Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology (13 page)

26.
 
CSC
v. Armstrong exhibit 63 p.3.

27.
 
Hubbard,
What is Scientology?,
p.xl.

28.
 
Hubbard,
What is Scientology?,
p.xlii.

29.
 
Hubbard,
The Phoenix Lectures, p.34.

30.
 
Hubbard,
Technical Bulletins, vol.3, p.535.

31.
 
Hubbard,
Research and Discovery,
vol.4, p.2.

32.
 
see
8

33.
 
H.R.
Hubbard Navy records.

34.
 
see
8; H.R. Hubbard Navy records.

35.
 
CSC
v. Armstrong exhibit 67.

36.
 
see
8

37.
 
News
clipping headed March 25, from Scientology P.R. pack.

38.
 
U.S.
Marine Corps Service Record Book of L. Ron Hubbard.

39.
 
Hubbard,
Research and Discovery,
vol.7, pp.98f.

40.
 
see
38

41.
 
“Field
Staff Member” magazine, vol.1, no.1, p.7, 1968; Hubbard, Technical Bulletins,
vol.1, p.2.

42.
 
Hubbard,
All About Radiation,
dustcover.

43.
 
Mary
Sue Hubbard in CSC v. Armstrong vol.7, p.1083.

44.
 
Hubbard,
Technical Bulletins, vol.3, p.478.

45.
 
Hubbard
college records as submitted to the US Navy, 27 May 1941, see Hubbard Navy
records; also submitted to US Court of Claims, 29 September 1967.

46.
 
Hubbard
lecture “The Story of Dianetics and Scientology”, 1958.

47.
 
“Field Staff Member”
magazine, vol.1, no.1; Hubbard,
Dianetics the
Original Thesis.

48.
 
For
example, the designations “C.E., PhD” appear after Hubbard’s name on the 1956
HASI edition of Problems of Work.

49.
 
Miller
asserts that Hubbard decided to leave (Miller, p.57). The college records (see 45)
indicate an “honorable dismissal”, but also indicate that Hubbard was “placed
on probation for deficiency in scholarship September, 1931”. Hubbard had failed
to meet the requirements for entry to Columbian College, the senior college for
arts and sciences at George Washington University (see MacCracken, J.H., ed.,
American Universities and Colleges, pp.459-61).

50.
 
see
7

51.
 
CSC
v. Armstrong, vol.22, p.3852.

52.
 
see
exhibit 62 in CSC v. Armstrong.

53.
 
Hubbard,
Technical Bulletins
vol.1, p.2.

Chapter seven

“Each individual is the center of a mythology
of his own.”

—Joseph
Campbell,
Creative Mythology

By his own account, Hubbard led his first “expedition” while
in college.
¹
In fact, the “Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition” set
out after Hubbard’s last semester at college. Dates vary in the Scientology accounts,
but the “expedition” actually took place in the summer of 1932.
²

The “expedition” is mentioned frequently, but briefly, in
Scientology literature. It allegedly provided the “Hydrographic Office,” and
the University of Michigan with “invaluable data for the furtherance of their
research.”
³
Hubbard’s Church supports these claims with copies of
the George Washington newspaper,
The University Hatchet
, of May 1932,
and the
Washington Daily News
of September 13, 1932. As ever, the
documents support only the basis of Hubbard’s story, and undermine his inflated
claims.

The University Hatchet
article preceded the trip, and
was enthusiastic about its possible outcome. The headline reads: “L. Ron
Hubbard Heads Movie Cruise Among Old American Piratical Haunts,” and the
article gives considerable detail about the personnel and the objectives of the
“expedition.” The equipment was to include a light seaplane. Cameras were to be
supplied by the University of Michigan. Among the personnel were to be “botanists,
biologists and entomologists.”

The article continues: “Buccaneers, however, will have the
center of the stage. According to Hubbard, the strongholds and bivouacs of the
Spanish Main have lain neglected and forgotten for centuries, and there has
never been a concerted attempt to tear apart the jungles to find the castles of
Teach, Morgan, Bonnet, Bluebeard, Kidd, Sharp, Ringrose and L’Ollanais, to name
a few.”

Apparently Hubbard and crew intended to make “motion
pictures” for Fox Movietone News: “Down there where the sun is whipping heat
waves from the palms, this crew of gentlemen rovers will re-enact the scenes
which struck terror to the hearts of the world only a few hundred years ago -
with the difference that this time it will be for the benefit of the fun and
the flickering ribbon of celluloid ... Scenarios will be written on the spot in
accordance with the legends of the particular island and after a thorough
research through the ship’s library which is to include many authoritative
books on pirates.” Hubbard had become one of the eight Associate Editors of
The
University Hatchet
with this issue,
⁴
so quite possibly he wrote
the piece. The style certainly fits.

The voyage took place aboard a 1,000 ton sailing ship, the
Doris Hamlin, captained by F.E. Garfield. Fifty students were to take part, and
the
Hatchet
article gives an impressive list of proposed ports-of-call.
⁵
However, the “expedition” failed to realize its promise. On his return to the
US, Hubbard wrote an article for the
Washington Daily News
⁶
:

On June 23, 1932, the chartered four-masted schooner
Doris
Hamlin
sailed from Baltimore for the West Indies with 56 men aboard. Exclusive
of six old sea dogs the crew consisted of young men between the ages of 20 and
30 who thirsted for adventure and the high seas. A movie camera, scientific
apparatus and a radio completed the Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition...

Just 12 hours before the Doris Hamlin slipped her
whips, 10 men cancelled their passage and left us in a delicate financial
situation ... Our first port of call was Bermuda. The captain was ordered to
stand off the island while we landed for mail, but leaky water tanks gave him
excuse to put into the harbor.

Towage, pilotage, and expensive water again depleted
the treasury. Two days at sea the water again leaked out and left us with the
same amount we had before entering Bermuda. Due to the prevailing direction of
the trade winds, it was necessary that we go to Martinique that we might make
the more important ports in our itinerary. At Fort de France, Martinique, we
put in for mail and supplies.

I refused to turn money over to the captain.
Immediately, the crew demanded their wages. I wired home for more money, but
before it could arrive the captain told me he had received money from the owners
and that the ship was going back home. I fought the situation as well as I
could but the consul at Fort de France allowed a protest to be filed and my
hands were tied.

In Bermuda 11 men had become disgusted with the
somewhat turbulent seas and had obtained discharges that they might return
home. We had fired our cook there ... and had hired two men from Bermuda. In
Martinique we lost several other men who had become disgusted with the
situation. When we left Martinique, the whole aspect of the trip had changed.
Morale was down to zero.

The Doris Hamlin called at Ponce, Puerto Rico, then, on the
insistence of its owners, returned to Baltimore. No mention was made of any
underwater filming, despite the Scientologists’ claim that films made provided
the Hydrographic Office and the University of Michigan with “invaluable data.”
The University of Michigan told Shannon they had no film, and knew nothing of
the expedition. Nor is there any mention of the buccaneer film, which was to
have been the core of the “expedition.” The seaplane, mentioned in the article
written before the trip began, has also disappeared in Hubbard's account. The
Doris Hamlin failed to reach all but three of its 16 proposed destinations.’
⁷

A few years later, Hubbard wrote of the “Caribbean Motion
Picture Expedition”: “It was a crazy idea at best, and I knew it, but I went
ahead anyway, chartered a four-masted schooner and embarked with some fifty
luckless souls who haven’t stopped their cursing yet.”
⁸

The Captain of the Doris Hamlin, who had 30 years of
seagoing experience,
⁹
summed up by saying that it had been “the
worst trip I ever made.”
¹⁰
In an interview published in 1950,
Hubbard was quoted as saying “it was a two-bit expedition and a financial
bust.”
¹¹

Undeterred, Hubbard undertook his next “expedition” at the
end of 1932. In his
Mission into Time
we read: “Then in 1932, the true
mark of an
exceptional
explorer was demonstrated. In that year L. Ron
Hubbard, aged 21, achieved an ambitious ‘first.’ Conducting the West Indies
Minerals Survey, he made the first complete mineralogical survey of Puerto
Rico. This was pioneer exploration in the great tradition, opening up a
predictable, accurate body of data for the benefit of others. Later, in other,
less materialistic fields, this was to be his way many, many times over.”

The Scientologists supply a survey report for manganese,
dated January 20, 1933, and signed “L. Ron Hubbard.” There is also a letter
dated February 16, 1933, headed “West Indies Minerals, Washington, D.C..” The
letter’s author says he was accompanied on a survey by L. Ron Hubbard. Attached
to the letter is a crude map entitled “La Plata Mine Assays,” and signed with
the “LRH” monogram familiar to Scientologists.

As ever, Shannon explored more deeply. He found that a
Bela
Hubbard had made a survey of the Lares district of Puerto Rico in 19²³, but the
Puerto Rican Department of Natural Resources, the US Geological Survey, and a
professor at the University of Puerto Rico, who had prepared the
Geology of
Puerto Rico
in 1932-1933, had no knowledge of L. Ron Hubbard.
¹²

Armstrong says Hubbard had gone to Puerto Rico to prospect
for gold.
¹³
This is supported by a photograph in Hubbard’s
Mission
into Time
, with the caption, in his hand, “Sluicing with crews on Corozal
River ‘32.” It is possible that Ron fled to Puerto Rico to avoid the legal
claims brought against him by members of his Caribbean “expedition.”
¹⁴

Long before Scientology, Hubbard told stories about an
expedition to South America. Frank Gruber, who knew him in 1934, said Hubbard
told him about a four-year expedition to the Amazon.
¹⁵
After the
War, Hubbard told a fellow writer he had been wounded by native arrows on this
supposed expedition.
¹⁶
By the time Dianetics came along, this tall
story had faded away, to be replaced with others. There is one Scientology
biographical sketch, which makes a fleeting mention of an “expedition” to
Central
America, made immediately on his departure from college.
¹⁷

Hubbard also claimed to have been a barnstorming pilot
(nicknamed “Flash”).
¹⁸
Shannon found that for two years Hubbard had
a license for gliders, but none for powered aircraft. The barnstorming career
seems to have been another student vacation, taken in the summer of 1931 with a
friend who was an experienced pilot.
¹⁹

The Scientologists, in a 1989 publication called Ron the
Writer, claim that having left college Hubbard “went straight into the world of
fiction writing and before two months were over had established himself in that
field at a pay level which, for those times, was astronomical.” Apart from a
few contributions to The University Hatchet Literary Review, Hubbard’s only
commercially published article while at university was for the Sportsman Pilot.
It was called “Tailwind Willies,” and was published in January 1932, and it
probably paid little or nothing.

During 1932 and 1933, Hubbard contributed five articles to
the Sportsman Pilot, including one entitled “Music with Your Navigation,” and
one to the Washington Star Supplement, called “Navy Pets.” That was his entire
commercial output during those years; hardly enough to support himself, let
alone produce an “astronomical” level of pay.

It was not until 1934 that Hubbard’s stories were accepted
by pulp magazines such as
Thrilling Adventure
,
The Phantom Detective
,
and
Five Novels Monthly
. His later denials of having written pulp
²⁰
wear thin given some of the titles in question: “Sea Fangs,” “The Carnival of
Death,” “Man-Killers of the Air,” and “The Squad that Never Came Back.” Hubbard
later wrote Western Fiction too.

The Church usually make no mention of Ron’s first two
marriages. Upon his return from Puerto Rico, Hubbard married Margaret Louise
Grubb, in Elkton, Maryland, on April 13, 1933. He called her “Polly,” or
“skipper,”
^{21, 22}
and she called him “redhead.”
²²
Their
first child, “Nibs,” or more properly Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, Jr., was born
prematurely in May 1934. In 1936, Polly bore Hubbard a daughter, Catherine May.
²³

Summer 1934 found Hubbard living in a hotel in New York,
where he met Frank Gruber, also an aspiring pulp writer. They spent a lot of
time together, and in his book,
The Pulp Jungle
, Gruber told this story: