************ February 28, 1957 PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL [last word crossed out] Honorable Styles Bridges
United States Senate
Washington, D.C.

Dear Styles:

Your letter of February 22, 1957, with enclosure, has been referred to me by Mr. Nichols, and I appreciate your interest in bringing this matter to our attention. For your personal information, the FBI has received numerous inquiries concerning Lafayette Ron Hubbard and the system of "dianetics" which he apparently originated, but no allegation of a violation within the jurisdiction of this Bureau has been received and, consequently, no investigation of this matter has been conducted by the FBI.

Corporation records for the State of New Jersey show that the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, Inc., was incorporated on June 1, 1950, for the alleged purpose of furthering the work of Hubbard, whose book entitled "Dianetics" had been published in 1948. The Foundation has reportedly encountered difficulty with police authorities in New Jersey, Michigan and Washington, D.C., for allegedly conducting schools in those areas, in which a branch of medicine and surgery was taught without a license.

"The Washington Times Herald" for April 24, 1951, carried an article captioned "Wife Accuses Mental' Expert of Torturing Her." According to this article, Mrs. Sara Northrup Hubbard, age twenty-five, filed a suit for divorce against L. Ron Hubbard in which NOTE: See Jones to Nichols memorandum dated February 27, 1957, captioned "Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation, Lafayette Ron Hubbard, Request for Information by Senator Styles Bridges, " RGE:lmh RGE:lmh [page 2] Honorable Styles Bridges she claimed he had subjected her to "scientific torture experiments."

She claimed that he had tortured her through denial of sleep, beatings, strangulations and suggestions that she kill herself. As a consequence, she stated that she considered Hubbard, then forty years of age, "hopelessly insane." According to the article, "Competent medical advisers recommended that Hubbard be committed to a private sanitarium for psychiatric observation and treatment of a mental ailment known as paranoid schizophrenia." It was also alleged that the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, which dealt with the "modern science of mental health, " did more than one million dollar business in 1950.

I am returning [BLACKED OUT] letter which you enclosed since you may have further use for it, and I hope the above will be of some assistance to you in this connection.

Sincerely, Edgar Enclosure *************

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