Blown for Good Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology (10 page)

One day while sitting at my desk someone came up to my cubicle and said “Hey!”

It was Jesse Radstrom. He had been posted in Clearwater, Florida for the last year or so and I had not seen him once. He was in LA?

“Hey, man!” I said as I shook his hand. ”What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here getting my clearances so I can go to Int,” he said.

“Wow, some big shot we have here, folks!” I answered back.

We chatted for a few minutes and then he said that he had to go. We would meet on Hollywood Blvd and grab a bite of pizza for dinner.

We ended up going across the street from the Hollywood Guaranty Building. He told me about how he and Ali Mintz had been dating off and on but how she had left Clearwater and was already posted at Int. He was going to become staff in the Watchdog Committee, which was responsible for overseeing progress in several different areas of Scientology internationally.

He told me that he was in the process of getting security checked full time and once he was done, he would be posted at the International Base. Sec checking was when someone asked you a predetermined list of questions about things that were considered unethical, such as promiscuity, drug use, etc. and the person administering the check watched the E-Meter to see if it reacted to the questions. If you were “clean” and had nothing to hide, the needle on the E-Meter would “float” across the dial and the questioning was continued until the person had a floating needle on all the questions. Anyone going to the international headquarters was asked pages and pages of questions during the security check to make sure that only the best people went up to the base. I had never had a security check before, but Jesse assured me he had received several security checks while in Clearwater. We wrapped up and went back over to the Hollywood Guaranty Building.

As we walked up Ivar Street to go through the staff entrance, a few people were walking from the parking lot across the street. One of the guys seemed to know Jesse and I hung back a bit while Jesse talked to this guy I had never seen before. He was rather short and had bars on his shirt, like military stripes, and all sorts of campaign badges signifying he was highly ranked. They talked about how Jesse had just arrived to LA and was expecting to be up at Int within the next few weeks. The high-ranking muckety-muck told Jesse that he would be expecting him and walked off with a few people in tow.

As we walked away, I asked Jesse who that guy was. He looked at me as if I was insane. He asked, “You don’t know who that is? That was David Miscavige — COB RTC!”

Perplexed, I asked, knowing the reaction would probably be similar to the first question, “So, who is David Miscavige — COB RTC?”

“He is only the highest ranking Sea Org member in the whole world!” Jesse exclaimed while putting his hands above his head motioning how high this guy was. “Religious Technology Center is the highest org in all of Scientology, and he is Chairman of the Board!”

“And you know him how?” I asked, now that he told me he knew
the
guy to know in the Sea Org.

“He was in Clearwater a lot while I was there. I was in the Commodore’s Messenger Organization in Clearwater, and they take care of anything and everything for COB while he is there,” Jesse told me as we rode the elevator to my floor. “Commodore Messenger Org Clearwater. That is where I was posted before I came here to get my clearances for the International Base. That is how I got recommended for Int. I think COB put in a good word for me.”

“Well, I got to go man,” I told him as I got out at my floor.

“I will see you around,” Jesse said as the elevator doors closed.

I hadn’t seen Jesse in at least a year, but he seemed like the same guy, just a little tamer than I remembered. And this Dave Miscavige, COB RTC character seems to be some sort of big shot, too. I wonder if the ABLE guys know about him.

At the dinner roll call, the crew was frantically running around. The Executive Director said to skip roll call and that she needed to get everybody into production right away!

“Chairman of the Board is in the building!” she said frantically as the staff showed up for the evening round up. “Get on post and get busy! Make sure your areas are clean and make sure that if COB walks in, you stand at attention!”

The staff members scattered in every direction. Wow. They did know who this COB guy was. For the next hour people were frantically stashing things in drawers and clearing off their desks, marking their stat graphs, clearing out the communication baskets and doing all of the things that were supposed to have been done throughout the week.

The Executive Director’s assistant, Danielle, came over to get something from me and started giving plausible ways that Mr. Miscavige got in the building undetected. “I’ll bet he has a special entrance,” she said.

I answered back, matter of factly, “I think he just walked in the front entrance during dinner time. My friend and I were talking to him down on the street before he came in.”

“What?” she said as she started running back to the Executive Director’s office, “Sir, Sir, Marc spoke with COB on the street.”

“Marc! Get in here!” Rena shouted from her office.

I had to tell them in detail what happened, who said what and when in excruciating detail.

“Do you realize if you have some sort of communication cycle with COB and we do not know about it, we can get in trouble? It puts us in an instant Danger Condition as we are being bypassed by COB. We have to know anytime this happens,” Rena explained to me.

Wow, I had no idea Dave Miscavige was such a big deal. Up until today I had never even heard of him before.

“Did Ray Mithoff or Marc Yager say anything to you?” Rena asked.

“I have no idea who those people are,” I answered back, perplexed.

Under COB were three Inspector Generals, for Tech, Ethics and Admin.

After Rena explained to me who held these posts, I realized these must have been two of the guys that were with Dave when he was down on the street. Inspector General for Tech, Ray Mithoff, and Inspector General for Admin, Marc Yager. The fact that they were both over six feet tall actually seemed to accentuate how short Dave Miscavige was.

Just as Rena was explaining the chain of command, that these guys worked directly under COB and were also the highest executives in all of Scientology, we heard someone in ABLE Int reception say “Good evening, Sir!” We jumped up and I ran off to my cubicle.

Rena and her assistant headed towards the reception area.

It was Inspector General for Admin, Marc Yager. Rena met him there and started showing him around the office. He seemed very interested in each area and opened desk drawers, looked through paper baskets on desks and even looked through trash baskets. When he came to my area, he asked me if I had any bills in my drawers that had not been entered into the computer. I did not and said so. He promptly went to the next area. As he walked away from my cubicle, I felt a great relief.

From everything I had heard, these types of inspections could change everything. This was pretty stressful. If these guys find something considered wrong, you could be in the Rehabilitation Project Force in a matter of minutes.

About 20 minutes later, the Inspector General for Admin had left our office and proceeded next door to do an inspection of WISE Int (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises).

Rumor spread that Marc Yager thought the place was filthy and that we needed to get the place cleaned up. But we could not clean yet, because COB could come in at any second and we had to be in production, not cleaning. We normally worked until 10:30
 p.m.
and took buses or got a ride with someone who had a car to the apartments down the street from the Complex. That would not be the case tonight. We stayed on “production” until midnight. At midnight we were mustered up and briefed on what had happened with the inspection. Marc Yager had found dust in the reception area behind one of the main doors. One of the registrars also had a dirty ashtray on his desk. That was it. Because of this, the place was deemed “filthy” and we had to stay tonight and get the entire place “white glove” clean.

After we thought we were done cleaning, we had to call someone from Commodore’s Messenger Org International Extension Unit. When they got around to it, someone would come down and wipe random surfaces with a white cotton glove on one hand. If ANY dust was collected, or if the glove was soiled in any way, we would flunk and had to fix it along with any other spots that had not been thoroughly done and then request another inspection. If you flunked, you could count on at least another hour before you would be re-inspected. White Gloves could go on for hours until someone finally gave up and said to go home. One time we never left. We got a pass at 7:00
 a.m.
and there was not enough time to get home and back in time for morning muster, instead we slept a few minutes at our desks and went to breakfast. We eventually got to the point of requesting an inspection at 4:00
 a.m.
! Luckily, the CMO guys had all gone home already, so we got to leave at 5:00
 a.m.

The next day, we slugged through our work for the day. Around dinner time, we found out a bunch of executives got in trouble for keeping their crews late the night before. Apparently more inspections were done today and some guy who had been up all night cleaning was sleeping at his desk when COB walked in. This was classic. If the place was dirty, it had to be cleaned. But we only had 15 minutes of cleaning time and no one really did it unless under great pressure. So whenever some executive flapped about the place being dirty, people were kept up all night to clean by their superiors. When someone was found sleeping the next day, the execs didn’t catch any heat, just the seniors of the groggy staff. Either way, we were told every single person in the building was going to go home on time tonight. No disagreements from me on that one.

Later that week, Miscavige and the Inspector Generals went back to wherever they came from and things started going back to normal. I learned from talking with different staff members, the executives from Religious Technology Center were only around for a few hours. The resultant chaos would last a few weeks, but at least we were being ordered home every night on time. A few weeks later, Jesse would complete his clearances and disappear to the International Base.

I finally settled into my routine at ABLE Int as the Treasury Secretary. I was relatively happy with the way things were working out. I was getting paid about $250 per week, I had very few expenses and no time to spend the money I was making. I had several thousand dollars saved up and I was able to buy myself a lot of new clothes and personal items when I needed them.

My sister was also doing well. She was still in the Hubbard Communications Office and her division had gotten at least one or two other staff. One was a Mexican girl who was made the Master at Arms, her name was Betty Gonzalez. She was responsible for checking up on all the staff and made sure they were doing what they were supposed to and when they were supposed to be doing it. I am not sure what Stephanie told this girl, but she seemed to have a little bit more time for me than most everyone else at ABLE. If I was EVER slacking off in any way, Betty would show up. I was certain that Betty had it in for me. I didn’t make much effort to avoid her, but when she got on my case about something, I ignored her. She didn’t like my attitude and made sure to make me aware of this.

One morning, our entire staff was briefed on a mission that had arrived from the International Base and that several staff members were going to be interviewed. A mission usually comprised of two or more Sea Org Members who were sent from a Sea Org base to resolve a situation on an urgent basis. ABLE had sent out a few missions to Narconons and some even to Applied Scholastics to resolve situations or local issues. Generally, when a mission showed up, it had been sent from a higher echelon and whatever the mission personnel ordered, that was what you did. Turns out there was a list of people they would be bringing back to the International Base.

As the day passed, someone told me they had seen the list and that my sister’s name was on it! That was fine by me. I didn’t know much about the mysterious base except that it seemed to be the place where the executives hung out. Other than that, if my sister got promoted, I was happy for her. I didn’t expect I would be promoted any time soon since I had just been taken off my previous post of HCO Area Secretary and was arguably a wrench in the system in terms of the average obedient staffer.

One of the missionaires met with my sister, and, sure enough, she was on the list. She would be turning her post over to Betty, the Master at Arms, and going onto her clearances. Oh, goody, security checking. I wasn’t going to miss that one bit. Good luck to Stephanie. Hopefully, she would make it through the security check. If you went onto clearance lines, you could assume it meant they had reviewed your personnel file and nothing in it was bad enough to disqualify you for a certain posting or being posted at the International Base. The further up the echelons of Scientology you go, the stricter the qualifications. When you made it to Int, you could eventually move higher to Religious Technology Center, which had the strictest qualifications of any organization in the world of Scientology. You had to have been a saint your entire life in order to qualify. A lot of people conveniently leave things out of their life history and personnel forms, such as when they stole something from a store, or got arrested for smoking pot, or anything that they did not want to reveal. These were the sort of things that came up in the sec checking on the E-Meter. If you had some deep dark secret that you never wanted to tell someone, it would come out after 50-200 hours of being interrogated on the E-Meter, which to most people would be the equivalent of being hooked up to a lie detector machine and interrogated for hours on end about your innermost thoughts and secrets.

Some people that were qualified “on paper” were routinely never sent as things came up in security checking that disqualified them. These people were usually posted somewhere in LA or sometimes at the Hollywood Guaranty Building. Sometimes if things came up that were considered severe, they would be kicked out of the Sea Org. The worst case I had heard of was a guy who worked at ABLE Int and previously at Narconon. Prior to working at Narconon, he was a student at Narconon, translation: he was a recovered drug addict. His secret wasn’t safe and it came up, supposedly in a sec checking session, that he used to share needles with a girl that was now HIV+. After he got out of session he was rushed to a local testing facility and sure enough he was HIV+. He was escorted out of the building and the Sea Org within an hour. No one saw him again.