FVF: The Heiresses and the Cult
sufaud
To family friends, Seagram heiresses Sara and Clare Bronfman are
victims of a frightening, secretive “cult” called nxivm, which has
swallowed as much as $150 million of their fortune. But the
organization’s leader, Keith Raniere, seems also to have tapped into a
complex emotional rift between the sisters and their father,
billionaire philanthropist Edgar Bronfman Sr. The author investigates
the accusations that are now flying—blackmail, perjury, forgery—in a
many-sided legal war.
By Suzanna Andrews
Vanity Fair
U.K. EDITION November 2010
Photo: http://www.vanityfair.com/images/culture/2010/11/bronfman.jpg
Caption: Sara (left) and Clare Bronfman onstage at the Palace Theatre
in Albany, New York, in May 2009, after an appearance by the Dalai
Lama. Insets: above, nxivm founder Keith Raniere; left, Edgar Bronfman
Sr.
This spring, Clare Bronfman, the 31-year-old heiress to the multi-
billion-dollar Seagram liquor fortune, would describe to a New York
court the extortion letter that was sent to her on April 24, 2009.
Intended for her 33-year-old sister, Sara, as well, it was signed by
several women, including the sisters’ financial planner, a masseuse,
and a hairstylist, and demanded that “they be paid $2.1 million by
midnight,” Clare said in a sworn declaration, “or else they would go
to the press with information they deemed harmful to my sister and I.”
What that information was, the letter didn’t say, but Clare viewed the
threat as alarming. The daughters of the billionaire philanthropist
and former Seagram chairman, Edgar Bronfman Sr., and the half-sisters
of Edgar junior, the chairman of Warner Music Group, Sara and Clare
were not simply heiresses to a global empire built by their
grandfather Samuel Bronfman. As they would describe themselves, they
were also important, wealthy entrepreneurs and philanthropists in
their own right—women who bankrolled a web of investments and
humanitarian foundations based in the Albany region, where they lived.
Indeed, as Clare would tell a court this spring, the extortion demand
arrived when she and Sara “were two weeks away from hosting the Dalai
Lama in Albany for an event on humanitarian issues.”
The alleged threat would have been disturbing if it occurred. But
among the many allegations that have been made about Sara and Clare
Bronfman in recent months was the charge that Clare was lying about
the “extortion” letter. Made in hundreds of pages of court documents
that began to leak out to the press this spring, they have stunned
friends of the Bronfman family. Many knew that Edgar Bronfman’s
daughters were involved in a secretive organization called nxivm
(pronounced “nexium”), a group that he himself had openly referred to
as “a cult.” But only a few were aware of what the court documents
would reveal—the massive gutting by the Bronfman daughters of their
family trust funds to help finance nxivm and the alleged investment
schemes of its leader, a 50-year-old man by the name of Keith Raniere.
The amount—reportedly $100 million—was staggering and made for eye-
popping headlines. But according to legal filings and public
documents, in the last six years as much as $150 million was taken out
of the Bronfmans’ trusts and bank accounts, including $66 million
allegedly used to cover Raniere’s failed bets in the commodities
market, $30 million to buy real estate in Los Angeles and around
Albany, $11 million for a 22-seat, two-engine Canadair CL-600 jet, and
millions more to support a barrage of lawsuits across the country
against nxivm’s enemies. Much of it was spent, according to court
filings, as Sara and Clare Bronfman allegedly worked to conceal the
extent of their spending from their 81-year-old father and the
Bronfman-family trustees.
But Edgar Bronfman knew at least some of what was going on, according
to those who have spoken to him. And he was deeply concerned, says one
ex-nxivm member who met with him last year. “He wanted to know how his
girls were. He was worried about them,” this person says. “He saw
them, but only the façade.” They were distant and secretive. “I was
afraid,” this person says, “to tell him what was really happening.”
Like many former members of nxivm, this person was afraid of the
consequences of speaking out. But in the last few months, people have
begun to come forward with stories about nxivm. Stories about private
detectives allegedly obtaining bank and phone records of nxivm
opponents; stories of its critics being followed and threatened and,
in one case, reportedly run off the road by a black limousine;
accounts of a motherless three-year-old boy, brought into the group as
a newborn under mysterious circumstances, and about the circumstances
behind the Dalai Lama’s visit to Albany. Suddenly darker questions
were being raised about how the Bronfmans’ money was being used.
Indeed, today, in the multiple lawsuits involving the Bronfman
sisters, there are serious allegations being lobbed—not just of
possible blackmail and perjury but also of other “potentially illegal”
activities, including theft and “a conspiracy to forge documents.”
What seems clear, from court documents and interviews with ex–nxivm
members—and those who have come into conflict with the group and its
mysterious guru—is that Sara and Clare Bronfman could be in serious
trouble. And yet, despite his wealth and power, their father, at least
publicly, appears to be doing nothing to help. According to some
family friends and advisers, however, there may be nothing he can do,
in part because, some say, he may have been the one who set all this
in motion. Sara and Clare, says a friend of theirs, “are not
completely brainwashed.… They’re more cognizant than you’d think,
given the amount of money involved. I think there are personal reasons
regarding the conflict they have with their family that keep them
affiliated with nxivm. On some level, I think they feel the
affiliation is reinforcing their version of things, in opposition to
the opinion of their family. I think all the legal, litigious
craziness is all about them trying to win this battle with their
father.”
Bronfman Gold Dust
Of the two sisters, Sara is the more outgoing, which comes across in
photographs. In one taken just after the Dalai Lama’s Albany speech,
in May 2009, Sara is beaming. Wearing sandals, an ankle-length blue
dress, and a silky white scarf around her neck, her curly brown hair
hanging loose down her back, she is walking outside Albany’s Palace
Theatre next to Pamela Cafritz. A longtime acolyte of Raniere’s and
the daughter of the Washington socialites Bill and Buffy Cafritz,
Pamela is wearing a suit and heels. On her left is Clare. She has a
worried, almost dour expression. Wearing an ill-fitting knee-length
burgundy dress, she is barefoot. Both Bronfmans resemble their father
far more than their 60-year-old mother, Georgiana.
Born Rita Webb, she was a great beauty, the daughter of a pub owner in
Essex, England, who changed her name to Georgiana shortly before she
became Edgar Bronfman’s third wife, in 1975. Edgar and his first wife,
the investment-banking heiress Ann Loeb, had divorced two years
earlier. They’d been married for 20 years and had five children
together—Samuel, Edgar junior, Holly, Matthew, and Adam—who were in
their teens and 20s when Sara and Clare were born. Edgar senior’s
father had died only months before his separation from Ann, and in his
1998 memoir, Good Spirits, he would say that for much of the next 15
years he “rode an emotional roller coaster, struggling with difficult
relationships and painful separations.” In 1973, after his divorce
from Ann, he married Lady Carolyn Townshend, but soon had the marriage
annulled, on the grounds that she refused to sleep with him.
His marriage to Sara and Clare’s mother ended when Sara was around
seven and Clare only four. In a decision he would later call “really
naïve,” Bronfman remarried Georgiana—“to keep my young girls with me,”
he wrote—but the relationship soon collapsed again. For the rest of
their childhood, the girls would visit their father, who owned estates
outside Charlottesville, Virginia, and in Westchester County, a home
in Sun Valley, and an apartment on Fifth Avenue. But their lives would
be centered in England and in Kenya, where their mother, who was
reportedly involved with the noted paleontologist Richard Leakey—and
who is currently married to actor Nigel Havers—spent much of her time.
But even when Sara and Clare were with their father, says a friend,
there was a sense of separation. “They were the last two of seven
children, and there was a significant age gap, and they really weren’t
always under the umbrella of the Bronfman family,” the friend says.
“It’s noticeable, when you’re with them, that they were not always
sitting at the exalted Bronfman table.” They hadn’t grown up in New
York society, like their siblings, or gone to top schools. They
weren’t sprinkled with the Bronfman gold dust, and, in a family noted
for its sense of entitlement, this set them apart. But they did have
the Bronfman name and the Bronfman money.
Photo: http://www.vanityfair.com/images/culture/2010/11/bronfman2.jpg
Caption: Raniere (in bed reading How to Win at Gambling).
Saving the World, Saving the Universe
Sara was the first to join nxivm. In the fall of 2002, when the group
was still known as Executive Success Programs, she took one of its
“intensives”—workshops that today last anywhere from 5 to 16 days and
cost about $7,500. The introductory courses were essentially life-
coaching, self-improvement workshops, based on an amalgam of
therapeutic techniques, including hypnosis and Neuro-linguistic
Programming, or NLP, a controversial behavior-modification regimen.
These techniques had been repackaged—along with a moral twist, that by
becoming fully empowered one could help create a more ethical world—
into something called Rational Inquiry by Keith Raniere, who had
founded Executive Success Programs in 1998 with Nancy Salzman, an NLP
trainer.
Born in Brooklyn in 1960, Raniere was the only child of an advertising
executive and a former ballroom-dance teacher. When he was eight,
according to his father, James, his parents divorced and he was raised
by his mother, Vera, in the suburbs. Educated in private schools,
Raniere would claim that in 1989 he was in the Guinness Book of World
Records for “Highest IQ.” He also claimed to have taught himself high-
school math in 19 hours when he was 12 and to have completed three
years of college math and computer-language classes by the age of 13.
He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York,
in 1982, having majored in physics, math, and biology, and later
worked as a computer programmer and consultant. In 1990, he founded
Consumers’ Buyline, a multi-level marketing company, and then co-
founded Executive Success Programs.
By 2002, what most people saw in ESP was a successful corporate self-
help program. Many of its “graduates” reported amazing results: some
had stopped smoking; others had overcome their fear of public
speaking. Its alumni include Sheila Johnson, a co-founder of Black
Entertainment Television; Antonia Novello, the former U.S. surgeon
general; Richard Branson; and Emiliano Salinas, a venture capitalist,
who is the son of Mexico’s former president Carlos Salinas and still a
prominent nxivm member.
Sara was introduced to nxivm by a family friend. She was 25, charming,
and sweet, but “an airhead,” as one acquaintance puts it, a party girl
who flitted from European city to European city, island to island. Her
four-month marriage, to an Irish jockey named Ronan Clarke, was
already in trouble. She had done some work at N.Y.U., but not much
else with her life, except to run a skydiving business in the
Caribbean. As Sara would later explain on her blog, she was “in search
of finding ways to bring peace to the world.” According to the family
friend, who put it more prosaically, she was desperately looking for
some purpose in her life. And she found it at nxivm. “She was enamored
right away,” recalls one former nxivm “trainer.” Sara urged Clare,
then 23, to take an intensive. At the time, Clare was passionately
committed to her equestrian career—she was a competitive jumper,
trained horses, and owned her own company, Slate River Farm—which
might explain why she was a tougher sell. According to a former nxivm
member, at her first workshop, in Mexico, Clare refused to look people
in the eye. She showed up in a dirty T-shirt. “She had a defiant air
about her. She was more angry than Sara—angry at the world,” this
woman recalls. “She would tell people that she had decided to spend
the rest of her life with horses, because she didn’t like human
beings.”
Father Knows Best
In the early part of 2003 Edgar Bronfman took his first intensive. A
former nxivm devotee recalls that it was because “he saw amazing
changes” in his daughters. But others believe it may have also been
because Raniere had his sights set on the billionaire almost from the
day that Sara showed up for her first workshop. During their initial
sessions, both sisters gave one trainer the impression that they had a
“terrible” relationship with their father. “I remember them saying
that he was the kind of man that could always buy anything—anything or
anyone,” says this person. “And they didn’t want that control
anymore.” But at the time, another person says, all that people knew
was Raniere had urged them to reach out to their father. And Bronfman,
apparently eager to improve his relationship with his youngest
children, signed up for one of the five-day “V.I.P.” courses, which
were designed to pull in the rich and famous. The intimate, $10,000
white-glove workshops were then taught by nxivm’s president, Nancy
Salzman, who, along with Edgar Bronfman Sr., Sara, Clare, Raniere, and
other nxivm representatives, would not comment for this story.
“If everyone were to go through this training, the world would be a
much better and safer place to live,” Bronfman purportedly wrote in a
testimonial to nxivm shortly after he completed the course. During the
workshops, he said, “we learned to look deep into our psyches, to get
rid of hang-ups that had plagued us for years.” He was so impressed by
nxivm’s program that he began private therapy sessions with Nancy
Salzman. For months, according to Barbara Bouchey, a former nxivm
board member, he would send his helicopter to pick Salzman up in New
York and fly her to his estate in Virginia. But something went awry.
People believe it was when Clare, in a snit, after a nxivm session in
which she felt ignored, told her father that nxivm had borrowed $2
million from her. Furious, Bronfman soon cut his ties with nxivm.
But it didn’t end there. In October 2003, Keith Raniere was on the
cover of Forbes magazine. The article was devastating—a gold mine of
previously unpublished information, it painted a dark portrait of
nxivm and portrayed Raniere as a strange and “manipulative” man, who
had no driver’s license and no bank accounts in his name, although
nxivm appeared to be raking in millions. It revealed that in 1993 his
great business achievement, Consumers’ Buyline, had been shut down
after being investigated by regulators in 20 states and sued by New
York’s attorney general on the grounds it was “a pyramid scheme.”
nxivm’s bizarre rituals were detailed—the “ESP handclap,” the bowing,
Raniere’s insistence that he be referred to as “Vanguard” and Salzman
as “Prefect.” There was also the “baffling and solipsistic jargon,”
some of it derived from Raniere’s intense devotion to the works of Ayn
Rand—and from “his notion of unalloyed self-interest as the path to
ethical behavior.” “Parasites” were people who created problems
because they craved attention, and “suppressives” were those who saw
good but wanted to destroy it, which included anyone who opposed
Raniere and nxivm. Most alarming were the accounts of near-psychotic
breakdowns among some who had gone through the nxivm program, accounts
that described what appeared to be classic brainwashing techniques, in
which people were separated from their families and slowly broken down
psychologically.
People at nxivm were stunned. Expecting a positive story, the top
ranks had spoken to Forbes, including Raniere, Salzman, and Sara
Bronfman. What upset them above all were Edgar Bronfman’s remarks. “I
think it’s a cult,” he told the magazine, going on to say that he was
troubled about the “emotional and financial” investment in nxivm by
his daughters, to whom he hadn’t spoken in months. Sara and Clare were
shocked. Their father had given them no warning, people say. “I don’t
think he addressed this with them, and they were deeply hurt by that,”
says a friend, adding that especially for Sara, who had been made to
look slightly ridiculous in the article—caressing her yellow nxivm
sash and gushing that it was “the first thing that I had earned on
just my merits”—“this resonated as a betrayal.” Within nxivm, word
went out that Edgar Bronfman had encouraged the article, perhaps even
feeding Forbes information “because he wanted to destroy nxivm.” If
this was true, it backfired. “That,” says one woman, “was when Edgar
Bronfman became nxivm’s enemy.”
It was shortly after the article appeared that Toni Natalie called
Edgar Bronfman to warn him. She knew from personal experience how
dangerous it could be to cross Keith Raniere. She had been his
girlfriend for eight years, his business partner in a health-food
shop, and she was around when Salzman and Raniere had set up ESP.
Natalie says that after she left Raniere, in 1999, a nearly decade-
long nightmare began. Although Salzman would deny allegations of
harassment, according to court documents Natalie’s home was broken
into; police were sent to her mother’s house; her family was
threatened. When her business with Raniere collapsed, saddled with
debts that had been put in her name, she filed for bankruptcy. What
should have been a quick process dragged out for nine years as
Raniere, backed by Salzman and Kristin Keeffe—another top Raniere
lieutenant, who today often represents Sara and Clare in court—filed
motion after motion against Natalie, in a process a judge would say
“smacks of a jilted fellow’s attempt at revenge.” During those years,
Natalie would learn that nxivm had hired the controversial Israeli-
born private investigator Juval Aviv to monitor her home and look into
her private life and business activities. Several times, she says, she
was visited by F.B.I. agents, most recently this past February.
Today, Toni Natalie describes this phase of her life as “terrifying.”
During her years with Raniere she was so broken psychologically that,
according to court filings, she gave up the care of her child because
Raniere had encouraged her to. With his long brown hair and
penetrating blue eyes, Raniere, she says, was “very charismatic. I
mean, he could tell you the sun is purple with pink polka dots and
you’d look up and see it.” He was truly brilliant, she says, but in
the way “that brilliance is the closest thing to insanity,” recalling
how he had insisted she keep the body of her dead puppy in her garage
freezer and look at it daily in order to better deal with death. What
drove him, she isn’t sure. He didn’t say much about his past, except
that his mother had a heart condition, was an alcoholic, “and that he
always had to take care of her.” He said he hated dance “because his
mother would make him dance with her.” “I think she drank more than
she should have, but I don’t think she had a drinking problem,” says
Raniere’s father, James. At least, he says, “I never saw it,” although
he wonders if it was what Keith saw, “from living with her alone.” If
Keith’s childhood was troubled at all, says his father, it was only
because his mother “was dying for three years, little by little.” She
died when he was 18, right around Christmas.
When Natalie was with him, Raniere lived in a house in Halfmoon, a
town north of Albany, which he shared with Pam Cafritz and Karen
Unterreiner, a college girlfriend. He still lives there, in a
neighborhood people refer to as the “compound,” because so many nxivm
members, most of them women, live in the surrounding houses. He
doesn’t drive and can be seen, usually at night, walking along the
tree-lined streets of Halfmoon—as much as 12 miles a day—rarely alone,
often surrounded by women. People describe Raniere as fascinated by
mathematics and the workings of the mind, and by power and money and
their effect on society—but, above all, as obsessive about maintaining
control over his world and the people around him. There are those who
believe that, in the words of one, it’s also “a game for him, to see
what he can make people do.” These days Keith Raniere is rarely seen
at nxivm training sessions, which some former members say can get very
dark. In 2003, Kristin Snyder, a 35-year-old environmental consultant,
disappeared after a nxivm session in Alaska. Her body was never found,
but in her truck, parked on the shore of Resurrection Bay, was a note
which read, “I was brainwashed and my emotional center of the brain
was killed/turned off.… Please contact my parents … if you find me or
this note. I am sorry … I didn’t know I was already dead.” Today,
people describe nxivm therapy sessions in which they were convinced
that they are “reincarnated Nazis” or “responsible for 9/11.” Looking
back on her experience, Natalie says, “Keith finds your
vulnerabilities and then he preys on them.”
Hello, Dalai
When Toni Natalie called Edgar Bronfman, after reading the Forbes
article in the fall of 2003, he took her call immediately. “I told
him, ‘Mr. Bronfman, you need to get your girls out of there. It’s a
cult. Raniere’s bad. If you don’t get them out, in a few years he’s
going to burn through all their money. He’s going to be sleeping with
both of them.’ And he said, ‘No. No. Not my girls. No. They won’t do
that.’”
According to Barbara Bouchey, it was Keith Raniere who, in late 2003,
suggested that Sara and Clare become clients of her asset-management
firm. At the time, Bouchey was not only a member of nxivm’s board but
also one of Raniere’s girlfriends. Looking back now, she says she did
not see this as a conflict of interest—or how easy it would be to make
her the “scapegoat” for what happened next. As she described herself
in a 2009 deposition, she was just “a check-writing disbursement
girl.” Her firm kept Sara’s and Clare’s books and paid their bills.
Any payments made from their trust or bank accounts had to be approved
by the Bronfmans.
It started with relatively small amounts—a $2 million loan in 2004 to
Joseph O’Hara, an Albany businessman and attorney, who worked as an
adviser to nxivm. But the amounts quickly grew. That August, at
Vanguard Week, a lengthy celebration of Raniere’s birthday, held every
summer, Sara and Clare stood onstage and presented Raniere with a
giant cardboard check for $20 million, a donation to the Ethical
Foundation—a nonprofit controlled by nxivm through O’Hara—to finance
Raniere’s scientific research. It was the first time the sisters had
tapped their trusts in a big way and was a pledge, insiders say, to
eventually turn over to the foundation the principal of two charitable
trusts. By the end of 2004 they had bought the jet. In early 2005,
they began covering Raniere’s losses in the commodities market.
According to Bouchey, Raniere believed that he had come up with a
mathematical formula that would enable him to make a killing. He’d
already lost nearly $7 million on his commodities bets several years
before. But, according to a declaration by Yuri Plyam, Raniere’s Los
Angeles–based commodities broker, with the Bronfmans on board he began
to trade “with the same extreme pattern” except that the trading
positions were much bigger.
As Raniere’s losses soared, he would tell people that Sara and Clare’s
father was responsible. According to Bouchey, he said that Edgar
Bronfman “had figured out a plot with the commodities clearing firm”
to steal Raniere’s money. From January 2005 to late 2007, according to
court filings, Raniere, trading through First Principles, a company
registered in Nancy Salzman’s name, would lose close to $70 million—
and the Bronfmans would cover $65.6 million of it. Between them, they
would also spend close to $1 million to buy and refurbish Salzman’s
house in Halfmoon; Clare would pay $2.3 million for a 234-acre horse
farm outside Albany that nxivm would use; and Sara would buy a $6.5
million apartment in the Trump International Hotel & Tower in
Manhattan that Salzman would use. They would also “lend” about $1.7
million to buy nxivm’s headquarters.
By late 2007, they had also sunk $26.4 million into a Los Angeles real-
estate project. Structured as a joint venture with Plyam and his wife,
Natasha, it was set up through a company called Precision Development.
The deal, to build houses and condominiums in the wealthier
neighborhoods of Los Angeles, had, according to Bouchey and Plyam,
been Raniere’s idea, although his name would appear on none of the
documents. Neither, initially, would the Bronfmans’. According to a
declaration by Plyam, Raniere told him Sara and Clare’s involvement
had to be kept secret, because they were trying to hide the Precision
Development investment from their father.
And there was good reason. Bouchey claims they were so financially
stretched by Raniere’s commodities losses and Precision Development
that they were forced to ask their father for a loan from a trust they
would inherit only upon his death. It may have been difficult for him
to refuse because insiders and public financing statements suggest
that the trusts for the Bronfman children had provisions which allowed
them to borrow money against the assets of what was in effect their
father’s master trust. Bouchey helped the sisters borrow $60 million
from the trust, but when they failed to repay a large chunk of it,
their father was not the only one who was concerned. According to
Bouchey, the trustees “were very anxious to have that money go back
into the trust.” By the summer of 2007, however, chafing over the
trustees’ control and desperate for more money, Sara and Clare were
working to change the trustees overseeing their portion of the master
trust, which they told people, according to Plyam, would give them
access to more money—indeed, another $200 million.
At some point, Bronfman was reportedly considering taking legal action
to have his daughters declared incompetent in an effort to protect
their assets and pry them away from nxivm. But one insider says, “I
don’t think the family wants the stigma of that attached to the
girls,” adding, “They’re very sweet and young and very naïve.”
Which is not how many people within nxivm saw Sara and Clare. While
there is sympathy for the psychological pressures they may have
endured, there is still a lot of ire toward them. “They were made
important in the organization based on what they brought to the
organization—money and the Bronfman name,” says one woman. And they
used their money, she says, “to buy their way to the top.” It started
with Sara, who some insiders claim was promoted “before she’d earned
it.” She was put on nxivm’s board and given the title of minister of
humanities, which meant that Sara was responsible for organizing all
of the group’s events—a job for which she had few qualifications,
former insiders say. “She didn’t know how to run a business, because
she never has,” says one former member. Which is not to say she did
nothing—she helped launch nxivm centers in New York City and Belfast,
and it was partly through her connections that nxivm was able to
arrange a V.I.P. session with Richard Branson on his private Caribbean
island. But when she was put in charge of nxivm’s head trainers, it
created an uproar in the ranks. She played favorites, one woman says,
cutting people out of important commissions. Her spaciness, some began
to believe, was “partially an act, a way of evading responsibility.”
If Raniere gained control over people through their vulnerabilities,
his influence over Sara, one person says, “was that he made her
important in her own mind.”
People say the same was true with Clare, to even more damaging effect.
Perhaps more competent than her sister, she was also considered
cutting and “mean.” She “treats people like servants,” says one former
trainer. “You’d hear Clare say, ‘It’s not worth the value you’re
giving,’” says this person. “‘You didn’t work that hard.’ People began
to say, ‘How would she know anyway? She’s never worked for anything.’”
Yet even nxivm members were awed by her passion and talent for horse
jumping and were disturbed when she abandoned the sport. Her doubts
appear to have set in shortly after she joined nxivm. “I always wanted
to win because I thought I would be more loved by my father and
respected more by my peers,” she wrote on her Web site, House of
Equus, in late 2005. “When I won the Grand Prix in 2002, for a moment
it felt glorious, until I then questioned if I could do it again, what
if next week I do not win? Will I still be loved, respected? It was
horrible, the joy of winning slipped away.” By 2004, she was in the
running for the U.S. Olympic trials, an achievement she credited to
her work with Raniere—who then, says one former insider, told her that
she had far more important things to do with her wealth and her power
as a Bronfman. She would eventually sell most of her horses, put her
$7 million New Hope, Pennsylvania, estate—with its state-of-the-art
equestrian facilities—on the market, and throw herself into the
running and financing of a slew of Raniere-inspired projects and
foundations.
In early 2008, it was Clare, of the two sisters, who would take the
leading role in going after Yuri and Natasha Plyam. According to the
lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, the Plyams had diverted
for their personal use part of the $26 million the Bronfmans had given
them to develop real estate in Los Angeles. The Plyams would counter
that, short of money because of Raniere’s commodities losses, Raniere,
Salzman, and the Bronfmans had devised a plan to seize control of
their jointly held company, Precision Development. It was Clare who
would make most of the accusations in court filings—in her statement,
Sara seemed almost comically unaware of the details of how $13 million
of her money had been spent. According to e-mails and documents filed
with the court, it was also Clare who firmed up the sisters’ agreement
to pay $1 million to a man named Frank Parlato Jr., who showed up at
the Plyams’ Wilshire Boulevard office looking “thug-like,” dressed in
black and wearing a fedora. Allegedly claiming to represent Edgar
Bronfman, he said that the billionaire was furious and convinced that
the Plyams “were in cahoots with Raniere to fleece” his daughters and
that he was ready to take action against them if Yuri Plyam didn’t
sign documents that gave control of the real-estate company to Sara
and Clare. Although a nxivm member who was at the meeting confirmed
hearing Parlato say he worked for Edgar Bronfman, Parlato has denied
misrepresenting himself, saying that everything he did was proper.
Plyam signed the papers.
Edgar Bronfman would deny that Frank Parlato represented him, but that
wasn’t until this March, when the allegations were published in a jaw-
dropping story in the New York Post. By then, however, Sara and Clare
were already knee-deep in trouble.
On the surface, all seemed well when they joined their family in Sun
Valley in June 2009 to celebrate their father’s 80th birthday. The
entire clan was there, and—from an emotional tribute to her father
that Clare would write on her blog—it looked as though a sort of peace
had come between Bronfman and his daughters. Some believe that by this
time Bronfman had given up battling his daughters’ involvement with
nxivm for fear of creating another rift. And Sara and Clare had just
pulled off what appeared to be a huge success. They had worked hard
for more than a year to organize the Dalai Lama’s visit to Albany.
And, on May 6, several weeks before Bronfman’s birthday party, when
the Dalai Lama spoke at Albany’s Palace Theatre, Sara and Clare were
seated on the stage with him.
For the Bronfmans, this was a big moment, but the event would trigger
the first swell of public anger at the sisters. When the visit was
announced, there had been an outcry in the Albany press that the Dalai
Lama would associate himself with the “cult-like” nxivm. Both Skidmore
College and Raniere’s alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic, declined to
host the event. E-mails of complaint were sent to the Dalai Lama. For
the first time, the Bronfmans’ ties to nxivm were major headline
material. In early April, the Dalai Lama canceled his visit. What
happened next is something of a mystery. People believe that Sara and
Clare flew to Dharamsala, India, to plead with him. And, if so, it’s
possible they were just extremely persuasive—because His Holiness
changed his mind. But the Dalai Lama Trust, registered in New York
State just two days before the Dalai Lama’s appearance in Albany,
raised eyebrows. Calls to the trust were not returned. The Bronfman
money, it was said, might still be able to buy a lot of things, but
not respect.
Trust for Life
The “extortion” letter that Clare would claim she received two weeks
before the Dalai Lama’s visit was, in fact, according to a copy in the
court record, not addressed to her—but to Keith Raniere and Nancy
Salzman. Signed by nine senior members of nxivm, announcing their
resignation from the group, the letter included an itemized bill and a
demand that nxivm pay them $2.1 million they believed it owed them. It
was the first mass defection from nxivm, and in the letter they cited
their “concerns about the inconsistencies & in how the company
operated” as well as “evidence of secrecy, nondisclosure and lack of
transparency.” Clare and Sara’s financial manager, Barbara Bouchey,
was among those who resigned. The sisters would fire her within a
week.
In the next 18 months, with the help of an army of high-priced
attorneys, nxivm and the Bronfmans would flood the courts with motions
and subpoenas in virtually every major nxivm-related lawsuit: the
seven-year crusade against the cult deprogrammer Rick Ross; the five-
year legal battle against its former consultant Joe O’Hara for an
array of alleged misdeeds, including fraud; the litigation against
Yuri and Natasha Plyam; and the Bronfmans’ suit against Barbara Bouchey
—first filed in February—alleging that she conspired not only with her
psychic but also with the Plyams’ attorney and numerous unnamed people
to harm the Bronfmans by releasing their private financial
information.
At the center of this multi-million-dollar, multi-front legal war are
17 banker’s boxes filled with that information—e-mails, ledgers, and
other documents that chronicle the Bronfmans’ financial dealings. They
are copies of the records kept by Barbara Bouchey. The originals were
given to the Bronfmans’ lawyers soon after she was fired. But Bouchey
first had them copied on the advice of a lawyer—racing to the copy
store with friends in a van and an S.U.V. filled with documents as
Sara Bronfman and her attorney headed to Bouchey’s office to get the
boxes. Bouchey had them copied, according to her court statements, not
only because she was required by financial regulations to keep
duplicates but also because she believed that the Bronfmans were
planning to “set me up,” and having access to the documents would be
the only way she would be able to defend herself.
Bouchey will not say exactly what is in those boxes that the Bronfmans
have fought so hard to retrieve, but it is clear that she believes the
setup has already begun. Sitting in the living room of her $1 million
house—for sale now, because the legal battle with the Bronfmans has
forced her into bankruptcy—she silently hands me a sheet of paper. It
is one of several court documents in which Sara and Clare suggest that
Bouchey was responsible for their financial losses. It alleges that
she “controlled $100 million in assets”—in other words, a good part of
what they spent on nxivm’s projects. It also alleges that Bouchey put
them into the $26 million real-estate deal with the Plyams and “helped
manage it.” Sara and Clare Bronfman appear to be claiming that they
are not responsible for what many would consider to be the squandering
of their fortune. They were victims—of an unscrupulous financial
manager, among the many other people who took advantage of them.
But there are those who believe that the contents of the 17 boxes
could prove something very different. In a court filing, Bouchey’s
bankruptcy lawyer has said that the boxes “apparently” contain
“information that show the Bronfmans engaged in a conspiracy to forge
documents,” although he has not been more specific. Former nxivm
insiders hope that the boxes will answer a welter of questions about
the finances and tax-related issues regarding the vast array of trusts
and corporations set up in the names of various group members. In
recent letters to the New York State attorney general, Joe O’Hara,
nxivm’s former consultant, alleged that nxivm has been involved in a
“variety of illegal activities,” including “tax evasion,” “money
laundering,” and “immigration violations,” although he did not provide
any supporting evidence. He also alleged that two Bronfman foundations
misused tax-exempt funds, spending them on non-charitable purposes,
including “the purchase of an expensive piano for Mr. Raniere/
Vanguard.” Citing checks made out to a woman who cleaned and ran
errands for nxivm members, he also alleged that the Bronfmans’
foundations had used funds to pay for the care of Gaelen, the three-
year-old boy who has been living in the Halfmoon “compound.” His
identity is a mystery. The oft-repeated story is that he was “given”
as a weeks-old infant to Barbara Jeske, one of Raniere’s longtime
followers, by his grandfather, after the baby’s mother died—either in
childbirth or in a car accident. He may have been born in Michigan—
where sources say Jeske went to get Gaelen—but even that cannot be
corroborated. Today Gaelen lives with Kristin Keeffe, the Bronfmans’
and nxivm’s “legal adviser.” Raised as Raniere’s “heir” and according
to Raniere’s child-rearing theories, he is reportedly fed a raw diet,
kept away from other children, and tended to by five nannies who each
speak to him in a different language—including Russian, Spanish,
Hindi, and Chinese. Former nxivm insiders have been so concerned about
the child they have phoned child protective services, but to no avail.
Bouchey, however, has said that she believes Gaelen is well-cared for,
dismissing concerns about his welfare. “I observed Gaelen being happy
and outgoing,” she told the Albany Times Union. As to the boxes, she
has said in a court filing that they could contain evidence of
“questionable, and, in some cases, potentially illegal,” activities.
But so far, forbidden by the court from speaking about the Bronfmans’
financial dealings, she has offered no supporting evidence.
Whatever is in those boxes remains to be seen, and the battle could
rage for a long time—given that it is being financed with the
Bronfmans’ fortune, which is not likely to run out anytime soon. There
have been some rough patches. By the beginning of 2009, apparently
under pressure from their enormous legal bills—estimated by insiders
at more than $1 million a month—the sisters had sold their private
jet. But later that year, having already replaced the trustees on
their father’s master trust once, they again named a new trustee,
believed to be their attorney Robert Crockett, who spearheaded their
lawsuits against the Plyams and Barbara Bouchey. These days, some
speculate that Sara is tiring of nxivm, noting that she has spent time
traveling again, including to the World Cup in South Africa. Clare,
however, seems more committed than ever. She not only has joined
nxivm’s executive board but also has become, people say, one of
Raniere’s top acolytes. The mystery for many today is what the
Bronfman sisters were thinking. “Did they know how much of their money
was going down the toilet? Did they buy the story it was their dad’s
fault?” asks one former nxivm student. But whether or not they fully
understood, or cared, what their money was being used for doesn’t
really matter, people say, because it does not in the end absolve them
of responsibility for the waste of so much money. No one doubts that
Sara and Clare genuinely set out to do good when they joined nxivm.
But one can only imagine the great good they could have done with $100
million if they hadn’t appeared to need Keith Raniere and nxivm to
make them feel important.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/11/bronfman-201011
sufaud
Cult of Personality
Michael Freedman, 10.13.03
Keith Raniere's devoted followers say he is one of the smartest and
most ethical people alive. They describe him as a soft-spoken, humble
genius who can diagnose societal ills with remarkable clarity. They
say his teachings as an inspirational executive coach can empower some
of the most successful people in the world to attain ever higher
levels of status and money. Why, his program can even cure ailments
like diabetes and scoliosis.
Some 3,700 people have flocked to Raniere, 43, and Executive Success
Programs, the business he created in 1998. Prompted by a potent word-
of-mouth network, they include Sheila Johnson, cofounder of Black
Entertainment Television; Antonia C. Novello, a former U.S. surgeon
general; Stephen Cooper, acting chief executive of Enron; the Seagram
fortune's Edgar Bronfman Sr. and two of his daughters; and Ana
Cristina Fox, daughter of the Mexican president. Raniere's disciples
say his methods sharpen their focus and give them keener insight into
the motivations of others. "It's like a practical M.B.A.," says one
follower, Emiliano Salinas, son of a former president of Mexico.
Raniere, who has no M.B.A., has shrewdly cashed in on the high-profit
fad of executive coaching, a booming multibillion-dollar market. It
includes established firms and renowned individuals who promise--for a
fee--to help people become better executives, improve productivity and
navigate office politics. Well-known trainers like Marshall Goldsmith,
professor Vijay Govindarajan of Dartmouth and Richard Leider charge
from $25,000 a day to $100,000 for a half dozen sessions spread over
18 months. They teach executives how to change their "negative
behaviors," to find what drives them and to divine the right goals
(see box below).
Win Friends and Influence People
In selling himself as an executive coach, Keith Raniere has tapped
into a mother lode of demand. Here are some of the most respected
players in this multibillion-dollar industry.
DAVID ALLEN
Helps execs manage time, minimize stress.
Clients: Merck, General Mills.
Fee: $10,000 for two in-person meetings and two follow-up calls.
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH
Helps leaders achieve a "positive change in behavior, for themselves,
their people and their teams."
Clients: 3M, UBS, Philips.
Fee: More than $100,000 for an 18-month assignment, or $17,000 a day.
VIJAY GOVINDARAJAN
Dartmouth professor helps executives "prepare for tomorrow's business
realities."
Clients: Standard & Poor's, Pitney Bowes.
Fee: $20,000 to $35,000 a day.
RICHARD LEIDER
"We help people put purpose to work in their personal and professional
lives." Book: Whistle While You Work.
Clients: Helps executives at places like American Express as they move
into new positions.
Fee: $75,000 to $100,000 for 6 to 12 months.
GARY RANKER
Helps executives understand "corporate culture" and navigate office
politics.
Clients: New York City accounting and >Wall Street firms.
Fee: $100,000+ for a 6-month to 1-year program.
-M.F.
But some people see a darker and more manipulative side to Keith
Raniere. Detractors say he runs a cult-like program aimed at breaking
down his subjects psychologically, separating them from their families
and inducting them into a bizarre world of messianic pretensions,
idiosyncratic language and ritualistic practices. "I think it's a
cult," says Bronfman. Though he once took a course and endorsed the
program, he hasn't talked to his daughters in months and has grown
troubled over the long hours and emotional and financial investment
they have been devoting to Raniere's group. One daughter, Clare, 24,
has lent the program $2 million, at 2.5% interest, the senior Bronfman
says (she denies this).
Raniere says there's nothing in his operation that makes it a cult,
and indeed, many enrollees see Executive Success as a good coaching
program and nothing more. Enron's Stephen Cooper puts himself in this
category. Yet Raniere is an unlikely mentor to the wealthy and well-
connected. A decade ago he ran an alleged pyramid scheme that
collapsed after signing up at least 250,000 customers and bringing in
more than $33 million in a year. In January a federal judge ruled in
favor of an ex-girlfriend who was in a bitter legal fight with
Raniere, citing "a jilted fellow's attempt at revenge" and finding
that Raniere had harassed her, disrupted her business and manipulated
her into giving up her 10-year-old son to the boy's father. The woman,
Toni F. Natalie, tells Forbes that she believes Raniere brainwashed
her, telling her she was put on Earth to carry his baby--the baby who
would alter the course of history. Raniere calls this claim
"ridiculous and not rational."
These days Raniere prefers to be called "Vanguard" by his followers.
(His business partner, Nancy Salzman, 49, a former nurse and therapist
and the public face of Executive Success, calls herself "Prefect.")
Raniere's long, brown hair and beard make him look a little like
Jesus, and his thoughtful demeanor could let him pass for a philosophy
professor--or maybe a slacker poet. He has no driver's license,
relying on friends for rides and walking up to 12 miles a day. He says
he has no bank account and that he forgoes any salary from the $4
million-a-year coaching program he created: "I consider everything
payment for what I've done." Though he co-owns a small house near
Albany, N.Y. with a female friend, he spends most nights at one or
another of three friends' homes. He claims not to own a bed. "I live,"
he says with a disarmingly warm smile, "a somewhat church-mouse-type
existence."
His teachings are mysterious, filled with self-serving and
impenetrable jargon about ethics and values, and defined by a blind-
ambition ethos akin to that of the driven characters in an Ayn Rand
novel. His shtick: Make your own self-interest paramount, don't be
motivated by what other people want and avoid "parasites" (his label
for people who need help); only by doing this can you be true to
yourself and truly "ethical." The flip side, of course, is that this
worldview discredits virtues like charity, teamwork and compassion--
but maybe we just don't get it.
Executive Success resembles motivational groups such as the Landmark
Forum, the Sterling Institute of Relationship and Lifespring. It also
is reminiscent of the "human potential" training of the 1970s, with a
few Scientology-like elements and parallels to EST, the much-
criticized groupthink program founded by Werner Erhard. Unlike EST,
which famously discouraged students from using the bathroom during
sessions, Executive Success offers plenty of breaks. Students pay up
to $10,000 for five days of lectures and intense emotional probing in
daily 13-hour cram sessions. They remove their shoes for class, learn
obscure handshakes and wear patented colored sashes in dozens of
different variations that signify rank in the organization. When a
higher-ranking student enters the room they must stand to show
respect. They are taught to bow to one another and to "Vanguard." When
he makes a rare appearance, Elvis-like, students rush up to him. Some
ex-clients say they have seen him greet each woman with a kiss on the
mouth, although Raniere denies this.
Once a day the attendees recite a 12-point mission statement written
by Raniere. (Sample: "There are no ultimate victims; therefore, I will
not choose to be a victim.") It is apocalyptic in tone, with the
occasional grammatical error--his genius notwithstanding. The world is
full of people who try to "destroy each other, steal from each other,
down each other or rejoice at another's demise." Thus, he writes, "it
is essential for the survival of humankind" that the world's wealth
and resources be controlled by "successful, ethical people"--i.e.,
those trained at Executive Success.
It is quite a sales job, one that comes naturally to this corporate
Svengali. Born in Brooklyn and bred in the suburbs, Raniere has a
flair for promotion, like his adman father. An old bio labels Keith
"one of the top three problem solvers in the world." His current Web
site quotes Albert Schweitzer, Margaret Mead--and himself. "Humans can
be noble. The question is: Will we put forth what is necessary?" he
writes, concluding that his program "represents the change humanity
needs in order to alter the course of history."
Raniere claims he spoke in full sentences when he was a 1-year-old,
taught himself high school math in 19 hours when he was 12 and, by 13,
had learned three years of college math and several computer
languages. As a boy he read an Isaac Asimov sci-fi novel about a
brilliant scientist who knew his galaxy was in irremediable decline
and had reduced all human behavior to elegant mathematical equations.
It inspired Raniere later to try to do the same. After graduating from
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. in 1982, with majors in
physics, math and biology, he went to work in computer programming and
consulting.
On the job he began to nurture his notion of unalloyed self-interest
as the path to ethical behavior. He felt employees too often took jobs
they didn't like and made decisions they didn't believe in. A more
ethical world, he reasoned, would consist of people who understood
their goals and pursued them. Raniere says he found inspiration in
Rand's books. The protagonists in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead
are über-individualists, aggressive and ruthless.
In 1990 Raniere decided to apply his theory to his new business,
Consumers' Buyline, a multilevel marketing program near Albany that
promised lucrative commissions to old customers for recruiting new
ones. He barnstormed the nation promoting discounts on groceries,
dishwashers and even hotel stays, stoking crowds of a thousand pumped-
up and profit-hungry people. "He was like a mythological figure--the
guy with the 240 IQ was coming to town," says Robert Bremner, a former
distributor for the outfit.
Raniere says by the end of 1993 he had sold $1 billion in goods and
services, employed 80 people and had a quarter-million believers
paying him $19 a month to hawk his goods. He claims he was worth $50
million. Yet he appeared to carry no money, says Bremner, adding that
Raniere seemed to sleep all day, rolled into his office around 10 p.m.
and sometimes held meetings at 1 a.m. Business flagged, debt ballooned
and customers complained. Regulators in 20 states began to
investigate. In 1993 the New York attorney general filed a civil suit
alleging Consumers' Buyline was a pyramid scheme. Without admitting
wrongdoing, Raniere settled for $40,000, of which he has paid only
$9,000. He says he can't pay the rest, though he also says his ample
finances let him live on savings.
A year later Raniere created another multilevel outfit, National
Health Network, which sold vitamins. He and his then-girlfriend, Toni
Natalie, set up a health food shop in Clifton Park, N.Y. One day in
1997 Raniere met the woman who would become his business partner,
Nancy Salzman. She is a nurse and therapist who has studied hypnosis
and neurolinguistic programming, by which therapists examine and mimic
a person's language and speech patterns to alter behavior. (Raniere
has studied this, too.)
Salzman had just gone through a tough time. She found Raniere to be
riveting. He became her spiritual guide, and she became his most
ardent follower. "There is probably no discovery since writing as
important for humankind as Mr. Raniere's technology," she once wrote
in a brochure. She ended up treating Raniere's girlfriend, Toni
Natalie, with therapy and lending her $50,000 for the health food
business. When it flopped in 1999, a bitter battle ensued in U.S.
bankruptcy court in Albany. Raniere sided with Salzman. Natalie moved
away. Court records show Raniere sent Natalie verses from Paradise
Lost, annotated ("Commits to evil for protection--stupid/weak."). He
drew a diagram that plotted her life and said she was in danger of
careening down a "pride barrier" to a "dream death line."
Raniere and Salzman don't directly deny the assertions, but they say
Natalie may have altered court documents--a charge Natalie says is
outrageous. In January a U.S. judge said he found it "disturbing" to
hear testimony that Raniere had had police sent to Natalie's mother's
house and had made repeated threats to her and her family. Raniere has
appealed several times, driving Natalie to the brink of a breakdown.
"I can't think. I can't work. I can't pay my bills," she says.
In 1998 Salzman incorporated in Delaware the company that launched
Executive Success Programs and applied for patents on Raniere's
behavior-modification "technology." She and "Vanguard" agreed that he
would get a share of the profits at some point. The company is now
also known as Nxivm. Classes now are offered in Albany, Manhattan,
Seattle, Boston and several cities in Mexico, with plans to expand. In
August, in a squat, brown office complex near the Albany airport, 50
entrepreneurs and bankers sat on overstuffed couches, earnestly
discussing words like "value" and "ethics." Days begin at 8 a.m. with
the "ESP handclap," akin to using a gavel to open a court hearing.
Students then go through sessions on "Money," "Face of the Universe,"
"Control, Freedom & Surrender" and more. They learn baffling and
solipsistic jargon: "Parasites" are people who suffer, creating
problems where none exist and craving attention. "Suppressives" see
good but want to destroy it. Thus, a person who criticizes Executive
Success is showing suppressive behavior.
In "Money," students are taught that every dollar spent represents a
portion of effort, and that "Vanguard identified the concept of giving
and taking with integrity." Coaches urge students to take each session
several times at a cost of several thousand dollars--and to think of
each dollar spent as a worthwhile representation of that effort. In a
core piece of the program, known as "exploration of meaning," teachers
plumb students' beliefs and backgrounds, looking for emotional
buttons. People are encouraged to reveal a negative habit, describe
how it benefits survival and pledge to replace it with a new one.
Confidentiality is sacrosanct. Students must sign a nondisclosure
agreement and vow never to talk about what they learn. If they violate
it, they are "compromising inner honesty and integrity." In August
Raniere sued a woman for, the suit claimed, divulging information.
When a Forbes reporter asked to audit a session, the group's lawyer
presented a three-page confidentiality agreement forbidding the
magazine to write about virtually anything seen or heard at the event.
The reporter declined (and later was allowed to make a brief visit to
the Albany site).
It is all too intense for some. After sleepless nights and 17-hour
days of workshops, a 28-year-old woman from a prominent Mexican family
says she began to have hallucinations and had a mental breakdown at
her hotel near Albany. She went to a hospital and required psychiatric
treatment. Her psychiatrist, Carlos Rueda, says in the last three
years he has treated two others who have taken the class; one had a
psychotic episode.
Stephanie Franco, a New Jersey social worker, spent $2,160 plus
expenses for a five-day class in Albany at the suggestion of her half-
brother, an executive at a family apparel company (Lollytogs and other
brands). Other relatives joined, but Franco became concerned about the
group's rituals and its emphasis on recruitment. The family hired Rick
A. Ross, a Jersey City, N.J. specialist in cults, to intervene, to no
avail. He put information about the organization on his Web site--and
promptly got sued by Raniere and Salzman, who accuse him of copyright
violations. In September an Albany federal judge denied the
organization's initial request that Ross remove the information.
The family also hired John Hochman, a forensic psychiatrist who
teaches at UCLA, who pored over the Executive Success manual and
describes it thusly: "It is a kingdom of sorts, ruled by a Vanguard,
who writes his own dictionary of the English language, has his own
moral code and the ability to generate taxes on subjects by having
them participate in his seminars. It is a kingdom with no physical
borders, but with psychological borders--influencing how his subjects
spend their time, socialize, and think." In the lawsuit Raniere and
Salzman made similar claims regarding alleged copyright violations
against Hochman, as well as against Stephanie Franco.
Raniere and Salzman say they are careful to avoid accepting troubled
students. In their world, those who question Raniere's views simply
don't get it. He speaks slowly and methodically, with digression upon
digression, using words he has defined for himself and then pausing to
explain each term. You might think it pure genius. Or maybe horse
manure.
Still, many disciples swear by Vanguard. Several students have
achieved a high enough rank to qualify for a 20% commission on their
new recruits. But most students are in it for the coaching. Sara
Bronfman, Edgar Sr.'s 26-year-old daughter, says she started taking
classes at the end of 2002 after her marriage fell apart. She was
living in Belgium and heard about the class from a family friend. She
marveled at how much Raniere was able to teach her. Sara has since
been promoted to the rank of coach; she now works full time for
Executive Success.
Sara and other devotees are talking about erecting centers in
Australia and elsewhere. Raniere has lined up private investors to pay
for a $15 million, 75,000-square-foot building near Albany. As
originally designed, the building was to emerge from a stone
foundation under a six-sided, glass roof. It is meant to be a tribute
to civilization--another step in the mission to spread Vanguard's
gospel around the world. "I don't know how much you know about my
family," Sara Bronfman says, admiring the silky cloth around her
chest, "but, coming from a family where I've never had to earn
anything before in my life, [it] was a very, very moving experience
for me to be awarded this yellow sash. It was the first thing that I
had earned on just my merits."