Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

swaggered up to the front door with a bottle under each arm thinking he was going to take Mrs
Smith by storm. But they wouldn't let him past the front door and he came back very upset, really
disgruntled.'[14]
Hubbard's high profile as the 'millionaire-financier' who boasted that he could solve the UDI crisis
won him few friends among Rhodesia's deeply conservative white society. He often spoke of his
willingness to help the government, pointing out that he had been trained in economics and
government at Princeton, and seemed surprised that his services were not welcomed. On
television, in newspaper interviews and in all his public pronouncements, Hubbard professed
support for Ian Smith's government, although in private he thought Smith was a 'nasty bit of work'
who was incapable of leadership.[15] Similarly, he publicly espoused sympathy for the plight of the
black majorities in both Rhodesia and South Africa, while privately admitting contempt for them.
Blacks were so stupid, he told John McMaster, that they did not give a reading on an E-meter.[16]
At the beginning of July, Hubbard was invited to address the Rotary Club in Bulawayo. He delivered
a rambling, hectoring speech telling the assembled businessmen how they should run their
country, their businesses and their lives and when it was reported in the local newspaper it
appeared to be faintly anti-Rhodesian. A couple of days later, Hubbard received a letter from the
Department of Immigration informing him that his application for an extension to his Alien's
Temporary Residence Permit had been unsuccessful: 'this means that you will be required to leave
Rhodesia on or before the 18th July, 1966.'
Hubbard was stunned. Up until that moment he had believed himself to be not just a prominent
personality in Rhodesia, but a popular one. He asked his friends in the Rhodesian Front party to
make representations on his behalf to the Prime Minister, but to no avail. 'Smith ranted and raved at
them,' he reported later, 'told them I had been deported from Australia, was wanted in every country
in the world, that my business associates had been complaining about me and that I must go.'[17]
The Rhodesian Government refused to make any comment on the expulsion order, but Hubbard
had few doubts about who was behind it - it was obviously a Communist plot to get him out of the
country because he was the man most likely to resolve the UDI crisis.
On 15 July, Hubbard lined up his household staff on the lawn in front of his house on John Plagis
Avenue and bade them an emotional farewell for the benefit of Rhodesian television, whose
cameras were recording the departure of the American millionaire-financier. At the airport there
were more reporters waiting to interview him before he left and one of them warned him to expect a
posse from Fleet Street to greet him in London. He was quite cheered by the prospect and began
to think that his expulsion might actually increase his status as an international personality.
As Hubbard's plane lifted off the tarmac at Salisbury, frenzied preparations were being made in
Britain to give him a hero's welcome on his return. The news that the revered founder of Scientology
was being kicked out of Rhodesia had initially been greeted with dismay and disbelief at Saint Hill
Manor. 'We were shocked,' said Ken Urquhart, 'no one could understand how such a thing could
happen. It was an even bigger surprise for the other orgs because none of them knew he was in
Rhodesia. It was supposed to be a big secret. I was by then working as LRH Communicator World-
Wide and it was my job to code and decode the telexes that were going backwards and forwards
and between Saint Hill and Rhodesia. He didn't want anyone to know he was away because he
thought everyone would start slacking.'
Coaches were laid on to transport every available Scientologist from East Grinstead to Heathrow
on the morning of Saturday, 16 July. They took with them hastily prepared 'Welcome Home'
banners but neglected to obtain the necessary permission to wave them; airport police politely