20/20

Transcript

Description of video is in italics. VO=VOICEOVER

auditing session; pictures of L. Ron Hubbard’s books; picture of Hubbard

VOICEOVER: By doing these exercises and being tested on a lie detector-like machine called the E-meter, and make sure you follow exactly the teachings of Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard. You can have a better life, they say, by following L. Ron Hubbard--or maybe not.

L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.; Gerry Armstrong; Ford and Andrea Schwartz; picture of Hubbard

VO: L. Ron Hubbard’s son, Scientology’s researcher and other church officials have left the church, and now for the first time they are publicly saying that Hubbard is a liar and the church’s main interest is money.

L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.

JOHN STOSSEL: From the beginning this was a fraud.

L. RON HUBBARD, JR.: Right, correct, exactly.

VO: This man is L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., son of the founder of Scientology. He left the church in 1959. He’s kept in contact with church members but, out of fear for himself and his family, he has kept silent. Now he feels he has to warn people.

STOSSEL: Your father never meant to help people to start a religion? He didn’t believe it? He was just out to make money?

caption--L.RON HUBBARD, JR.

HUBBARD, JR.: He meant to start a religion for self-aggrandizement, for money, for power.

STOSSEL: Money and power.

HUBBARD, JR.: Um-hum. And he got that on a great basis, both of them.

picture of LRH

VO: Hubbard, Jr. was there from the beginning when his father founded Scientology. He was second in command for 10 years.

STOSSEL: From the beginning you were cheating people. You were telling them, "This is a religion, we’re gonna help you." But the real purpose was to make money.

HUBBARD, JR.: Correct.

STOSSEL: How much money?

HUBBARD, JR.: Well, I knew back in 1959 when I left the organization, the figures here [???] were only $20 or 30 million personally. But, um, I received figures recently as much as a quarter billion.

VO: The church denies that Hubbard, Sr. profited personally but does admit the church is well off.

Andrea Schwartz

VO: Some of the money was raised through people like Andrea Schwartz. She enrolled students in Scientology courses

caption: ANDREA SCHWARTZ, Former Scientologist

ANDREA SCHWARTZ: I would outline a program that pretty closely matched his savings account or matched what he could buy, you know, by getting a loan or whatever.

STOSSEL: And people would borrow money to take your courses?

SCHWARTZ: Honey, people would sell their houses, they’d lie to their parents, they’d do just about anything they could. I would have died for L. Ron Hubbard. If I had gotten an order, "This is what you need to do to make planet Earth a better place," I would have done it.

picture of Hubbard; Gerry Armstrong

VO: But what do you find when you look carefully at Mr. Hubbard? Gerry Armstrong was so close to Hubbard, the church appointed him researcher for Hubbard’s biography. He assembled thousands of documents on Hubbard, but when he read them--:

caption: GERRY ARMSTRONG, Former Scientologist

GERRY ARMSTRONG: L. Ron Hubbard became a lie.

picture of Scientology book with highlighted text

VO: In Scientology’s texts, Hubbard claimed he miraculously cured himself of combat wounds.

ARMSTRONG: He was never wounded.

picture of hospital bed; drawing supposedly of Hubbard with dark glasses on

ARMSTRONG (voice of): He was never crippled. He was never blinded.

ARMSTRONG (on camera): He did spend some time under medical care for ulcers.

HUBBARD, JR.: 99% of what my father has written and said about himself is fully untrue. He just—

STOSSEL: Just made it up.

HUBBARD, JR.: That’s right.

picture of Dianetics book

VO: Profits from the best seller went not to religion, says his son, but to the importing of drugs.

HUBBARD, JR.: He furnished the money, I ran around--I went along to load the money, um, and through Mafia [??] friends of his we imported, um, cocaine and heroin through Colombia.

STOSSEL: People were giving you money to get happiness, religion from learning and you were going to Mexico and Colombia with your father to buy drugs? Marijuana and cocaine, right?

HUBBARD, JR.: Correct.

maps of England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States with the names of the areas shown as the map of each country was shown; picture of Hubbard; picture of the Apollo

VO: Then in England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, government agencies started investigating Hubbard and the church. Hubbard, however, never had to answer any questions, because he moved Scientology’s headquarters to this ship, and for five years he ran the church from the ship.

STOSSEL: You were on the boat with him for four years.

ARMSTRONG: Um-hum.

wedding pictures of Gerry Armstrong

STOSSEL: You got married on the boat.

ARMSTRONG: Right. He gave away my wife.

picture of Hubbard with Gerry Armstrong’s wife; another wedding picture

STOSSEL: He was the surrogate father of the bride.

ARMSTRONG: Exactly.

picture of the Apollo

VO: Several church officials who were on the boat now say Hubbard used the boat to store millions of dollars.

STOSSEL: You would see it, help process it?

ARMSTRONG: Uh, I helped clear it through customs.

STOSSEL: Millions of dollars.

ARMSTRONG: Millions. In briefcases.

pictures of Hubbard looking really dissipated; another picture of Hubbard with a hat and glasses

VO: Armstrong says in 1973 Hubbard went ashore to hide; and these pictures were taken of him in Queens, NY.

ARMSTRONG (voice of): The reason he fled the ship was because of the French fraud case. He grew his hair long as part of the disguise and whenever he went out in public he wore a little hat and glasses.

VO: At the same time, he and his church launched an attack on his enemies.

HUBBARD, JR.: My father’s basic policy has always been since at least since 1952 what’s called "Fair Game," which means that, um, anybody that speaks out against Scientology, writes about Scientology, he would do everything in his power to destroy them.

STOSSEL: Like what?

HUBBARD, JR.: Um, find out every mean, down, dirty thing that they ever did in their life and use it against them.

ARMSTRONG: An intelligence operation.

STOSSEL: An intelligence operation? Gathering information on whom?

ARMSTRONG: Um, anyone who would oppose L. Ron Hubbard and his dream.

Internal Revenue Service building; Justice Department building

VO: The Scientologists had many techniques for harassing their enemies. In the late 1970s they broke into the IRS and Justice Department to steal documents.

picture of Mary Sue Hubbard

VO: Nine Scientology officers including L. Ron Hubbard’s wife, Mary Sue, were convicted for that break-in.

Los Angeles Scientology church building

VO: Documents the FBI found in the church’s Los Angeles office suggested other ways to harass an enemy.

pictures of church documents

STOSSEL (reading from documents): "Order hundred of dollars of liquor in his name and have it delivered to his home to cause him trouble. Wake him up every night by calling him up on the phone and threatening him. Poison him while he’s asleep so he’ll never start another attack."

Los Angeles Scientology church; Rev. Heber Jentzsch and Scientology lawyer Harvey Silverglate

VO: Are these the policies of a church? The church provided two spokesmen, church lawyer Harvey Silverglate and Scientology International president Reverend Heber Jentzsch.

caption--Rev. HEBER JENTZCH, Scientology Spokesman

HEBER JENTZSCH: The church does not believe in that kind of a policy and has never held that kind of a policy. You’re bound to have a few people who do not agree to the moral principles of the church, but on the other hand—

STOSSEL: Who totally on their own go out and break into people’s offices.

JENTZSCH: On the other hand, what you’re missing is that millions and millions of people follow the moral precepts, apply those, and have brought a tremendous amount of happiness to their own lives.

STOSSEL: You made it clear after the break-ins that this was not church policy. At some point, did you make it extra clear to everybody, "Hey, we don’t break in"?

JENTZSCH: Correct.

HUBBARD, JR.: They’ve said that since about 5 minutes after my father created the policy [laughs] in 1950.

VO: The church says L. Ron, Jr. is a liar and even signed an affidavit admitting it.

JENTZSCH: He admits that he’s lied about the church and he’s lied in depositions, etc., and he wants to make a clean breast of it.

L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.; affidavit signed by L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.

VO: L. Ron, Jr. says he’s no liar. He signed that statement, he says, only because the Scientologists threatened his family.

Ford and Andrea Schwartz; Mike Flynn

VO: These Scientologists say they were instructed to harass the church’s current enemies like attorney Mike Flynn. Flynn is an enemy because several ex-Scientologists hired him to sue the church.

STOSSEL: They broke into your office, stole 20,000 documents.

caption--MICHAEL FLYNN, Attorney

MICHAEL FLYNN: Filed lawsuits all over the United States against me, um, sent postcards to me threatening to poison me. Um, I’ve had bomb threats called into my office, harassing telephone calls at all hours of the day and night.

STOSSEL (outside Los Angeles Church of Scientology): And how do Scientologists find out what’s happening in the enemy’s camp? Through spies and double agents like Ford and Andrea Schwartz.

STOSSEL (interviewing): What did you do?

FORD SCHWARTZ: I was an [narc??].

VO: Ford Schwartz says Scientology’s police organization called the Guardian’s Office assigned him and his wife Andrea to pose as deprogrammers, people who help people get out of Scientology.

caption--FORD SCHWARTZ, Former Scientologist

FORD SCHWARTZ: The point of the operation was to become the enemy completely.

STOSSEL: So you had one of your own people leading the opposition.

ANDREA SCHWARTZ: And--what better way to play the game? Playing both sides.

STOSSEL: You fooled Flynn.

FORD SCHWARTZ: I infiltrated the Michael Flynn network.

STOSSEL: He got you.

FLYNN: He got me.

Stossel holding document on L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.

VO: Ford also spied on Hubbard, Jr., provided data for this incredible document, a list of much of what Hubbard did or said over the past 30 years, that kept Hubbard, Jr. too nervous to speak out.

HUBBARD, JR.: Probably the main thing that Ford Schwartz did was try to, um, keep me contained.

VO: And they kept the media contained, too.

excerpt from KGO-TV news story about Scientology

VOICE OF TIM FINDLEY: The Sea Org is virtually Hubbard’s exclusive Navy. Each member of the Sea Organization signs a billion year contract to serve Scientology.

VO: This is part of a news story on Scientology taped by ABC’s San Francisco TV station KGO. The story never ran.

STOSSEL: You got a story killed at KGO.

FORD SCHWARTZ: Through media [??]

more footage from the WGO news show

VO: Ford Schwartz, posing as a Scientology opponent, got KGO to let him see the story. He quickly told the Guardian’s Office that the report was critical. The Guardian’ Office threatened lawsuits, and the story was never broadcast. ABC says it wasn’t newsworthy. Other stories have been killed.

STOSSEL: You got the UPI to kill a story on Scientology.

ANDREA SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

Todd Eastham; UPI news wire page

VO: UPI reporter Todd Eastham was about to send out this story, which Andrea says is true, about how her fellow Scientologists had once beaten her up. The Guardian’s Office got Andrea to sign a statement calling the story a lie, and they threatened lawsuit. The story didn’t run.

caption--TODD EASTHAM, United Press International

TODD EASTHAM: My sources had been discredited to the extent that we no longer really considered them decent sources, and without Ford and Andrea Schwartz, there was no story.

Reader’s Digest magazine cover with story "Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult"; last page of article

VO: And Ford tricked the Reader’s Digest so that when it ran a story about Scientology it said, "For help in getting out of the cult, call these numbers", all the numbers led to Ford Schwartz.

STOSSEL: You were basically a cheat.

FORD SCHWARTZ: Correct. I was basically a good con man, a cheat.

VO: How does the church answer these charges?

caption--HARVEY SILVERGLATE, Scientology attorney

HARVEY SILVERGLATE: Who can question what these people did? They said they did it, we have to assume that they did it.

STOSSEL: They said their bosses told them to do it as church policy—

SILVERGLATE: If they said somebody above them told them to do, let’s assume somebody above them told them to do it.

STOSSEL: And it’s church policy, they say--

SILVERGATE: That’s where we differ.

STOSSEL: Why are all these people saying these things?

SILVERGATE: There are mixed motives. Money is really the crux of the whole thing. You have here people who, while they were in the church, committed acts which they now, as ex-members, are testifying that they did in order that they can collect money from the church, which they claim is responsible for what they did. That is, in a nutshell, what is happening here.

STOSSEL: Sounds like the whole church was there to make money. Gerry Armstrong said he channeled millions of dollars to the ship and back. I think you’re in this to get rich.

JENTZSCH: Well--

STOSSEL: Can you tell me what you did with that money?

JENTZSCH: We have to answer to governments just like everybody else, and we file just like everybody else. We have the church [?????????] where this money’s gone.

Jentzsch; L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.; Ford Schwartz; legal summons

VO: So who do you believe? Current church officials or people who’ve left the church? Pending lawsuits may bring out more of the truth.

Michael Flynn

VO: Meanwhile, those who speak out are afraid.

FLYNN: I started to carry a weapon.

ARMSTRONG: I keep a knife with me at all times. I keep it--I sleep with a knife beside my bed--

STOSSEL: Because you think they might come and kill you because you have information that hurts them?

ARMSTRONG: I think they could.

HUGH DOWNS (in studio): Fascinating. You think we’ll ever know if Hubbard is alive at this moment?

STOSSEL: It’s hard to say. We don’t know if that tape is authentic or when it was made. If he is alive, his son’s lawsuit may now force him to come forward and prove it. Millions of dollars are at stake. Meanwhile, tomorrow morning, Hubbard’s wife will have her day in court. She is to be sentenced for that break-in at the IRS.

DOWNS: Shades of Howard Hughes.

STOSSEL: Yeah.

DOWNS: Thank you, John.

Transcript courtesy of Xenubat