I’m posting three email exchanges I had with Steve Cannane prior to the publication of his book Fair Game, which was in September 2016. These demonstrate certain relevant facts: he had my contact information; we were communicating; I had provided detailed, accurate data; he knew this to be true because he sought my data and credited it in his emails.
This thread from July 2015 concerns information Cannane had requested from me when we met during a conference in Toronto that took place between June 22 and 26, 2015. He interviewed me very briefly, and I agreed to send him materials he wanted after I had returned home from the conference. My mention at the end of my email about “Hubbard’s letter to the police,” is because Cannane had told me in Toronto that he would send me a copy of this letter.
On July 5, 2015 I emailed Cannane:
From: Gerry Armstrong
Sent: July 5, 2015 3:05 PM
To: Steve Cannane
Subject: Items discussed in TorontoHi Steve:
Great to meet you at the Toronto conference, and get to talk with you a few minutes.
There were 5 things I made a note to write to you about: 1. John Avery; 2. Scientology researcher “Margaret Lake;” 3. Hubbard in Princeton, NJ; 4. the Citizens Purity League, and 5. Hubbard’s WW II post-Australia injuries. I didn’t remember the name of the Citizens Purity League, an early Hubbard front, but remembered it as targeting the police, and thought it could relate to the letter from Hubbard to the police in Oz during the skirmish with Phillip Wearne.
I forwarded the contact information I have for Avery separately.
Here is Ms. Lake’s site: http://scientologymyths.com/hubbardww2.htm
I mentioned that she came up with the idea that Hubbard received his purple hearts from the US Army, not the navy, as a result of his “injuries” in Australia.
Here is an article I wrote in 2008 about Hubbard’s police caper that was based on a lecture of his on January 3, 1960 “Zones of Control and Responsibility of Governments.” http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/526
On June 23, 1960, Hubbard published as a “technical bulletin” “The Special Zone Plan,” which the Anderson Report cites to in the “Scientology and Politics” chapter.
I don’t believe the Anderson Report mentions the Hubbard lectures/sermons from January 1960 that precede the HCOB. But they do appear to relate to the Australian situation at the time.
Anyway, take a look at my article and see if any of the material is new or useful.
Attached is a .pdf of the “State of Man Congress” transcripts where Hubbard introduces his Citizens Purity League idea.
I just spotted another event in Scientology’s history, and also my history, that reaches back to Wearne. Guardian Order 121669 “Programme: Intelligence: Internal Security,” which is issued over Mary Sue Hubbard’s name but almost certainly written by L. Ron, states:
OBSERVATION: The enemy has used the method of infiltration to obtain information against ourselves as known from incidences in South Africa, Edinburgh and Washington, D.C.
The enemy has also “turned” and used as double agents Staff members as revealed by Maurice Johnson at Saint Hill and Barbara Peake in Melbourne.
Further, the enemy has used former disaffected staff members, Scientologists or relatives of Scientologists in their attacks – Philip Wearne and Doug Moon in Australia, Jean Kennedy and Gene van Niekerk in South Africa, Michael Pernetta and Mrs. Henslow in England, Eleanor Turner and the former Mrs. Elmo Troup in America and the O’Donnell family in New Zealand, to name but a few of the outstanding examples.
http://www.suppressiveperson.org/sp/archives/3828At my trial in 1984, GO 121669 came into evidence, my attorney Michael Flynn questioned Mary Sue Hubbard about it, and the judge referred to it in the judgment.
LRH’s wife, Mary Sue Hubbard is also plaintiff herein. On the one hand she certainly appeared to be a pathetic individual. She was forced from her post as Controller, convicted and imprisoned as a felon, and deserted by her husband. On the other hand her credibility leaves much to be desired. She struck the familiar pose of not seeing, hearing, or knowing any evil. Yet she was the head of the Guardian Office for years and among other things, authored the infamous order “GO 121669” which directed culling of supposedly confidential P.C. files/folders for purposes of internal security. In her testimony she expressed the feeling that defendant by delivering the documents, writings, letters to his attorneys, subjected her to mental rape. The evidence is clear and the court finds that defendant and Omar Garrison had permission to utilize these documents for the purpose of Garrison’s proposed biography. The only other persons who were shown any of the documents were defendant’s attorneys, the Douglasses, the Dincalcis, and apparently some documents specifically affecting LRH’s son “Nibs,” were shown to “Nibs.” The Douglasses and Dincalcises were disaffected Scientologists who had a concern for their own safety and mental security, and were much in the same situation as defendant. They had not been declared as suppressive, but Scientology had their P.C. folders, as well as other confessions, and they were extremely apprehensive. They did not see very many of the documents, and it is not entirely clear which they saw. At any rate Mary Sue Hubbard did not appear to be so much distressed by this fact, as by the fact that Armstrong had given the documents to Michael Flynn, whom the Church considered its foremost lawyer-enemy. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/283.php
This judgment was affirmed on appeal in 1991.
You read out what Hubbard wrote in his letter to the police about being trained, I believe, as Provost Marshal Korea.
Sometime after this, he claimed to have actually been the “Provost Marshal Korea.” See this from a report I wrote to Cirrus Slevin, HCO Cope Officer CMO International, dated November 25, 1981:
I’ve attached an item “Data Sheet on Lafayette Ronald Hubbard” in his handwriting which was for use by the PR’s and for publication. It contains a number of claims which are not totally accurate, or are flatly untrue.
[…]
b.” attended Princeton University Post Graduate”
He didn’t.[…]
g.” Provost Marshall Korea 1945″.
Untrue
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/historical/armstrong-ltr-cirrus-1981-11-25.htmlThis letter to Slevin was also quoted from in the judgment after my 1984 trial:
Less than three weeks before Defendant Armstrong left Scientology, he wrote a letter to Cirrus Slevin on November 25, 1981, in which it is clear that his intentions in airing the inaccuracies, falsehoods, and frauds regarding Hubbard were done in good faith. In his letter he stated as follows:
“If we present inaccuracies, hyperbole or downright lies as fact or truth, it doesn’t matter what slant we give them, if disproved the man will look, to outsiders at least, like a charlatan. This is what I’m trying to prevent and what I’ve been working on the past year and a half.”…
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/283.phpPrinceton was where Hubbard was supposedly being trained at the Navy’s School of Military Government, which was apparently on the Princeton University campus. This is from his “Affirmations,” circa 1946:
I returned to sea as navigator of a large ship and was subsequently selected for the Military Government School at Princeton whither I went in 1944-45 for three months. During my Princeton sojourn I was very tired and harrassed (sp?) and spent week-ends with a writer friend in Philadelphia. He almost forced me to sleep with his wife. Meanwhile I had a affair with a woman named Ferne. Somehow, perhaps because I had constantly wet feet and no sleep at Princeton, I contracted a staphloceus infection. I mistook it for gonnhorea and until I arrived at Monterey, believed my old illness had returned. I consulted a doctor there who reassured me. This affair again depressed my libido. The staphloceus infection has not entirely vanished, appearing as rheumatism which only small doses of stilbestrol will remove. The hormone further reduces my libido and I am nearly impotent.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/ars/ars-2000-03-11.htmlSee also this ESMB post from Caroline:
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?31084-Robert-Heinlein-A-Stranger-in-a-Strange-Land-and-Ron-Hubbard/page2Hubbard’s Provost Marshal Korea claim was discussed in my 1984 trial, see, e.g., June 6, 1984:
THE COURT: Seven I’s.
FLYNN: That relates to the claim that he was a Provost Marshall of Korea. That claim is made in that data sheet.
LITT: I don’t have anything to add on seven I’s, Your Honor.
THE COURT: It will be received.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/4814.phpThis is Hubbard’s request to be appointed to the School of Military Government: http://www.solitarytrees.net/cowen/warhero/1944/440909.gif
His “qualifications” are really something.
Hubbard also mentioned his Princeton sojourn in a 1946 appeal of the amount of his disability award to the Veterans Administration, which was read into the record in the Christofferson v. Scientology trial in Portland, OR in 1985:
BY MR. McMURRY: (Continuing)
Q. Mr. Armstrong, would you start with reading the typed portion of the appeal forms signed by Mr. Hubbard on July 4, 1946.
A. “My service-connected disability amounts to more than the ten percent awarded. No disability whatever was allowed for service-connected eye trouble. No disability was allowed for a chronic and incapacitating bone infection which was also service connected and not due to misconduct.
“Ulcers: Ten percent was awarded for duodenal ulcers. This stomach condition was demonstrated as chronic and was advanced as wholly incapacitating — ‘unfit for further service’ — by the retiring board of the USN Hospital, Oakland, California, where I was hospitalized for the second time within two years on the same diagnosis. Necessity to obtain milk and a very narrow diet — I cannot tolerate a general diet — results in my having to abandon my old profession as ship master and explorer, and seriously hampers me as a writer. I can do nothing which involves nervous strain without becoming dangerously ill. I cannot undertake a routine job because of resulting nervous exhaustion followed by a painful flare-up of my ulcers. My income has been zero since my release from service due to my physical condition.
“Eyes: An author must research a great deal to write. This has always entailed a great deal of reading with me. I cannot now read for more than three to four minutes without suffering from headache. I have attempted to have glasses fitted by such an eminent ophthalmologist as the head of the Mount Sinai Eye Clinic without any relief. The condition was stated by Navy doctors (see health record and hospital record) as chronic and unremediable, noting that the present glasses could not be increased in strength. My eyesight when I entered the service was very good. It began to fail after prolonged exposure to tropical sunlight in the Pacific in the spring of 1942. The diagnosis was ‘conjunctivitis actinic’ and I was hospitalized for it at the Brooklyn Naval Hospital, before returned to duty on my own” —
COOLEY: “being returned to duty”.
THE WITNESS: — “being returned to duty on my own request. My eyesight failed until I found it very difficult to read. When I was mustered out of the service at San Francisco Separation Center, December 5, 1945, my eyesight was registered as being about thirty percent of normal with glasses. I have no copy of this record. Occupational fitness due to failed eyesight is at a point where I have written nothing since release from service due to my inability to research, and my lack of finances to enable me to hire research done.
“Infection: A chronic infection in my right hip has lamed me. It has been treated by private physicians and yields to no known therapy which could be applied. Naval doctors refuse treatment on the grounds that it was not curable, ‘but might go away sometime.’ After a year and a half it is worse. This infection was contracted at Princeton University in 1945, January, according to record. Sudden transition from the tropics to the slush and icy cold of Princeton caused dramatic chills which seem to have settled in the right hip. Warm weather slightly mitigates but does not banish this injury. I cannot walk on pavement without suffering severely. Naval doctors sought to label this as writer’s syndrome, but had no proof, and its diagnosis has been disproved. Surgery is not indicated. This also prevents me from working at sea where one must stand much of the time.
“My earning power, due to injuries, all service connected, has dropped to nothing. I earned one thousand dollars a month prior to the war as a writer. I cannot now earn money as a writer, and attempts to find other employment have failed because of my physical condition. Occupational disability is one hundred percent. L. Ron Hubbard.”
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/related/5208.phpI think I mentioned to you that in my opinion Hubbard started lying about his navy career upon his return from Australia, where he really had been sent off in relative disgrace. He obviously contacted John W. Campbell after arriving in New York, told Campbell of his action and heroism, faked a limp, and Campbell wrote to Heinlein:
May 13,1942
Dear Bob:—
A brief note during business hours, concerning something of some interest.
Ron Hubbard’s in town–temporarily confined to the Sick Officer’s Quarters. He’s angry, bitter, and very such afraid—afraid he’ll get assigned to some shore job, which he does not want, and kept from going to sea again.
Angry and bitter because, I suspect, he was among those licked. He collected a piece of Jap bomb in his thigh dureing the battle of the Java Sea, as far as I can make out. He was aboard ship at the time, apperantly, and Allied air power was not giving adequate coverage.
He is a graduate C.E., but is also rather competent in several lines. He was barnstorming for a living for a while, and has a private pilot’s license. He did some fairly useful mapping along the Alaska coast by a new radio-beam survey/method. And he has imagination, of course.
If the guy is hooked for shore duty–he’s got a limp; how permanent I don’t know, nor how bad—he might be useful. His own feeling is that his direct experience with Jap weapons, methods and tactics might be his prime asset. Mebbeso–I don’t know. But there must be several thousand American men, several hundred American officers, who have that by now.
If Scoles would be interested, you might pass on the information. At present, at least, Ron’s unassigned. One present existent negative asset is a cross-combination of an active temperament, an active temper, and a most active resentment at having been licked. His red hair seems to mean something, but if the Navy doesn’t want him in fighting service, he could do much better than as a parachute snap-fastner inspector in Kankakee, Kansas.
His medical condition I don’t know exactly, but the San Francisco medicos released him as fit for service; the New Yorkers grounded him again. A limp and a boiling temper seem to be his only momentos now. [Heinlein archives: CORR218-3:146]
If you send me Hubbard’s letter to the police, it would be great. And if there are any other areas or questions I might be able to help with, please let me know.
All the best.
Gerry
I received back a notification that my email exceeded the Australia Broadcasting Corporation’s size limit:
From: alert…com
Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2015 3:12 PM
To: gerry…gerryarmstrong.org
Subject: ABC Email size limit exceededThis is an automatically generated notification.
A message sent by you has triggered the ABC filtering rule for email size. The attachment you are trying to send is too large.
Please reduce the size of the attachment and try again.
I resent my email to Cannane with this note:
From: Gerry Armstrong
Sent: July 5, 2015 3:40 PM
To: Steve Cannane
Subject: FW: ABC Email size limit exceededHi again Steve:
My email text is below this notification. And I will excerpt the relevant lecture transcripts from the oversize “State of Man Congress” pdf, and will send separately.
Gerry
[snip oversize email notification and my email “Items discussed in Toronto”]
I emailed Cannane the subject lecture transcripts:
From: Gerry Armstrong
Sent: July 5, 2015 3:43 PM
To: Steve Cannane
Subject: Items discussed in TorontoAttached are the relevant lectures from the State of Man Congress, January 1960.
On July 7, 2015, I received a reply from Cannane:
From: Steve Cannane
Sent: July 7, 2015 9:48 AM
To: Gerry Armstrong
Subject: Re: Items discussed in TorontoHi Gerry, great to meet you in Toronto. It was a terrific week. Thanks for all these leads – much appreciated. If you ever have difficulties with emails to big for my abc email I have another address [ ]
Regards,
Steve
I emailed Cannane:
From: Gerry Armstrong
Sent: July 7, 2015 10:03 AM
To: ‘[ ]’
Subject: Lecture transcripts.Thanks for the gmail address. Here is the .pdf of the whole set of State of Man Congress transcripts.
Gerry
I received a reply from Cannane:
From: Steve Cannane
Sent: July 7, 2015 11:31 AM
To: Gerry Armstrong
Subject: Re: Lecture transcripts.thanks Gerry, that’s great. Steve