L. Ron Hubbard's letter to the FBI, "Communist Activities", 29 July 1955
Scans from the FBI Files, obtained from
Paperless Archives
Transcript below, taken from
www.xenu.net.
L. RON HUBBARD, D.D, PH.D.
Box 242
Silver Spring, Md.
July 29, 1955
TO THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Communist Activities Division
Ref - my earlier correspondence.
Gentlemen:
Having gotten on a somewhat more even keel after the collapse of the organization in Phoenix, Arizona (the HASI) and having begun operation in the East with more public success and enthusiasm than I am used to, I have a better perspective on what occurred in Phoenix.
The attack on the HASI, like the attacks on the 1950 Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation found psychiatry and Communist connected personnel very much in evidence and both active with defamation and very unreasonable - and unsuccessful - attack.
But something has now occurred which seems strange at this juncture and entirely too pat. I have received from an unimpeachable source an invitation to go to Russia. I have been told that this would be as easy as taking a taxi to the airport.
But the oddity of this invitation is that the person extending it, evidently on behalf of the Russian government, would not know anything about the trouble in Phoenix. He obviously has no connection with anything or anyone in Phoenix. Further, he knows little or nothing of Dianetics and Scientology and their organizational history and would not know, by any usual means, what occurred in Phoenix. Out of the blue, on an acquaintance with me from many, many years ago he locates me here, is very quiet and casual and then gradually works into the Russian situation and finally, with a burst of enthusiasm confides in me that in view of the state of my organizations in the United States (about which he would really know nothing in fact) and in view of the fact that I "am a cinch to be ruined by all the people who hate me in Internal Revenue" there is "really nothing left for it but to accept this Russian offer."
[page 2]
L. RON HUBBARD, D.D., PH.D.
In the greatest spirit of friendship and comeraderie [sic] it seems that I can go to Russia as an advisor or a consultant and have my own laboratories and receive very high fees. And it is all so easy because it has already been ascertained that I could get my passport extended for Russia and all I had to do was go to Paris and there a Russian plane would pick me up and that would be that.
Indeed I suppose that that would be that.
This is my third invitation to go to Russia. The first was extended to me by a member of Amtorg in New York in 1938 who knew of my work in the field of the mind. The second occurred less directly in 1948 after some personal difficulty. This third has come when the Phoenix organization has been collapsed and it would not be known that it did not influence my own affairs as much as it might be thought.
With this some of the personnel connected with the recent Phoenix trouble has now drifted into Washington. Shukrie Marinus, the girl connected with Jackins in Seattle has arrived here. Wm. Burke Belknap, although an officer in Phoenix seems either the effect of that activity or assisted it and is here, busy on the phone eight hours a day with local calls in an area where he has never lived. Carol Hadley Bryans, also an officer in Phoenix, has likewise arrived and is likewise busy on the phone but neither of these last two seem prone to do any work but are very busy spreading disquiet amongst the personnel connected with me here. Two young men, also strangely connected arrived here and were sent home by me quickly - Bernard McKnown and Jim Henry both formerly of Hollywood - they arrived anxious to discredit the better people in the organization. One Jack Horner has come here and has many rumors with which to upset Washington personnel - Horner will be recalled as the minister recently deported from England by the Home Secretary; I have just stopped Horner from further defiance of English law on behalf of his "fiance" in London and further discrediting of Scientology in the English papers.
In short I have my hands a little full but unless such people actually can stir up great trouble we will survive easily and well. I am trying to disperse them from the area.
I suppose when the Russian-inclined "friend" finds that
[page 3]
L. RON HUBBARD, D.D., PH.D.
my desires to travel in and work in Russia do not exist, I can expect more violent measures.
I have not given you the name of this contact because he is a little too highly placed on the Hill and because it may be that he is acting in an entirely friendly way and it may be, as I sometimes learn, that the fate of Scientology and its adventures has good word of mouth. I would not submit you an irresponsible report which then might find me under the TV cameras telling one of this man's committees why I reported him as a Communist because I do not know that he is - I only know that he and his influence has been quite liberal and in all the smoke of the Summit he may be carried away with enthusiasm. But he did know, when no possible reasonable way existed for him to know too much about the activities of a subject about which he professes to know nothing and he has made several allusions to my possible fate in the United States, rather benign threats.
[signed] L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
More Hubbard letters: