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Chapter 9:
Attacking the Attackers
People who live in tin houses
shouldn't throw can openers.
-- L. Ron Hubbard {1}
The Scientologists
have not taken any of their attacks or setbacks lightly. Although the
Church of Scientology creed states that "all men have the right to think
freely, to write freely, their own opinions and to counter or utter or
write about the opinions of others,"{2} in the past, this has not
applied to anyone who wished to think, speak or write against
Scientology.
Many newspapers and magazines in America, England and Australia which
printed articles on Scientology ran into legal problems with the
Scientologists, and in England it was estimated that fifty-eight writs
had been issued by the Scientologists. Mr. Peter Hordern spoke out
against this in Parliament in March of 1967, saying: "The public has
been hampered in the knowledge of Scientology by the fact that so far as
I can establish, on every occasion that the organization has been named
by a newspaper, that newspaper has been served with a writ for
libel."{3} In September of 1968, the Scientologists issued a writ of
libel on him.{4}
Obviously this stifles freedom of the press, and the Scientologists have
admitted that they will "sue at the slightest chance" to discourage the
media from mentioning Scientology. Hubbard wrote:
We do not want Scientology to be
reported in the press anywhere else but on the religion page of
newspapers. It is destructive of word of mouth to permit the public
press to express their biased and badly reported sensationalism.
Therefore we should be very alert to sue for slander at the slightest
chance so as to discourage the public press from mentioning Scientology.
Scientologists are
quick to sue not only those who write against them, but also those who
speak against them, and some of their suits have been contradictory and
amusing. When Dr. Russell Barton (the British psychiatrist mentioned in
the previous chapter), spoke out against them on a television program,
he received a letter suing him for the statements he made "on February
31st." If the Scientologists had acted with less haste, perhaps they
would have had time to remember that there are only twenty-eight days in
February.
In another case, the Scientologists had several outstanding writs
against some of the members of the East Grinstead Council, but
approached them nonetheless for help in a housing development. In a
third case, after serving a writ of libel in England on Geoffrey Johnson
Smith, they asked Smith for "support and advice" about a housing estate
they wanted to build in East Grinstead. This last case by the way, one
of the few that Scientologists ever took to court, had some recent
disastrous effects for the Scientologists. They lost this libel case on
December 22, 1970, and were ordered to pay court costs that are
estimated at close to $200,000.
The Scientologists' attitude toward litigation is in keeping with
Hubbard's philosophy that "the DEFENSE of anything is UNTENABLE. The
only way to defend anything is to ATTACK." Fortunately for the press,
they have decided to start attacking other institutions, and they
withdrew thirty-eight of their cases against newspapers in England in
November of 1968, "in celebration of the fact that we now know who the
enemy really is."{5}
Not that their suing policy is over. In fact, on September 30, 1970, it
was reported in the New York Post that the Scientologists were suing
Delacourt Publishers and author George Malko for a book they did on
Scientology. (The Scientologists also announced that they had hired
Melvin Belli, the famous flamboyant attorney who once unsuccessfully
defended Jack Ruby, for their case.) But in addition to suing the press,
they are now also suing psychiatric organizations, and they claim to
have filed, or be about ready to file, over $75 million worth of law
suits in that department.{6}
In addition to suing those who attack them, Scientologists have
subjected their enemies to a campaign of vilification.{7} Members of
Parliament who have spoken out against them have been accused by the
Scientologists of bribery, corruption, and even "of following the order
of a hidden foreign group that ... has as its purpose seizing any being
whom they dislike or who will not agree and permanently disabling and
killing them." And to support their suspicions about people who attack
them, the Scientologists have hired detectives to investigate these
people.
Hubbard wrote that since Scientology had found out the basic
fundamentals of man and the universe, "How much easier then to find out
the secrets or histories and motives of one person or group?"{8} In that
same pamphlet, "Why People Fight Scientology," he also claims that they
have "investigated thousands of such protesting persons."{9}
Lest an outsider get the wrong idea, Hubbard elsewhere assured them that
Scientology was not a "law enforcement agency."{10} But, he added, they
would become "interested in the crimes of people who seek to stop us. If
you oppose Scientology we will promptly look up -- and will find and
expose your crimes ... those who try to make life hard for us are at a
risk."
One type of investigation Hubbard suggested was what he called "noisy
investigations."{11} He wrote in 1966 that if someone gave Scientology
trouble, "find out where he or she works or worked ... and phone 'em up
and say `I am investigating Mr./Mrs. for criminal activities and he/she
has been trying to prevent man's freedom and is restraining my religious
freedom and that of my friends and children, etc.' "
But it appears that the Scientologists' investigations are not confined
to phone calls. They have made no attempt to hide the fact that they
have hired detectives to investigate their "enemies." As early as 1955,
they wrote in Ability, one of their newsletters, that they had hired a
detective to investigate and "disclose any criminal past or connection"
of the editor of a British Dianetic magazine.{12}
During the New Zealand Inquiry into Scientology, it was also revealed
that the Scientologists had placed an ad for an investigator in one of
the local papers.{13} The man who answered the ad later told the Inquiry
that he was told his job would be to check on people in New Zealand and
Australia to see whether they had criminal convictions, debts or
troubles. He claimed he was also asked whether he had any objections to
investigating lawyers, medical men or people in government circles.
The Scientologists also allegedly put an ad in the Daily Telegraph for
investigators, and were prepared to hire three of them for about $80 a
week plus the use of a car. One man who answered the ad, Vic Filson, an
experienced private detective, told the newspaper that he was first
interviewed by being made to take an E-meter test, during which time
they repeatedly asked him, "Who sent you here to spy on us?" Later, when
they were apparently satisfied with him, he was allegedly told that his
job was to investigate the activities of English psychiatrists and
prepare a dossier on each.
The memo, which was reprinted in People, a British paper, read: "We want
at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an
assault, or a rape or more than one.... This is Project Psychiatry. We
will remove them." Filson was also told that his first job was to
investigate Lord Balniel, then Chairman of the National Association of
Mental Health -- and one of the men who had asked Kenneth Robinson to
investigate Scientology.{14}
The reason the Scientologists may have investigated those who have
spoken out against them is that they firmly believe that those who
attack Scientology are committing crimes themselves, which they are
afraid the Scientologists will discover. Hubbard said that if someone
called Scientology a "cult" or a "hoax," what they were really saying is
"please please please don't find me out."{15}
Hubbard also said that if someone urged a Scientologist to leave the
group or told him not to study Scientology "it should be answered by no
praise of Scientology but by asking `What have you done?' and demanding
that the protesting person go to the nearest [Scientology] center for a
case assessment."{16}
Hubbard suggested one simple, perhaps simplistic way to uncover a
person's crime with the following sample dialogue:
George: Gwen, if you don't drop
Scientology I'm going to leave you.
Gwen: (savagely) George, what have you been doing?
George: What do you mean?
Gwen: Out with it. Women? Theft? Murder? What crimes have you committed?
George: (weakly) Oh, nothing like that.
Gwen: What then?
George: I've been holding back on my pay.{17}
Sometimes the
"crimes" are less innocent than that. Hubbard wrote:
Politician A stands up on his hind
legs in Parliament and brays for a condemnation of Scientology. When we
look him over we find crimes -- embezzled funds, moral lapses, a thirst
for young boys -- sordid stuff.
Wife B howls at her husband for
attending a Scientology group. We look her up and find she had a baby he
didn't know about.{18}
Another reason
Hubbard believes that people attack Scientology (in addition to hiding
their own crimes), is because Scientology is honest, aboveboard and
works. In what must surely be the strangest reasoning ever, Hubbard
wrote: "If Scientology was fraudulent, if it had vast but covert plans,
if it did not work, it would not be fought."{19}
Finally, Hubbard hinted that harm would come to those who fought
Scientology -- although, of course Scientology would not in any way
contribute to their disasters. Hubbard wrote that "no serious harm came
to any principal or good person in Dianetics or Scientology." But on the
other hand, "without any action being taken against them, of twenty-one
highly placed attackers, seventeen are now dead."{20}
If this seems hard to believe, the way in which people who are against
Scientology will suffer is even harder to accept. Hubbard wrote:
I once told a bill collector what
and who we were and that he had wronged a good person and a half hour
later he threw a hundred grains of veronal down his throat and was
lugged off to hospital, a suicide.{21}
_______________
Notes:
{1} initial quote [223]
{2} Scientology creed [63, etc.]
{3} quote by Hordern [257]
{4} Hordern sued [230]
{5} dropped suits [231]
{6} suing psychiatrists [57]
{7} vilifying people [257]
{8} quote by Hubbard on finding out secrets [26] {ambiguous citation}
{9} investigating thousands [26]
{10} quote on not law enforcement agency [49]
{11} noisy investigations [22]
{12} British investigations [31]
{13} N.Z. investigator [262]
{14} Filson investigator; memo, etc. [203]
{15} someone calling Scientology a hoax [26]
{16} someone trying to get another to leave Scientology [26]
{17} dialogue between George and Gwen [224]
{18} politican & wife crimes [49]
{19} if Scientology were fraudulent quote by Hubbard [26]
{20} 17 out of 21 dead [26]
{21} death of bill collector [80]
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