The GOP's $3 Billion Propaganda Organ
By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
Wednesday 27 December 2006
The American Right achieved its political dominance in Washington over the past quarter century with the help of more
than $3 billion spent by Korean cult leader Sun Myung Moon on a daily propaganda organ, the Washington Times, according
to a 21-year veteran of the newspaper.
George Archibald, who describes himself "as the first reporter hired at the Washington Times outside the founding
group" and author of a commemorative book on the Times' first two decades, has now joined a long line of disillusioned
conservative writers who departed and warned the public about extremism within the newspaper.
In an Internet essay on recent turmoil inside the Times, Archibald also confirmed claims by some former Moon insiders
that the cult leader has continued to pour in $100 million a year or more to keep the newspaper afloat. Archibald put
the price tag for the newspaper's first 24 years at "more than $3 billion of cash."
At the newspaper's tenth anniversary, Moon announced that he had spent $1 billion on the Times - or $100 million a year
- but newspaper officials and some Moon followers have since tried to low-ball Moon's subsidies in public comments by
claiming they had declined to about $35 million a year.
The figure from Archibald and other defectors from Moon's operation is about three times higher than the $35 million
annual figure.
The apparent goal of downplaying Moon's subsidy has been to quiet concerns that Moon was funneling vast sums of illicit
money into the United States to influence the American political process in ways favorable to right-wing leaders - and
possibly criminal cartels - around the world.
Though best known as the founder of the Unification Church, Moon, now 86, has long worked with right-wing political
forces linked to organized crime and international drug smuggling, including the Japanese yakuza gangs and South
American cocaine traffickers.
Moon insiders, including his former daughter-in-law Nansook Hong, also have described Moon's system for laundering cash
into the United States and then funneling much of it into his businesses and influence-buying apparatus, led by the
Washington Times.
The Times, in turn, has targeted American politicians of the center and left with journalistic attacks - sometimes
questioning their sanity, as happened with Democratic presidential nominees Michael Dukakis and Al Gore. Those themes
then resonate through the broader right-wing echo chamber and into the mainstream media.
Washington Times articles are routinely cited by C-SPAN, for instance, without explanations to viewers that the
newspaper is financed by an ultra-right religious cult leader, a convicted tax fraud and a publicly identified
money-launderer. Most American listeners just think they're getting straightforward news.
The Times also has led attacks on investigators who threatened to expose crimes committed by Republican and right-wing
operatives. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Times targeted Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, who
recounted in his memoir Firewall the importance of the Times in protecting the Reagan-Bush administration's legal
flanks.
When journalistic and congressional investigations began uncovering evidence of drug trafficking by the Nicaraguan
contra rebels, the Washington Times counter-attacked, too, although in that case the Moon organization may have had a
direct interest in containing the probes that could have exposed its relationship with South American drug lords.
Buying Influence
Besides the estimated $3 billion-plus invested in the Washington Times, Moon has spread money around to influential
right-wingers, often coming to their rescue when they are facing financial ruin as happened with Moral Majority founder
Jerry Falwell in the mid-1990s. [See below.]
Moon also has paid lucrative speaking fees to political figures, such as former President George H.W. Bush who has
appeared at Moon-organized functions in the United States, Asia and South America. At the launch of Moon's South
American newspaper in 1996, Bush hailed Moon as "the man with the vision."
Moon has key defenders, too, in the U.S. Congress, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a ranking member of the Senate
Judiciary Committee. In 2004, Moon was given space in the Senate's Dirksen building for a coronation of himself as
"savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent." [See The Hill, June 22, 2004]
Though primarily allied with the Republican Right, Moon has tossed money to some African-American ministers to gain
favor with a key Democratic constituency.
Moon's multi-billion-dollar political investments, in turn, have shielded him from sustained scrutiny since 1978 when
he was identified by the congressional "Koreagate" investigation as part of a covert Korean influence-buying scheme. As
a result of those findings about his finances, he was convicted in 1982 of tax fraud.
Ironically, however, as Moon implemented the influence-buying blueprint exposed by the "Koreagate" probe - investing in
U.S. media, politicians and academia - he became an untouchable. He founded the Washington Times in 1982 and quickly put
it into the service of Republican power.
President Ronald Reagan hailed Moon's publication as his "favorite newspaper"; it even helped raise money for the
Nicaraguan contras; and President George H.W. Bush invited its editor Wesley Pruden to the White House in 1991 "just to
tell you how valuable the Times has become in Washington, where we read it every day."
Washington Times defenders argue that the newspaper is independent of Moon's religion and doesn't proselytize for his
faith.
But the argument misses the point because Moon's organization is only a religious entity on one level. More
substantively, it is an international conglomerate with investments in fishing, restaurants, gun manufacturing, tourism,
banks, real estate and media.
Since its finances often operate on the shady side of the law, Moon's organization requires, most of all, political
influence for protection.
Similarly, Moon's operation is not really "conservative" in the normal sense of the word. While it has worked with
everyone from right-of-center Republicans to neo-fascist organizations, it also has joined forces with the reclusive
communist leaders of North Korea when that was to Moon's advantage. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Moon, North Korea & the Bushes."]
Power Struggle
Veteran Washington Times journalist Archibald as well as other Times employees who recently spoke to The Nation
magazine have described a bitter internal struggle at the newspaper.
Times president "Douglas" Dong Moon Joo is standing by Pruden and other right-wing editors who have run the Times for
years, while other influential Moon operatives believe it's time to abandon the newspaper's hard-right positions.
"A nasty succession battle is now heating up at the paper, punctuated by allegations of racism, sexism and
unprofessional conduct, that have implications far beyond its fractious newsroom," wrote Max Blumenthal in The Nation.
"According to several reliable inside sources, Preston Moon, the youngest son of Korean Unification Church leader and
Times financier Sun Myung Moon, has initiated a search committee to find a replacement for editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden
- a replacement who is not Pruden's handpicked successor, managing editor Francis Coombs.
"Preston Moon wants to wrest control of the paper from Pruden and Coombs, according to a Times senior staffer, in order
to shift the paper away from their brand of conservatism, which is characterized by extreme racial animus and
connections to nativist and neo-Confederate organizations. A Harvard MBA, Preston Moon is said to be seeking to install
an editorial regime with more widely palatable politics."
Archibald's essay describes Pruden as "an unreconstructed Confederate from Little Rock, Arkansas, who still believes
the South and slavery were right and Lincoln was wrong in saving the Union."
Pruden's father, Wesley Pruden Sr., was a Baptist minister and chaplain to Little Rock's segregationist Capital
Citizens Council, which spearheaded the opposition to President Dwight Eisenhower's order in 1957 to integrate the
city's Central High School.
In the 1990s, Pruden's Washington Times continued to tap into those old segregationist ties, such as "Justice" Jim
Johnson, to get salacious allegations about President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary. The mainstream press soon
followed, setting the stage for the Republican congressional sweep in 1994 and Clinton's impeachment in 1998.
In 2000, the Washington Times again was at the center of the assault on Al Gore's candidacy - highlighting apocryphal
quotes by Gore and using them to depict him as either dishonest or delusional. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Al Gore vs. the Media."]
By then, however, the Washington Times had the help of a rapidly expanding right-wing media as well as mainstream
journalists from the New York Times and the Washington Post who had come to realize the career advantage of tilting
their reporting to the right.
Arguably one of the measures of the Washington Times' success was how the major U.S. news organizations increasingly
seemed to march to the same drummer, even when not under direct pressure to do so.
Over the past half dozen years, it has often been hard to distinguish between the fawning coverage of George W. Bush
from the Washington Times and from the Washington Post. Both major Washington dailies bought into Bush's false claims
about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction with almost no skepticism.
Currently, the Washington Times seems inclined to continue serving as a leading defender of Republican power and thus
of President Bush. Calling itself "America's Newspaper," the Moon-financed Times also has championed the cause of
anti-immigration activists, another hot-button issue on the Right.
But the Times and other right-wing news outlets risk a credibility crisis as more and more Americans turn away from the
Bush presidency and are turned off by the right-wing rhetoric demonizing citizens who have objected to Bush's policies.
Nevertheless, history will surely record that Moon's $3 billion-plus investment succeeded in buying a remarkable degree
of Washington influence - and legal protection - for his dubious political/business/religious empire.
The extraordinary rise of Sun Myung Moon also tells a cynical story about how "respectability" is just one more
Washington commodity that can be purchased with enough money.
Known for crowning himself at lavish ceremonies and ranting for hours in Korean about the proper use of sex organs, Sun
Myung Moon may have the distinction of being the most unusual person ever to gain substantial influence in the U.S.
capital. He has proved that in Washington, money talks.
When Moon became a major benefactor of the American conservative movement starting in the latter half of the 1970s, it
was a time when the conservatives desperately needed money to build what they called their counter-establishment.
From a mysterious and seemingly bottomless slush fund, Moon ladled out cash to sponsor lavish conferences, to finance
political interest groups and to publish the Washington Times.
Despite his strange goals - including the need to replace democracy and individuality with his own personal theocratic
rule over the most intimate details of every person's life - Moon lured into his circle some of the most prominent
political figures of the modern era, including George H.W. Bush who grasped Moon's value as a deep pocket for the
conservative movement and for the Bush family.
Moon began building his political influence in Washington at a time when he was best known to Americans as the leader
of the Unification Church, called the "Moonies." Moon was blamed by thousands of American parents for brain-washing
their children and transforming them into automatons who gave up their previous lives to devote nearly every waking hour
in the service of Rev. Moon.
Gradually, however, Moon's money gained him access to the nation's ruling elite. The worst of the negative press
coverage subsided. But few Americans, even those who took his money, knew much about his life and his true allegiances.
Who Is Moon?
Moon was born on Jan. 6, 1920, in a rural, northwestern corner of Korea, a rugged Asian peninsula then occupied by
Japan, an occupation that would continue through the first 25 years of Moon's life. Allied forces liberated the
peninsula from the Japanese in 1945 and then divided Korea into two sections, the south controlled by the United States
and the north occupied by Soviet troops.
In this post-war period, Moon, who had been raised within a Christian sect, moved to southern Korea and joined a
mystical religious group called Israel Suo-won. The group preached the imminent arrival of a Korean Messiah and
practiced a strange sexual ritual called "pikarume," in which ministers purified women through sexual intercourse, the
so-called "blessing of the womb."
As he developed his own theology, Moon returned to the North, to communist-ruled North Korea, where he soon ran into
legal troubles. North Korean authorities arrested him twice, apparently on morals charges connected to his sexual rites
with young women. Moon's supporters, however, have tried to portray Moon as the victim of communist repression, claiming
that he was arrested not for sex charges but for espionage.
Whatever the real story about his detention in North Korea, Moon's luck soon changed. On Oct. 14, 1950, with war raging
on the Korean peninsula, United Nations troops overran the prison where Moon was held, freeing Moon and all the other
inmates. According to Unification Church histories, Moon then trekked south, carrying on his back an injured prisoner
named Pak Chung Hwa.
For years, church officials even published a photograph purportedly showing Pak piggy-backing on Moon across a river.
But much of that story appears to be propaganda. Several church sources have since admitted that the photo was a hoax,
that Moon is not the man in the picture and the location is not where Moon was.
Moon's southward journey ended in the South Korean port of Pusan, where he resumed his missionary work. He later moved
to Seoul, South Korea's capital, where he founded his own church in May 1954. He called it T'ong-il Kyo, or Holy Spirit
Association for the Unification of World Christianity. It became known as the Unification Church.
At the center of Moon's theology was a new twist to the Old Testament story about the Fall of Man. Instead of biting
into a forbidden apple, Eve copulated with Satan and then passed on the sin by having sex with Adam.
Thousands of years later, God sent Jesus to restore man to his original purity, Moon taught. But Jesus failed because
he was betrayed by the Jews and died before he could father any sinless children.
Sex, therefore, remained at the center of Moon's theology, the need for a Messiah to purify the human race through the
reversal of the contamination caused by Satan's seduction of Eve.
Moon taught that the failure of Jesus to begin this purification process by fathering children forced God to send a
second Messiah, who turned out to be Moon himself. Moon saw his task as starting this sexual purification process and
thus establishing God's Kingdom on Earth.
The ultimate goal would be a worldwide theocracy ruled by Moon and his followers cleansed of Satan's influence.
Political power and religious authority went together, Moon lectured. "We cannot separate the political field from the
religious," Moon said.
But in South Korea, Moon found that government continued to be an obstacle to his religious plans. When he began to
concentrate his religious recruitment on young idealistic college students, especially from an all-girls Christian
school, Moon landed in legal hot water again.
The South Korean government arrested Moon in 1955 for allegedly conducting more sexual "purification" rites, according
to several U.S. intelligence reports which are now public. Moon was freed three months later because none of the young
women would testify for fear of public humiliation, according to an undated FBI summary, released under a Freedom of
Information Act request.
"During the next two years in the national news media of South Korea, Rev. Moon was the butt of scandalist humor," the
FBI report said.
Six Marys
Church officials repeatedly have denied the reports of Moon's sexual rituals. But the charges received new attention in
1993 with the Japanese publication of The Tragedy of the Six Marys - a book by the early Moon disciple, Pak Chung Hwa,
whom Moon supposedly carried to South Korea.
According to Pak's book, Moon taught that Jesus was intended to save mankind by having sex with six already-married
women who would then have sex with other men who would pass on the purification to other women until, eventually, all
mankind would have pure blood.
Pak contended that Moon took on this personal duty as the second Messiah and began having sex with the "six Marys." But
Pak alleged that Moon began to abuse the practice by turning the "six Marys" into a kind of rotating sex club.
Pak wrote that Moon's first wife divorced him after catching him in a sex ritual. In all, Pak estimated that there were
at least 60 "Marys," many of whom ended up destitute after Moon discarded them.
According to the testimony of one "Mary," named Yu Shin Hee, she met Moon in the early 1950s and became a follower
along with her husband. Devoted to the church, her husband abandoned her and her five children, whom she then put into
an orphanage. She, in turn, agreed to become one of Moon's "six Marys."
But Yu Shin Hee claimed that Moon tired of her after just one "blood exchange," a phrase referring to sexual
intercourse. Still, she was required to have sex with other men. Seven years later, a broken woman with no money, she
tried to return to her children, but they also rejected her.
When Moon impregnated another one of the women, Moon sent her to Japan where she gave birth to a baby boy, according to
Pak's account. Moon later admitted fathering the child, who died in a train crash at the age of 13. But Pak wrote that
Moon refused to admit responsibility for other illegitimate children born to the women.
"By forwarding this teaching, he violated mothers, their daughters, their sisters," Pak wrote. (After The Tragedy of
the Six Marys was published, the Unification Church denounced the allegations as spurious. Under intense pressure, the
aging Pak Chung Hwa agreed to recant. However, his book's accounts tracked closely with U.S. intelligence reports of the
same period and interviews with former church leaders.)
Moon's history of sexual liaisons out of wedlock also was corroborated by Nansook Hong, one of Moon's daughters-in-law
who broke with the so-called True Family in 1995 over abuse she suffered at the hands of Moon's eldest son, Hyo Jin
Moon, during their 14-year marriage.
Nansook Hong reported in her 1998 book, In the Shadow of the Moons, that family members, including Moon himself,
acknowledged that he had "providential" sex with women in his role as the Messiah. Nansook Hong said she learned about
Moon's sexual affairs when her husband, Hyo Jin, began justifying his affairs as mandated by God, as his father claimed
his affairs were.
"I went directly to Mrs. Moon with Hyo Jin's claims," Nansook Hong wrote. "She was both furious and tearful. She had
hoped that such pain would end with her, that it would not be passed on to the next generation, she told me.
"No one knows the pain of a straying husband like True Mother, she assured me. I was stunned. We had all heard rumors
for years about Sun Myung Moon's affairs and the children he sired out of wedlock, but here was True Mother, confirming
the truth of these stories.
"I told her that Hyo Jin said his sleeping around was 'providential' and inspired by God, just as Father's affairs
were. 'No, Father is the Messiah, not Hyo Jin. What Father did was in God's plan.'" Later, in a discussion about the
extramarital sex, Moon himself told Nansook Hong that "what happened in his past was 'providential,'" she wrote.
As for the sexual purification rituals, Nansook Hong said the rumors had followed the church for decades, despite the
official denials.
"In the early days of the Unification Church, members met in a small house with two rooms," Nansook Hong wrote. "It was
known as the House of the Three Doors. It was rumored that at the first door one was made to take off one's jacket, at
the second door one's outer clothing, and at the third one's undergarments in preparation for sex."
As for Chung Hwa Pak's Tragedy of the Six Marys, Nansook Hong said Moon succeeded in persuading his old associate to
rejoin the church and then got him to disavow the memoirs. "I've always wondered what the price was of that retraction,"
Nansook Hong wrote.
Madeleine Pretorious, a Unification Church member from South Africa, also had worked closely with Moon's temperamental
son, Hyo Jin, and had learned from him that the long-denied accounts of Moon's sexual rites with female initiates were
true.
"When Hyo Jin found out about his father's 'purification' rituals, that took a lot out of wind out of his sails,"
Pretorious told me in an interview after she left the church in the mid-1990s.
In late 1994, during conversations in Hyo Jin's suite at the New Yorker Hotel, "he confided a lot of things to me,"
Pretorious said. Hyo Jin also had discovered that the Reverend Moon fathered a child out of wedlock in the early 1970s.
Moon arranged for the child to be raised by his longtime lieutenant Bo Hi Pak, Pretorious said.
The boy - now a young man - had confronted Hyo Jin, seeking recognition as Hyo Jin's half-brother. Pretorious said she
later corroborated the story with other church members.
Intelligence Ties
The alleged sexual rituals, which involved passing around women, would become a point of embarrassment later, but the
practices apparently helped the Unification Church in recruiting men in the early days.
By the late 1950s, Moon had managed to build a small cadre of loyal followers and was reaching out beyond Korea. By the
early 1960s, the church also was pulling in better educated young men, including some with connections to South Korea's
intelligence services.
Kim Jong-Pil and three other young English-speaking army officers became closely associated with Moon's church during
this transitional phase as the institution evolved from an obscure Korean sect into a powerful international
organization.
Beyond his association with Moon's sect, Kim Jong-Pil was a rising star in South Korea's intelligence community. In
1961, he founded the KCIA, which centralized Seoul's internal and external intelligence activities. Another one of the
promising young KCIA officers was Colonel Bo Hi Pak, also a Moon disciple.
With these KCIA officers, however, it was never clear whether the benefits of the religion were paramount or if they
simply recognized the potential that an international church held as a cover for intelligence operations.
In many countries, especially the United States, churches are granted broad protections against government
interference. With missionaries traveling around the world and with church members attending international religious
conferences, a church also provided an effective cover for spying, money-laundering or passing on messages to agents.
In 1962, KCIA founder Kim Jong-Pil traveled to San Francisco where he met with Unification Church members. According to
an account later published by a congressional investigation, Kim Jong-Pil promised discreet support for Moon's church.
At the same time of his contacts with associates from the Unification Church, Kim Jong-Pil was in charge of another
sensitive negotiation: talks to improve bilateral relations with Japan, Korea's historic enemy.
Those talks put Kim Jong-Pil in touch with two other important figures in the Far East, Japanese rightists Yoshio
Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa, who once hailed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as "the perfect fascist."
Kodama and Sasakawa were jailed as fascist war criminals at the end of World War II, but a few years later, both Kodama
and Sasakawa were freed by U.S. military intelligence officials.
The U.S. government turned to Kodama and Sasakawa for help in combating communist labor unions and student strikes,
much as the CIA protected German Nazi war criminals who supplied intelligence and performed other services in the
intensifying Cold War battles with European communists.
Kodama and Sasakawa obliged U.S. intelligence by dispatching right-wing goon squads to break up demonstrations,
according to the authoritative book, Yakuza, by David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro.
Kodama and Sasakawa also allegedly grew rich from their association with the yakuza, a shadowy organized crime
syndicate that profited off drug smuggling, gambling and prostitution in Japan and Korea. Behind the scenes, Kodama and
Sasakawa became power-brokers in Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Kim Jong-Pil's contacts with these right-wing leaders proved invaluable to the Unification Church, which had made only
a few converts in Japan by the early 1960s. Immediately after Kim Jong-Pil opened the door to Kodama and Sasakawa in
late 1962, 50 leaders of an ultra-nationalist Japanese Buddhist sect converted en masse to the Unification Church,
according to Kaplan and Dubro.
"Sasakawa became an advisor to Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Japanese branch of the Unification Church" and collaborated
with Moon in building far-right anti-communist organizations in Asia, Kaplan and Dubro wrote.
The church's growth spurt did not escape the notice of U.S. intelligence officers in the field. One CIA report, dated
Feb. 26, 1963, stated that "Kim Jong-Pil organized the Unification Church while he was director of the ROK [Republic of
Korea] Central Intelligence Agency, and has been using the church, which had a membership of 27,000, as a political
tool."
Though Moon's church had existed since the mid-1950s, the report appeared correct in noting Kim Jong-Pil's key role in
transforming the church from a minor Korean sect into a potent international organization.
New Worlds
With alliances in place in Tokyo and Seoul, the Unification Church next took aim at Washington.
In 1964, Bo Hi Pak, who was emerging as one of Moon's most able lieutenants, moved to America and started the Korean
Cultural and Freedom Foundation, a front that performed the dual purpose of helping Moon meet important Americans, while
assisting the KCIA in its international operations.
Bo Hi Pak named KCIA founder Kim Jong-Pil to be the foundation's "honorary chairman." The foundation also sponsored the
KCIA's anti-communist propaganda outlets, such as Radio of Free Asia, according to the congressional report on the
"Koreagate" scandal.
Moon's church also was active in the Asian People's Anti-Communist League, a fiercely right-wing group founded by the
governments of South Korea and Taiwan. In 1966, the group expanded into the World Anti-Communist League, an
international alliance that brought together traditional conservatives with former Nazis, overt racialists and Latin
American "death squad" operatives.
Retired U.S. Army Gen. John K. Singlaub, a former WACL president, told me that "the Japanese [WACL] chapter was taken
over almost entirely by Moonies."
By the 1970s, the U.S. public was aware of Moon and his church, but much of the attention was negative. Parents
complained that the church brainwashed their children and pressured them to cut off contacts with their families, while
proclaiming Moon their "True Father."
The totalitarian nature of Moon's church stood out in his staging of mass marriages, or "blessings," in which he would
pair up husbands and wives who had never met. Moon also regulated the sexual behavior of even his married followers, a
practice that replaced the more personal method of "blessing the womb" that allegedly had prevailed in the church's
early days.
In 1973, amid American reversals in Indochina, alarm began to spread within Seoul's right-wing dictatorship about the
strength of the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea in case of aggression from the communist North. Those fears led
the KCIA, long known for its gross human rights violations, to begin plotting how to bolster its friends in the United
States and undermine its enemies.
Lee Jai Hyon, the chief cultural and information attaché at the South Korean embassy in Washington, later testified
before the U.S. Congress that he sat in on a series of meetings chaired by the KCIA's station chief, involving senior
embassy officials.
Lee Jai Hyon described six sessions over a five-week period in spring 1973 at which a conspiracy was outlined to
"manipulate," "coerce," "threaten," "co-opt," "seduce," and "buy off" political and other leaders of the United States.
Lee Jai Hyon said one of the South Koreans participating in the operation was Moon's top aide Bo Hi Pak.
At the time, Moon was raising concerns among U.S. immigration authorities for bringing hundreds of foreign followers to
the United States on tourist visas and then assigning them to mobile fund-raising teams.
But Moon, who owned property outside New York City while maintaining a residence in South Korea, somehow managed to
secure a "green card" from the Nixon administration on April 30, 1973. The permit making Moon a "lawful permanent
resident" also granted him more legal rights than would be available to a foreign visitor.
"The advantages of using the First Amendment were seen early," wrote Robert Boettcher, the former staff director of the
House Subcommittee on International Relations, in his 1980 book, Gifts of Deceit. "Before Moon moved to the United
States in 1971, he and his small band of followers realized the operation would have the most flexibility if it was
called a church. Businesses, political activities, and tax-exempt status could be protected."
As Moon stepped up his activities, however, the FBI soon began to suspect that Moon's activities had a political
motive. The FBI summary of its evidence about Moon's church was marked by a number indicating that the Unification
Church was under a counter-intelligence investigation in the 1970s.
Although blacked-out portions obscured who was stating some of the conclusions - an individual source or the FBI - the
report described the church as "an absolutely totalitarian organization" which was part of an international "conspiracy"
that functioned by its own rules.
"One of the central doctrines of the Moon relig[i]ous aspects is what they call heavenly deception," the FBI report
said. "It basically says that to take from Satan what rightfully belongs to God, you may do most anything. You may lie,
cheat, steal or kill."
Making Friends
Despite the FBI's concerns, Moon began making friends in Washington the old-fashioned way: by spreading around lots of
money. Moon also had his followers cozy up to government officials.
According to the FBI summary, Moon designated "300 pretty girls" to lobby members of Congress. "They were trying to
influence United States senators and congressmen on behalf of South Korea," the FBI document read.
"Moon had laid the foundation for political work in this country prior to 1973 [though] his followers became more
openly involved in political activities in that and subsequent years," a congressional investigative report on the
"Koreagate" influence-buying scandal stated in 1978.
The report added that Moon's organization used his followers' travels to smuggle large sums of money into the United
States in apparent violation of federal currency laws.
Moon organized rallies in support of the Vietnam War and in defense of President Richard Nixon during the Watergate
scandal. Moon sponsored a National Prayer and Fast Committee, using the slogan: "forgive, love, unite." The public
rallies earned Moon a face-to-face "thank you" from the embattled President on Feb. 1, 1974.
Intercepted Message
In late 1975, the CIA intercepted a secret South Korean document entitled "1976 Plan for Operations in the United
States." In the name of "strengthening the execution of the U.S. security commitment to the ROK [South Korea]," it
called for influencing U.S. public opinion by penetrating American media, government and academia.
Thousands of dollars were earmarked for "special manipulation" of congressmen; their staffs were to be infiltrated with
paid "collaborators"; an "intelligence network" was to be put into the White House; money was targeted for
"manipulation" of officials at the Pentagon, State Department and CIA; some U.S. journalists were to be spied on, while
others would be paid; a "black newspaper" would be started in New York; contacts with American scholars would be
coordinated "with Psychological Warfare Bureau"; and "an organizational network of anti-communist fronts" would be
created.
Several months later, in summer 1976, Moon returned to the United States and delivered a flattering pro-U.S. speech at
a red-white-and-blue flag-draped rally at the Washington Monument.
"The United States of America, transcending race and nationality, is already a model of the unified world," Moon
declared on Sept. 18, 1976. Calling America "the chosen nation of God," Moon said, "I not only respect America, but
truly love this nation."
While professing his love for America in public, Moon shared with his followers a very different sentiment in private.
He despised American concepts of individuality and democracy, believing that he was destined to rule through a one-world
theocracy that would eradicate all personal freedoms.
"Here's a man [Moon] who says he wants to take over the world, where all religions will be abolished except
Unificationism, all languages will be abolished except Korean, all governments will be abolished except his one-world
theocracy," Steve Hassan, a former church leader, told me. "Yet he's wined and dined very powerful people and convinced
them that he's benign."
In 1976, Moon's search for growing influence in the United States seemed to be following the KCIA script.
Moon started a small-circulation newspaper in New York City that featured a column by civil rights leader Jesse
Jackson. Moon promoted the anti-communist cause through front groups which held lavish conferences and paid speaking
fees to academics, journalists and political leaders.
In 1976, Moon, Bo Hi Pak and other church members deepened their investments in the U.S. capital, buying stock in the
Washington-based Diplomat National Bank. Simultaneously, South Korean agent Tongsun Park was investing heavily in the
same bank.
But the South Korean scheme backfired in the late 1970s with the explosion of the "Koreagate" scandal. Rep.Donald
Fraser, a Democrat from Minnesota, led a congressional probe which tracked Tongsun Park's influence-buying campaign and
exposed the KCIA links to the Unification Church.
The "Koreagate" investigation revealed a sophisticated intelligence project run out of Seoul that used the urbane Park
as well as the mystical Moon to cultivate U.S. politicians as influential friends of South Korea - and conversely to
undermine politicians who were viewed as enemies.
Though it's clear the church did collaborate with the KCIA during the 1960s and 1970s, it's less clear whether Moon was
using the KCIA or it was using him. Most likely, the relationship was symbiotic, each using the other to advance their
overlapping but different interests.
The alliance with the KCIA gave Moon political protection and business opportunities, while the KCIA got a cover for
promoting South Korean interests inside the United States, the country responsible for South Korea's defense.
The "Koreagate" investigation traced the church's chief sources of money to bank accounts in Japan, but could follow
the cash no further. In the years since, the sources of Moon's money have remained cloaked in secrecy.
In the mid-1990s when I inquired about the vast fortune that the Unification Church has poured into its American
operations, the church's chief spokesman refused to divulge dollar amounts for any of Moon's activities.
"Each year the church retains an independent accounting firm to do a national audit and produce an annual financial
statement," wrote the church's legal representative Peter D. Ross. "While this statement is used in routine financial
transactions by the church, [it] is not my policy to make it otherwise available."
In 1978, Fraser got a taste of the negative side of Moon's propaganda clout as the South Korean religious leader's new
U.S. conservative allies mounted a strong defense against the "Koreagate" allegations.
In pro-Moon publications, Fraser and his staff were pilloried as leftists. Anti-Moon witnesses were assailed as
unstable liars. Minor bookkeeping problems inside the investigation, such as Fraser's salary advances to some staff
members, were seized upon to justify demands for an ethics probe of the congressman.
One of those letters, dated June 30, 1978, was written by John T. "Terry" Dolan of the National Conservative Political
Action Committee (NCPAC). Dolan's group was pioneering the strategy of "independent" TV attack ads against liberal
Democrats. In turn, Moon's CAUSA International helped Dolan by contributing $500,000 to a Dolan group, known as the
Conservative Alliance or CALL. [Washington Post, Sept. 17, 1984]
With support from Dolan and other conservatives, Moon weathered the "Koreagate" political storm. Facing questions about
his patriotism, Fraser lost a Senate bid in 1978 and left Congress.
Though Moon had helped defeat his chief congressional critic, the evidence unearthed by Fraser became the foundation of
a tax-fraud conviction of Moon in 1982 and his sentencing to two years in federal prison.
A Media Empire
Despite his felony conviction, Moon pressed ahead with his boldest bid for political influence. In 1982, Moon launched
the Washington Times. The Times was just what the Reagan administration wanted, a reliable voice for its version of
events that would push the message into the public debate.
Though Moon would have to subsidize his publications with hundreds of millions of dollars from his seemingly bottomless
pool of cash, the newspaper - over the next two decades - would change the parameters of how the U.S. press corps works
and affect the course of U.S. presidential campaigns.
Where all that money came from, however, would remain one of Washington's least examined secrets.
Authors Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson wrote in their 1986 book, Inside the League, that Sun Myung Moon was one of
five indispensable Asian leaders who made the World Anti-Communist League possible.
The five were Taiwan's dictator Chiang Kai-shek, South Korea's dictator Park Chung Hee, yakuza gangsters Ryoichi
Sasakawa and Yoshio Kodama, and Moon, "an evangelist who planned to take over the world through the doctrine of
'Heavenly Deception,'" the Andersons wrote.
WACL became a well-financed worldwide organization after a secret meeting between Sasakawa and Moon, along with two
Kodama representatives, on a lake in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. The purpose of the meeting was to create an
anti-communist organization that "would further Moon's global crusade and lend the Japanese yakuza leaders a respectable
new façade," the Andersons wrote.
Mixing organized crime and political extremism, of course, has a long tradition throughout the world. Violent political
movements often have blended with criminal operations as a way to arrange covert funding, move operatives or acquire
weapons.
Drug smuggling has proven to be a particularly effective way to fill the coffers of extremist movements, especially
those that find ways to insinuate themselves within more legitimate operations of sympathetic governments or
intelligence services.
In the quarter century after World War II, remnants of fascist movements managed to do just that. Shattered by the
major Allies - the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union - the surviving fascists got a new lease on
political life with the start of the Cold War, helping both Western democracies and right-wing dictatorships battle
international communism.
Some Nazi leaders faced war-crimes tribunals after World War II, but others managed to make their escapes along "rat
lines" to Spain or South America or they finagled intelligence relationships with the victorious powers, especially the
United States.
Argentina became a natural haven given the pre-war alliance that existed between the European fascists and prominent
Argentine military leaders, such as Juan Peron. The fleeing Nazis also found like-minded right-wing politicians and
military officers across Latin America who already used repression to keep down the indigenous populations and the
legions of the poor.
In the post-World War II years, some Nazi war criminals chose reclusive lives, but others, such as former SS officer
Klaus Barbie, sold their intelligence skills to less-sophisticated security services in countries like Bolivia or
Paraguay. Other Nazis on the lam trafficked in narcotics. Often the lines crossed between intelligence operations and
criminal conspiracies.
Auguste Ricord, a French war criminal who had collaborated with the Gestapo, set up shop in Paraguay and opened up the
French Connection heroin channels to American Mafia drug kingpin Santo Trafficante Jr., who controlled much of the
heroin traffic into the United States. Columns by Jack Anderson identified Ricord's accomplices as some of Paraguay's
highest-ranking military officers.
Another French Connection mobster, Christian David, relied on protection of Argentine authorities. While trafficking in
heroin, David also "took on assignments for Argentina's terrorist organization, the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance,"
Henrik Kruger wrote in The Great Heroin Coup.
During President Nixon's "war on drugs," U.S. authorities smashed the famous French Connection and won extraditions of
Ricord and David in 1972 to face justice in the United States.
By the time the French Connection was severed, however, powerful Mafia drug lords had forged strong ties to South
America's military leaders. An infrastructure for the multi-billion-dollar drug trade, servicing the insatiable U.S.
market, was in place.
Trafficante-connected groups also recruited displaced anti-Castro Cubans, who had ended up in Miami, needed work, and
possessed some useful intelligence skills gained from the CIA's training for the Bay of Pigs and other clandestine
operations. Heroin from the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia soon filled the void left by the broken French Connection
and its mostly Middle Eastern heroin supply routes.
Enter Rev. Moon
During this time of transition, Sun Myung Moon brought his evangelical message to South America. His first visit to
Argentina had occurred in 1965 when he blessed a square behind the presidential Pink House in Buenos Aires. But he
returned a decade later to make more lasting friendships.
Moon first sank down roots in Uruguay during the 12-year reign of right-wing military dictators who seized power in
1973. He also cultivated close relations with military dictators in Argentina, Paraguay and Chile, reportedly
ingratiating himself with the juntas by helping the military regimes arrange arms purchases and by channeling money to
allied right-wing organizations.
"Relationships nurtured with right-wing Latin Americans in the [World Anti-Communist] League led to acceptance of the
[Unification] Church's political and propaganda operations throughout Latin America," the Andersons wrote in Inside the
League.
"As an international money laundry, … the Church tapped into the capital flight havens of Latin America. Escaping the
scrutiny of American and European investigators, the Church could now funnel money into banks in Honduras, Uruguay and
Brazil, where official oversight was lax or nonexistent."
In 1980, Moon made more friends in South America when a right-wing alliance of Bolivia military officers and drug
dealers organized what became known as the Cocaine Coup. WACL associates, such as Alfred Candia, coordinated the arrival
of some of the paramilitary operatives who assisted in the violent putsch.
Right-wing Argentine intelligence officers mixed with a contingent of young European neo-fascists collaborating with
Nazi war criminal Barbie in carrying out the bloody coup that overthrew the elected left-of-center government.
The victory put into power a right-wing military dictatorship indebted to the drug lords. Bolivia became South
America's first narco-state.
One of the first well-wishers arriving in La Paz to congratulate the new government was Moon's top lieutenant, Bo Hi
Pak. The Moon organization published a photo of Pak meeting with the new strongman, General Garcia Meza.
After the visit to the mountainous capital, Pak declared, "I have erected a throne for Father Moon in the world's
highest city."
According to later Bolivian government and newspaper reports, a Moon representative invested about $4 million in
preparations for the coup. Bolivia's WACL representatives also played key roles, and CAUSA, one of Moon's anti-communist
organizations, listed as members nearly all the leading Bolivian coup-makers.
Soon, Colonel Luis Arce-Gomez, a coup organizer and the cousin of cocaine kingpin Roberto Suarez, went into partnership
with big narco-traffickers, including Trafficante's Cuban-American smugglers. Nazi war criminal Barbie and his young
neo-fascist followers found new work protecting Bolivia's major cocaine barons and transporting drugs to the border.
"The paramilitary units - conceived by Barbie as a new type of SS - sold themselves to the cocaine barons," German
journalist Kai Hermann wrote. "The attraction of fast money in the cocaine trade was stronger than the idea of a
national socialist revolution in Latin America." [An English translation of Hermann's article was published in Covert
Action Information Bulletin, Winter 1986]
A month after the coup, General Garcia Meza participated in the Fourth Congress of the Latin American Anti-Communist
Confederation, an arm of the World Anti-Communist League. Also attending that Fourth Congress was WACL president Woo Jae
Sung, a leading Moon disciple.
As the drug lords consolidated their power in Bolivia, the Moon organization expanded its presence, too. Hermann
reported that in early 1981, war criminal Barbie and Moon leader Thomas Ward were seen together in apparent prayer.
On May 31, 1981, Moon representatives sponsored a CAUSA reception at the Sheraton Hotel's Hall of Freedom in La Paz.
Moon's lieutenant Bo Hi Pak and Bolivian strongman Garcia Meza led a prayer for President Reagan's recovery from an
assassination attempt.
In his speech, Bo Hi Pak declared, "God had chosen the Bolivian people in the heart of South America as the ones to
conquer communism." According to a later Bolivian intelligence report, the Moon organization sought to recruit an "armed
church" of Bolivians, with about 7,000 Bolivians receiving some paramilitary training.
But by late 1981, the cocaine taint of Bolivia's military junta was so deep and the corruption so staggering that
U.S.-Bolivian relations were stretched to the breaking point.
"The Moon sect disappeared overnight from Bolivia as clandestinely as they had arrived," Hermann reported.
The Cocaine Coup leaders soon found themselves on the run, too. Interior Minister Arce-Gomez was eventually extradited
to Miami and was sentenced to 30 years in prison for drug trafficking. Drug lord Roberto Suarez got a 15-year prison
term. General Garcia Meza became a fugitive from a 30-year sentence imposed on him in Bolivia for abuse of power,
corruption and murder. Barbie was returned to France to face a life sentence for war crimes. He died in 1992.
But Moon's organization suffered few negative repercussions from the Cocaine Coup. By the early 1980s, flush with
seemingly unlimited funds, Moon had moved on to promoting himself with the new Republican administration in Washington.
An invited guest to the Reagan-Bush Inauguration, Moon made his organization useful to President Reagan, Vice President
Bush and other leading Republicans.
Domestic Spying
An early concern of the Reagan administration was the possibility that a popular movement - similar to the anti-Vietnam
War protests - would undermine the hard-line policies that the new U.S. government considered indispensable for stopping
the spread of Soviet influence in Central America.
Staunch anticommunists in the administration also suspected that some groups opposed to U.S. intervention in the region
could be discredited for holding suspect political loyalties. Though Moon's organization itself had been exposed by the
"Koreagate" investigation as a foreign intelligence operation, the administration still turned to it to help probe the
loyalty of Americans.
Starting in 1981, the FBI cooperated with one of Moon's front groups during a five-year nationwide investigation of the
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), a domestic organization critical of Reagan's policies
in Central America.
According to FBI documents obtained by Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan, the FBI collected reports from Moon's
Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP), which was spying on CISPES supporters. The reports came
from CARP members at 10 university campuses around the United States and included commentaries on the purported
political beliefs of Reagan's critics. [Boston Globe, April 20, 1988]
One CARP report called a CISPES supporter "well-educated in Marxism" while other CARP reports attached "clippings
culled from communist-inspired front groups." The Globe investigation reported that Frank Varelli, who worked for the
FBI from 1981 to 1984 coordinating the CISPES probe, said an FBI agent paid members of the Moon organization at Southern
Methodist University while the Moon activists were raiding and disrupting CISPES rallies.
"Every week, an agent I worked with used to go to SMU to pay the Moonies," Varelli said in an interview. Because of the
CARP harassment, CISPES closed its SMU chapter.
While Moon's organization was helping to spy on American citizens, the case against Moon as a suspected intelligence
agent for South Korea was petering out. It's still not clear why.
"I don't think there was any doubt that the Moon newspaper took a virulently pro-South Korea position," Oliver "Buck"
Revell, then a senior FBI official in the national security area, told me. "But whether there was something illegal
about it..." His voice trailed off. As for the internal security investigation of Moon, Revell added only: "It led its
full life."
Mysterious Money
Where Moon gets his cash has been a long-time mystery that few American conservatives have been eager to solve.
"Some Moonie-watchers even believe that some of the business enterprises are actually covers for drug trafficking,"
wrote Scott and Jon Lee Anderson. "Others feel that, despite the disclosures of Koreagate, the Church has simply
continued to do the Korean government's international bidding and is receiving official funds to do so."
While Moon's representatives have refused to detail how they've sustained their far-flung activities - including many
businesses that insiders say lose money - Moon's spokesmen have angrily denied recurring allegations about profiteering
off illegal trafficking in weapons and drugs.
In a typical response to a gun-running question by the Argentine newspaper, Clarin, Moon's representative Ricardo
DeSena responded, "I deny categorically these accusations and also the barbarities that are said about drugs and
brainwashing. Our movement responds to the harmony of the races, nations and religions and proclaims that the family is
the school of love." [Clarin, July 7, 1996]
Without doubt, however, Moon's organization has had a long record of association with organized crime figures,
including ones implicated in the drug trade. Besides collaborating with Sasakawa and other leaders of the Japanese
yakuza and the Cocaine Coup government of Bolivia, Moon's organization developed close ties with the Honduran military
and the Nicaraguan contras who were permeated with drug smugglers.
Moon's organization also used its political clout in Washington to intimidate or discredit government officials and
journalists who tried to investigate those criminal activities. In the mid-1980s, for instance, when journalists and
congressional investigators began probing the evidence of contra-connected drug trafficking, they came under attacks
from Moon's Washington Times.
An Associated Press story that I co-wrote with Brian Barger about a Miami-based federal probe into gun- and
drug-running by the contras was denigrated in an April 11, 1986, front-page Washington Times article with the headline:
"Story on [contra] drug smuggling denounced as political ploy."
When Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, conducted a Senate probe and uncovered additional evidence of contra drug
trafficking, the Washington Times denounced him, too. The newspaper first published articles depicting Kerry's probe as
a wasteful political witch hunt. "Kerry's anti-contra efforts extensive, expensive, in vain," announced the headline of
one Times article on Aug. 13, 1986.
But when Kerry exposed more contra wrongdoing, the Washington Times shifted tactics. In 1987 in front-page articles, it
began accusing Kerry's staff of obstructing justice because their investigation was supposedly interfering with
Reagan-Bush administration efforts to get at the truth.
"Kerry staffers damaged FBI probe," said one Times article that opened with the assertion: "Congressional investigators
for Sen. John Kerry severely damaged a federal drug investigation last summer by interfering with a witness while
pursuing allegations of drug smuggling by the Nicaraguan resistance, federal law enforcement officials said."
[Washington Times, Jan. 21, 1987]
Despite the attacks, Kerry's contra-drug investigation eventually concluded that a number of contra units - both in
Costa Rica and Honduras - were implicated in the cocaine trade.
"It is clear that individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply
network of the contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the contras themselves knowingly
received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers," Kerry's investigation stated in a report issued April
13, 1989. "In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either
while it was occurring or immediately thereafter."
Kerry's investigation also found that Honduras had become an important way station for cocaine shipments heading north
during the contra war.
"Elements of the Honduran military were involved ... in the protection of drug traffickers from 1980 on," the report
said. "These activities were reported to appropriate U.S. government officials throughout the period. Instead of moving
decisively to close down the drug trafficking by stepping up the DEA presence in the country and using the foreign
assistance the United States was extending to the Hondurans as a lever, the United States closed the DEA office in
Tegucigalpa and appears to have ignored the issue." [Drug, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy - the Kerry Report -
December 1988.]
The Kerry investigation represented an indirect challenge to Vice President George H.W. Bush, who had been named by
President Reagan to head the South Florida Task Force for interdicting the flow of drugs into the United States and was
later put in charge of the National Narcotics Border Interdiction System.
In short, Bush was the lead official in the U.S. government to cope with the drug trade, which he himself had dubbed a
national security threat.
If the American voters came to believe that Bush had compromised his anti-drug responsibilities to protect the image of
the Nicaraguan contras and other rightists in Central America, that judgment could have threatened the political future
of Bush and his politically ambitious family.
By publicly challenging press and congressional investigations of this touchy subject, the Washington Times helped keep
an unfavorable media spotlight from swinging in the direction of the Vice President.
Drug Evidence
The evidence shows that there was much more to the contra drug issue than either the Reagan-Bush administration or
Moon's organization wanted the American people to know in the 1980s.
The evidence - assembled over the years by investigators at the CIA, the Justice Department and other federal agencies
- indicates that Bolivia's Cocaine Coup operatives were only the first in a line of clever drug smugglers that tried to
squeeze under the protective umbrella of Reagan's favorite covert operation, the contra war. [For details, see Robert
Parry, Lost History , or for a summary of the contra-drug evidence, see Consortiumnews.com's "Gary Webb's Death: American Tragedy." ]
Other cocaine smugglers soon followed, cozying up to the contras and sharing some of the profits, as a way to minimize
investigative interest by the Reagan-Bush law enforcement agencies.
The contra-connected smugglers included the Medellin cartel, the Panamanian government of Manuel Noriega, the Honduran
military, the Honduran-Mexican smuggling ring of Ramon Matta Ballesteros, and the Miami-based anti-Castro Cubans with
their connections to Mafia operations throughout the United States.
The drug traffickers' strategy also worked. In some cases, U.S. intelligence officials bent over backwards not to take
timely notice of contra-connected drug trafficking out of fear that fuller investigations would embarrass the contras
and their patrons in the Reagan-Bush administration.
For instance, on Oct. 22, 1982, a cable written by the CIA's Directorate of Operations stated, "There are indications
of links between [a U.S. religious organization] and two Nicaraguan counter-revolutionary groups. These links involve an
exchange in [the United States] of narcotics for arms."
The cable added that the participants were planning a meeting in Costa Rica for such a deal. When the cable arrived,
senior CIA officials were concerned. On Oct. 27, CIA headquarters asked for more information from a U.S. law enforcement
agency.
The law enforcement agency expanded on its report by telling the CIA that representatives of the contra FDN and another
contra force, the UDN, would be meeting with several unidentified U.S. citizens. But then, the CIA reversed itself,
deciding that it wanted no more information on the grounds that U.S. citizens were involved.
"In light of the apparent participation of U.S. persons throughout, agree you should not pursue the matter further,"
CIA headquarters wrote on Nov. 3, 1982. Two weeks later, after discouraging additional investigation, CIA headquarters
suggested it might be necessary to knock down the allegations of a guns-for-drugs deal as "misinformation."
The CIA's Latin American Division, however, responded on Nov. 18, 1982, that several contra officials had gone to San
Francisco for the meetings with supporters, presumably as part of the same guns-for-drugs deal. But the CIA inspector
general found no additional information about that deal in CIA files.
Also, by keeping the names censored when the documents were released in 1998, the CIA prevented outside investigators
from examining whether the "U.S. religious organization" had any affiliation with Moon's network of quasi-religious
groups, which were assisting the contras at that time.
Red Flags
As Moon continued to expand his influence in American politics, some Republicans began to raise red flags.
In 1983, the GOP's moderate Ripon Society charged that the New Right had entered "an alliance of expediency" with
Moon's church. Ripon's chairman, Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, released a study which alleged that the College Republican
National Committee "solicited and received" money from Moon's Unification Church in 1981. The study also accused Reed
Irvine's Accuracy in Media of benefiting from low-cost or volunteer workers supplied by Moon.
Leach said the Unification Church has "infiltrated the New Right and the party it wants to control, the Republican
Party, and infiltrated the media as well." Leach's news conference was disrupted when then-college GOP leader Grover
Norquist accused Leach of lying. (Norquist is now a prominent conservative leader in Washington with close ties to the
highest levels of George W. Bush's administration.)
Despite periodic fretting over Moon's influence, American conservatives continued to accept his deep-pocket assistance.
When White House aide Oliver North was scratching for support for the Nicaraguan contras, for instance, the Washington
Times established a contra fund-raising operation.
By the mid-1980s, Moon's Unification Church had carved out a niche as an acceptable part of the American Right. In one
speech to his followers, Moon boasted that "without knowing it, even President Reagan is being guided by Father [Moon]."
Yet, Moon also made clear that his longer-range goal was destroying the U.S. Constitution and America's democratic form
of government.
"History will make the position of Reverend Moon clear, and his enemies, the American population and government will
bow down to him," Moon said, speaking of himself in the third person. "That is Father's tactic, the natural subjugation
of the American government and population."
In September 1987, conservative columnist Andrew Ferguson cited some of Moon's anti-American sentiments as cause for
concern, despite his appealing anticommunism.
"There is little else in Unificationism that American conservatives will find compelling," except, of course, the
money, Ferguson wrote in the American Spectator. "They're the best in town as far as putting their money with their
mouth is," Ferguson quoted one Washington-based conservative as saying.
Though Moon's money sources remained shrouded in secrecy, his cash undeniably gave the Right an edge over its political
adversaries.
After the Iran-Contra scandal exploded in fall 1986, the Washington Times and other Moon-related organizations rushed
to the battlements to defend Reagan's White House and Oliver North.
Ronald S. Godwin, who was a link between Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Moon's Washington Times, raised funds
for North through a group called the Interamerican Partnership, which was a forerunner to North's own Freedom Alliance.
[See Common Cause Magazine, Fall 1993]
Another Moon-connected group, the American Freedom Coalition, went to bat for North. According to Andrew Leigh, who
worked for a Moon front called Global Image Associates, AFC broadcast a pro-North video, "Ollie North: Fight for
Freedom," more than 600 times on more than 100 TV stations.
Leigh quoted one AFC official as saying that AFC received $5 million to $6 million from business interests associated
with Moon. AFC also bragged that it helped put George H.W. Bush into the White House in 1988 by distributing 30 million
pieces of political literature. [Washington Post, Oct. 15, 1989]
When Vice President Bush was struggling in his 1988 presidential campaign against Democratic nominee, Massachusetts
Governor Michael Dukakis, Moon's Washington Times came to the rescue again publishing a slanted story about Dukakis's
mental health.
Times reporter Gene Grabowski had interviewed a Dukakis relative and asked whether Dukakis had ever sought psychiatric
help during a low period in his life. "It's possible, but I doubt it," the relative responded.
Grabowski's editors, however, snipped out the phrase "but I doubt it" while keeping the phrase "it's possible" and then
spotlighting the story under a headline, "Dukakis Kin Hints at Sessions."
Dukakis's supposedly questionable mental health became an important theme for the Republicans. President Reagan
personally underscored the message by referring to Dukakis as a "cripple," which forced more mainstream publications to
reprise the suspicions about the suspected psychiatric treatment.
The story spread doubts among the electorate about Dukakis's fitness for office. For his part, Grabowski, a former
Associated Press reporter, resigned in protest of the distortion, but by then the damage to Dukakis was done.
Weird Behavior
But even as Moon consolidated his influence in Washington during the 12-year Reagan-Bush reign, Moon's weird behavior
was splitting the church leadership and making some American conservatives nervous.
In 1989, published reports disclosed that Moon had declared that one of his sons, Heung Jin Moon who died in a car
crash in 1984, had come back to life in the body of a church member from Zimbabwe.
The muscular African - known inside the church as the "black Heung Jin" - then compelled church leaders to stand before
him and engage in humiliating self-criticisms, sometimes making them sing songs.
During one of these rituals in December 1988, the Zimbabwean severely beat longtime Moon lieutenant Bo Hi Pak, who was
then publisher of the Washington Times. Pak reportedly suffered brain damage and impaired speech from the assault, which
church sources told me had been sanctioned by Moon after Pak had fallen out of favor. Afterwards, Pak was transferred
back to Asia.
Commenting on the beating of Pak, former Washington Times editor William P. Cheshire wrote, "Where the Moonies are
concerned, it seems clear, we are dealing with something besides just an exotic cult. The Pak beating smacks strongly of
Jonestown [the site of a mass murder-suicide by a religious cult].
"And with Moon lavishing hundreds of millions of dollars a year on newspapers, magazines and political-action groups in
this country and abroad, such occult and aggressive practices give rise to secular apprehensions. If the 'reincarnation'
doesn't rock those conservative shops that have been taking money from Moon, not even fire-breathing dragons would
disturb them." [San Diego Union-Tribune, April 9, 1989]
But Moon's organization had proved itself too valuable to be cast aside, regardless of the strange behavior and the
questionable sources of money. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Washington Times was the daily billboard where
conservatives placed their messages to each other and to the outside world.
In 1991, when conservative commentator Wesley Pruden was named the new editor of the Washington Times, President George
H.W. Bush invited Pruden to a private White House lunch. The purpose, Bush explained, was "just to tell you how valuable
the Times has become in Washington, where we read it every day." [Washington Times, May 17, 1992]
Government documents showed that the Reagan-Bush team was shielding Moon's operation from investigations at the same
time Moon's newspaper was doing the same for the administration.
According to Justice Department documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, federal authorities were
rebuffing hundreds of requests - many from common citizens - for examination of Moon's foreign ties and money sources.
Typical of the responses was a May 18, 1989, letter from Assistant Attorney General Carol T. Crawford rejecting the
possibility that Moon's organization be required to divulge its foreign-funded propaganda under the Foreign Agent
Registration Act (FARA).
"With respect to FARA, the Department is faced with First Amendment considerations involving the free exercise of
religion," Crawford said. "As you know, the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom is not limited to the
traditional, well-established religions."
A 1992 PBS documentary about Moon's political empire and its free-spending habits started another flurry of citizen
demands for an investigation, according to the Justice Department files.
One letter from a private citizen to the Justice Department stated, "I write in consternation and disgust at the
apparent support, or at least the sheltering, of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, a foreign agent ... who has subverted the
American political system for the past 20 years.... Did Reagan and/or Bush receive financial support from Moon or his
agents during any of their election campaigns in violation of federal law?"
Another letter complained that "apparently Moon gave the Bush and Reagan campaigns millions of dollars in support and
helped fund the [Nicaraguan] contras as well as sponsoring rallys [sic] in 50 states to support the Persian Gulf war. No
wonder the Justice Department turns a blind eye?"
"I feel it is necessary to find out who is financing the operation and why other countries are trying to direct the
policies of the United States," wrote another citizen. "If even one-half of the allegations are true, Moon and his
assistants belong in jail rather than being welcomed and supported at the highest level of Washington."
As public demands mounted for Moon and his front groups to register as foreign agents, the Justice Department added a
new argument to its reasons to say no. In an Aug. 19, 1992, letter, Assistant Attorney General Robert S. Mueller
dismissed a suggestion that the Moon-backed American Freedom Council should register under FARA because Moon, a South
Korean citizen, had obtained U.S. resident-alien status - or a "green card."
Mueller, who is now FBI director, wrote that "in the absence of a foreign principal, there is no requirement for
registration. … The Reverend Sun Myung Moon enjoys the status of permanent resident alien in the United States and
therefore does not fall within FARA's definition of foreign principal. It follows that the Act is not applicable to the
[American Freedom] Council because of its association with Reverend Moon."
Ironically, Mueller, who went out of his way to find reasons not to investigate Moon, touts in his official FBI
biography his background investigating and prosecuting "major financial fraud, terrorist and public corruption cases, as
well as narcotics conspiracies and international money launderers."
Hidden Money
Some prominent figures on the American Right went to great lengths to conceal their financial connections to Moon,
making sure his assistance passed through several hands before it got to their pockets.
For instance, on Jan. 28, 1995, a beaming Rev. Jerry Falwell told his Old Time Gospel Hour congregation news that
seemed heaven sent. The rotund televangelist hailed two Virginia businessmen as financial saviors of debt-ridden Liberty
University, the fundamentalist Christian school that Falwell had made the crown jewel of his Religious Right empire.
"They had to borrow money, hock their houses, hock everything," said Falwell. "Thank God for friends like Dan Reber and
Jimmy Thomas." Falwell's congregation rose as one to applaud. The star of the moment was Daniel Reber, who was standing
behind Falwell. Thomas was not present.
Reber and Thomas earned Falwell's public gratitude by excusing the Lynchburg, Virginia, school of about one-half of its
$73 million debt. In the late 1980s, that flood of red ink had forced Falwell to abandon his Moral Majority political
organization and the debt nearly drowned Liberty University in bankruptcy.
Reber and Thomas came to Falwell's rescue in the nick of time. Their non-profit Christian Heritage Foundation of
Forest, Virginia, snapped up a big chunk of Liberty's debt for $2.5 million, a fraction of its face value. Thousands of
small religious investors who had bought church construction bonds through a Texas company were the big losers.
But Falwell was joyous. He told local reporters that the moment was "the greatest single day of financial advantage" in
the school's history.
Left unmentioned in the happy sermon was the identity of the bigger guardian angel who had appeared at the propitious
moment to protect Falwell's financial interests. Falwell's secret benefactor was Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed
South Korean messiah who is controversial with many fundamentalist Christians because of his strange Biblical
interpretations and his alleged brainwashing of thousands of young Americans, often shattering their bonds with their
biological families.
Covertly, Moon had helped bail out Liberty University through one of his front groups which funneled $3.5 million to
the Reber-Thomas Christian Heritage Foundation, the non-profit that had purchased the school's debt.
I discovered this Moon-Falwell connection while looking for something else: how much Moon's Women's Federation for
World Peace had paid former President George H.W. Bush for a series of speeches in Asia in 1995. I obtained the
federation's Internal Revenue Service records but discovered that Bush's undisclosed speaking fee was buried in a line
item of $13.6 million for conference expenses.
There was, however, another listing for a $3.5 million "educational" grant to the Christian Heritage Foundation. A call
to the Virginia corporate records office confirmed that the foundation was the one run by Reber and Thomas.
In a subsequent interview, the Women Federation's vice president Susan Fefferman confirmed that the $3.5 million grant
had gone to "Mr. Falwell's people" for the benefit of Liberty University. "It was Dan Reber," she said. But she could
not recall much else about the grant, even though it was by far the largest single grant awarded by the federation that
year.
For details on the grant, Fefferman referred me to Keith Cooperrider, the federation's treasurer. Cooperrider was also
the chief financial officer of Moon's Washington Times and a longtime Unification Church functionary.
Cooperrider did not return calls seeking comment. Falwell and Reber also failed to respond to my calls, though Falwell
later defended his acceptance of the money by saying it had no influence on his ministry.
"If the American Atheists Society or Saddam Hussein himself ever sent an unrestricted gift to any of my ministries,"
Falwell said, "be assured I will operate on Billy Sunday's philosophy: The Devil's had it long enough, and quickly cash
the check." [See "Moon-Related Funds Filter to Evangelicals," Christianity Today, posted on Web, Feb. 9, 1998]
But the public record also reveals that Falwell solicited Moon's help in bailing out Liberty University. In a lawsuit
filed in the Circuit Court of Bedford County - a community in southwestern Virginia - two of Reber's former business
associates alleged that Reber and Falwell flew to South Korea on Jan. 9, 1994, on a seven-day "secret trip" to meet
"with representatives of the Unification Church."
The court document states that Reber and Falwell were accompanied to South Korea by Ronald S. Godwin, who had been
executive director of Falwell's Moral Majority before signing on as vice president of Moon's Washington Times.
According to Bedford County court records, Reber, Falwell and Godwin also had discussions at Liberty University in 1993
with Dong Moon Joo, one of Moon's right-hand men and president of the Washington Times.
Though Reber was queried about the purposes of the Moon-connected meetings in the court papers, he settled the business
dispute before responding to interrogatories or submitting to a deposition. He denied any legal wrongdoing.
But Moon's secret financial ties to Falwell raised some sensitive political questions since the bail-out came at a time
when Falwell was collaborating with other conservatives who were producing videos that accused President Bill Clinton of
murder and cocaine trafficking.
The videos - "Circle of Power" and "The Clinton Chronicles" - were produced by Pat Matrisciana and Larry Nichols and
were distributed nationwide by Falwell's Liberty Alliance.
Reaching hundreds of thousands of viewers, the videos helped stoke the fires of the "Clinton scandals," which kept the
Clinton administration on the political defensive for much of its eight years and helped create the hostile environment
that made the Clinton impeachment possible in 1998.
Did the $3.5 million from Moon's front group give Falwell the means to become a national pitchman for the conspiracy
videos? Did Moon help bankroll the scandal mongering as part of a design to cripple the Clinton Presidency and pave the
way for an administration more to Moon's liking?
Although the most serious allegations in the videos lacked any credible evidence, the Christian Right's Citizens for
Honest Government continued to peddle the allegations of Clinton-connected cocaine smuggling through the Mena, Arkansas,
airport in another video, "The Mena Cover-up."
In a promotional letter, the group's president, Pat Matrisciana, declared that "with Bill Clinton in the White House,
it is entirely possible - even probable - that U.S. government policy at the highest levels is being controlled by the
narcotics kingpins in Colombia."
The irony of the allegation, however, was that Falwell's financial angel - Sun Myung Moon - was the one with mysterious
connections to South American drug lords dating back at least to his cozy relations with Bolivia's Cocaine Coup in the
early 1980s.
Moon, whose history also included close ties to the Asian yakuza crime organization and longstanding allegations of
money laundering, had achieved extraordinary influence at the highest levels of the U.S. government by funneling
billions of dollars into conservative and Republican causes.
Still, the Mena accusations against Clinton were kept alive through the 1990s by right-wingers although a two-year
investigation by the Republican-controlled House Banking Committee failed to turn up any incriminating evidence.
"We haven't come up with anything to support these allegations concerning then-Governor Clinton," committee spokesman
David Runkel told me. But the Republican-controlled committee held off on publishing a long-promised report that would
have formally cleared Clinton.
Falwell reached a conclusion, too, that the "Clinton Chronicles" may have been unfair, but he still refused to
apologize to Clinton. On CNBC's "Rivera Live" on March 25, 1998, Falwell said, "If I had it to do all over again, I
wouldn't do it, and I'm sorry I did."
But he immediately sought to push the blame back onto Clinton: "The fact is the President has over these last five
years, there's just a continual cloud. And - I would think that he himself would want to get this behind him and deal
with it forthrightly."
Hating America
By the mid-1990s, Sun Myung Moon represented a potential embarrassment to the American Right because Moon had grown
harshly anti-American after his political ally, George H.W. Bush, was ousted from office.
The conservatives were lucky that few American news outlets were interested in the increasingly bizarre utterances from
the South Korean benefactor of U.S. conservative causes.
In earlier years, though privately disdaining America's concept of individual liberty, Moon publicly stressed his love
for the United States. On Sept. 18, 1976, for instance, Moon staged a red-white-and-blue flag-draped rally at the
Washington Monument, declaring that "I not only respect America, but truly love this nation."
Even years later, Unification Church recruiters would show that video to young Americans. One recruit, college freshman
John Stacey, was impressed with the patriotic images after he was shown the video by the Moon front, Collegiate
Association for Research of Principles (CARP).
"American flags were everywhere," recalled Stacey, a thin young man from central New Jersey. "The first video they
showed me was Reverend Moon praising America and praising Christianity." In 1992, Stacey considered himself a patriotic
American and a faithful Christian.
Stacey soon joined the Unification Church and rose to become a Pacific Northwest leader in CARP. "They liked to hang me
up because I'm young and I'm American," Stacey told me. "It's a good image for the church. They try to create the
all-American look."
But Stacey gradually discovered a different reality. At a 1995 leadership conference at a church compound in Anchorage,
Alaska, Stacey met face-to-face with Moon who was sitting on a throne-like chair while a group of American followers,
many middle-aged converts from the 1970s, sat at his feet like children.
"Reverend Moon looked at me straight in the eye and said, 'America is Satanic. America is so Satanic that even
hamburgers should be considered evil, because they come from America,'" Stacey said. "Hamburgers! My father was a
butcher, so that bothered me.... I started feeling that I was betraying my country."
Moon's criticism of Jesus also unsettled Stacey. "In the church, it's very anti-Jesus," Stacey said. "Jesus failed
miserably. He died a lonely death. Reverend Moon is the hero that comes and saves pathetic Jesus. Reverend Moon is
better than God.... That's why I left the Moonies. Because it started to feel like idolatry. He's promoting idolatry."
After years in the sunlight of acceptance from the Reagan-Bush administrations, Moon's entered years of eclipse as his
influence faded during the Clinton administration and his animosity toward the United States grew.
"America has become the kingdom of individualism, and its people are individualists," Moon preached in Tarrytown, N.Y.,
on March 5, 1995. "You must realize that America has become the kingdom of Satan."
In a speech to his followers on Aug. 4, 1996, Moon vowed that the church's eventual dominance over the United States
would be followed by the liquidation of American individualism and the establishment of Moon's theocratic rule.
"Americans who continue to maintain their privacy and extreme individualism are foolish people," Moon declared. "The
world will reject Americans who continue to be so foolish. Once you have this great power of love, which is big enough
to swallow entire America, there may be some individuals who complain inside your stomach. However, they will be
digested."
During the same sermon, Moon decried assertive American women.
"American women have the tendency to consider that women are in the subject position," he said. "However, woman's shape
is like that of a receptacle. The concave shape is a receiving shape. Whereas, the convex shape symbolizes giving....
Since man contains the seed of life, he should plant it in the deepest place. Does woman contain the seed of life?
Absolutely not. Then if you desire to receive the seed of life, you have to become an absolute object. In order to
qualify as an absolute object, you need to demonstrate absolute faith, love and obedience to your subject. Absolute
obedience means that you have to negate yourself 100 percent."
Though Moon had downplayed his provocative sexual beliefs since coming to America, sometimes the old themes popped up.
After Moon spoke in Minneapolis on Oct. 26, 1996, a reporter for the Unification News, an internal newsletter, commented
that "what the audience heard was not the usual things that one would expect to hear from a minister. Reverend Moon's
talk included a very frank discussion of the purpose, role and true value of the sexual organs." [See Unification News,
December 1996]
On May 1, 1997, Moon told a group of followers that "the country that represents Satan's harvest is America." Moon also
declared that "Satan created this kind of Hell on Earth," the United States. He again denounced American women as having
"inherited the line of prostitutes. … American women are even worse because they practice free sex just because they
enjoy it."
Lashing out at the United States again, Moon decried American tolerance of homosexuals, whom he likened to "dirty
dung-eating dogs." For Americans who "truly love such dogs," Moon said, "they also become like dung-eating dogs and
produce that quality of life." [Washington Post, Nov. 23-24, 1997]
Bush to the Rescue
In fall 1996, another of Sun Myung Moon's forays into the high-priced world of media and politics was in trouble. South
American journalists were writing scathingly about his plan to open a regional newspaper that Moon hoped would give him
the same influence in Latin America that the Washington Times had in the United States.
As publication day ticked closer for Moon's Tiempos del Mundo, leading South American newspapers recounted unsavory
chapters of Moon's history, including his links with South Korea's fearsome intelligence service and with violent
anticommunist organizations that bordered on neo-fascist.
Moon's disciples fumed about the critical stories and accused the Argentine news media of trying to sabotage Moon's
plans for an inaugural gala in Buenos Aires on Nov. 23, 1996. "The local press was trying to undermine the event,"
complained the church's internal newsletter, Unification News.
Given the controversy, Argentina's president, Carlos Menem, rejected Moon's invitation. But Moon had a trump card to
play in his bid for South American respectability: the endorsement of an ex-President of the United States, George H.W.
Bush.
Agreeing to speak at the newspaper's launch, Bush flew aboard a private plane, arriving in Buenos Aires on Nov. 22.
Bush stayed at Menem's official residence, the Olivos, though Bush's presence didn't change Menem's mind about attending
the gala.
Still, as the biggest VIP at the inaugural gala, Bush saved the day, Moon's followers gushed. "Mr. Bush's presence as
keynote speaker gave the event invaluable prestige," wrote the Unification News. "Father [Moon] and Mother [Mrs. Moon]
sat with several of the True Children [Moon's offspring] just a few feet from the podium" where Bush spoke before about
900 of Moon's guests at the Sheraton Hotel.
"I want to salute Reverend Moon, who is the founder of the Washington Times and also of Tiempos del Mundo," Bush
declared. "A lot of my friends in South America don't know about the Washington Times, but it is an independent voice.
The editors of the Washington Times tell me that never once has the man with the vision interfered with the running of
the paper, a paper that in my view brings sanity to Washington, D.C. I am convinced that Tiempos del Mundo is going to
do the same thing" in Latin America.
Bush's speech was so effusive that it surprised even Moon's followers. "Once again, heaven turned a disappointment into
a victory," the Unification News exulted. "Everyone was delighted to hear his compliments. We knew he would give an
appropriate and 'nice' speech, but praise in Father's presence was more than we expected.... It was vindication. We
could just hear a sigh of relief from Heaven."
While Bush's assertion about Moon's newspaper as a voice of "sanity" may be a matter of opinion, Bush's vouching for
the Washington Times' editorial independence simply wasn't true.
Almost since it opened in 1982, a string of senior editors and correspondents have resigned, citing the manipulation of
the news by Moon and his subordinates. The first editor, James Whelan, resigned in 1984, confessing that "I have blood
on my hands" for helping Moon's church achieve greater legitimacy.
But Bush's boosterism was just what Moon needed in South America. "The day after," the Unification News observed, "the
press did a 180-degree about-turn once they realized that the event had the support of a U.S. President." With Bush's
help, Moon had gained another beachhead for his worldwide business-religious-political-media empire.
After the event, Menem told reporters from La Nacion that Bush had claimed privately to be only a mercenary who did not
really know Moon. "Bush told me he came and charged money to do it," Menem said. [La Nacion, Nov. 26, 1996].
But Bush was not telling Menem the whole story. By fall 1996, Bush and Moon had been working in political tandem for at
least a decade and a half. The ex-President also had been earning huge speaking fees as a front man for Moon for more
than a year.
In September 1995, Bush and his wife, Barbara, gave six speeches in Asia for the Women's Federation for World Peace, a
group led by Moon's wife, Hak Ja Han Moon. In one speech on Sept. 14 to 50,000 Moon supporters in Tokyo, Bush insisted
that "what really counts is faith, family and friends."
Mrs. Moon followed the ex-President to the podium and announced that "it has to be Reverend Moon to save the United
States, which is in decline because of the destruction of the family and moral decay."[Washington Post, Sept. 15, 1995]
In summer 1996, Bush was lending his prestige to Moon again. Bush addressed the Moon-connected Family Federation for
World Peace in Washington, an event that gained notoriety when comedian Bill Cosby tried to back out of his contract
after learning of Moon's connection. Bush had no such qualms. [Washington Post, July 30, 1996]
Throughout these public appearances for Moon, Bush's office refused to divulge how much Moon-affiliated organizations
have paid the ex-President. But estimates of Bush's fee for the Buenos Aires appearance alone ran between $100,000 and
$500,000. Sources close to the Unification Church have put the total Bush-Moon package in the millions, with one source
telling me that Bush stood to make as much as $10 million total from Moon's organization.
The senior George Bush may have had a political motive as well. By 1996, sources close to Bush were saying the
ex-President was working hard to enlist well-to-do conservatives and their money behind the presidential candidacy of
his son, George W. Bush. Moon was one of the deepest pockets in right-wing circles.
Fishing for Influence
In a sermon on Jan. 2, 1996, Moon was unusually blunt about how he expected the church's wealth to buy influence among
the powerful in South America, just as it did in Washington.
"Father has been practicing the philosophy of fishing here," Moon said, through an interpreter who spoke of Moon in the
third person. "He [Moon] gave the bait to Uruguay and then the bigger fish of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay kept their
mouths open, waiting for a bigger bait silently. The bigger the fish, the bigger the mouth. Therefore, Father is able to
hook them more easily."
As part of his business strategy, Moon explained that he would dot the continent with small airstrips and construct
bases for submarines which could evade Coast Guard patrols. His airfield project would allow tourists to visit "hidden,
untouched, small places" throughout South America, he said.
"Therefore, they need small airplanes and small landing strips in the remote countryside," Moon said. "In the near
future, we will have many small airports throughout the world." Moon wanted the submarines because "there are so many
restrictions due to national boundaries worldwide. If you have a submarine, you don't have to be bound in that way."
(As strange as Moon's submarine project might sound, a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Japan, dated Feb. 18, 1994, cited
press reports that a Moon-connected Japanese company, Toen Shoji, had bought 40 Russian submarines. The subs were
supposedly bound for North Korea where they were to be dismantled and melted down as scrap.)
Moon also recognized the importance of media in protecting his curious operations, which sounded a lot like an
invitation to drug traffickers.
He boasted to his followers that with his vast array of political and media assets, he will dominate the new
Information Age. "That is why Father has been combining and organizing scholars from all over the world, and also
newspaper organizations - in order to make propaganda," Moon said.
With his background and prominence, Moon and his organization would seem a natural attraction for U.S. government
scrutiny. But Moon may have purchased insurance against any intrusive investigation by buying so many powerful American
politicians that Washington's power centers can no more afford the scrutiny than he can.
Even as he turned his back on the United States in the 1990s, Moon remembered to keep up some of his important
friendships in the United States. In 1997, his Washington Times Foundation made a $1 million-plus donation to George
H.W. Bush's presidential library in Texas. [Washington Post, Nov. 24, 1997]
Despite his confidence about hooking fish, Moon's relocation to Uruguay didn't go entirely without a hitch. More
evidence surfaced about Moon's alleged South American money laundry.
In 1996, the Uruguayan bank employees union blew the whistle on one scheme in which some 4,200 female Japanese
followers of Moon allegedly walked into the Moon-controlled Banco de Credito in Montevideo and deposited as much as
$25,000 each.
The money from the women went into the account of an anonymous association called Cami II, which was controlled by
Moon's Unification Church. In one day, Cami II received $19 million and, by the time the parade of women ended, the
total had swelled to about $80 million.
It was not clear where the money originated, nor how many other times Moon's organization has used this tactic -
sometimes known as "smurfing" - to transfer untraceable cash into Uruguay. Authorities did not push the money-laundering
investigation, apparently out of deference to Moon's political influence and fear of disrupting Uruguay's banking
industry.
Still, Opus Dei, a powerful Roman Catholic group, and some investigative journalists kept up pressure for a fuller
examination of financial irregularities at Moon's bank. Sometimes, the critics found their work a risky business.
In January 1997, only two months after the money-laundering flap, Pablo Alfano, a reporter for El Observador who had
been investigating Moon's operations, was kidnapped by two unidentified men. The men claimed not to belong to Moon's
Unification Church, but threatened Alfano at gunpoint unless he revealed his sources on Moon's operations.
One gunman shoved a revolver into Alfano's mouth and warned "this is no joke." After holding Alfano for 30 minutes, the
gunmen returned the reporter to his house, with a warning that they knew his movements and those of his family. Despite
the threats, the reporter said he refused to disclose his sources. But the message was clear: he should drop his
investigation. [fn, FBIS, Jan. 30, 1997.]
Other critics condemned Moon's heavy-handed tactics. "The first thing we ought to do is clarify to the people [of
Uruguay] that Moon's sect is a type of modern pirate that came to the country to perform obscure money operations, such
as money laundering," said Jorge Zabalza, who was a leader of the Movimiento de Participacion Popular, part of
Montevideo's ruling left-of-center political coalition. "This sect is a kind of religious mob that is trying to get
public support to pursue its business."
Finally, in 1998, Uruguayan Central Bank president Ramon Diaz pushed the long-whispered allegations against Moon's bank
into the parliamentary record. Diaz accused Banco de Credito of violating financial rules, operating at a constant loss,
practicing dubious credit policies with insolvent customers and holding inadequate cash reserves.
Diaz demanded that the bank add $30 million in capital within 48 hours or face government intervention. Within hours,
panicked customers pulled $10 million in deposits out of the bank. Diaz's goal of forcing Moon to sell the bank seemed
within reach. One senator claimed that Diaz hoped an Argentine investment group would step in and take over the bank.
Moon proved, however, that his seemingly bottomless well of cash could fill the bank's vaults in a crisis. Before the
48-hour deadline, Moon transferred $30 million into the ailing bank and retained control. Banco de Credito continued to
suffer chronic financial troubles. The bank again slipped into a deficit estimated at $120 million.
On September 18, 1998, Uruguay's central bank intervened to seize control of the management of Moon's Banco de Credito.
The action followed a warning a day earlier that the bank was violating the nation's liquidity rules by running massive
debts and was in need of recapitalization. Instead, Moon-connected companies took out an additional $35 million in
loans, leaving the bank effectively devoid of assets. Uruguay's bank controller put the bank's accumulated debt at $161
million.
Moon's need to "crater" one of his principal financial institutions was not the sign of an up-and-up businessman who
simply supported political projects because he had plenty of extra money and a strong sense of civic duty.
First-Hand Evidence
In Nansook Moon's 1998 memoirs, In the Shadow of the Moons, Moon's ex-daughter-in-law - writing under her maiden name
Nansook Hong - alleged that Moon's organization had engaged in a long-running conspiracy to smuggle cash into the United
States and to deceive U.S. Customs agents.
"The Unification Church was a cash operation," Nansook Hong wrote. "I watched Japanese church leaders arrive at regular
intervals at East Garden [the Moon compound north of New York City] with paper bags full of money, which the Reverend
Moon would either pocket or distribute to the heads of various church-owned business enterprises at his breakfast table.
"The Japanese had no trouble bringing the cash into the United States; they would tell customs agents that they were in
America to gamble at Atlantic City. In addition, many businesses run by the church were cash operations, including
several Japanese restaurants in New York City. I saw deliveries of cash from church headquarters that went directly into
the wall safe in Mrs. Moon's closet."
Mrs. Moon pressed her daughter-in-law into one cash-smuggling incident after a trip to Japan in 1992, Nansook Hong
wrote.
Mrs. Moon had received "stacks of money" and divvied it up among her entourage for the return trip through Seattle,
Nansook Hong wrote. "I was given $20,000 in two packs of crisp new bills," she recalled. "I hid them beneath the tray in
my makeup case.... I knew that smuggling was illegal, but I believed the followers of Sun Myung Moon answered to higher
laws."
U.S. currency laws require that cash amounts above $10,000 be declared at Customs when the money enters or leaves the
country. It is also illegal to conspire with couriers to bring in lesser amounts when the total exceeds the $10,000
figure.
In the Shadow of the Moons raised anew the question of whether Moon's money laundering - from mysterious sources in
both Asia and South America - has made him a conduit for illicit foreign money influencing the U.S. government and
American politics.
Moon's spokesmen have denied that he launders drug money or moves money from other criminal enterprises. They attribute
his wealth to donations and business profits, but have refused to open Moon's records for public inspection.
Still, Nansook Hong's first-hand allegations and the alleged money-laundering in Uruguay might reasonably have prompted
more questions in the United States about how Moon could continue lavishing billions of dollars on U.S. conservative
publications and causes.
But those follow-up questions were never asked. Moon apparently had hooked too many large-mouthed fish in both South
and North America.
*************
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book,
Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'