I have been told by a senior Sea Org member that she disagrees with my evaluation of Scientology Orgs before everything went utterly to hell. Fair enough. The following are the sources of my observations.

• I worked for Austin Day and Fdn Orgs
• I worked at WISE Int when it was in Clearwater
• I worked for WISE LA as a consultant
• I visited Pasadena Org
• I had very close contact with Tampa Org (my wife was ED there)
• I had a chance to observe close up how FOLO WUS managed orgs
• I had a chance to observe how FOLO EUS managed orgs through my wife
• I studied at ITO
• I had roommates studying at NWC and knew the CO there
• I visited Albuquerque mission when I was staff at Austin
• My wife visited Int in conjuction with her training at ITO, 1986/7
• I had had data from others, but principally my wife on conditions at AOLA
• I received services at ASHO
• I lived at the FH for a brief period
• I frequently visited CCLA/The Manor while living in LA
• I was a virtual Sea Org member while working with WISE Int
• From my wife, I understand Miami org had a staff of about five.

Here are the places where my observations deviated from what I consider "the norm" based on the above: Int was a remarkably calm and theta space. Whatever happened there to turn it into hell must have happened afterward, I assume. Albuquerque was likewise a calm and theta space, very upstat. I cannot say what internal conditions prevailed at ASHO. My regging and service delivery there were good.

Further, I've heard that select missions in California were a blessing to be part of, and the staff(s) there enjoyed the experience. I've likewise heard that Toronto was, at one time, a great org to be associated with.

Now, here are my principal observations and evaluations, based on the rest of the history above. Orgs did not operate as teams. Neither did management units. Instead, they were islands of individual effort, motivated primarily by fear of reprisal and the desire to protect one's job or one's territory. Staffs were rarely enhanced to the degree they could theoretically have been. Orgs were routinely under staffed by huge margins. In the case of Austin, Pasadena and Tampa, full time work yielded minimal pay ($15/week in the case of Austin). Many or most staff were forced to moonlight in order to eat and pay rent. Given two full time jobs, the problem of staff enhancement was obvious.

Staff were therefore not well versed in policy, and almost completely ignorant of Red On White Tech. Few had advanced significantly up the processing side at all. Almost every staff member I ever encountered was an ex-druggie, many with only a Purif for drug handling. Almost all staff were no better than shop clerks in terms of prior work experience.

The result of all this policy ignorance was a lot of policy violation, and a strong tendency to favor following orders, regardless of how poorly conceived, rather than adhere to LRH policy. This is like how wog organizations work. Orders always supercede company policy, if you want to stay employed.

Another highly destructive influence was the almost complete fixation, by orgs and by upper management, on stats. And management on smaller and smaller timespans on those stats. The way to manage time and effort in an org is to work on sub-products almost exclusively. I got in trouble for stating that regges were fixated on money alone, as saying things like that is apparently a crime. The problem was, it was true. I was Treas Sec, and I dealt with the Dissem Sec and regges constantly, and they were in fact fixated on the GI stat, period. Not with getting the guy on the course (an afterthought). Not with any of the subproducts which might get people to the reg's desk and thence into the course room or PC waiting room. Concentrating on sub-products will ultimately get you the VFP and thus your stat. But no one had that sort of pan-determined vision. FOLOs used to manage orgs by the hour and call them constantly throughout the day, bypassing the ED in attempting to run the org. Thus putting all EDs in danger, at best.

Again, orgs were grossly under staffed. Austin Day, Fdn, Pasadena and Tampa all had more or less 10 staff per org. And because of quirks in the way stats were counted, they were oddly staffed, rather than from the top down as LRH directed. In my opinion, a true org should have had two to five times as many staff on board.

These comprise my observations and understandings from 1976 to 1988 or so. Others may have travelled more extensively than I did and perhaps have a different take as a result. But my observations were pretty consistent. And I would bet that what I observed was more the rule than the exception across the whole planet.

Part of the reason I make the above observations is because people seem to fixate on conditions after David Miscavige became a greater influence in the late 1980s and 1990s. My observations make clear that conditions were poor long before DM came into the picture.

While we may never have the chance to do a full Data Series Eval about how DM pulled off his coup, conditions before he became a great influence are worth studying and learning about, for future reference. For example, if we ever fully implement other Orgs in the future, they must be more heavily manned before we begin to call them "Orgs". They must be manned with highly trained OTs, at least in their upper echelons.

Lessons to learn (a partial list):

• Man orgs from the top down, as LRH dictated.
• Remove silly arbitraries from stat qualifications. For example, remove the requirement to have X posts covered single-hatted, before the ED can count Paid Comps.
• Recruit tained (green and red) personnel for staff and prefer OTs.
• Ensure you have enough staff before you start calling yourself an "org".
• Ensure you can pay your people enough to live on confortably, so no one has to moonlight.
• Make enhancement a priority, not an option. Consider it part of your duty as a staff member.

The rise of Miscavige

As I've said, we may never get the chance to do a full Data Series Eval on Miscavige's rise to power and destruction of the Church. But some things should be obvious.

David Miscavige, by botching C/Ses and the like, and mishandling refunds etc., managed to mire the Church in numerous lawsuits, many of which wanted to go after LRH as a co-conspirator. This made LRH vulnerable, and ensured that he stay isolated from the Church. After a while, even his policies had to be framed as "advice" in order to keep it from being demonstrated he was somehow still "running" our churches.

By induction, we must assume that Ron was cut off completely from the SO#1 line. This was a line where widespread conditions on the ground could have been reported and gained the attention of LRH. It's assumed that had LRH known what was really going on, he himself could have pulled the plug on Miscavige.

What Miscavige pulled off was unbelievable. No one would have imagined anyone could walk in, insinuate themselves into high positions and simply take over. It was so unbelievable that no one believed it. Except that it was true. He simply walked in and took over. Further, Miscavige botched some early duties and should have payed for those transgressions. He never did. And no one ever forced him to.

For some time after Miscavige entered the scene, there were levels of management which were above him and able to see and prevent what was going on. They didn't. It's questionable what they were doing instead and why they didn't take action.

For those who were victimized by Miscavige at Int, this is the most puzzling of events. Senior execs, some having decades of service and experience in the Church, were made cowed and ill by him. Thrown my him into a locked trailer and periodically attacked by him, no one effectively fought back. Again, the unbelievable becomes the seeming inevitable. If only a fraction of those locked up had decided amongst themselves that this was wrong and that David must go, they could have attacked him and taken control again. Yet they didn't. Did no one recognize him as the SP he was and thus act against him? Apparently not. Remarkable.

All the above are worth keeping in mind for future generations of Scientologists. I can just hear people saying, "Oh that could never happen here". Really? Guess what? It did happen and could easily happen again if we don't use the lessons of the past when facing the future.

In lieu of our Evaluation, let's examine the above and take from these observations and obvious logical conclusions what we can going forward. Only in that way can we prevent this from happening again.

Who's responsible

I keep trying to make this point, and I often feel that people more or less ignore it. Let's ask ourselves who or what might be responsible for David Miscavige's rise to power and ultimate abuses? There were those who, for their own reasons, enabled him and directly participated in his evils. People like Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder. Now away from the Church, and attacking Miscavige, they have still proven that they are unworthy to be called "Scientologists", by their conduct out here in the Field. (Actually, they'd both probably be fine with not being called Scientologists.)

Then there were those in Miscavige's orbit who likely saw what was going on, and just assumed it had the approval of the Old Man.

There were those just below Miscavige who could see or at least deduce what was going on and let it happen, for fear of losing their jobs or positions.

There were LRH's offspring. It's remarkable to me that they did not come together and take action to defend what their father had built. Instead, they kept quiet and more or less all just sort of slinked off. We may never know why.

And then there were the rest of us, including a significant group of SO members, who may have reported outpoints and such or not. Our reports would likely have done no good. I mean the guy you're reporting on is someone who's ultimately going to see the reports and do something about them or not.

Each of these are levels of responsibility at which various things could have been done. If anything was done, it was minimal and ineffectual.

But certain things are true. We were all here and we all bear some responsibility for assisting and allowing this to come to pass and not stopping it. But one thing is for sure: it wasn't the government's fault or some external entity. Our real vulnerabilities have always been internal. It wasn't "someone over there". It was us. We allowed this to happen. All of us. Some of us did all we could, at our levels. Those of us who really could have been effective at stopping this were few in number and much more highly placed than us.

I make this point not to make people feel guilty or bad. It is done now and cannot be undone. But going forward, we must recognize our duties as group members in seeing something like this does not happen again. Whatever that takes, we must do.

Ron would expect no less of us.