The first time I met DM and knew that it was DM was in, I believe, early November 1981 or late October 81.
Since then I have worked with him many times and have seen him scream at, spit on, punch, slap and choke staff. I have told about these in different postings, radio, video, an affidavit, etc. as covered on my blogspot:
http://larrybren.blogspot.com/
But back to the first time.
We had just completed the initial Corporate Sortout Planning mission and accordingly I wrote up this huge proposal for the launching of a new mother "church" (CSI) as well as a great deal to go with it such as various contracts with scientology orgs around the world, new trusts, dovetailing it all into the also upcoming stuff like what was to be RTC and CST and more.
The proposal was very involved and included much of what would become the "separation" of "the church's and Hubbard's legal interests. It also involved how organized scientology could be controlled, how Sea Org and other reserves and much more could be managed and controlled, etc.
I wrote the proposal for the CSO mission based on a fortune spent to get legal input from many attorneys and accountants covering the fields of corporate, tax, intellectual property rights, "damages" - type issues and much more (Input from attorneys such as Chris Cobb, Bob Harris, Meade Emory, Leon Misterix, Elwood Rickless, Jacob Arravad, Sherman Lenske, Larry May and many more).
Bottom line is that it was too much for my Mission Ops (Steve Marlowe who then was Special Unit IC) to digest or certainly to explain to any approval points or to coordinate with anyone such as the main WDC members for reserves, etc.
Thus after sending the CSO proposal I was called into Steve Marlowe's office above CMO Pac in LA and there sat Steve and someone I would soon find out was DM.
To make a long story short Steve had me explain the entire thing to DM. On at least a dozen occasions DM would interrupt me and say something like "he's lying" or "he's a fucking liar", etc. I knew the subject cold, knew I was not lying and actually was not really intimated by DM other than knowing he had great authority.
So each time he accused me of lying, I took it up with DM and cleared up his confusions. He had little to no real understanding of legal and had just over the past year failed at trying to work this out himself.
I will leave out details for now but there were hours of questions and challenges from DM until I had handled everything he had questions on (how it could be controlled, how money could be controlled, how it affected Hubbard, etc.).
Finally after repeated hollering at me and seeing that he could not intimidate me and my clearing up all his confusions DM laughed and offered me some of his chewing tobacco (he was chewing tobacco thoughout all that). I said I did not chew and then he hollered at me to take some like it was a threat only in a "humorous" way. So I sat there chewing that stupid tobacco with him as we finished up.
I think DM was surprised that he could not intimidate me. I sensed that the way he "challenged" a person's certainty was through attempted intimidation. While I have seen him later beat/spit on others, he never did that to me. Although I am a believer in non-violence, I think DM knew that if he struck me I would have knocked his teeth out.
(In fact in 1983 I was sent on an "errand" to Denmark for DM and Lyman Spurlock and when I came back I found out that my wife (who had just weeks before had my baby) was "busted" by the likes of Marlowe/DM to "nanny" as she had not found a nanny for our baby. I was furious and demanded a car from my special unit secretary and drove to Int to kick the shit out of Marlowe and DM. Protecting my family I found was an ever bigger urge for me than all my strong non violent inclinations. Well the word got to int that I was coming. When I walked in the door to Marlowe's office (he was now in RTC) he immediately said it was all a misunderstanding, my wife was reinstated into special unit corporate and sort of "sorry". As far as I know that was the closest DM ever got to being beaten up. Anyway, that's a little sideline to my "story" here. I'm actually not proud of it).
Back to the first meeting with DM in Marlowe's office, DM approved the corporate sortout plan and I was cleared to go to Int within 30 minutes to coordinated it with different people on WDC such as Mark Yager, Marc Ingber, Donna Robbinson, etc. I remember being out of that room and hearing Marlowe/DM hollering to someone at Int that they could not wait for me to be sec checked to get an Int Clearance as it all had to be coordinated that night and the first implementation missions fired the next day or so. I heard them say that my "int clearance" was that I knew more of all that corporate than all of CMO combined and there was no one else who could coordinate this.
That indeed was a dubious "distinction".
This began my relationship with DM with much more following, a bit of which is covered in my blogspot and much more of which will be released in the future.
BTW, I have started a "perjury series" about DM and you can find it near the very end of my blogspot. It's fairly boring I think (it bores me) but it's a start.
Anyway, that's my "first time meeting DM" story.
Larry