Rick Cruzen, Musician

TRANSCRIPT:

I’m Rick Cruzen. I’ve been at Golden Era Productions since 1978, so almost forty years. And I am a musician, composer and a sound engineer.

In late 1985 Ron Miscavige came to the base here as a musician. And at that time I was in charge of the music area, and so Ron was in the band as a trumpet player. He was a very brash, loud, pretty obnoxious person. He does have a con man side to him which is smooth and the silver tongue type of thing, which he uses to get his way, but he’s not a sincerely nice person in any way. I’ve never known him, for instance, ever express any sincere remorse for anything that he did wrong, ever. This is a very unique missing quality with Ron Miscavige.

So within the first couple of months when Ron got here, I realized that we had a problem with him. He’s basically…he’s the type of guy that no matter how good things are, he wants something better, he’s never satisfied. He’s the 'squeaky wheel gets the oil' type of guy. In other words, “I’m gonna holler and make a noise and I’m gonna get my way. Everybody is taking Saturdays off, that’s not good enough for me. I want Saturday and Sunday off, at least half a day on Sunday. I want this, I want that. I want, I want, I want, I want. ”

And his whole modus operandi or his way of life was arranged around what he could get. And really, after getting to know Ron better over the years, I...I have learned that he really was not a person who had ever held down a job, worked, learned a skill, learned a profession. He couldn’t take a photograph, he couldn’t, you know, write a really competent piece of music. He couldn’t do...he just couldn't do these things. He was somebody who got by, by what he said, what strings he could pull, what influences he could have and that type of thing. He was a con man.

There was some minor incident where Ron had taken what I would call unfair advantage of his familial relationship with another staff member and had gotten something. I don’t remember the specifics of it. I only remember that afterwards I spoke to him about it and I said, “Listen, you need to be careful because of how we all feel about your son. You can’t take advantage of that. If you do, it’s a wrong thing to do. It's not…you know, you have to be an ethical person in this regard.” And I figured that that was going to get through to him. But he looked at me with a blank that I…has never seen exceeded. I mean, he just did not grok that at all. You know, like “What are you talking about? What is life about? That’s what I’m here for!” Literally, that’s how it was. He never even acknowledged me on that. So that was kind of the beginning of all of that.

What I have experienced of the relationship between Ron and his son David was a good friendship, a lot of camaraderie, a lot of warmth, particularly coming from Mr. David Miscavige. He was a very caring son. I mean, if I were a father, I would be beaming with pride to have a son like that and very tickled with the way that he always remembered special occasions, anniversaries, his birthday, that type of thing, with really nice gifts, very appropriate, thoughtful gifts, not just something that, you know, you spend a few extra dollars to make it look good. He's—the type of thing where he...you could tell he really thought, what’s…what’s he going to really get something out of and enjoy, and he would go the extra mile to get that type of thing. It was really, really nice.

Their relationship also was...was absolutely family. There is an allegation from Ron that he had some idea of what David was doing in the Church and his direction of the Church and his guidance and all this kind of stuff. And this really is, you know, the...the flea commanding the dog kind of idea. I mean, he just...he...he’s a clueless man. He didn’t have a clue what was going on in the organization he worked in!

I first met Mr. David Miscavige in 1978. At that time we were both, you know, really young people, practically children, and I’ve known him since that time. At that time, we...I didn’t work for him immediately. He was on different...different things. But starting in about 1980 or '81, I started working with him on audiovisual, on films, lecture restoration, and eventually on actual setting up of facilities, lines, equipment and so forth for lecture restoration. And this was an immense project directly under the direction of L. Ron Hubbard. And all of these things I count as the, you know, the most prominent parts of my life, the most meaningful parts of my life, the greatest experiences of my life.

When we originally met was when the original technical training films were being shot by LRH in La Quinta. And at that time, Mr. Miscavige was on loan as the Chief Cameraman. I say on loan from the…from L. Ron Hubbard’s personal organization, on loan to the Cine organization to be the Chief Cameraman.

So moving forward from there, in the eighties I...I did...I started mixing or doing restoration of L. Ron Hubbard’s lectures. David Miscavige, at that time, he had...he had such an immense number of, you could say jobs, but specialties. He had the ability to take on some new area, some new facet of production. Like in this case it was lecture restoration, which is a very technical field. We have advanced it beyond anywhere else in the world, really, right here, and that’s all been done under his personal direction.

He has the ability, anyway, to go into these various fields like that and just pervade the whole field and...and...and gain a certainty and a terrific understanding of it, practically overnight. And then be able to direct people accurately to get a result in that field. I don’t know anybody else that can do that, except in their specialty field. I can do that in music, somewhat in mixing. He can do it in dozens of fields. He’s an immense intellect, to say the least.

But at any rate, I started working on mixing on this, and he basically nurtured me up and got me producing good restorations. And...and then that went off into audiovisual properties for our events, film soundtracks and a great deal of mixing of all of our early materials. That was all under his wing, under his direction, and a really rewarding experience. And was a lot of the initial dissemination that really got the Church of Scientology into the mainstream and really, really growing and getting strong and getting lots of support from its...from its membership, all under his direction.

Everything that he works on, the outcome is always lasting, always beneficial, always broadly helpful. Nothing that he does ever benefits just, you know, a small slice of life. It benefits people personally. It benefits their families. It benefits the group as whole. It benefits everyone very broadly.

If there’s a hallmark of Mr. David Miscavige’s career, I would say that he is…he is the one person who has made sure without doubt that what L. Ron Hubbard wanted to accomplish, and all of his teachings, all of his writings—that all of this was carried out to the letter, perfectly and exactly with the correct intention that it was meant to be done with. And that is what he has done. And for a Scientologist in the Scientology religion, no greater contribution could have been made by anyone. It’s the top.

What I’ve seen of the Church’s growth under Mr. David Miscavige is that since the late seventies—the Church at that time was in a very tenuous position. And under his leadership, everything that L. Ron Hubbard wanted to accomplish with the Church is being accomplished and the Church is expanding and accomplishing its purposes. And there’s really no better way to put it than that. We have a...our membership has grown and grown and grown. Our staff are tremendously well organized, well trained, proud, strong, intensely dedicated. It is an incredible group.

We have humanitarian programs, all started by Mr. Hubbard, which Mr. Miscavige has spearheaded now and gotten these campaigns running all over the world, staffed by Scientology staff members and Scientology public and non-Scientologists all over the world that are participating in these campaigns. We’re making a difference in the world. And that is what we’re trying to do to uplift this culture. So we’re doing it, under his direction. And it’s an incredible group to be a part of. We’re all very proud to be a part of the Church. We’re intensely proud of him and proud to be under his direction.

CHAPTERS:

#1 Rick Cruzen introduces himself. #2 Ron Miscavige's arrival to Gold and his offensive behavior. Getting his way. #3 Relationship between Ron Miscavige and Mr. David Miscavige. #4 Ron Miscavige had no knowledge of Church management. #5 First meeting and working with Mr. David Miscavige at La Quinta. #6 Mr. David Miscavige's diverse and exceptional skills and abilities. #7 Rick working with Mr. David Miscavige. #8 Mr. David Miscavige's accomplishments. #9 Church expansion under Mr. David Miscavige's leadership.