Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology (39 page)

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 collar-bone.

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 100 yards away
from a house where Scientologists lived.
⁶⁵
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
⁶⁶
Internal Scientology documents show that Manson had actually received about 150
hours of auditing while in prison.
⁶⁷
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.” No recommendations were made for the proscription of
Scientology.
⁶⁸

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 met were normal, decent, intelligent people. He had received
auditing, and, in fact, continued in Scientology after the court case.
⁶⁹

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, mother of the schizophrenic girl who had
been abandoned by Scientology.

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.”
⁷⁰

The case had lasted for 32 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.
⁷¹
The crew did tell this story, avoiding any mention of
Scientology.
⁷²
It had become too controversial. So, another layer of
deceit was built into Scientology’s approach to the “wog” world:

We are factually a management company (OTC) who [sic] brings
in and trains and sends out people to look after our administrative and
technical interests in other companies over the world.

But the Scientologists weren’t the only people guilty of
deceit. In the US, 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.
⁷³
The CIA
passed reports (some speculative and inaccurate) on Scientology through US consulates
to foreign governments.
⁷⁴
These underhanded tactics all eventually
backfired, making sensible measures curbing the Church of Scientology’s abuses
more difficult.

After only three years suspension, Scientology’s hefty
Ethics penalties were re-introduced in 1971.
⁷⁵
Unnoticed by the
media, or by the governments which had shortly before been so interested. In
December, Sir John Foster submitted his report to the British Government. In
the introduction he said:

Most of the Government measures of July 1968 were not
justified: the mere fact that someone is a Scientologist is in my opinion no
reason for excluding him from the United Kingdom, when there is nothing in our
law to prevent those of his fellows who are citizens of this country from practicing
Scientology here.

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.”
⁷⁶

The Foster report was a tour-de-force, patiently
constructed, largely from Hubbard’s own statements, but the British Government
did nothing. The abuse 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 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.

1.
   
Foster report, paragraph 14.

2.
   
Rolph, Believe What You Like.

3.
   
Evening
News
31 July 1968
; Daily Sketch
31 July 1968.

4.
   
Daily
Telegraph
7 August 1968.

5.
   
Evening
News 1
August 1968;
Daily Telegraph
7 August 1968.

6.
   
Daily
Sketch 1 August 1968.

7.
   
The
Auditor
no.17, back page.

8.
   
The
Observer
11 August 1968.

9.
   
Author interview with Phil Spickler; author interview with Bill
Robertson.

10.
 
Kaufman,
Inside Scientology,
pp.195-6. Confirmed in correspondence with Kaufman.

11.
 
Interview
with Spickler.

12.
 
Interview
with Robertson (who was Commanding Officer of the Edinburgh organization at the
time).

13.
 
see
8

14.
 
The Auditor
“Special South African Issue”, c. summer 1968
(possibly between issues 37 and 38), p.2, col.2 and p.4 Clear list.

15.
 
Daily Sketch
2 August 1968.

16.
 
Hubbard,
What is Scientology?
, p.185.

17.
 
The Daily Mail
, 3 August 1968. Nembutal is a powerful barbiturate
drug, similar to the phenobarbital to which Hubbard had earlier admitted an
addiction (
Research & Discovery
volume 1, p.124, first edition). Hubbard became probably became addicted during
his time in the Navy, when the drug was prescribed to quell his anxiety and
reduce the symptoms of his purported ulcer.

18.
 
The Daily Mail,
6 August 1968
.

19.
 
Granada
television, “The Shrinking World of Hubbard” 1968.

20.
 
The Auditor
no.43, pp.2 & 4.

21.
 
Forte,
The Commodore and the Colonels.

22.
 
Garrison,
Playing Dirty, p.75.

23.
 
The Auditor
no.41.

24.
 
Author’s
interview with Neville Chamberlin.

25.
 
Interviews
with Chamberlin, Robertson, McMaster, Hana Whitfield and another former Sea Org
executive.

26.
 
Hubbard,
Technical Bulletins, vol.6, p.276.

27.
 
HCOB
20 October 1968.

28.
 
Hubbard,
Organization Executive Course
, vol.1, p.487.

29.
 
The Sunday Times,
17 November 1968.

30.
 
Author’s
interview with Kenneth Urquhart.

31.
 
Hubbard,
Organizational Executive Course, vol.1, p.489.

32.
 
ibid
,
p.486.

33.
 
Rolph,
p.63ff.

34.
 
ibid
, p.63;
Daily Telegraph & Daily Mirror
, 6 August 1968.

35.
 
The
People, 18 August 1968.

36.
 
Rolph,
p.58.

37.
 
ibid
,
p.62.

38.
 
Hubbard,
What is Scientology?,
p.157.

39.
 
ibid
,
p.156; Rolph, p.72.

40.
 
Rolph,
p.72.

41.
 
Rolph,
p.16f.

42.
 
Wallis,
p.196.

43.
 
The Daily Telegraph
25 November 1968.

44.
 
Author’s
interview with Neville Chamberlin.

45.
 
Author’s
interview with Burt Griswold.

46.
 
Author’s
interview with McMaster.

47.
 
Author’s
interview with former L.A. staff member; Author’s interview with Bill Robertson
(Commanding Officer at the L.A. Advanced Organization).

48.
 
“Operations
Digest”, 29 April 1968.

49.
 
Since
publication Robertson has died. His organization (“Ron’s Org”) continues.
According to Robertson, there were 200,000 Markabians (or “Marcabians”) in
Switzerland by 1983, and the Markabians were due to effect a global take-over
by 1992. Robertson asserted that the (self-styled) Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is the
agent of the Markabians.

50.
 
Hubbard, What is
Scientology?,
p.156.

51.
 
ibid
;
Foster, paragraph 24.

52.
 
Forte,
pp.21 & 47.

53.
 
ibid
,
pp.29 & 43.

54.
 
ibid
,
pp.33 & 39.

55.
 
ibid
,
p.34.

56.
 
Quoted
in Wallis, p.222.

57.
 
Forte, pp.41 & 43; Garrison,
Playing Dirty
, p.78.

58.
 
Forte,
pp.43-4.

59.
 
Hubbard,
What is Scientology?;
“Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Scientology
for 1972”.

60.
 
Flag
Order 1890, 26 March 1969.

61.
 
Foster,
paragraph 26.

62.
 
Wallis,
p.197.

63.
 
Hubbard,
What is Scientology?,
pp.143 & 185.

64.
 
Author’s
interview with McMaster.

65.
 
Cooper,
The Scandal of Scientology,
pp.104-5.

66.
 
ibid
.

67.
 
Documents
seized by the FBI in 1977 reveal that Manson associates “Squeaky” Fromm and
Lanier Ramer were involved with Scientology and gave descriptions of Manson’s
own involvement. Manson received auditing while in prison. See also Manson’s
Without Conscience, “A cell partner turned me on to scientology. With him and
another guy I got pretty heavily into Dianetics and scientology ... I had more
confidence in myself and went the way I chose to go, whereas previously, I had
always been content to listen and follow” (p.70). Manson also asserts that
“family” member Bruce Davis was involved with Scientology (p.113). See also
p.73.