Clearwater City Hall Clearwater, Florida Thursday, May 6, 1982 2-2 City of Clearwater City Commission: Charles LeCher, Mayor Thomas Bustin, City Attorney Anthony L , Shoemaker, City Manager Rita Garvey, City Commissioner' Paul Hatchett, Vice Mayor James Calderbank, City Commissioner James Berfield, City Commissioner Lucille Williams, City Clerk Consultants: Michael J. Flynn, Esquire 12 Union Wharf Boston, Massachusetts 02109 Thomas Greene, Esquire 12 Union Wharf Boston, Massachusetts 02109 Thomas Hoffman, Esquire 12 Union Wharf Boston, Massachusetts 02109 Kevin Flynn 12 Union Wharf Boston, Massachusetts 02109 2-3 I N D E X 2 Witness Page 3 Ronald DeWolfe .....................................5 4 Lori Taverna ........................................109 5 Casey Kelley .......................................230 6 7 E X H I B I T S 8 Number Description Page 9 20 Transcript from George Washington University, re L. Ron Hubbard 93 10 21 Biographical outline from the U.S. 94 11 Navy, re L. Ron Hubbard 12 22 ALGOL Ship Log 95 13 23 Letter, dated October 16, 1947, from 98 L. Ron Hubbard to the Veteran's 14 Administration 15 24 Biographical outline from Dianetics: 101 The. Original Thesis, re L. Ron Hubbard 16 25 'Biographical outline, re L. Ron 106 17 Hubbard 18 26 Biographical outline, re L. Ron 106 Hubbard 19 27 Cover of the book, All About Radia- 106 20 tion 21 28 Book,'All About Radiation 230 22 29 Book, Dianetics: The Modern Science 230 of Mental Health 23 24 2-4 Clearwater, Florida May 6, 1982 2 Morning Session 3 4 MR. LeCHER: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 5 Participants and interested bystanders, please take 6 your seats. 7 Good morning, again, and welcome back to the 8 Clearwater City Commission Public Hearings. This is 9 our second day, and I'd like to start again with the 10 Pledge to the f lag, led by Sid Klein-, our Police Chief. 11 And, also, the invocation will be given by our own 12 vice Mayor, Paul Hatchett. 13 So, please rise. 14 (Whereupon, the Pledge of Allegiance was recited.) 16 MR. HATCHETT: our Father, I ask for you by name 17 on all of the earth, and we pray for Thine divine 18 guidance during our times of real sincerity. Give us 19 courage, give us strength and the ability to be 20 reasonable, courageous, and honest. We ask that in Thy 21 name. Amen. 22 MR. LeCHER: Thank you. 23 Thank you, Mr. Hatchett. That's really very 24 appropriate. 2-5 I To those of you that are new to this, we have been 2 through one day of hearing. We are now in our second 3 day. And, of course, the Scientologists will have an 4 equal time when our time is through. And we would hope 5 that they would participate so that we can get an honest 6 opinion about the business at hand with respect to 7 Scientology. 8 Yesterday, we were talking to Mr. Ron DeWolfe, who 9 is the natural son of L. Ron Hubbard, who had a surname 10 of Hubbard at one time. 11 12 RONALD DeWOLFE, a witness herein, 13 having been previously sworn by a Clerk for the City of 14 Clearwater, was examined and testified as follows: is MR. LeCHER: Arid Mr. DeWolfe, you do understand 16 that you were previously sworn in? 17 MR. DeWOLFE: Yes, I do. 18 MR. LeCHER: And anything you say is under the 19 threat of perjury. 20 Mr. Flynn, do you understand that he does not have 21 to be sworn in again; is that correct? 22 Mi. FLYNN: That's correct, sir. 23 MR. LeCHER: All right. 24 Yesterday, Mr. DeWolfe, we were talking primarily 2-6 I about the history of the organization, how you fit into 2 it, and we kind of left off yesterday -- we were about 3 to get into Dianetics and E-Meters. You could start 4 there or you could backtrack and start wherever you'd 5 like. I'm suggesting to you Dianetics and the E-Meter 6 as a starting point, but it's up to you, sir. 7 MR. DeWOLFE: The E-Meter would be fine. 8 The E-Meter was invented by a Paul B. Mathieson 9 in 1951. He was a chiropractor in Los Angeles. And he 10 had been using it on his own and selling it on his own, 11 and then brought it to my father. And for a short time 12 through '51 and '52, he used his E-Meter but he would 13 not let -- he would not let my father manufacture it. 14 My father also demanded royalties and a piece of the is action concerning its manufacture and sale. 16 So, then, through the '51 and '52 era and even possibly 17 even into '53, we were having to purchase the E-Meter 18 through Bob Mathieson. But what happened here, it was 19 used in early Dianetic auditing, but when Bob would not 20 turn the rights to the E-Meter over to my father or give 21 him a royalty, my father quit using it. And there was a 22 time period in there in which he totally invented and 23 created various Scientology processes which did not 24 require the E-Meter. 2-7 1 Then, later, we were with a Don Green in Washington, 2 D.C., I think in 1954 or 155 a Don Green and Joe 3 Wallace put together our own E-Meter and, all of a 4 sudden, Scientology could now use E-Meters again..And 5 we had -- he invented other processes that could be used with 6 the E-Meter. It was a flow and ebb thing. 7 I think I want to make this point very clear: 8 that the -- as long as my father had some control over 9 the E-Meter in the beginning, then, it was used in 10 Dianetics and Sciento'logy. When he got into a war with 11 Bob over money and we couldn't shake the E-Meter out of 12 Bob's hands, then, we quit using the E-Meter. And then 13 when they invented -- when Joe Wallace and Don Green 14 in the mid-fifties in Washington, D.C. he then manu- 15 factured -- had those two guys manufacture the E-Meter 16 in the basement of our headquarters at that time which 17 was 1812 19th Street, Northwest. And then it became 18 popular. It depended upon his control of it, of the 19 instrument. 20 MR. LeCHER: Did Mr. Wallace improve upon the 21 E-Meter, redesign it 22 MR. DeWOLFE: Joe Wallace and Don Green made it 23 solid state. Before that, the E-Meter was a tube affair, 24 a lot of tubes, and it was a fairly good size. It was 2-8 I about the size of - I don't mean this as a joke - it 2 was about the size of a breadbox. And then it also got 3 to be a very big projection job, and it became more and 4 more complicated. There were E-Meters with double dials, 5 with four dials, with enough switches and dials on it to 6 confuse you for a week. But -- and it got to the point, 7 there were a few of them that were two feet by a foot 8 by, say, eighteen inches tall and weighing about ten or 9 fifteen pounds, which was kind of hard to lug around from 10 one session to another, from an auditing session to 11 another. 12 MR. LeCHER: Is the E-Meter a deeply religious 13 symbol? If it is, I don't want to go into it any further. 14 or is it used for other reasons? Like, a crucifix may -- is MR. DeWOLFE: Well, I'm testifying to the early 16 days where ---prior to, I believe, a court decision 17 where this now becomes a religious artifact. But in 18 those days it was not. So, I leave that to your decision 19 as far as whether to continue with it. 20 But it was -- an E-Meter was basically a skin 21 galvanometer, a lie detector, and it would be technically 22 called a balanced wheatstone ridge, which is a very 23 simple basic electronic circuit. 24 And one of the main things that I used to remember 2-9 1 about the E-Meter was that our favorite electrodes, 2 which we put onto Campbell soup cans - and Campbell 3 Soup probably made a great deal of money from us -- but 4 there was a small, very small -- in those days anyway, 5 particularly, the ones that plugged into the wall; today 6 they're battery-powered, and when it was designed and 7 built in the mid-fifties it was battery-powered. But 8 the ones that plugged into the wall had a tendency to, 9 because of the amount of very microscopic electrical flow 10 through it, electroplate your hands. That is, that the 11 -tin covering or the metal covering of the Campbell soup 12 cans would come off on your hands and so your hands 13 smelled pretty wierd most of the time. 14 But it was used in the beginning to.., as I said, 15 a crude lie detector. And when I say "crude," that's 16 a relative statement compared to the, for instance, the 17 present day polygraph that measures heartbeat, respira- 18 tion, et cetera, et cetera, you know, several different 19 patterns. 20 So, anyhow, that kind of covers the E-Meter. As 21 1 said, the point I wanted to make about the E-Meter 22 here is that it ran hot and cold with Dad, depending 23 upon his control of it. And he would say, like, "Well, 24 we don't need the E-Meter anymore because we have these 2-10 1 new great, wonderful processes and techniques which don't 2 require the E-Meter." He said that because he couldn't 3 use the E-Meter because Bob Mathieson wouldn't cough 4 it up. 5 Let me back up to a couple of other areas here, 6 if you don't mind. I finished off where I had -- was 7 discussing -- 8 MR. LeCHER: Go at your own pace, sir. 9 MR. DeWOLFE: Huh? 10 MR. LeCHER: Go at your own pace and back up if 11 you want to. 12 MR. DeWOLFE: I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, sir. 13 MR. LeCHER: I said just go talk at your own pace 14 and back up whenever you feel like it. is MR. DeWOLFE: Well, I was talking about in the 16 beginning where you had I think I was referring to the 17 question about franchises, ten percent, and successful 18 organizations. 19 MR.' LeCHER: Yes, sir. 20 MR. DeWOLFE: Very quickly, to recap: There was 21 the original Dianetic Research Foundation, Elizabeth, 22 New Jersey, and that folded because of AMA pressure. 23 And then there was the foundation in Wichita, Kansas, 24 and that folded because of AMA pressure and, also, because 2-11 I of my father's taking off with all the money and fleeing 2 in early 1952. So, getting together of organizations 3 was rather difficult. But there were other people. 4 As an example, when they set up -- as good business- 5 men, they set up very successful organizations, and I 6 had mentioned a couple yesterday. And one that crossed 7 my mind was in Phoenix, Arizona. There's two more that 8 are pretty important because they formed the basis today 9 of - and throughout the years - the various corporations 10 and organizations. 11 In 1954, there was a J. Edward Farber, who had 12 worked very hard and long in setting up the very first 13 Church of Scientology in California. Looking at this 14 you have to- look at this slightly in retrospect and is within the context of the time of 1954, it wasn't all. 16 that easy to set up a very solid bullet-proof church 17 corporation in which you could do anything within the 18 corporate structure. So, the' Chamber of Commerce had 19 this in California. And here, again, it also demon- 20 strates the front organization thrust of my father's, 21 that is, many organizations which are very confusing 22 and -- by the way, to me, Scientology is Scientology. 23 I've always understood it that way. It doesn't make 24 any difference to me about what the corporation says or 2-12 1 where the corporation is; it is a corporate-type of 2 entity. To me, Scientology is Scientology, whether it's 3 in Los Angeles or Clearwater or London or Quebec, Canada. 4 It makes no difference; it's Scientology. And Scien- 5 tology is L. Ron Hubbard. 6 And there's many, many times, hundreds of times, 7 he would get into terrible rages about "This is mine; 8 this is mine. I run it, I own it, and I created it. 9 And nobody is going to make any money out of it except 10 me." And that is a synthesis of a theme which was 11 pushed at me hundreds of times and anybody at the 12 planning sessions. 13 So, anyway, J. Edward Farber had this tremendously 14 wonderful corporation in California which he was very is proud of. And so, we whiplashed J. Edward Farber 16 around and took the corporation over. He resigned and 17 turned over the corporation to us. 18 Now, one of the things, too, about corporations 19 is that I was one of the early signatories to the very 20 first Scientology corporations. In all ...in any Scien- 21 tology corporation, apparently 22 MR. SHOEMAKER: I'm sorry, I did that. 23 MR. DeWOLFE: -- apparently, quote, unquote, run 24 by Hubbard's my father always held signed, undated 2-13 1 resignations. Immediately the very second you were 2 put on the Board of Directors, you signed at the same 3 time. I did it and a lot of other people did it. You 4 signed an undated resignation which, then, he kept in 5 his safe. So, if you didn't play by his rules, all he 6 had to do was put the date on it and that was it, you 7 were out. 8 MR. LeCHER: What was the reason that he started 9 Dianetics and went from Dianetics to a corporation for 10 a religion? How did you get in -- why did you leave 11 the Church of Scientology? 12 MR. DeWOLFE: Okay. 13 Well, you're going ahead a great many years and 14 things. The -- how did Dianetics is MR. LeCHER: Yes. What was the reason for convert- 16 ing Dianetics to something else, to a religion? 17 MR. DeWOLFE: Well, first of all, he couldn't use 18 Dianetics anymore. He had sold the rights to Don G. 19 Purcell in Wichita, Kansas, and he couldn't use Dianetics. 20 He couldn't use the techniques, he couldn't -- he sold 21 the copyrights to the books. And he had 'fled out from 22 Wichita'with all of the monies of the Wichita foundation. 23 But he couldn't, as I said, use it. 24 By the way, Scientology - the word "Scientology" 2-14 1 is not original to my father; my father told me. And it 2 is that it comes from the German "scientologie" - and if 3 you ask me how to spell that, I don't know in German. 4 The best way I can really explain it very quickly: 5 Very quickly, to bring you up to date, a little bit of 6 biographical data here, autobiographical and otherwise. 7 And when I was born - I think I mentioned it before I 8 was born at two pounds, two ounces and prematurely. My 9 father had rather severely beaten my mother, and that's 10 what caused that, while he was trying to get involved 11 with black magic rituals. 12 But throughout all of my early years, I had been 13 with him quite a bit off and on. And then, of course, 14 there was the major trauma of the divorce from my mother 15 and the bigamous marriage with Sarah. But in early 16 1952 -- in early 1952, 1 went from Burlington, Washington, 17 drove down, and started living with my father on a con- 18 tinuous basis. 19 my very first connection -- my very first connec- 20 tion wit h Dianetics or Scientology, of course, was when 21 my father mentioned about the book, Dianetics, and about 22 the article in Astounding Science Fiction and then, of 23 course, the book. In 1950, 1 was living in Burlington, 24 Washington and he arranged for my auditing, my very first I auditing. 2-15 2 My very first auditing was rather strange, because 3 he had arranged it through the Seattle Dianetic group 4 for me to commute from Burlington over there. But he 5 told me that -- he told me two things: one was that I 6 had to be -- he wanted me audited, and I had to be 7 audited under an assumed name. He didn't want me to 8 disclose who I was. And then he also told the auditors 9 that he only wanted them to concentrate on my mother, 10 because he didn't want to -- he didn't want me to dis- 11 close anything about him. And I thought that was sort 12 of interesting. 13 1 kept that up for a couple of weeks. Then, I 14 got tired of not being able to tell anybody who I was. 15 And how can one be audited Dianetically or remember 16 incidents from the past when you had to completely edit 17 and delete anything concerning your father and concentrate 18 on your mother, and at the same time not disclose who 19 you were? It got to be and I wasn't very old at the 20 time, I was sixteen, but I knew enough then to figure out 21 that that was very confusing. 22 Then, I arrived in Phoenix, Arizona in early '52. 23 He had just arrived from Wichita with Mary Sue. And the 24 very first day -- the very first day I arrived, he wanted 2-16 1 me audited immediately. But I had been -driven all 2 night and I was eighteen years old. I knew nothing 3 about Scientology. All I had read was Dianetics*: The. 4 Modern Science of Mental Health, and it never really 5 interested me very much as a book when I was young. 6 So, after about a couple of weeks there, we got 7 involved -- he asked me to sit down on the couch, and I 8 was high on Benzedrine, Bennies. And we started doing, 9 quote, "research" on a book called History of Man. So, 10 we spent a couple, three days on that. Here's the 11 book here, The Scientology History of Man; here's a copy 12 of it. And all the incidents -- he did a few with Mary 13 Sue, but the majority of incidents in it were off the 14 top of my head, as I had upwards of twenty, thirty is milligrams of Bennies in me. 16 MR. LeCHER: It's a very small book, The History 17 of Man. 18 MR. DeWOLFE: Yes. 19 MR. LeCHER: How many pages 20 MR. DeWOLFE: This is -- but the thing about this 21 interests -- the interesting thing about the book is is 22 that this is purported to be -- it is presented as these 23 are incidents which are common to all everybody's 24 past. This is the PR about-the book; this is the thrust 2-17 of the book that these are early genetic incidents in 2 the ancient primoral past of each and every man, woman, 3 and child on earth. And it came out of my drug trip. 4 And the -- I don't know how many thousands of 5 people have been audited on those particular incidents, 6 like, return to the clam. That is where, genetically, 7 you were a clam and you're having jaw trouble, and that 8 was one of the bases of -- according to Scientology and 9 my father, that's one of the bases of bad teeth, bad 10 having trouble with your jaws, because you were having 11 an engram as a clam fifty trillion years ago. But 12 MR. LeCHER: That may be considered to be religious. 13 And judged primarily on its face, we really don't want 14 to pursue that. is I'd like to ask you one more -- let's get back to 16 the E-Meter. 17 MR. DeWOLFE: One quick thing, sir, I wanted to 18 mention was that the areas I'm talking about in the 19 fifties, it was not a religion then. We're talking 20 about -- that didn't come in as a corporation until 21 December 1953. Up through -- 1950 through '53, it was 22 a science, so that's what I'm referring to here and 23 I'm not getting into the area of beliefs in any way, as 24 far as I personally am concerned. 2-18 1 MR. LeCHER: I realize that's a very fine line 2 for us, too. 3 MRS. GARVEY: The book was written in '52. 4 MR. LeCHER: Then, the book was written - thank 5 you, Mrs. Garvey - in 152. 6 Now, back to the E-Meter: Did the U.S. National 7 Bureau of Standards describe the E-Meter as worthless as 8 a diagnostic service? 9 MR. DeWOLFE: Yes. The FDA was concerned with the 10 E-Meter because it was being used as a diagnostic tool, 11 which, in fact, was true, I mean, the actual practice. 12 1 MR. LeCHER: The people that normally take these 13 courses, are they the average run-of-the-mill person 14 that you see in the street, or are they there because is they're looking for help? I've read where the auditing 16 can cure arthritis and leukemia. I've also read where 17 your father cured an eighteen-month old girl a child, 18 1 believe it was a girl - of leukemia. 19 MR. DeWOLFE: That's not true. 20 MR. LeCHER: Is it possible, do you think, that 21 your father has those powers? 22 MR. DeWOLFE: I'm sorry, what was that? 23 MR. LeCHER: Do you think your father has those 24 powers or is that a hoax? 2-19 1 MR. DeWOLFE: No,- but those are claims. And 2 MR. LeCHER: Tell me about those claims. 3 MR. DeWOLFE: Well, first of all, leukemia is 4 cancer and, according to my father, all cancer stems 5 from the center of man. The center of man in Scientology 6 is sex. His logic is logic was at the time that he was 7 talking about leukemia and cancer -- was that cancer is 8 cells which are dividing, and dividing cells is a sexual 9 thing and -- as in prenatal activity, the conception. 10 And so, therefore, the basis the basis of all cancer 11 is sex. 12 If you had any big bad problems with sex in the 13 early childhood or something like that, then, this is 14 what's causing your cancer. And
MR. LeCHER: What about being a celibate?
16 MR. DeWOLFE: Mm?
17 MR. LeCHER: If you're a celibate, would that 18 eliminate your possibility of having cancer? 19 MR. DeWOLFE: Well, that probably will cause can- 20 cer because of your lack of sexual activity. 21 MR. LeCHER: I guess there's no way you can win. 22 RDeWOLFE: Correct. 23 And then, of course -- then, you know, compulsive 24 sex or too much sex or something like that, that could 2-20 1 cause cancer, too. 2 MR. LeCHER: Was your father preoccupied with sex? 3 MR. DeWOLFE: Very much so, yes. 4 Anyway, getting back to your question on leukemia, 5 he has -- he had written many things about the ability of 6 Dianetics and Scientology to cure cancer and, also, 7 has reportedly, in those days -- of auditing an eighteen- 8 year old baby -- eighteen-month old baby successfully 9 with cancer. 10 And in my experience throughout Scientology, I 11 have never seen any cure or remission or halting of 12 cancer, period. And he had -- if you wait a second, I 13 think I have -- this comes from - I don't want to get 14 all involved in the whole thing - but this come's from 15 a -- The Journal of Hubbard's Association of Scientolo- 16 gists' International. You see, that was a, quote, 17 "scientific organization," and quote, "not a religious 18 organization." It was copyrighted in 1953, and quote: 19 "Leukemia is evidently psychosomatic in origin, and 20 at least eight cases of leukemia have been treated 21 successfully by a Dianetic Center medicine had tradition- 22 ally given up. The source of leukemia has been reported 23 to be an engram containing the phrase," quote, "'it turns 24 my blood to water,'" unquote.