Authors: Ron Miscavige
In the fall of 1980, David had had a serious asthma attack, so bad that he was taken to the emergency room at the hospital in Hemet. While in the hospital he said that he had a major realization about power. “Power,” he said, “is not granted. It is assumed.” That seems like a strange epiphany to have during an asthma episode. Nevertheless, it became the tenet that took him to the top of the organization. What happened was relayed to me by people close to him at the time. That insight became his operating motto, and by 1981, David had elevated himself to a position that effectively removed him from oversight of anybody in the Commodore's Messenger Organization. To use a football expression, he saw daylight and broke for it with everything he had. Thus began what I think was an unholy alliance between him and L. Ron Hubbard.
Despite any appearances to the contrary, Scientology as an organization was never run the way conventional groups operate. L. Ron Hubbard did things his way, and the organization that formed around him reflected that. For most of 1980 and 1981, Hubbard was writing books in seclusion with only two aides to assist him, Pat Broeker and his wife, Annie. She was a longtime messenger; her tenure went back to the days on the
Apollo.
Hubbard's absence was referred to as “being off the lines,” meaning he was not regularly on the normal channels of communication. Essentially, he was allowing the messengers that he had trained over the years to run Scientology internationally. He spent the next 20 months living in his Greyhound busâsized motor home, assisted by the Broekers and writing his last novels.
During this period, Pat Broeker occasionally met with the head of the messengers, a young woman named Dede Voegeding. The meetings usually took place at night at predetermined locations, most often in the Los Angeles area. To ensure Dede's safety, David or another man would drive her to the meeting location. Pat and David were old friends from David's early days at the La Quinta base, and they renewed the friendship during these encounters. Shortly after David began accompanying Dede to these meetings, Hubbard removed her from her post as head of the CMO. Although she could not say for sure, Dede told author Janet Reitman, when interviewed for Janet's book, that she believed Hubbard had been fed false information about her. Dede was replaced as the head of the CMO by her sister, Gale Irwin.
Concurrent with Dede's removal, David moved into a post called special project operator, or Special Pjt Ops, which was mainly concerned with defending Hubbard against the litany of legal actions being filed against him by various agencies. The most notable stemmed from the FBI raid of the Los Angeles church headquarters in 1977 that revealed massive infiltration of the government by Scientology operatives. Upon assuming the duties of Special Pjt Ops, David began reporting to Hubbard himself through Pat Broeker. David was now autonomous from the CMO, answering only to Hubbard. I think back to that day when David told me he wanted to go help L. Ron Hubbard, and clearly my son was realizing his ambition. After this promotion, I have been told, his attitude became brasher and less respectful of those with whom he worked. His firecracker personality had fewer and fewer checks and balances. A mean streak appeared, as did a bossy attitude. I can speculate that the more power he got, the more he wanted.
His assumption of the Special Pjt Ops position opened the door for David to get rid of another potential rival, Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue. She took the fall for Hubbard after the 1977 FBI raid and eventually ended up going to jail to protect him, as did ten others, all convicted of conspiring to steal documents from the U.S. government. Hubbard had said that Mary Sue should leave her post as head of the church's Guardian's Office (its legal and public relations arm) to concentrate on her legal case. Before Dede was removed from her job, she and David had argued about how Mary Sue's stepping down should be handled. David wanted her made an example of in an effort to further distance Hubbard from the fallout of the raid, while Dede wanted to protect Mary Sue as much as possible and let her slip quietly away from the limelight. With Dede's removal, David's means of dealing with Mary Sue won out, and he had her ostracized and later purged from many Scientology records, no easy task since she had been Hubbard's staunchest confidante as well as his wife from the early days of Dianetics and Scientology. No one had supported Hubbard through the years more than Mary Sue.
Hubbard often prefaced his lectures with casual remarks about
goings-on
around the organization at St. Hill or in Scientology in general, and he often mentioned Mary Sue's name. These mentions have since been edited out of Hubbard's lectures. Every church in the world maintains a public showpiece referred to as an “L. Ron Hubbard office.” These are there to maintain Hubbard's presence symbolically as the “source” of Scientology. On his desk were always photographs of his wife and children. These have been removed as part of purging Mary Sue from the records. When she died in 2002, any mention of her passing became conspicuous by its absence. The usual practice when a Sea Org member dies is for the Executive Director International to issue an “In Memoriam,” which informs Scientologists of the death, detailing the deceased's contributions and thanking them for their good work. The order to ignore that protocol in Mary Sue's case could have come only from David. How much her being banished from the Scientology she did so much to help create contributed to her relatively early demise at age 71, I cannot say, but I personally think it could have been a factor.
In late 1981, Hubbard resumed regular communications with the organization, and he asked for reports to be sent to him summarizing every aspect of Scientology operations, from legal situations to how organizations around the world were faring to matters at the local facility in Gilman Hot Springs.
As the head of the CMO, Gale Irwin had overall responsibility and authority for sending the reports to Hubbard. She also had the entire Scientology network to command, so when there were meetings with Pat Broeker in which she had to deliver reports and other administrative items for Hubbard and receive his responses to earlier reports, on a few occasions she let David meet with Pat alone. These meetings were often
time-consuming
affairs. For security purposes, Gale first had to go to a public phone booth at a prearranged location somewhere in the
Riverside
âSan Bernardino area. Pat Broeker would then call and tell Gale where to meet him so he could get the reports and pass along to her Hubbard's responses to the earlier reports. Usually they met in Los Angeles, often near LAX. With this complicated protocol, the hours of driving and the meeting itself, a single meeting with Pat chewed up most of the workday, and Gale found it difficult to spare the time to do it.
In time, Gale became concerned with David's unbridled ambition and unruly behavior. She alerted the most senior technical person in Scientology, David Mayo, to interview David to find out what he was withholding from his colleagues and to “clean him up,” Scientology jargon that means to get him straight with the group again. David refused to submit to any sort of dealings with Mayo and stormed into Gale's office. She confronted him about his behavior, at which point (she later told Janet Reitman) David became furious and physically tackled her, sending her through an open door. At this, Gale became alarmed and arranged to meet with Broeker to have David removed from his post lest he jeopardize the tricky legal position Hubbard was in, not to mention the disruptions David was causing locally with his behavior.
According to several accounts, Gale arranged to be driven to a phone booth to await a phone call from Pat about a meeting. When David found out where she had gone, he packed several of his associates into a van and raced to head Gale off. When the van arrived, one of the group used a tire iron to destroy the pay phone, making any contact with Pat impossible. As Gale recounted it, David then nagged her to get into the van. There he trashed her verbally while the others mostly looked on in cowardly silence. Gale was removed as the head of the CMO and replaced by a more malleable messenger named John Nelson, someone who had worked with David when he headed up the area responsible for running Sea Org missions. Any perceived rivals were now out of the way.
One final story from around that time illustrates that life within David's widening sphere of influence was becoming increasingly serious. Around Christmas time the messengers got into the spirit of the season by drawing names from a hat and then becoming a “secret Santa” for the person whose name they had drawn. The idea was to send little joke gifts in the days before Christmas and then follow that up with a nicer present on Christmas.
This is where a young woman named Tonja Burden comes in; she had been Dave's girlfriend for a time back in Clearwater. Tonja, in the meantime, had tired of the Sea Org and left; she was now involved in a lawsuit against the church. One of the senior messengers had a picture from Clearwater days showing Dave with his arm around Tonja. She convinced David's “secret Santa” to send this to him along with one of his joke gifts. David opened the gift and was not amused. From what I was told, he exploded and ordered a
full-scale
investigation to determine who had sent him the photo. That pretty much put the kibosh on the Christmas cheer for the messengers that year.
That was only the beginning. In later years and increasingly during my time in the Sea Org, Christmas became almost an afterthought. Some years the occasion was marked by the galley's preparing a nice meal and that was basically it. While there was a tree and meager gifts were exchanged, any free time to enjoy the holidays with friends and family was next to zero. The prevailing mood was intense pressure to complete the work needed to prepare for an international briefing delivered to Scientologists around the world summarizing the year's accomplishments. A friend from the base once told me that he was forced to stay up all Christmas Eve one year, as well as all Christmas Day, working on speeches for the upcoming event.
It wasn't always that grim. In the early years of the Sea Org, Hubbard presided over parties aboard the
Apollo,
and when the Sea Org moved to land, these traditions continued, especially during the holidays. People had time to shop for presents and spend time with their families. There were parties and outings. People had some time to relax. But as the years passed, people had less chance to enjoy traditional holidays, until finally they passed almost unnoticed by Sea Org members, except silently; they definitely missed having a few bright moments in their otherwise dreary lives.
In 1985, Scientology became embroiled in a legal case in Portland, Oregon. A woman who had taken Scientology courses sued, claiming she had been harmed by Scientology. A jury awarded her damages totaling $39 million. It became a huge rallying cry for Scientologists around the world, and the church sent out a call to arms. They responded in what was to date the church's most
high-profile
event in its history. Thousands of Scientologists flocked to Portland from all over the world to protest the verdict, which eventually was overturned.
By now, David was 25 and the single most powerful figure in the church next to Hubbard, who remained in seclusion though still the head of Scientology. David and I were still in touch regularly, and he told me about what was going on in Portland. He spent weeks there directing the protest operations and the legal strategy that eventually saw the judgment overturned.
Back in Philadelphia, I had other matters on my mind. By pure coincidence, the very morning that the call to arms went out, my phone rang.
“Mr. Ronald Miscavige? This is Sergeant Rafferty from the police department in King of Prussia. We would like you to come down to the station because there's something that happened that you might be able to assist us with.”
I was mystified. “Well, can you tell me what it's about?”
“Not really, but if you come down here, we can go over it.”
I agreed and hung up. I turned to Loretta and said, “Listen, they want me to go down to the station in King of Prussia to go over something, but I have no idea what they want.”
We drove to the station and walked in. I noticed that when we entered, the officers were looking at me but suddenly averted their eyes. Immediately my antennae went up.
Uh-oh
. Something's going on here, I thought.
A couple detectives took us into a conference room and sat us down. “Listen,” one of them began, “there is a girl that somebody attempted to rape, and we want to know if you know anything about this.”
I was floored. “Are you joking?”
“No, sir, we are serious,” replied the other.
“Why would I know something about someone who somebody attempted to rape?”
“Okay, let's level with you: there was an attempted rape, and you are a suspect.”
“Are you kidding me?! I'm suspected of attempting to rape somebody?!”
“Well, not only that but you are the only suspect, and we know you did it.”
“Say that again.”
“Yep. We know that you did it.”
“You're out of your fucking minds! You're completely insane! This must be some kind of prank. What are you talking about?” I was completely flabbergasted. I could not believe what I was hearing. My
fight-or
-flight
response kicked in big time, and I could feel the blood draining from my face, yet I had nowhere to run and no one to fight. My mind began spinning.
They showed me a composite drawing of the suspect. It could only have been me. It looked so much like me that I could have posed for the picture. I was shaken to my core. “When did this take place?”
“Last October.”
“Who was the girl?”
“We aren't at liberty to tell you that right now.”
Loretta then piped up, “Maybe it was Joanne . . .”
Loretta and I had been separated for a year, and I dated a woman named Joanne for a short time. Now, my own wife, with whom I had since gotten back together, was trying to help the police pin this rape charge on me! At that moment, I felt as though I had been thrown under the bus emotionally as well as physically.
The detectives got some more information from me and then allowed us to leave.
We got back in the car and I let Loretta have it. I really blew my top.
“Jesus Christ almighty! What the hell were you thinking about? How could you possibly think this of me?”
“Well,” she said dismissively, “these days I'm willing to believe anything.”
I was stunned. I had no idea what had just happened. After we got home, I called Dave out in Portland and said, “I don't know if this is connected with the church, but when you sent out the call for people to come to Portland, I get called by the police and accused of attempting to rape somebody.”
“Listen,” he replied, “you're not on your own. I'm going to send somebody with bail money. If they think they are going to fight you alone, they're up against the whole Church of Scientology.”
Since David had joined the Sea Org, some of the worst in him had begun to come out, if accounts from others are credible, but that was never evident to me personally. He was supportive of me in this crisis, and we spoke often in the coming weeks. The very next day, church attorney Michael Hertzberg showed up and said he had a suitcase full of cash so I wouldn't have to be in jail as the case unfolded. The police, however, did arrest me, took my fingerprints and booked me, but I was released on my own recognizance because I had no criminal record.
Dave sent two people from the church's Office of Special Affairs (OSA), the legal arm formerly known as the Guardian's Office, to investigate the detectives on the case. It was odd that on the day thousands of Scientologists were in Portland to protest a huge damage award against the church, the father of a leader of the church was accused of being a rapist. Anyone who wanted to cast the church in a bad light could have made hay with that one. The two OSA people never could find a direct link, but there was suspicion that one detective was connected to the CIA.
People unfamiliar with the church may not know that Scientology has a branch created specifically to deal with its legal and public relations issues. This is OSA. The lawyers retained by the church to deal with its legal cases work with OSA staffers. Church representatives who address the church's public relations matters are also under OSA. This branch has an investigative unit that hires private investigators (through attorneys, to create levels of deniability) to surveil people critical of the church or of David. It has a network of church members or former staff members who spy on former members who are considered enemies, and members of this network also infiltrate and disrupt the activities of any groups that might be considered competition for the church. Now, I ask you, what other church has a spy ring? Of course, the church categorically denies this.
OSA recommended an attorney and I went to meet him in his office. The guy was laid back and mellow, too much so for what I was facing. I did not like the impression he made. I called Dave and said, “We have to get another attorney. I will go to jail for something I did not commit. This guy is no good.”
The church found another attorney named Rosetti. I went to see him and he told me, “Here are my qualifications: Do you remember the Main Line rapist? He was a guy who would accost chicks and force them to blow him at gunpoint. He was caught by the state police in the act of forcing a girl to blow him with a gun to her head. I got him off.”
“Main Line rapist?! Listen,” I protested, “I didn't do it!”
“I don't care if you did it. I'm not a priest. I'm an attorney.” At that point, I knew we had the right guy.
Shortly thereafter Michael Hertzberg visited me again. He explained how the justice system works.
“These guys need to produce statistics,” he began. “If they can pin something on somebody, that is proof that they have done their job.”
“But I didn't do it!” I protested.
“I know you didn't do it, but they don't care. All they want is to gather enough evidence. They need to find somebody who matches this description, and you happened to be pointed out by somebody and they are going ahead with their case.”
I didn't have time to become outraged or even struck dumb by what he was telling me because at that moment two police vans pulled up in front of the house with their lights flashing. They blocked traffic on the street, clambered out and marched up to the door. Michael got up and answered the door. The officers announced they were there to search my home.
“Do you have a warrant?” he asked.
“Yes, we do.” So Michael let them inside.
They began going through each room in the house. In our closet upstairs they found a box of those latex gloves that doctors and nurses use at the hospital. I had asked Loretta to bring a box home so I could keep my hands clean when I changed the oil in the car.
The cops found the gloves and looked at me knowingly. In their minds a box of latex gloves equated with my being a criminal. It was right out of a Monty Python skit, but it was not a laughing matter. My thought was, How could you be so stupid to think that because you found some rubber gloves that means I attempted to rape a girl?
For at least half an hour I followed them from room to room, answering their idiotic questions. They found a tan topcoat that belonged to Loretta. If I put it on, the sleeves would have come halfway up my forearms. They took it as evidence anyway.
From that day onward, none of the neighbors would talk to me. They had no idea why the cops came or what it was all about, yet they assumed the worst. Two vans with sirens and flashing lights will do that to people.
It was terrible. I was a complete wreck. In 30 days I lost 30 pounds. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. They sent an auditor from Flag to audit me and help me deal with the stress.
Finally, it came time for the preliminary hearing. I was in the courtroom when my accuser entered. When she went up on the stand, I could see she was at least as tall as I am, if not taller. That was a small relief. Police had told me that my accuser said the assailant was at least four inches taller than she. And the woman was certainly not Joanne, as Loretta had so helpfully suggested during the initial interrogation. The case began to crumble in the courtroom that morning, and finally the prosecutor pointed at me and asked my accuser
point-blank
, “Is that the guy?”
She stared at me for a full minute, which was easily the longest minute of my life.
“I'm not sure.”
“Dismissed!” boomed the judge. “You don't have a positive identification.”
Like that, the ordeal was over. My initial reaction was relief. And then rage at the two detectives who had put me through hell on the basis of this flimsy evidence. I started to go after
themâmy
hastily conceived plan was to punch both of them in the head. These guys should have known that they did not have enough evidence to convict me. They knew that the alleged victim could say only that she was “pretty sure” that I was her attacker. Their case was meritless. They knew that the victim had described her assailant as being about 5'10", but I was nowhere near that tall. Only a friend in the courtroom prevented me from tearing the detectives' heads off. It's a good thing, because then I really would have been guilty of assaulting someone.
Afterward, I was able to piece together what had happened. One day in late March I had gone to an apartment complex in King of Prussia. I was still selling cookware and went to the rental office to get directions to the apartments rented by the people I wanted to see. I spoke to the women in the office to get the information I needed and went on my way.
The previous October, on a night when I was home watching the seventh game of the 1984 World Series between Detroit and San Diego, someone attempted to rape a woman at another apartment complex adjacent to the first. The assailant threw her down, grabbed at her breasts and tried to rape her. Five months later, the women in the office where I had paid my visit were shown a composite sketch and they identified me as the perpetrator. The woman who was attacked was not in the office at the apartment complex in March when I stopped by and only halfheartedly identified me in a photo lineup. I had never seen her before in my life; I was home watching baseball the night the attack occurred.
So ended the longest month and most harrowing experience of my life.
It was also the end of my marriage to Loretta. Her remark during our initial visit to the police station could not have been more of a betrayal, and at that point I knew our marriage was over.
For some time, I had been considering joining the Sea Organization. All right, I decided, they helped me during this episode. I owe them my allegiance for that. If I join and don't like it, I will simply leave. David had been asking me for some time to join. So had others in the organization, specifically Marc Yager and Guillaume Lesevre, two of the top executives in the church. I knew I was a capable person and could contribute to the group, and, as I say, I appreciated the help the church gave me during the most stressful time of my life.
There may be other accounts on the Internet about this mess, but the account here is what is in the public record, and it is the accurate description of what happened and what led up to the most
interestingâand
even
worseâchapter
of my life.