“Another way of saying that is: you’re interested in folks who’ve got money.”
Miscavige objected, claiming that the money in the church goes to good causes. “We are the largest social reform group in the world,” he said, adding that if a person stays in Scientology long enough, he’ll have plenty of money. Then he referenced Sawyer’s report again. “The one girl there that was complaining about it, a girl named Vicki Aznaran, which by the way, this is a girl who was kicked out for trying to bring criminals into the church, something she didn’t mention.”
“You say a ‘girl.’ I think we’re talking about a grown woman, right?”
“A grown woman, excuse me,” Miscavige said. “She violated the mores and codes of the group.”
“Either you have made an accurate charge against someone or—what a number of … the pieces written about Scientology suggest is that when you have a critic before you, you destroy those people.”
“That’s easy to say—”
“You smear them.”
“That’s easy for the person to say, but she’s the one on that program smearing me.”
As for Richard Behar, the Time reporter, Miscavige remarked, “The man was on record on two occasions attempting to get Scientologists kidnapped. That is an illegal act.”
The hour had ended, but Miscavige had just made another unsupported allegation. Koppel decided to extend the show “a few minutes,” but it went on another half hour without any commercial breaks. He asked Miscavige to explain what he meant about Behar. “Some people had called him up and he was telling them to kidnap Scientologists out,” Miscavige said.
“Now, kidnapping, as you well know, is a federal crime,” Koppel observed. “So, why didn’t you bring charges against him?”
“He didn’t succeed,” Miscavige said. “Ted, Ted, you’re missing the point.”
“There is such a thing as attempted rape, attempted murder, attempted kidnapping. It’s also a crime.”
“I think you’re really missing the issue, Ted, because my point is this: That man represents himself as an objective reporter. Here he is on record a full three years before he wrote this article, stating that he felt Scientologists should be kidnapped to change their religion.
“Second of all,” Miscavige continued, “let’s look at this article, and let’s not fool ourselves. It wasn’t an objective piece. It was done at the behest of Eli Lilly,” the pharmaceutical manufacturer. “They were upset because of the damage we had caused to their killer drug Prozac.”
“I’m sure you have evidence of that,” Koppel said. “You have affidavits?”
“Let me tell you what else I have—”
“You have affidavits?”
“From them? Of course not. You think they’d admit it?” Miscavige said. “We put in a call to Eli Lilly. Their response was, ‘We can neither confirm nor deny.’ ”1
In Sawyer’s report there was a brief clip of Hubbard telling his followers, “I was up in the Van Allen Belt. This is factual. And I don’t know why they’re scared of the Van Allen Belt, because it’s simply hot. You’d be surprised how warm space is.” Koppel observed, “When I hear about a man talking about having been taken out to the Van Allen space radiation belt or space ships that were essentially the same thing as the DC-8, I’ve got to tell you, I mean, if we’re talking about this man’s credibility, that certainly raises some questions in my mind.”
Miscavige said that Hubbard’s quote had been taken out of context.
“Take a minute, if you would, and see if you can put it into context for us so that it does not sound ridiculous,” Koppel said.
“Okay,” said Miscavige. “I want you to take the Catholic Church and take right now and explain to me, to make sense that the Virgin Mary was a virgin, scientifically impossible, unless we’re talking about something …” He trailed off, then said, “Okay, I’ll be like you, I’ll be the cynic. If we’re talking about artificial insemination, how could that be? If you’re talking about going to Heaven, except we have a space shuttle going out there, we have the Apollo going out there, you do that. I’m not here—” He was obviously confused and uncomfortable.
“You were a Catholic as a child, right?” Koppel asked helpfully.
“Yeah.”
“So you know full well that those issues are questions of faith.”
Miscavige wouldn’t accept the life raft that Koppel offered him. Scientology is sold as an entirely rational approach to understanding and mastering existence. “No, no,” Miscavige replied. “Talk about the Van Allen Belt or whatever, that forms no part of current Scientology, none whatsoever.”
“But what did he mean when he was talking about it?”