The Church does not own the skies above their once secret base at Gilman Hot Springs, also known as Gold, on the edge of the Californian desert, at least, not yet. We lifted off, the Hollywood sign somewhere below us, then clattered across the thickly populated chessboard of LA. The cheapest way of experiencing something like the sensation of flying in a helicopter is snorkelling. Floating around on top of the sea, you see the ridges and troughs of the sea bottom rise and fall away from you. It is weirdly like that in a chopper, the land beneath you rising and dipping, the Perspex bubble of the helicopter canopy just a posher version of your snorkel mask.
We were heading east, rising and falling over a fag-end of a dirty brown, dry-as-dust mountain chain till we got to what used to be called Gilman Hot Springs, near Hemet, about 90 miles east of LA. Mr Hubbard arrived here in 1979, pretty much on the run from the FBI. One Scientologist, Anne Rosenblum, who was only familiar with the great man through his approved photographs from the sixties was shocked to discover that he had ‘rotting teeth and a really fat gut’. Worse, she had been told the pet dogs of Mrs Mary Sue Hubbard were ‘Clear’, and would only bark at people who had committed ‘overts’ – crimes – against the Hubbards. When they started snapping at her, ‘I started walking around wondering what deep, dark terrible overts I had committed on LRH or Mary Sue in this life or past lives.’ The possibility that the pooches were just reacting to Anne, a stranger, in an ordinary, doggy way eluded her mind-set back then.
The 1977 FBI raids on the Church’s offices which had unearthed the documents proving that not journalist Paulette Cooper but the Church had been sending itself bomb threats caught bigger fish in the net. The raids had revealed Operation Snow White, a vast attempt by the Church to seize compromising documents from the US government. More than 130 government agencies were targeted for thefts or infiltration, involving perhaps as many as 5,000 covert agents. At the fag-end of 1979, nine Scientologists, including L Ron’s wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, pleaded guilty to specimen charges of subverting the United States government, and she was sentenced to five years. The Church hid Hubbard away at Gilman Hot Springs, an old resort gone to seed, for a while, then moved him on, further into the desert, living a life of total seclusion from the outside world. Paranoid, gibbering, uneasy at the real possibility of arrest, trial and prison, L Ron lived out his last years cocooned from reality by his devoted ‘Messengers’, hand-picked children of the Sea Org staff, one of them, David Miscavige.
Almost thirty years on, the world has creeped closer to the desert. Instead of miles of nothing, and tumbleweed drifting poignantly in the breeze, a property developer has built a suburban housing estate close by Gold Base. It is as if Barratt Homes has knocked up an estate next to the secret underground lair of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. From up high you can see the effects of irrigation: the green grass of the Scientology golf course where Tom Cruise is supposed to have played, giving way to Gold’s cluster of buildings, then the vast brown neck of the mountain to the east.
Our helicopter landed at a small airport near Hemet, we hired a car and tootled off to the secret lair of Scientology.
Sci’gy-Leaks shows how the Church’s hierarchy dealt with our going airborne with its customary calm judgment. On Friday morning, Mike reported to Miscavige’s Communicator: ‘they headed towards STB [Santa Barbara] and then turned off and went to Van Nuys airport and goot chopper and just circled Gold. Tommy and i are enroute to gold in case they try to land out there.’
As ever, Mike and Tommy were keen on telling the Leader’s Office how well their campaign was going to stop our Panorama from ever being broadcast: ‘This morning we had ltr delivered to bosses at BBC laying out outrageous and bigoted actions of sweeney and attaching dvd clip of his psychotic break at cchr yesterday. UK counsel saw clip and its “extraordinary” and he has never seen anything like it and it alone will embarrass BBC enough that they cld abort the show just on this.’
So there is a huge contrast between the reaction of the Church’s agents the day before – to keep calm and carry on, including a tour of the Concrete Angel and letting me interview Juliette Lewis – and the legal response, which was to big up ‘my psychotic break’. Mike was holding one arrow back in his quiver.
‘We havent even told them abt his quote that BBC higher ups are overpaid morons.’
The overpaid morons remark was made when I sought to entice Anne Archer to make some minor criticism of the Church, in vain.
Mike continued: ‘Uk counsel also suggested others write ltrs abt abuses so will get thgese put together. They hv lgl ltr [have legal letter] ready to go but holding onto it until we get response to tommy,s ltr as that will cut off anyone higher up in BBC dealing with us. Ml Mike’
This suggests that the Church studies the BBC closely. The Church was still waiting for a response from the Panorama team about some previous atrocity by me from earlier in the trip, and they wanted to hold back their big gun of me going tomato until they received that lower-level response. The moment they had that, they could fire the big gun at the top of the BBC. If they didn’t wait, then the programme team could reply to the exploding tomato incident, initially, anyway. None of us were in doubt that the Church would make merry with me losing it. We were determined to show it so that they would never be able to claim that we funked showing something embarrassing. Besides, Mole said, it was good telly.
Although Miscavige was too busy to meet us, he – or, rather his Communicator – wasn’t too busy to badger his agents: ‘Right now you have a record of showing them through CC, Pac, CCHR and the places they refused to go being Flag and Gold (while making demands to interview the pope).’
The Church’s strategy against us seemed to be that they were deliberately seeking to publically offer us seemingly as much access as possible, report our reluctance to engage with it, and then show that as proof of our lack of fairness and objectivity. But this strategy had two big holes in it: it discounted the detail of their conditions on access, unacceptable to us; and access to beautifully-groomed but empty facilities did not begin to address the credible and grievous complaints made by ex-members of the Church.
‘You two are to solve this.’
This suggests delusion. Our dogged persistence to make our film on our terms was not a problem the Church’s two agents could solve.
Miscavige’s office then turned to the making of the Church’s parallel documentary, which eventually saw the light of the day as ‘Panorama Exposed’: ‘Solve it as he’s expecting your documentary this week - edited and ready for mising [mixing?] and post-prod.’
On reading this, I cannot but feel sorry for Tommy and Mike. To make any documentary in a week is a real challenge. At Panorama, we call them ‘fast-turn-arounds’ and they are hell to produce.
Mike replied, filling in his Dear Leader. Quick as a flash, Miscavige’s Communicator came back: ‘And? Did they show up?’
I can answer that. We did. Our trip to Gold Base was boring, a crushing disappointment. A public road dissects the base, but thick foliage, walls and high fences blocked our view. Later, we were told that when the media is about, Sea Org members are ordered into lock-down mode, compelled to stay indoors so that they cannot be filmed. There is a tunnel under the road, allowing members to walk across the two bisected halves of the estate without being captured on camera. We didn’t go to the booth or security gate immediately, so they found us. A few minutes after our arrival, a Church security goon turned up and started hectoring us that we had parked on private land. Unfortunately, he forgot to use his handbrake and his vehicle slipped back a few feet. But it made for boring telly, and we left and headed back to LA.
The office of the Leader was still babbling: ‘As for documentary, it was senseless to explain to you how obnoxious your comm was. Who do you think puts together documentaries in the real world? An Avid Operator (like Dos) or a PR who knows his business.’
The tone is clear. To be fair to Tommy and Mike, they had just made a Panorama reporter look like a roaring fruitcake and that brilliant PR demolition job on me had been written off, as if it was easy. All Miscavige’s Communicator could do was call Mike’s message ‘obnoxious’.
Mike explained that we had driven back to Van Nuys airport, and that he and Tommy were hurrying back from Gold to LA.
The Leader’s Communicator was not happy: ‘You blew it. And the phone call was a total waste of time. Just waiting for more orders, like you alwys dO. Tommy (APU) instant Treason all over again. No handling--just… “I couldn’t possibly handle it … “And you have yet to provide any handling.’
This message is preposterously unfair to the two agents. By this time in the game, we were paranoid and did not discuss our plans with any outsiders unless we had compelling reasons to do so. Tommy and Mike could not predict our movements exactly all the time and to blame them for an occasional failure is well beyond unreasonable.
Very soon after that, a follow-up message from the Communicator, more angry than the first: ‘I basically wanted to vomit on that call… The act of treason yesterday of throwing him’ – The Leader - ‘up as a target by agreeing hed get contacted all because of tommy having a self important button that he’s a big shot… Now answer my comm you CICS! [Counter-Intentional Cock Sucker]’
Who is the master intelligence behind the messages from the Communicator, David Miscavige or Lou Stuckenbrock? She or He? In 2010 I brought up ‘CICS!’ with Miscavige’s old drinking buddy, Tom DeVocht, and his partner Alison Andrus.
‘Counter-Intention…’ said Alison.
‘Counter-Intention,’ echoed Tom.
‘…Cock Suckers,’ Alison got it first.
‘When I spent the time with Dave, Lou was always there,’ said Tom, ‘Lou is his Communicator, secretary, security, carried a tape recorder around. Records every word out of Dave’s mouth, including the “cocksucker this…and that”. She records all of it. As the tape is full, she sends it up the hill to Building 50 at Gold and there is two people up there that type full time. When I originally knew her years back she was a sweetheart…’
Alison said she grew up with Lou, or her proper name, Laurisse, at Saint Hill in England: ‘When I knew her she was the most wonderful, genuine person incredible person.’ Alison had been the Inspector General’s Communicator, the same job that Lou has with David Miscavige: ‘when you talk, you talk for that person. So when you go to someone and you are told to tell them something, you are telling them, but it is coming from the other person.’
If what you are saying is correct, that is a cut-out. Why have a cut-out? Why can’t Miscavige send his own messages?
‘Because you would know about it,’ said Tom, laughing. ‘I sat there and watched him write messages or have Lou write messages like that to Mike [Rinder] or to Marty [Rathbun], to different people… Dave knows that if that came from him somebody could get a hold of it. He is extremely smart and he is extremely afraid, super afraid. He is scared of just about anybody and everybody. So he knows if he can have Lou do that, he could always say, “ah that wasn’t me”’.
I asked Alison about Lou. When she was much younger, would she talk about ‘Cock Sucking…’?
‘Never, ever. Oh, it is definitely not from Lou. It is from David Miscavige, without a doubt.’
The Church of Scientology and David Miscavige deny that he is foul-mouthed and that the messages had anything to do with the Church, its Leader or his Communicator. The Church says I am psychotic, a bigot and a liar.
A third message from the Communicator, angrier yet: ‘DID YOU GET MY MESSAGE AND ARE YOU ANSWERING???’
Tommy replied: ‘Yes sir. We got it and mike is answering. I’m driving right now.’
The Communicator whipped back: ‘You are answering and driving? Okay - you just gained a notch on him. He’s he passenger and you have more hands to answer. Make sure he knows what the acronym CICS [Counter-Intuitive Cock Sucker] means as that’s exactly what he’s proving by event REFUSING to answer a comm!’
Tommy replied: ‘Yes sir. He knows what cics means and he is getting this answer to you immediately.’
Mike joined in the loop: ‘Dear Sir. I apoplogize for not answering right away. I have drafted an email to go to him that docuiments his latest criminal act of showing up at gold and aslkin g a securityguard for an interview while we were sitting in la.’
Mike went on to say that my behaviour was ‘beyond the beyond’ and that they were not going to waste any more time on providing me with access. Meanwhile, he had got in touch with Bob – Fireman Bob – to film at Westminster Abbey and the BBC.
A Church of Scientology film crew turned up at Lambeth Palace, the historic home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and knocked on the immense wooden door, demanding an entry. His Grace was not available at that moment, but, to be fair, the Archbishop has given dozens of interviews to the media, the latest of which in September 2012, he admitted to making mistakes with a humility which seems entirely becoming in a religious leader. Then they went to the BBC TV and did the same with the then Director-General, Mark Thompson. He too, was not available at that moment, but he too has been regularly interviewed on television. Had neither Archbishop nor D-G in their various reincarnations not been interviewed since 1992, the Church might have had a point.
The Communicator was still not happy: ‘Whatever. These are just tidbits. Of course his [Sweeney’s] lies are criminal.’
That is just nonsense. I had not lied, and nor had I said anything criminal. One gets the impression that no-one in the Leader’s circle ever says to him, calm down, mate, you’re being silly. The Communicator babbled on: ‘No handlings has yet appeared on that and cob [Miscavige] knows he’s on his own and can expect nobody in the church to defend him at all… now you are behind the a8 ball.’
The 8 or black ball in pool is a difficult position to get out of.
‘You don’t even say where he is right now getting drunk.’
We were now back in LA. I might have been enjoying a beer but I was not getting drunk.
‘Maybe you have plans on how to handle but they arebkt [aren’t?] listed here.’
Tommy was in dire trouble. He had spoken too frankly when he told Mole: “Well, I report to Mr Miscavige. Is that high enough?’” Now the Communicator was incredibly fearful that Tommy and Mike’s ‘handling’ of the BBC might blow up in their faces and that, he, too might get damaged.
‘Sir,’ Tommy replied, ‘totally got this 100%. He has now sent the answer and also saw the derivation of cics. Tommy’
The power play from on high continued: ‘A) he’s gtng the message to me when he wants after 10 MFing [Mother Fucking] nudges. B) CICS - the term was originated when the first DNA of a slug was scene by the first sloth.’
Tommy replied at length, once he and Mike had returned to their office in OSA, the Office of Special Affairs, the Church’s intelligence arm, where they were able to speed type on a proper computer. ‘Sir, sorry for the crap answer. We are back at osa and making sure this email totally boxes them in and has them utterly smoked and with no choice but to put sweeney out to pasture and shelf this piece.’
Tommy goes on to prostrate himself before the Leader because of his ‘mistake’ the previous day: ‘So I’m focused on getting the job done and not having it be a flap and fixing my treasonous caving in and my total betrayal of setting up cob [Chairman of the Board, Miscavige] yesterday. I caused it so I have to fix it. I have no right to criticize mike or bitch about being where I am with him. Its up to me to be responsible for both of us and not only handle myself but Mike as well. Ml, Tommy’
That Tommy went out of his way to accept the blame and not place it on Mike’s head showed a certain grace, that whatever else was going on inside his head, he retained some sense of dignity.
Back in the office, Mike echoed Tommy in setting out that their representations would sink me with the BBC: ‘we are flat out competently hndlng this. This is OK ML Mike’
Yet again, the Communicator was not content. She (or is it he?) rants at length, concluding: YS! [YOU SUCK!] And have him hat you on the L button as you keep taking hin off as an info. Do you realize everyone of my mssgs are longer than yours. You really are just sp [Suppressive Person] aren’t you? I wqaited to get this crap? I can’t even believe it. You just can’t work or do can you? YS [YOU SUCK!] YS [YOU SUCK!] YS [YOU SUCK!] YS [YOU SUCK!] YS [YOU SUCK!]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
The Church denied David Miscavige abused staff with obscene language, saying the allegation was beneath contempt.
One ex-member of the Church later told me that this kind of potty-mouthed, one-way abusive language was standard from David Miscavige. Another of his favourite sign-offs was YSCOHB.
Decoded, it means: ‘YOU SUCK COCK ON HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD.’