Jill’s exec, Simon Berthon, told the Telegraph that when friends began to complain that they had been visited by Ingram, the Church’s favourite private eye, he checked with 12 friends and relations whom he had recently telephoned from home. He said: ‘Out of 12 calls made, I have discovered that nine have been telephoned by a woman offering a free magazine if they take part in a TV viewing-habit survey and give their name and address.’ Three of those nine had subsequently been visited by Ingram. ‘This is well beyond coincidence,’ said Mr Berthon.
The Telegraph reported that among them was a friend and neighbour, Charlotte Joll, whom he had telephoned recently to accept a children’s-party invitation for his daughter. Charlotte said: ‘Last Friday afternoon a man rang on the doorbell showing me his private investigator’s licence and then asked me if I knew someone he was trying to get in touch with. He showed me three photographs of a man I had never seen before and said this guy was wanted for some kind of offence to do with getting money fraudulently. I had no idea what it was about. Then he mentioned Simon Berthon’s name. Did I know him? I said “Yes, our children are friends.” I then remembered that our au pair had told me a couple of days earlier that she had been rung by someone purporting to do be doing research on our television viewing habits, offering her a year’s subscription to her favourite magazine and asking for our address.’
Another of Mr Berthon’s friends who was asked to take part in a telephone survey was Dorothy Byrne, the then editor of ITV’s The Big Story. She said that
Ingram had telephoned her at her office, saying that he was a private detective investigating extortion, and asking for information about Simon and Jill.
Dorothy said: ‘I told him that Simon was one of the most highly regarded people in television. I also told him that in Britain we don’t really appreciate private detectives hanging around outside people’s houses. Then on Friday I received a phone call from a woman saying that she was doing a survey of TV viewing habits.’
In all, Jill Robinson, Simon Berthon, the associate producer, the cameraman, the sound recordist, the picture editor, the assistant cameraman and the composer of the music had visits from Ingram and his colleagues.
The Independent got in touch with Mike Rinder, who told the paper that documentary evidence about Hubbard had been provided to Channel 4. It was not true, Mike maintained, that the Church had refused to co-operate - quite the contrary. The programme-makers had ignored the Church’s offers of access.
Mike Rinder said that behind Jill’s sources ‘were repeated threats against the church and demands for payments of tens of millions of dollars’. Channel 4, alleged Mike, had missed the real Hubbard story - of his ‘solutions to the social ills of drugs, illiteracy and crime’ and the ‘more than 40 million who have been touched by his non-religious moral code; and the many millions who hold his work to be the cornerstone of their lives.’
Mole had studied what had happened to our journalist colleagues who had gone down the same path ahead of us. She predicted that the Church of Scientology would attack me and attack me and attack me. Before we flew out to the United States Mole had said: ‘You’re going to be like the tethered goat in Jurassic Park, bleating as the Tyrannosaurus Rex comes to get you. All you have to do is bleat. You can bleat, can’t you?’ I told her I could.
Everything had gone to plan. Every time Tommy and Mike turned up, at the hotel at midnight, at Plant City, at the top of the car park in Clearwater with Shawn Lonsdale, every time we were followed, every time the private eye in the cowboy hat turned up – it was all part of Mole’s brilliant tethered goat plan. The Church of Scientology had fallen into her trap, again and again and again. Our only goal was to film every attack. The one thing she did not predict was the behaviour of the tethered goat. I did not bleat. Or perhaps I did, but after too much of them, I ended up lowering my head and charging. Not, then, a Tethered Goat. An Un-Tethered Rhino, more like.
So what happened in the Mind Control section was, I think, that two traps went off at exactly the same time. I fell into Tommy’s trap. But he – and they – fell into Mole’s, again.
Incredibly, weirdly, madly everything continued as though nothing had happened. After losing it, I felt nervous and jumpy, and you can clearly see me on the rushes, appearing strained, anxious, worried. In the grammar of television I had made a career-killing mistake. I was almost certainly finished at the BBC; our whole documentary could be killed by BBC management, hugely embarrassed by their fruitcake reporter who could not interview anyone without screaming at them. What the Church’s agents described in Sci’gy-Leaks as my usual ‘arrogance’ was gone. I was, of course, in the wrong. I do believe that. People in the public eye should hold their temper. I had lasted, what, six or seven days (I couldn’t be sure) with them. It felt like six or seven years. I wanted to run away, to talk through my catastrophic loss of control with Mole and Bill. But Tommy and Mike wouldn’t let me.
Weirdly – and I am sorry for the repetition of the adverb, but no other will suffice – Tommy and Mike helped me get my composure back because they carried on attacking me, calling me a bigoted reporter. I carried on telling them that some say they belonged to a brainwashing cult. It was as if I had never done my rhino impersonation at all.
Of course, they knew that we were making a long-form documentary, and it would take us at least a month to cut, edit and legal our film. And therefore it made good tactical sense for them to keep their powder dry. But still, it was beyond strange.
So, after the shout, it was back to the same old battle. Tommy said: ‘So you, John Sweeney, are a bigot, and you are biased and you are incapable of objective reporting, and you have no leg to stand on.’
I have two legs to stand on, I replied. The BBC will fairly and accurately report your view.
An ocean of argy-bargy later, I put to Tommy the stories on the internet that David Miscavige spits at people.
Tommy replied: ‘That is disgusting. It couldn’t even be further from the truth. David Miscavige is a personal friend of mine, I have known him for over 16 years, my entire adult life. He is the kindest, most humane, most caring, most generous, hardest working person I have ever met or had the privilege to know.’
Has he ever thumped anyone?
‘Absolutely not,’ said Tommy, before committing a very rare slip of the tongue: ‘And you continue with these gross allegations I will go after you for slibel…for libel and slander.’
For slibel?
‘I am just combining the two. It is a good one we will put it in the dictionary. Anyway the point is it is libellous and it is slanderous for you to level such accusations that the leader of the Church of Scientology is anything other than a genuine honest and straightforward person. And you know what every accusation that you are levelling has been investigated at enormous length whether it is courts of law or the Internal Revenue Service for the purpose of determining the charitable status and religious nature of Scientology and every single one of them was found to be utterly and completely false.’
We carried on bashing each other for a bit. I asked to interview Miscavige, again.
Tommy replied: ‘He won’t give an interview to you John Sweeney. Do you know why? Because I wouldn’t ever in a million years put him anywhere near your presence. You are bigoted, unobjective, biased, disgustingly despicable bottom feeding tabloid issues, slanderous libellous presence.’
I understand, thank you, I said.
Mole pressed Tommy for an interview with Miscavige. Normally, this kind of conversation is not filmed, but the Church of Scientology is not normal.
‘Where is he? Is he in LA?’ asked Mole.
‘You are assuming he is in LA,’ said Tommy.
‘You don’t want to tell me where he is,’ said Mole. ‘Phone him. Ask him has he heard of our interview approach? Does he know about this programme?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Tommy.
‘Surely the man’s got 30 minutes. Ask him.’
Tommy blocked he
r, waffling on about this and that.
‘How high are you?’ asked Mole.
‘Well, I report to Mr Miscavige. Is that high enough?’
‘So are you number two in the organisation? Or is that Mike?’
‘We don’t really operate in that regard of number one and number two,’ said Tommy. ‘This isn’t Austin Powers.’
It felt like Austin Powers.
I wondered aloud to Tommy and Mike: are you Brother Number Two or Brother Number Three?
‘Yeah, precisely. Anyway that is not how we operate. But as far as public relations and media relations…’
‘…you are number one, OK. Well if you could pass on our request again that would be great and give him a call and ask him?’
‘Gladly.’
‘Can you ring him now?’
‘Right here? On camera?’
‘Yeah, why not? Go on, ring him now,’ said Mole.
‘A nice guy called John Sweeney wants to interview him?’ Tommy looked doubtful, adding to the implied negative, ‘I think that is kind of obvious.’
‘Why? What is wrong? Why won’t you call him?’
‘Because that is ridiculous.’
‘How is it ridiculous?’
‘The head of a major organisation? I am just going to call him up…’ said Tommy.
Marla cut in: ‘A president of an organisation? You are so juvenile.’
Mole says that she found Marla hard to deal with, and might have lost it with them, too, eventually.
I asked Mike: What would your recommendation be?
Mike: ‘That you’re an asshole.’
Mole seemed to find Mike’s remark exceptionally funny: ‘That you’re an asshole. That is the recommendation from Mike.’
Mike repeated himself: ‘An asshole.’ Mole carried on smirking.
Marla: ‘You’re the one screaming. I have worked with journalists for the past ten years, I have worked with 60 Minutes, I have worked with journalists…’
I was trying to make a point, I said. I’ve apologised.
‘I have never witnessed that type of a reaction from any member of the media in ten years working with them on a direct basis,’ said Marla. ‘Why on earth would we recommend you with that type of behaviour? I wouldn’t even recommend that to my enemies, or maybe a few psychiatrists I would. But I certainly would not recommend you to be in the same room with anyone who I held in high regard after that type of behaviour.’
Funnily enough, one year before I lost it Marla said much the same to another reporter who had toured the Industry of Death. She complained of Andrew Gumbel of Los Angeles City Beat that his behaviour amounted to “the most bizarre encounter I have had with a reporter in 10 years.” Perhaps she says that to all the reporters.
I got the feeling that Tommy didn’t want Marla to raise the subject of my exploding tomato performance. Suddenly, she switched off.
Marla: ‘That’s it. I am done. That is my comment.’
Are there any…?
‘I am done,’ said Marla.
I am glad that you are done, I said. I am just replying to your point that there are some sort of slightly strange things that go on when you start investigating Scientology. We have been followed throughout by investigators.
‘It’s boring. It’s boring. I’m bored,’ said Marla.
We went to lunch, on our own, to a burger bar called Tommy’s. I apologised, again. Mole told me to shut up. Bill, our cameraman, tendered his resignation. He was going to leave the BBC and start anew. He was going to join Gold, the Church’s camera team based in the Californian desert, to work with Reinhardt and co. I started gulping in terror. The only reason stopping him was that he didn’t fancy wearing black all the time. I called him a traitor. We started laughing, and couldn’t stop.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Concrete Angel
Like a pitiless concrete angel, the vast two-winged Scientology building stands in downtown LA proclaiming its power to the city of dreams. The building, the old Cedars of Lebanon hospital the Church acquired in the 1970s, is painted a deep space blue and on top of it a great white sign proclaims ‘Scientology’. At night, it lights up, piercing the night sky. Welcome to L Ron Hubbard Way. This street, and the area around it, is dominated by the Church of the Stars. White-shirted, black-trousered adepts hurry across the street, hither and yon.
After lunch we met Tommy and Mike at the far end of the complex from the old hospital. The car park was packed, a sea of windscreens flashing in the sun. It hadn’t drizzled the whole time I was in America. Odd. When I walked through the doors, the strangest thing happened. I stepped into the building about ten feet ahead of the camera teams and Tommy and Mike, and I saw an entire film set, frozen in space and time, as if waiting for a signal from on high, from the Director. One beat, and then as if by unspoken command, everyone started moving, criss-crossing paths, hurrying slightly too fast for real life. I had walked inside a Church of Scientology video. Creepy.
Tommy and Mike were the soul of politeness. It was walk this way, see this, can I answer your question? What had they got up to over lunch? Shown Miscavige the tape of me doing an impression of John Cleese in Fawlty Towers going nuts? I guess so.
We came to a stop in front of a bust of L Ron Hubbard. There is a brilliant Dr Who episode, Blink, about stone statues that are in reality space aliens that move when you blink. Since watching that, I have always felt uneasy in front of statues or busts of any kind.
All of Mr Hubbard’s lectures on compact discs, said Tommy, tantalisingly, pointing at a wall of CDs.
The same thing that we saw at Saint Hill, I said. I didn’t say it then, but the Church of Scientology’s centre in LA is the least religious religious building I have ever been in, in the whole world. It looks and feels like a shop.
A fancy plasma screen caught my eye. Mr Hubbard, said Tommy, gave over 3,000 lectures…
Inside a wood-lined study was a desk, decorated by a naval white cap, as if the captain of the Isle of Wight ferry had just popped out for a pint.
Every Church of Scientology, said Tommy, has an office for L Ron Hubbard.
Other religions have shrines to their dead founders. Scientology, in keeping with its weird mix of corporate Americana, dollar signs and religiosity, has an office. Tommy went on to explain that LRH wasn’t a prophet, guru or a god.
Smashing, I said. What is the naval hat for?
Tommy waxed lyrical about Mr Hubbard’s mastery of the sea, a master mariner licensed to captain any ship on any ocean of any tonnage, sail or motor. The heretic biographer Russell Miller gave me a somewhat different version of Hubbard’s career in the US Navy: ‘He fired on Mexico by mistake. He fought a battle with a submarine that never existed on the Pacific coast. He was not a war hero. He stumbled from courts martial to investigations to unpaid bills. His war career was a disaster.’
Our tour continued. Outwardly, I appeared interested. Inwardly, I was wondering, when would I get fired? We came across a grown man playing with plasticine. Mr Hubbard worked out, said Tommy, that playing with clay figures helps Scientologists.
The man lumped his figures into a ball…
‘…And the supervisor will be able to see…’
…then rolled out his clay.
We walked past a couple sitting at a table facing each other, an E-meter on the table. In real life, it was an unimpressive piece of kit, whiffing of Bakelite and 1950s valves. The needle, floating or not, would not look out of place on the dashboard of a Spitfire. Hi-tech, Scientology is not.
Tommy explained how the Scientologists were training how to become an auditor: ‘And so that involves how to use the E-meter and various drills for that.’
Drill is a military word.
‘…and that they know their tools, they know their trade perfectly and exactly…’
We were watching a display of auditing, not the real thing.
What are the wood bricks for? I asked.
‘Similar to the clay,’
said Tommy.
More auditing was going on.
‘The auditor does not ever validate, evaluate or anything like that. The auditor is fully there to assist the person receiving the auditing and finding out for himself what it is that’s troubling him.’
There were more grown-ups playing with clay, people studying, people auditing with E-meters in rooms off the main corridors. In one long room there were dozens of people, bent over their studies or their clay, none of whom paid any attention whatsoever to the two agents, the reporter, the four separate people behind cameras and the sound person with the very long boom. And that is weird. It is a simple constant of working for TV, everywhere on the planet, that people come up to you and ask, ‘what are you filming?’ and ‘what’s it for?’ and ‘when does it go out?’ and ‘hello, Mum.’ When people not only don’t do that, but do the opposite and entirely ignore the cameras, one can reasonably deduce that they been commanded to behave in that peculiar way, beforehand. It was like wandering around inside the set of The Truman Show.
‘Was that satisfactory?’
Very, very good, I said. More than satisfactory.
We were out in the fresh air.
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ asked Tommy, ‘letting me know where you are going to go? The only reason literally is that when you show up, people are going to call me and say “there is a camera crew here, do you know who they are?”… So just let me know and I will just… even if you just tell me on the day I will tell everyone here there is a crew from the BBC… OK?’
I couldn’t be bothered answering that.
‘Do you have any questions John?’
How much is the Church worth?
‘To be honest with you, I have actually no idea.’
After our tour, it was back to ‘The Some Say Brainwashing Cult’ suite at the Celebrity Centre. Juliette Lewis walked in, the goofy yet very beautiful star of Natural Born Killers and former girlfriend of Brad Pitt. In 2007, she was a musician with her own rock band.
The Church of Fear: Inside The Weird World of Scientology Page 20