Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology (53 page)

Gordon Cook became the new Controller,
⁵
and the
Controller’s Aides were replaced. The head of CMO, Diane “DeDe” Voegeding,
considered Mary Sue Hubbard her friend. Having spent her teenage years on the
ship, without her parents, Mary Sue must have seemed almost a mother to her.
Voegeding protested and was removed from her position, ostensibly for divulging
Hubbard’s whereabouts to the Guardian’s Office.

Laurel Sullivan had been Hubbard’s Personal Public Relations
Officer (Pers PRO) for years. She was part of the small Personal Office, and
was Armstrong’s immediate superior on the biography project, as well as head of
the huge financial reorganization, Mission Corporate Category Sort-out (MCCS).
Sullivan too was a close friend of Mary Sue Hubbard. MCCS was closed, and
Laurel Sullivan was removed from her post.
⁶
Voegeding and Sullivan
were both consigned to the Rehabilitation Project Force. They were the first of
hundreds of “connections” to be purged.

The CMO were responding to the belief, fostered by Hubbard,
that the US government was working to smash Scientology. Through the collection
of unpaid taxes, the Internal Revenue Service was capable of destroying the
parent Church of Scientology of California. There was also a distinct danger
that all the subsidiary corporations would be sucked under with it. The
Scientology Publications Organization US was re-incorporated as a for-profit
corporation, called Bridge Publications. The Publications Organization in
Denmark became New Era Publications. A new Legal office was established
distinct from, and eventually controlling, the GO Legal section. It was the
beginning of a proliferation of allegedly distinct and separate Scientology
corporations.

The All Clear Unit (ACU) had to all intents become
autonomous under the control of David Miscavige. It was not subject to the CMO,
the Watchdog Committee, or any other Scientology entity. Miscavige took his
orders only from Pat Broeker, who in turn took his orders only from Hubbard.
⁷

In July 1981, ED Int Bill Franks and a small group of
Messengers arrived at the headquarters of the US Guardian’s Office in Los
Angeles. All GO staff were ordered to join the Sea Org, and a Criminal Handling
Unit was established. Franks and his cohorts were there to remove the last real
obstacle to CMO control of the Guardian’s Office, Jane Kember, the Guardian.
Kember had received a prison sentence for her part in the Washington
burglaries, but was on bail pending an appeal. Upon hearing of Franks’ moves,
Mary Sue Hubbard reappointed herself Controller, and rescinded her previous
permission for the CMO to investigate the GO. Franks and his team were
physically ejected from GO headquarters in Los Angeles. The locks were changed.
Mary Sue appointed Jane Kember Temporary Controller.
⁸

Franks, as Executive Director International, maintained his
occupation of the Controller’s office itself, and Kember visited him there with
a group of GO heavies. Franks launched into an attack on Mary Sue Hubbard,
among other things accusing her of being a “squirrel” who practiced astrology.
Ignoring Franks’ threats, Kember’s crew removed the Controller’s files, leaving
Franks in an empty office.

The GO took over an office in the former Cedars of Lebanon
complex, the home of most of the Scientology Orgs in Los Angeles. There the
Controller’s files were guarded day and night. Mary Sue made a desperate bid to
find her husband, so that he could quash the CMO. For three days the screaming
match continued, with David Miscavige and other high-ranking Messengers joining
in. They played on Kember’s fear of a schism in the Church. Eventually, she was
shown an undated Hubbard dispatch which suggested that the GO should be put
under the CMO when its senior executives went to prison. Jane Kember and Mary
Sue Hubbard admitted defeat.

At the end of July, the new leaders of the Guardian’s Office
issued “Cracking the Conspiracy,”
⁹
which assured Scientologists,
“The GO is now working around the clock to crack the conspiracy in the next six
weeks. This is not ‘PR’ or a ‘gimmick’. It is the truth.” Ironically, the
conspiracy against Scientology seemed to have emanated from the Guardian’s
Office itself.

The last vestige of resistance to the CMO take-over would
come from Guardian’s Office headquarters, GO World-Wide, at Saint Hill in
England.
¹⁰
A CMO “Observation Mission” travelled to England, and on
August 5 convened a “Committee of Evidence” against leading members of the
Guardian’s Office. The Committee was made up solely of Messengers, and chaired
by Miscavige. They were found guilty. A CMO unit was established at Saint Hill,
and Bill Franks, the Executive Director International, issued a directive
explaining that as Hubbard’s management successor he was senior in authority to
the Guardian’s Office.

The Findings and Recommendations of the Committee of
Evidence were not published. Senior GO officials were shipped to Gilman Hot
Springs where they underwent a “rehabilitation program.”
¹¹
Messengers called them “the crims,” for criminals. These middle-aged Church executives
were made to dig ditches, and wait table for the young rulers. They were
awakened in the middle of the night and subjected to a new type of
“Confessional.” The privacy of the auditing session was abandoned, along with
the polite manner of the auditor. A group of Messengers would fire questions,
and while the recipient fumbled for an answer, yell accusations at him. Answers
were belittled, and the Messengers all yelled at once. The exhausted GO
official would be threatened with eternal expulsion from Scientology. The
questions were also new. The CMO was convinced that the GO had been infiltrated
by “enemy” agencies, so the “crims” were asked, “Who’s paying you?,” over and
over again, and accused of working for the FBI, the AMA or the CIA. This brutal
form of interrogation came to be known as “gang sec-checking.” It was in total
violation of the publicized tenets of Scientology. GO staff began to crack
under the pressure. Most of these hardened executives eventually left Gilman
willing to do the bidding of their new masters.

The Watchdog Committee assigned one of their number to the
control of the Guardian’s Office. David Gaiman, the former head of

GO Public Relations, became the new Guardian upon his return
from Gilman Hot Springs.

The great GO machine was grinding to a halt. Members of the
Legal department, who understood the weak position of Scientology in many of
the increasing number of suits, wanted to settle out of court wherever
possible, but were over-ruled in favor of a fight to the death policy.
¹²
The stalwarts of the Legal department were dismissed, and their place taken by
expensive private law firms. Most of these suits were eventually settled for
far larger amounts than GO Legal had negotiated. The CMO was in control of the
entire administrative structure of Scientology. Although still in hiding,
Hubbard made himself available for comment, but only on matters of Scientology
“Tech,” in September 1981.
¹³

While taking over the GO, the CMO had been establishing yet
another corporation called Author Services Incorporated (ASI). It was
incorporated in California in October 1981 as a for-profit company, and
represented the literary interests of L. Ron Hubbard.
¹⁴
ASI was not
activated for several months. A few final adjustments had to be made to the
Scientology corporate structure.

In November, Hubbard ordered the CMO to send him information
outlining the entire international position of Scientology. He wanted to know
all the “stats.” It took two weeks to collect the information, and then it had
to be presented in a way which would demonstrate the efficacy of Hubbard’s
orders to the CMO to take-over Church management.
¹⁵
Hubbard had
trained Messengers to censor information going to him to shield him from
upsetting news. After the huge ritual of information gathering, the CMO
remained in power, so Hubbard was obviously happy with what he received.

The various parts of the Organization continued to function,
largely unaware of the drastic changes that were taking place at the top. During
Hubbard’s absence from direct management in 1980, the prices had been cut, and
moves were underway to reconcile estranged Scientologists. These measures were
still penetrating to the membership, as the new regime brought in stringent
changes at the top. It was in this setting, in November 1981, that Scientology
Missions International, which monitored the progress of the supposedly
independent Mission, or “Franchise,” network, called a meeting to try and
resolve some of the ongoing conflicts between Mission Holders and the Church.
¹⁶

During the 1970s, several major Mission Holders had been
declared Suppressive, and their Franchises given to others. Most had exhausted
Scientology’s internal justice procedures in an attempt to be reinstated and to
retrieve their Missions. A Mission Holder sometimes found himself in the
peculiar position of having invested most of his assets into his Mission, but
after being declared Suppressive was forced to surrender control to the
Church’s Mission Office, who would place the mission under new management. The
Mission Holder would have no access to his assets, which often amounted to
hundreds of thousands of dollars, and could not work his way back into the good
graces of Scientology. Several ousted Mission Holders had initiated civil
litigation against the Church.
¹⁷

Hubbard’s published policy states that an individual can be
declared Suppressive for suing the Church. It was a Catch 22 situation. The November
1981 meeting attempted to resolve this impasse by “open two-way communication.”
Both the Mission Holders and the Sea Org’s Scientology Missions International
staff felt progress had been made at the meeting. Both groups had failed to
comprehend what was happening at the very top of the Church.

Ray Kemp, a very early supporter of Hubbard and at one time
a close confederate, had been declared Suppressive in the mid-1970s, and his
Californian Mission taken from him. Shortly before Kemp and his wife were
“declared,” a Church of Scientology publication had carried an article boasting
about the Kemp Mission in California which said the Mission consisted of five
modern buildings in two acres, with a parking lot for 200 cars. Kemp had even
managed to persuade the town council to re-name the site of his Mission “L. Ron
Hubbard Plaza.”
¹⁸

Kemp had tried every recourse within the Church to retrieve
his Mission, but his efforts were to no avail. Eventually Kemp reluctantly
started civil legal proceedings against the Church, but only after alleged
physical abuse by members of the Guardian’s Office. As a result of the first
Mission Holders’ meeting, Kemp and his wife were restored to “good standing.” A
Board of Review was established to investigate similar cases. Another meeting
was scheduled to take place a few weeks later.

Peter Greene, who had been a Mission Holder, made a tape in
1982 describing the events of these meetings, and the background to them. The
Guardian’s Office had grown increasingly worried that a series of moves by US
government agencies might put the Church out of business. The FBI had acquired
a huge quantity of incriminating material, and the IRS suits might eventually
bankrupt Scientology. Greene alleges that since the mid-1970s there had been a
Guardian’s Office Program to take-over the Missions, which were separate
corporations, if the worst happened. The leading Mission Holders had been
expelled, and replaced with new people who would be less willing to resist the
GO.

Shortly after the first Mission Holders’ meeting, yet
another corporation came into being: the Church of Scientology International.
¹⁹
It was to become the “Mother Church,” replacing the Church of Scientology of
California. The old lines of command had to be obscured by giving new titles to
departments, for example, Hubbard’s Personal Office became the Product Development
Office International.
²⁰

The second Mission Holders’ meeting was held at the Flag
Land Base in Florida in December 1981, in the Scientology owned Sandcastle
Hotel. The meeting was scheduled to last for two days, and 50 people attended
on the first day. The swell of excitement took hold, the meeting continued for
five days, and by the time it was broken up, about two hundred people had
arrived.
²¹

The meeting was chaired by Mission Holder Dean Stokes. Most
of the Holders of larger Missions, and some of those deprived of their
Missions, were in attendance. Quite a few GO staff were also there, and the
meeting turned into a mass confessional, as those present gradually admitted
the plans and actions taken secretly in the past. Greene described the
exhilaration as the Mission Holders, the Guardian’s Office, and Mission Office
staff came back in touch with one another.

One executive was noticeably absent: Bill Franks, the
Executive Director International, who had called the meeting. The Mission
Holders had heard by now that the anonymous Watchdog Committee were Franks’
superiors, despite the Hubbard Policy Letter saying Franks was head of the
Church. They demanded Franks’ presence. He arrived accompanied by a “CMO”
missionaire.

One of the Mission Holders, Brown McKee, said he was assigning
the lowest of Hubbard’s Ethics Conditions, “Confusion,” to the Watchdog
Committee. The formula for completion of this Condition is simple: “Find out
where you are.” The Confusion was that WDC were ostensibly running the Church
in contradiction to the Executive Director International Policy Letter, and
without any apparent authority. The Watchdog Committee was seen by the Mission
Holders as part of a mutinous take-over. Paradoxically, this was exactly how
the Watchdog Committee saw the Mission Holders.