Inside Scientology (24 page)

Miscavige was generally well received at the base, said the Scientologist Dan Koon. He embodied toughness, a value L. Ron Hubbard had promoted strongly within the Sea Org. If he took it to extremes, the staff at Gilman believed it had to be necessary. He had incredible "confront," or the ability to face situations head-on, one of the highest compliments a Scientologist could receive, explained Koon. "He was certainly tough, but he was extremely capable and determined to get things done." And many things did seem to be improving. Scientology's membership and income were on the upswing, said Koon;
Dianetics
had made it onto the
New York Times
bestseller list
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for the first time since 1950. Though Miscavige had nothing to do with this—the success of
Dianetics
was due to the work of Jeff Hawkins and his strategic marketing unit—he threw himself into projects with the unwavering passion of a young L. Ron Hubbard, inspiring his staff to work harder, and longer, than they ever imagined they could. Koon was impressed. "You met Miscavige and you knew he was an extraordinary personality," he said. "The guy had personal power not to be believed."

If the volatile and driven Miscavige resembled one side of L. Ron Hubbard, Pat Broeker reflected another. Broeker was ten years older than Miscavige and was arguably even more devoted to the Founder, having spent the better part of the past decade in hiding with him. A handsome man with dark hair and brown eyes, Broeker was personable, well read, and charming; he was also independent. "Pat was extremely charismatic, but he didn't like rules," said Julie Holloway. "He liked to do things his own way, and he wouldn't ask permission; he'd just do it." Holloway recalled that Broeker once posed as a veterinarian at an animal hospital in order to buy vaccines for a litter of new puppies—simply waiting as a customer, he'd told her, would have wasted too much time. "He assumed no one was going to question him and he was just going to fake it the whole way, and he did. And that's how he was about everything."

Unbeknownst to many people in the Sea Organization, Broeker had not spent much time at Creston during the last year of Hubbard's life. He'd decided to turn both the Creston property and a secondary ranch in Newberry Springs into showcases for American quarter horses—posing as a gentleman rancher would be a good cover for L. Ron Hubbard, Broeker thought. He spent most of 1985 traveling around the West on horse-buying trips.

Broeker's wife, Annie, on the other hand, had spent the years in exile catering to Hubbard's every need. Like several of the other messengers, Annie had served L. Ron Hubbard on the
Apollo,
starting at the age of twelve. A quiet, pretty young woman with wavy blonde hair, she was twenty-four when he went into hiding. During the last year of Hubbard's life in particular, she served as the link between the Founder and her husband.

As a reward, Hubbard appointed Annie Inspector General of the Religious Technology Center, at that time the highest position in the church bureaucracy. It was a job for which Annie Broeker was ill-suited, as she was painfully shy, with few friends other than those she'd grown up with on the ship. "She hadn't been part of any sort of group or social circle from 1980 to 1986—the only people she associated with during that time were LRH, Pat, Gene Denk, Sarge" (a nickname for Steve Pfauth, the caretaker), "a horse trainer or two, and a ranch hand," said Julie Holloway. "I remember the first time she took the stage, which was at an event in March 1986 for Hubbard's birthday. She was a nervous wreck."

Since 1980, Broeker had rarely been seen around Gilman Hot Springs, now the home of Scientology's film studio, Golden Era Productions, and frequently referred to as Gold Base, or International Base, or simply Int, for its distinction as the home of Scientology's international management. When he did make an appearance, he did so in his trademark highly covert fashion. "Pat had a silver cargo van with no windows," recalled Mark Fisher. "When you saw the silver van you knew he was around, but you never saw him. He would only come out at night." Once, Fisher recalled, he did spot Broeker on the base during the day but hardly recognized him: he was wearing a long full beard as a disguise and had jumped out of his van holding an Uzi submachine gun.

Broeker could have argued that Hubbard had intended for him to become the leader of Scientology, based on a message Hubbard had written to the church management shortly before dying, titled "The Sea Org and the Future." In this, his one gesture toward giving the church a direction to move in after his passing, Hubbard promoted himself to the role of Admiral and then bid farewell to the Sea Organization, naming Pat and Annie Broeker his "Loyal Officers,"
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an appointment that suggested the baton had been passed to them. But Broeker did not argue for this interpretation of Hubbard's intentions—rather than return to Gold Base after closing down the ranch in Creston, he moved with his wife and several others to the Newberry Springs ranch, near Barstow. He seemed intent on continuing with the horse business. "DM thought it was crazy," said Mark Fisher. "The only reason for having the horses in the first place was to provide a cover story for LRH. But even after LRH was dead, Pat wanted to continue to spend thousands of dollars of LRH's money on the horse ranches."

At Newberry Springs, Broeker had a small staff of aides who came and went. Annie Broeker had a retinue as well, including the Sea Org officials Vicki Aznaran and Jesse Prince, her deputies at the RTC. With Pat Broeker issuing orders from this remote location, and Annie declining to say much of anything, David Miscavige, notably unmentioned in the "Sea Org and the Future," faced little competition for center stage.

Hubbard's daughters Diana and Suzette, once looked upon as Scientology royalty, were given low-ranking jobs at Int: Diana became a film editor, and Suzette served as a laundress, assigned to wash David Miscavige's shirts. Anyone at Int or at Scientology's base in Los Angeles who seemed sympathetic to Pat Broeker was also demoted, while those who remained loyal to Miscavige were elevated within Author Services. One who fell into the latter camp was ASI's legal executive, Mark "Marty" Rathbun.

A tall, reserved, steely-eyed man, Rathbun was known within the Sea Org as Miscavige's "enforcer." He'd joined Scientology as a twenty-year-old, in 1977, having become interested in Hubbard's ideas, he'd later say, out of concern for his brother, who was at the time a psychiatric patient at Dammasch State Hospital in Wilsonville, Oregon, suffering from schizophrenia. "I was kind of afraid he was going to wind up living the rest of his life in the back ward, so I was seeking some tools and some answers on how I might be able to [help] him,"
Rathbun told the
St. Petersburg Times
in 2009. A Scientology recruiter he'd met on the street recommended he read
Dianetics,
and Rathbun signed up to take Scientology's basic communication course. By January 1978, he had signed a billion-year Sea Org contract, and by the end of that year he was dispatched to the Winter Headquarters ranch at La Quinta.

Hubbard was just leaving the ranch for his apartment in Hemet when Rathbun arrived; the two were never personally acquainted. But Rathbun soon got to know David Miscavige. Though he was quieter and more intellectual than the hotheaded "Action Chief," Rathbun, who'd played a few years of college basketball, bonded with the younger man over sports. In January 1981, the two drove from Los Angeles to New Orleans to see Miscavige's beloved Philadelphia Eagles play in the Super Bowl. The Eagles lost, but Rathbun and Miscavige, then twenty-four and twenty-one, formed a lasting friendship.

A talented strategist, Rathbun soon became a key member of Miscavige's All Clear Unit. In 1983 he'd helped dismantle the Guardian's Office, replacing it with a new legal and investigative body known as the Office of Special Affairs. Mike Rinder, another Commodore's Messenger, would ultimately become head of OSA, but Rathbun, who also had a gift for subversive tactics, would direct legal and investigative strategy as Miscavige's point man and, crucially, became the executive to whom Miscavige turned when he wanted an enemy investigated or an associate "de-powered," as some Scientology executives referred to it.

It had already dawned on Miscavige that Pat Broeker was anointed in name only. As the emissary to L. Ron Hubbard, he had never been a part of Scientology's official management structure and remained off its organizational chart. He had been removed from the day-to-day operations of Scientology for seven years. Half of the staff at Int and at the base in Los Angeles had never met him or heard of him.

Now Miscavige's loyalists launched a whisper campaign that asserted that Broeker, far from a "loyal officer," was actually a thief and an alcoholic, unfit to command. And indeed, life at both ranches was notably laid back, compared to the regimented attitude on the base. To ingratiate himself with the ranch hands and other workers, Broeker had stocked beer, frozen pizza, and other snack food in the refrigerators at both Creston and Newberry Springs. His staff were permitted to watch satellite TV, sleep a full eight hours per night, and even attend concerts in nearby Paso Robles. Perhaps the worst offense was that Broeker had reportedly purchased racehorses with church funds while other Sea Org members slaved away serving Scientology. He had even invested in a new hobby—flying ultralight aircraft—and now stored one such plane, also reportedly bought with church funds, at the Paso Robles airport.

But Broeker still maintained control of Hubbard's handwritten auditing notes, including his research for the as-yet-unreleased OT levels 9–15. This was Hubbard's final legacy: original material that was both lofty in purpose and, church officials well knew, potentially lucrative. Scientology made most of its money off auditing fees; many Scientologist OTs had been waiting for the vaunted "upper levels" for years. Whoever controlled this sacred doctrine, Miscavige understood, controlled the church. The younger Messenger now set out to get it.

Toward the end of 1987, Miscavige gathered a team led by Rathbun, and together they drove to see Broeker to demand that he relinquish the documents. Rathbun later said that Miscavige confronted Broeker but that it was Annie who "finally broke under the pressure"
and, when her husband wasn't in the room, told Miscavige where Broeker was hiding the materials: in several filing cabinets in his storage space at Newberry Springs.

Not long after this confrontation, Miscavige and Broeker were in Washington, D.C., to meet with church lawyers. Taking advantage of Broeker's absence, Rathbun, in California, assembled a team of roughly twenty men to drive to Newberry Springs. When they got there, Rathbun called the ranch's caretaker with an alarming bit of news. He had just received a tip, Rathbun said, that the FBI was preparing to raid the property. They'd be there in two hours, and they would surely cart away every bit of paper in the place. It was essential that he be let in to safeguard Hubbard's papers—there was no time to waste. The story, which Rathbun said he'd cooked up with Miscavige days before, "worked like a charm."
Within an hour, the men had entered the ranch and, with the caretaker's permission, took possession of the filing cabinets.
^*

Just after midnight that evening, Mark Fisher, one of Miscavige's senior aides, was awakened by a call. It was Miscavige, still in Washington. In a few hours, Miscavige said, Rathbun and Norman Starkey, another ASI executive, would be arriving at the Int Base in a truck. Fisher was to let them into the "LRH safe room," a private chamber located next to his office. Miscavige didn't elaborate on what the men were going to put in the safe, but Fisher knew it was important because Miscavige told him to change the security codes to the room once they left. "Don't let anyone in—and especially not Pat Broeker," Miscavige said.

Fisher then got a call from Starkey. "We're here," he said. Fisher got dressed and rode his Honda 110 up the hill to his office, on the other side of the property. Rathbun and Starkey were waiting, with several other men and a set of large filing cabinets.

The safe room, which looked like a study, had bookshelves concealing false walls. Behind these walls were safes for Hubbard's personal valuables, including jewelry, and some filing cabinets, the contents of which Fisher never knew. "There was room for these new filing cabinets to be added, and so they just wheeled them in. Marty and Norman didn't say anything to me about it at all, but I could tell what this stuff was," Fisher said. "LRH had been dead for over a year at that point and I assumed that his research materials were in Pat's care. So when these papers showed up in filing cabinets in the middle of the night, and I was told that I wasn't to let Pat near them—well, it was pretty obvious what they were."

David Miscavige now held all the cards, and Pat Broeker knew it. Soon after Miscavige acquired the documents, Broeker left the Sea Organization and the Church of Scientology. He headed east, settling first in Colorado and later in Wyoming. For several years after, Marty Rathbun, on Miscavige's orders, had Broeker watched by private investigators. He was never seen in church circles again.

Broeker's wife, Annie, stayed behind. Still loyal to Scientology, she was allowed to remain in the Sea Organization, but she was forced out of her position at the RTC by Miscavige and sentenced to a period of "rehabilitation" on the RPF, along with most of the couple's staff. The Broekers' possessions, including a new Ford Bronco, the horses, and a car that Hubbard had bought for Annie, were seized and sold by the Church of Scientology.

With his last rival out of the way, Miscavige decided to remove himself as head of ASI, which was no longer the seat of power after Hubbard's death. The RTC, which held the rights to Scientology's trademarks and copyrights, was now the central policing and enforcement body of the church, and to gain control over it, Miscavige purged its top officials, including the Broeker loyalists Vicki Aznaran and Jesse Prince, both of whom had signed undated resignation letters when they began their jobs (something still required of all Scientology executives). Miscavige put himself at the helm of the RTC, creating a new title for himself: Chairman of the Board. Rathbun was appointed Inspector General of the RTC, one of the highest positions in the Church of Scientology.