The Times Newspaper (U.K.) reported on August 6, 2009 that the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, was exposed as a fraud 30 years ago by British diplomats who were investigating his qualifications.

Scientologists threatened to sue the British Government for libel after it acted in 1968 to ban followers from entering the country to visit the sect's world headquarters in East Grinstead, West Sussex.
To defend itself, Britain needed to establish whether Lafayette Ron Hubbard was a charlatan.

Department of Health files, some closed until 2019, have been released early to The Times by the National Archives after a successful request under the Freedom of Information Act.

The papers include a signed statement by a former senior Scientologist who said that he had been informed of the doctorate scam by one of Hubbard's collaborators.

"I understand it is asserted that L. Ron Hubbard was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Sequoia University on February 10, 1953, in recognition of his outstanding work in the fields of Dianetics and Scientology and that the said degree was recorded with the Department of Education of the State of California," John McMaster stated.

"The position is L. Ron Hubbard [and others] acquired premises somewhere in Los Angeles which they had registered as a university called Sequoia and immediately awarded each other doctorates." Dianetics is the so-called "science" founded by Hubbard to provide spiritual healing.

The British Consulate in Los Angeles investigate this claim and said: "After exhaustive enquiries we have now tracked down organisation named which was closed down by state authorities in 1971 and all documents impounded. The facts are that it neither has nor ever had approval and its status is not recognised in California . . . It is a 'will of the wisp' organisation which has no premises and does not really exist. It has not and never had any authority whatsoever to issue diplomas or degrees and the dean is sought by the authorities 'for questioning'." The diplomat said that Californian authorities had voluminous files on the college.

The remarkable allegation that Scientologists were suspected of posing as doctors to rid themselves of an inquisitor and evidence against them emerges in a further British telegram.

On May 18, 1977, Louis Sherbourne, of the British Consulate-General in Los Angeles, wrote a confidential message showing how nervous US officials had become of Scientology. "We have now come up against the usual brick wall of missing files and silence, each and every person and organisation treading very warily for fear of a libel or slander action."

Mr Sherbourne wrote that Sequoia had been founded by "Rev Fr Damian Hough alias Dr Joseph William Hough" in 1939 as a "diploma mill".

"Apart from the suspicion that Hubbard bought the university from Hough to serve the needs of the Scientology organisation, we can establish no other positive connection," he said.

"United States Internal Revenue Services tried hard to obtain firmer evidence but appear to have failed. A recent attempt to resurrect the enquiry resulted in all the papers from 1939 to 1963 being sent to Sacramento to the office of the State Attorney General.

"By 'an amazing coincidence' the Deputy Attorney General dealing with them was taken ill and after seeing some 'doctors' was retired 'due to his mental health'. My very incensed informant in the California Department of Education is convinced that the 'doctors' were scientologists who hypnotised him into mental ill-health and he feels very bitter but can do nothing about it."

A spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology said the suggestion that Scientologists had hypnotised a deputy attorney general was "simply reflective of how astronomically paranoid they were".

Edited from the full Times report available here.

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