A Successful Mission??
Joe van Staden; said:
BIRTH OF THE SEA ORG – THE DIE IS CAST
. . . snipped . . . .
A clue as to the direction the Sea Org was heading was provided one evening during a visit by LRH to the ship. He announced that it was time the Sea Org came out of non-existence – it was time to make an impact on the orgs out there beginning with St Hill. It was mission time. The mission’s purpose was mainly to assert and affirm SO authority and presence. As it turned out the three members of this first SO mission was my wife Jill, Fred Payer and me.
The first SO mission arrives at St Hill
Arriving from Las Palmas, before walking into St Hill, Jill, Fred and I changed into our SO uniforms and made our dramatic entrance as intended by LRH. The incident of me going into the manor monkey room and sticking the dagger into the ceiling is described by Bent Corydon in his book; Messiah or Madman.
To tell the truth, this dagger thing was a bit embarrassing for me, I didn’t share L Ron Hubbard’s leaning toward the theatrical.
During the mission Reg Sharpe was removed from post. Up to then he had been LRH’s right hand man. Reg left and with him his girlfriend, Jenny Edmonds. Where they SP’s? Of course not. It was the missions brief to get rid of anyone who in any way questioned the authority of the Sea Org – there was to be no doubt about the SO’s powers and position at the top of the ladder. And as has been confirmed since, the mission was a success.
A note on the concept of SP
At the time of the first SO mission I only suspected but later became certain that SP declares were as much a political tool as anything else. In the bigger scheme of things it had less relevance to an individual’s case. Sure, there are anti-social characters running around, but let’s face it; by no stretch of the imagination did Reg Sharpe and Jenny Edmonds along with hundreds of other declared people fit the definition of SP as described in policy.
Joe,
I have been biting my tongue since you posted your intro.
It makes a jolly story, the sort of thing one would read in a Boy’s Own Best Venture Series.
But you were very glib and passed over a critical issue you and your wife need to fess up to and take responsibility for. I say that kindly as we are in a time of forgiveness, but nonetheless, truth must be dealt with.
You state above, you and your wife and Fred were the first SO Missionaries sent on mission, as you say, whose “purpose was mainly to assert and affirm SO authority and presence.” You also state: “And as has been confirmed since, the mission was a success.”
Pardon me for pointing it out, but you and your wife set the standard with that mission as the first and basic on the chain of SO and “upper management” behavior that is the destruction of Scientology and the what was then a winning organizational operation.
For those interested, they can view elsewhere on this board the facts of the Reg Sharpe scenario, the brutality toward and lies told about a stellar man whose name ought have been revered but who is now forgotten and besmirched.
I’ll give you another example of the utter crass stupidity and violation of correct tech and decency that was carried out by that “first SO mission.”
There was a Dist Sec in London at the time. He had been commended by the Guardian for totally turning London Org around and named as being the source of London’s affluence. He had raised the stats from 3 a week when he went into the area to over fifty weekly in the day org, and from 1-2 to over 25 on foundation. It happened that because of short staff, he held both day and foundation positions: indeed he was the entire foundation’s Div 6.
It was noted by the Guardian that the Dist Sec London was producing more Div 6 stat than any continental zone of orgs combined. Such was the magnitude of his success.
The key to his success was that he created a cohesive and productive FSM team, along with clever implementation of HCO PLs.
However, the HCO side of the org was recalcitrant, lazy, and living off of the Div 6 production. Indeed the Dist Sec had to write a High Crime chit of the HCO Exec Sec for her refusal to implement the policy on “FSM Rewards.” She also refused a B of I into Div 2 that the Dist Sec requested when he noticed the anomaly that the GI affluence of London was from Div 6 developed traffic not from Div 2 and/or CF names.
All this traffic was known at GGWW at the time . . . which happened to be when you did the mission you write of.
In March of 1968, London was assigned a Condition of Power and Mark and Ellen Jones (Qual Sec and ED respectively) were going off to Flag to do OT3. Unfortunately the ED (Ellen) was replaced by the husband (Tim Littler) of the HCO Exec Sec who was sent up from FOLO. The man was a buffoon. He was explicitly told by the ED he was relieving to leave the Dist Sec alone, don’t interfere, he is the source of our Power Condition.
Littler was not that bright . . . . the first thing he did was to begin to interfere with and change everything in sight that his dull mind thought should be “improved.”
By the end of the first week of him on post, org stats had crashed from Power to Non-Existence.
On the Thursday afternoon, prior to WW declaring Conditions assignments, the Dist Sec learned of the divisional and org stats and realized what a catastrophe was at hand. He telexed WW under the headline: “Dist Sec London By-passing a Danger Condition,” and wrote up all his observations as to what had crashed the stats.
And there was an SO mission into London as a result. Your wife Jill is the name I remember as the missionary.
To cut the long story short, I was that Dist Sec, and she never spoke to me nor obtained any info from me or otherwise investigated what could have been found out by properly doing so. All she did was smooch with the HCO Exec Sec and the relief ED . . . both of whom were the cause and source of the strife in the org.
Hell, all she had to do was go through my ethics folder and see the job endangerment chits I’d filed in the months prior to get a glimpse of the real scene! . . . That apart from the volume of commendations.
I became the target and was put through the usual ringer of round the clock “sec checking” over out ruds of course! Hell, why not? I had kicked up a stink to say there was some bad shit going on!
Her first other action (later claimed as a success) was to put all staff on duty 24 hours a day to have
all staff do the successful action I had created for two particular FSMs . . . all staff were sent out to body route folks in off the street for Intro Lectures and be sold books. During the evening when it was too late to body route, the staff were to clean the org premises from top to bottom.
Guess what was found . . . over 600 invoices of new names that had never made into the Central Files for Div 2 to use! They’d simply accumulated in a pile in addresso! (Would have been corrected months prior had the B of I I’d requested been granted!)
Of course, all of the staff doing what had before been to work of two part-time FSMs (a function I had created) did get a better stat for the action. Added to that were the “new found” names in CF. Wow, was all this trumpeted as a “successful” mission? You betcha . . . it was even used to prove the former Dist Sec was suppressive! Ya see, we removed him and the stats went up!
Of course, SO mission power rules supreme: they're able to violate policy and remove executives from post without comm-ev, as was done to me.
Of course as soon as all the staff returned to normal duties down went the stats again . . . . heh, but by then our intrepid missionary was out of the area writing up her version of the “successful action.”
A year and a bit later, an SO Last Court of Appeal reversed all the bullshit and returned me to good standing. Of course nothing was done to deal with or handle the true miscreants Sue and Tim Littler.
And so, Scientology as an enterprise went from bad to worse . . . . it was slow, of course, but the standard you and Jill (Fred I cannot comment on as I had no dealings with him on that mission) set with that first SO mission set the slide going.
You and she could have behaved kindly and with some honor towards those who were proven producers . . . you might even have been smart enough to have listened to them and to find out what they had to say that would have steered things straight. You, and in particular Jill, could have actually done thorough and proper investigations . . . but no! You characters were into dominate, control and know-best. . . . and that is always a recipe for disaster.
You set a bad, a very bad standard of conduct on that first SO mission.
To be honest I find it disingenuous when you speak of Reg Sharpe and what was done to him in the way you do, and how you now simply gloss over it to say “by no stretch of the imagination did Reg Sharpe and Jenny Edmonds along with hundreds of other declared people fit the definition of SP as described in policy.”
Yes, well, I for one can tell you the shit you guys pulled destroyed lives, dreams and aspirations . . . and that, unfortunately is the standard you set on that first SO mission.
Joe, I’d like to see you and Jill take responsibility for your part in allowing and forwarding . . . and in your cases,
practicing . . . the crass brutality and inept handling of people and scenarios (as exemplified by Reg’s and my cases here).
Look at the video of Hana Eltringham Whitfield, and see a gracious lady taking responsibility for her very little part in the barbarity and abuses of correct and decent practices . . . see her moved to a gentle tear as she reflected on the point that all she did was stand by and
allow it! But, for one of integrity and decency, that is enough to see one has wronged.
I've not seen that reflected in what you have presented here. I'd like to see that.
Then I’d give you and Jill a very warm welcome here on ESMB . . . till then, it’s a simple glad you’re here and out of “there.”
RogerB