Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology (15 page)

9.
   
see 4

10.
 
see
6

11.
 
Hubbard,
Look
magazine, December 1950.

12.
 
Letter
from Department of Natural Resources, Puerto Rico, to Michael Linn Shannon, 14
September 1979; letter from U.S. Department of the Interior to Shannon, 10
October 1979; letter from Rafael Pico to Shannon, 1 March 1980; letter from
Howard A. Meyerhoff to Shannon, 11 February 1980; letter from Library
Association of Portland to Shannon, 21 August 1979.

13.
 
In Church of Scientology of California v. Armstrong
vol.12, p.1972. See also
Washington Daily News
18 August 1933, where Hubbard told the reporter that he had just
returned from gold-prospecting in the Antilles.

14.
 
Armstrong
in CSC v. Armstrong, vol.11 pp.1867-8

15.
 
Gruber,
The Pulp Jungle, p.80.

16.
 
Alva
Rogers, “Darkhouse”.

17.
 
“
Field
Staff Member
” magazine, vol.1, no.1, 1968.

18.
 
The Pilot,
vol.7, no.6, July 1934;
Rocky Mountain News,
20 February 1983, p.50.

19.
 
Preble
County News, 17 September 1931 and 21 July 1983. Hubbard did have a student
pilot license, cert. no. 385, with glider rating, issued 1 September 1931. It
expired 15 September 1933, and was renewed on 25 February 1935.

20.
 
For example,
Rocky Mountain News,
20 February 1983, p.50.

21.
 
The
Pilot, vol.7, no.6, July 1934.

22.
 
Letter
from Hubbard to his first wife, August, 1938.

23.
 
 Hubbard,
Jnr (Ron De Wolfe), Clearwater Hearings vol.1, p.262.

24.
 
Flag
Divisional Directive 69RA “Facts about Hubbard Things You Should Know”, 8 March
1974, revised 7 April 1974.

25.
 
“
Hubbard”, LRH Public Affairs Bureau, 1981; “A Brief Biography of Hubbard -
originally printed circa 1960”, Public Relations Office News.

26.
 
Armstrong
in CSC v. Armstrong, vol.10, p.1577; New York Herald Tribune 31 August 1941.

27.
 
This
endeavor was known as The Safe Environment Fund (SEF).

28.
 
CSC
v. Armstrong, vol.10, pp.1581-3.

29.
 
Church
of Scientology Public Relations pack, c.1982.

30.
 
Hubbard,
Mission into Time.

31.
 
Hubbard letter to his first wife, August 1938. There
are numerous references to
Excalibur
in
the Scientology literature. See, for example,
Scientology and Dianetics
Technical Dictionary.
See also note 33

32.
 
“The
Office of Hubbard Manager's Report”, from Phoenix, Arizona. Attached to a
circular letter dated 25 April 1952. Hubbard later claimed that the OT 3
material would have a similar effect.

33.
 
CSC v. Armstrong, vol.15, pp.2423-4. See also “LRH's
autobiographical notes for Peter Tomkins”, 6 June 1972. Here Hubbard claimed
that of three original manuscripts, only one had survived, and that had been
published as
Dianetics the Original Thesis.
There is speculation that
Excalibur
was based upon Gustave le Bon's
The Crowd.

34.
 
Dianetic
Auditor's Bulletin III, no.1.

35.
 
Interview
with Armstrong, July, 1984.

36.
 
The Aberee,
December 1961
.

37.
 
Phelan
interview; also Armstrong in CSC v. Armstrong vol.13, p.2043, exhibit 500-6J.

38.
 
Hubbard
letter to FBI, 14 May 1951.

39.
 
Hubbard,
Battlefield Earth
, p.viii. It seems that Robert Vaughn Young actually
wrote this introduction (author interview with RVY).

40.
 
Hubbard,
Rocky Mountain News
, 20 February 1983, p.48. The Hubbard answers to the
newspaper were actually prepared by Robert Vaughn Young (author interview with
RVY – this is consistent with the answers which have been taken from earlier
work by Hubbard).

41.
 
John
W. Campbell Letters, p.43.

42.
 
Heinlein,
Of Worlds Beyond.
Asimov, picking the best ten stories in Unknown
magazine for 1939. Van Vogt,
Battlefield Earth
publicity material. In a letter to the author, van Vogt confirmed that
he had written the piece for
Battlefield Earth
, but explained that he had not read the book.

43.
 
Letter
from AMORC to the author.

44.
 
“Field
Staff Member” magazine vol.1, no.1.

45.
 
“A
Report to Members of Parliament on Scientology”, 1968.

46.
 
Hubbard
letter to the Cape Cod Instrument Company, 7 December 1940.

47.
 
Letter
from the Hydrographic Office to Hubbard, 11 October 1940.

48.
 
Seattle Star,
28 & 29 November 1940. See also 31 August, 17, 27
& 28 December 1940.

49.
 
Armstrong
in CSC v. Armstrong vol.11, p.1877, and exhibit 500-3H.

50.
 
Hubbard
Navy file, 28 October 1942.

51.
 
License
no. 160111, issued by the Dept. of Commerce at Juneau, Alaska. Not seen by this
author. See note 52

52.
 
License
no. 12005, for vessels under 700 tons, not seen by this author, actually issued
prior to 18 April. Hubbard gave these license numbers in his application for
appointment to the US Navy reserve, 18 April 1941 (Hubbard Navy records).

53.
 
Letter
from H. Latane Lewis to Brig. Gen. W.R. Kilner, 14 February 1938.

54.
 
Letter
from Hubbard to the Office of the Secretary of the War Dept., 1 September 1939.

55.
 
Hubbard
Navy records.

56.
 
Miller
interview with Robert MacDonald Ford, Olympia, Washington, 1 September 1986.

Chapter eight

“I do not hesitate to recommend him
without reserve as a man of intelligence, courage and good breeding as well as
one of the most versatile personalities I have ever known.”

—Jimmy
Britton, President KGBU radio Alaska, of Hubbard in 1941
¹

“He is garrulous and tries to give
impressions of his importance...”

—US
Naval Attaché for Australia, writing of Hubbard in 1942
²

Hubbard's claims about his Navy career form a major part of
the superman image he tried to project. He and his followers have claimed he
saw action in the Philippines upon the US entry into World War II.
³
Hubbard was supposedly the first returned casualty from the “Far East,” and was
dispatched immediately to the command of an anti-submarine warfare vessel which
served in the North Atlantic.
⁴
He allegedly rose to command the “Fourth
British Corvette” squadron,
⁵
and then saw service with amphibious
forces in the Pacific,
⁶
ending the War in Oak Knoll Naval Hospital,
“crippled and blinded,”
⁷
the recipient of between 21
⁸
and
27
⁹
medals and palms. His exploits were, Hubbard claimed, the basis
for a Hollywood movie starring Henry Fonda.
¹⁰
As ever, there are
inconsistencies between Hubbard's own accounts.

Hubbard also referred to his time in Naval Intelligence, and
much is made of this experience by Scientologists. On his US Navy Reserve
commission papers, issued in July, 1941 he was designated a volunteer for
“Special Service (Intelligence duties),” an assignment he requested. His
service record shows that when he was eventually called to permanent active
duty in November, he was indeed posted as an “intelligence officer.” The
expression conjures up cloak-and-dagger images better associated with the CIA's
forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services which did not exist at that time.
Although the US was not yet at war, France had fallen and the Japanese threat
was recognized. The US Navy was on a major recruiting drive when Hubbard was commissioned.
The duties of intelligence officers at that time were largely routine involving
the censorship of letters, and the collection, compilation and distribution of
information. Hubbard nominally served in this capacity for five months,
spending most of that time either in transit or in training.
¹¹

After receiving his Naval Reserve commission, Hubbard was
not immediately called to active duty. By this time he was employed as a
civilian by the Navy in New York City, working with public relations and
recruiting. He was only on active duty for two weeks between his commissioning
in July and the end of November. He was ordered to the Hydrographic Office,
Bureau of Navigation, in Washington, DC. There he annotated the photographs he
had taken during his trip to Alaska the year before. A Hydrographic Office memo
reads: “These items are all brief, and some are unimportant, but in the
aggregate they represent a very definite contribution.” The memo adds that Hubbard's
information would be used in the 1942 update of the Sailing Directions for
British Columbia, section 175, and possibly in section 176. On October 6, he
was “honorably released from temporary active duty.” Hubbard was next called to
active duty at the end of November, two weeks before the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor.

In 1984, Captain Thomas Moulton testified in court as a
witness for the Scientologists. Moulton had served briefly with Hubbard, and expressed
a deep admiration for him.
¹²
Moulton recounted another of Hubbard's
claims of military prowess which the Scientologists probably had not expected.

According to Moulton, on the day the Japanese attacked Pearl
Harbor, Hubbard “had been landed, so he told me, in Java from a destroyer named
the Edsall [mis-spelled “Edsel” in the Court transcript] and had made his way
across the land to Surabaja ... when the Japanese came in, he took off into the
hills and lived up in the jungle for some time ... He was, as far as I know,
the only person that ever got off the Edsall ... She was sunk within a few days
after that.” Hubbard had allegedly been a gunnery officer on the Edsall.
¹³

Hubbard also told Moulton that he had been hit by
machine-gun fire, “in the back, in the area of the kidneys ... he told me he made
his escape eventually to Australia ... he and another chap sailed a life-raft
... to West Australia where they were picked up by a British or Australian
destroyer ... on the order of 75 miles off Australia ... it was a remarkable
piece of navigation.” Sailing over 700 miles in a life-raft is remarkable
indeed.
¹⁴

In fact, Hubbard's naval record shows no time on Java. He
had been ordered to active duty on November 24, 1941, and, on the day of Pearl
Harbor was attacked, Hubbard was half-a-world away from Java in New York. Eight
days after his supposed landing in Java, Hubbard was receiving instruction at
the District Intelligence Office, in San Francisco. Hubbard was en route to the
Philippines when the ship's destination was changed to Australia. Hubbard left
the ship in Brisbane on January 11th. Japanese action against Java began at the
end of February. The
USS Edsall
was sunk at the beginning of March (long
after Pearl Harbor), and Java surrendered to the Japanese on March 9. On the
same day, Hubbard in fact boarded the MV Pennant, in Brisbane, Australia, bound
for the US.

When Hubbard arrived in Brisbane in January 1942, he seems
to have informally attached himself to a newly landed US Army Unit. Within a
few weeks, he was in trouble with his Navy superiors. There had been a mix-up
over the routing of a ship, and a copy of a secret dispatch had gone astray.
While Hubbard may not have been to blame, he took the undiplomatic course of
writing a report about the incident which was openly hostile of his senior officers,
including the US Naval Attaché.

The Scientologists offer a document written by Infantry
Colonel Alexander Johnson to the Commander of the Base Force, Darwin, Australia,
dated February 13, 1942. The document describes Hubbard as “an intelligent, resourceful
and dependable officer.” The following day the US Naval Attaché to Australia
expressed a very different point of view: “By assuming unauthorized authority
and attempting to perform duties for which he has no qualifications, he became
the source of much trouble. This, however, was made possible by the
representative of the U.S. Army at Brisbane ... This officer is not
satisfactory for independent duty assignment. He is garrulous and tries to give
impressions of his importance. He also seems to think that he has unusual
ability in most lines. These characteristics indicate that he will require
close supervision for satisfactory performance of any intelligence duty.” Far
from being an important intelligence operative, as the Scientologists fondly believe,
Hubbard was simply a nuisance. So much so that after only a month in Australia,
orders were prepared for Hubbard's return to the US.

Twenty years later, Hubbard described his brief time in
Australia: “My acquaintance ... goes back to being the only anti-aircraft
battery in Australia in 1941-42. I was up at Brisbane. There was me and a
Thompson sub-machine gun ... I was a mail officer and I was replaced I think by
a Captain, a couple of commanders ... and about 15 junior officers ... They
replaced me. I came home.”
¹⁵
He made no mention of his supposed
adventures on Java.