At camp david and she said why not bring them here and get them away from the press and the they thought it would be three or four days. That is how the Peace Process was born. What was his view of manhattan megan . An obstinate individual and difficult for carter to deal with but carter to believe he had to make the greatest sacrifice at camp david. Mahnakhan vegans parents were killed in the holocaust. The had the burden of jewish history on his shoulders. He had to expand the safety of the jewish people enlarging the size of israel with his political agenda. For him to surrender sinai, the peninsula that israel had conquered in 1967 was to forfeit this huge strip of land that separated israel from the invading egyptian army. To trust his enemy was really hard for him to do. Host did anwar sadat and manakhan vegan develop a personal l. A. Should . Somewhat. They made history together but they didnt personally like each other very much. It wasnt the kind of relationship carter had with sadat but they respected each other and sadat was assassinated largely because he signed the camp david agreement. Vegan made a show of going to his funeral at a time when not many World Leaders did. Host what was negotiated during those 13 days . Guest there were two parts of it . One was each of and is real it was difficult for vegan to surrender this conquered territory but in the trust of his historic enemy. There was another part of the agreement which was peace between israel and the palestinians. It is a road map, ever since the camp david accords were signed, subsequent attempts to realize the unfulfilled problems of the camp david accords. Host was there any thought to giving the palestinians directly to this summit . Guest a big problem, there were no palestinians present but at the time the only representative was yasser arafat, declared a terrorist by the United States, very difficult for carter to negotiate with him. Remember the u. N. Ambassador and the young met with the palestinians and they got tremendously criticized for saying hello. Host in your book 13 days in september carter, begin, and sadat at camp david, you quote israels founder, vegan is a distinctly hitler like tight. They did not like each other at all. Vegan was seen as an out liar he was a terrorist. It is embarrassing to many people in israel that he had that background and that it played a role in the establishment of the jewish state. He was always a marginal figure decried by many not just bengurion but they used him. For instance the attack on the palestinian village by vegans terrorist organization was actually authorized by bengurion although he claimed deniability after words. And vague and took the blame and except it. Host you write in your book previous to september carter, begin, and sadat at camp david, going clear scientology, hollywood, and the prison of belief, National Book award finalist. It is a phrase in scientology. Scientology, postulated we have two separate minds. One is the analytical mind which is perfect like an ideal computer. It forgets nothing. In your rational mind every single detail of your experiences is available for recall and there is the reactive mind which all your fears and neuroses and so on are settled not just in this life but in previous ones so if you can go through your reactive mind and eliminate those traumatic experiences from that part of your mind you will be left with this perfect mind and your iq will be higher you wont get sick, you will be healthy and smarter than anyone else you meet and you will be clear. Host how did he develop this theory . Guest he was a Science Fiction writer. Largely he made them up. You can see a lot of what is in his book dynamics which preceded scientology and his many scientology books. Parenthetically he holds the guinness book of World Records for the number of titles published, more than a thousand books, so you can see the precursors of this philosophy in his sciencefiction. His book dynamics which was a huge New York Times bestseller was a model for all these post world war ii selfhelp books that can a long afterwards, there were clubs the spraying, all over the country like the hula hoop which is kind of contemporary with that but it was a big deal and he wrote it in six weeks and quoting studies that never actually occurred, in the scientific community, look at it with the kind of amused awe but for average people that was cheap therapy, a friend who would help you get through these traumas and get rid of the emotional aspect. This took the country by storm. Not just this country. It was an international phenomenon. Host how many scientologist are there . It depends on whether you believe the churchs official figures which are in the range of 10 million. If you look at the statistics of the United States, less than half the number who call themselves rastafarians if you are up member of the International Association of scientologist which you are strongly urge to be if you are a scientologist worldwide there are 50,000. Host what is their impact . Guest describing a Small Organization the impact has been disproportionately large. A lot of people pass through scientology. The community of former scientologist is quite large and the number of people whose lives are disrupted or impacted, by scientology, is impressively large even to me. I go to speeches and talk like that often times who have been in scientologist or lost family members, no longer talked to their mother or some or Something Like that created a lot of heartache in different families. Host do you consider it a cult . I dont use the word called. It is just a smear word. You can call almost any new religion a cult. I am not after offending scientologist. I do question the abuses that take place inside the church. Religion is all religion they are full of exotic sometimes quite bizarre ones, that is fascinating to me. I have always been intrigued why people are drawn to one religious belief rather than another but i dont criticize them for believing it because a lot of times people attach themselves to religion is not because of the beliefs but the community or personal problems that might be addressed in side that belief organization. Scientology does offered those things to its adherents but inside the church there are a considerable number of abuses that can be addressed and physical abuse and the incarceration of some of the people in the clergy these are the things that i think law enforcement, the irs should take another look at the Tax Exemption which keeps the organization alive. How did they get the Tax Exemption . Guest normally you would think the irs is a pretty fearsome opponent, but the church of scientology sued the irs and individual agents more than 2400 lawsuits, hired private investigators following individual agents went to conventions, have irs employees drinking too much or flirting with people they shouldnt be talking to and they would publish stories in their scientology magazine freedom about this kind of behavior. It was infuriating. A deal was struck. In 1992 and at the time. They didnt have 1 billion and the deal that was struck on what the merits of the scientology case where, it would drop all the lawsuits up 1 billion would be forgiven, the final fine was 12 billion. Tax exemption, the right to d chairman whatever portion of this empire deserves a Tax Exemption, the novels of Pell Ron Hubbard are not taxed. Does the church have 1 billion today . Guest 3 billion would be more like it but 1 billion in cash reserves most of it in offshore accounts according to former executives and that is a lot of money. The Catholic Church would be hardpressed to come up with 1 billion in cash but this rather Small Organization with free labor on the part of its clergy paid 50 a week and they have a lot of rich members in the church that are very generous in their contributions. They have been able to acquire a tremendous amount of money and realestate, impressive battery of lawyers. Host they also have a hollywood connection. From the very beginning when elroy on hubbard decided to establish his church. They chose to set up in los angeles. He doesnt know that americans do worship one thing and that is celebrity. He put out, the church put out a list of potential scientologist including people like walt disney marlena dietrich, howard hughes, some of the most famous people in the world and they didnt get those people but they did get a lot of famous people that came into the church. They typically didnt last very long. Like rock hudson briefly in the church according to legend they lost him because he was in an auditing session and is parking meter had overrun and his scientology auditor wouldnt let him feed the meter. But they were constantly on the lookout for celebrities who could sell the religion of the same way sports star would sell box of wheaties. You put a face on it and the first really notable face was John Travolta at. He was the huge stock, the biggest star in the world at one point. He was superseded by tom cruise who also, the biggest male star in the world, those are very powerful cards to put down when you are trying to track people, especially people in the entertainment industry. Was the reaction from the church of scientology when you started your book . When it came out in your hbo documentary . When i started the book it was started as a magazine story, a profile of the two Time Academy Award winning writer and director and he dropped out of scientology after 34 years. I had been looking for a way to write about scientology because as i said i am interested in religions. Here is the most stigmatized religion in america and yet very notable people who lent their names to it and i dont think they get anything out of it in terms of career advancement. Is like a Public Relations martyrdom but there they are. So why . When had this dropped out a contacted his Business Manager. Ggis dropped out a contacted his Business Manager. The only lead ahead. A want to write about your client leaving scientology, you king . He would never do that get off my phone that was the entire conversation. Except for the expletives. Next day i got pauls personal email address and send him a note saying dear mr. Had this ggis i had a Business Manager said this is not the best time but would be honored to tell your story. 20 minutes later, very flattered, lets have lunch on tuesday. He was in new york cutting a movie, we had lunch, went out on the sidewalk for him to smoke a cigarette. We are going to be talking about your decision to leave the church and his eyes got wide but he forged ahead and months later he admitted it had never occurred to him that it was going to be about scientology. He was so flattered the new yorker was going to do a profile. He didnt want to think about it. He turned out to be at very courageous source on that. As soon as he agreed i called the church and spoke to the international spokesperson, tommy davis, whose mother come and archer, is thercher, is the famous scientologist, wonderful actress who said we dont want to see the church depicted through the eyes of a heretic but he agreed to take me through scientology that was his phrase, we need enough time so we arranged for me to come out over the Labor Day Weekend so i came out thursday, spent thursday night, friday, saturday sunday afternoon his wife and assistant came to the hotel and said that they werent going to take me through scientology, they wanted to have the opportunity to tell me facetoface, thanks a lot, you cost my magazine considerable amount of money, could have done this over the phone but he agreed to enter Fact Checking questions. I am not sure he understood exactly what that meant in the new yorker context because we take Fact Checking very seriously especially when dealing with a vindictive and litigious organizations such as scientology. We had one objector on the article for six months fulltime, we had five including the head of the Fact Checking department, the most carefully vetted story in the new yorkers long proud history of Fact Checking, from ft checker to the church, 968 querys. Elicited a response of four lawyers coming to new york. 47 volumes, responses to 968 querys. They are giving me all of this material and my editor prove me aside, you got a book, my interview with the church. Very productive. After that we received innumerable threats. From the church and individuals who were mentioned in it and that continued through the public publication of the book and a documentary and to this day, there is still legal for righthand other kinds of harassment but the kinds of things that i have been subjected to, the documentarian, they dont compare to what people who cooperated with us have experienced, continual harassment by private detectives people who show up with go pro cameras harassing them at home one of our sources was noticing the bird house across the street, got a ladder and there was a camera in the bird house and our premiere at sundance, a couple of our sources were followed and video taped at the airport in Salt Lake City so it continually goes on. Host Lawrence Wright, another Magazine Article that became a book and a pulitzer prizewinning one was the looming tower al qaeda, and the road to 9 11. Where were you on 9 11 . How did that process work for you . I was in spanish class. I used to have breakfast every Tuesday Morning with a group of people, like to keep their language in austin texas. [speaking spanish] we were having our conversation. I got into the car and heard about this airplane had struck a power. By the time i got home the second tower was had just been hit. Bear in mind i had lived in egypt. I used to speak arabic much better than i did after thirtysomething years. I had the experience of living in a Muslim Country in egypt and speaking the language and i had written a movie called the siege with Denzel Washington and it was about what would happen in our country if terror arrived as it already had in some european cities or tel aviv. It prefigured the events of 9 11 and what happened after, the persecution of muslims, the torture all of that was in a creepy way, already imagined in the movie. When 9 11 happened people said it was like a movie. To me it felt like my movie. I have already had a vision of Something Like this happening. So i decided i would have to in some way write about what really happened, what led up to it. You remember the planes were down for several days so i began examining the obituaries that streaming online looking for a story, a way in. I looked normally i look for an individual. It is a useful beast of burden who can carry a lot of information and take a reader to an exotic world it doesnt know about. On the Washington Post site there was an obituary, in the new york division, they were written about in the siege. I had never met oneill. Made him sound like a disgrace. Classified information of of the bureau, because of that he had gotten fired. Instead of getting Osama Bin Laden. I dont know if he is a hero or villain but he is a helluva donkey. He can take the reader into the world of counterterrorism and show why it fails so he was the very first of the characters that i enlisted to try to take this fast tragedy and humanize it, tell it in a series of interweaving and prince Turki Al Faso the head of saudi intelligence. Host you had three days to write the new yorker piece, correct . For on 9 11. Guest yes. That was an amazing time. Because all these flights were on the ground there were in new yorker writers scattered on assignment, where they moved and i had decided i was quitting journalism i was going to become a movie director and writing scripts for me to direct. So 9 11 happened and the email was still working, a lot of phones were down and sent an email to the editor and said put me to work. We had a Conference Call that afternoon at 2 00 and i remember jane mayer and Jeff Goldberg were here on the call in washington and you could hear the sirens in the streets, we had other writers in San Francisco and so on and we were all talking about what can we do about this and davids idea was we had just filed a report and he would leave them together into some kind of narrative. It was hard for me to figure out how to get a purchase on it but i found that there was a young man who had been of reporter for an investment magazine. And he told me when i contacted him that for the first time, he was supposed to have the meeting in windows on the world, the restaurant on top of the World Trade Center and he spoke to me a little after 9 00 he slept through his subway stop first time it ever happened so he was running late, he got on the train coming back and was racing into the World Trade Center and the Elevator Bank was actually up an escalator flight so he was a little confused and got to the Elevator Bank and the elevator operator he remembered him as being a big black guy that must have played fullback or Something Like that in college and he held the door for a very welldressed business woman who was getting on to the elevator and my source was really impatient because