[Infowarrior] - Scientology's Hubbard 'exposed as fraud'

[Richard Forno]

  August 6, 2009
Secret mission to expose L. Ron Hubbard as a fake
Dominic Kennedy, Investigations Editor

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6740831.ece#cid=OTC- 
RSS&attr=797093

The founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, was exposed as a fraud 30  
years ago by British diplomats who were investigating his  
qualifications.
The science-fiction writer, who invented a religion now followed by  
celebrities such as Tom Cruise, awarded himself a PhD from a sham  
“diploma mill” college that he had acquired, the diplomats found.

Such was the climate of fear and paranoia surrounding Scientology that  
the US believed the sect had sent bogus doctors to declare a high- 
ranking legal investigator mad and then taken his papers relating to  
the case.

Scientologists threatened to sue the British Government for libel  
after it acted in 1968 to ban followers from entering the country to  
visit the sect’s world headquarters in East Grinstead, West Sussex.

To defend itself, Britain needed to establish whether Lafayette Ron  
Hubbard was a charlatan.

Department of Health files, some closed until 2019, have been released  
early to The Times by the National Archives after a successful request  
under the Freedom of Information Act.

The papers include a signed statement by a former senior Scientologist  
who said that he had been informed of the doctorate scam by one of  
Hubbard’s collaborators.

“I understand it is asserted that L. Ron Hubbard was awarded the  
degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Sequoia University on February 10,  
1953, in recognition of his outstanding work in the fields of  
Dianetics and Scientology and that the said degree was recorded with  
the Department of Education of the State of California,” John McMaster  
stated.

“The position is L. Ron Hubbard [and others] acquired premises  
somewhere in Los Angeles which they had registered as a university  
called Sequoia and immediately awarded each other doctorates.”  
Dianetics is the so-called “science” founded by Hubbard to provide  
spiritual healing.

Whitehall officials, keen to learn if Hubbard was truly a man of  
letters, asked the British Consulate in Los Angeles to investigate  
him. They sent an urgent confidential request asking whether he had  
founded the university, if the degree was self-awarded and what was  
the standing of the institution. “Grateful if you will make discreet  
and confidential inquiries and telegraph early reply,” said the author  
of a telegram from London.

The answer came from Los Angeles on April 26, 1977: “After exhaustive  
enquiries we have now tracked down organisation named which was closed  
down by state authorities in 1971 and all documents impounded. The  
facts are that it neither has nor ever had approval and its status is  
not recognised in California . . . It is a ‘will of the wisp’  
organisation which has no premises and does not really exist. It has  
not and never had any authority whatso-ever to issue diplomas or  
degrees and the dean is sought by the authorities ‘for questioning’.”  
The diplomat said that Californian authorities had voluminous files on  
the college.

Papers released by the National Archives include a Sequoia University  
brochure offering an osteopathic medicine qualification that was  
supposedly internationally accredited. A memo from the California  
education department dated 1974 states that this shows that the  
“diploma mill” is “still in business as usual, in a new field this  
time”.

A letter from the bureau of school approvals states: “This institution  
has never been approved or recognised by this office. Repeated  
attempts have been made to obtain compliance with the legal  
requirements. None of these attempts have proved successful.”

The remarkable allegation that Scientologists were suspected of posing  
as doctors to rid themselves of an inquisitor and evidence against  
them emerges in a further British telegram.

On May 18, 1977, Louis Sherbourne, of the British Consulate-General in  
Los Angeles, wrote a confidential message showing how nervous US  
officials had become of Scientology. “We have now come up against the  
usual brick wall of missing files and silence, each and every person  
and organisation treading very warily for fear of a libel or slander  
action.”

Mr Sherbourne wrote that Sequoia had been founded by “Rev Fr Damian  
Hough alias Dr Joseph William Hough” in 1939 as a “diploma mill”.

“Apart from the suspicion that Hubbard bought the university from  
Hough to serve the needs of the Scientology organisation, we can  
establish no other positive connection,” he said.

“United States Internal Revenue Services tried hard to obtain firmer  
evidence but appear to have failed. A recent attempt to resurrect the  
enquiry resulted in all the papers from 1939 to 1963 being sent to  
Sacramento to the office of the State Attorney General.

“By ‘an amazing coincidence’ the Deputy Attorney General dealing with  
them was taken ill and after seeing some ‘doctors’ was retired ‘due to  
his mental health’. My very incensed informant in the California  
Department of Education is convinced that the ‘doctors’ were  
scientologists who hypnotised him into mental ill-health and he feels  
very bitter but can do nothing about it.”

A spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology said the suggestion that  
Scientologists had hypnotised a deputy attorney general was “simply  
reflective of how astronomically paranoid they were”.

Branching out from Berlin

Germany The Church of Scientology has opened an office in Berlin to  
act as its main lobbying centre in Europe. The Agency for the  
Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which monitors terrorist groups,  
keeps it under close observation. The German Government blocked  
filming of Valkyrie in certain locations, partly due to the  
involvement of its star, Tom Cruise, right, in Scientology.

France Regards Scientology as a cult. In May a former member sued the  
Church, saying that she had been pressurised into handing over large  
sums of money.

Britain The protest group Anonymous has demanded that the Church’s tax  
status be revoked (it is exempt from VAT).

Czech Republic The establishment of a “non-religious” primary school  
in Brno was approved in May. It will teach children according to L.  
Ron Hubbard’s methods.

Source: Times archives

dkennedy at thetimes.co.uk