Inside Scientology

by Janet Reitman

  Beghe also joined the CCHR board of commissioners. And he was expected to attend the annual Celebrity Centre gala each August, an invitation-only event, closed to the general Scientology membership. The highlight of the evening was Miscavige's speech, which stroked the celebrities for their importance to society and also urged them to move up the Bridge. This was not a hard-sell speech promoting a product, such as a new series of books, but rather a call to action. "Sometimes he would push the importance of being a field staff member and how vital it was for celebrities to talk about Scientology to their friends," recalled Karen Pressley. "Other times he would challenge them to engage in important personal projects."

  This included spreading Scientology's message beyond Hollywood. It helped that the church's roster now included the legal analyst Greta Van Susteren and her husband, the powerful Washington lawyer John Coale, as well as the singer Sonny Bono, who had studied Scientology in the 1970s and 1980s and was elected to Congress in 1994. Having a presence in Washington had always been a priority of the church, and Bono became a vocal advocate for Scientology-related causes in the House of Representatives. He was particularly instrumental in helping the Church of Scientology fight a number of copyright-infringement cases, notably one against the Internet service provider Netcom, on which a Scientology critic had posted some of the church's secret doctrine.

  Bono also joined several other members of Congress in appealing to the U.S. trade representative, Charlene Barshevsky, to put pressure on Sweden, which had allowed public access to Scientology doctrine, costing the church millions of dollars in lost income, its leaders claimed. Swedish law permitted free access to any published work, regardless of copyright. Nonetheless, Barshevsky threatened to put Sweden on a U.S. government watch list of countries that violated international trade agreements unless it complied. In October 1997, under pressure from Congress, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the State Department, and the Commerce Department, Sweden agreed to pass tougher copyright-protection laws that would stop the infringement of Scientology's secret doctrine.

  But if anyone helped get the church's message across in Washington it was John Travolta. No longer the reticent star, Travolta had spent much of the 1990s promoting Scientology outright. ("I never defended Scientology," he told an interviewer from Playboy, adding that he felt more of an urge to "enlighten others about it.") By the late 1990s, Travolta had become an outspoken supporter of Scientology's ongoing campaign against the German government, which had been investigating the Scientology movement since the early 1990s. Germany was notably hard on groups it suspected of cultlike activities, and it viewed Scientology as a threat to its system of democracy. German Scientologists claimed to have been fired from jobs and prevented from joining political parties because of their affiliation with the church. Some claimed their children had been turned away from local kindergartens.

  In response to these reports, Travolta's attorney, Bertram Fields, wrote an open letter to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, which was published in January 1997 in theInternational Herald Tribune and reprinted in several U.S. papers, including Hollywood's own Daily Variety. It was signed by thirty-three other well-known entertainment and industry figures, including Dustin Hoffman, Goldie Hawn, Oliver Stone, Gore Vidal, and the chief of Warner Bros., Terry Semel, and drew an analogy between the mistreatment of Scientologists in Germany and the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

  Several weeks later, the U.S. State Department released its annual human rights report, which, in careful language, detailed German Scientologists' claims of "government-condoned and societal harassment." Though the report did not directly take the German government to task for human rights abuses, it was notably in-depth, dedicating six paragraphs to describing the various measures that had reportedly been taken against German Scientologists.

  That April, Travolta met President Bill Clinton at a volunteerism summit in Philadelphia, where Travolta was stumping for Scientology's Applied Scholastics program. As the actor later recalled, Clinton—possibly to curry favor with Travolta, who was preparing to play a Clintonesque character in Primary Colors—offered his help with Scientology's problem in Germany.

  In the months ahead, Clinton deputized his national security advisor, Sandy Berger, to serve as the administration's point person for Scientology. In a meeting with Travolta and Chick Corea, Berger, according one former administration official, briefed them on the administration's position regarding Germany "in exactly the same manner he would a senior senator."*

  But this flurry of promotion—surely what L. Ron Hubbard would have envisioned for his "opinion leaders"—was only a prelude. Miscavige had a vision far more comprehensive than Hubbard's and a Hollywood star willing and able to see it through. This was a celebrity whose Scientologist beliefs and, ultimately, his public persona, were shaped not by Hubbard but by David Miscavige. What happened would bring unprecedented attention to both the star and to Scientology, though not in the way either would have hoped.

  Chapter 14

  The Seduction of Tom Cruise

  ON THE FACE of things, Tom Cruise, who joined the Church of Scientology in 1986, was an unusual recruit. Twenty-four years old, he was certainly not "up-and-coming" or insecure, the two qualities that had defined John Travolta when he joined the church in 1974. To the contrary, Cruise was already a movie star, fresh off Top Gun fame and soon to be one of the most bankable actors in Hollywood. Handsome, wholesome, with his big-toothed grin, he exuded the sort of thumbs-up self-confidence that made him both a sex symbol and a role model—"guys want to be like him and girls want to be with him," the Top Gun producer Jerry Bruckheimer said.

  Privately, however, Cruise was a seeker. A devout Catholic for most of his life, he'd lived an itinerant and at times semi-impoverished childhood, moving frequently with his mother and three sisters after his parents divorced when Cruise was twelve. Cruise's father, Thomas Mapother III, was an abusive "bully," as Cruise later called him, prone to drunken, and often violent, tirades. As he grew up, Cruise struggled with dyslexia. A diligent worker, he'd managed to overcome his disability, but in Hollywood friends wondered if Cruise's intense drive was a foil for something deeper. Cruise's costar in Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman, later recalled that the actor hated to be alone. "I think he desperately needed a family," he said.

  Cruise found it, and much more, through Scientology. His introduction to the church came through the actor Mimi Rogers, whom Cruise met in 1986 and married a year later. Five years older than Cruise, Rogers was the daughter of one of the church's most powerful mission holders, Phil Spickler, and was herself a highly trained auditor who, prior to launching her acting career, had opened what is known as a "field auditing" practice in the San Fernando Valley with her first husband, Jim Rogers.

  Field auditors are licensed to use Hubbard's technology by a Scientology group called I-HELP, which, like the WISE business association, charges its members a fee and also receives 10 percent of their gross profits. Like psychotherapists, field auditors charge by the hour. Many have created thriving practices outside the organized church.

  The Rogerses' practice, called the Enhancement Center, was based in Sherman Oaks, California, and was seen as an exclusive and discreet setting for initiates to learn about Scientology. It employed auditors with the highest level of training, people who "didn't go in for the high-pressure sales tactics that were common at orgs like Celebrity Centre," said Nancy Many. Not surprisingly, many actors and other celebrities preferred this environment, and among the Enhancement Center's clients were Sonny Bono, who'd been introduced to Scientology by Rogers, and Kirstie Alley, who was one of Rogers's closest friends.

  By the time Rogers met Cruise, she and her husband had divorced, and Frances Godwin, a friend and longtime Scientologist, was running the Enhancement Center, which maintained an air of exclusivity. But as the 1980s wore on and David Miscavige solidified his hold, small groups like Godwin's came under pressure to feed clients to Celebrity Centre, where the church could r
eap more of a profit from their involvement.

  Cruise, described by former Enhancement Center employees as "very intense and very bright," was also fiercely private. "He came to resolve some personal problems and he was uncomfortable with the idea of people knowing—as I think most people would be when they're trying to discover something," recalled one former auditor. Cruise enrolled at the center under his real name, Thomas Mapother IV, and for a year no one outside the field auditing group knew of his involvement. But word eventually leaked out, at which point tremendous pressure was put on the Enhancement Center to "turn him over," as this auditor put it, to Celebrity Centre. Ultimately, the group did, about two years after he first joined, said Karen Schless Pressley, president of Celebrity Centre at the time. In accordance with Miscavige's policy, Pressley reported this development to her superiors, who reported it to the officials in the RTC.

  According to Miscavige's onetime aide-de-camp Mark Fisher, when the leader learned that Scientology had landed the biggest celebrity whale in its history, he immediately focused on what this could mean for the church. As Fisher recalled, Miscavige told his staff, "This guy is so famous, he could change the face of Scientology forever."

  Miscavige called for Cruise's auditing folder. When it arrived, he declared Cruise's field auditor had made certain "errors." To fix them, Cruise would need to go through an "auditing correction program" administered by the Religious Technology Center, through Celebrity Centre, where every aspect of Cruise's experience would be controlled, a not uncommon situation for high-level stars. Though the celebrities remain unaware of it, their entire involvement in Scientology is scripted, former officials say, to ensure the stars see the movie, so to speak, that Scientology wants them to see.

  In Cruise's version of this drama, Greg Wilhere, one of Miscavige's senior lieutenants, was dispatched to Los Angeles to serve as Cruise's new auditor. Wilhere was also Cruise's handler, hanging out with him and easing him into the world of Scientology while shielding him from any negative information—"entheta"—about the church.

  The tall, confident Wilhere, a Scientologist since the early 1970s, was the ideal choice for the job. He had worked as a steward for L. Ron Hubbard aboard the Apollo and had a wealth of stories about the Commodore. He was also, like Cruise himself, something of a clean-cut jock: prior to joining Scientology, Wilhere had played football for Villanova.

  "Greg isn't an intellectual heavyweight," said Chuck Beatty, a former Scientologist who'd worked under Wilhere, "but he's an ultra-smooth communicator. He knew the Hubbard viewpoint, he knew all the ways to handle black propaganda against Scientology, he was impeccably dressed, polite to a fault—he was like a J. Crew model, a real sports-hero type, but also a walking showpiece for Scientology. So he was someone a guy like Tom Cruise would look up to."

  Furthering the plot, Pat Gualteri, an official at Celebrity Centre, was assigned to be Cruise's course supervisor. Gualteri too had worked with L. Ron Hubbard. He was also a decorated Vietnam vet. This came in handy, as Cruise was beginning to prepare for his role as the wounded Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July.

  "Celebrities, and certainly someone like Tom Cruise, are completely ignorant of the strategy that has been put in place to hook and control them," said Nancy Many. "And the manipulation is different for everyone. With Tom Cruise, here was a guy who needed to portray a Vietnam vet; Pat survived the Tet Offensive. Who better to help Tom get through his basic courses? From the church's perspective, it was a win-win."

  After a few months, Wilhere invited Cruise to Int. This, noted Fisher, had been the plan all along, but Miscavige hadn't wanted to overwhelm Cruise too soon. The Gilman Hot Springs compound was still so secret that many ordinary Scientologists didn't know of its existence, let alone its location.* Sea Org members recruited to work at the base were sworn to maintain confidentiality; a stint on the Rehabilitation Project Force was the punishment if they divulged the compound's clandestine location.

  Extensive planning and preparation went into Cruise's first visit in the summer of 1989. The base had been given a mini-facelift: buildings painted, bushes pruned, walkways cleared. Staffers, briefed that a "special VIP guest" was coming through, were instructed to be on their best behavior, refrain from smoking and cursing, and work on projects that could easily be explained, were the special guest to ask. Those who were aware that the visitor would be Tom Cruise were instructed not to talk to the star nor look at him, and to respond to any question he might ask by addressing him as "Mr. Cruise."

  Miscavige and Cruise met over lunch on the Star of California, a three-masted, rudderless clipper ship the Sea Org had built for L. Ron Hubbard, which was situated in the scrubby hills overlooking the Int campus. The actor was a "cool guy," Miscavige told his staff afterward, and seemed dedicated to Scientology, if also nervous about how this might affect his reputation. Cruise was so uncomfortable with being "known" as a Scientologist, in fact, that he walked around in sunglasses and a baseball cap at the base. Miscavige sought to reassure him. Over the next several days the movie star and the leader of his church, twenty-eight and thirty years old respectively, hung out together, touring the base on dirt bikes, watching movies at the base's screening room (Miscavige was an avid Top Gun fan), and going skeet shooting.

  It had come up in Cruise's auditing, explained Fisher, that Cruise, the action hero, was afraid of guns. To remedy the problem, Miscavige ordered Fisher to prepare the rifle range, where L. Ron Hubbard used to enjoy taking target practice. "DM brought him up there and they hung out and shot skeet for a few hours until Tom got more and more comfortable with guns," he recalled. Cruise was so grateful, Fisher said, he later sent Miscavige an automated clay-pigeon launcher to replace the handheld one he ordinarily used.

  Miscavige then ordered the entire rifle range redone in preparation for Cruise's next visit. For three days prior to it, said Fisher, members of the Sea Org worked around the clock, landscaping the grounds, installing the skeet shooter, and building a bunker. "All so that Tom Cruise would be impressed," Fisher added. "And he was."

  That Miscavige seemed so smitten with the actor was shocking to longtime associates like Fisher, who noted that although the leader of Scientology had always recognized the strategic value of bringing celebrities into the church, "he'd never cared about them personally. His view toward these people was that they were dilettantes," said Fisher. "They didn't work for the church; they didn't promote the church aggressively. They weren't 'real' Scientologists, like we in the Sea Org were. But something in DM changed after that meeting with Cruise."

  Miscavige soon convinced the actor to do all of his Scientology courses, training, and auditing at the base, which, encircled by high stone walls and protected by armed guards—including one known as "Eagle," who was installed as a lookout on a hilltop—offered Cruise a clandestine environment in which to study Scientology away from the glare of Hollywood. Before long, he'd begun keeping his Porsche and his Range Rover SUV at the base, flying back and forth in a helicopter from Los Angeles on weekends. "From A to Z his entire experience was orchestrated so that he'd have the best time possible in Scientology, and you could tell he bought into everything," said the ex–Sea Org member Bruce Hines, who worked with Cruise on his basic communication drills. "He had that dedicated glare you get after reading Keeping Scientology Working dozens of times, and getting tested on it."

  To the Sea Org, it seemed obvious that Miscavige hoped to make Cruise an "ideal" Scientologist—not a "floundering" Scientologist, as he'd often perceived Travolta to be, with his years of disaffection in the 1980s. One step in this direction was to teach Cruise to audit. Many Scientologists, including celebrities, never bother to pursue this route on the Bridge to Total Freedom. But a "true" Scientologist, in both L. Ron Hubbard's and David Miscavige's estimation,* was a person who had received and given counseling: indeed, Hubbard had maintained that 50 percent of the gains one got through Scientology were achieved through training as an auditor.

>   To ensure that Cruise's training went off without a hitch, Bruce Hines set up a special course room in the base's music studio. Then Hines and other officials combed through the personnel files of the base's nine-hundred-person staff to find an appropriate candidate to serve as Cruise's "preclear." After reviewing the paperwork on numerous candidates, Hines settled on Marc Headley, then a teenager newly arrived at the base. The child of Scientologists, Headley had grown up in Hollywood and was recruited into the Sea Organization when he was just fifteen. A year later, he was selected to come to Int, where he labored in the tape and CD manufacturing plant on the base, as a quality control officer. He was a hard worker, with a clean ethics record, and he was also a blank slate: he had received almost no auditing before.

  Though not as a rule star-struck, Headley admitted that it took him a while to get over what he called the "wow factor" of being audited by the hero of Top Gun. He'd been sworn to secrecy by Marty Rathbun himself: a cardinal of the Church of Scientology in Headley's eyes, Rathbun had warned the sixteen-year-old that severe punishment lay in store for him were he to speak of this top-secret auditing to anyone.

  The following day, Headley reported to the music studio, where Cruise was waiting outside the course room. "Hello," Cruise said, grasping the teenager's arm in a double handshake. "I'm Tom."