All of them, those in power, and those who want the power, would pamper us, if we agreed to overlook their crookedness by wilfully restricting our activities.
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Investigative journalist and writer.
(1987): "Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard"
While he was in New York, Ron [Hubbard] naturally looked
up his old science fiction friends and one of them introduced
him to Sam Merwin, who was then editing the 'Thrilling'
group of magazines. 'I found him a very amusing guy,'
Merwin recalled, 'and bought several stories from him.
He was really quite a character. I always knew he was
exceedingly anxious to hit big money - he used to say
he thought the best way to do it would be to start a
cult.'
How the Church of Scientology tried (and failed) to suppress Bare-Faced Messiah
Russell Miller started work on Bare-Faced Messiah
in 1985, not long before L. Ron Hubbard's death. He
was well aware that he would face problems. Every
author who had written 'unsanctioned' books about the
Church of Scientology, and many journalists as well,
had been threatened with legal and sometimes physical
reprisals; many had been harassed and defamed as well.
He knew that the Church could go to extreme lengths
to suppress critical comment - in the 1970s, New York
journalist Paulette Cooper very nearly went to prison
for alleged terroristic activities before the FBI found
that the Church leadership was responsible for framing
her.
Given this background, it's to Miller's credit that he persevered. The threats were not long in coming. When the Church learned of his project, The Bare-Faced Messiah Interviews
L. Ron Hubbard would have got nowhere without two advantages
which, in hindsight, he was extremely fortunate
to enjoy: great charisma and a lot of devoted friends
and followers. When he was doing the research for
Bare-Faced Messiah, Russell Miller conducted interviews
with a number of people who had known Hubbard at various
times of his life - family, friends and followers. The
documents linked below are the transcripts of these
interviews. Curiously, even though several remembered
Hubbard behaving in a sometimes appalling manner towards
those in his power, the great majority remembered him
with some affection.
Gerry Armstrong: "CSC v. Russell Miller et al."
Barefaced Messiah by Russell Miller
Preface: The Gerry Armstrong Story
Chaleff Affidavit 10-05-1987 See also: [...]
Russell Miller is a prize-winning journalist and the
author of eleven previous books. He was born in east
London in 1938 and began his career in journalism at
the age of sixteen. While under contract to the SUNDAY
TIMES MAGAZINE he won four press awards and was voted
Writer of the Year by the Society of British Magazine
Editors. His book MAGNUM, on the legendary photo agency,
was described by John Simpson as 'the best book on photo-journalism
I have ever read', and his oral histories of D-Day,
NOTHING LESS THAN VICTORY, and the SOE, BEHIND THE LINES
were widely acclaimed, both in Britain and in the United
States. His most recent book is CODENAME TRICYCLE, the
story of playboy and WWII double-agent Dusko Popov.
|
The Sunday
Times (Jul. 1990): "Scientologists in dirty tricks
campaign" by Richard Palmer and Richard Caseby The Sunday Times (Nov. 1987): "Cult's private detective fires at journalists" by Richard Palmer The Sunday Times (Oct. 1987): "'Murder' used in plot against cult author" by Richard Palmer |