Charles Gibson rehearses his opening on the front steps of the House of the Temple.(All photos Heather K. Calloway, Director of Special Programs

Wednesday morning, April 19, ABC TV’s Good Morning America (GMA) broadcasted live from the House of the Temple. Co-anchor Charles Gibson toured the building and interviewed MW Richard E. Fletcher, 33°, Executive Secretary, Masonic Service Association of North America, and Ill. S. Brent Morris, 33°, Grand Cross, Managing Editor, The Scottish Rite Journal. The broadcast was the middle of three days devoted to organizations included in Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code. Tuesday featured Opus Dei, Wednesday Freemasonry, and Thursday the Knights Templar.

The visit by ABC TV began on Wednesday, April 12, when Kendall Evans with Good Morning America came by to tour the House of the Temple and to find out more about Freemasonry. The next day she returned with producer Cindy Smith and some of the broadcast crew; their job was to determine if the House of the Temple met the technical needs of Good Morning America. On Monday morning ABC made the formal request to broadcast, and preparations began in earnest.

The technical crew started delivering equipment at 3:00 Tuesday afternoon, April 18, and when the building closed at 4:00, the crew began setting up the rooms for the different live shots. Mr. Gibson and the production staff came by to familiarize themselves with the building, and he had a preliminary discussion with Brent Morris. By 9:00 p.m. the lights, cables, and sound equipment were in place, and at 3:00 a.m. Wednesday the GMA crew returned for the final preparations. Assisting with all the arrangements was Ill. Rob Sansbury, 33°, Building Superintendent, and his staff.

In case Charles Gibson had to anchor some major, breaking story, the Grand Commander’s suite was set up as a formal news room; it was never used. Wednesday morning the staff of the House of the Temple watched the broadcast from ADM Sizemore’s office. Charles Gibson opened Good Morning America from the front steps, and then broadcast brief segments from the Atrium and the Pillars of Charity Alcove. There were taped interviews with Profs. Margaret Jacob, U.C.L.A., and Steven Bullock, Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Charles Gibson interviewed Richard E. Fletcher from the Executive Chamber and Brent Morris from the Temple Room, and he closed the show from the Temple Room.

It was an exciting and exhausting experience for all involved. The GMA staff and crew were true professionals and wonderful guests. Everyone at the House of the Temple ended the day with a new appreciation of the behind-the-scene work on a TV show, and our visitors from ABC TV left with a much better understanding of our fraternity. It was a great opportunity to present Freemasonry in a positive light to the public.

To see the interviews with Profs. Jacob and Bullock, and Bros. Fletcher and Morris, click here, pull down the menu from “As Featured on Good Morning America,” and click on the desired video segment.

Interview with Richard E. Fletcher

Charles Gibson: And I’m joined here in Washington by Richard E. Fletcher. He is the Executive Secretary of the Masonic Service Association of North America, and I appreciate you being with us. Do you accept this idea it’s a secret society?

Richard E. Fletcher: No, sir.

Gibson: Not secret?

Fletcher: It isn’t.

Gibson: Then why the secret handshakes and the secret rites, etcetera, that go on?

Fletcher: Well, the handshakes—if you want to go in that direction—the handshakes are a throwback to our early days when Freemasonry was related to the actual builders in stone.

Ill. Fletcher waits in the Executive Chamber for his live interview to begin.

Gibson: We were just talking about that.

Fletcher: Yeah, and understand, they could come to a job site and were entitled to a job if they were a guild member. How did they prove they’re a guild member? They’re illiterate. There’s no master list they can check with, but if they could….

Gibson: No ID cards?

Fletcher: Yeah. But if they could give a handshake or a word that had been told to them, they could identify themselves as Masons, who were entitled to a job.

Gibson: But people have come up with all these wild theories, and now the Internet spreads them all, as well, but at a time in our history, there was an anti-Masonic political party that actually elected governors. And John Quincy Adams, president long, long ago, compared the Masons to a boa constrictor that squeezes everything and that’s, that’s excited all these kinds of theories. Nonsense?

Fletcher: Yes. Absolute nonsense! At the same time, Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States, and he’s the Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee. So, there were parts of the country that were afflicted by this anti-Masonic furor, but it didn’t spread really into the West or South, it was mostly in the Northeast.

Gibson: But you know secret societies today raise suspicions. Now, you say it’s not secret. But there are parts about it that we just don’t know.

Fletcher: There are parts that are private. Now, if you’re talking about what goes on behind closed doors and all those secret things. They’re not secret. They’re private. What we are doing is taking an individual man, bringing him into the fraternity through a series of degrees, and in these degrees, he is going to be challenged to look at such things as honesty, honor, integrity, how to make himself a better person, and we do that through the lessons taught in the degrees.

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Friends of mine who are Masons tell me these are good guys, people who draw mutual support and comfort from one another in this fraternity that is, yes, secretive, but has done such good works over the hundreds of years that this society has been in existence.

—Charles Gibson, Co-Anchor, Good Morning America

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And everything in Freemasonry has a symbolic as well as a practical meaning. So while he is being challenged to look inward at himself, as a person, he is going to have to self-reflect, contemplate, think. This can’t be done in a public forum. It is done in the privacy of a lodge room where his lodge brothers, who have already gone through the process the initiate is going through, they are there to nurture him, to care for him, to show their support for him.

And the Mason and the initiate are the ones that can see and understand and reflect upon the life change that this man is going through, because it is a serious step when you become a Freemason. We are pledging ourselves to become better people, in our homes, in our churches, in all walks of life, and this is done in the privacy of our lodge rooms rather than a public forum. And if you put it in a public forum, you simply take away the importance of what is being conveyed to the initiate.

Gibson: Why only men?

Fletcher: Well, because that’s our history and our tradition. When we started in the middle ages with the stoneworkers, they lived on the job sites, and it was men only that were workers in heavy stone, that could lift and do the quarry, or do the work on the buildings that was required. And it’s a tradition that we’ve carried on until today.

ibson: Not secret, just private?

Fletcher: Exactly.

Gibson: In the words of Richard Fletcher. Appreciate it. Nice to talk to you and nice to be here.

Interview with Brent Morris

Gibson: All right, Diane, we’re back in the Temple Room of the House of the Temple of the Scottish Rite of the Freemasons talking about what the Freemasons are, because so few people do. And I’m joined by Brent Morris, who is a 33° Mason, and he’s also Keeper of the Royal Secret, did you tell me?

Brent Morris: Master of the Royal Secret.

Gibson: Master of the Royal Secret, one of his titles. This is a grand room, and I’m very struck stepping up here that right in the middle of the room you have the great books of all the world religions. This is not a religion, but there are religious principles, sort of overweening principles to what you do?

Morris: Absolutely. The Freemasons did something very radical 300 years ago. We said that men can agree that God exists, and he compels them to do good in their lives, and we can stop all religious discussion at that point and go out and do good and help mankind. And so Freemasons invite any believer in God to join them. We have on our altar a Holy Bible, we have a Tanakh, we have a Koran, we have a Bhagavad Gita, so that each man makes a solemn pledge to God as he understands Him, that he is going to be a better man, and that he’s going to seek to serve mankind.

Gibson (l.) interviews S. Brent Morris, 33°, Grand Cross, by the altar in the
Temple Room of the House of the Temple.

Gibson: It seems an interesting juxtaposition that right next to it is a sword.

Morris: (laughs) This sword is the sword that is carried by the Grand Sword Bearer of the Supreme Council. It is normally not on the altar. We had it out here because it is such a beautiful object. But it’s a symbol of the power of the Supreme Council.

Gibson: Now I know the Supreme Council meets every couple of years and conducts the business of the Freemasons. But one of the things that struck me, you’ve all talked about the fact that you do good works, very supportive of one another, but membership is diminishing in the Freemasons.

Morris: Indeed it is. Membership has diminished in the Freemasons since 1960. But it’s also diminished in virtually every voluntary organization in the United States. It’s a mystery for sociologists.

Gibson: Why? Private societies, secret societies, whichever word you want to use, raise suspicions. Are some of those suspicions the reason you think that membership declines?

Morris: If it were just the fraternal groups, then I would say, “Absolutely!” But it is also the civic clubs that are declining in membership, it is voluntary participation of all sorts in American society that is on a decline. And we’re part of this—a rising tide lifts all ships and a sinking tide takes us all down. We would love to know the mystery. Is it because of our adherence to tradition? Is it because of a larger force in society? But I think—when you look at all of the organizations that are declining in membership and participation—that you can’t point to just the Masons’ traditions.

Gibson: At one time about 4 million members, down to about 1.7 million now?

Morris: About 1.7, that’s right.

Gibson: All right, it’s been a great pleasure to be here.

Morris: Thank you very much, Charlie.

Gibson: Nice to see you, Brent Morris. And we’ll be back. Stay with us.

Closing Comments by Charles Gibson

Charles Gibson: And we are back in Washington in the Temple Room of the House of the Temple, the headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasons, which is located here in Washington, D.C. As we mentioned earlier in the broadcast, Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code, reportedly is writing his next book about the Freemasons. The Freemasons will be central characters in this book. As one of the Masons here told me, “We don’t know if we’re going to be the good guys or the bad guys.” But friends of mine who are Masons tell me these are good guys, people who draw mutual support and comfort from one another in this fraternity that is, yes, secretive, but has done such good works over the hundreds of years that this society has been in existence. There are chapters all across the country, probably even in your community.