Says Only a Small Part of ICA Money Is Used for Relief : Ex-Charity Aide Tells of Donations Drain

A former top official of the beleaguered International Christian Aid organization said Saturday that no more than 20%--”and probably much less”--of the donations it receives actually are spent on relief for the starving people of Africa and other humanitarian efforts.

“Compared to other relief agencies, they do a very poor job, based on what I personally saw in Africa and what I discovered talking to people who were in a position to know,” Peter Horne, who served for two years as ICA’s executive director of operations in North America, said in an interview.

The Camarillo-based evangelical organization is under investigation by local, state and federal agencies looking into reports that ICA has raised millions of dollars in donations through nationwide appeals but failed to deliver aid as advertised.

Current ICA officials said Saturday that the organization is spending 61% of its income on relief and Christian “ministry.” They defended the goals and policies of the group and denied any wrongdoing. L. Joe Bass--ICA’s founder and president--was not available for comment Saturday.

ICA “remains an organization dedicated to improving the lives of thousands of underprivileged children around the world,” the organization stated in a press package issued last week in an effort to counter criticism of its operations.

Horne said the vast majority of the money donated to the organization was spent on administration, fund raising and--in some cases--extravagant services, posh facilities and handsome salaries for selected ICA employees.

Personnel working at the “showplace” ICA complex in Lisbon, Portugal, were “picked up in air-conditioned mini-buses at 9 in the morning, served a three-course lunch and returned to their homes at 4:30 p.m.,” Horne said.

He said the facility provided a startling contrast to the makeshift camps for the malnourished refugee children from Angola and Mozambique that ICA maintained in the Lisbon area.

As chief of operations in North America from 1981 to 1983, Horne was the second-ranking ICA executive--after Bass--in the United States and Canada. But he left the organization after a disillusioning trip in which he reviewed ICA operations overseas and after a subsequent falling-out with Bass. Horne declined to discuss details of his departure from ICA, but other former employers say he escorted from the building by a guard, before he could remove more than a few of his personal effects.

Horne, who lives in Camarillo, has since joined another religious relief organization.

Signs of Intimidation

Horne was one of more than a dozen former ICA employees interviewed by The Times in recent weeks. They recount tales of secrecy, elaborate security arrangements and an intimidating atmosphere at ICA headquarters. Most discussed their experience at the organization only on the condition that they not be identified.

Bass, 48--who founded and reportedly controls the organizations that evolved into ICA--is paid an annual compensation of $69,392, plus expenses, according to records on file with the Ventura County assessor’s office.

When first asked about his income at a press conference earlier this month, Bass said he received a salary of $42,500 and a car (a burgundy BMW). James H. Glazier, ICA director of special programs, said Saturday that Bass apparently left out of that calculation $18,000 for housing and additional compensation for royalties on a book.

Records also show that Melanie Cross, 40--who joined the organization as a secretary several years ago and was promoted rapidly and now serves as Bass’ director of corporations, personal aide and traveling companion--is paid an annual salary of $46,000, plus expenses. Like several other preferred ICA employees, she received a special, low-interest home loan from the organization--$109,000, in 1982--and ICA paid for baby sitters to watch her children.

Help for Two Sons

Mark Bass, one of the ICA president’s sons, received a $41,000 home loan from ICA in 1982 at least 4% below the prevailing mortgage rate. Another $6,800 in ICA money was paid to finance college expenses for another son, Brian Bass.

Former employees indicated that an expensive security system was in place at the spacious $3-million headquarters the organization built in Camarillo in 1982.

“He had a two-level system,” one former executive said. “The outside of the building, the doors and windows, had sensors,” he said. “Interior hallways were monitored with invisible, infrared beams. There were cameras in the lobby, at the rear door and in the mail-processing room, videotaping constantly. . . .

“Bass’ suite of offices had a separate system, not known to many. If anyone penetrated his offices, it would set off another alarm system. . . . And he had a ‘panic button’ to call the police.”

“The organization was very, very well layered,” said another one-time member of the ICA management team. “No one individual knew very much about the total structure.”

Reason for Security

One former employee who asked not to be named said Bass justified the security system as necessary to protect the confidentiality of people working behind the Iron Curtain in affiliation with an ICA sister Organization--Underground Evangelism--set up to clandestinely distribute Bibles in Eastern European countries.

“But I don’t think that was what the security system was really for,” the former employee said. “I think it was to watch us.”

Nick Sembrano, 26, who rose from mail clerk to a management position during his two years with the organization, said that, like other employees, he was required to sign a confidentiality oath when he was hired.

“That struck me as a little odd,” Sembrano said last week. “There was also a massive application--six to eight pages. They wanted to know everything. . . . They asked me to define terms like ‘democracy’ and ‘communism’. . . .

“If it was a legitimate religious organization, you’d think Bass would be friendly, social, personable,” Sembrano said. “But he was none of those things. He was distant, aloof, private. He was Darth Vader. . . .

“When Mr. Bass was in, you had the feeling the Pope was here,” said Dan Smith, a former ICA financial officer. “It could be very intimidating.”

Sembrano said one of the most intimidating moments occurred several years ago during one of the regular ICA chapel services that have since been discontinued.

“We were all in there one afternoon when all of a sudden, the doors burst open,” he said. “People in police uniforms, carrying handguns and shotguns, ran in, yelling, ‘Throw down your Bibles!’

“They handcuffed the speaker and several others. A couple of women were dragged out, kicking and screaming. As far as they knew, the whole thing was real.

“There was a man in there with a camera, and another with a mike. Later, they told us they were making a movie. When we found out, we were really angry. But what could you do? You complain, and you get fired.”

Low-interest loans granted to selected employees to help them buy homes in the Camarillo area served as much as an intimidating financial cudgel as a comforting economic blanket, according to several ex-employees.

Records on file in Los Angeles Superior Court indicate that the loans were “due and payable” within one year, to be renewed annually only “if borrower remained an employee.”

“They could hold that over your head,” one former employee said. “You knew that if you left, they could foreclose. It gave them leverage.”

But ICA officials said home loans are part of an executive compensation plan designed to attract and keep key employees.

“We consider all of the executive benefits earned by top employees--including education benefits, mortgage assistance for relocating personnel and others--to be entirely appropriate,” a statement released by ICA said.

Questioned about Horne’s allegation that ICA spent no more than 20% of donated funds for direct relief, Glazier referred to reports from ICA auditors indicating that 61% of $33.2 million raised in 1983 was spent on “relief, information and ministry projects.” But Glazier could not elaborate on what was included under each category.

Below Bureau Standard

The Council of Better Business Bureaus concluded from 1983 data furnished by ICA that the agency spent only 41% of its donations on relief. The BBB sets 65% as its minimum acceptable standard.

Former employees noted that Bass has created a worldwide network of offices and agencies, among which funds and personnel are frequently transferred. As a result, even former ICA executives said they found it all but impossible to trace the precise flow of funds.

Like other religious organizations, ICA is exempt from federal and state regulations that require non-profit groups to record the receipt of donations and document whether the funds are spent for purposes specified in fund-raising appeals.

Nello Panelli, a spokesman for ICA, Saturday defended ICA operations in Portugal, saying that the facilities there include a children’s orphanage and medical clinic. He said that the mini-bus was needed to transport employees across a river where no public transportation existed. He added that the children get the same lunches as the employees.

‘Efficient and Orderly’

ICA’s press package also included a copy of a telegraph message from someone described as the head of a Portuguese relief organization describing “the efficient and orderly” distribution of ICA food packages to children.

Although Glazier denied there was a “panic button” in Bass’ inner office, he said the elaborate security measures at ICA headquarters are necessary because large sums of cash are handled there.

According to former employees, the organization reached a “turning point” in 1983, after Bass began emphasizing fund-raising for refugee aid rather than evangelism.

“Millions began to pour in,” said one former ICA executive with budgetary responsibilities. “Bass learned it was far easier to raise money by showing films of children with bloated bellies than (to seek funds) for smuggling Bibles into Russia.

“The big bucks are what changed L. Joe Bass . . . and I watched it happen.”

However, Glazier said that the “nature and purposes” of the Bass’ organizations have not changed over the years, although the press release said the management organization was restructured to cope with “growing pains.”

The filmed “raid” at the Camarillo headquarters was only an effort “to show people on (Underground Evangelism) film what it’s like in an Eastern (Bloc) country,” Glazier said. He said that “20% of the people knew about it (in advance, but) . . . we should have told everybody.”

Former employees, some of whom still speak well of Bass, say that “hundreds” of ICA employees quit or were fired during the 1983 shake-up that included Horne’s dismissal.

Glazier said such descriptions of the shake-up were exaggerated, that only one employee was “terminated” and that seven resigned. But The Times talked to more than eight who left the organization.

Reasons for Departure

Mel Hansen, a Bass employee for 10 years and director of the North American operations of ICA before Horne, said he quit “because the situation was unredeemable.”

Among those fired was Sembrano.

“There was supposed to be an open-door policy, so I took them up on it, asked some questions,” Sembrano recalled last week. “I asked them about all the demotions, why all the firings.

“Because I asked, I was fired.”

Also contributing to this story was Times staff writer Doug Smith.