Of Hubbard’s three conduits to the outside world, Miscavige was best placed to assert his authority. Pat and Annie Broeker were in isolation with Hubbard on the ranch. Pat would communicate with Miscavige via pagers and pay phones. Miscavige was able to control communications going to and from Hubbard. Senior Scientologists, including former messengers who had worked with Hubbard, became sidelined. No-one knew for sure if Hubbard’s orders sent from the ranch were truly coming from Scientology’s founder and no-one knew if the reports sent from the executives were reaching him.
Terri’s brother, Peter Jnr, was deeply troubled by the power shift. In 1982, he became the first of the Gillhams to leave Scientology. ‘I saw what was going on and the clique he was forming around him (Miscavige),’ he says, ‘and I thought this place is going down the frigging toilet. I saw that he had complete control of what Hubbard was told and he could alter what orders Hubbard gave.’15 Peter Jnr left and got married later that year. On the morning of his wedding his father rang to apologise. He had just found out his son had been declared a ‘Suppressive Person’ and the Church of Scientology would not allow him to attend the wedding. Arthur Hubbard, who was supposed to be Peter Jnr’s best man, also had to pull out.
With Miscavige controlling all the information going to and from the ranch at Creston, it made it easy for him to manipulate the truth about how well Scientology was travelling. ‘I saw him change reports all the time,’ says Terri. ‘I’d read what he wrote and go, wow, he makes it sound really great when a situation was not that great. He had a real talent for making himself look good or making events sound way better than they really were.’16
Terri Gamboa was busy trying to manage her own important part of the Scientology empire. As Executive Director of Author Services, she was in charge of Hubbard’s business management company. It was set up, as Terri puts it, ‘as part of the corporate sort out so LRH could not be accused of inurement by the IRS’. Author Services was not just in charge of Hubbard’s book royalties. As Terri says:
We had to create a business management company that ran all of his personal affairs, that oversaw all his oil investments, stock market investments, money, bank accounts, book publishing, and all the artwork that we created from his fiction books. So Author Services was strictly LRH’s business management company. We implied we were a Hollywood company for different authors, when really he was our only client.17
Author Services was not immune from Miscavige’s meddling. According to Terri, Miscavige and Pat Broeker lost US$30 million of Hubbard’s money after they decided they knew more about oil well investing than the specialists at Author Services. ‘They invested and lost $30 million in oil wells, the biggest loss ever in the history of ASI or Scientology,’ she says. Terri insists Miscavige would not take responsibility for the loss and did not want Hubbard to know about the debacle. ‘He came to me and said you guys have to make up for the oil well loss, you guys have to sell these paintings we had from LRH’s fiction books, you have to make up this $30 million loss because we can’t have a problem with LRH finding out about this.’18 Terri had to hire more sales staff and get more artwork made to cover for the investment losses.19
While Hubbard was well known for his temper tantrums, Miscavige began taking the fits of rage to another level. In October 1982, he ordered that Homer Schomer, the Treasury Secretary for Author Services, be given what Scientologists call a gang-bang security check.20 Schomer was interrogated by a series of people in a small room inside the Author Services building on Sunset Boulevard while he was attached to the E-Meter. The security check lasted ten hours, from around 10 pm to 8 am the following morning.
Homer Schomer later testified that Miscavige wanted him to be interrogated because of a failed gold deal that lost Scientology hundreds of thousands of dollars, a transaction he said he had no knowledge of. Schomer was also in trouble for allowing a finance officer to audit Hubbard’s accounts.21 During his gang-bang security check, he was accused of being a CIA or FBI plant.
Later, under oath, Schomer told the Superior Court of California that Miscavige and his offsider, Norman Starkey, spat tobacco juice in his face during the security check. Terri Gamboa was asked to join in, but she considered spitting in her colleague’s face to be beyond the pale.
He (Miscavige) ordered all of us to go in there and spit on him. Everybody stand in line walk through spit on him and walk out the other door. Norman did it. Miscavige did it. I refused. When he saw that I wasn’t there he came in my office and said, ‘Terri why aren’t you with everybody else?’ I said, ‘Dave I’m not going to spit on anybody. I’m not going to do that.’22
Miscavige glared at Terri and walked out. There was no immediate punishment, but Miscavige had already begun targeting others who had long associations with Hubbard. ‘I knew then the writing was on the wall,’ says Terri. ‘One by one he worked to get rid of all the old-timers or bust them to menial tasks so they had no power or control.’23
Gale Irwin, who had been on board the Apollo with Terri when they were both teenagers, had risen to the leadership of the powerful Commodore’s Messengers Organization (CMO). She had previously raised concerns about Miscavige’s behaviour and ordered that he be security-checked because of his abusive behaviour and attitude. According to Irwin, when Miscavige received this news, he lost his temper and lashed out at Irwin, knocking her to the ground with a flying tackle.24 (Miscavige denies all allegations of abuse.)
Irwin rang Hubbard’s former chauffeur John Brousseau. She wanted immediate action. Irwin demanded a meeting be arranged with Pat Broeker. Brousseau drove her to a pay phone in San Bernardino used for emergencies when the Scientologists needed to contact Pat. As they waited for the call from Broeker, Miscavige arrived in a black van with five other men. According to Irwin, Miscavige pulled out a tyre jack from the back of the van and smashed the pay phone. She was ordered into the van and told soon after she was no longer head of the Commodore’s Messengers Organization.25
While Miscavige was taking control, Hubbard was isolated in his hideout and unaware of what was going on. Those close to him on the outside were being purged. Miscavige forced Mary Sue to step down as Controller of the Guardian’s Office and turfed Hubbard’s children Arthur and Suzette off the property at the International Base for being ‘security risks’.26 In a further humiliation he appointed Suzette to be his personal maid. Hubbard’s auditor and top technical executive David Mayo was found guilty of ‘committing a problem’ and sent to a remote camp where he was forced to run around a pole in the desert heat for hours on end.27
With Hubbard in hiding and those close to him being marginalised, speculation increased that he was no longer alive. His son Nibs filed for the trusteeship of his father’s estate on the basis he was either dead or mentally incompetent.28 The Church of Scientology provided a statement from Hubbard that said, ‘I am not a missing person. I am in seclusion for my own choosing.’ Each page of the statement included copies of his fingerprints.29
In his years living in seclusion Hubbard struggled with his health. His Operating Thetan abilities could not overcome chronic pancreatitis, the ageing process, or the effects of his near lifelong addiction to Kool cigarettes. On 16 January 1986 he suffered a serious stroke. Three days later, Flag Order 3879, titled ‘The Sea Org & the Future’, was issued in Hubbard’s name. The order announced that Pat Broeker had been promoted to the new position of First Loyal Officer, and Annie Broeker to Second Loyal Officer.30 If the order was truly the work of Hubbard, he seemed to be making it clear who should take over Scientology. Miscavige was not mentioned.
On the evening of 24 January 1986, Hubbard died in his Blue Bird motorhome after another stroke.31 Alongside him were Pat Broeker, his auditor Ray Mithoff and his doctor Eugene Denk.32 He was 74. Despite Hubbard’s vehement opposition to psychiatric drugs, the coroner found traces of Vistaril, an anti-anxiety tranquilliser, in his blood sample.33
Between them, Pat Broeker and David Miscavige cooked up a plan about
how to break the news. On the following Monday, around 2000 Scientologists squeezed in to the Hollywood Palladium for a special announcement. David Miscavige took to the stage. Despite the internal power plays, the 25-year-old was not well known to the audience. Miscavige announced that Hubbard had moved on to his next level of OT research, that he had chosen to discard his body:
Thus, at 2000 hours, Friday 24 January 1986, L. Ron Hubbard discarded the body he had used in this lifetime for seventy-four years, ten months and eleven days. The body he had used to facilitate his existence in this universe had ceased to be useful and in fact had become an impediment to the work he now must do outside its confines.34
According to Miscavige’s logic, Hubbard wasn’t really dead; he was simply doing research somewhere else.
Pat Broeker announced to the crowd that before Hubbard had ‘discarded his body’ he had completed new Operating Thetan levels – going up to OT IX and OT X. It was a surprising revelation that would come back to haunt him. Broeker claimed that Hubbard got up to OT XV and that only he knew where the secret files were hidden.35 This was too much for Miscavige. A team of private investigators was hired to monitor Broeker.36
Miscavige grew impatient about the lack of evidence surrounding the higher OT levels. Eventually, he and a team of Scientology lawyers turned up at the ranch and demanded Broeker hand over any confidential OT materials. As they argued, a small squadron of Scientology heavies led by Miscavige’s lieutenant Marty Rathbun hid in the bushes outside. Broeker was threatened that he could face charges relating to US$1.8 million in funds that he could not account for. Rathbun entered the house and took away the filing cabinets of Hubbard’s First Loyal Officer.
As Scientology operatives sifted through Broeker’s files, no evidence emerged of the higher OT levels. During a second raid, under intense interrogation from Miscavige, Annie Broeker revealed the location of a storage locker her husband kept in Paso Robles.37 There were more files, but no evidence of the higher OT levels. Broeker’s bluff had been called. In March 1987, Miscavige appointed himself Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center (RTC).38 In April the following year, he cancelled Hubbard’s final order that had anointed the Broekers to be his Loyal Officers. Soon after, Pat left the country and Miscavige assumed complete control. He placed Hubbard’s First Loyal Officer under surveillance for the next 24 years at a cost of over US$10 million.39
TERRI GAMBOA MAY HAVE been one of Scientology’s most senior executives and one of Hubbard’s most trusted and loyal veterans, but she was kept in the dark about the power struggle between Broeker and Miscavige. ‘I didn’t know he was kicking Pat out,’ she says. ‘He kept that very quiet because he knew I was fairly good friends with Pat.’40 Terri and Pat shared a love of horses and knew each other from back in the Apollo days. Pat Broeker’s first wife, Trudy Venter, was Terri’s best friend. Terri had married her first husband, Gerry Armstrong, and Trudy married Pat as part of a double wedding on board the Apollo. ‘Pat was very good to me and I think Miscavige knew there could be a concern if I knew too much, that I would stand up for Pat.’41
There may have been another reason why Miscavige kept Terri out of the loop. Hubbard had personally appointed her as one of three lifetime trustees to the Church of Spiritual Technology (CST) as part of the corporate restructure of Scientology in 1982.42 The trustees were unaware their terms lasted for the whole of their lives. The CST was the highest level of the church that held all the trademarks and copyrights. According to its Articles of Incorporation, CST is meant to ‘espouse, present, propagate, practice, ensure, and maintain the purity and integrity of the religion of Scientology’.43
Terri believes the lifetime trustees of the CST have the power to vote in and out Miscavige as the Chairman of the Board of the RTC, and that he withheld this critical information in order to shore up his position. Terri did not find out she was a lifetime trustee until over 20 years after she had left Scientology. ‘He hid it [the corporate structure] away,’ she told me. ‘He locked it up, nobody got to see it. He took the power, but he knew on paper who had the power and he made sure he manipulated it to control every one of them.’44
The three lifetime trustees were Terri Gamboa, Greg Wilhere and Marion Pouw. Terri and Marion were Australian and close. They had been good friends growing up as children in Melbourne. The Gillham and Pouw families had formed a close bond when the Anderson Inquiry was being held in Victoria and the children of Scientologists were being shunned in the playground. By the 1980s, Marion had become one of Terri’s executives at Author Services. Terri and Marion were also close friends with fellow trustee and Scientology executive Greg Wilhere. All three were on the ship in the early days of the Sea Org before Miscavige had appeared on the scene. In Terri’s mind, Miscavige would have seen them as a tight voting bloc who had the ability to undermine his takeover plans.
Others see the power of the CST lifetime trustees as being illusory. Denise Brennan, who oversaw Scientology’s corporate restructure in the early 1980s, told journalist Tony Ortega the trustees held no real power. ‘The people who think they’re following the power of control by looking at the lists of directors for CST are falling for the sham we set up,’ she said.45 According to Brennan all power resides with the Sea Org and the person with the highest rank there is Miscavige. But Gamboa insists Hubbard intended for the corporate structure to take over after he was gone. ‘He had specifically assigned the lifetime trustees for this purpose,’ she says, ‘along with assigning the Commodore’s Messengers as the WatchDog Committee to oversee the entire management of the Scientology network worldwide.’46
In the early days of his transition to power, Miscavige did all he could to undermine Gamboa’s power. Marion and Terri worked closely together at Author Services. In 1989, Miscavige split Terri and Marion up. ‘She was one of my top executives,’ Terri told me. ‘He took her off post and made her his steward – his personal slave. I couldn’t believe it, but now when I found out later that she and I were two of the CST lifetime trustees, it all makes sense, it was all part of his hijacking of the church for his personal benefit and power.’47
Removing Marion Pouw from Terri’s executive team was just the first step. ‘He took away my main execs and started stripping my org down,’ says Terri, ‘and then he started blaming me for the stats going down, and it was like, well yes, you take the main people out, the stats are going to go down.’48
After Author Services’ sales figures declined, Miscavige punished Terri. She was put ‘on the decks’, a Scientology punishment that dates back to Hubbard’s time on the Apollo, where he would demote Sea Org members to cleaning duties.
Terri was assigned to wash the cars and clean the offices at Miscavige’s Religious Technology Center. To further humiliate her, Miscavige had her move a pile of rocks from one location to another in stifling heat with a security guard watching over her. ‘There was no purpose in moving rocks,’ she says. ‘It was just Miscavige trying to get at me and I could see him up on the hill watching through binoculars – he loved to manipulate, degrade and humiliate people; it made him feel good. He has no compassion for others, he is a ruthless dictator and I knew I could no longer be a part of this.’49
As Gamboa moved rocks under the desert sun, she thought about what was coming next from Miscavige. ‘I know him really well, having worked with him directly for ten years straight,’ she says. ‘So when I’m moving these rocks I’m thinking this is the end of the line for me. He’s going to have me doing this until he can break me. I’ve seen him squash people like a bug. He’d bring some of the best people on the base up and make mincemeat out of them in front of everybody – they were just shrinking as beings. Scientology is meant to make people better, yet he used it to squash and demean people and he was extremely good at it. He would yell and scream until they disappeared, until they were crushed.’50
Terri had decided to leave. But getting out was not going to be easy. She had no car, no contact with her sister, Janis
Grady, on the inside and no contact for her brother, Peter Gillham Jnr, on the outside. She hadn’t even revealed her plans to her husband Fernando Gamboa, who was a drummer and recording engineer with the Sea Org band the Golden Era Musicians.
Inside Scientology there is an all-pervasive culture of surveillance and snitching. Sea Org members fear telling their partners about any plans they might have to leave because it’s not unusual for partners, relatives and best friends to inform on each other through Scientology’s internal justice system. This can result in their loved ones being security-checked on the E-Meter and then being assigned to intense physical labour or locked up. Many have fled the Sea Org without telling their spouses. It can take years to come to the realisation that it’s time to bust out. To then convince their partner in a short amount of time can be a high-risk manoeuvre.
At the time Terri, Fernando and other Sea Org members were staying in temporary accommodation in an apartment block in Hemet. It was before the permanent residencies for Sea Org staff had been built in the fortified compound at the International Base. On a January night in 1990, Terri nervously waited at the apartment complex for Fernando to return home after recording in the studio with the Golden Era Musicians. She had decided she was going to tell her husband it was time to leave.
When Fernando arrived at the apartments at about 1 am, Terri had already been preparing her lines. ‘This is crazy, let’s leave,’ she said. ‘The treatment of staff is so bad, so degrading and debilitating.’ Fernando had seen the abuse up close and was appalled by it, but he was not sure about leaving. Terri had to use all her powers of persuasion.
After a couple of hours, Terri had convinced Fernando she was right. But her sense of relief soon turned to despair. ‘Okay,’ Fernando said, after agreeing to leave, ‘we’ll let them know in the morning.’ Terri knew this would not work. ‘No, no, no,’ she responded. ‘We’re not going to let anyone know. We’re going to go out the window tonight, right now.’51 Terri explained that if they did not leave that minute, Miscavige would make their lives hell. There would be security checks, they would be placed ‘on the decks’, they would be humiliated in front of the rest of the Sea Org until they changed their minds. ‘There was no way I was going to go through all that and allow Miscavige the satisfaction,’ she says.52
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