The situation predicament is Scientology would absolutely WISH for all former senior people, particularly people with uncomplimentary firsthand accounts of LRH, to go public about the history they experienced around Hubbard or around any of the leaders of Scientology.
Bill Franks, like any citizen, is free, at least here in America, unless he signed a legal gag and was paid and doesn't wish to face the legal problems that breaking that agreement might bring, Bill is FREE to tell his history.
Bill Franks was the first Executive Director International. Approved by LRH.
Bill Franks has a long Sea Org officer history. He had his ups and downs, mainly ups, the downs related to his subordinates living under some intense pressure due to Bills style of executiving at times.
Bill has a mathematician methodical type of thinking, one time during one of his lecture/threat moments with me, he told me of his mathematics professor in university. Bill was/is extremely methodical. He really knew how to live as an "executive on LRH's lines." Bill was, I believe a junior officer (Lieutenant) in the US Army or Marines. He could be really tough sometimes, I had two incidents,which I posted about, but overall he was very meticulous in following administrative policy, and very adept at playing Sea Org management politics, getting things done for his area he was over. Bill was CO ITO when I was the OEC Course Sup.
Bill knew how to get things done, despite all the internal Sea Org politics.
I looked upon Bill is sort of the middle brother, to the three tough guy Sea Org officer trio, Alex Sibersky being the oldest brother, Bill the next brother, and Kerry Gleason being the youngest brother.
There's a whole context and bonding of those 3 in Sea Org history.
Bill was meticulous, he knew how to use LRH administrative orders to get things done for the position he held as a Sea Org officer, he knew how to use LRH's orders.
He was part of the famous or infamous Boston Command Team, that LRH praises in one of the LRH ED's about 5.4Xing org production. That was Alex, him, Kerry, and David Light. My first wife now ex wife, Ann Halblom Beatty (Ann was the FBO Flag for years, later Commodore's Staff Aide Div 3, and she was Sea Org Reserves under Bill's first Exec Strata setup, a temporary Exec Strata setup that existed at the FLB in 1979, Ann bombed and was RPFed, Ann had been under Bill at Boston Org, Nancy Many was there at Boston Org also, and Ann I don't think Bill wanted Ann as Treasury Exec Int, but Ann held some Treasury or Reserves position while the CS-Aides were transitioning into oblivion and the new Exec Strata was forming, there in 1979-1981ish).
Bill Franks was successul at LAD as CO.
Bill had been a successful CO DC org for years, when DC org was one of the top 3 or 4 producing Class 4/5 Orgs on the planet in the 1970s. Jeannie Danilovich (Hare, Franks, Bogvad) Sonnenfeld was very pivotal to DC's success (as she was later to ITO's growth and success).
When he was CO Int Training Org, after a stint in the RPF, the CO ITO went from 8-10 staff up to 60-70 staff. He and his wife Jeannie (now Sonnenfeld, she's the ED Cinncy today) really knew how to build the ITO, Jeannie and Craig Ferrera did recruiting, the ITO traffic from LRH, Bill ran with that traffic, Bill picking up from where Greg Wilhere the 1st CO ITO left off, with Paul Koval as temp CO ITO inbetween, Paul not doing really anything but treading water until Bill came and with Jeannie then boomed ITO.
Bill was a dynamic Sea Org officer who embodied the OEC FEBC materials, in all those materials BAD and PLUSES. He and Jeannie DID build ITO, some say Jeannie did most, but I'd say Bill knows and knew Sea Org internal push and shove politics, and used the LRH traffic to ITO to get the all important approvals and not being blocked from "just doing it."
Bill got things done, to say the least.
Lots of people praise him for doing things, I know lots, including myself, had some rough moments under Bill.
To me, he was MORE real deal Sea Org officer than say Kerry Gleason, who was also a pretty sharp exec, but Bill yelled and screamed a lot less than Kerry screamed and ranted. Bill was more quiet and brooding, and frankly more scary, he had a threatening presence to back up his ethics presence, frankly, and I tried hard to do my job perfectly and by the book, so as NOT to give Bill reason to get mad at me. I don't agree with LRH's "Ethics Presence" policy letter, but Bill was good at applying the "Ethics Presence" policy. He did have it. I thought Bill ought to have had more ARC and light touch, but I got along mostly almost fine with Bill, and he backed me up tremendously in the OEC department, in fact if not for him, I'd not have had students to supervise, since Bill knew the politics in the management ranks HOW to get cooperation agreement in the Flag Bureaux, and Kerry Gleason was then CO FB, to get the OEC trainees sent to Flag. There was an LRH program called the "Oscar" program, and Bill pushed that program, thus ITO had people to train.
When Bill was promoted from CO ITO to the ED International position, we in ITO at various times, read over the ITO LRH traffic.
The LRH traffic to Bill, I thought was highly complementary, and some parts of that LRH traffic still sticks in my head today. LRH praised Bill for Bill's old tough Sea Org officer style. That was significant to me.
I so wish we had ALL of LRH's traffic in the public domain, to today reflect on how LRH was playing the whole big "piano" of the Sea Org management people.
Despite all of LRH's grievous faults, LRH did expend a massive amount of attention in his final years to SO MANY Sea Org officers who were doing myriad jobs in all echelons of the movement.
LRH was like a Mussolini on steriods in terms of micromanaging, one might critically say.
And were us observers of the Scientology movement, those interested in the details, to have a convention of ALL of the whole entourage of Sea Org members that LRH was in daily weekly communication with, by the old telex traffic / advices, we'd see just how extensive and intense LRH's full breadth of attention played out.
LRH had a LOT of things going, LOT of orders, lot of directions he was urging action.
IN all of this maelstrom of "change" of the late 1970s, LRH DID approve of Bill Franks, and did promote Bill to the first Executive Director International position.
My opinion is Bill needed more allies, because when he rose to the lofty ED Int position, then it was not Bill pushing and getting his superiors to align with Bill's position as a lower down Sea Org officer trying to follow LRH's individual orders to his smaller zone, but NOT, as ED Int, Bill had a huge vacuum of people to help him do the ED Int position.
I really want to have some discussions with Bill, longer range, on the Executive STrata.
LRH in 1982, comes out strongly with much more about the Executive Strata, and Bill was driven out of the Sea Org, mainly I'll bet by Miscavige, so Bill did NOT have the luxury of seeing the LRH traffic to Bill's predecessor, Guilliaume Leserve.
I have a decent memory of the LRH traffic on Exec Strata, most of it came out WHEN Bill was still ED Int and over Exec Strata, but there was ONE very crucial piece of Exec Strata LRH traffic that came out to Guilliaume, and I so wish we had it here in the public domain to chew over.
I myself, still have the unreal hope that Scientology administratively will heal itself, fix itself.
My experience, and I fear Bill will confirm it, is that almost one for one, the senior execs who defect or get pressured OUT of the Sea Org, think the administrative setup is unredeemable.
I have always hoped the Exec Strata staff WOULD attain the "think tank" role that LRH wrote for them in LRH ED 339R Int.
To build a real think tank, of top execs over their zones of Scientology, to me it is something that the "old" tough guy Sea Org executive style is inevitably going to clash with.
In my opinion it takes a good decade to make some Exec Strata think tank experts that can actually strategically think with our current culture, and make the changes and reforms to knock out the "cult" out of the Scientology movement. (I'd send the Exec Strata members out to college, as part of their training lineup, frankly.)
Building top Scientology administrative leadership, tt's a personnel problem of perpetual underestimated magnitude, and with current Scientology leadership (the one man extremely ignorant brutish dictator David Miscavige) who is NOT building up Watchdog Committee nor the Exec Strata, I personally think the cult atmosphere Scientology displays is gonna go on for a decade until new leadership and when parishioner ranked Scientologists finally get fed up and revolt, sort of like the 1981 or 1982 Mission Holders revolt, which I believe Bill was on the Mission Holders' side of that turmoil.
The authoritarian "tough guy" Sea Org style transferred, I believe, by osmosis, my opinion, from the Bill Franks, Alex Sibersky, Kerry Gleason, leadership years, and it transferred to David Miscavige, Steve Marlowe,
During the late 1970s, like 1977-1979, there was still quite a bit of LRH weekly traffic, to the CO's of the various Flag (remember this was the period when at the Flag Land Base, all of management was there, the Commodore's Staff Aides were still in existence and failing, the Flag Bureaux was the day to day, week to week management of the conts and orgs
There is SO MUCH history Bill Franks has been a part of.
If I had 50 Gs, I'd like to take 3 years off, and write Sea Org history.
Bill was a really a HUGE player in Sea Org history.
I hope to meet and interview Bill for Sea Org and LRH history.
Bill Franks lived during the transformation from the old Commodore's Staff Aides and Flag Bu management setup, to the Watchdog Committee and Int Exec Strata setup that exists today.
And Bill was a productive org executive, knew how to get his LRH orders complied with, and he had a good relationship with LRH, and LRH respected Bill as a Sea Org officer.
What I think would be incredibly amazing, is for Bill Franks, Alex Sibersky, and Kerry Gleason to interview each other about their Sea Org careers, and history!
The 3 were and might still be friends, I believe, and co lived a lot.
Bill Franks posting, is very very historical.
Oh!!! That's what those numbers mean. 
Thank you and hello!
Bill, thank you for your information !
