He was branch overseer in Puerto Rico and then in Dominican Republic, Where he had to face the Generalisimo, one of the most powerfull and feared strong man in Latin America, he had the ability and resources to overthow Castro, he won a couple fitghts against Castro he even killed CIA agents and laughed about it, just like that. His son and his son in law, Porfirio Rubirosa (a paradigm for world class play boy) used to run around with the "best" and most famous women in the world.
JW were even banned there, and a coupled were killed, Ray was in shaky grounds. He could 'feel' the gun on his back while sleeping. JW were somewhat considered communist.
Ray was called by Knorr around 1964 to work at Bethel and then became a GB member his uncle was already at the top as THE VP, Fred Franz, seems like Knorr was grooming Ray, after all Ray's uncle was the chief spiritual architec (oracle) for the WT.
Ray was not willing to put up with all the crap and had a crisis of conscience, the rest is painfull history. Just read his 2 books www.commentarypress.com
An anecdote.
As a very young man at a circuit assembly in NYC i was not properly dressed for the ocassion, wearing an sport jacket!
All of the sudden I see Ray Franz, i had no choice but say hello to him. I though he would ignore me and/or look down on me because of the way i was dressed and tell me a thing or two. Our family was very close to him and his wife and i know how the internal social system works. And i also know how most 'annointed' are...
What a surprise he chatted with me for a while and asked about several family members etc. He still do. I could not beleive it. What a relief. He is the only 'annointed' i could ever relate to as a young man. The rest looked strange to me, specially Fred, out of reality. Now i know why.