Ruthless (9 page)

Scientology has different bodies of knowledge. One is the technology of auditing another person. Also, the organization is run on administrative principles. Then there are bodies of knowledge that are specialties of the Sea Org, and one of these is mission technology.

A mission, in Scientology parlance, is a task that needs to be done outside routine operations. People selected to do missions are called missionaires, and they receive training on how to execute their duties on a mission. Missions can be “fired” into areas that are troublesome or not doing as well as expected, as well as to implement new systems or for any number of other reasons. Say, Hubbard had developed a new auditor training course, and it needed to be exported to organizations around the world so they could begin to use it to train students. Missions might be sent to organizations to implement it and see that it was being run smoothly. Or, if an organization was foundering and had few people coming in for courses or auditing, a mission would be fired in to find out what was wrong and put things right again.

David, just turned 16, was selected to do a mission locally at the base in Clearwater to straighten out an area that needed fixing. I am told by someone who was there at the time that David was criticized on that mission because he and the person he was working with were engaged in “stat pushing,” an action that refers to statistics and has a bad reputation among Scientologists. Statistics are the numbers that reflect how something is doing administratively. Clever people, however, can learn to manipulate statistics to make themselves look good, and this is what Scientologists call stat pushing. They regard the practice as akin to a corporation that focuses solely on turning a profit for shareholders at the expense of the environment, employees, consumers, and society at large. In this instance, David and his colleague were counting jobs as completed when they actually were not. David was guilty of stat pushing, and it eventually caught up with him. A senior executive from that time told me that David's mission was terminated and labeled a “failed mission,” in other words, unsuccessful. Still, I think that David liked the taste of authority. I cannot say for certain, but I suspect that a desire for more and more power was kindled right there in his early weeks and months in the Sea Org.

In 1977, David was transferred to the secret base in La Quinta, California, where LRH had moved, 20 miles southeast of Palm Springs. David became part of a small group of messengers who were there with Hubbard and a larger group of about 50 other Sea Org members who cared for the facility and maintained Hubbard's communication channels to the rest of the Scientology world. David's duties were handling the administrative traffic to and from Hubbard. Again, he fit in well and proved himself to be an energetic team player and popular with the other messengers.

Though I did not see him again for a little more than a year, we wrote letters and shared news about what was going on in our lives. In one letter he said that he had moved to a new base that was in a confidential location but that he was doing well. That was how I found out he had left Florida. I figured, That's the way it is in the Sea Org, and took it in stride, especially since it was obviously a promotion. If the location was confidential, it must mean that he was doing something out of the ordinary, and I took that to mean that he had gained a measure of trust from the organization. By this time, Loretta had resigned herself to the fact that David was doing what he wanted, and they remained in touch occasionally.

For years, Loretta and I had been considering a divorce, and I agreed to move out in 1977. I got an apartment in Upper Darby, near Philly. David got a leave from the Sea Org the next year and stayed with me for a week. (He wasn't upset that Loretta and I were separating. In fact, the kids often commented that we should have divorced long before.) I was really looking forward to seeing him again and drove to New York to pick him up at JFK. When I saw him, I approached to give him a hug but he stopped me in my tracks. “Before you hug me, I have a message for you. Today before I left, we were on the film set and I was dressed in this suit. LRH said to me, ‘Hey, you look good, Misc. Where are you going?' I said, ‘I'm going on leave, sir.' He said, ‘Well, have a good time.' And just as I was walking out the door, he called out, ‘Misc, say hello to your old man for me.'”

Now, here's how that came about. After the band and I cut the album back in England in
1975—its
title was
Freewheelin' Ron
Savage
—I
sent a copy to LRH as soon as it came out. One Christmas at the La Quinta base, Dave was on messenger duty, helping Hubbard deal with his traffic, and the album was playing when David came into Hubbard's office. He had a wall filled with albums but mine was on the turntable. Some years later, his public relations officer told me that Hubbard really liked it. In fact, he told her, “Now there's a trumpet player. See if you can get him.”

I was so exhilarated at seeing Dave and receiving the greeting from LRH that I got lost leaving the airport, and it took us more than an hour longer to get home.

That was the start of a really great week for David and me. We spent the whole week doing nothing, just going out for meals, talking about Scientology, about what Dave was doing and how he enjoyed it, talking about the Philadelphia Eagles, talking about life. It was a really enjoyable time for both of us.

The new facility where he was stationed, known as Winter Headquarters, was a former resort where
burned-out
business executives could recuperate. It had swimming pools, a tennis court and several buildings that served as living quarters, but its chief advantage, so far as Hubbard was concerned, was that it was very hard to locate, although it was right across the road from the posh La Quinta Country Club. Anyone looking for L. Ron Hubbard would have had a difficult time finding him among the tamarisk (salt cedar) trees, date palms, scrub brush and blistering temperatures. Since leaving St. Hill in 1967, Hubbard had maintained a low, even secretive, profile. His whereabouts were not generally known to Scientologists or, perhaps, government agencies. While his picture hung in every Scientology organization in the world, I have been told that when he moved to La Quinta, his appearance changed dramatically. His hair, still red, had grown down past his shoulders. He sported fluffy muttonchop sideburns and a Colonel Sanders goatee, and he dressed in bolo ties and cowboy hats and boots, giving every appearance of a gentleman rancher.

In an effort to blend in with the locals and remain as inconspicuous as possible, La Quinta staff members did not wear the usual
naval-style
uniforms that other Sea Org members wore in Clearwater, Los Angeles or other locations that delivered Scientology services. Everybody at the La Quinta base used fake names, and when they went into towns such as Palm Springs or Indio, they were strictly forbidden from using any Scientology terminology. Meanwhile, inside the facility itself, Scientology operations continued as usual: staff received auditing, meals were served, the facilities were renovated and maintained, and Hubbard continued to direct the growing worldwide Scientology network.

In 1978, when David was 18, Hubbard began an ambitious project that had been on his mind since his days in England: training films to demonstrate different aspects of the auditing procedure, such as communication protocols and how to operate the
E-meter
. Since only about 70 people were on the base at that time, nearly everyone had a job in the filmmaking operation as well as another administrative duty. David worked as a videographer in Cine, as it was called; administratively, he was a project operator. This meant he oversaw various projects, run either locally or in remote areas of Scientology, such as ensuring that construction of a new building was completed or implementing a new promotional campaign in churches around the world. People have told me that this was the first time they noticed a vicious streak in him, when he sent nasty communications to people working for him. He began getting cocky, as I was later told; it wasn't apparent to me at the time in his letters or any phone calls.

Each morning, the orders of the day were issued, giving the day's schedule, items of interest and usually some notice from Hubbard himself. One day Hubbard inserted a message about showing compassion for others. Another messenger saw the item and thought that it might give David some pause, so she put it in his basket in the communications center where people's mail was delivered. When David saw the notice, he became outraged and spent the next several hours tracking down who had put it in his basket and why. It obviously had struck a nerve.

Like anybody else, David was not immune to getting into trouble occasionally. One time he was involved in a car accident in town. A fender bender is no big deal, but anything that might compromise the security of the base was serious indeed, so David had to spend time working in the messengers' vegetable garden as punishment before he was allowed to resume his regular duties. Another time he lost his keys, which was considered nearly a capital offense because, again, it potentially compromised security. Anything that anyone did to breach base security was considered quite serious, though David, in his cockiness, seemed unaffected by the transgression.

It is important to know that the Sea Org has its own culture, rules and regulations, which are quite different from those in other echelons of Scientology and from those in society at large. As one climbs the Scientology hierarchy, everything becomes stricter. At the
lower-level
organizations, or missions (not to be confused with Sea Org missions, which are temporary assignments rather than an organizational structure), relatively little control is exercised over staff members or parishioners apart from the requirement that Scientology be correctly applied. As one moves into a
full-fledged
church, there are more stringent controls because the auditing and training materials are more complex. Joining Sea Org is akin to joining the clergy of Scientology and, as in a monastery, it has a whole other set of rules and regulations. Temple monks, unlike Buddhist laypeople, for example, spend several hours each day meditating. In the Sea Org, people eat communally, wear uniforms, live in dormitories if they are not married, maintain tight schedules, learn that transgressions of group mores are dealt with more severely, and so on.

One of Hubbard's original messengers aboard the
Apollo
was a young woman named Michelle Barnett. She and David became attracted to each other and were married at the end of 1980 when she was 19 and David was 20. Loretta and I did not attend the wedding, since it occurred at the confidential Sea Org base out in California, but when we finally did meet Michelle, we both liked her immediately. She was known to everyone as Shelly, and for many years she was David's closest confidante. As David attained more and more power, Shelly rose with him. Fiercely supportive of her husband, she adopted many of David's characteristics as time went on. While my interactions with her were always cordial, I have to say that our relationship was rather distant, even after many years as
daughter-in
-law
and
father-in
-law
. Business always came first with her, and socially she was somewhat reserved. The Internet is rife with claims about how David allegedly “disappeared” his wife some years ago, but I knew nothing about it. David never talked to me about his marriage or any problems he and Shelly had, and after 2004 or 2005, I never saw Shelly in person and never knew where she was. As I have mentioned, the Sea Org operates on a
need-to
-know
basis, and if there was a marital rift at the very top of Scientology, you can bet that I would not be privy to it, father or not. I will say, though, that I don't doubt for a minute the stories I have read that Dave banished her to one of the church facilities in the mountains above San Bernardino.

I can add one detail, however, and it may shed some light on the story. Shelly and I have birthdays one day apart, and we regularly exchanged cards and presents through the church mail system. Shelly always acknowledged my gifts, and I normally received a
thank-you
note the day after. Around the time David is said to have had her
banished—something
I knew nothing
about—I
sent her cards and gifts as usual, but her replies now came a few days later. A former staff member told me recently that he used to see my presents in the mail center in the basket for the facility near Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernadino Mountains, where I believe Shelly has lived since about 2005.

I get the sense now that in the early 1980s David began to use the system for his own ends. In early 1979, L. Ron Hubbard, then 68, moved the base from La Quinta to the former Massacre Canyon Inn resort in Gilman Hot Springs, which is just outside Hemet, California. While the La Quinta facility is in the low desert near Palm Springs, which is miserably hot for six months of the year, the new base is at a higher elevation, farther west and, while still hot in summer, has a generally more temperate climate. Instead of the bare rocks and scrub brush of La Quinta, the new location had considerably more vegetation. Hubbard never lived at the new base. Instead, he took up residence in apartments in Hemet, and his whereabouts were not known to the general staff, only to the messengers, including David, and a select few others.

For the messengers, having to service Hubbard in one location while also being held responsible for carrying out their other duties at the base subjected them to a lot of stress, shortened sleep schedules and so on. David used his management duties as an excuse to free himself from working at Hubbard's remote location, and the messengers began to notice that he was separating himself from others and acting as if he were superior, or as though the normal group expectations did not apply to him.