We have another leak of a lengthy interview that’s never been made available in full before. It’s a talk with Mike Goldstein, who had been a member of Scientology’s Sea Organization in the 1970s and had been L. Ron Hubbard’s financial controller.
Portions of the interview appeared in Channel 4 UK’s excellent 1997 documentary, Secret Lives — L. Ron Hubbard. Over the last couple of months we’ve been posting outtakes and uncut interviews from the documentary that are appearing for the first time. Goldstein, for example, is someone who isn’t talked about a lot today, but he was at one time a key official in the Scientology superstructure.
He joined the Sea Org in 1971 and joined Hubbard at sea as Scientology was run from a small armada that plied the Mediterranean and Atlantic. By 1973, Goldstein had become the Finances “dictator” as Hubbard gave him a lot of responsibility over the movement’s financial lines.
Previous segments that we’ve released from the Secret Lives files have featured Hubbard’s literary agent, Forrest Ackerman, his press assistant and lover, Barbara Klowden, one of Hubbard’s fellow science fiction colleagues, Arthur Jean Cox, the former mayor of Clearwater, Florida, Gabe Cazares, Hubbard’s former medical officer, Jim Dincalci, archivist Gerry Armstrong, former Los Angeles Times reporter and postwar Hubbard roommate, Nieson Himmel, Washington State Representative Robert MacDonald Ford, who knew Hubbard and his first wife well, and Robert Vaughn Young, who had been Scientology’s spokesman.
Goldstein moved to Denver to promote Scientology there in 1974, went to Clearwater, Florida in 1978 to work in the headquarters there for a while before returning to Colorado, where he was “declared” a suppressive person in the early 1980s. He was briefly “undeclared” a few years later, but then left the church and began promoting an alternative version of Scientology that was called Idenics.
Let us know which of his observations about L. Ron Hubbard you find most interesting.
——————–
DOX: Emergency calls to Scientology’s flagship drug rehab center
Here’s another fun find from a friend to the Underground Bunker who has been digging up gems with the help of the Muckrock website. It’s a collection of emergency calls that brought Pittsburg County sheriff’s deputies to Narconon Arrowhead, Scientology’s flagship drug rehab center in Oklahoma, over a period of several years. Most of them were made between 2010 and 2015, but some are older, and they cover the period when three patients died at the facility from late 2011 to the middle of 2012.
We’ve pulled out a few examples here, and you can see the full Muckrock embedded file below.
8/1/12 Reporting Party advised that he was working there and was scared after the death of a patient there. He left Narconon and went to a friend’s house. He would like a deputy to go with him to pick up his clothes and personal things.
8/10/12 Employee terminated after they tested positive for meth and alcohol. They will be leaving Narconon property in 10 to 15 minutes in a maroon Chrysler Pacifica. Will be two white females and one white male.
10/27/12 Received drugs through the mail.
12/14/12 Reporting Party advised her 24-year-old son [redacted] is there and wants to leave. She lives in Louisiana on the Gulf Coast…Advised RP we could not provide transportation to Tulsa.
1/9/13 Reporting Party says she dropped her son off at Narconon on Thursday and she just found out about the deaths that has happened there. She said he called her tonight complaining he wasn’t feeling good. She told him to stop taking the meds they are giving him and she would come get him. She wants us to go get him and put him in jail until she gets here. She wants him in protective custody. I advised her we couldn’t put him in jail because he hasn’t committed a crime. If he was sick I could call her an ambulance for him. She doesn’t wan that.
7/27/13 Reporting Party took son to Narconon and then she read up about the things that happened there and she wants to get him on a plane out of there.
9/24/14 Reporting Party advised he’s trying to leave Narconon and they won’t give him his personal belongings. RP advised he has walked to the state park and is using their phone. He’s going to stand by there until a deputy shows up…Narconon stated if he returns they will give him his belongings.
1/27/15 Narconon cabins…Burglary…stolen gun…handled by deputy.
3/9/15 Assault and battery…Reporting Party advised that they have an individual names [redacted] that was assaulted at Narconon and he wants to press charges…Security guard from Narconon brought in individual, spoke with him, and they advised that they would handle it within themselves.
——————–
TONIGHT: Marty Rathbun gets the ID treatment
Two years ago, we live-blogged the ID Network’s treatment of the Nancy Many story. The episode was drawn from Nancy’s book, My Billion-Year Contract, and it consisted of Nancy narrating her own story while recreated scenes played on screen. We thought it was a good show.
Tonight, the ID Network is back, this time giving former Scientology executive Mark “Marty” Rathbun the treatment. We gather that it will draw from his book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior. We expect that it will be an interesting exploration of Rathbun’s background and dramatic escape from the Sea Org.
Rathbun has already gotten a lot of exposure, most recently from Alex Gibney’s HBO documentary Going Clear and the press avalanche that came with it, but also in an excellent Channel 4 UK film, Scientologists at War.
It will be interesting to see how those treatments differ from tonight’s show, which should be told more from Marty’s own view of his involvement in Scientology.
——————–
Bonus photos from our tipsters
From our tipster: “Creepy photo from Source magazine of the PC folder vault at Flag. It says that it has folders on every PC who ever received auditing at Flag since the days of The Apollo in the ‘60s and it’s all barcoded now. In other words, this is where they keep all the shit on everyone and can pull it out at the drop of a hat.”
Caption from actress Marisol Nichols: “Yesterday. So proud to host and celebrate Youth for Human Rights Day event in the Rayburn building. #DC”
Scientologists are using social media more than ever. Drop us a line if you spot them posting images to Instagram or Facebook!
——————–
Posted by Tony Ortega on April 15, 2015 at 07:00
E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.
Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…
BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of LA attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts
PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer
The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill
The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ
Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield
