International Christian Aid Founder : L. Joe Bass--a Man on a Mission or a Power Trip?

For 25 years now, controversy has swirled around L. Joe Bass--accusations of dishonesty, stories of an intemperate man on a personal power trip, entrenched behind a security screen of electronic surveillance gear and subordinates sworn to silence.

But throughout those years, despite the complaints of critics--and the occasional probing of government investigative agencies--the religious leader has survived and prospered. It has been sort of an evangelical Horatio Alger story--a high school dropout who founded and built a $34-million-a-year complex of organizations with activities that range from smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain to feeding the poor of the Third World.

Today, Bass and his embattled International Christian Aid (ICA) organization face their stiffest test yet--investigation by U.S. Postal Service inspectors and a federal grand jury in Los Angeles, prompted by accusations that the money he raised for the starving people of Ethiopia was never spent there.

Four months after Bass, 48, announced that help was on its way, there is still no confirmation that any of it has been distributed to the needy of Ethiopia. In fact, the officials to whom Bass says the aid has been sent have vowed that they won’t accept it--or any other ICA goods--until the controversy is cleared up to their satisfaction.

The federal investigation centers on the possibility of mail fraud in solicitations circulated by ICA. More than a dozen former and current ICA employees have been subpoenaed as grand jury witnesses. Many of those witnesses have been been interviewed by The Times and could be expected to repeat for the grand jury allegations that ICA spends relatively little of its money on direct aid to the poor.

The scenario to be played out for federal investigators in many ways mirrors the story of Bass’ career. It is the story of a man who inspires both unswerving loyalty and angry repudiation among followers, who successfully elicits millions of dollars in donations from around the world but can’t win the confidence of other Christian relief agencies, who boasts he has nothing to hide, but insists on secrecy.

Sees Ego Trip

“He’s out to get power,” contends Evelyn Hughes, who spent 18 months as Bass’ executive secretary. “He wants to be recognized as the top man in whatever he does.”

Hughes’ comment was typical of those former Bass subordinates who form the core of his critics, but she was one of only a few who agreed to permit her name to be used in this report. Most would agree to be interviewed only on the condition that they not be identified.

Bass says he is not worried about the controversy, which he dismisses as “sour grapes” or the work of “the Communist press.”

Moreover, he says all the aid promised to Ethiopia will be delivered as advertised. “Every penny received by this organization can be tracked to its end usage and is properly reported in audited financial reports,” Bass said in a recent press release, adding that he has no fear of investigation.

As they have in the past, the critics and the investigators may find it hard to prove him wrong.

In fact, Joe Bass is something of a veteran at investigations. He or his organizations have been examined in recent years by German tax officials, by the Los Angeles Department of Social Services and by the Ventura County district attorney, among others. None has resulted in criminal charges.

Beginning of Climb

His climb toward the top floor of the evangelical pyramid has been via the back stairs, apart from the major denominations. According to his mother, that climb began more than 30 years ago, in Fort Smith, Ark.

He was a high school sophomore, the youngest of four children--two girls and two boys--born to Eula Bass and her husband, Lonnie, a used-car dealer.

“Joe never got into sports,” Eula Bass said during a recent interview. “During lunch time, when he was in high school, he’d just take his Bible or some gospel literature outside and read. He liked to do that. . . . One day, when he was about 16 years old, he heard a broadcast on the radio.”

It was the Wings of Healing, an obscure West Coast radio ministry that supported several overseas missions.

“Joe said, ‘Mother, that’s exactly what I want to do,’ ” Eula Bass recalled.

Dropping out of high school, Bass headed west to Oregon, where the Wings of Healing ran an unaccredited college in Portland called the Bethesda Bible Institute.

After a couple of years in Portland, Bass served two years--from 1954 to 1956--as a Wings of Healing missionary in Nigeria. He said that after returning to the United States, he was ordained a minister in 1957 in a small Pentecostal denomination--the New Antioch Church in Baltimore. He doubled back for a four-month stint of missionary work in Africa, then transferred his ordination papers to the American Evangelistic Assn., a Baltimore-based relief agency for children.

First Group Founded

The pace quickened in 1959: Bass married the former Lois LaRue, who was two years his junior and whom he had met while a student in Portland. He founded his first organization, the Evangelism Center, a gospel ministry to Eastern Europe incorporated in Oklahoma. He started its first publication--”Faith Times”--to support that ministry. And he got arrested.

Federal marshals picked him up in Fort Smith on a woman’s complaint that he had attempted to obtain money from her under false pretenses. Released on $500 bail, Bass appeared at a preliminary hearing a few days later, where the complaint was dropped.

Bass explained that the matter involved a music manuscript the woman wanted published and a “donation” she had given him. “I went out to lunch with the complaining party . . . and the music and the money were returned,” he said. “That was the end of that.”

During the four years that followed, Bass expanded his fledgling operation, opening offices in Western Europe and smuggling Bibles into Communist Bloc countries. He changed the organization’s name to Underground Evangelism and made frequent trips behind the Iron Curtain. Often he returned with movies and photos purporting to show his activities there, which he then used in fund-raising appeals.

Anti-Communist sentiment flourished in the Free World at the time--and so did the Bass organization.

In 1966, four years after the Basses had moved their operations to Glendale, Bass secured the services of Richard Wurmbrand, a Christian anti-Communist who had just been released after spending 14 years in Romanian jails. But, as has been a frequent scenario with top Bass employees, the association was short lived. Within a year, Wurmbrand stomped out to found a rival organization, Jesus to the Communist World.

Acrimonious exchanges flowed between the two organizations for the next decade--and in March, 1977, the feud spilled over into Los Angeles Superior Court. A lawsuit by Bass and one of his employees and a countersuit by Wurmbrand’s son and his followers recounted bizarre allegations of extortion, illicit love affairs and clandestine plots worthy of the most labyrinthine spy thriller.

Settled Out of Court

In the end, on June 29, 1979, an out-of-court settlement was signed in which the parties basically agreed that all accusations and charges made against each other were groundless.

During the next three years, Bass’ organization continued to expand. He established an interlocking network of fund-raising and service agencies around the world that, according to Bass, eventually was to include nearly 1,000 staff members operating on five continents.

Bass’ image as a Bible-smuggling evangelist changed in this period as he devoted more of the organization’s resources to providing relief for the poor in Third World countries. His fund-raising appeals reflected this change.

“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,” said a former ICA executive with budgetary responsibilities. “Millions began to pour in.”

Bass responds that while ICA’s relief work does take more time and money than the Bible-smuggling efforts, it does not demonstrate “any shift of interest” on his part. He said it merely reflects his “first love”--helping the people of Africa, where his ministry started.

In any event, while ICA prospered--the Bass organization moved into a handsome new $3.2-million headquarters building in Camarillo in 1982--there was turmoil within.

In 1982 and 1983, scores of employees quit or were fired. A few were escorted out of the building by armed guards. Many grumbled about Bass to others in the evangelical community. Some talked to government investigators.

Bass attributes the turnover to “a conscious effort to professionalize, to move more competent people in.”

Internal Disagreement

But many of the employees who left told The Times that they were forced out because they disagreed with Bass’ policies or his life style.

Bass says that while his life is comfortable, it is not inappropriate for a continent-hopping executive who runs a $34-million-a-year business.

To be sure, he has a yacht, a 38-foot ketch. He also has a waterfront home at the Ventura Marina, but it is in the $250,000 class, relatively modest when compared to those of his immediate neighbors. His car is German, but it is an Audi, not a Mercedes-Benz.

Some of Bass’ employees told The Times they quit because they felt he did not live up to the standards expected of an evangelical Christian leader. They complained that he drinks alcoholic beverages and travels frequently with a single woman who is one of his top aides.

Bass responds that he is a moderate social drinker--”I don’t see any problem.” As for the woman, Bass says no improprieties exist--that she also makes business trips with other male and female members of the staff.

Former employees say they were intimidated by an elaborate electronic security system--complete with infrared sensors and hidden “panic buttons”--augmented by a layered organizational structure that kept upper-echelon personnel segregated from the workers on the floor below. Every ICA employee was--and still is--required to sign a confidentiality oath never to reveal anything about the organization’s “policies, procedures, security practices or other ‘classified’ matter.”

Bass says the security is necessary to protect operatives behind the Iron Curtain and to guarantee the legitimate confidentiality of some ICA data.

Keeps Tight Grip

But Bass does keep a tight grip on his organization and its staff. In addition to the absolute veto given him under ICA’s bylaws, he is granted the right to remain president until he decides to step down.

The pictures he hands out of himself show a trim, stern-faced man in a dark business suit, seated behind a desk that bespeaks authority.

Bass’ current employees refuse--or are forbidden--to talk to reporters, but not all of those who have worked for Bass are detractors. Bill Louchren, a former ICA executive, for example, describes Bass as “a man I like--I feel very comfortable with him. . . . I can’t say anything bad about him, and I won’t. Whatever he’s done, the Lord will take care of that.”

If Bass had to struggle with employee turnover and other internal problems, he also had to deal with pressures from outside agencies.

For example, when Bass announced his intention to solicit money for Polish refugees in Austria in 1982, Los Angeles Social Services Department investigator George Delianedis checked with the Austrian ambassador.

“He said there were no hungry refugees--that help wasn’t needed,” Delianedis recalled.

Delianedis got a court order blocking a scheduled ICA television appeal. ICA countered with a federal lawsuit claiming exemption from city regulations because it is a religion.

The issue was decided when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that religious organizations required no permit from the city. ICA ran the ads, and dozens more. The money rolled in--more than $33 million a year from around the world by 1983, according to ICA calculations. More recent totals have yet to be tabulated.

Others besides the city, however, were uneasy with ICA’s accounting and methods. The Council of Better Business Bureaus announced in December that ICA “does not meet the CBBB standards for charitable solicitations” because it had declined to provide “adequate information to serve as a basis for informed decision.”

The National Charities Information Bureau, another private group that evaluates fund-raising organizations, refused to endorse ICA because of inadequate financial data and Bass’ veto powers over the ICA board of directors.

Endorsement Refused

Olan Hendrix, former head of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability--a voluntary group that sets standards for Christian fund raising and money management--said ICA was refused ECFA endorsement in 1979 because of its “reputation.”

When Bass started advertising last Nov. 9 for donations for aid to Ethiopia--then very much in the news because of the growing famine--he sent a three-man team to Addis Ababa to start negotiations with the country’s Marxist government. That government--never fond of Bass because of his militantly anti-Communist stance--turned him down.

That forced Bass--who describes his operations as “completely self-reliant and self-contained”--to deal with intermediaries. He contacted a reputable relief organization already operating in Ethiopia--the Christian Relief and Development Assn. (CRDA).

Then, the New York Times, in mid-January, published an unverified estimate that ICA had raised as much as $20 million for Ethiopian relief and that paper--and other news media--began questioning whether any ICA aid was actually getting to starving Ethiopians.

The $20-million figure never has been substantiated, and Bass countered that ICA had raised only $1.3 million for Ethiopia by Dec. 31, 1984. He said he had sent $10,000 worth of medical supplies, 25 tons of protein blend and a Toyota Landcruiser to Ethiopia in care of CRDA. Meanwhile, Bass said, ICA continues to operate elsewhere in Africa.

The CRDA acknowledged that goods from ICA eventually did arrive in Ethiopia, but said that none of them was intended for the CRDA.

Brother Augustine O’Keefe, the CRDA coordinator, said in a telephone interview Friday that his organization would neither accept nor forward any of these supplies.

“Originally we had agreed to work with them,” O’Keefe said. “They (ICA) were going to furnish some medical teams (in Ethiopia). Then the allegations appeared in a newspaper and the (CRDA executive) committee decided not to associate with ICA until the whole matter is cleared up.”

Lack of Visas

O’Keefe added that ICA’s medical team had not been allowed into Ethiopia because ICA could not obtain the required visas.

“We just don’t know what they did with the goods”--the medical supplies, food or Landcruiser, O’Keefe said. “We had nothing to do with the clearance . . . and the (shipping) documents were returned to the (ICA) representative. . . . They do not have any people permanently here.”

Shortly after the Ethiopia controversy surfaced, the Ventura County district attorney’s office, which had been quietly investigating ICA for nearly three years, turned its case over to federal officials, believing they were better equipped to handle the case.

Counterattack Campaign

Bass has responded to the federal investigation with a counteroffensive that has included full-page newspaper advertisements and mailings to supporters and donors. Blaming ICA’s problems on an “ultra-liberal media blitz,” the appeals ask contributors to “send a message that this vicious media attack will not succeed!”

At the same time, Bass said in an interview, he intends to “cooperate fully” with investigators.

“I would welcome any investigation. . . . I’d love to see some hard and fast accusations that we could deal with,” he said.

“We’ve had to put some projects on hold,” he added. “There has been an adverse effect on contributions. . . . That hurts, of course. . . . But we are confident of the outcome of any impartial investigation. Time will really (provide) the only answer.”