Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(111)
One of her assignments was to study a bulletin of Hubbard’s titled “The Responsibilities of Leaders.” It is Hubbard’s deconstruction of the lives of the nineteenth-century South American military leader Simón Bolívar and his ferociously protective mistress, a socialite named Manuela Sáenz. Bolívar, Hubbard writes, “was a military commander without peer in history. Why he would fail and die an exile to be later deified is thus of great interest. What mistakes did he make?” Sáenz, his consort, “was a brilliant, beautiful and able woman. She was loyal, devoted, quite comparable to Bolivar, far above the cut of average humanoids. Why then did she live a vilified outcast, receive such violent social rejection and die of poverty and remain unknown to history? What mistakes did she make?”
Hubbard’s analysis was that Bolívar knew how to do only one thing brilliantly—to lead men in battle—and therefore he tended to resort to military solutions when diplomacy or politics would better serve. “He was too good at this one thing,” Hubbard observes. “So he never looked to any other skill and he never even dreamed there was any other way.” Bolívar failed to use his immense authority to reward his friends and punish his enemies; thus his friends deserted him and his enemies grew stronger. Craving glory and the love of his people, Bolívar disdained the bloody intrigues that might have kept him in power. “He never began to recognize a suppressive and never considered anyone needed killing except on a battlefield,” Hubbard coldly sums up. “His addiction to the most unstable drug in history—fame—killed Bolivar.”
Manuela Sáenz might have saved him. She had qualities that he lacked, but she, too, made mistakes. For all her cleverness, she never contrived to make Bolívar marry her, which would have given her the standing that she badly needed. “She was utterly devoted, completely brilliant and utterly incapable of bringing off an action of any final kind,” Hubbard notes. “She violated the power formula in not realizing that she had power.” She should have taken on the portfolio of Bolívar’s secret police chief (as Mary Sue did for Hubbard). “She was not ruthless enough to make up for his lack of ruthlessness and not provident enough to make up for his lack of providence,” Hubbard writes. “She was an actress for the theater alone.”
In Hubbard’s view, the moral of Bolívar and Sáenz’s tragedy is that those with power must use it. Someone close to power, like Manuela, has to dedicate herself to enlarging the strength of her partner. “Real powers are developed by tight conspiracies of this kind,” Hubbard writes. If Manuela had been willing to support Bolívar completely, Hubbard concludes, she would have been a truly historic figure, rather than being “unknown even in the archives of her country as the heroine she was.”
Nazanin Boniadi was obviously being groomed for leadership. Why else would she be reading about Bolívar and Sáenz? But what lesson was she supposed to draw? She was puzzled by the demands the church was placing on her, which had little to do with human rights. Along with the security checks and the coursework, Naz was told to have her braces taken off and was given very expensive beauty treatments. Wilhere informed her that the “director” of the special project had decided that her hair had too much red in it, so a stylist to the stars came to the Celebrity Centre to darken and highlight her hair. Then came the shopping spree. Wilhere took Naz to Rodeo Drive and spent twenty thousand dollars for her new wardrobe.
Finally, Naz and Wilhere flew to New York, first class. She guessed that the mission would finally be revealed to her. They stopped at the New York Org, ostensibly on routine business, but there they happened to run into Tom Cruise. Tommy Davis was with him. Although it all seemed like a happy coincidence, Naz was a little flustered. Not only was Cruise the biggest star in the world, he had also just been accorded the highest honor in Scientology. She said to him, “Very well done, sir.” (Later she was corrected for saying that, because you don’t commend your senior.)
Cruise was charming. He said that he and Davis were headed over to the Empire State Building and then to Nobu for some sushi—why didn’t they join them? Afterward, they all went skating at Rockefeller Center, which was closed to the public while they were on the rink. It was beginning to seem a little too perfect. She spent that first night with Cruise in the Trump Tower, where he had taken an entire floor for his entourage.
Cruise invited Naz to hang out on the set of War of the Worlds, which was shooting in Athens, New York, the next morning. At the end of the day, Davis accompanied her back to the city. In the limo, he handed Naz a non-disclosure agreement. There was no lawyer present, and she wasn’t given a copy of what she signed. He informed her that the “mission” was now off the table. This—the relationship with Cruise—was far more important. Davis warned that if she did anything to upset Cruise he would personally destroy her.
Naz wasn’t resistant. She wanted to help the world, and she had faith that Scientology could do that. Cruise was dazzling. Scientology was deeply important to both of them. It was obviously meant to be, so why question it?
According to several knowledgeable sources, within a few weeks Naz moved into Cruise’s house. Davis and Jessica Feshbach were constantly tutoring her in how to behave toward the star. One evening, she and Cruise had dinner with several Scientologists, including Tommy Davis and Cruise’s niece, Lauren Haigney, who was in the Sea Org and was posted to Gold Base. She had been Katy Haggis’s best friend all through their childhood. They were at the Delphian School together. At the dinner, Lauren talked about her friendship with Katy, and how she had decided to break off their relationship when Katy said she was a lesbian. Naz was shocked, not just by the comment but by the fact that everyone agreed with her decision.8