The term Fair Game is used to describe policies and practices carried out by the Church of Scientology towards people and groups it perceives as its enemies. Founder L. Ron Hubbard established the policy in the 1950s, in response to criticism both from within and outside his organization.^[1][2] Individuals or groups who are "Fair Game" are judged to be a threat to the Church and, according to the policy, can be punished and harassed using any and all means possible.^[1][2][3] In 1968, Hubbard officially canceled use of the term "Fair Game" because of negative public relations it caused, although the Church's aggressive response to criticism continued.^[1]

Applying the principles of Fair Game, Hubbard and his followers targeted many individuals as well as government officials and agencies, including a program of covert and illegal infiltration of the IRS and other U.S. government agencies during the 1970s.^[1][2] They also conducted private investigations, character assassination and legal action against the Church's critics in the media.^[1] The policy remains in effect and has been defended by the Church of Scientology as a core religious practice.^[4][5][6]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Background
• 2 Policy
• 3 Court cases
  • 3.1 L. Gene Allard, 1974–1976
  • 3.2 Operation Freakout, 1976
  • 3.3 Department of Health and Social Security (UK), 1979
  • 3.4 Lawrence Wollersheim, 1980
  • 3.5 Jakob Anderson, 1981
  • 3.6 Gerald Armstrong, 1984
  • 3.7 Latey judgment, 1984
• 4 In practice
  • 4.1 In the United Kingdom
• 5 See also
• 6 Notes
• 7 References
• 8 External links

Background[edit]

Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, said all opposition came from what he called "Suppressive Persons" (SPs)— which scientologists claim are "anti-social people who want to destroy anything that benefits humanity."^[3] In written policies dating from the mid-1950s, Hubbard told his followers to take a hard line against perceived opponents. In 1955 he wrote, "The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly".^[7]

In his confidential Manual of Justice of 1959, Hubbard wrote "People attack Scientology. I never forget it, always even the score."^[1] He advocated using private investigators to investigate critics, who had turned out to be "members of the Communist Party or criminals, usually both. The smell of police or private detectives caused them to fly, to close down, to confess. Hire them and damn the cost when you need to."^[8] He said that in dealing with opponents, his followers should "always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace. Don't ever defend. Always attack."^[9] He urged the use of "black propaganda" to "destroy reputation or public belief in persons, companies or nations."^[9]

The Church has retained an aggressive policy towards those it perceives as its enemies,^[10][11] and argued as late as 1985 that retributive action against "enemies of Scientology" should be considered aConstitutionally-protected "core practice" of Scientology.^[12]

Bare-faced Messiah

Cover of UK paperback edition
Author	Russell Miller
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Subject	Biography
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Michael Joseph
Publication date	26 October 1987
Pages	380
ISBN	0-7181-2764-1
OCLC	20634668
Dewey Decimal	299/.936/092 B 20
LC Class	BP605.S2 M55 1987

Bare-faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard is a posthumous biography of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard by British journalist Russell Miller. First published in the United Kingdom on 26 October 1987, the book takes a critical perspective, challenging the Church of Scientology's account of Hubbard's life and work.^[1] It quotes extensively from official documents acquired using the Freedom of Information Act and from Hubbard's personal papers, which were obtained via a defector from the Church. It was also published in Australia, Canada and the United States.

The Church of Scientology strongly opposed the book's publication. The Church was accused of organising a smear and harassment campaign against Miller and his publisher, though it strenuously denied this accusation, and a private investigator involved in the campaign denied that the Church was his client.^[2][3] However, a leak of internal Church documents to the press in 1990 disclosed many details of the campaign.^[2] The Church and related corporate entities attempted to prevent the book's publication in court, resulting in cases that reached the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and the Federal Court of Canada. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to let a lower court's ruling stand, denying fair use protection for the book's use of unpublished sources, set a precedent favouring copyright protection of unpublished material over biographers' freedom of speech. Courts in the UK and Canada took an opposite view, allowing publication of Bare-faced Messiah in the public interest.

Reviews of the book have been broadly positive — one calling it "the best and most comprehensive biography of L. Ron Hubbard"^[4] — and praise the quality and depth of Miller's research. Some criticise the book for failing to explain Hubbard's success or clarify whether or not he was a fraud. Reviewers have been divided over whether to interpret the book as a polemical attack on Hubbard or a neutral work that leaves conclusions to the reader. The Church of Scientology has been less complimentary; the executor of Hubbard's estate called it "a scumbag book ... full of bullshit" in a court deposition in the U.S.^[5]

Background and synopsis[edit]

Miller traced Hubbard to the vicinity of San Luis Obispo, California, where the Scientology leader was living secretly on this ranch, but Hubbard died before Miller could finish his research.

Russell Miller had been an investigative journalist for the Sunday Times^[6][7] and had written well-received biographies of Hugh Hefner (Bunny, published in 1984) and J. Paul Getty (The House of Getty, 1985). ^[8] These were the first two biographies of a trilogy on sex, money and religion, with the Hubbard book completing the trilogy. He spent two years researching the book,^[6][9] which followed a Sunday Times Magazine investigation of the Church of Scientology published in October 1984.^[10] In 1985, he suggested that the Sunday Times should try to find Hubbard, who had disappeared from public view several years earlier. If the project succeeded, it would be a worldwide scoop for the newspaper. Even if it did not find the reclusive Scientology leader, the continuing mystery would itself be a good story. Through contacts among ex-Scientologists in the U.S., Miller narrowed down the area where Hubbard was hiding to the vicinity of San Luis Obispo, California. However, Hubbard died in January 1986 before Miller could finish his project. He decided at this point to use his research as the basis of a full-fledged biography of Hubbard, in addition to writing the previously agreed series of articles for the Sunday Times.^[11]

Bare-faced Messiah covers a period from 1911, when Hubbard was born, to his death in 1986, with some additional background on his family history. It describes his early life, his success as a science fiction writer in the 1930s and 1940s, his military career during the Second World War, the rise of Dianetics and Scientology in the 1950s, his journeys at sea with his followers in the 1960s and early 1970s and his legal problems and period as a recluse from the mid-1970s to 1986. The author draws on previously unpublished materials, such as Hubbard's teenage diaries and personal correspondence to colleagues, employers and the FBI, as well as government documents like Hubbard's military service record and FBI file. In an "author's note", Miller writes that the book would have been impossible without the Freedom of Information Act. Among the private papers quoted in the book are a letter written by Hubbard to the FBI denouncing his wife as a Soviet spy, another in which he tells his daughter Alexis that he is not really her father and an internal letter in which he suggests that Scientology should pursue religious status for business reasons.^[12] Other sources used by Miller include news articles and comments from interviews that he conducted with Hubbard's old acquaintances and family members.^[13]

Miller's research was assisted by a set of Hubbard's personal papers obtained by Gerry Armstrong, a disaffected former employee of the Church of Scientology.^[7] Armstrong had been preparing material for an official biography of Hubbard, but left the Church in 1981 after finding that Hubbard's claims about his life conflicted with independent sources.^[14] The Church of Scientology obtained an injunction in California to prevent Armstrong from further distributing the documents. However, English courts refused to enforce this order.^[7][15]

In the book's preface, Miller summarises his view of Hubbard:

The glorification of 'Ron', superman and saviour, required a cavalier disregard for facts: thus it is that every biography of Hubbard published by the church is interwoven with lies, half-truths and ludicrous embellishments. The wondrous irony of this deception is that the true story of L. Ron Hubbard is much more bizarre, much more improbable, than any of the lies.^[16]

Church dogma demands a slavish devotion to its founder L. Ron Hubbard, whose sentiments appear racist to modern sensibilities but were common in white society during most of his life. Racial attitudes have changed greatly over time — in fact, modern anthropological theorydenies the existence of "race"  altogether. Hubbard's prejudices, however, are forever codified in Source, i.e., they are sacred, immutable doctrine. Hence, Scientology is inherently racist, as the following collection of scriptural quotes illustrates.

                

A basic component of the Church's services is auditing (counseling sessions). Through a progression of special auditing actions for specific purposes, called rundowns , Scientologists can advance their spiritual condition. But Hubbard has a Big Auditing Problem with native South Africans, who, along with other "primitives" and children, are in a "retrograded" state:

The South African native is probably the one impossible person to train in the entire world — he is probably impossible by any human standard.

–L. Ron Hubbard, PAB No. 119, 1 September 1957, as published in Level 0 PABS (c.1968, The American St. Hill Organization).

Natives need the help of white men to explain how to care for their possessions, including their land. Hubbard scolds South Africa for not properly attending to native education:

As long as a white foreman is there, they will prevent soil erosion; but the moment that a white foreman turns his back — boo! There goes the whole program.

And you finally get up to the point of where he's [native] supposed to take care of something, a lesson which has never been taught to the native of South Africa.

–L. Ron Hubbard, 15th ACC (Power of Simplicity) lecture "Education: Point of Agreement", 30 Oct 1956.

Hubbard also finds that the "insanity rate per capita in South Africa is appalling" and issues a special set of instructions, The Scientific Treatment of the Insane, for South African auditors to address the problem. Note that Hubbard also thinks the Bantu are in need of "rehabilitation", with mental health being only one of the necessary efforts.

The insanity rate per capita in South Africa is appalling. …it is easily seen that a primary requisite in any programme of the rehabilitation of the Bantu in South Africa would be mental health…

–L. Ron Hubbard, HCOB April 1960, "The Scientific Treatment of the Insane"

The South African Rundown, the only Scientology rundown targeted at a specific ethnic group, was developed for "delivery to South Africans—those who reside in South Africa as well as those who have emigrated to other parts of the world". Hubbard apparently feels that they required special processing because they are "untrainable" and "insane".

The Church's auditing tool, the E-meter, requires adjustment in order to accommodate the needle's larger movements because of the intensity of a black South African's undisclosed transgressions ("withholds").

A "black South African's" withholds read not only on the needle [of the E-meter] alone but on the Tone Arm [sensitivity adjustment] as well.

–L. Ron Hubbard, E-Meter Essentials, section I: "Meter Oddities", 1988 (pg. 24)

Perhaps the unusually strong withholds can be explained by the Bantu'smercenary nature:

Because the one thing — the very, very commercial little culture the Bantu has … the idea of commerce and money and that sort of thing is very deeply ingrained in these people.

–L. Ron Hubbard, SHSBC, "Errors in Time", 18 July 1963

Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought, one of Scientology's basic public texts, says this about "African savages":

…the African tribesman, with his complete contempt for truth and his emphasis on brutality and savagery for others but not for himself, is a no-civilization.

–L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought, Bridge Publications: Los Angeles, 1997.

The reason that Africans feel barbarous is because of their numerousoverts  that have resulted from being exposed to a "fantastic amount ofspace opera " and a hostile environment.

[Y]ou'll find in Africans a fantastic amount of heavy space opera and so on, going on … which makes the colored African very, very interesting to process because he doesn't know why he goes through all these dances … and why he feels so barbarous ….

–L. Ron Hubbard, 1st Melbourne ACC, lecture "Principal Incidents on the Track", 27 November 1959.

In Hubbard's view, people have to be trained to be "governable" in order to become civilized and deserve independence. He suggests that this was the problem in Cameroon, undergoing internal strife on its way to independence from France and England, because there was no one there to "give civilization to".

They took people who were totally dedicated to certain tribal procedures … and said, "You're free." And they said, "Free. Free? Free. Ah! You mean there's no police anymore." Boom! Boom!

–L. Ron Hubbard, State of Man Congress, Opening lecture, 1 January 1960.

According to Hubbard, Zulus are crazy:

…the Zulu is only outside the bars of a madhouse because there are no madhouses provided by his tribe. … primitives are far more aberrated than civilized peoples. Their savageness, their unprogressiveness, their incidence of illness …

–L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Bridge Publications, Los Angeles, 1995.

The Church runs security checks on members suspected of certain criminal behaviors. The Johannesburg Security Check is "the roughest security check in Scientology" and consists of a series of pointed questions which Scientologists answer while on the E-meter (in this case, used more like a lie detector than an auditing tool). Included in the list of "crimes" is engaging in an intimate relationship with a member of a "colored" race. A selected portion of the questions demonstrates the seriousness of this crime:

Have you ever slept with a member of a race of another color?
Have you ever committed culpable homicide?
Have you ever bombed anything?
Have you ever murdered anyone?
Have you ever kidnapped anyone?

–L. Ron Hubbard, HCOPL 7 April 1961, "Johannesburg Security Check"

There are hints that Scientology membership was limited to whites, at least initially, in their organizations in southern Africa. In the first quote below, Hubbard is concerned about the World Bank taking control of England and the general advance of Communism. He believes astronghold of civilization  can be set up in Africa to salvage white society. In the second quote, Hubbard praises the South African organization, that, in spite of the limited white population from which to recruit, managed to outproduce all other Scientology organizations.

Now if we can get white population, immigrants and big companies and so on moving into Africa and if we can get with that Scientology well established in Southern Africa, why we can then look forward to a salvage operation base, in case the northern hemisphere's lights go out.

–L. Ron Hubbard, recorded talk to the Saint Hill staff about Rhodesia, 6 May 1966

As South Africa has a white population of only 2.8 million or thereabouts, you can see that every other central organization in the world has been out-created.

–L. Ron Hubbard, HCOB 17 July 1959, "Africa over the Top"

Hubbard sought to create a Scientology homeland in South Africa or Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The Church claims it opposed the white minority governments (most of its activity in the early years took place in colonial states where whites ruled and English was the official language: England, United States, Australia, South Africa, Rhodesia). Hubbard, however, appears to have thought the problem of apartheid was overstated.

The problem of South Africa is different than the world thinks. There is no native problem. The native worker gets more than white workers do in England! […] The South African government is not a police state. It's easier on people than the United States government!

–L. Ron Hubbard, HCOB 10 October 1960, "Current News"

It is considered in England and the United States that the Government of South Africa is altogether too harsh with its native peoples. It is sadly humorous to notice that the native in South Africa, however, holds an exactly reverse opinion and the fault he finds with the South African Government is that it is far too lenient in its administration of laws throughout the native populace.

–L. Ron Hubbard, PAB No. 96, "Justice", 15 September 1956

One reason Hubbard was attracted to Rhodesia was his admiration for Cecil Rhodes; he even claimed to have been Rhodes in a previous life. Rhodes originated the racist land grabs in South Africa, suggesting that "we must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labour that is available from the natives of the colonies".

Hubbard's expertise in handling the natives, who were a great resource that was not "well utilised at all", was probably a continuation of his former lifetime's experience.

For instance, my boy Jamble … I used to tell him "yes, I know Jamble — you're a good boy even though you do drink and smoke dacca and gamble — that has nothing to do with me, you're still a good boy" and you know he came way up tone arm. I noticed he drank less and I think he stopped smoking dacca entirely but he didn't stop gambling because Master used to give him a pound to go out to the race track and lose.

… tremendous labour supply in the Bantu, the Mshombe, the Matabele, these people are very hard-working people and under proper direction are quite productive. … and here is this perfectly valid labour supply — the African, who at this time is not being well utilised at all; …

–L. Ron Hubbard, Conference with the Guardian, 18 July 1966

But they served with great enthusiasm. Those people sure can work. The African sure can work. That's one thing nobody has ever quite noticed about them. They arevery hard-working people.

–L. Ron Hubbard, "About Rhodesia", lecture given on 19 July 1966

Hubbard praises the South African government's handling of theJohannesburg slums:

Having viewed slum clearance projects in most major cities of the world may I state that you have conceived and created in the Johannesburg townships what is probably the most impressive and adequate resettlement activity in existence.

–L. Ron Hubbard, Letter to South African Prime Minister Dr. H.F. Verwoerd, 7 November 1960, Johannesburg; reprinted in part in G.P.C. Kotzé,Inquiry into the Effects and Practices of Scientology , 1972

Hubbard has few reservations in supporting the apartheid governmentand, in fact, calls Hendrick Verwoerd  a "great guy". He suggests ways that the Church could serve the apartheid agenda, for instance, using e-meters to interrogate suspects and to uncover agent provacateurs. "Clean them up and the riots collapse." In Hubbard's world, the deplorable conditions of non-white citizens did not give rise to the protests, instead, it was outside agitators (usually Communists) who were to blame — a view in alignment with the government's.

Hubbard sees indigenous people as carefree "natives" dancing in the jungle, or agitators trying to overthrow the colonial government because they haven't been properly primed for civilization.

Illiterate cultures do not survive and they are not very high. The natives of the tribe of the Bugga Bugga Booga Boogas down in Lower Bugga Wugga Booga Woog are mostly no longer with us, or they are around waving red flags today and revolting against their central government.

And they didn't learn fast. Their literacy was not up to absorbing culture rapidly.

They've been very happily down amongst the bong-bong trees, you know, dancing up and down amongst the bong-bong trees, and the highest level of their interest and so forth was their own back yard.

–L. Ron Hubbard, The Study Tapes, "Study: Evaluation and Information", lecture given on 11 August 1964

Hubbard invokes the "N-word":

You shouldn't be scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees. Get yourself a nigger; that's what they're born for.

–L. Ron Hubbard, in a letter to first wife, Polly Grubb

Hubbard describes the spiritual state of blacks:

Actually, have you ever noticed how a Negro, in particular down south, where they're pretty close to the soil, personifies MEST? The gatepost and the wagon and the whip and anything around there—a hat. They talk to them, you know. "What'sa mattuh wi' you hat?" They imbue them with personality.

–L. Ron Hubbard, Therapy section of Technique 80("Route to Infinity" tapes), Part I, a lecture given on 21 May 1952

You can hear this quote in Hubbard's own voice at Operation Clambake .

Hubbard disparages other "colors", too:

Unlike yellow and brown people, the white does not usually believe he can get attention from matter or objects.
…
The white goes further. He often believes he can get attention only from whites and that yellow and brown people's attention is worthless. Thus the yellow and brown races are not very progressive, but, by and large, saner.

–L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought, Bridge Publications: Los Angeles, 1997.

Hubbard on Indians:

Now we say there's, well, another place in the world—there's India. Wonderful place — except for its people.

–L. Ron Hubbard, "The Control of Hysteria" (lecture), 15 April 1957.

Hubbard says that "there's nothing between me and the Arab races at all. As a matter of fact, I like Arabs."

In North Africa they had the Arab with the gun and whip, but he could force people to do things … and he accomplished a tremendous amount of extermination, but he certainly didn't advance that civilization very much.

–L. Ron Hubbard, PAB No. 119, 1 September 1957, as published in Level 0 PABS (c.1968, The American St. Hill Organization)

He's [the Arab] been going crazy steadily and gradually ever since he lost the early very fertile basins of the Middle East. He's been going crazy ever since he failed to learn wheat farming and brought about the erosion of all of the fertile areas of the Middle East.

This race has been going for a very, very long time and has been eating death for a very long time and it is death. … They have eaten death too long and now they bring death to the things they touch.

The Arab is to a point where he won't even follow a decent leader. He's got to have a man of blood, a man of cruelty, exaggeration and bigotry. Then he'll follow him.

…the Arab is trying to be pleased with death and murder and mayhem and disease and poverty and political unrest.

–L. Ron Hubbard, 20th Advanced Clinical Course, "Case Analysis—Rock Hunting", lecture of 4 August 1958

Hubbard on Egyptians (and French):

Those small brown men who sell their sisters on the streets of Cairo were once the mighty Egyptians.

–L. Ron Hubbard, Ability, issue 56, October 1957, quoted in Winning ("News Journal of the Office of Special Affairs") vol.1, iss.3, 1997

Ostensibly there is little antisemitism in Hubbard's works, but on the rare mention of Jews, he upholds common antisemitic myths. What's more, he subscribed to the Spotlight newspaper published by Willis Carto, "perhaps the most influential professional anti-Semite in the United States" (-Anti-Defamation League).

Hubbard suggests the worldwide conspiracy against him and Scientology can be tracked back to the "Jewish bankers" who are funding his arch enemy, the World Federation of Mental Health.

Now it's of peculiar interest to an Arab country that there is a company and a certain set of bankers who also finance the World Federation of Mental Health. …and we see that although the KGB and so forth seems to be associated with the World Federation of Mental Health, their other organization in action seems to go back to Jewish Bankers.

–L. Ron Hubbard, Aides Conference, "Covert Operations", 2 November 1969

Another fairly common antisemitic notion that Hubbard embraces is that an obsession with sex is a natural characteristic of the Jewish "race".

Furthermore, [Sigmund Freud] had a racial fixation on sex, a fixation sufficiently pronounced to cause it to infect contagiously all modern European stock.

–L. Ron Hubbard, PAB No. 92, "A Critique of Psychoanalysis", 10 July 1956

Hubbard voices concern about the U.S. pulling out of Viet Nam and how ANZO (Australia/New Zealand/Oceania) would stand alone to face the threat of Communism, which, in Hubbard's view, was part of the psychiatric conspiracy to rule (and ruin) the planet. Apparently Hubbard is dismayed at the prospect of an influx of Asians into Scientology in the area, if their attention was diverted from war with the Americans.

This is the only way I know of to keep Anzo from being deluged with Asiatic hordes.

–L. Ron Hubbard, HCO Information Letter, "Anzo Supplement", 17 February 1969