Karen#1
Well-known member
A couple months ago I started writing something here on Substack and said I’d eventually debrief a conversation I had with L. Ron Hubbard’s personal estate attorney, what he said about Hubbard, Scientology, and David Miscavige.
I never finished it.
I got off on tangents. I tried to set up context. I threw in personal anecdotes to keep it interesting. And then I got sidetracked by the main purpose of my life, raising my daughter, again and dropped it for a while.
At the moment I have a few hours to spare, so let me cut to the chase and just tell you what happened.
I was instructed to speak to a Sherman Lenske.
“I’ve never heard of him,” I replied.
That was met with raised eyebrows and a look of disdain, like I’d just admitted I didn’t know who the President was.
“Well,” the response came back, dripping with sarcasm, “he’s only L. Ron Hubbard’s personal attorney, after all.”
In other words: How could you not know this?
But the truth is, I didn’t. I had no idea who he was. I didn’t even know he existed. But apparently I was about to find out, and I had no idea why.
And it was David Miscavige who told me to call him.
By the mid-to-late 1990s I had become familiar with the Miscaviges. I had made it a point to entertain them, even wine and dine them, when they came to Clearwater, the Flag Land Base, for annual International Events.
I knew them personally more than organizationally. I was unaware of many of the upheavals happening at Int and Gold and, to some degree, chose to ignore the noise. I was focused on Flag, and as its “Captain of the Ship” (that is how I viewed myself), I wanted to be sure that the Miscaviges were well cared for and felt at home.
I respected and liked them. I was treated fairly for the most part and considered them friends, and believed they considered me as such.
Within the limitations of the setting, of course.
At the time I was in Clearwater, Florida, still the CO CMO Clearwater.
Phone calls were unusual and could even be considered off-policy because, per Hubbard, “phones have no memory.” No record. No accountability. That’s why they weren’t supposed to be used. Everything was to be put in writing.
So when Shelly called, it stood out.
She was pleasant. She didn’t order me. She asked if I would like to come to Int for a short visit, a formal invitation to meet with COB.
It felt personal more than anything. Not ethics. Not a grilling. Just a visit.
It was suggested that I was seen not just as a friend, but as someone who was loyal to David, and that this was possibly a rare trait.
It is also true that by this time period, and clear to me and everyone around me, standard “command channels” were a thing of the past, at least in my world.
I had what people referred to as a “special line to COB,” personally and organizationally. Even the people who were technically my superiors, including the very top of the command channels like CO CMO Int Mark Yager and Mark Ingber, treated me with kid gloves.
Somewhere along the line, I had become an emissary of sorts for Miscavige. And it carried a kind of weight that carried more power than being an emissary of the Commodore, what it once meant to be a Commodore’s Messenger.
Miscavige seemed to like it that way.
And there is no question it worked to my advantage, too. Without ever dropping his name, if I was trying to get something done, it was often assumed that Miscavige had directed me to do it. Even his own staff believed this to be the case.
But I stray.
I “graciously” accepted the “invitation.”
Forty-eight hours later I found myself standing outside the Upper Villas at Gold Base on a warm late-summer morning. The sun was already beating down. A warm, dry wind was blowing.
The patio was immaculate. Umbrellas, background music, landscaping so perfect it almost looked fake. Certainly unusual in a dry desert setting. And beagles roaming around like they owned the place.
Maria Starkey, who was part of the office staff then, somewhat anxiously observed and commented that the beagles seemed to like me. At the time I didn’t think much of it. Later I heard the beagles were said to “detect SPs” and could spot them a mile away.
I was offered bottled water and sat in the shade while Miscavige was waking up. It was close to noon.
When Dave and Shelly finally appeared, it was all smiles.
Dave barked to Lou inside, “Make Tom a cup of French press coffee. He looks like he could use one.”
Lou did. It was a very nice coffee.
We ate breakfast. Talked about the beagles. Shot the breeze. No pressure. No work. No interrogation. Nothing about Int or Gold.
It honestly felt like we were on a separate island, like none of the usual Sea Org stress even existed in that space.
A couple hours into it, Dave asked me, completely out of the blue, if I had any legal issues with permits on any of the construction projects in Clearwater.
Coming from the Chairman of the Board, in that setting, it caught me off guard. It felt like a question that wasn’t really about permits, and legal advice I didn’t really need.
I came up with something minor. Menial. Barely an issue.
And that was enough.
“Well,” he said, “I want you to call Sherman Lenske and ask him about it.”
I looked blank, because I was blank.
Dave grabbed a yellow sticky tab and wrote down a phone number. Notably, he didn’t look anything up. He didn’t ask Lou or Shelly. He knew the number by heart.
“Yes sir,” I said, reaching for my phone, because by then I was well aware that if Miscavige gave you an order, or even suggested something, the time to do it was now. Instant compliance wasn’t polite. It was survival.
“No. Not now, Tom,” he insisted, smiling. “Do it later when I’m not around. I don’t need to hear the conversation. Just tell Sherman that I told you to call him.”
And abruptly the meeting was over.
Dave and Shelly had to go down to Int, and I was left to make the call.
Only then did it really hit me. I was about to call Hubbard’s personal attorney over a tiny permitting question.
Why?
READ MORE
substack.com
I never finished it.
I got off on tangents. I tried to set up context. I threw in personal anecdotes to keep it interesting. And then I got sidetracked by the main purpose of my life, raising my daughter, again and dropped it for a while.
At the moment I have a few hours to spare, so let me cut to the chase and just tell you what happened.
I was instructed to speak to a Sherman Lenske.
“I’ve never heard of him,” I replied.
That was met with raised eyebrows and a look of disdain, like I’d just admitted I didn’t know who the President was.
“Well,” the response came back, dripping with sarcasm, “he’s only L. Ron Hubbard’s personal attorney, after all.”
In other words: How could you not know this?
But the truth is, I didn’t. I had no idea who he was. I didn’t even know he existed. But apparently I was about to find out, and I had no idea why.
And it was David Miscavige who told me to call him.
By the mid-to-late 1990s I had become familiar with the Miscaviges. I had made it a point to entertain them, even wine and dine them, when they came to Clearwater, the Flag Land Base, for annual International Events.
I knew them personally more than organizationally. I was unaware of many of the upheavals happening at Int and Gold and, to some degree, chose to ignore the noise. I was focused on Flag, and as its “Captain of the Ship” (that is how I viewed myself), I wanted to be sure that the Miscaviges were well cared for and felt at home.
I respected and liked them. I was treated fairly for the most part and considered them friends, and believed they considered me as such.
Within the limitations of the setting, of course.
At the time I was in Clearwater, Florida, still the CO CMO Clearwater.
Phone calls were unusual and could even be considered off-policy because, per Hubbard, “phones have no memory.” No record. No accountability. That’s why they weren’t supposed to be used. Everything was to be put in writing.
So when Shelly called, it stood out.
She was pleasant. She didn’t order me. She asked if I would like to come to Int for a short visit, a formal invitation to meet with COB.
It felt personal more than anything. Not ethics. Not a grilling. Just a visit.
It was suggested that I was seen not just as a friend, but as someone who was loyal to David, and that this was possibly a rare trait.
It is also true that by this time period, and clear to me and everyone around me, standard “command channels” were a thing of the past, at least in my world.
I had what people referred to as a “special line to COB,” personally and organizationally. Even the people who were technically my superiors, including the very top of the command channels like CO CMO Int Mark Yager and Mark Ingber, treated me with kid gloves.
Somewhere along the line, I had become an emissary of sorts for Miscavige. And it carried a kind of weight that carried more power than being an emissary of the Commodore, what it once meant to be a Commodore’s Messenger.
Miscavige seemed to like it that way.
And there is no question it worked to my advantage, too. Without ever dropping his name, if I was trying to get something done, it was often assumed that Miscavige had directed me to do it. Even his own staff believed this to be the case.
But I stray.
I “graciously” accepted the “invitation.”
Forty-eight hours later I found myself standing outside the Upper Villas at Gold Base on a warm late-summer morning. The sun was already beating down. A warm, dry wind was blowing.
The patio was immaculate. Umbrellas, background music, landscaping so perfect it almost looked fake. Certainly unusual in a dry desert setting. And beagles roaming around like they owned the place.
Maria Starkey, who was part of the office staff then, somewhat anxiously observed and commented that the beagles seemed to like me. At the time I didn’t think much of it. Later I heard the beagles were said to “detect SPs” and could spot them a mile away.
I was offered bottled water and sat in the shade while Miscavige was waking up. It was close to noon.
When Dave and Shelly finally appeared, it was all smiles.
Dave barked to Lou inside, “Make Tom a cup of French press coffee. He looks like he could use one.”
Lou did. It was a very nice coffee.
We ate breakfast. Talked about the beagles. Shot the breeze. No pressure. No work. No interrogation. Nothing about Int or Gold.
It honestly felt like we were on a separate island, like none of the usual Sea Org stress even existed in that space.
A couple hours into it, Dave asked me, completely out of the blue, if I had any legal issues with permits on any of the construction projects in Clearwater.
Coming from the Chairman of the Board, in that setting, it caught me off guard. It felt like a question that wasn’t really about permits, and legal advice I didn’t really need.
I came up with something minor. Menial. Barely an issue.
And that was enough.
“Well,” he said, “I want you to call Sherman Lenske and ask him about it.”
I looked blank, because I was blank.
Dave grabbed a yellow sticky tab and wrote down a phone number. Notably, he didn’t look anything up. He didn’t ask Lou or Shelly. He knew the number by heart.
“Yes sir,” I said, reaching for my phone, because by then I was well aware that if Miscavige gave you an order, or even suggested something, the time to do it was now. Instant compliance wasn’t polite. It was survival.
“No. Not now, Tom,” he insisted, smiling. “Do it later when I’m not around. I don’t need to hear the conversation. Just tell Sherman that I told you to call him.”
And abruptly the meeting was over.
Dave and Shelly had to go down to Int, and I was left to make the call.
Only then did it really hit me. I was about to call Hubbard’s personal attorney over a tiny permitting question.
Why?
READ MORE
Prelude: The Call I Was Meant to Hear and the Name I “Should Have Known”
A couple months ago I started writing something here on Substack and said I’d eventually debrief a conversation I had with L.
substack.com
