Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology (44 page)

1.
   
Garrison,
Playing Dirty
, p.86.

2.
   
Jon Zegel tape 2, 1983.

3.
   
Hubbard, Technical Bulletins, vol.11, p.236.

4.
   
St
Petersburg Times
“Scientology - an in-depth
profile of a new force in Clearwater”, 1980, pp.7 & 27.

5.
   
Armstrong affidavit, March 1986, p.50.

6.
   
as 4, p.7.

7.
   
as 4, p.10.

8.
   
Guardian’s Order 261175LRH; also in 4, p.7.

9.
   
as 4, p.8.

10.
 
ibid
,
p.7.

11.
 
Clearwater Sun
, 4 November 1979.

12.
 
as
4, p.11.

13.
 
as
4, p.7; also see 11

14.
 
as
4, p.12.

15.
 
see
11

16.
 
Source
magazine, no.1.

17.
 
Gamboa
in CSC v. Armstrong, vol.24, p.4238.

18.
 
as
4, pp.7 & 9.

19.
 
as
4, p.9.

20.
 
as
4, p.8.

21.
 
Hubbard,
Technical Bulletins, vol.2, p.157.

22.
 
as
4, p.9.

23.
 
ibid
,
p.8.

24.
 
ibid
,
p.10.

25.
 
ibid
,
p.9.

26.
 
ibid
,
p.8.

27.
 
ibid
,
p.13.

28.
 
ibid
,
p.10.

29.
 
ibid
,
p.9; see also 11

30.
 
Coroner’s
reports; Author’s interview with Bill Robertson; Miller interview with Kima
Douglas.

31.
 
Interview
with Scientologist doctor who saw Quentin after such an attempt.

32.
 
Miller
interview with Douglas.

33.
 
Harry
Mason, who interviewed Hubbard associate, Alan Voss.

PART five

“‘We had to establish a militant and
protective organization that could shield the church so that it could proceed
peacefully with its principal aims and functions without becoming embroiled in
the constant skirmishing with those who wanted to annihilate us,’ a top ranking
church official told me.”

—Omar
Garrison,
Playing Dirty
¹

Chapter twenty-four

“There is no more ethical group on this
planet than ourselves.”

—L.
Ron Hubbard,
Keeping Scientology Working
, 1965
²

The Office of the Guardian was created by Hubbard in a
Policy Letter of March 1st, 1966
³
He gave this as the Guardian’s
purpose:

TO HELP LRH ENFORCE AND ISSUE POLICY, TO SAFEGUARD SCIENTOLOGY
ORGS, SCIENTOLOGISTS AND SCIENTOLOGY AND TO ENGAGE IN LONG TERM PROMOTION.

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 were going to jump.

Hubbard kept the job in the family by appointing his wife,
Mary Sue, 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.
⁴

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: UK, East US, West US, 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.
⁵

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 any threat 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 that branch
of the GO Bureau of Information commonly referred to as “B-1.” They gathered
information about Hubbard’s “enemies.” Most Scientologists presumed that they
did this through interviews, and through the use of public records. In fact,
there were two sections of the Information Bureau’s Collections Department:
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 operations. B-1 was Hubbard’s private CIA, keeping
tabs 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.
⁶

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.”
⁷
The GO attacked ruthlessly and relentlessly.

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).
⁸
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
all 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.”

The Church of Scientology dropped 38 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” which had just moved its headquarters
to Britain.
⁹

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.
¹⁰

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 labeled 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,”
¹¹
the NAMH was offered a settlement in
a pending suit.
¹²
A few days later, the Scientologists started a
series of demonstrations outside the NAMH’s offices.
¹³
They marched
with catchy slogans such as “Psychiatrists Make Good Butchers” on their
banners.

Then came Hubbard’s bizarre secret directive “Confidential
Zones of Action.”
¹⁴
One of these zones was to “invade the territory
of Smersh, run it better, make tons of money in it, to purify the mental health
field.”

 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
10 or so a month to over 200. 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 Offices. The locations of the two principal
English Scientology Orgs.
¹⁵

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.
¹⁶

The Guardian’s Office responded by seeking an injunction to
prevent the Annual General Meeting.
¹⁷
After elaborate proceedings,
Justice Megarry eventually ruled against the Scientologists.
¹⁸
C.H.
Rolph, in his well-researched book about the attempted take-over
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 19 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.”
¹⁹