Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology (42 page)

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.
²⁵

Hubbard’s railing against the “enemies of freedom” (i.e.,
the critics of Scientology) continued in a confidential issue
²⁶
: “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.”

Elsewhere Hubbard had defined black PR as “spreading lies by
hidden sources,” and added “it inevitably results in injustices being done.”
²⁷
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 indeed (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. Kima Douglas’ jaw was broken in the fray. 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 behavior of the
Apollo
, and the ongoing
“shore stories” (lies) about her real function and activities.
²⁸

The Mediterranean had been effectively closed to the
Apollo
through Hubbard’s ridiculous 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 US 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 included agents from the Immigration Office, the Drug
Enforcement Agency, US Customs, and the Coast Guard, along with several US
Marshals who were to arrest Hubbard, and deliver a subpoena for him to appear
in an Internal Revenue Service case.
²⁹

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 very 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),
³⁰
the
welcome soon wore thin.

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 10 miles
from the ship. Three Messengers sat outside his room 24 hours a day (they had
to make do with the hospital food). He did not return to the
Apollo
for
another three months.
³¹

While the Commodore was incapacitated, several of his US
churches recouped their tax-exempt status
³²
and the Attorney General
of Australia lifted the ridiculous ban on the word Scientology.
³³
An
Appeal Court in Rhodesia also lifted a ban on the import of Scientology materials.
³⁴

1.
   
Hubbard, Orders of the Day, 7 June
1971; CSC v. Armstrong, vol.15, pp.2482-4.

2.
   
CSC v. Armstrong, vol.17, pp.2847-8
& 2849.

3.
   
HCOPL Finance Series 11 “Income
Flows and Pools Principles of Money Management”, 9 March 1972, issue I.

4.
   
Hubbard, Technical Bulletins,
vol.8, p.65.

5.
   
Enquiry report; also Wallis, p.198.

6.
   
Author interview with former Guardian’s
Office executive.

7.
   
CSC v. Armstrong vol.9, p.1436;
“Debrief of Jim Dincalci on NY trip with LRH”; Garrison,
Playing Dirty
, p.80.

8.
   
Garrison,
Playing Dirty
, p.82.

9.
   
Dincalci Debrief; Armstrong in CSC
v. Armstrong, vol.17, pp.2675-6; Schomer in CSC v. Armstrong, vol.25, p.4480;
Hubbard, Technical Bulletins, vol.8, p.189; Hubbard, The Snow White Program.

10.
 
Hubbard,
What is Scientology?,
pp.155 & 184.

11.
 
ibid
, p.155.

12.
 
CSC v. Internal revenue
Commissioner, ruling of 24 September 1984, p.66.

13.
 
Hubbard, Technical Bulletins,
vol.8, p.203.

14.
 
Hubbard, “What your fees buy”
(reissued as “What your donations buy”).

15.
 
Douglas in CSC v. Armstrong,
vol.25, p.4444f; Mary Sue Hubbard in CSC v. Armstrong, vol.17, p.2776.

16.
 
Sullivan in CSC v. Armstrong,
vol.19a, pp.3007 & 3020; author’s interviews with John Hansen and Neville
Chamberlin.

17.
 
Sullivan in CSC v. Armstrong,
vol.19a, p.3018.

18.
 
Rocky Mountain News
, 16 February 1986; Author’s interview with Maude Castillo,
Hubbard’s photographer.

19.
 
Armstrong in CSC v. Armstrong,
vol.9, p.1436.

20.
 
Author’s interview with Urquhart.

21.
 
Author’s interview with Malcolm
McPherson.

22.
 
Miller interview with Kima Douglas.

23.
 
See Robert Lifton’s
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism A
Study of “Brainwashing” in China.

24.
 
Affidavit, March 1986, pp.53ff.

25.
 
Schomer in Christofferson-Tichbourne
v Church of Scientology, pp.3590-3; author’s interviews with Joyce Barnes and
Malcolm McPherson.

26.
 
HCOPL Public Relations series 24
“Confidential - Handling Hostile Contacts /Dead Agenting”, 30 May 1974.

27.
 
Modern Management Technology Defined,
definition 3.

28.
 
Garrison,
Playing Dirty
, p.82; author’s interviews with Ralph Hilton and Kenneth
Urquhart; Miller interview with Kima Douglas.

29.
 
Garrison,
Playing Dirty,
p.84; Jon Zegel, tape 2, 1983.

30.
 
Armstrong in CSC v. Armstrong,
vol.9, p.1431; Sullivan,
ibid
, vol.19a, p.3190.

31.
 
Miller interview with Kima Douglas.

32.
 
Hubbard,
What is Scientology?,
p.154.

33.
 
ibid
, p.156.

34.
 
ibid
,
pp.157-8.

Chapter twenty-three

“Operations can be done as a follow up if
needed to remove or restrain the enemy.”

—L.
Ron Hubbard

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 unfavorable 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,
²
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 hand-picked team of Sea Org members on his “New Vitality
Rundown.”
³
The
Apollo
lay at anchor in the Bahamas.

Maintaining its usual secrecy, the Church of Scientology
started to buy property in Clearwater, Florida.
⁴
The town’s name was
obviously too much of a temptation to Hubbard, and he directed the project
through his Guardian’s Office. In October, a front corporation, Southern Land
Development and Leasing
⁵
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.

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.
⁶
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.”
⁷
On November
26, Hubbard sent a secret order to the three senior officers of the Guardian’s
Office. It was called “Program LRH Security. Code Name: Power”.
⁸

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:

Maintain an alerting Early Warning System throughout
the GO N/W [Network] so that any situation concerning gov’ts or courts by
reason of suits is known in adequate time to take defensive actions to suddenly
raise the level on LRH personal security very high...

Really establish PROAC [Public Relations Officer Area
Control] in the CW [Clearwater] operating area for the organizations operating
there, sort out any weak spots or potential threats internal or external and
handle ... Dynamite spots should be predicted far in advance ... and handled
before any repercussion occurs.

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.

In a dispatch to the head of the United States Guardian’s
Office, Hubbard said: