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. Similarly he publicly espoused sympathy for the plight of the black majorities of 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 .
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 telling him that his applications 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 July 18, 1966."
Hubbard was stunned. Up to that moment he had believed himself to be not just a prominent personality in Rhodesia, but a popular one. He asked friends in the Rhodesian Front party to make representations on his behalf to the prime minister, but to no avail.
John McMaster — originally proclaimed Scientology's first Clear but later declared — suggests a more pedestrian reason Hubbard was not allowed to stay in Rhodesia. From Stewart Lamont's Religion Inc., Harrap: London, 1986, pg. 54:
McMaster remembers a heavy-handed attempt by Hubbard to influence Prime Minister Ian Smith while he was living in Alexander Park in Salisbury. Ron had his chauffeur drive him out in his yellow Pontiac with two bottles of pink champagne, which he had to leave with the butler because Mrs Smith would not receive him. "There are things like protocol, you know, just general decency," says McMaster. "You don't just barge in on somebody like a tramp steamer misdocking. All these nuances of understanding, I began to realize, he didn't have." With some distaste John McMaster adds, "He told me Ian Smith was going to be shot because he was a 'Suppressive'. I now have no comment. But the real reason that Hubbard was kicked out of Rhodesia was that his cheques bounced."