Funny how no other account mentions Hubbards special assignment with the L A Police Force in which he was undercover and rid America of black magic. That was the story I had heard while in. I also saw a reproduction of the police badge he supposedly received, this copy was to go in the Phoenix residence the cult bought back in 01 or so.
I'm sure the badge was a fake or that there was some other story behind it. It seems too easy to disprove his LAPD association but can't find anything on this.
My guess is that someone in Scientology came across an old LA police ID card Hubbard had obtained in the late 1940s. As I recall, it's not a regular police ID, but something that would be given to someone on the level of a security guard. This seems to be from around the time that Hubbard was writing to the Veteran's Administration complaining that he can't work because of depression, yet also explaining that he can't come in for therapy due to his being involved in some theater group, etc. In other words, Hubbard was requesting free pills from the V.A. I suspect that this card was obtained in a moment of desperation - L. Ron the security guard - or as part of some scheme by Hubbard that never came to fruition. Hubbard, years later, did mention his brief involvement with the LA police in a lecture with the usual fabrication and embellishment. So who knows?
I also heard the story that Hubbard was sent in, by the LA Police, to break up a black magic group, etc. However, that story makes very little sense. It appear to be a variation of the original story, concocted by Hubbard in 1969, after the appearance of a 'Times of London' article on Hubbard's involvement with Magic(k)& Jack Parsons, in Pasadena, in 1946.
The 1969 'Times of London' article, and Scientology's response:
http://blacklies.xenu.ca/archives/19
The story invented by Hubbard is presented again in 1971, in slightly edited form, by Scientology Public Relations person David Gaiman, in response to a series of questions from Paulette Cooper (at the very end):
http://www.xenu.net/archive/books/tsos/sos-app.html
And then there's this, from a 1990 'Los Angeles Times' series on Scientology.
"In later years... Hubbard insisted that he had been working undercover for Naval Intelligence to break up black magic in America...
"But Parsons' widow, Cameron, disputed Hubbard's account in a brief interview with the 'Times'. She said the two men "liked each other very much," and "felt they were ushering in a force that was going to change things..."
See 'Part One':
http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/books/la-times-series.pdf
P.S. the top link - 'Times of London' articles - is currently down, so I'll leave it to anyone who's curious to find the material.
Hubbard, Crowley, Times of London should bring it up. OK. Now, the link is working again. Now that I'm typing this, I'll add my recommendation against diving into the bottomless pit of conspiracy theories on the Net. Just as there are non-Scientologists who believe that Hubbard's' hoax "Russian Textbook" of 1955 is authentic, there are some people who have bought into Hubbard's PR damage control story of his being a high level secret agent. One that comes to mind is a thick paper by the Lyndon LaRouche people -from the 1970s - that treats Hubbard's "I was a secret agent for the U.S. Government" story, not as PR damage control, but as an aha! moment, a revelation. To the LaRouche people, this was "proof" that Hubbard was part of MK-Ultra, etc. The LaRouchites regarded Hubbard, Crowley, and even the Beatles as agents of MK-Ultra, etc., and their analysis goes on and on.
And that's just one example of this sort of thing.
And no, the paper from the LaRouchites, as far I know, is not available on the Net.