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Evidence
"I have not had evidence that Scientology has been directly and exclusively responsible for mental breakdown or physical deterioration in its adherents in this country. I nevertheless intend to go on watching the position."
If more evidence were needed, Scientology's adversaries were resolved, in one way or another, to supply it. A brief article in the spring 1968 edition of Mental Health informed that publication's readers that "the chief, long-standing opponent of Scientology, Mr. Peter Hordern, Conservative MP for Horsham, is beginning to agitate for a public enquiry again. He has received many letters from disenchanted members - many too frightened to put a signature to what they write."These poison-pen missives, including the many anonymous ones, were duly passed along to the Minister of Health to become part of what the Hon. Gentleman later described as "a considerable body of evidence about the activities of the cult in this country", but which he never exposed to public scrutiny.
The continuing pressure built up at the Ministries of Health, of Education and Science, and at the Home Office, eventually resulted in administrative action against the Scientologists. On July 25, 1968, in response to Mr. Johnson Smith's question in the House as to what action he proposed to take concerning Scientology, Kenneth Robinson replied:
"The Government are satisfied, having received all the available evidence, that Scientology is socially harmful. It alienates members of families from each other and attributes squalid and disgraceful motives to all who oppose it; its authoritarian principles and practice are a potential menace to the personality and well-being of those so deluded as to become its followers; above all, its methods can be a serious danger to the health of those who submit to them. There is evidence that children are now being indoctrinated."There is no power under existing law to prohibit the practice of Scientology; but the Government have concluded that it is so objectionable that it would be right to take all steps within their power to curb its growth."It appears that Scientology has drawn its adherents largely from overseas, though the organisation is now making intensive efforts to recruit residents of this country. Foreign nationals come here to study Scientology and to work at the so-called College in East Grinstead. The Government can prevent this under existing law (the Aliens Order), and have decided to do so. The following steps are being taken with immediate effect:
- The Hubbard College of Scientology, and all other Scientology establishments, will no longer be accepted as educational establishments for the purpose of Home Office policy on the admission and subsequent control of foreign nationals;
- Foreign nationals arriving at United Kingdom ports who intend to proceed to Scientology establishments will no longer be eligible for admission as students;
- Foreign nationals who are already in the United Kingdom, for example, as visitors, will not be granted student status for the purpose of attending a Scientology establishment;
- Foreign nationals already in the United Kingdom for study at a Scientology establishment will not be granted extensions of stay to continue those studies;
- Work permits and employment vouchers will not be issued to foreign nationals (or Commonwealth citizens) for work at a Scientology establishment;
Work permits already issued to foreign nationals for work at a Scientology establishment will not be extended."
This announcement was made at the final session of Parliament before adjournment for holidays. It thus precluded any adequate deliberation or debate by the members on the issue. Furthermore, sufficient hard evidence to support such a drastic measure had not been presented.It was all shamelessly unfair, and the more responsible elements of the British press began to smell a rat. These knights of the ballpoint lance did not care what happened to Scientologists (indeed, it was largely with their assistance that the situation was what it was), but they suddenly came to their senses long enough to realize that the arrogant and arbitrary exercise of power by Government administrators threatened not only the freedom of Scientologists, but their own as well."The Aliens Order," declared the Sunday Times, "under which all identifiable Scientologists have been denied entry to Britain places enormous power in the hands of the Home Secretary ... The case against Scientology does not yet seem monumental enough to justify this kind of treatment. As we show on another page, there is considerable doubt about how many complaints against the movement, on serious clinical grounds, have in fact been made."The Manchester Guardian noted that they were "watching with discomfort the witch-hunt launched against the Scientologists". Rhetorically, they asked: "Since when has the Minister of Health been custodian of the authenticity of philosophies? This is government out of 'Erewhon.'... Such ministerial decisions as this should be questioned all the way. The future of more than Scientology is involved in them."
Writing in the London Daily Express, columnist Robert Pitman observed that only the previous summer, the Minister of Health had said that health charges would be against all social progress. "A few months later, he was introducing them personally. Did he have a revelation, perhaps? As he was walking the Road to Whitehall, did the clouds open and a flat Northern voice declare: 'Kenneth, Kenneth, why kickest thou against the charges?'"
The lush outpourings of anti-Scientology stories which had appeared in the media were now re-examined in a more sober light and found to be largely back-fence gossip."Rummaging through a bewildering heap of new press clippings about the Church of Scientology," wrote C. H. Rolph in the New Statesman, "I find that the recent fuss began with a Daily Mail 'Newsight' article and that since then, with two exceptions, all the pressmen have been quoting each other."Why, asked Rolph, did Scientology have to be suddenly proscribed as something socially harmful in a way that other cults were not, "its practitioners and pupils deported, its children barred from schools, its members turned clown by motor and accident-insurance companies, even its meetings outlawed? Once you start this sort of thing, everyone scrambles for stones."Another manifestation of the uneasiness felt by the more alert segments of British society concerning the rule by administrative fiat as demonstrated in the Scientology ban, was the action taken by the National Council for Civil Liberties. Describing Robinson's statement on Scientology in Commons as "particularly fatuous", the Council's chairman, Tony Smythe, said: "Mr. Robinson's remarks would apply with more justification to the Catholic Church, and if he objected to the Pope's views, he could presumably harass Catholics in the same way."
Smythe added that the Council considered such administrative measures as the ban against Scientologists to be totally wrong and would fight it.
When Commons reconvened in the autumn, voices of dissent were also raised in that august chamber. Some of the unmortgaged Members on both sides of the House challenged the Health Minister to publish the evidence he claimed to have in his possession and upon which he based his statements and actions against Scientology.Mr. Robinson could not, of course, produce something which quite obviously he did not have. He took cover behind the shield so widely used by government functionaries in all countries - the alleged confidentiality of his information. Detailed evidence proving the cult's potential danger to health, said he, consisted of individual case histories which it would be inappropriate to make public.Referring to the massive attack in the media, Robinson declared with a straight face that evidence of Scientology's social dangers had already been published widely in the press.Enforcement of the ban on foreign Scientologists soon led British authorities into actions that were sometimes cruel and at other times ludicrous. Immigration officials were charged, as Conservative MP Iain Macleod observed, with the absurd task of trying to divide mankind into Scientologists and the rest.It was not practical, of course, to ask every alien visitor arriving in England whether he was a Scientologist (although such a procedure would have greatly pleased the Scientologists; it's the kind of publicity you can't buy).The Cerberean guards at the gates of Albion had to depend upon tips from Hubbard-haters, official reports, customs agents (who reported Scientology literature in the traveller's luggage), and the answer to a question appearing on the Landing Card as to the foreigner's reason for coming to Britain.
There were also less reputable sources of information. Scientologists at Saint Hill Manor are certain that their mail was intercepted and their telex and telephones tapped.
Since even the most sophisticated electronic equipment will not detect a wire tap that is made by officials who have the co-operation of the telephone company, the staff at Saint Hill tested the privacy of their lines in a simpler, but far more effective way.At a certain time, a call was made from the East Grinstead headquarters to a branch centre. The person receiving the call was informed (falsely) that L. Ron Hubbard was entering England in defiance of the ban. He would arrive at a given airport at a given time.Scientologists waited at the airport to meet not Mr. Hubbard, but representatives of the Home Office. They were not disappointed. Shortly before the time Mr. Hubbard was supposed to arrive, a corps of Home Office minions showed up in official cars and deployed around the area reserved for processing incoming passengers.The splendid turnout of officials to receive the nonarriving L. Ron Hubbard was cogent proof that the telephones at Saint Hill were well-monitored.While individual Scientologists who came to Britain found little difficulty in passing through the permeable immigration barrier set up to keep them out, those who travelled in groups were prevented from entering.In July 1968, for example, a charter flight which was to bring 18 6 American students to Scotland was cancelled by the airline after being informed by the Home Office that the Scientologists would not be allowed to enter the United Kingdom.Less than one month later, 2oo South Africans and 6oo Americans, who wanted to attend a Scientology congress in London, were refused admission.
At the entrances to the Croydon hall where the congress was held, squads of Scotland Yard detectives screened delegates entering the building.Home Office commissars issued a warning to foreign visitors that anyone who came to Britain to attend the Scientology conclave, but put down "holiday" on his landing card, as the purpose of his visit, would be guilty of an offence.In an action that must have surprised and greatly annoyed the Yanks who were not Scientologists, immigration officers asked every American arriving in Britain during the period just preceding the congress: "Why have you come here?"Thoughtful Britons began to view this wholesale and almost hysterical zenophobia with growing concern. It publicly called into question the traditional and widely-held belief that the British were somehow more enlightened and tolerant in their views than the people of less civilized countries.
Mr. Alexander Lyon, Labour MP for York, asked the Home Secretary how many persons had been denied entry into the United Kingdom on the ground that they were Scientologists; and under what powers the immigration officers acted in refusing entry.In his written reply, James Callaghan clearly demonstrated the fact that "credibility gap" is not a phenomenon confined to high-levelgovernment circles in Washington, He said:
"No one has been refused admission on the sole ground that he was a Scientologist; but since July 25, 104 foreign nationals intending to study at Scientology establishments have been refused leave to land, under the Aliens Order, 1953."
Although it was one of the stories that Fleet Street somehow overlooked, the harassment of overseas students coming to England to study Scientology began even before the Home Office officially announced its ban on foreign nationals.By far the worst example of disregard for human rights or even human decency by Government gauleiters occurred in late June 1968. Two young new Zealanders -Sandra Stevens, eighteen and Bruce Gibson, twenty-four - who made the long journey from the antipodes to take a sixmonth course in Scientology at Saint Hill - were refused entry by the chief immigration officer at Heathrow Airport.They were taken into custody and detained in prisons for convicted criminals, while legal representations were being made on their behalf.
Sandra, who was sent to Holloway Prison for women, told her story in these words:
"The first time I realized there might be trouble ahead was on the plane. A man sitting beside me told me that, being a Scientologist, I would have trouble getting into England. I merely laughed and told him that we were talking about England, after all, and in England you were allowed to believe in what you chose. He laughed back at me and said -'You'll see'. I did!
"On landing at London Airport and after passing quickly through Health I was stopped at Immigration and asked about my religion. Which level I was at and whether I had come to study in East Grinstead. I had all my luggage searched and my personal papers and letters taken away and read.
"After a two hour wait I was subjected to twenty minutes' questioning of my religion by two Immigration Officers. Only when I asked what my religion had to do with my being detained was I asked about the amount of money that I had and whether I had a return ticket. I showed them a letter saying I was being supported at £10 per week and told them any ticket would be paid at the end of my course.
"Another two hours went by. After that we were shunted into the office of the Chief Immigration Official. My travelling companion and I were told that we were going to be deported to Hong Kong that afternoon. An official told us that this action was being taken because I was a Scientologist.
"We rang the College at Saint Hill and managed to put off deportation to the following morning. One staff member from Saint Hill brought a letter saying we were students. I phoned home and asked them to cable 2oo dollars and to organize return air fare - which was done. We also rang the N.Z. High Commissioner, only to be told that as N.Z citizens and members of the Commonwealth we had no rights.
"The following morning - still at the airport Immigration changed our tickets. Since sufficient funds and return fare had been guaranteed, they now told us that we would be refused entry on grounds that we had no work permits and were 'Student Trainees'.
"The Legal Officer from Saint Hill came to the airport and took the legal battle off our hands.
"We had to stay at the airport, and then Bruce, my fellow-traveller and also a Scientology student, was transported to Brixton prison and I was taken to Holloway prison. This was the beginning of a new ordeal that was to last for nine days before I was allowed to leave the prison.
"When I arrived I was told to take off all my clothes, my belongings were taken from me and gone carefully through. I was left with one set of my own clothes and a prison nightdress. I was then taken up to my cell, which had no toilet or any facilities and a barred window.
"When the heavy door was shut and the key turned in the lock, I was very upset and felt all alone. There was a glaring light in my room and I couldn't sleep. I pressed what I thought was the light switch and a loud buzzer jangled through the corridors. The night guard rushed up and asked angrily what was wanted. I told her that I wanted the light off. The answer was that the lights were left on all night in the solitary wings. I was in solitary though I had committed no crime.
"I woke up at dawn and lay awake until 7 a.m. when we were all pulled out of bed. I went upstairs with my bucket to wash. I was just about to get dressed when a girl from another cell came in. 'Hi, I'm Gale. I'm a lesbian. Can I have a fag?' In a few minutes there were three of them surrounding me, asking me for cigarettes-they also stole some off me later.
"After an unspeakable 'breakfast' consisting of porridge without milk or sugar - not to speak of jam - and some old bread, we were taken upstairs to work. 'Work' consisted of pushing out beer mats from a large piece of cardboard and counting them into lots of 100.
"That morning I was called out to see a Presbyterian minister, but when I told him I was not from his Church, be shrugged his shoulders and said there was nothing he could do for me.
"I was then taken to have my chest X-rayed. I was also asked to have a VD test, but managed to have that order withdrawn after explaining some naive facts of life.
"The girls in prison treated me with a certain respect and said I didn't belong with them in prison. They were there for murder, drugs and theft. I was told in precise details how lesbians are lesbians, about drugs, prostitution and larceny.
"We were allowed no visitors except legal, and relatives and letters out were limited to one a week, all censored, of course.
"Being a responsible person, I was given the 'privilege' of being a 'garden girl'. The job consisted of picking up a heavy barrow, filling it full with dirt and unloading at the other end of the road. Then run back for another load. After hours of work my hands were full of blisters and neck and shoulders ached.
"One night two girls smuggled in some 'hash' cigarettes and smoked them amongst themselves. One girl threw an epileptic fit. She fell on the floor, bit her tongue till blood streamed from her mouth. When she had calmed down a bit she was brought back to her solitary.
"One girl obviously didn't like my looks - she glared at me, then picked up a chair and threw it at me. Other girls tried to hold her down. She repeated this twice.
"I was allowed to leave prison after nine days. I had learned more about the sordid sides of life in those nine days than all my life before. I had read about prisons - I never thought it would become a reality for me."'