going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

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, scientically
impossible, unless we’re talking about something …” He trailed o, then said, “Okay,
I’ll be like you, I’ll be the cynic. If we’re talking about articial insemination, how could