There's been a well-publicized campaign these past few months to raise American consciousness about the alleged, um, religious persecution of Scientologists in the Federal Republic of Germany. Some of our great country's most prominent public intellectuals have joined the cause: Mario Puzo, Frank Sinatra's daughter Tina, Larry King, Goldie Hawn, and suchlike. They have investigated the situation carefully; and they have concluded as they put it in an open letter to German chancellor Helmut Kohl -- that "the deplorable tactics of the 1930s cannot be permitted." This time, they promise, "voices will be raised." (World War II, you see, would have been unnecessary had the American entertainment industry been as enlightened then as it is today.)
Despite the fact that the worst confirmed German "discrimination" seems to have involved the cancellation of a jazz concert by American Scientologist Chick Corea, the U.S. State Department's just released annual human-rights " country reports" (again) single out Germany for criticism on anti- Scientological grounds. In fact, the Germany report is a bit more pointed than it was last year.
What does this mean? Apparently, in between making nice to China and accommodating itself to the new doctrine of we'll-do-business-with-anyone, the State Department can still put its foot down somewhere and say: Damn the consequences, there are universal human rights at stake! Especially if that somewhere is the Federal Republic of Germany, and the assembled luminaries of Hollywood are standing alongside, shoulder to shoulder.