bringing the total to $10,500. A few days later, Ernie Hartwell was asked to sign a bond for $30,000, payable if he said anything bad about Scientology. Infuriated, Ernie pointed out that he had kept his part of every bargain, while the Scientologists had kept to nothing. He demanded a letter from them, saying they would leave him alone. After half a dozen futile meetings, the Scientologists raised their demands. Ernie was to sign a statement saying he had been an alcoholic all his life, had abused his children, had been a poor father and provider, had murdered his father, and owed Scientology $60,000. The threats and harassment continued for several months. Even the FBI raids had failed to halt the excesses of the Guardian's Office. Eventually, worn down and scared half out of his wits, Ernie felt compelled to do exactly what the GO was trying to prevent. To protect Adell and himself, he went to the police and told them everything. Somehow the GO persuaded a newspaper to run a story saying Ernie Hartwell had tried to extort money from Scientology. Television picked it up. Ernie was one man against a powerful organization. Eddie Waiters, who was working for the Las Vegas GO at the time, has since confirmed the Hartwells' claims of harassment. Another witness has testified that Hubbard himself ordered that Ernie Hartwell's confessional folders be "culled" for anything reprehensible. 4 Indeed, there are many witnesses to the systematic "culling" of confessional folders throughout Scientology over a period of many years, with the purpose of finding material to blackmail individuals into conformity with Church objectives. Mary Sue Hubbard wrote an order in 1969 for the GO to use this information gathering tactic. During the making of the Tech films, most of the crew's folders were similarly culled for potentially useful information. Most of the energy put into the films was wasted anyway, as Adell has said: "Funny thing about those movies is that they never get shown to anyone. Hubbard would always blame somebody for screwing it up and order the movie shelved." 5 In 1986, the Church of Scientology paid $150,000 to Adell Hartwell in a secret settlement of her litigation against it. While pursuing his directorial dreams and bloodlust through the Tech films, Hubbard once more revised Dianetics. It became New Era Dianetics, or "NED." Hubbard had also been railing against LSD, and devised the "Sweat Program." Hubbard was convinced that LSD "sticks around in the body," a questionable hypothesis, as LSD is both unstable and water-soluble. Hubbard's program was supposed to "flush" traces of LSD from the body. Anyone who had taken LSD was to take a mega-dose of vitamins, and a teaspoon of salt a day. The diet was restricted to fruit, fruit juice and "predigested liquid protein." The victim was then to jog in a rubberized nylon sweat suit, for at least an hour a day. 6 Some unfortunates spent months on this program, until it was eventually replaced with the "Purification Rundown." There is no doubt that this bizarre program severely damaged some people's health. Hubbard did not undertake the Sweat Program himself, but he did have a great deal of New Era Dianetic auditing. It did nothing for his temper tantrums. The Tech film project ground to a halt shortly before Adell Hartwell left. Hubbard was in a very bad way. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Tonja Burden affidavit, 1982; Hartwells testimony in Clearwater Hearings, May 1982; interviews with four former CMO executives and one former Sea Org executive 1. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol. 11, p. 259 2. Anne Rosenblum affidavit, p.22 3. St. Petersburg Times, "Scientology," p.20 4. Vol. 3 of transcript of Clearwater Hearings, 1982, p.260; Waiters in vol. 25 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153, p.4394-7; Douglas in Armstrong vol. 25, p.4437; Nancy Dincalci in Armstrong vol. 20, pp. 3530f; Janie Peterson in Clearwater Hearings vol. 4, p. 81; Guardian Order 121669, 16 December 1969, by Mary Sue Hubbard 5. St. Petersburg Times, "Scientology," p.20 6. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol. 11, p. 234
CHAPTER TWO Hubbard's health had deteriorated over the years. He continued to suffer from heavy colds, and chain-smoked three to four packs of cigarettes a day. In 1965, he was bedridden and thought he was going to die. 1 This feeling recurred almost annually. Early in 1967 he was again bedridden, this time because of drug abuse. In 1972, he went into hiding in New York for almost a year, again very ill for much of this period. Shortly after his return to the ship at the end of 1973, he hurt himself badly in a motorcycle accident. He had suffered a heart attack in 1975, and the attendant embolism had forced him to take anticoagulant drugs for a year. His bursitis had never ceased to plague him, and he was usually grossly overweight.
In September 1978, a confidential telex ordered Mayo to quit Florida immediately for Los Angeles. A Commodore's Messenger met him at the airport. As they drove down the freeway to Palm Springs, the Messenger apologized to Mayo, but asked him to put on a pair of dark glasses. It was the middle of the night, but Mayo humored his escort. The glasses had been painted over. Top security was being maintained. Mayo dozed, until the driver braked hard because he had nearly overshot the freeway exit. The glasses flew off and Mayo had to reassure the driver that he had not seen the Indio exit sign. Mayo was told that Hubbard was very ill, and was given Hubbard's "case folders" to study. Mayo was to determine what auditing errors Hubbard's current condition stemmed from. He was taken to see the Commodore: "I must admit I got quite a shock, because the last time I'd seen him he'd been full of energy and active and it was a surprise to see him lying on his back .... He was lying there almost in a coma, although he had his eyes open, and when I went in the room and said hello to him his eyes flickered and he gave me a little smile." Hubbard had suffered another pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the artery to the lungs. Kima Douglas had once again saved his life. This time she was unable to overrule his refusal to go to hospital, so, imitating the doctors at Curaçao, she fed him a huge dose of his pills. He drifted into a coma. Douglas stripped an electric wire, with the desperate idea that he could be shocked back to life. She stayed by him for forty-eight hours. Scientologist medical doctor Eugene Denk was rushed from Los Angeles, blindfolded, to relieve her. 2 While Kima Douglas and Dr. Denk ministered to Hubbard's physical needs, Mayo devised an auditing program and set to work. He concluded that the New Era Dianetic auditing had been to blame, and it was decided that Dianetics should not be given Clears, because of its deleterious effect upon them. This was not heartening to the thousands of Clears who had paid huge amounts for hundreds of hours of Dianetics. The procedures brought into being by Mayo and Hubbard became known as New Era Dianetics for Operating Thetans, ("NED for OTs," or, most simply, "NOTs"). Mayo says that what they actually concentrated upon during the auditing were misconceptions; somehow the emphasis changed to Body Thetans when Hubbard helped Mayo rework his notes. Still, Mayo was made Senior Case Supervisor International, an entirely new position, as a mark of Hubbard's gratitude.
At the end of 1978, the CMO Rehabilitation Project Force started to prepare Gilman. The CMO Special Unit, the channel through which Hubbard managed Scientology, moved there the following February. Mayo continued to audit Hubbard, and had to move in with the CMO. Hubbard went even deeper into hiding for a few weeks in March 1979, travelling with a CMO escort to nearby Lake Elsinore. In April, he moved to an apartment in Hemet, where he lived with about ten Messengers. The security around him was extremely tight. Very few people knew his whereabouts; by this time he was even hiding from the Guardian's Office. In February, Hubbard, at last recovering from his illness, had turned his attention back to the worldwide Scientology scene. The CMO did a statistical analysis for him. How many people were receiving auditing and training? How much money was being made? How many new people were coming into Scientology? Hubbard did not like what he saw. The number of active Scientologists was diminishing, as was the amount of money being made. Students were abandoning their courses and demanding refunds. The obvious reasons were the twenty-fold increase in prices since November 1976, and revelations in the media about the Guardian's Office. Hubbard ignored the obvious however, and issued the "Change the Civilization Eval[uation]." 3 The Guardian's Office had let him down, and so had Sea Org management. The Commodore's Messenger Organization had been concerned with Hubbard's personal welfare, and with his personal projects (the films, for instance). Now they seemed to him to be the remaining loyal unit of his private army, and they were to enforce his will upon the renegades. Hubbard reprimanded the CMO for issuing orders under their own title. Hubbard must not be seen to be managing Scientology under any circumstances. The pretence of his resignation from Church management in 1966 had to be rigorously maintained. Otherwise he would be wide open to the extensive litigation against Scientology. Worst of all, he was implicated in the case against his wife and her cohorts in the Guardian's Office, and he too might be indicted. He had already been named (along with twenty-nine others) as an as yet unindicted coconspirator. The CMO were a latter-day Praetorian Guard, at first protecting and serving the whims of their Emperor, but gradually becoming the most powerful element in the hierarchy of command. Long the interface between Hubbard and the rest of the Church, part of the CMO became the senior management body: the Commodore's Messenger Organization International, or CMO Int. But as the Commodore's Messenger Organization was quite obviously connected to the Commodore, they had to find a new title. So the Watchdog Committee (WDC) came into being, in April 1979. It consisted solely of the senior executives of CMO Int. The function of WDC was to "put senior management back on post." They did this by absorbing all top management posts. The members of the Watchdog Committee remained anonymous, and many Scientologists thought Hubbard was in fact the mysterious Chairman WDC. In July 1979, a member of CMO issued a directive seeking to explain the rather contradictory notion that although CMO was in no way involved in management, it could give orders to any of Scientology's International Management bodies. Early in 1978, Hubbard had reinforced their position by approving an order which made them answerable only to him, and urging the compliance of all other Sea Org units with CMO orders. The rule was basically obey first, ask questions later, if at all. 4 Hubbard's orders grew progressively more wild. Gerald Armstrong was in the CMO at Gilman: "In the summer of 1979, on the orders of Hubbard . . . I became involved in a project to build Mr. Hubbard a completely new house near Hemet. I was personally involved with the architectural plans for this property and saw an order from Mr. Hubbard to have built around the property a high block wall with openings for gun emplacements." Amongst Hubbard's requirements were that the house be "in a nonblack area, dust-free, defensible, with no surrounding higher areas, and built on bedrock." To maintain security, Hubbard even stopped seeing his wife, shortly before she changed her plea to an admission of guilt. They last saw each other at Gilman in August 1979. Despite her years of faithful service, and her willingness to take the rap for him, Hubbard cast her off. Nonetheless, she retained control of the still powerful Guardian's Office, and was able to remove the Deputy Commanding Officer of the CMO for meddling in GO affairs. 5 In September 1979, nine of the indicted GO executives and staff, led by Mary Sue Hubbard, signed a stipulation admitting their involvement in the break ins, burglaries, thefts and buggings. By their admissions they stopped further investigation into their numerous other misdeeds. They also avoided a drawn out trial with the inevitable adverse publicity. The 282 page stipulation revealed the story of the infiltration of government agencies, in startling detail. In December, the GO nine were sentenced. Agent Sharon Thomas received the shortest prison term--six months. The others, including Mary Sue Hubbard, were sentenced to four and five year terms. They managed to stall the day by appealing the sentences. With the pressure building, Hubbard issued an ominous warning from his secret headquarters, "The Purification Rundown and Atomic War." The faithful were summoned to meetings in Orgs the world over to hear Hubbard's terrible message. Executives in full dress Sea Org uniform spoke to groups of frightened Scientologists. The Bulletin began: "I want Scientologists to live through World War III." 6 Hubbard went on to make it perfectly clear that he held out very little hope for the world. There was going to be a nuclear war very, very soon. He confidently asserted that "those who have a full and complete Purification Rundown will survive where others not so fortunate won't. And that poses the interesting probability that only Scientologists will be functioning in areas experiencing heavy fallout in an Atomic War." In fact, Hubbard's "Personal Communicator" visited several principal Sea Org executives and told them that if they did not raise Scientology's stats by 540 percent in six months, then the world would end. They did not, and it did not, and in later reissues the phrase quoted above was changed to "those who have had a full and complete Purification Rundown could fare better than others not so fortunate. And that poses the interesting probability that only Scientologists will have had the spiritual gain that would enable them to function in areas experiencing heavy fallout in an Atomic War." At about the time that the "Purification Rundown and Atomic War" was invoked in an effort to galvanize Scientologists into action, the GO predicted an FBI raid on the Gilman complex. It seemed likely that Hubbard would be indicted either by a New York grand jury investigating Scientology harassment of author Paulette Cooper, or a Florida grand jury investigating Scientology's dealings in Clearwater. There was a panic at Gilman Hot Springs to remove any material demonstrating Hubbard's management of Scientology. A massive document shredder was moved to Gilman Hot Springs. The crew affectionately called it "Jaws." Anything which connected Hubbard to the La Quinta or Gilman properties, or to the Guardian's Office; any order, or anything even resembling an order from Hubbard had to go, and accordingly tens of thousands of documents were shredded. The Messenger logs, which were the painstaking record of every verbal order given by the Commodore to his Messengers, were buried for safe keeping. 7 These logs have never come under public scrutiny. Gerald Armstrong was the head of the Household Unit, which was preparing a house on the Gilman property for Hubbard's occupation. One of Armstrong's juniors was perplexed when she found a cache of boxes containing faded Hubbard letters and the like. She asked Armstrong if this material should be shredded. Armstrong was amazed and delighted to find twenty boxes packed with old letters, diaries, photographs, even some of Hubbard's baby clothes. 8 At last an accurate and fully documented account of the remarkable exploits of the Founder would be possible. The fabrications of conspiring government agencies could be disproved once and for all. Armstrong sent a request to Hubbard asking permission to establish an archive with this material at its core. Hubbard granted the request. The process eventually discredited Hubbard's fictional autobiography for good. Shortly thereafter in February or March 1980, Hubbard hightailed it out of his apartment in Hemet, with the two Messengers who were "on Watch," Pat and Annie Broeker. 9 The Broekers had been in Scientology for a long time. Annie had been a Messenger on the ship. Hubbard disappeared without trace. He probably left because of the strong possibility that he would be subpoenaed by the Paulette Cooper grand jury in New York. Armstrong was busy with a series of projects, including the Nobel Peace Prize Project which was intended to win the Prize for Hubbard's development of the Purification Rundown. Increasingly stringent measures were taken to conceal Hubbard's control of Scientology. Armstrong was also assigned to "Mission Corporate Category Sort-Out" (MCCS). Members of the Guardian's Office Legal Bureau and of the L. Ron Hubbard Personal Office met with Hubbard's attorney to discuss strategy. They were trying to cover the tracks of the Religious Research Foundation, and other dubious or downright illegal schemes, which had poured Church of Scientology money into Hubbard's private accounts. 10 MCCS started an eddy which would become a tidal wave, sweeping away the majority of veteran Scientologists. The entire corporate structure was to be changed in a desperate attempt to avoid the consequences of Guardian's Office activities, and the ensuing concerted legal action against the corporate entity of which it was part, the Church of Scientology of California, the corporate heads of which were GO executives. Hubbard dabbled with a follow-up to the Purification Rundown, called the Survival Rundown, but most of the work was done by his Technical Compilations Unit at Gilman Hot Springs. After lengthy surveys, the new Rundown was released with illustrations of an American Indian paddling a canoe, or loosing an arrow at a buffalo. Unfortunate choices as examples of survival. The "Purif" had been advertised with a waterfall, unintentionally suggesting an ad for menthol cigarettes. During the summer, Armstrong's growing collection of documents relating to the life and times of L. Ron Hubbard was appraised by a Scientologist collector, who valued it at around $5 million. MCCS were toying with the idea of creating a Trust to legitimize some of the immense payments being made to Hubbard. 11 On July 16, 1980, the GO, which had precious little to celebrate, was able to rejoice with the news that the British government's use of the Aliens Act against Scientology was finally over. After twelve years, foreign Scientologists could once more enter Britain legally. However, the restrictions on Hubbard's re-entry were not lifted. Hubbard was beginning to let slip clues to the terrible truth of the OT levels. He issued a Bulletin called "The Nature of a Being" in which he quite publicly, yet mystifyingly, declared that "a human being . . . is not a single unit being." 12 Plans were underway to film Revolt in the Stars, volcanic eruptions and all. Hubbard itched to make OT 3 public. Hubbard continued railing against psychiatry: "Almost every modern horror crime was committed by a known criminal who had been in and out of the hands of psychiatrists and psychologists often many times .... Spawned by an insanely militaristic government, psychiatry and psychology find avid support from oppressive and domineering governments .... The credence and power of psychiatry and psychology are waning. It hit its zenith about 1960: then it seemed their word was law and that they could harm, injure, and kill patients without restraint." Hubbard assured his readers that his own work had been a major reason for a purported decline of psychiatry and psychology. He added, "At one time they were on their way to turning every baby into a future robot for the manipulation of the state and every society into a madhouse of crime and immorality." 13 In October 1980, the Chairman WDC caused much rejoicing by making the enormous price cuts mentioned earlier. Scientology was still not cheap, but it was a great deal cheaper, and the monthly price rises had stopped. It looked as if the Scientology world was finally going to right itself. Many thought that "LRH" was "back on the lines." In fact, quite the opposite was true. Omar Garrison, who had already written two books favorable to Scientology, was now contracted to write Hubbard's biography, using the enormous collection of material discovered and gathered by Gerald Armstrong. The contract negotiations were elaborate, with Mary Sue Hubbard representing both her husband to the publisher, and the publisher to Garrison. The publisher was to be Scientology Publications, Denmark, a subsidiary of the Church of Scientology, though its executives knew nothing of the negotiations made by Mary Sue on their behalf. Garrison was firm in his approach, as he later said: "I wasn't prepared to write a eulogy for Mr. Hubbard... it would be like trying to write a biography of Christ for a very fanatical Christian organization... they agreed that I can [sic] write it without any restriction." 14 The day after the contract was signed, on October 31, 1980, the Internal Revenue Service placed a lien on the Cedars of Lebanon complex, the huge old hospital which by then housed Scientology's Los Angeles operation. Within a fortnight, the Scientologists' appeal against the IRS tax assessment for the years 1970-1972 went to court. Hubbard's written Scientology output for 1980 was small. A few already lengthy Confessional lists were extended on his instruction, and there were various pronouncements about drugs. He kept busy with other matters. The first was an attempt at writing the longest science fiction novel of all time. He later boasted to A.E. van Vogt that it had taken him only six weeks to write. 15 It is rumored that Hubbard did not even read the proofs, leaving this to his close confidant, Messenger Pat Broeker. But how could a Messenger alter the words of the great OT? Perhaps Battlefield Earth is the longest science fiction novel ever written. Certainly, some reviewers found it among the most boring, and possibly the most turgid. One headed his review, succinctly, "Brain Death." In his history of science fiction, Trillion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss gave a good synopsis of the novel:
When Scientology's Bridge Publications printed the paperback issue, the over-muscled figure of Johnnie on the cover was topped by a very Hubbard-like head. Hubbard's second work of 1980 was somewhat shorter. Hubbard had decided that society lacked a moral code, and wrote The Way to Happiness, for public distribution. The lack of mention of Scientology or Dianetics is striking, and a publishing front was even developed so that the booklet would not be seen to emanate from the Scientology Church. The booklet lays out a series of twenty-one maxims from "Take Care of Yourself" to "Flourish and Prosper," each with a page or two of explanation. It includes the unoriginal and awkwardly phrased "Try Not to Do Things to Others That You Would Not Like Them to Do to You." Most of the advice is sensible if obvious, and much of it Hubbard had ignored throughout his life. The maxim about lying is carefully worded: "Do not tell harmful lies." At the end of each explanation is a summating phrase. "Do Not Murder" is followed by "The way to happiness does not include murdering your friends, your family, or yourself being murdered." The booklet is sugary, but harmless enough. It certainly does not reflect the morality Hubbard instilled into his followers, least of all in B-1, the Intelligence section of the Guardian's Office. Just after the completion of The Way to Happiness, Guardian Jane Kember and Deputy Guardian for Information World Wide, Mo Budlong, were sentenced to two to six years for "burglary, aiding and abetting." By following Hubbard's instructions they had violated point nine of The Way to Happiness: "Don't Do anything Illegal." FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Mayo "Recollections," AAC Journal, April 1985; "An Open Letter to All Scientologists from David Mayo," 1983; Armstrong affidavit, May 1983; John Nelson taped talk, 13 August 1983; interview with John Nelson, East Grinstead, January 1984 1. Hubbard in Clearing Course film 2. Miller interview with Kima Douglas 3. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol. 12, p. 307, Nelson interview; interview, former CMO executive 4. Central Bureaux Order 588, "Flag Senior Management Command Lines," 26 July 1979; CMO Executive Directive 92, "CMO Regulations," 11 January 1978; Central Bureaux Order 621, "Bypass of Management Sector Handling Of," 29 November 1979 5. Mary Sue Hubbard in vol. 6 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153, p.876 6. HCOB, "The Purification Rundown and Atomic War," 3 January 1980 7. Sullivan in Armstrong vol. 19A, pp.3053ff 8. Armstrong vol. 9, pp. 1492ff & 1555; Sullivan in Armstrong vol. 19, p.3246 9. Mary Sue Hubbard in Armstrong vol. 6, p.886 10. Armstrong affidavit, 19 October 1982 11. Armstrong vol. 14, pp.2272ff 12. HCOB, "The Nature of a Being," 30 July 1980 13. HCOB, 29 July 1980 14. Omar Garrison in Armstrong vol. 21, pp.3595-7 15. A.E. van Vogt letter to the author
CHAPTER THREE In December 1980, the long-dormant post of Executive Director International was resurrected. It had remained vacant since Hubbard's supposed resignation in 1966. Scientologists the world over were aware that Hubbard, the Founder, Commodore and Source, was the real head of their Church, but under the new corporate strategy, it was necessary to conceal Hubbard's control. The new Executive Director International was Bill Franks, and he was to be "ED Int for life." 1 It turned out to be a very short life. Scientologists the world over assumed that Franks was Hubbard's immediate junior, and was being groomed to succeed the Commodore. Hubbard's legal situation was worsening. Early in 1981, the All Clear Unit was set up at the Commodore's Messenger Organization International ("CMO Int") reporting directly to the Commanding Officer CMO, who was also chairwoman of the Watchdog Committee. The unit's purpose was to make it "All Clear" for Hubbard to come out of hiding.
One of Miscavige's former superiors had this to say of "DM" as he is usually known: "When he's under control ... he's a very dynamite character .... He is willing to take on and confront anything." And this despite Miscavige's touchiness about being little over five feet tall and asthmatic. The Guardian's Office had failed Hubbard. Mary Sue, the Controller, never saw him again after their meeting a few months before his disappearance early in 1980. According to Hubbard, mistakes do not just happen, somebody causes them, always. Mistakes and accidents are the result of deliberate Suppression. A catastrophe as big as the government case against the GO was obviously the result of a very heavyweight Suppressive. Hubbard could not admit that the GO had merely been following his orders, so rather than reforming his views, he set out to reform the GO. In 1979, Hubbard had issued a so-called "Advice" (an internal directive with limited distribution) stating that when situations really foul-up there is more than one Suppressive Person at work. Further, those who have submitted to the SPs, the SP's "connections," also have to be rooted out. The GO, and all of the "connections" within and around it, had to be purged. Ironically, the GO had finally persuaded Hubbard that his hand must not be seen in the management of Scientology, so the All Clear Unit became Hubbard's instrument. The Suppressive-riddled GO had to be removed completely; but it had to be removed with dexterity, because it was the most powerful force in Scientology. Everyone concerned had to be sure that the orders were coming from Hubbard, but there must be no tangible evidence. If the GO had believed there was a palace revolution in progress they would have been perfectly capable of destroying the tiny CMO. There were 1,100 GO staff, most of them seasoned, their leaders well known in the Scientology world. There were a score of Messengers at CMO Int, and despite their newly acquired role in management, they were virtually unknown to the vast majority of Scientologists. The CMO's first task was to remove the Controller. In May 1981, David Miscavige, by now twenty-one, met with Mary Sue Hubbard. He told her that as a convicted criminal her position in the Church was an embarrassment. The attorneys had suggested that as long as she remained in an administrative position her husband was implicated in all Scientology affairs, including the burglaries. Miscavige doubtless reminded her that the appeal of her prison sentence would probably be lost, and that when it was lost the Church's public position would be far better if the Church was seen to have disciplined her. Mary Sue screamed and raged, but Miscavige kept his bulldog grip on the situation. He was immune to tirades, and probably smiled as he dodged the ashtray she hurled at him. For her husband's good, the Controller finally stepped down. Afterwards she decided she had been tricked, and sent letters of complaint to her husband. There was no reply. She thought that her letters to her husband were being censored. They were, but on her husband's order. Gordon Cook became the new Controller, and the Controller's Aides were replaced. The head of CMO, Diane "DeDe" Voegeding, considered Mary Sue Hubbard her friend. Having spent her teenage years on the ship without her parents, Mary Sue must have seemed almost a mother to her. Voegeding protested and was removed from her position, ostensibly for divulging Hubbard's whereabouts to the Guardian's Office. Laurel Sullivan had been Hubbard's Personal Public Relations Officer (Pers PRO) for years. She was part of the small Personal Office, and was Armstrong's immediate superior on the biography project, as well as head of the huge financial reorganization, Mission Corporate Category Son-out (MCCS). Sullivan too was a close friend of Mary Sue Hubbard. MCCS was closed, and Laurel Sullivan was removed from her post. Voegeding and Sullivan were both consigned to the Rehabilitation Project Force. They were the first of hundreds of "connections" to be purged. 2 The CMO were responding to the belief, fostered by Hubbard, that the U.S. government was working to smash Scientology. Through the collection of unpaid taxes, the Internal Revenue Service was capable of destroying the parent Church of Scientology of California. There was also a distinct danger that all the subsidiary corporations would be sucked under with it. The Scientology Publications Organization U.S. was re-incorporated as a for-profit corporation, called Bridge Publications. The Publications Organization in Denmark became New Era Publications. A new Legal office was established distinct from, and eventually controlling, the GO Legal Bureau. It was the beginning of a proliferation of allegedly distinct and separate Scientology corporations. The All Clear Unit (ACU) had to all intents become autonomous under the control of David Miscavige. It was not subject to the CMO, the Watchdog Committee, or any other Scientology entity. Miscavige took his orders only from Pat Broeker, who in turn took his orders only from Hubbard. In July 1981, ED Int. Bill Franks and a small group of Messengers arrived at the headquarters of the U.S. Guardian's Office in Los Angeles. All GO staff were ordered to join the Sea Org, and a Criminal Handling Unit was established. Franks and his cohorts were there to remove the last real obstacle to CMO control of the Guardian's Office, Jane Kember, the Guardian. Kember had received a prison sentence for her part in the Washington burglaries, but was on bail pending an appeal. Upon hearing of Franks' moves, Mary Sue Hubbard reappointed herself Controller, and rescinded her previous permission for the CMO to investigate the GO. Franks and his team were physically ejected from GO headquarters in Los Angeles. The locks were changed. Mary Sue appointed Jane Kember Temporary Controller. Franks, as Executive Director International, maintained his occupation of the Controller's office itself, and Kember visited him there with a group of GO heavies. Franks launched into an attack on Mary Sue Hubbard, among other things accusing her of being a "squirrel" who practiced astrology. Ignoring Franks' threats, Kember's crew removed the Controller's files, leaving Franks in an empty office. The GO took over an office in the former Cedars of Lebanon complex, the home of most of the Scientology Orgs in Los Angeles. There the Controller's files were guarded day and night. Mary Sue made a desperate bid to find her husband, so that he could quash the CMO. For three days the screaming match continued, with David Miscavige and other high-ranking Messengers joining in. They played on Kember's fear of a schism in the Church. Eventually, she was shown an undated Hubbard dispatch which suggested that the GO should be put under the CMO when its senior executives went to prison. Jane Kember and Mary Sue Hubbard admitted defeat. At the end of July, the new leaders of the Guardian's Office issued "Cracking the Conspiracy" which assured Scientologists, "The GO is now working around the clock to crack the conspiracy in the next six weeks. This is not 'PR' or a 'gimmick.' It is the truth." Ironically, the conspiracy against Scientology seemed to have emanated from the Guardian's Office itself. The last vestige of resistance to the CMO takeover would come from Guardian's Office headquarters, GO World Wide, at Saint Hill in England. A CMO "Observation Mission" travelled to England, And on August 5 convened a "Committee of Evidence" against leading members of the Guardian's Office. The Committee was made up solely of Messengers, and chaired by Miscavige. The members were found guilty. A CMO unit was established at Saint Hill, and Bill Franks, the Executive Director International, issued a directive explaining that as Hubbard's management successor he was senior in authority to the Guardian's Office. The Findings and Recommendations of the Committee of Evidence were not published. Senior GO officials were shipped to Gilman Hot Springs where they underwent a "rehabilitation program." Messengers called them "the crims," for criminals. These middle-aged Church executives were made to dig ditches, and wait table for the young rulers. They were awakened in the middle of the night and subjected to a new type of "Confessional." The privacy of the auditing session was abandoned, along with the polite manner of the auditor. A group of Messengers would fire questions, and while the recipient fumbled for an answer, yell accusations at him. Answers were belittled, and the Messengers all yelled at once. The exhausted GO official would be threatened with eternal expulsion from Scientology. The questions were also new. The CMO was convinced that the GO had been infiltrated by "enemy" agencies, so the "crims" were asked, "Who's paying you?" over and over again, and accused of working for the FBI, the AMA or the CIA. This brutal form of interrogation came to be known as "gang sec-checking." It was in total violation of the publicized tenets of Scientology. GO staff began to crack under the pressure. Most of these hardened executives eventually left Gilman willing to do the bidding of their new masters. The Watchdog Committee assigned one of their number to the control of the Guardian's Office. David Gaiman, the former head of GO Public Relations, became the new Guardian upon his return from Gilman Hot Springs. The great GO machine was grinding to a halt. Members of the Legal Bureau, who understood the weak position of Scientology in many of the increasing number of suits, wanted to settle out of court wherever possible, but were overruled in favor of a fight to the death policy. The stalwarts of the Legal Bureau were dismissed, and their place taken by expensive private law firms. Most of these suits were eventually settled for far larger amounts than GO Legal had negotiated. The CMO was in control of the entire administrative structure of Scientology. Although still in hiding, Hubbard made himself available for comment, but only on matters of Scientology "Tech," in September 1981. 3 While taking over the GO, the CMO had been establishing yet another corporation called Author Services Incorporated (ASI). It was incorporated in California in October 1981 as a for-profit company, and represented the literary interests of L. Ron Hubbard. ASI was not activated for several months. A few final adjustments had to be made to the Scientology corporate structure. In November, Hubbard ordered the CMO to send him information outlining the entire international position of Scientology. He wanted to know all the "stats." It took two weeks to collect the information, and then it had to be presented in a way which would demonstrate the efficacy of Hubbard's orders to the CMO to take over Church management. Hubbard had trained Messengers to censor information going to him to shield him from upsetting news. After the huge ritual of information gathering, the CMO remained in power, so Hubbard was obviously happy with what he received. The various pans of the Organization continued to function, largely unaware of the drastic changes that were taking place at the top. During Hubbard's absence from direct management in 1980, the prices had been cut, and moves were underway to reconcile estranged Scientologists. These measures were still penetrating to the membership, as the new regime brought in stringent changes at the top. It was in this setting, in November 1981, that Scientology Missions International, which monitored the progress of the supposedly independent Mission, or "Franchise," network, called a meeting to try and resolve some of the ongoing conflicts between Mission Holders and the Church. During the 1970s, several major Mission Holders had been declared Suppressive, and their Franchises given to others. Most had exhausted Scientology's internal justice procedures in an attempt to be reinstated and to retrieve their Missions. A Mission Holder sometimes found himself in the peculiar position of having invested most of his assets into his Mission, but after being declared Suppressive was forced to surrender control to the Church's Mission Office, who would place the mission under new management. The Mission Holder would have no access to his assets, which often amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and found it impossible to work his way back into the good graces of Scientology. Several ousted Mission Holders had initiated civil litigation against the Church. Hubbard's published policy states that an individual can be declared Suppressive for suing the Church. It was a Catch 22 situation. The November 1981 meeting attempted to resolve this impasse by "open two-way communication." Both the Mission Holders and the Sea Org's Scientology Missions International staff felt progress had been made at the meeting. Both groups had failed to comprehend what was happening at the very top of the Church. Ray Kemp, a very early supporter of Hubbard and at one time a close confederate, had been declared Suppressive in the mid- 1970s, and his California Mission taken from him. Shortly before Kemp and his wife were "declared," a Church of Scientology publication had carried an article boasting about the Kemp Mission in California which said the Mission consisted of five modern buildings in two acres, with a parking lot for 200 cars. Kemp had even managed to persuade the town council to rename the site of his Mission "L. Ron Hubbard Plaza." Kemp had tried every recourse within the Church to retrieve his Mission, but his efforts were to no avail. Eventually Kemp reluctantly started civil legal proceedings against the Church, but only after alleged physical abuse by members of the Guardian's Office. As a result of the first Mission Holders' meeting, Kemp and his wife were restored to "good standing." A Board of Review was established to investigate similar cases. Another meeting was scheduled to take place a few weeks later. Peter Greene, who had been a Mission Holder, made a tape in 1982 describing the events of these meetings, and the background to them. The Guardian's Office had grown increasingly worried that a series of moves by U.S. government agencies might put the Church out of business. The FBI had acquired a huge quantity of incriminating material, and the IRS suits might eventually bankrupt Scientology. Greene alleges that since the mid-1970s there had been a Guardian's Office Program to take over the Missions, which were separate corporations, if the worst happened. The leading Mission Holders had been expelled, and replaced with new people who would be less willing to resist the GO. Shortly after the first Mission Holders' meeting, yet another corporation came into being: the Church of Scientology International. It was to become the "Mother Church," replacing the Church of Scientology of California. The old lines of command had to be obscured by giving new titles to departments; for example, Hubbard's Personal Office became the Product Development Office International. 4 The second Mission Holders' meeting was held at the Flag Land Base in Florida in December 1981, in the Scientology owned Sandcastle Hotel. The meeting was scheduled to last for two days, and fifty people arrived for the first day. The swell of excitement took hold, the meeting continued for five days, and by the time it was broken up, about two hundred people had attended. 5 The meeting was chaired by Mission Holder Dean Stokes. Most of the Holders of larger Missions, and some of those deprived of their Missions, were in attendance. Quite a few GO staff were also there, and the meeting turned into a mass confessional, as those present gradually admitted the plans and actions taken secretly in the past. Greene described the exhilaration as the Mission Holders, the Guardian's Office, and Mission Office staff came back into touch with one another. One executive was noticeably absent: Bill Franks, the Executive Director International, who had called the meeting. The Mission Holders had heard by now that the anonymous Watchdog Committee were Franks' superiors, despite the Hubbard Policy Letter saying Franks was head of the Church. They demanded Franks' presence. He arrived accompanied by a CMO missionaire. One of the Mission Holders, Brown McKee, said he was assigning the lowest of Hubbard's Ethics Conditions, "Confusion," to the Watchdog Committee. The formula for completion of this Condition is simple: "Find out where you are." The confusion was that WDC was ostensibly running the Church, in contradiction to the Executive Director International Policy Letter, and without any apparent authority. The Watchdog Committee was seen by the Mission Holders as part of a mutinous takeover. Paradoxically, this was exactly how the Watchdog Committee saw the Mission Holders. The Mission Holders demanded the presence of the Watchdog Committee. Mission Holder Bent Corydon, whose Riverside Mission had just been returned to him, has joked that the Mission Holders were quite ready to fly out to Gilman Hot Springs, and explain matters to the WDC "with baseball bats." Before this could happen, representatives of the WDC arrived to quell the "Mutiny." 6 Senior Case Supervisor International David Mayo was there, and rather lamely started giving a pep talk on new "Technical" research. Mayo did not get very far. Norman Starkey, who had arrived with the WDC, and was actually in charge of the Church's new non-GO legal bureau, tried to read a Hubbard article about tolerance and forgiveness called "What Is Greatness?" He did not get very far either. David Miscavige looked on, as the meeting broke up into smaller groups, with the Mission Holders trying to explain their actions to the WDC representatives. Their attempts were unsuccessful. Unbeknownst to most of those at the meeting, there really was a plan to wrest control from the Watchdog Committee. A small group of Scientologists, including a few Mission Holders and veteran Sea Org members, took part in this plot. It fell apart when one of their number reported their secret discussions. Hubbard was given the CMO account of events, and started to send dispatches to senior executives at Gilman describing the Mission Holders' "mutiny," and an infiltration by enemy agents. Hubbard raged about Don Purcell and the early days, when "vested interests" had tried to prise Dianetics from his control. 7 Swift action was taken to counter the "mutiny." On December 23, 1981, a Policy Letter was issued entitled "International Watchdog Committee." Perhaps only a few people noticed that it was not signed by L. Ron Hubbard, but by the International Watchdog Committee. It stated, quite simply: "The International Watchdog Committee is the most senior body for management in the Church of Scientology International." Four days later, Executive Director International "for life" Bill Franks was replaced. The coup was very nearly complete. In the midst of this frantic activity, a redefinition of the revered state of Clear was issued over Hubbard's name. All earlier definitions involving perfect recall, a complete absence of psychosomatic ailments and the like, although true were no longer valid. The new definition was a wonderful piece of circular reasoning, beautifully self-perpetuating in its illogic: "A Clear is a being who no longer has his own reactive mind." 8 If one accepts the hypothesis of the reactive mind, then a Clear does not have it. The definition does, however, imply that he could have the reactive minds of others (Body Thetans?), and be as incapable as ever. No scientific experiment could defeat this new definition. Dianetics would continue to pretend itself a science, but remain beyond verification. It could neither be proven nor disproven, having been moved squarely into the realm of faith. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: correspondence with a former CMO executive; interview with former Guardian's Office executive; Peter Green, taped talk, 23 June 1982 1. HCOPL, "The Executive Director International," 11 December 1980 2. Sullivan in vol. 19A of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153, pp.3144f 3. David Mayo letter, 8 December 1983 4. Litt in Armstrong vol. 28, p.4734 5. McKee, vol. 4 of transcript of Clearwater Hearings, 1982, pp.397ff 6. Bent Corydon, taped talk, July 1983 7. Mayo letter 8 December 1983 8. HCOB, "The State of Clear," 14 December 1981
CHAPTER FOUR
The town of Clearwater, Florida was increasingly worried by the Scientology presence. The St. Petersburg Times had won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Guardian's Office dirty tricks. The courts had made the documentation used in the GO case available; the St. Petersburg Times, and Clearwater's own Sun newspaper, had publicized several Guardian's Office operations. The Clearwater City Commissioners, headed by a new mayor, approached Michael Flynn, by now an expert on Scientology, to help them in their investigation of Scientology. Public Hearings were held in Clearwater in May 1982. Flynn was to present witnesses and evidence regarding Scientology for a week, and then the Church would be given the same time for its reply. Religious issues were not in question. The City Commissioner James Berfield opened the Hearings with a statement of intent:
The Clearwater Hearings were locally televised. Scientologists were warned not to watch them. Eddie Waiters, who had been a Class VIII Auditor and Case Supervisor, and a member of the Las Vegas GO, set the stage with a broad account of Scientology and its underhanded dealings. Then Hubbard's estranged son, Nibs, took the stand. He painted his father as a complete con-man, a sinister black magician whose philosophy resulted from horrendous drug abuse. Lori Taverna spoke of some of her experiences. She had joined Scientology in 1965, completed all of the available OT levels, and become a Class VIII Auditor. She abandoned her business and her family when "NOTs" was released in 1978, to become a Sea Org NOTs Auditor. A year at Flag, in Clearwater, slowly disabused her of the world-saving mission of Scientology. She returned to Los Angeles ill and confused, and after sixteen years of involvement, gradually drifted out of the Scientology fold. She described the last scene of her withdrawal:
Casey Kelly had been Director of Income at the Flag Land Base. He testified that income there had averaged $400-500,000 per week. In a good week they could take $1 million. The highest income Kelly remembered was $2.3 million. Kelly spoke of a time when Church staff were forbidden to have children because there was insufficient room in the Flag Land Base nursery. Former Messengers have said that children were completely prohibited at Gilman Hot Springs as well. Abortions were common. 2 Kelly complained about the CMO unit at Flag, the youngest of whom were ten-year-olds. He described them as a "small army": "most of the younger ones don't have positions of vast authority, but if one of them had told me what to do, I would have said, Yes, sir.'" When asked what happened if someone annoyed one of these child Messengers, Kelly said: "You'll find yourself in a blue tee shirt scrubbing a garage usually." In other words on the Rehabilitation Project Force, living in the garage at Flag. Rose Pace was introduced to Scientology by her sister, Lori Taverna, when she was thirteen. She joined the Church, and her formal education ended. The Board of Education accepted representations made by the Scientologists that Pace needed counselling. At fourteen, Pace became an Auditor, and began a career which culminated in her working at the Flag Land Base, in Clearwater, as a NOTs Auditor. After sixteen years in Scientology she said of its curative claims: "I have never seen someone be cured of an illness." David Ray was at the Flag Land Base cleaning the rooms of paying public: "Well, if your statistics are up, every two weeks you're supposed to have twenty-four hours off, called liberty .... I would keep asking them for time off because I was working, oh, anywhere from eighteen to twenty hours a day .... And they wouldn't give it to me." Ray went on to express his profound resentment at the treatment he had received: "The thing that really kills me about this whole . . . operation is... by the questions they ask and the things they do, they open you up to your innermost personal self . . . you're extremely vulnerable .... They pick you up and they'll raise you so high you feel like you're on top of the world and, then, they'll drop you and they'll let you feel like a bottomless pit .... And those are the kinds of terror and searing emotions that go through a person's mind when they're there .... They want to leave; they want to help themselves. You get physically tired. Sometimes you don't even have time to take a shower. Ninety percent of the people that walk around there just - they stink." Ray inevitably ended up on the Rehabilitation Project Force. His account of it is horrifying. The RPF lived on a diet of Leftovers including wilted lettuce which was beginning to rot, and cheese with mold all over it. One day, they were given french fries, and while eating them Ray discovered that one of the potatoes was in fact a fried palmetto bug. From that point on, he used his weekly pay of $9.60 to buy cookies from a health food store. It was all he could afford. The Hartwells talked about their bizarre experiences making movies with Hubbard in the California desert. George Meister told of the tragic death of his daughter aboard the Apollo in 1971, and the disgraceful treatment he received thereafter. Lavenda van Schaik, Flynn's first Scientology litigant, claimed that her Confessional folders had been "culled," and a list of her deepest secrets sent to the press. She was persistently harassed by the Guardian's Office, whose Op against her was codenamed "Shake and Bake." Before leaving Scientology, she had been to the Flag Land Base, and found a serious outbreak of hepatitis there, which was not reported to the authorities. An affidavit by one of the victims of this outbreak was read into the record. Janie Peterson, who had belonged to the Guardian's Office, testified about her departure from Scientology: "I was terrified to even discuss the possibility of leaving Scientology with my own husband. I was afraid that he would stay in Scientology. I was afraid that he would write me up to the Guardian's Office and that they would then come and take me away somewhere because I had so much information." Scientology had driven such a wedge between Peterson and her husband that she did not realize that he was also contemplating leaving. Neither dared tell the other. After leaving, she received a series of phone calls in which the caller would hang up when the phone was answered. Then she found a note in her car saying simply, "Watch it." Then a note in her mailbox saying, "Die." In the middle of the night, she would hear a knock on her door, and open it to find no one there. Scott Mayer was on Scientology staff for twelve years. He had held many posts in that time, from Quentin Hubbard's bodyguard, when Quentin was trying to escape or to kill himself, to being manager of the Apollo just prior to its abandonment. In his time Mayer had seen Orgs throughout the world. Mayer left Scientology in 1976. Two years later, he was still a GO target, staying more or less in hiding. He eventually decided to find out just how serious the GO was. Mayer let it be known that he was staying at a certain address, and left his car parked outside. It was Christmas Eve, 1978. The car was blown up. Although he could not substantiate anything about the attack, he decided the Guardian's Office meant business, and stayed in hiding. Mayer's resolve to act was strengthened, and he became a consultant to the IRS in their ongoing litigation against Scientology. Mayer had worked on confidential operations for Scientology, among them an elaborate smuggling system which used a series of five fictitious companies to courier money out of America. Couriers were carefully trained, told exactly what to say if apprehended, and sent out with double-wrapped packages. The inner wrapper was labelled with the true destination. He also talked about blackmailing a potential defector into silence, using information from the person's Scientology Confessional auditing. He put a photocopy of an order to "cull" auditing folders into evidence. Probably Mayer's most heartbreaking assignment was the maintenance of a ranch for Sea Org children in Mexico. They were called the "Cadet Org": "Children were routinely transported from Los Angeles to the Mexican base and berthed and housed there . . . so that their mothers and fathers could get on with their business within the Church." It was cheaper to ship the kids to Mexico than to provide acceptable housing in L.A. The ranch was not a safe environment for children: "Bandits were coming in at night and they were stealing grain and they were stealing saddles and whatever wasn't tied down." Mayer was ordered to set up a rifle with an infrared sniper scope to deal with the marauding bandits. As it turned out the project was never fulfilled, because the woman running the ranch shot one of the bandits before Mayer arrived, and they did not return. Bandits were not the only problem the children faced in Mexico. There were scorpions, snakes and poisonous spiders. The brush grew right up to the house, and neither money nor personnel were available to clear it away. Because the Sea Org is run on a shoestring budget, it took Mayer some time to resolve this intolerable situation. He did so not by appealing to his superior's compassion, but by pointing out what bad public relations a death would cause. He took a jar of scorpions with him to emphasize his point. Scientologists believe that "Considerations" govern "Matter, Energy, Space and Time." Which is to say, they believe in mind over matter. "Clearing the Planet" is far more important than any individual's physical well-being. Self-sacrifice is a common trait of the True Believer. Life in the Sea Org is a peculiar mixture of "making it go right" (to use Hubbard's phrase), and an often child-like belief in the miraculous power of Scientology. According to Mayer: "Staff members were always ill-fed, ill-clothed .... I had an abscess in my tooth and I was being audited for it. I'm ready to go to the dentist, and I was being audited for it. I spent about a week, week-and-a-half, doing... what they call touch assists to get rid of the pain .... And, finally ... I was just delirious and - well, there wasn't any money for medical is what it boiled down to .... I went to the dentist... he told me I'd just made it... if it had been another day or so, I wouldn't be here to talk to you." Before journalist Paulette Cooper took the stand, a former Scientology agent who had stolen Cooper's medical records testified. He also talked about another agent placed in a cleaning company so he could steal files from a Boston attorney's office. He gave this picture of the B-1 cell he worked in:
He was a case officer for Scientology agents who had infiltrated the Attorney General's Office, the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Better Business Bureau. "Each week these people would file reports... it was very difficult for a public person in Boston to make a complaint about the Church and have it go anywhere. We had all the bases covered." Paulette Cooper then testified about the effects of being on the receiving end of the Church's harrassive tactics. The Scientologists had just filed their eighteenth law suit against her:
Cooper went on to describe her one-woman battle against Scientology, which began in 1968. She commented wryly that she had been alone in this battle for five years, and that she was glad that more people were finally speaking out. After her first article on Scientology, in 1968, Cooper received a flood of death threats and smear letters; her phone was bugged; lawsuits were filed against her; attempts were made to break into her apartment; and she was framed for a bomb threat. At one point Cooper moved, and her cousin Joy, of rather similar appearance, took over her old apartment. Soon afterwards, before the cousin had even changed the name plate on the door, someone called with flowers:
Many of the 300 tenants in the new apartment building were sent copies of a smear letter, saying that Paulette Cooper had venereal disease and sexually molested children. To answer the bomb threat charges brought falsely by Scientology, Cooper had to find a $5,000 advance to retain an attorney. She appeared before the grand jury, and truthfully denied the allegations throughout. She was indicted not only for making the threats, but also for perjury! She faced the possibility of a fifteen-year jail sentence. Her career as a free-lance journalist was in jeopardy: "What editor is ever going to give an assignment to someone who's been indicted or convicted for sending bomb threats to someone they've opposed? I was very concerned about the indictment and the trial coming out in the newspapers. The public does not know the difference between indict and convict . . . where there's smoke there's fire." Cooper developed insomnia, sleeping for only two to four hours a night, and wandered around in a daze of exhaustion. The lawyers' bills for the preparation of her case came to $19,000. She could not write. She lost her appetite and stopped eating properly. The Scientologists were merciless; having stolen her medical records, they knew very well that she was recovering from surgery when they began their attack. Her boyfriend of five years left her. The Scientologists had pressed her to the edge of extinction. At this point, she met Jerry Levin, who took pity on her terrible situation. She helped Levin to find an apartment in her building. He did everything he could to help, even doing some of her shopping. At last she had a friend and confidant who would listen to everything. And having listened, she later discovered, Levin would file his report with the Guardian's Office. After the GO trial in 1979, Levin's reports were made public. Jerry Levin was also known as Don Alverzo, one of the Washington burglars. Paulette Cooper was Fair Game; in Hubbard's words she could be "tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." 3 It took over two years for the bomb threat charges against Cooper to be dropped. She was completely exonerated after the FBI found the GO Orders for the Ops against her. By that time her book, The Scandal of Scientology, had long been out of print. The Guardian's Office had even imported small quantities into foreign countries, so they could obtain injunctions against its distribution. Copies were stolen from libraries and bought up from used book shops, then destroyed. Cooper's final point to the Clearwater Commission was the insistence that Scientology incessantly claims to have reformed itself, to have expelled the bad elements. She had heard such claims in 1968. We are still hearing them now. They have never been true. The Scientologists expel another scapegoat ("put a head on a pike" in Hubbard's terms), make a great show that the culprit has been removed, and then replace him with someone who will repeat the offending behavior. Dr. John Clark, a noted psychiatrist who has been a persistent observer and critic of cults, also took the stand and gave his opinion of the intrusive nature of Scientology techniques. He explained the incredible pressure brought to bear upon him by the Scientologists in their attempt to discredit him. He spoke at some length about the conversion experience: the sudden change of personality which members of Cults often undergo. Flynn's last witness was former Mission Holder Brown McKee, who a few months earlier had been a major voice at the Flag Mission Holders' conference. After twenty-four years of membership, having trained to a high level as an Auditor, and having done the vaunted OT levels, Brown McKee took a surprisingly short time to put Scientology in perspective:
McKee described his most traumatic experience while in Scientology. His wife, Julie, who was a highly trained Auditor, had started to feel tired:
Hubbard mocks medical doctors, and most Scientologists believe that all physical maladies have a mental or spiritual cause, and can be relieved through auditing. OTs believe that by ridding themselves of Body Thetans they will also rid themselves of disease. They avoid seeking proper medical advice, which means they are often too late. Hubbard made specific claims that his techniques had cured both cancer and leukemia. 4 On May 10, 1982, the Scientologists were scheduled to start presenting witnesses to rebut the earlier testimony to the Clearwater City Commission. Instead their lawyer questioned the legality of the proceedings, and, quite typically, tried to impugn Flynn's character. He criticized the dramatic way in which witnesses had given evidence, as if people whose lives had been ruined should retain their composure at all costs. He complained that he had not been allowed to cross-examine witnesses, though he failed to note that the questions had been asked by the Commission itself, and not by Michael Flynn. It was an empty show. The Scientologists were too late. The evidence of their appalling past had been broadcast on local TV. No argument regarding legal technicalities would erase from the viewers' minds the heartrending accounts given by the witnesses. Even so, the Commission was not established to pronounce judgment, simply to investigate and make recommendations for possible future action. Despite the blaze of publicity in Florida, Scientology's young rulers were faced with other, more urgent problems. FOOTNOTES Principal source: Transcript of the City of Clearwater Hearings re: The Church of Scientology, May 1982 1. Complaint in M.J. Flynn vs. Hubbard, U.S. Court for the District of Massachusetts, no. 83-2642-C. 2. Interviews with two former CMO executives 3. HCOPL, "Penalties for Lower Conditions," 18 October 1967 (not in Organization Executive Course) 4. Hubbard, A History of Man, p.20; Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol. 1, p. 337
CHAPTER FIVE
The organizational restructuring of Scientology continued apace through 1982. On January 1, the Religious Technology Center (RTC) was incorporated. RTC took over the trademarks of Dianetics and Scientology. David Mayo's signature is on the incorporation papers, but he claims that the terms were altered after he signed. David Miscavige was another of the seven signatories. Through the control of the trademarks RTC could control Scientology, withdrawing the right of any intransigent group to use such words as "Scientology" or "OT" in advertising, and suing if the group continued to use them. There were hundreds of registered trademarks, including the word "Happiness," the phrase "The friendliest place in the whole world," and tens of Dianetic and Scientology symbols. The new rulers were seeking to use laws relating to business to effect a total monopoly for their supposed religion. International Church management had been taken from the Flag Bureau by the Commodore's Messengers Organization in 1979. The Guardian's Office had been defeated and absorbed by the CMO without bloodshed in 1981. Author Services Incorporated was waiting in the wings to license Hubbard's copyrights to Bridge Publications and New Era Publications, which had separated from the Church, at least on paper. The Church of Scientology International had come into being to assume the management of the Orgs. By 1982 Scientology in the U.K. was already registered as the Religious Education College Incorporated, with its headquarters in Australia. Continental offices each had their own incorporation. It was a hasty attempt to divide the sinking ship of the Church of Scientology of California into watertight compartments. The CMO, acting on Hubbard's instructions, attacked the mutinous Mission Holders. Those readmitted during the 1981 conferences were once again declared Suppressive, and others were added to the list. Several previously untouched Mission Holders were also declared Suppressive, Brown McKee among them. McKee had broken one of the great taboos by making his complaints against Scientology public, speaking to the press and to the Clearwater Commissioners. Hubbard was in the habit of issuing a "Ron's Journal" to the faithful at New Year and on his birthday. On March 13, 1982, Scientologists who were attending birthday parties at Orgs and Missions the world over heard Ron's Journal 34. It was called "The Future of Scientology," and concentrated on supposed religious persecution:
Hubbard claimed that attacks upon Scientology were doomed to fail because its opponents are "mad monkeys." Hubbard gave Scientologists a new maxim: "If the papers say it, it isn't true." The issue also hinted at some current catastrophe, saying "The last enemy attack is winding down." It was Hubbard's way of expressing approval for the small group of new rulers. Having taken over the Guardian's Office, and consigned "mutinous" Mission Holders to the outer darkness, the CMO began an internal purge. Long-term Messengers were "off-loaded." So savage was the purge that CMO Int's own staff dwindled to less than twenty. Author Services Incorporated is ostensibly a non-Church organization set up to manage Hubbard's affairs as a writer. It was activated in the spring of 1982. Battlefield Earth had been published by this time, and Hubbard had written numerous film scripts intended for Hollywood movies, including the OT3 story, Revolt in the Stars. ASI also collected the author's royalties from the books produced by the two Scientology Publications organizations. David Miscavige resigned from the Sea Organization to become Chairman of the Board at Author Services Incorporated. The directors of a large share of Hubbard's ballooning personal fortune could not be seen to be members of the very organization which would continue to enlarge that fortune. However, Miscavige maintained his tight control of the Church. ASI was staffed solely with top Sea Org staff who had been allowed to resign their billion-year contracts to join. Only those at Gilman knew that ASI was actually the controlling group. This superiority was demonstrated when ASI staff arrived and started issuing orders even to the Watchdog Committee. Five of the seven incorporators of the non-profit Religious Technology Center became ASI staff. ASI is a for-profit corporation, which derives most of its income from the Scientology organizations controlled by the RTC. In April 1982, David Mayo received a long dispatch from Hubbard, copies of which were circulated to CMO executives. Stating that he anticipated his own demise within the next five years, Hubbard gave the "Tech hats" to Mayo for twenty to twenty-five years. This would give Hubbard time to "find a new body," grow up and resume his Scientological responsibilities. Giving Mayo the "Tech hats" meant that Mayo would decide what was "Standard" Scientology, and what was "non-Standard" or "squirrel" Scientology. Mayo would be the final arbiter of Hubbard's "Technology" of the human mind and spirit. This appeared to be a position of tremendous power, because Mayo could not be removed. Others could ostensibly control the assets of Scientology, but Mayo could adjudge people "out-Tech," and have them cast out of the Church itself. On Hubbard's orders, Mayo set about creating yet another corporation for his Office of the Senior Case Supervisor International. His twenty to twenty-five year posting was shorter even than Executive Director Bill Franks' posting "for life." Mayo had only a few months left. In June, yet another Commanding Officer of the CMO fell. John Nelson was replaced by Miscavige's nineteen-year-old protégé, Marc Yaeger. Yaeger looks old for his years, in part because he is prematurely balding. While still a teenager he became the senior officer in the management structure of Scientology, at least in name. Yaeger had risen far from his start as video-machine operator on the Tech films. "Video-machine operator" is a rather grandiose title for someone who pushes the button to start and stop the recorder. Yaeger joined the Sea Org when he was fifteen, so has minimal formal education. The same holds for most CMO staff. Indeed, most of the original Messengers were even younger when they were taken away from their schooling. Ex-CO CMO John Nelson was assigned to physical labor. Rumor had it that Miscavige's All Clear Unit would quash the legal threats against Hubbard by the end of 1982, so preparations were made at Gilman Hot Springs for Hubbard's return. The Founder's love of the sea is well attested, so to welcome him the CMO decided to construct a replica of the top and interior of a full-scale, three-masted clipper ship, some fifty miles inland. The materials for the ship cost about half a million dollars, but Sea Org labor was cheap at less than $20 a week for a 100-hour week. Miscavige was ostensibly in control of Hubbard's royalties, Hubbard's Church, the Guardian's Office, and, until the Commodore's triumphant return, was the master of a landlocked clipper ship, the Star of California. John Nelson has described his cloak and dagger meetings with Pat Broeker, who delivered orders from Hubbard to Gilman. These orders came in the form of tapes from Hubbard, which would be transcribed as "Advices." This was designed to perpetuate the fiction that Hubbard was not the head of the Church. In theory, the Church could take or leave his "Advices." In practice, these Hubbard orders were carried out to the letter.
A peculiar Hubbard Bulletin called "Pain and Sex" was released in August. In the Bulletin the seventy-one-year-old Commodore released his newest discovery: "Pain and sex were the INVENTED tools of degradation." (Emphasis in original.) 1 Hubbard alleged that psychiatrist, "who have been on the [time] track a long time and are the sole cause of decline in this universe" had invented sex as a means of entrapment eons ago. As a result of Hubbard's diatribe, some Scientologists stopped having sexual intercourse with their spouses. At the end of August, David Mayo and his entire staff were removed from their positions, and put under guard at Gilman. The next month, Franks' successor as Executive Director International, Kerry Gleeson, was removed, and replaced by the head of Scientology's operations in continental Europe, Guillaume Lesevre. In October several other well known, long-term Sea Org members were rounded up and taken to Gilman Hot Springs. One of these, Jay Hurwitz, described the experience in some detail:
Hurwitz accused Miscavige of physically assaulting three people during the course of his investigation. A Committee of Evidence was convened and lasted for several weeks. Hurwitz was one of those who left before the Findings and Recommendations of that "Comm Ev" were published in January 1983. While so many former top executives of Scientology were confined at Gilman Hot Springs, the new management took its final strike at the power of the Mission Holders. Howard "Homer" Schomer, who was the Treasury Secretary of Author Services Incorporated, has testified that money was being channeled frantically into Hubbard's bank accounts during 1982. Schomer was in a position to know since he made the transfers. He has said that during his six months at ASI, about $34 million was paid into Hubbard's accounts. Schomer says this money came mostly from the Church, rather than from book royalties. Yet again Scientology was billed retroactively by Hubbard. Orgs were charged for their past use of taped lectures. They were charged for their past use of Hubbard courses. Schomer says there was a target figure of $85 million by the end of 1982. If this figure was achieved, there would be fat bonuses for ASI staff. Probably acting on Hubbard's orders, the new management called the Mission Holders to a conference at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel on October 17, 1982. At this fateful meeting, any degree of independence the Mission Holders retained was torn away from them. The meeting was also part of the desperate attempt to raise the targeted $85 million. FOOTNOTES Sources: John Nelson; interviews with two former CMO executives; Howard Schomer testimony in Christofferson Titchbourne vs. Church of Scientology Mission of Davis et al., State of Oregon Circuit Court, Multnomah County, case A7704-05184; Schomer testimony in Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153 1. HCOB, "Pain and Sex", 26 August 1982 2. Jay Hurwitz letter to David Banks, 1983; interviews with Hurwitz, East Grinstead, 1983 & 1986
Continue the Book on Web Page 3
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1.
1.
1.
The
man who was owed this sum was absent from Saint Hill for a large part of 1966.
Most of that time was spent in Rhodesia. Hubbard quietly assured his lieutenants
that he had been Cecil Rhodes in his last lifetime (right, wearing Rhodes'
favourite type of hat), so he saw his visit to Rhodesia as a homecoming.
Hubbard
had spent the last weeks of 1966 "researching" OT3 in North Africa. In a letter
of the time, he admitted that he was taking drugs ("pinks and grays") to assist
his research. 
In
November, the Hubbard Explorational Company bought the Royal Scotsman (right),
which for some years had been an Irish Channel cattle ferry, which weighed in at
3,280 tons, eight times the tonnage of the Avon River. The new owners
requested permission from the Board of Trade to re-register the ship as a
"pleasure yacht," with clearance for a voyage to Gibraltar. They were advised
that considerable modifications would be necessary under the "Safety of Life at
Sea Convention" (SOLAS) of 1960. 
The
London Daily Mail (right) published details of Hubbard's
private bank accounts in Switzerland, account numbers and all. It said Hubbard
claimed to have $7 million. It also unearthed a prescription signed "L. Ron
Hubbard Ph.D.," for the sedative Nembutal, "for horticultural purposes only."
Abbott Laboratories, the manufacturers of Nembutal, said there was "no
conceivable" way in which Nembutal could be used in horticulture. Perhaps it was
for Hubbard's "ever-bearing" tomatoes. 
In
September, Hubbard announced the new Class VIII Auditor Course, in the
Auditor magazine. The announcement was accompanied by a center spread of
Hubbard's photographs. There is a shot of an Ethics Officer, carrying a heavy
wooden baton, wearing dark glasses and full uniform, and scowling at a student
who is smiling back, apprehensively. The caption reads: "No one can fool a Sea
Org Ethics Officer. He knows who's ethics bait." Another shot shows a Sea Org
member suspended in mid-air by two Ethics Officers, one wearing a broad grin. He
is about to be thrown over the rail, into the sea. The caption reads: "Students
are thrown overboard for gross out tech and bequeathed to the deep!" "Out tech"
is a Hubbardism for "misapplication of Scientology auditing procedures." The
editor of Auditor 41 thought the photos were a Hubbard joke. Hubbard
was deadly serious. 
Many
Corfiots seem to have accepted overboarding, and on November 16, Hubbard was a
welcome guest at a reception at the Achillion Palace. With the notable exception
of the Prefect, most of the island's worthies attended. The following day, with
as much pomp as the Sea Org could muster, the Royal Scotman was renamed
yet again, this time deliberately. Diana Hubbard (on far left of picture),
who had just celebrated her sixteenth birthday, and been awarded the rank of
Lieutenant Commander, broke a bottle of champagne over the Scotman's
bow, and the ship became the Apollo. In the same ceremony, the Avon
River was restyled the Athena. The Enchanter had already
been renamed the Diana, but was included in the ceremony nonetheless.
Geoffrey
Johnson Smith was on the witness stand for six days, and Kenneth Robinson also
made an appearance. But the focal witness was Hilary Henslow (right),
mother of the schizophrenic girl who had been abandoned by Scientology.
![Dear Family, I just had a session an auditing session I feel great! Great GREAT! and my life is EXPANDING EXPANDING - and it's ALL SCIENTOLOG [sic] Hurry Up! Hurry, Hurry Be a friend to yourselves - Get into this stuff NOW - It's more precious than gold it's the best thing that's ever ever ever ever come along. Love, Susan.](meister.gif)
From
his villa in Morocco, in March 1972, the Commodore explained his twelve point
"Governing Policy" for finance. Points A and J were the same: "MAKE MONEY."
Point K was "MAKE MORE MONEY." And the last point, L, was "MAKE OTHER PEOPLE
PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MONEY." At last, an honest admission of this major plank
of Hubbard's philosophy. 
In
November, the Apollo was in Tenerife. Hubbard went for a joyride into
the hills on one of his motorbikes. The bike skidded on a hairpin bend, hurling
the Commodore onto the gravel. He was badly hurt, but somehow managed to walk
back to the ship. He refused a doctor, and his medical orderly, Jim Dincalci,
was surprised at his demands for painkillers. Hubbard turned on him, and said
"You're trying to kill me." Kima Douglas took Dincalci's place. She thinks
Hubbard had broken an arm and three ribs, but could not get close enough to find
out. With Hubbard strapped into his chair, the Apollo put to sea,
encountering a Force 5 gale. The Commodore screamed in agony, and the screaming
did not stop for six weeks. 
The
plans to win favor with the mayor of Clearwater did not materialize. Before Mr.
Shultz could be caught molesting little girls in the park, Mayor Gabriel Cazares
(right) started asking questions. He made a public statement: "I am
discomfited by the increasing visibility of security personnel, armed with billy
clubs and Mace, employed by the United Churches of Florida .... I am unable to
understand why this degree of security is required by a religious organization."
In
October, Hubbard suffered a tragic blow. Back in 1959 his son Nibs had left
Scientology. From that time, Hubbard had pinned his dynastic dream upon Quentin
(right), his oldest son by Mary Sue. He had frequently announced that
Quentin would succeed him as the leader of Scientology. At the end of October
1976, Quentin was found, comatose, in a parked car in Las Vegas with the engine
still running. Quentin was rushed to a hospital where he died two weeks later,
without regaining consciousness. He was not identified until several days after
his death. Although no precise cause of death was determined, Quentin had
certainly suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. He was twenty-two years old.
Hubbard
kept the job in the family by appointing his wife, Mary Sue (right, in 1976),
as the first Guardian. After Hubbard took to the seas, Mary Sue joined him, and
in January 1969, a new Guardian, Jane Kember, was appointed. However, Mary Sue
retained control of the Guardian's Office with the creation of the Controller's
Committee, which served as an interface between Hubbard and the GO. Mary Sue
Hubbard was appointed as the Controller "for life" by her husband.
In
her five month stay, Dell never saw Hubbard vary his wardrobe (right):
"He's a big man with a big stomach. His hair was long and shabby - gray, with
reddish spots, and he always wore pants that were way too big with one
suspender, and he always had a bandana and a cowboy hat." 
David
Mayo (right) had been involved in Scientology since the late 1950s. He
had joined the Sea Org soon after its inception, becoming one of the few Class
12 Auditors. By the time the Flag Land Base was established in Florida, in 1975,
Mayo had become the Senior Case Supervisor Flag. He was the top dog in the world
of Scientology "Tech."
While
recovering, Hubbard approved the purchase of the Massacre Canyon Inn resort
complex at Gilman Hot Springs (right). There were several buildings,
including a motel and a hotel, set in 520 acres and including a
twenty-seven-hole golf course. The property was about forty miles from La
Quinta, near the small town of Hemet. The purchase price was $2.7 million.
David
Miscavige (right) was a cameraman with the CMO Cine Org in 1977, at the
age of seventeen, and had gained a reputation for bulldozing through any
resistance. Miscavige could get things done, and had even been known to stand
his ground before Hubbard. His parents were Scientologists, and his older
brother, Ronnie, was also in the CMO. David Miscavige had trained as an Auditor
at Saint Hill at the age of fourteen. He was not a long-term Messenger, but his
dogged determination led to rapid promotion 
In
1979, attorney Michael Flynn (right) was approached by a former
Scientologist who wanted her money back. She told him that if he took the case,
he would receive a letter giving unsavory details of her past. He did not
believe her, but sure enough the letter arrived. Flynn became interested in the
Church of Scientology, and his interest increased markedly when someone put
water in the gas tank of his plane. He and his son had a fortunate escape. Flynn
suspected Scientology, and took on more and more clients with litigation against
Scientology. 
In
June 1982, Wendell Reynolds became the first International Finance Dictator, and
was sent to Florida, where he recruited staff for the International Finance
Police (seen preparing for an "inspection," right). The titles reflect
the mood of the time.