Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [31]
The FBI was a recipient of another genre of Hubbard's writing. The founder of Scientology had maintained his correspondence with the bureau since denouncing his associates and his wife as Communists in 1951. Though he continued to view attacks upon Scientologists as the defamations of "Communist-connected personnel," as he wrote in one letter, Hubbard had become increasingly antagonistic toward psychiatrists, who, he seemed to believe, were intent on destroying him. In one 1955 missive, he reported that several Scientologists had gone "suddenly and inexplicably insane," an event that he believed had nothing to do with Scientology counseling. Rather, an "LSD attack" launched by a psychiatrist intent on doing harm had caused this misfortune. LSD, Hubbard noted, was the "insanity producing drug so favored by the APA."
By the autumn of 1955, the FBI had received so many similar letters from Hubbard that they stopped responding. "Appears mental," one agent wrote on a rambling Hubbard missive of this kind. But Hubbard was undeterred and persisted in sharing with the U.S. government what he considered his groundbreaking discoveries.
In April 1956, the FBI received a pamphlet titled "Brain-Washing: A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics," which Hubbard told them was the Church of Scientology's reprinting of what "appeared to be a Communist manual." The bureau examined it and concluded that its authenticity was doubtful "since it lacks documentation of source material and Communist words and phrases." It was widely assumed that Hubbard had written the booklet himself. He was also thought to be the anonymous author of a pamphlet called "All About Radiation," signed by "a Nuclear Physicist and a Medical Doctor." The text promoted a vitamin product called Dianazene, claiming it could treat and prevent radiation sickness, as well as certain cancers. The Food and Drug Administration, having been given a copy, investigated these claims. In 1958 the FDA confiscated, and then destroyed, a shipment of twenty-one thousand Dianazene tablets, which Hubbard was selling as a substance that prevented radiation sickness.
In the wake of the Dianazene seizure, authorities increased their scrutiny of Hubbard's activities. As his FBI file thickened by the day, the CIA also decided to open a file on his burgeoning organization. But making their way through the tangled morass of ad hoc corporations and shell companies that composed the Church of Scientology proved daunting. In addition to more than a hundred churches of Scientology, various other groups existed as part of the web, with names like Hubbard Guidance Center, American Society for Disaster Relief, Society of Consulting Ministers, and Academy of Religious Arts and Sciences. By the end of the 1950s, Scientology had grown into a tremendously complex network of businesses, not all of which were churches; all, however, sent money to the Mother Church. Figuring out how the whole conglomerate worked was, then as now, nearly impossible.
After a year of investigation, the CIA had discovered no hard evidence of wrongdoing. Scientologists nonetheless felt under siege. Hubbard began spending an increasing amount of time in England, where both the HASI and the Hubbard Communications Office, the issuer of myriad memos and policies to organizations worldwide, were now based. In 1959, he decided to move there permanently and purchased a 225-year-old estate in the Sussex countryside known as the Saint Hill Manor. A weathered Georgian