The Church of Fear: Inside The Weird World of Scientology (16 page)

He is you? What on earth does the Communicator mean?

Five and a bit hours later – no-one seems to get much sleep in the Church – Mike replies: ‘
Dear Sir - I totally realize this and intend to deal with this so it doesnt create further enturbulation. I know we did nothing on March 13
[we met Mike and Tommy on that day
] and that this is the continuing treason. The people arrived sfo and drove to Berkeley and are in on on hotel
.’

This is a spying operation on a grand scale, conducted across 2,000 miles of the continental United States. Mike’s admission of a continuing treason seems to be comically over-the-top and self-denigrating. But he knew roughly what we were planning to do in the morning: ‘
to interview two people tomorrow but we dont know their names yet though suspect one is the woman who stirred uo the SFO Chronicle earlier about NN
[Narconon]
in thhe schools as she lives nearby and was on on student of Margaret Singer. We have the DAs on her and Singer.’

‘DA’ means ‘Dead Agent’, to spread malicious lies and rumours about an anti-Scientologist person or organization in an attempt to discredit them. LRH’s policy on “dead agenting” appeared in a 1974 bulletin: ‘The technique of proving utterances false is called “DEAD AGENTING”. It’s in the first book of Chinese espionage. When the enemy agent gives false data, those who believed him but now find it false kill him - or at least cease to believe him. So the PR slang for it is ‘Dead Agenting.’”

Singer is a reference to Margaret Singer, a feisty academic who took on all manner of cults including the Moonies, Falun Gong, Hare Krishna and Heaven’s Gate and wrote
Cults In Our Midst.
She suffered hate-mail, had live rats released into her house and travelled under an assumed name. She never backed down. Her view on cults was straightforward and unapologetic: cults ‘prey on the most lonely, vulnerable people they can find, cage you with your own mind through guilt and fear, cut you off from everyone…they don’t need armed guards to keep you. Liars, tricksters, it’s been the same ever since Eve got the apple, and I doubt it will ever change. They’re all basically, really the same, con men.’

At the age of 80, she frightened off a stalker – not from the Church of Scientology – who had been leaving menacing notes in her mailbox: ‘I’ve got a 12-gauge shotgun up here, sonny, and you’d better get off my porch, or you’ll be sorry!’ she hollered out the window. ‘And tell your handlers not to send you back!’ By the time we landed in San Francisco, Singer had been dead for two years. Only the Church of Scientology would seek to ‘Dead Agent’ the dead.

Mike continued: ‘
We will ensure the orgs are briefed on them possibly trying to come in. TD arrives at 11am and will then have the full plan in coordination with Bob
[Fireman Bob, who, it seems, can do no wrong]
who is moving forward in UK. Ml’

The Communicator replied nine hours after his previous message, presumably after a good night’s sleep: ‘
Thanks. Still means nothing and I don’t know why TD would take until 11 to get across country and why you are in sfo except if they try to ambush org (but org could have been briefed and told to chuck them) if they
 
showed up. But that’s my dub in as you and TD just are dangerous environ and REFUSE to give specifics (like maybe there is a reason you are there?)’

Mike replied: ‘
Dear Sir. There were no other available flights and they had a 6hr wait In chicago. The original reason for going to sfo was to be there if we needed to confront them if needed. We did not know what their plans were. We now know they are planning to do two interviews today and catch a flight to la tomorrow morning
.’

How they knew our schedule, we do not know. We would have been wary about communicating our plans with anyone outside the team, and I trust everyone in the team, absolutely.

‘
They have been meeting with bruce hines this morning
.’

More evidence, if it were needed, that they were spying on us.

‘
We are leaving people here to track their activities. The org DSAs have been briefed as well and are ready to handle them if they show up. we are going to la to prepare for them and get our complaint to the bbc prepared and coordinated with walsh’
[Bill Walsh, the American lawyer we met at Saint Hill]
and uk counsel as they are way out of line. We have a 2:45 flight. Ml Mike’

The Communicator replied: ‘
Tks. I hope they have all the dope on Hines. What’s so bad is none of these people know anything happening anywhere in PT in the church.
’

PT stands for Present Time, the here and now. The Xenu directory gives a useful example: ‘SPs are stuck in an incident in the past; they need to be brought up to PT.’

Mike replied: ‘
Dear Sir, we have the da [Dead Agent file] on hines and will get this to sweeney as he took him in front of sfo org to shoot shots of him so hines involvement is now overtly
[as opposed to covertly]
known. Clearly they are only interested in people who have allegations to make and no actual data and this is part of his gross bias
.’

Mike continued:
‘We are in LA and now going through the transcripts of the statements made by js
[John Sweeney]
when he was confronted by tommy at the plant city opening and when he was interviewing shawn Lonsdale. I have never seen so many overtly bigoted and biased statements made by a reporter… We are going to lay out exactly how to further mess up his plans on wednesday as he expects us to refuse to show him anything. But we can force him to shoot our facilities. We can also line up interviews that he will likely refuse (on principal he is saying that anything we give him is just our propaganda) and we will use that against him. If he does interview them them they will da
[Dead Agent]
his lines.’

And lo, exactly that came to pass: they bombarded us with interviewees. It seemed wrong to us to say no, so we interviewed all of the people they put in front of our cameras but the cumulative effect was boring telly and mind-shattering.

‘
We are putting this together at osai
’ – the Church’s version of CIA HQ, Langley -
‘and will send a complete report at the end of the nite as I know you hve only been getting bits and pieces on blackberry. This is ok ML Mike’

The Communicator asks for the number where the two men are working. Then Tommy joins the conversation, messaging Lou: ‘
Dear Sir, I apologize for the generality
.’

Generality means waffle.

‘
We are back in LA now and at OSA Int and going through everything - the transcripts from the UK, the BBC broadcasting guidelines, the legal data we have inn the invest results
.’

Tommy’s mention of the ‘invest results’ suggests that there was an investigation into our team, perhaps by private eyes, on top of the tracking carried out by Mike and Tommy. Perhaps that investigation is the source of Tommy’s remark at Plant City, which he swallowed in the next sentence, that ‘I know where you live’.

They were working on a plan: ‘
to handle sweeney terminatedly. Ml, Tommy
.’

The ‘
terminatedly
’ still makes my flesh creep.

The evidence from Sci’gy-Leaks seems compelling, describing in detail, in real-time, an elaborate spying operation by the Church of Scientology against the BBC, tracking us across the United States, from our hotel in Clearwater to identifying an important ex-Scientologist source we interviewed in San Francisco to LA. When Tommy Davis said he had no idea what I was talking about he was not, on the face of it, being honest.

On Wednesday, March 21st, we spent the day as Tommy’s guest interviewing the stars at the Church’s Celebrity Centre. An anxious message came from the Communicator in the evening: ‘
We are in LA now, are there any areas we should avoid? And is this guy’s body now many new (torn worn to wall) assholes?
’

This is, some say, the word of the Church of Scientology.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Do I look brainwashed to you?’

B
ack in the Celebrity Centre I asked a question.

‘That’s insane,’ said Tommy.

‘That is nuts,’ said Mike.

‘That is insane,’ repeated Tommy.

I tried to think of putting what Bruce Hines had told me about David Miscavige in the most diplomatic way I could think of. ‘He’s a thug,’ I said, ‘going around hitting people?’

‘OK, good,’ said Tommy. ‘You broadcast that you’re going to suffer the consequences because it’s a gross, gross lie. And every time you come up with these lies I put you on warning and it’s on tape.’

Could I interview Mr Miscavige? I asked, expecting the answer no.

Mike started talking, a rare event: ‘John, that’s the same allegation that they made in the 1987 Panorama programme, that took those allegations and laid them all out… Everyone on them was found completely and utterly not just untrue, totally without basis. The court threw that complaint out, the…’

Which complaint?

‘The complaint that was the subject…’ Mike was interrupted.

‘From the 1987 Panorama show that you seem to be patterning this show after,’ said Tommy.

‘…it was exactly the same pattern,’ continued Mike, ‘there is a bunch of people who have these wild, outrageous, untrue allegations…’

‘They found…’ said Tommy.

‘…comes along and says well, let’s hear what you have to say…’ said Mike.

‘And it’s thrown out,’ said Tommy, ‘and found to be frivolous, after five, it was thrown out five times!’

Did the BBC apologise, I asked.

‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘even after the Internal Revenue Service investigated every single allegation made in that show there were all found to be unfounded and not true.’

I do not believe, I said, that the Internal Revenue Service of America has got any regulatory role whatsoever to do with the BBC, so that programme stood.

‘We’re not talking about regulatory role,’ said Mike.

‘We’re talking about the facts,’ said Tommy.

I get the point, I said.

‘The facts are…’ said Tommy.

So, no, the facts are… The fact was we were talking over each other.

‘Wait, wait, so the point you…’ said Tommy.

So David Miscavage is not a bully, I wondered, nonchalantly.

‘Absolutely not!’ said Tommy.

He doesn’t hit people? I asked.

‘Unequivocally not,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ve never seen him engage in any behaviour that could be remotely characterised as such, it’s a bald-faced lie!’

Are you sure? I asked.

‘One hundred percent! Without question. I have no doubt whatsoever. He’s a personal friend of mine, I’ve known him for 16 years, I’ve worked with him closely for many and most of those years as has Mike and we know him and we couldn’t even begin to conceive of anything that even remotely resemble what you’ve just described. It’s such a disgusting mischaracterisation.’

He never hit Bruce Hines?

‘Absolutely not, he’s never hit anybody. Did Bruce tell you that?’

Tommy and Mike, according to Sci’gy-Leaks, knew full well that I’d spent time with Bruce Hines but I did not know that they knew. But Bruce had been happy to talk to us in public on camera so it was not a secret so I said: yes.

‘Bruce Hines told you that?’

Yes.

‘This is the Donna Shannon syndrome,’ chipped in Mike.

Tell me about Bruce Hines. Is he a nice man? I asked.

They told me he was removed from the Church for gross dereliction of duty.

Bruce said there were a number of reasons why he left the church of his own volition, I said. One was that he had problems after falling out with Tom Cruise because it took him too long to say “your needle’s floating, Tom”.

‘He never knew Tom Cruise, he’s never met Tom Cruise,’ said Tommy.

He has met Tom Cruise, he told me, I said.

‘Oh really? Oh really? OK, good,’ said Tommy.

You don’t believe him?

‘It’s not a question of believing him,’ said Tommy. ‘He’s just lying. I know it’s not true.’

OK, I said. Bruce also said that Mr Miscavige fell out with him, Mr Miscavige came into the room and said ‘where is the motherfucker?’ and then hit him. That’s what he says.

‘You know John…’ started Mike

Is that true? I asked.

‘No,’ said Mike, ‘that’s a lie and I know that it’s a lie because I was already with Bruce Hines once before when I was on the TV show where that was brought up and similar type allegations were made and I asked Mr Miscavage. He never had that conversation, that incident, that run-in, whatever Bruce Hines claims, it never occurred. Now you think that this is very strange, this is what we are telling you John, we have seen these people for years, I have heard the most outrageous outlandish statements about myself, things I supposedly did that never happened, ever, ever happened and they will just make them up because what’s the downside for someone like that? To make statements like that. What, are they going to get sued?’

That was probably the most thorough denial of an allegation I had ever heard. We carried on like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, for a bit, trying to bash each other’s brains out, verbally I hasten to add, then Tommy introduced me to his mother.

I sat down opposite Anne Archer. Apart from having her bunny boiled in ‘
Fatal Attraction
’, Anne has appeared in the films ‘
Patriot Games
’ and ‘
Clear and Present Danger
’, and on TV in
Little House on the Prairie, Falcon Crest
and
Hawaii Five-0
. Outside, the Californian sun did its duty, but its light was shrouded by lace-effect drapes. She took one look at me and shuddered, a medieval martyr, about to be tormented by a witch-finder wielding a ret-hot poker. Or something like that. All of the celebrity interviewees the Church presented for me to interview were, as far as we were concerned, volunteers. They did not have to talk to me but elected to do so.