Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

smoking cigarettes like mad and every time he saw a police car he'd scream, "There they are,
they're after us!" We had to keep turning off the highways and freeways, stopping continually, to
avoid police cars. We went through some real hokey places. One time he got out of the car and
started beating the roof with frustration. I said to him very quietly, "Get back in the car, sir.
Everything's all right ."
'He kept saying we had to get to New York, we had to get to New York, but as we were driving
through New Jersey I could see he was getting more and more affected by the pollution. He was
hyperventilating, panting for breath. It was scary, really scary. We headed for Queens, where he had
stayed before, and an aeroplane went overhead throwing out all kinds of shit. I pointed to it and
said, "Sir, I'm not going to do this to you. There's no way you're going to stay here." By then he was
like a child and mumbled something about do whatever you want. I said we should turn round and
go back to Washington DC. He just said, "Do whatever you have to do."'[7]
Mike Douglas swung the wheel on the Chevrolet and turned back in the direction from which they
had just come, south along the New Jersey turnpike, across the Delaware river into Maryland as far
as the outskirts of Washington DC. They found rooms for the night in a hotel just off the Capital
Beltway. Next morning, Kima drove downtown to look for more permanent accommodation. She
found a comfortable brownstone on Q Street in Georgetown, only nine or ten blocks from the
Washington org, and signed a $1300-a-month rental agreement.
Within a few days of moving into the brownstone, Hubbard had recovered his composure. Telex
communications were set up and the usual retinue of messengers and aides moved in, including
Jim Dincalci, who drove up from Florida towing a U-Haul trailer loaded with the Commodore's
personal possessions and private papers. Daily reports began arriving from Mary Sue, many of
them detailing the activities of Operation Snow White. 'It was strange to think', said Kima, 'that while
we were lying low in Washington, other Scientologists were going through the files in government
buildings not far from where we were living.'
In the bustling streets of Georgetown, Hubbard felt safe to go out and about, although he grew a
beard and took to wearing a curious assortment of old clothes in the fond belief that he would
merge into the cosmopolitan atmosphere. 'He bought clothes from Salvation Army stores, real
gungey stuff,' said Alan Vos, one of the aides who had moved into the Q Street brownstone. 'It was
strange because on the ship he had had all these phobias about dust and smells and how his
clothes had to be washed, but that all vanished when we were living together in Washington.
'He used to go out walking and sit in the sidewalk cafés on Connecticut Avenue. The Scientology
office was just a couple of blocks away and he was often handed flyers by people recruiting for
Scientology; he thought it was very funny. One day he got talking to a woman in a restaurant about
Scientology and he suggested she should go round to the org on S Street. I heard later that when
she got there they asked who had sent her and she pointed to LRH's picture on the wall and said,
"That man over there." They went crazy and started an investigation on her, thinking she was some
kind of government plant.
'It seemed to me that LRH was happy in Washington, happy to be getting out, mixing with other
people, going to the movies. On the ship he had no idea what was happening in the world. He
thought about moving his headquarters to Washington and looked at a property - there was a hotel
for sale on Dupont Circle - but Mary Sue talked him out of it. She didn't like Washington and
convinced him it was too dangerous. That's the kind of thing she used to do - play on his fears and
psychoses about violence and police.'[8]