Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(44)
“You would say to yourself, ‘Why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you speak out?’ ” Eltringham later remarked. “You see, I was a true believer. I believed that Hubbard knew what he was doing. I, unfortunately, believed that he knew what it was going to take to help everyone in the world and that, even though I didn’t understand, it was my duty to follow and support what he was doing. None of us spoke out. None of us did anything.”
IN THE SHIP’S LOG of December 8, 1968, Hubbard mentions an organization he calls SMERSH, a name taken from James Bond novels. Hubbard describes it as a “hidden government…that aspired to world domination!” Psychiatry is the dominating force behind this sinister institution. “Recently a check showed that we had never seen or heard of an ‘insane’ person who had not been in their hands,” Hubbard writes. “And the question arises, is there any insanity at all? That is not manufactured by them?” He said that SMERSH had made one big mistake, however; it attacked Scientology. He vowed revenge.
Hubbard had been wooing a young Florida woman, Elizabeth Gablehouse, to join the Sea Org. She had come from a prominent family in Tallahassee, Florida, and had studied in Europe. She spoke French, German, and Spanish. She had admirable social skills; moreover, she was a redhead, always a stamp of pre-eminence in Hubbard’s book. Finally, Kit agreed to join the Royal Scotman in 1969, just as the ship was being expelled from Corfu. She was soon appointed to the “Missionaires Elite Unit.” Hubbard already had an assignment in mind for her.
Hubbard set a course for Cagliari, on the Italian island of Sardinia. On the way, he personally tutored her in his plan to take over the World Federation for Mental Health, which was headquartered in Geneva. Hubbard had learned that the organization had never bothered to actually incorporate itself in Switzerland. His grand idea was to set up an office in Bern, the capital, posing as an American delegation of the WFMH bent on reforming the organization from within. The true scheme was to establish a presence in the country long enough to incorporate as the WFMH; and then, posing as the actual mental health organization, go to the United Nations with a plan for enforced euthanization of the “useless or unfixable” elements of society. Hubbard predicted that the outcry that would surely follow would turn the world against the WFMH. It would be a powerful strike against his most formidable enemy, SMERSH.
All the way to Sardinia Hubbard drilled Kit in the history of the health organization, its former presidents, and the policies it supported, such as electroshock therapy. Kit didn’t need to be persuaded about the dangers of that practice; her own mother had been subjected to electroshock in the 1940s, without her consent, as treatment for postpartum depression. After that, her mother suffered from amnesia and a fear of change and losing control.
By the time the Royal Scotman docked in Cagliari, Kit was well schooled. She and another Sea Org member, Mary Pat Shelley, a trained Shakespearian actress from Cincinnati, traveled to Bern. They set up an office, purchased furniture, and covered the walls with phony certificates. They had business cards and stationery printed. Then they filed papers for incorporation as the World Federation for Mental Health.
Soon after that, they received a call from the Federal Office of Public Health in Switzerland demanding to know what they were up to. The two women were invited to explain themselves to the director himself.
Kit and Marjorie were both in their early twenties. They dressed in dowdy clothes and put powder in their hair to make themselves appear older. When they arrived at the office, they were shown to a conference room with about ten other people, including the director, a stenographer, and several lawyers. Mary Pat’s hands were trembling as Kit brazenly presented their case for taking over the WFMH. She claimed that the organization had long been misrepresenting itself; for instance, was the director aware that the WFMH never even bothered to incorporate in Switzerland? He was not. Nor was he a fan of some of the policies that the women said that WFMH championed, such as euthanasia. By the end of the meeting, the director seemed persuaded. “I like how you Americans work!” he said enthusiastically.
The women emerged from the meeting elated, but the response to their telex to Hubbard surprised them. He ordered them back to the ship, “for your protection.” As soon as they returned to Cagliari, Hubbard cast off lines and set a course through the Strait of Gibraltar for open water. He even changed the names of his ships, in order to erase the connections with Scientology. The Enchanter became the Diana, the Avon River became the Athena, and the flagship Royal Scotman turned into the Apollo. All were registered with Panamanian credentials as belonging to the Operation and Transport Corporation. The Apollo was now billed as “the pride of the Panamanian fleet,” “a floating school of philosophy,” and “the sanest space on the planet.”
Hubbard was convinced that the Swiss authorities had laid a trap: they would arrest Kit and Mary Pat and force them to testify and expose his whole scheme. For months, he was afraid to touch land. The ship drifted aimlessly in the Atlantic; the crew was forced to live on its stores, and soon they were down to half-rations. Near Madeira, they were caught up in a fierce tropical storm, which threatened to swamp the Apollo. Immense waves swept over the funnel and shattered the two-inch-thick windows of the dining room. Water gushed into the engine room, where the seasick officer on watch tied a bucket around his neck. Terrified Messengers hauled themselves along the rails of the wildly pitching deck trying to deliver communications to the bridge; at times the nose of the ship was pointed directly down into the sea. The storm lasted ten days, propelling the ship eight hundred miles north, all the way to the Azores.