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Armstrong 1

by

An escape for the ages

It was thirty-five years ago today,
I blew the cult and there was hell to pay.

I was thirty-five.

Now over half my life I’ve been fair game.

I wrote this “official note of resignation” to Barbara DeCelle, my org board senior, knowing she would get it to “the proper person:” http://gerryarmstrong.ca/ga/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Letter-from-GA-to-Barbara-1981-12-12.pdf

The handwritten words “read” and the underlines were attorney Mike Flynn’s notes to himself for reading sections of the letter into the record at my 1984 trial in Los Angeles. Here’s trial testimony about the letter:

Q And if you had planned your departure, Mr. Armstrong, with the idea of harming the organization or Mr. Hubbard, would you have taken — what files would you have taken more than any other files?

LITT: Objection. That calls for speculation.

THE COURT: Overruled.

THE WITNESS: Well, I think if I had planned it, I could have made off with a lot of files that would be particularly more useful than the files I have.

But the MCCS files, certainly, would have been important. The — various LRH orders into the PR Bureau like, for example, the Nobel Prize stuff, these are things which would have been available to me.

I suppose I could have made great inroads in the Intelligence Bureau if I had been real eager. But I didn’t make off with anything. But the materials that could have been obtained would have been more revealing than the ones that are here now.

Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, you have testified on cross-examination about the gradual removal of your belongings from the organization, a box at a time; do you recall that?

A Yes.

Q Was there a policy or practice in the organization that when a person tried to leave, to keep their belongings, for the organization to keep their belongings?

HARRIS: Your Honor, this is beyond the scope of cross-examination.

THE COURT: Well, it goes to state of mind, I suppose.

THE WITNESS: Yes; it happened with many people throughout the time I was involved in the organization. People were not allowed to leave with the personal Scientology materials in many cases. And all kinds of impediments would have been put in the way of me getting materials out, my own personal things. That was really the reason why the stuff went out a bit at a time.

Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, exhibit 30 is your — what you termed your official notice of resignation dated 12 December, 1981; is that correct?

A Yes.

Q Now you stated in there that, “I spent the last several months trying to get Omar copied all the materials he would need and more stuff kept pouring in.”

What did you mean by that statement, “more stuff kept pouring in,” Mr. Armstrong?

A Well, right up to the end of my stay, I kept getting more material. The final boxes of the Pers Com arrived, the final Pers Sec materials arrived, the stuff from Controller archives arrived, and there was more than I could possibly copy.

Q Now these were materials that you had been trying to procure or obtain possession of for several months prior to that?

A Yeah. I guess the Controller archives — the only reason I did not have them months before that was that Tom Vorm told me that he was simply too busy to go through all the materials, so we waited until he had a time when he was more or less free. Then he went through the materials with me.

The Pers Com materials only arrived some time in 1981, and there was such a mass of them. They were in very big boxes and they were kept for a long time in the external communications bureau, the LRH external communications bureau in another building, and I brought them over a box at a time throughout that period until I finally had all of them there, but there was such a mass of then, there was simply no way to go through them all.

Q What was your state of mind with regard to your obligation to complete the project based on the agreement that Mr. Garrison had with PDK and that you felt you had with Mr. Hubbard with regard to getting him, Mr. Garrison, documents before you left?

A Well I felt very committed to that. That is the reason that I tried to get copied everything that I could, and my wife and I worked so hard in the last two weeks to try and do that.

Q And you didn’t take any files of any nature that fell outside the biography project and you could have taken the MCCS files; is that correct?

A Well I could have done that, but I did take financial — my own personal things, and that is actually when I went back in some time in February or — either January or February I saw Vaughn Young, and I realized that there was this file of all my copies, and the reason I took that was because basically on board the ship I had run into a problem with the organization in accounting for a disbursement which I had and the rule was laid down that if you didn’t keep a copy of your turned-in accounts, then you could be liable if the organization didn’t find it, and in that case I had to pay for the amount of the disbursement because the treasury bureau at that time had lost my accounting, so I had to pay again.

So, following that, I tried as much as possible to keep copies of all the money received and all ay accounting for that money. So I went back in and spoke to Vaughn and I took — it was only my copy. The organization had all the other documents and the accounting.

Q And per your letter of 12 December, 1981 you advised the organization, particularly Barbara De Celle, of the fact that you had taken those documents in the last several months and given them to Omar Garrison; is that correct?

A Yes. I also spoke to Barbara at the same time and told her the status of everything in archives.

Q And per this letter you asked that you not be harassed by the organization; is that correct?

A Yes.1

When I blew in December 1981, my note would end up pretty quickly with Hubbard. He was the proper person. It is inconceivable that Miscavige wouldn’t make the most of my blow with Hubbard, and everyone else.

Just three years earlier with my “Barnum and Bailey Beingness,” which he thought was joking, I’d caused Hubbard to blow his gourd. Now, after two years dutifully collecting and copying his personal archive and delivering it all to wog writer Omar Garrison, I’d blown his org.

December 1981 is when Hubbard would have started his torrent of hate-filled vitriol about me Jesse Prince identifies, which by the time Hubbard died would take up multiple bankers boxes.

What a trip!

Notes

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Journalists and Me; Tony Ortega, Village Voice, April 2012

On April 20, 2012, Tony Ortega posted an article on the Village Voice site about David Love, “I Think I Have Scientology By The Balls,” which contains this bit about me:

Over the next several months, as he saw patients taken in under false pretenses, and saw some harmed, Love says he became determined to bring news of Narconon to the outside world.

“I contacted Bonnie Woods in England,” he says, referring to an ex-Scientologist who famously sued the church. “I had come across her website. Within an hour she got hold of Gerry Armstrong in Vancouver, and the both of them gave me advice on how to leave.”

Armstrong is also well known for how he left Scientology, taking with him thousands of documents, damning evidence that L. Ron Hubbard had lied about much of his history. Armstrong paid for it by being hunted down in a series of legal actions by the church, which keep him out of the United States to this day.

Love says that Armstrong put him in touch with an anti-cult group in Montreal, who in turn put him in contact with journalists at the CBC. 1

I posted the following in VV comments:

It is the Scientologists’ false claim, and their collaborators’ claim or assertion, of course, that when I left Scientology I took with me documents, which later damned Hubbard or some damned thing. Radical reductionism obviously is necessary in journalism, but the generation of an inaccurate snapshot is never necessary.

Here are the facts stated in the judgment following the trial in LA Superior Court in which the provenance of the damning documents was examined.

“In December of 1981 Defendant Armstrong made the decision to leave the Church of Scientology. In order to continue in his commitment to Hubbard and Mr. Garrison in the biography project, he copied a large quantity of documents, which Mr. Garrison had requested or which would be useful to him for the biography. Defendant Armstrong delivered all of this material to Mr. Garrison the date he left the SEA Organization and kept nothing in his possession.

“Thereafter, Defendant Armstrong maintained friendly relations with Hubbard’s representatives by returning to the Archives offices and discussing the various categories of materials. In fact on February 24, 1982, Defendant Armstrong wrote to Vaughn Young, regarding certain materials Mr. Young was unable to locate for Omar Garrison.

“After this letter was written, Defendant Armstrong went to the Archives office and located certain materials Mr. Garrison had wanted which Hubbard representatives claimed they could not locate. At the time Defendant Armstrong left the SEA Organization, he was disappointed with Scientology and Hubbard, and also felt deceived by them. However, Defendant Armstrong felt he had no enemies and felt no ill will toward anyone in the Organization or Hubbard, but still believed that a truthful biography should be written.

“After leaving the SEA Organization, Defendant Armstrong continued to assist Mr. Garrison with the Hubbard biography project. In the spring of 1982, Defendant Armstrong at Mr. Garrison’s request, transcribed some of his interview tapes, copied some of the documentation he had, and assembled several more binders of copied materials. Defendant Armstrong also set up shelves for Mr. Garrison for all the biography research materials, worked on a cross-reference systems, and continued to do library research for the biography.

“On February 18, 1982, the Church of Scientology International issued a “Suppressive Person Declare Gerry Armstrong,” which is an official Scientology document issued against individuals who are considered as enemies of the Organization. Said Suppressive Person Declare charged that Defendant Armstrong had taken an unauthorized leave and that he was spreading destructive rumors about Senior Scientologists.

“Defendant Armstrong was unaware of said Suppressive Person Declare until April of 1982. At that time a revised Declare Was issued on April 22, 1982. Said Declare charged Defendant Armstrong with 18 different “Crimes and High Crimes and Suppressive Acts Against the Church.” The charges included theft, juggling accounts, obtaining loans on money under false pretenses, promulgating false information about the Church, its founder, and members, and other untruthful allegations designed to make Defendant Armstrong an appropriate subject of the Scientology “Fair Game Doctrine.” Said Doctrine allows any suppressive person to be “tricked, cheated, lied to, sued, or destroyed.”

“The second declare was issued shortly after Defendant Armstrong attempted to sell photographs of his wedding on board Hubbard’s ship (in which Hubbard appears), and photographs belonging to some of his friends, which also included photos of L.R. Hubbard while in seclusion. Although Defendant Armstrong delivered the photographs to a Virgil Wilhite for sale, he never received payment or return of his friend’s photographs. When he became aware that the Church had these photographs, he went to the Organization to request their return. A loud and boisterous argument ensued, and he eventually was told to leave the premises and get an attorney.

“From his extensive knowledge of the covert and intelligence operations carried out by the Church of Scientology of California against its enemies (suppressive persons), Defendant Armstrong became terrified and feared that his life and the life of his wife were in danger, and he also feared he would be the target of costly and harassing lawsuits.

“In addition, Mr. Garrison became afraid for the security of the documents and believed that the intelligence network of the Church of Scientology would break and enter his home to retrieve them. Thus, Defendant Armstrong made copies of certain documents for Mr. Garrison and maintained them in a separate location.

“It was thereafter, in the summer of 1982, that Defendant Armstrong asked Mr. Garrison for copies of documents to use in his defense and sent the documents to his attorneys, Michael Flynn and Contos & Bunch.”

As a journalist, Tony, please don’t become so familiar with the people you’re writing about that you don’t bother to contact them, especially if you have their phone numbers, they do answer their phone, and you’ve spoken to them. I’ll deal with my talk last year at St. Tikhon’s University separately.

If I have to be well known for how I left Scientology, and how I left must be reduced to the bare minimum it, it is because I escaped. That is also the significant similarity between how I left the Sea Org and Scientology and how David Love left Narconon, we both escaped.

I took with me thousands of experiences and thousands of pieces of knowledge of Hubbard and his Scientologists lying about all sorts of things. But I did not take the subject damning documents. If David escaped from Narconon with damning documents, I don’t know. I acquired the subject Hubbard documents months after I had left Scientology, and if how I acquired them has to be reduced maximally, and still be accurate without mentioning Omar Garrison, you could say by great good fortune.

I posted my comment and Ortega removed it. I posted it again and he removed it again. I posted it a third time and he left it alone. Now, however, Village Voice has eliminated all the comments; so Ortega’s statement that I am well known for how I left Scientology, taking with me thousands of documents, stands openly uncorrected. If I am well known for doing what I didn’t do, it is because of statements like this that serve the Scientologists’ black PR purposes.

In the David Love matter, I had been very careful and explicit in cautioning him before he left Narconon Trois-Rivières about taking anything that did not belong to him. I did not even know at that time if he wasn’t a Scientology operative attempting to entrap me, as the Scientologists had attempted a number of times over the years. Love left Narconon in 2009, and by 2012 had filed complaints against the organization and made claims of possessing its documents.

My indication and correction of Ortega’s error, my provision of an official court document supporting my correction, my comment about accurate journalistic reduction, and my plea to Ortega to contact available people he was writing about, were appropriate and deserved. They could have been appreciated and taken to heart.

Notes

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Sounding the Sheep Dip for Bubbles

I cannot find where anyone at Tony Ortega’s blog has spoken up to correct inaccuracies in Jon Atack’s September 10, 2016 article about Scientology cult collaborator L. Fletcher Prouty, so I am doing my best now. The article and the inaccuracies I’m correcting also concern testimony in the 1984 trial in the case the Scientologists brought against me in Los Angeles Superior Court. The Scientologists and their collaborators still black PR me and wage lawfare against me relating to this case, and inaccuracies in the public record about the Scientology v. Armstrong war can often serve their hostile purposes.

Jon Atack: Indeed, Scientology produced Thomas Moulton to support its case against Gerry Armstrong, back in 1984. Moulton’s testimony agreed entirely with the Navy record – they had fought a 55-hour battle off the Oregon coast against a known magnetic deposit on the ocean floor and gone on to shell the Los Coronados Islands, for which Hubbard was censured.1

Good old Captain Moulton’s testimony definitely did not agree with the US Navy’s record.

Moulton did not testify about Hubbard’s shelling of the Coronado Islands (Islas Coronado o Islas Coronados), other than to state that he was not on the PC 815 and did not know anything about the incident, having already transferred off the ship.

Here attorney Michael Flynn is questioning Moulton at p. 3973:

Q Now, shortly after this incident, in July 1943 do you recall whether Mr. Hubbard was relieved of command for firing on the Mexican coast?

A That did not occur while I was on her, sir. I wouldn’t know.

Q You don’t know anything about that?

A No.2

Moulton did not testify that he and Hubbard and the 815 had fought a battle against a magnetic deposit. Moulton’s testimony agreed with the Scientologists that the engagement off Cape Lookout was against two Japanese subs. The Navy’s position and its official record disagreed with Hubbard and Moulton on the existence of the subject subs and the actions taken to attack whatever they thought they were attacking.

Here, Scientology attorney John Peterson is questioning Moulton starting at p. 3920:

Q And did you, after listening to the return sound on the sonar reach a conclusion?

A After we had evaluated it, there was more to it than just listening to the return echo.

You checked the width of the target. Because you knew the tapered width of the beam, you could estimate the length of the target that you were getting a return from.

You also checked it for a doppler which would be an indication of whether the range was opening or closing.

This, you detect in the sound. You listen for screw noises or anything else that could help you evaluate the contact.

In this case, after evaluation, we had determined it was a submarine.

[…]

Q And could you tell if the ship, the under water target was coming toward you, away from you, or moving in what direction?

A We would have been able to know from the doppler effect on the sound as well as once we began an evaluation, sooner or later we would start a time plot and start plotting what the target was doing, whether it was stopped, whether it was moving, and, if so, what course.

This was done both with what was then a highly classified attack piece of electronics, now, knowledge and obsolete. But it was then the very latest that very few people knew about. We had one of the earliest ones. And we kept that going for a plot along with our own manual plot with a stop watch.

Q And you had determined that the target was a submarine?

A Beyond any question.

[…]

Q After making the determination that it was, indeed, a submarine, what did you then do?

A Well, we took some time — it has been so many years I can’t remember how long – but we took some time to evaluate it.

During that time we would know that a submarine would hear our pinging inside its hull.

If he were friendly, he would have made recognition signals.

We received no recognition signals; so we proceeded to attack.

[…]

Q And this 60-hour attack on the submarine, did you ever at any time make a sighting or a discovery of any other target in the area?

A Yes. Yes. Oh, I believe it was toward the close of the second day when we made — we had lost contact with our submarine. And after one of the attacks when the water had been roared up, we were searching around to pick him up and we picked up a second contact which was not where it should have been at all if it had been ours.

We swung our sound gear back and forth and determined that we now had two targets.

We went through the same procedure and identified the second one as a submarine also.

Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, Commander Northwest Sea Frontier, conducted an investigation of the Cape Lookout incident and analyzed the battle reports. He submitted his results to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in a memorandum dated June 8, 1943, a copy of which was entered into evidence in the Scientology v. Armstrong trial.

1. At the time of the incident reported herein PC 815 was enroute to San Diego, California, in accordance with orders of Commander Fleet Operational Training Command, Pacific.

2. It is noted that the report of PC 815 is not in accordance with
“Anti-Submarine Action by Surface Ship” (ASW-1) which should be submitted to Commander In Chief, U.S. Fleet.

3. SC’s 536 and 537, CGC’s BONHAM and 78302, and blimps K-33 and K-39 engaged in this submarine search. Reports have been received from the Commanding Officer of each of these ships in writing and in personal interviews. An oral report has also been received from Lieutenant Commander E. J. Sullivan U.S.N., Commander Airship Squadron 33, who made a trip to the area during the search on one of the
blimps.

4. There is a known magnetic deposit in the area in which depth charges were dropped.

5. An analysis of all reports convinces me that there was no submarine in the area. Lieutenant Commander Sullivan states that he was unable to obtain any evidence of a submarine except one bubble of air which is unexplained except by turbulence of water due to a depth charge explosion. The Commanding Officers of all ships except the PC 815 state they had no evidence of a submarine and do not think a submarine was in the area.

Moulton’s testimony also disagreed with the Navy’s records on other points. Here, Peterson is questioning Moulton at p. 3910:

Q And in all the times that you knew him in Portland did he wear dark glasses?

A It was necessary for him to wear them, yes.

Q And when you knew him in Miami did he wear dark glasses?

A Yes, he did, the same glasses.

Q Did he ever tell you why he had to wear the dark glasses?

A Yes.

Q What did he say?

A He said that his eyes had been injured in the flash from a large caliber gun. I think it was a four or five-inch gun on a destroyer he had been on.

The gun was fired prematurely. He was standing adjacent to the muzzle and he received a bad flash burn which did not impair his vision, but it was very painful for him to go around in any sort of light without the glasses on.

The Navy’s records show Hubbard claiming his eyes were damaged by sunlight. (“excessive tropical sunlight”)

Peterson questioning Moulton at p. 3911:

Q Now, at any time when you were with Mr. Hubbard in Portland did he have any complaints about pain in his low back or any area like that?

A He frequently complained of pain in his right side and the back in the area of the kidneys which he said was due to some damage from a Japanese machine gun very early in the war.

And from that he had considerable difficulty in urination. And upon at least one occasion I saw him urinating bloody urine. He had great difficulty in urinating.

Flynn questioning Moulton starting at p. 3953

Q BY MR. FLYNN: First, when did Captain Hubbard tell you that he was injured by a Japanese machine gun?

A This was while we were in Miami which would have been in the fall of ’42. It was the fall of 1942.

Q Is that —

A While we were in Miami.

Q Did he describe the circumstances under which he was injured by the Japanese machine gun?

A Yes, in some detail; not entirely.

Q What did he tell you?

A That he had been in Soerabaja at the time the Japanese came in or in the area of Soerabaja and that he spent some time in the hills in back of Soerabaja after the Japanese had occupied it.

Q Now, Soerabaja was where, sir?

A That is a port on the north part of Java in the Dutch East Indies.

Q So you understood from Captain Hubbard that he had been in Java fighting the Japanese and was hit by machine gun fire?

A Not quite as you put it. He had been landed, so he told me in Java from a destroyer named the [Edsall] and had made his way across the land to Soerabaja, and that is when the place was occupied. When the Japanese came in, he took off into the hills and lived up in the jungle for sometime until he made an escape from there.

[…]

Q BY MR. FLYNN: So he told you he was in the South Pacific in Soerabaja when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?

A That is correct. He had been landed by the [Edsall] and she was sunk shortly after that. He was, as far as I know, the only person that ever got off the [Edsall] because he wasn’t aboard when it happened. She was sunk within a few days after that.

[…]

Q And that is when he was hit by the machine gun fire?

A Some time during his chasing up and around through the jungle before he made his escape.

[…]

Q So you believed Captain Hubbard at the time?

A Certainly. I had no reason not to.

Q Did he tell you exactly where he was hit by the machine gun fire?

A In the back, in the area of the kidneys, I believe on the right side.

Q And did he tell you what caliber machine gun it was?

A No, sir, he did not.

Q And it damaged his urinary system?

A Somewhere in the urinary system. I know he had a great bit of difficulty in urinating.

There of course is no mention in Hubbard’s Navy record of him being shot, by machine gun or any other weapon. There is also no mention in the record of Hubbard ever being on the Edsall, ever being on Java, ever life-rafting to Australia, or ever life-rafting anywhere else.

In his Affirmations in 1946 he tells the truth about his urinary difficulty that Moulton observed. This does not appear in Hubbard’s Navy records because he went to a private doctor for treatment.

In 1942 – December 17th or thereabouts – while training in Miami, Florida, I met a girl named Ginger who excited me. She was a very loose person but pretended a great love for me. From her I received an infection of gonnohorea (sp?). I was terrified by it, the consequences of being discovered by my wife, the navy, my friends. I went to a private doctor who treated me with sulfa-thiazole and so forth. I thought I was cured but on a plane headed to Portland, Ore. I found I was not. I took to dosing myself with sulfa in such quantities that I was afraid I had affected my brain.3

JA: Now, the purple heart is only awarded for injuries received in combat. The first difficulty is that Hubbard only claimed one wound – he said he had been machine-gunned when the destroyer Edsall was sunk and that after this injury he had rowed his way to Australia (about 800 miles). In fact, he was actually never on board the Edsall, and no one could row that far after being riddled with machine gun bullets. His arrival in Australia was via more conventional means, as the record demonstrates.

I’m not sure about Hubbard claiming he rowed his boat from Java to Australia. Moulton testified that Hubbard said he and another man “sailed a life raft.” Presumably, in Moulton’s mind, this was one of the Edsall’s life rafts, in which Hubbard had shortly before been put ashore. Moulton would have also understood that Ron the Master Mariner would have rigged a sail, and with Japanese lead in him, or having just passed through his abdomen, could hardly have been expected to row hundreds of miles in open ocean, but merrily, merrily sailed. Regardless, Moulton and the Navy would certainly agree that for anyone either sailing or rowing his raft from Java to Australia it would have been a remarkable piece of navigation.

Flynn questioning Moulton starting at p. 3955:

Q BY MR. FLYNN: So he told you he was in the South Pacific in Soerabaja when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?

A That is correct. He had been landed by the [Edsall] and she was sunk shortly after that. He was, as far as I know, the only person that ever got off the [Edsall] because he wasn’t aboard when it happened. She was sunk within a few days after that.

Q And Captain Hubbard told you all this?

A Yes, sir, but I also know that she was sunk.

She is carried in the records as having been sunk with all hands.

Q And all hands were lost except Captain Hubbard?

A He was ashore at the time.

Q And that is when he was hit by the machine gun fire?

A Some time during his chasing up and around through the jungle before he made his escape.

[…]

Q And did he tell you how long he remained hiding in the hills with these machine gun wounds before he was removed from the combat area?

A I know that he told me he had made his escape eventually to Australia. I don’t know just when it was.

He apparently, he and another chap, sailed a life raft, I believe, to near Australia where they were picked up by a British or Australian destroyer.

Q And that would have been late 1941, early 1942?

A I would imagine it would have to have been early ’42 because it would take some time from December 7.

Q Now, Captain Hubbard gave you all of these details that you are giving the court today; is that correct?

A Well, I have no other knowledge except what he told me.

Q And did he tell you how far he sailed the raft?

A He told me he was picked up — again, I’m trusting my memory — but it was on the order of 75 miles off Australia.

I know it was under 100, but it was somewhere around 75 because it was a remarkable piece of navigation.

JA: Hubbard only began to claim heroism after founding Scientology. In an interview with Look magazine, published in December 1950, Hubbard said he was hospitalized at Oak Knoll for a year, suffering from “ulcers, conjunctivitis, deteriorating eyesight, bursitis and something wrong with my feet.” Save for the problem with his feet, the other conditions are all attested by the official Navy record (in the Affirmations, Hubbard gave himself the hypnotic affirmation: “You have perfect and lovely feet,” but nothing about war wounds).

When Hubbard began to claim heroism is probably the most important point I’m commenting on here.

In that Hubbard claimed to have started Scientology, including naming it “Scientology,” in 1938, then yes, he began to claim WW II heroism after starting or founding Scientology. All his heroism or absence of heroism in WW II was after 1938 because all of WW II was after 1938.

If by “after founding Scientology” is meant after he started advertising or publishing as “Scientology” or after he incorporated the first Scientology organization, then no, he began to claim heroism considerably earlier.

Moulton’s testimony shows that Hubbard was hyping his heroism in 1942 when they were in training together in Miami, Florida. Hubbard continued telling Moulton his heroic tall tales in 1943 when they were outfitting the PC 815 in Portland, Oregon.

Even earlier, upon his ignominious return to the US from Australia, Hubbard communicated a far more heroic account to John W. Campbell, his science fiction editor, which Campbell wrote about in a letter dated May 13, 1942 to Robert Heinlein.

L. Ron Hubbard’s in town—temporarily confined to the Sick Officer’s Quarters. He’s angry, bitter, and very much 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 during the battle of the Java Sea, as far as I can make out. He was aboard ship at the time, apparently, 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.

Hubbard communicated similarly to Heinlein and limped so convincingly that Heinlein passed along his tales of wounds and heroics. He wrote about Hubbard’s “injuries” in letters to colleagues during that time, and even described these “injuries” in 1985 in an introduction he wrote for Theodore Sturgeon’s book Godbody.

I had been ordered [by the Navy] to round up science-fiction writers for this crash project [on antikamikaze measures] —the wildest brains I could find, so Ted was a welcome recruit. Some of the others were George 0. Smith, John W. Campbell, Jr., Murray Leinster, L. Ron Hubbard, Sprague de Camp, and Fletcher Pratt. On Saturday nights and Sundays this group usually gathered at my apartment in downtown Philadelphia.

[…]

The first weekend Sturgeon was there he slept on the hall rug, a choice spot, while both L. Ron Hubbard and George 0. Smith were in the overflow who had to walk down the street. In retrospect that seems like a wrong decision; Hubbard should not have been asked to walk, as both of his feet had been broken (drumhead-type injury) when his last ship was bombed. Ron had had a busy war—sunk four times and wounded again and again—and at that time was on limited duty at Princeton, attending military governors’ school. © 1986

I think that Hubbard’s lying about his heroic exploits to his fellow officers, his fellow writers, his Navy superiors, his editor, the Navy’s medical examiners, the VA, his wife, etc., and apparently getting away with it all, made it so easy for him to lie to us and con us, his elemental Scientologist pigeons.

It is, of course, possible that Heinlein and Campbell were aware, or at least suspected, that Hubbard was BSing about his injuries and his claimed heroism. They all told and sold yarns for a living. Campbell and Heinlein and other writers enjoyed Hubbard’s patently BS bear stories. From the record they left behind, they didn’t always let on how much they believed of what Hubbard said or wrote.

Notes

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Missing Scientology v. Armstrong Trial Transcripts Found

The court reporter’s daily transcripts of the 1984 Scientology v. Armstrong trial in LA Superior Court have been on gerryarmstrong.org for some years, except for May 21 and May 31, which were volumes 16 and 22 respectively. All the documents I’ve had for this case, known as Armstrong 1, are available at:  http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/index.php
The trial transcripts run from April 19 http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/2466.php to June 8, 1984: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/2517.php

Caroline and I recently discovered the missing two trial transcript volumes and have now put up pdfs and ocred them as well as we reasonably could.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/5130.php
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/5131.php

May 31 is particularly interesting because it contains the testimony of Scientology witnesses Robert Vaughn Young, who had been a long time PR in the Guardian’s Office, and Captain Thomas Moulton, who had served briefly with Hubbard in WW II on the PC 815.

I had gotten Young transferred to the Hubbard biography project, and we worked together in the Hubbard Archive for a month or so before I left the cult in December 1981. The Scientologists used Young in the trial to try to invalidate me as Hubbard’s researcher and my research that showed Hubbard was a liar. Because of Young’s claims of academic credentials and research skills, the judge, Paul G. Breckenridge, Jr., permitted my attorney Michael J. Flynn some latitude in cross- examining Young. I believe the Judge felt sorry for most of the Scientology witnesses, including Mary Sue Hubbard, and restrained Flynn from normal, more aggressive cross-examination. Judge Breckenridge wrote about Mrs. Hubbard in his decision:

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.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/283.php

Judge Breckenridge also mentioned Young in the decision:

It was not until late 1981 that Plaintiff was to provide a person to assist on the biography project by providing Mr. Garrison with “Guardian Office” materials, otherwise described as technical materials relating to the operation of Scientology. The individual appointed for this task was Vaughn Young. Controller Archives and Guardian Office Archives had no connection to the Hubbard Archives, which Defendant Armstrong created and maintained as Hubbard’s personal materials.

[…]

In December of 1981 Defendant Armstrong made the decision to leave the Church of Scientology. In order to continue in his commitment to Hubbard and Mr. Garrison in the biography project, he copied a large quantity of documents, which Mr. Garrison had requested or which would be useful to him for the biography. Defendant Armstrong delivered all of this material to Mr. Garrison the date he left the SEA Organization and kept nothing in his possession.

Thereafter, Defendant Armstrong maintained friendly relations with Hubbard’s representatives by returning to the Archives offices and discussing the various categories of materials. In fact on February 24, 1982, Defendant Armstrong wrote to Vaughn Young, regarding certain materials Mr. Young was unable to locate for Omar Garrison.

At page 3848, Flynn questioned Young about a letter Young had written to me just a few days after I left the cult:

Q Did you after Mr. Armstrong left the church say that, “You are the best damned whatever researchist-archivist type I have met.”

A Yes. That was my conclusion after working with him for a month and a half.

Young stated in his letter:

Other than the mechanical part of wondering where a few things are, miss you. Still think you’re the best damned whatever-we-researchers/
archivists-types-are I’ve met.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/rvy-ltr-armstrong-1981-12-16-txt.html

It wasn’t easy for Young to then be given the task, before the judge, attorneys, wogs, Scientologists, and the world, of showing me to be the worst damned researcher/archivist he had ever met.

In 1989, he and his wife Stacy also left the cult, and we reconnected a bit later and became friends. He apologized for what he had done to help the Scientologists destroy me, although I never questioned him for details, or got him to execute a declaration about his knowledge of their legal and extralegal fair game campaign. He communicated that the shamefulness of using his talents for whom and for what all those cult years, particularly his ability to write and research, was painful to him. There were also other persons and situations that were cautioning him about me and my legal situation, so he never really opened up to me in a way that could be helpful legally to me.

Young did get into the Scientology problem as a writer and speaker, and did get involved in Scientology litigation as a witness on behalf of their victims or targets. Funnily, he executed a declaration in 1993 in the Scientology v. Fishman & Geertz case that identifies the fair game he didn’t participate in:

51. In fact, Fair Game did continue. Although the Guardian’s Office was “disbanded,” a new campaign was undertaken against Gerald Armstrong in 1981, a staff member who had fled with some of Hubbard’s files. Contrary to what Mr. Farny said, there were Fair Game actions taken against Armstrong after the GO was “disbanded.” I know because I sat in on those strategy meetings and was ordered by Hubbard as well as David Miscavige to “get Armstrong.” For example, Hubbard ordered a “reward” poster that would characterize Armstrong as a criminal. (I did not comply with the order, for which I was severely berated by Miscavige.)

[…]

57. […] Nor was the GO disbanded. It was taken over. It was renamed, in the same offices, had the same personnel and operated from the same policies from Hubbard. The person who oversaw the “disbanding” was David Miscavige, who directed the Fair Game actions on Armstrong from what was called “Special Project” which was, in fact, Author Services, Inc., where I was employed.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/decl-rvyoung-1993-10-25.html

In the same declaration, Young also mentioned his experience reading the Hubbard archive and his part in my trial.

J. AUTHORIZED HUBBARD BIOGRAPHER AND ARCHIVIST.

89. In 1981, I was asked to go to a non-GO archives to gather information about the writing of a biography on Hubbard. The archives was operated by Gerry Armstrong and contained about 25 filing cabinets full of Hubbard’s personal papers and memorabilia. I worked there for several weeks and was the last person to see Armstrong before he disappeared. I thereby inherited the archives by default and continued to read Hubbard’s private papers, which gave me not only an entirely different view of the man than what we had been telling Scientologists but a view that no one else knew (at that time) besides Armstrong.

[…]

O. EXPERT WITNESS ABOUT THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY ON BEHALF OF THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY DURING THE ARMSTRONG TRAIL.

103. In 1984, after Gerry Armstrong was sued by the Church of Scientology, David Miscavige assigned me to do key research into Hubbard’s life to refute Armstrong’s claims that Hubbard had lied. With a team of full time people working for nearly two months (compared to Armstrong working by himself), we found additional information to challenge some points Armstrong had made. I was to testify as to what had been found.

Also somewhat humorously, Young quoted the most damning part of the Breckenridge decision, which he tried so hard to prevent. Or perhaps his testimony helped inspire it.

52. The use of Fair Game on Armstrong was confirmed in 1984 when California Superior Court Judge Paul Breckenridge, Jr., ruled against Scientology with an opinion that included a statement about the civil rights of members and Hubbard:

“In addition to violating and abusing its own members civil rights, the organization over the years with its ‘Fair Game’ doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in the Church whom it perceives as enemies. The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background, and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile.”

Judge Breckenridge allowed Thomas Moulton to testify fairly freely on direct examination by Scientology attorney John Peterson, and Flynn let the examination proceed with negligible objections or interruptions. That was generally Flynn’s trial style, which was effective and exhibited and instilled confidence, as opposed to the Scientology attorneys who objected and interrupted almost obsessively, which was what their bullying but probably terrified cult clients demanded. Young had talked about Moulton earlier that day, obviously setting up his surprise courtroom appearance, and I’m sure both the judge and Flynn, and everyone else present, wanted to hear what Moulton had to say about Hubbard, the PC 815, etc.

One of the great ironies of the Armstrong 1 case, which is filled with irony, is that Judge Breckenridge had himself been in the US navy. I don’t think anyone on my side knew this, but doubtlessly the Scientologists knew because of the standard B1/OSA intel done on any judge on a Scientology-related case. This case was huge for the Scientologists, and Hubbard was personally involved and directing the litigation; so they would have dug up every incident and connection in the judge’s life, and passed on to the attorneys what might help them. Of course you can’t disqualify a judge because he had served in the US Navy.

Because of the way they proceeded, even with a bench trial and bringing in Moulton, the Scientologists probably thought Judge Breckenridge, being ex-navy, would respect and even sympathize with Ron the War Hero. It is more likely, however, that the judge, being ex-navy, saw Hubbard as Ron the Valor Thief, which, of course, he was. The judge then also had to see the Scientologists as doing their damnedest to defend a cowardly liar and fair game his legitimate debunkers. The record that the judge saw showed that while claiming unearned medals and heroism, and while faking medical conditions to avoid punishment and duty, Hubbard was also contemptuous of the US Navy and its command.

I can forget such things as Admiral Braistead. Such people are unworthy of my notice.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/ars/ars-2000-03-11.html

Toward the end of Moulton’s testimony, Judge Breckenridge also asked him some questions and made some comments or dicta that both showed the judge’s knowledge of naval matters and Moulton’s lack of knowledge of matters he had testified about. While maintaining good control of his courtroom, Judge Breckenridge also demonstrated kindness, understanding and a great sense of humor. Some of his comments or quips are priceless.

While Young was testifying, Mary Sue Hubbard’s attorney Barrett Litt questioned him about Hubbard’s time in China, in an obvious effort to support Hubbard and the Scientologists’ claims that he had spent considerable time there, studying, immersing himself in the culture, and absorbing the wisdom of the east.

[YOUNG] But along the way, we stumbled across someone else quite accidentally that we are still in the process of pursuing. There was a woman who had gone into the region from the Explorer’s Club during that early years, apparently during the very late ’20’s, that when she met with people back in the far regions they had made an account of the story of a young man from the West with bright red hair who had visited them.

THE COURT: Marco Polo?

To my knowledge, the Scientologists have never yet trotted out this little old lady  from the Explorers Club. And the club states on its site that women were not admitted until 1981. Oops. http://www.explorers.org/index.php/about/history/history

Reading the transcript recently, having sat through Captain Moulton’s testimony, and because of what has happened and been learned in the almost 30 years since the trial, it is obvious to me the Scientologists had given Moulton a shore story. Probably, on behalf of Hubbard, because Hubbard was still alive during the trial, they had also given Moulton a sob story. His testimony revealed that Hubbard had been giving Moulton shore stories in 1942, the year before Hubbard asked him to be his Chief Officer on the PC 815.

Marty Rathbun devotes virtually his whole chapter 20 “The Tipping Point” in his 2013 book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, pages 241 to 253, to the Armstrong 1case and trial. His book in its entirety is yet another effort in the Scientologists’ long history of efforts to rewrite their cult or religion’s history, or at least have some of their lies accepted as true. Rathbun admits to many facts in that quest, and even discloses some new ones, as the cultists have done for decades. For all those new admissions and disclosures, some of which are about Armstrong 1, I am grateful.

I am also grateful for what he has not disclosed that morally or ethically he should have disclosed, and for the untruths he told in his book, even if some of them were cruel, and clearly serve the Scientologists’ antisocial command intention toward their victims. I dealt with the extremely cruel black PR in his book against the Suppressive Person class in an opening statement for a debate, which Rathbun rabbited from. (Scientology, not wog definition for vb. “rabbit.”) I will deal with the rest of Rathbun’s Memoirs separately, but just want to address here what he wrote about Captain Moulton, whose name Rathbun misspells throughout “Moulten:”

After weeks of Flynn’s attacks on the credibility of witnesses, unrelenting blows to the character of L. Ron Hubbard and decrying of Mary Sue and the Guardian’s Office’s crimes, we were prepared to deliver our own counter-blow.   It was something that I, Miscavige, Starkey, and the rest of the legal team were convinced would throw question on the entire Flynn-Armstrong presentation. The star witness we had waiting in the wings would blow Armstrong’s and Flynn’s credibility out the water.   He would just prove that L. Ron Hubbard had seen combat in World War II; he would also attest that Ron was a war hero.

Thomas Moulten had served on a naval vessel captained by Ron, which Ron had claimed had sunk two Japanese subs off the coast of Oregon during World War II, after two days of pitched, fevered battle. Moulten testified that regardless of official naval records determining that there were no subs and that Hubbard had led a wild goose chase, lobbing depth charges into empty water for two days, he had in fact seen oil bubbles rise to the surface – indicating subs had been struck.

There is no question Moulten was a decent man. And there is no doubt he thought very highly of Hubbard, even though he had neither seen nor heard from him since the war.   However, much like Mary Sue before him, he was hoisted by his own petard as far as credibility was concerned.   First, he sounded somewhat eccentric telling a story utterly contradicted by all available documentary evidence.   And, like Mary Sue, he did not leave well enough alone. He testified that Ron had seen a lot of action previous to the alleged Oregon battle. He described how Ron had sustained torso bullet wounds by Japanese machine gun fire; even though there was no record anywhere of Ron ever having been fired upon. On cross examination, Flynn had a field day with the fact that Moulten’s only source of knowledge about Ron’s alleged stellar combat record was Ron himself.   Flynn was able to paint a convincing picture of Moulten as just another person misled by Ron’s great story-telling skills.
[Rathbun’s Memoirs, pp 249,250)

To be hoist with, on or by one’s own petard, is to be hurt or destroyed by one’s own plot or device, of one’s own doing which one intended for another; to be “blown up by one’s own bomb.”
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hoist_by_one%27s_own_petard#English

Captain Moulton wasn’t hoist by his own petard, because it wasn’t his plot or device, or bomb, to hurt or destroy me. He was the petard. Rathbun is using this idiom to shift the blame from who or what really was hoist by their own petard. Although shifting and avoiding responsibility or blame has been a standard communication and operating stratagem of Rathbun for years, and he is known for mixed metaphors and willful semantic dishonesty, as well as misused idioms, blaming his own petard — good old Captain Moulton — for blowing up Rathbun’s own plot, is doubly curvaceously ridiculous.

Rathbun actually identifies the plot and the plotters in the above quote. He calls the plot his and his fellow plotters’ “counter-blow.” They intended it to be their counter-blow to L. Ron Hubbard being shown over weeks of testimony and documentary evidence to be, as Rathbun even quotes in his book: virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements. Rathbun states that they believed their counter-blow “would blow Armstrong’s and Flynn’s credibility out the water.” That is petard talk. And the petard the plotters came up with was, Rathbun says, star witness Captain Moulton.

Moulton was not out to destroy Flynn and me, any more than any petard intends to destroy when it explodes. Rathbun and his coconspirators intended to destroy us, and Moulton was their petard. They used him for a corrupt purpose, to have a lie accepted as true. It is very likely that Hubbard used him for the same corrupt purpose in 1943 when he was Chief Officer on the PC 815. Hubbard certainly got him to accept Hubbard’s lies as true in 1942.

It was not that Moulton didn’t leave well enough alone. That is an idiom that means “to allow something to stay as it is because doing more would not improve it.” What he did was answer Flynn’s well-crafted and relevant questions on cross-examination. Moulton cannot seriously be considered blameworthy for not ending his testimony after his direct examination by Peterson. For the star witness petard to work, Rathbun and his coconspirators had to get him through cross-examination, and that meant he would have to lie. But, despite their obvious coaching, Moulton didn’t join their conspiracy. He didn’t lie, or lie well enough. Rathbun, et al. failed and were hoist by their own petard.