Going Clear

  The tone of the letter is both aggrieved and outraged, mixing Haggis’s personal experiences with the results of his one-man investigation into the church. He mentions how Katy Haggis’s friends had turned against her when she came out to them as a lesbian. Katy had told him that another friend of hers had applied to be the assistant for Jenna and Bodhi Elfman, the Scientology acting couple. Lauren Haigney, Tom Cruise’s niece in the Sea Org, had been assigned to vet the applicants. Katy says that Lauren wrote up a report saying that Katy’s friend was known to hang out with lesbians. The friend did not get the job, Katy said.6

  Haggis also recounted the scene at John Travolta and Kelly Preston’s house, when another Scientologist made the slur about the gay waiter. “I admire John and Kelly for many reasons; one of them is the way they handled that,” Haggis stated. “You and I both know there has been a hidden anti-gay sentiment in the church for a long time. I have been shocked on too many occasions to hear Scientologists make derogatory remarks about gay people, and then quote LRH in their defense.” He said that the church’s decision not to denounce the bigots who supported Proposition 8 was cowardly. “Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.”

  He referenced Davis’s interview on CNN. “I saw you deny the church’s policy of disconnection. You said straight-out there was no such policy, that it did not exist,” he wrote. “I was shocked. We all know this policy exists. I didn’t have to search for verification. I didn’t have to look any further than my own home.” He reminded Davis of Deborah’s experience with her parents. “Although it caused her terrible personal pain, my wife broke off all contact with them.… That’s not ancient history, Tommy. It was a year ago.” He added: “To see you lie so easily, I am afraid to ask myself: what else are you lying about?”

  Then, he said, he had read the series of articles in the St. Petersburg Times. “They left me dumbstruck and horrified. These were not the claims made by ‘outsiders’ looking to dig up dirt against us. These accusations were made by top international executives who had devoted most of their lives to the church. Say what you will about them now, these were staunch defenders of the church, including Mike Rinder, the church’s official spokesman for 20 years!

  “Tommy, if only a fraction of these accusations are true, we are talking about serious, indefensible human and civil rights violations.”

  He continued:

  And when I pictured you assuring me that it is all lies, that this is nothing but an unfounded and vicious attack by a group of disgruntled employees, I am afraid that I saw the same face that looked in the camera and denied the policy of disconnection. I heard the same voice that professed outrage at our support of Proposition 8, who promised to correct it, and did nothing.

  I was left feeling outraged, and frankly, more than a little stupid.

  Haggis was especially disturbed by the way the church’s Freedom magazine had responded to the newspaper’s revelations. It included a lengthy annotated transcript of conversations that had taken place prior to the publication of the series between the Times reporters, Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, and representatives of the church, including Tommy Davis and Jessica Feshbach, the two international spokespersons for the church. In the Freedom account, the names of the defectors were never actually stated, perhaps to shield Scientologists from the shock of seeing familiar figures such as Marty Rathbun and Amy Scobee publicly denouncing the organization and its leader. Rathbun was called “Kingpin” and Amy Scobee “The Adulteress.” At one point in the conversation, Davis had told reporters that Scobee had been expelled from the church because she had had an affair. The reporters responded that she had denied any sexual contact outside her marriage. “That’s a lie,” Davis told them. Feshbach, who carried a stack of documents, then said, “She has a written admission [of] each one of her instances of extramarital indiscretions.… I believe there were five.”

  When Haggis read this, he immediately assumed that the church had gotten its information from auditing sessions.7 He was inflamed. “A priest would go to jail before revealing secrets from the confessional, no matter what the cost to himself or his church,” he wrote. “You took Amy Scobee’s most intimate admissions about her sexual life and passed them on to the press and then smeared them all over the pages of your newsletter!…This is the woman who joined the Sea Org at 16! She ran the entire celebrity center network, and was a loyal senior executive of the church for what, 20 years?” He added that he was aware that the church might do the same to him. “Well, luckily, I have never held myself up to be anyone’s role model.”

  Haggis concluded:

  The great majority of Scientologists I know are good people who are genuinely interested in improving conditions on this planet and helping others. I have to believe that if they knew what I now know, they too would be horrified. But I know how easy it was for me to defend our organization and dismiss our critics, without ever truly looking at what was being said; I did it for thirty-five years.… I am only ashamed that I waited this many months to act. I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology.

  AT THE TIME Haggis was doing his investigation, the FBI was also looking into Scientology. In December 2009, Tricia Whitehill, a special agent from the Los Angeles office, flew to Florida to interview former members of the church at the bureau’s office in downtown Clearwater, which happens to be directly across the street from Scientology’s spiritual headquarters. Tom De Vocht, who spoke to Whitehill then, got the impression that the investigation had been going on for quite a while. He says that Whitehill confided that she hadn’t told the local agents what the investigation was about, in case the office had been infiltrated. Amy Scobee also spoke to Whitehill for two full days, mainly about the abuse she had witnessed.

  Whitehill and Valerie Venegas, the lead agent on the case, also interviewed former Sea Org members in California. One was Gary Morehead, who had developed the blow drill. He explained how his security team would use emotional and psychological pressure to bring escapees back; but failing that, physical force has been used.8

  Whitehill and Venegas worked on a special task force devoted to human trafficking. The laws regarding trafficking were built largely around forced prostitution, but they also pertain to slave labor. Under federal law, slavery is defined, in part, by the use of coercion, torture, starvation, imprisonment, threats, and psychological abuse. The California Penal Code lists several indicators that someone may be a victim of human trafficking: signs of trauma or fatigue; being afraid or unable to talk because of censorship or security measures that prevent communication with others; working in one place without the freedom to move about; owing a debt to one’s employer; and not having control over identification documents. Those conditions resemble the accounts of many former Sea Org members who lived at Gold Base. If proven, those allegations would still be difficult to prosecute given the religious status of Scientology.

  Marc Headley escaped from Gold Base in 2005; he says this was after being beaten by Miscavige.9 His defection was especially painful for the church, because Marc says he was the first person Tom Cruise audited. In Scientology, the auditor bears a significant responsibility for the progress of his subject. “If you audit somebody and that person leaves the organization, there’s only one person whose fault that is—the auditor,” Headley explained. Later that year, Marc’s wife, Claire, also escaped. In 2009, they sued the church, claiming that the working conditions at Gold Base violated labor and human-trafficking laws. The church responded that the Headleys were ministers who had voluntarily submitted to the rigors of their calling, and that the First Amendment protected Scientology’s religious practices. The court agreed with this argument and dismissed the Headleys’ complaints, awarding the church forty thousand dollars in litigation costs.

  In April 2010, John Brousseau also fled. He, too, represented a dangerous liability to the church. He had been a Sea Org member for decades; he had worked personally for Hubbard; and he knew Miscavige intimately. But what was of
most concern to the church was the fact that he had worked on or overseen numerous special projects for Tom Cruise. None of these unique and costly gifts come anywhere close to the millions of dollars that the star has donated to the church over the years, but they do call into question the private benefit afforded a single individual by a tax-exempt religious organization.

  Brousseau knew the lengths to which the church would go in order to find him and bring him back. He drove to Carson City, Nevada, and bought a netbook computer at a Walmart, along with an air card, then set up an encrypted e-mail account. He sent a note to Rathbun, saying, “I just left and I’m freaked out, and I’ve got nowhere to go.” Rathbun invited him to South Texas. Expecting that the church would have hired private detectives to stake out key intersections on the interstate highways, Brousseau stuck to county roads. It took him three days to make it to Texas. He was driving a black Ford Excursion, much like the one that he had fashioned into a limousine for Cruise.

  Brousseau and Rathbun met at a Chili’s restaurant near Corpus Christi. They decided to hide Brousseau’s truck at a friend’s house. Rathbun then checked Brousseau into a Best Western motel under a different name. Despite the precautions, two days later, at five thirty in the morning, when Brousseau went out on the balcony to smoke, he heard a door open nearby and footsteps walking toward him. It was Tommy Davis and three other church members.

  “Hey, J.B.,” Davis said. “You got yourself in some shit.”

  Brousseau turned and walked away.

  “Where are you going?” Davis demanded.

  Brousseau said he was going to get some coffee. Davis and the Scientology delegation followed behind him. The Circle K across the street wasn’t open yet, so Brousseau went into the motel lobby. He told the receptionist, “Call the police. These guys are stalking me.”

  She laughed in disbelief.

  “We’ve got a room here, too,” Davis said.

  Brousseau said he needed to go to the bathroom. As soon as he got back to his room he bolted the door and called Rathbun. “Marty, they came for me,” he said.

  After calling 911, Rathbun jumped in his truck to go to the motel, but four cars filled with Scientologists blocked his way. He says they were led by Michael Doven, Cruise’s former personal assistant.

  Brousseau waited in his room until the police officers arrived. Davis and the others left empty-handed.10

  Brousseau talked to Whitehill and Venegas at the FBI. He was under the impression that the federal agents were considering a raid on Gold Base. Brousseau says he was shown high-resolution photos of the base taken from a drone aircraft. He says he was told that they had even gathered the tail numbers on Tom Cruise’s aircraft, in case Miscavige tried to escape. Brousseau and others claim to have discouraged the idea, saying that such a raid would turn Miscavige into a martyr; and, in any case, no one would testify against him. Rinder told the agents it would be a waste of time, because everyone would tell them their lives are all “seashells and butterflies.” The investigation was reportedly dropped.11

  AFTER SENDING COPIES of his resignation letter to his closest friends in Scientology, Haggis wasn’t surprised when he came home from work a few days later to find nine or ten of them standing in his front yard. “I can’t imagine why you’re here,” he joked, but he invited them to sit on the back porch and talk. Anne Archer and her husband, Terry Jastrow, an Emmy-winning producer for ABC Sports, were there. Mark Isham, a composer who worked with Haggis for years, came with his wife, Donna. Sky Dayton, the founder of EarthLink and Boingo Wireless, joined them, along with several other friends and a representative of the church that Haggis didn’t know. His friends could have served as an advertisement for Scientology—they were wealthy high achievers with solid marriages who exuded a sense of spiritual well-being.

  Scientologists are trained to believe in their persuasive powers and the need to keep a positive frame of mind. But the mood on Haggis’s porch was downbeat and his friends’ questions were full of reproach.

  “Do you have any idea that this might damage a lot of wonderful Scientologists?” Jastrow asked. “It’s such a betrayal of our group.”

  Haggis responded that he didn’t mean to be critical of Scientology. “I love Scientology,” he said. Everyone knew about Haggis’s financial support of the church and the occasions when he had spoken out in its defense. He reminded his friends that he had been with them at the Portland Crusade, when he had been drafted to write speeches.

  Archer had a particular reason to feel aggrieved: Haggis’s letter had called her son a liar. She could understand the pain and anger Haggis felt over the treatment of his own gay daughters, but she didn’t think that was relevant. In her opinion, homosexuality is not the church’s issue. She had personally introduced gay friends to Scientology.

  Isham was especially frustrated. He felt that they weren’t breaking through to Haggis. Of all the friends present, Isham was the closest to Haggis. They had a common artistic sensibility that made it easy to work together. Isham had won an Emmy for the theme music he composed for Haggis’s 1996 television series, EZ Streets. He had scored Crash and Haggis’s last movie, The Valley of Elah. Soon he was supposed to start work on The Next Three Days. Now both their friendship and their professional relationship were at risk.

  Isham had been analyzing the discussion from a Scientological perspective. In his view, Haggis’s emotional state on the Tone Scale at that moment was a 1.1, Covertly Hostile. By adopting a tone just above it—Anger—he hoped to blast Haggis out of the psychic place where he seemed to be lodged. Isham made what he calls an intellectual decision to be angry.

  “Paul, I’m pissed off,” he told Haggis. “There are better ways to do this. If you have a complaint, there’s a complaint line.” Anyone who genuinely wanted to change Scientology should stay within the organization, Isham argued, not quit. All of his friends believed that if he wanted to change Scientology, he should do it from within. They wanted him to recant and return to the fold or else withdraw his letter and walk away without making a fuss.

  Haggis listened patiently. A fundamental tenet of Scientology is that differing points of view must be fully heard and acknowledged. But when his friends finished, they were still red-faced and angry. Haggis suggested that as good Scientologists, they should at least examine the evidence. He referred them to the St. Petersburg Times articles that had so shaken him, and to certain websites written by former members. He explained that his quarrel was with the management and the culture of the church, not with Scientology itself. By copying them on his resignation letter, he had hoped that they would be as horrified as he by the practices that were going on in the name of Scientology. Instead, he realized, they were mainly appalled by his actions in calling the management of the church to account.

  Haggis’s friends came away from the meeting with mixed feelings—“no clearer than when we went in,” Archer felt. What wasn’t said in this meeting was that this would be the last time any of them would ever speak to Haggis. Isham did consider Haggis’s plea to look at the websites or the articles in the St. Petersburg Times, but he decided “it was like reading Mein Kampf if you wanted to know something about the Jewish religion.”

  After that first meeting with friends on his back porch, Haggis had several lengthy encounters with Tommy Davis and other representatives of the church. They showed up at his office in Santa Monica—a low-slung brick building on Broadway, covered in graffiti, like a gang headquarters. The officials brought thick files to discredit people they heard or assumed he had been talking to. This was August 2009; shooting for The Next Three Days in Pittsburgh was going to start within days, and the office desperately needed Haggis’s attention. His producing partner, Michael Nozik, who is not a Scientologist, was frustrated. Haggis was spending hours, day after day, dealing with Scientology delegations. He resorted to getting members of his staff to walk him out to his car because he knew that Scientology executives would be waiting for him, and he wanted to give the impre
ssion he was too busy to speak—which he was. But then he would give up and let them into the office for another lengthy confrontation.

  During one of these meetings, Davis showed Haggis a policy letter that Hubbard had written, listing the acts for which one could be declared a Suppressive Person. Haggis had stepped over the line on four of them.

  “Tommy, you are absolutely right, I did all those things,” Haggis responded. “If you want to call me that, that’s what I am.”

  “We can still put this genie back in the bottle,” Tommy assured him, but it would mean that Haggis would withdraw the letter and then resign quietly.

  Although Haggis listened, he didn’t change his mind. It seemed to him that the Scientology officials became more “livid and irrational” the longer they talked. For instance, Davis and the other church officials insisted that Miscavige had not beaten his employees; his accusers, they said, had committed the violence. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Haggis responded, “okay, let’s say that’s true, Miscavige never touched anyone. I’m sorry, but if someone in my organization were going around beating people, I’d know about it! You think I’d put up with it? And I’m not that good a person.” Haggis noted that if the rumors about Miscavige’s violent temper were true, it just proved that even the greatest leaders are fallible. “Look at Martin Luther King, Jr.,” he said, referring to one of his heroes. “If you look at his personal life, it’s been said he has a few problems in that area.”

  “How dare you compare Dave Miscavige with Martin Luther King!” one of the officials shouted.