Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

all with copies to President Nixon, who was yet to be engulfed by Watergate.
A few days later, Susan Meister's father arrived in Casablanca to investigate his daughter's death
but found it impossible to make headway with the disinterested Moroccan authorities, who were
somewhat more concerned with a recent attempted coup d'état than a lone American making
inquiries about his daughter. Meister, who refused to believe that Susan had committed suicide,
could not even discover where her body was being kept and in desperation he turned to L. Ron
Hubbard for help.
He later wrote a dispiriting account of his visit to the ship, escorted by Peter Warren: 'Passing the
guarded gates into the port compound, we had our first look at Hubbard's ship Apollo. It appeared
to be old and as we boarded it, the girls manning the deck gave us a hand salute. All were dressed
in work-type clothing of civilian origin. Most appeared to be young. Upon boarding, we were shown
the stern of the ship, which was used as a reading-room, with several people sitting in chairs
reading books. The mention of Susan seemed to meet with disapproval from those on board . . .
we were shown where Susan's quarters were in the stern of the ship below decks where it
appeared fifty or so people were sleeping on shelf-type bunks. Susan's letter had mentioned she
shared a cabin all the way forward with one other person. Next we were shown the cabin next to the
pilot house on the bridge where the alleged suicide had taken place . . . We were not allowed to
see any more of the ship. I requested an interview with Hubbard as he was then on board. Warren
said he would ask. He returned in about half an hour and said Hubbard had declined to see me.'
After his return to America, Meister discovered to his anger and astonishment that his daughter had
been buried even before he arrived in Morocco. He arranged to have the body exhumed and
returned to the United States, but before the remains of Susan Meister were put to rest, a final dirty
trick was played: Meister's local health authority in Colorado received an anonymous letter warning
of a cholera epidemic in Morocco that had so far caused two or three hundred deaths. 'It's been
brought to my attention,' wrote the poison pen, 'that the daughter of one George Meister died in
Morocco, either by accident or cholera, probably the latter.'[12]
At the beginning of 1972, Hubbard fell ill, suddenly and inexplicably, with a sickness that defied
diagnosis and presented a bewildering range of symptoms. Towards the end of January, the
Commodore sent a pathetic note to Jim Dincalci, the ship's medical officer: 'Jim, I don't think I'm
going to make it.'
Dincalci, who had been appointed medical officer on the strength of six months' experience as a
nurse before joining Scientology, was unsure what to do. He had been deeply shocked when he
first arrived on the ship in 1970 to realize that Hubbard became ill just like ordinary mortals, since
he clearly remembered reading in the first Dianetics book that it was possible to cure most
ailments with the power of the mind. In his first week as medical officer, Hubbard began
complaining of feeling unwell and Dincalci was very surprised when a doctor was called. He
prescribed a course of pain-killers and antibiotics, but Dincalci naturally did not bother to collect the
pills because he was convinced that Ron would not need them.
'I thought', he said, 'that as an operating thetan he would have total control of his body and of any
pain. When he discovered I hadn't got him the pain-killers, he flew off the handle and started
screaming at me.'[13]
Fearful of making another mistake, Dincalci sought advice about the Commodore's illness from
Otto Roos, who was one of the senior 'technical' Scientologists on board. Roos ventured the view
that the problem stemmed from some incident in his past which had not been properly audited.