Religion Mun kor

Justice Protection

Despite a brief stint in federal prison for tax fraud – a prosecution which Reagan's Justice Department tried unsuccessfully to halt – Moon saw his "respectability" climb through the 1980s. According to Justice Department documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act, Moon also won protection from the Reagan-Bush administrations from any new criminal investigation.

Federal authorities rebuffed 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 stated. "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 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?" The names of letter writers were withheld for privacy reasons.

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."

The 'Green Card' Defense

As 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."

"In the absence of a foreign principal, there is no requirement for registration," Mueller wrote. "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."

The rote denials continued with little change into the Clinton years. But the legal situation with Moon may be in flux. As immigration laws were being toughened in 1996 to permit easier deportation of aliens convicted of past crimes, Moon – a felon from his tax-evasion conviction – relocated his base of operation from New York to Uruguay.

Citing privacy laws, U.S. officials declined to tell me if Moon has renounced his "green card." Moon's spokesmen also have not responded to questions about Moon's immigration status. A consular official at Uruguay's embassy in Washington told me that Moon does not now have residency status in Uruguay and still travels to Uruguay with a multiple-entry visa on his South Korean passport. But if Moon does shift his permanent residency to Uruguay, that could eliminate some obstacles to investigation of his political operations here.

Still, the Reagan-Bush administrations went beyond just blocking criminal investigations of Moon. Despite evidence of Moon's collaboration with South Korean intelligence in the 1970s and his high-profile support of the Bolivian Cocaine Coup regime in 1980, the Republicans seem to have shut down any significant intelligence collection about Moon's activities after taking power in 1981.

Responses to recent FOIA requests indicate that only scattered newspaper clips about Moon found their way into U.S. intelligence files during the Reagan-Bush years. In a recent interview, a senior U.S. official confirmed that there is little fresh intelligence about the secret sources of Moon's money or his possible collaboration in the foreign penetration of U.S. institutions.

Spying on Americans

Perhaps even more remarkable, the Reagan administration showed greater respect for Moon's constitutional rights than those of some U.S. citizens. 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 cited by The Boston Globe. [April 20, 1988]

In 1981, the FBI began collecting reports from Moon's Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) which was spying on CISPES supporters. Those reports came from CARP members at 10 university campuses around the United States and included the purported political beliefs of Reagan's critics. 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 reported that Frank Varelli, who worked for the FBI from 1981-84 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.

Moon did not lose his inside track at the White House until Bill Clinton's election in 1992. But Moon continues to ride high in Washington. Moon sustains The Washington Times despite a never-ending hemorrhage of red ink and he keeps up close political ties with prominent Republicans. Moon's Washington Times Foundation flashed the cash again recently, with a $1 million-plus donation to George Bush's presidential library in Texas. [WP, Nov. 24, 1997]

'Cemetery-Gate'

Moon's news outlets also continue to pay dividends by keeping the Democrats on the defensive. In late November, Insight magazine and The Washington Times trumpeted charges that the Clinton administration had traded plots at Arlington National Cemetery for campaign donations. Though citing no named sources, the explosive charge reverberated through the conservative talk-radio echo chamber and bounced into the mainstream press.

The Clinton administration was forced to disclose the names of 69 people who had been granted burial in Arlington but who didn't meet the strict criteria. Some turned out to be Republicans (such as the wife of Chief Justice Warren Burger). Others were national luminaries (such as Justice Thurgood Marshall). Another was an ex-Marine-turned-policeman who died in a shootout.

Still, Republicans in Congress kept digging until they found one major Democratic contributor – Larry Lawrence – who was buried at Arlington after dying in office as U.S. ambassador to Switzerland. GOP congressmen found records suggesting that Lawrence had fabricated a claim that he suffered a wound aboard a World War II cargo ship.

Insight's managing editor Paul Rodriguez acknowledged that the cemetery-plots-for-cash story was only "allegations and suggestions." But the story was justified, he said, by "this horrible perception, rightly or wrongly, that this guy [Clinton] will sell anything." [WP, Nov. 25, 1997]

Inside Moon's church, however, other troubles have mounted. Hyo Jin, Moon's eldest son from his current marriage, was treated for a cocaine addiction, saw his wife flee claiming physical abuse and filed for bankruptcy to avoid court-ordered support payments. The Hyo Jin situation and other family crises strained the faith of longtime followers who were taught that Moon and his family were examples of human perfection. By most accounts, the number of U.S. church members has dropped to around 3,000.

The dwindling church membership could raise another legal question, if it becomes apparent that Moon's business-media-political empire is a giant tail wagging a smaller-smaller-and-smaller dog. In a two-part investigative series on Nov. 23-24, The Washington Post reported that even Moon acknowledges this disappearing church.

"Moon has declared that 'the period of religion is passing away' and his Unification Church must be dissolved," one article stated. It quoted Moon as telling his followers to "cut down" their church and work through the Moon-sponsored Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, a non-profit corporation. But non-profits do not carry the First Amendment protections that churches do.

'Dung-Eating Dogs'

The Post also quoted some new anti-American declarations by Moon. "Satan created this kind of Hell on Earth," Moon said about the United States. Moon also lambasted American women. They "have inherited the line of prostitutes," he declared. "American women are even worse because they practice free sex just because they enjoy it."

Lashing out again last May, Moon denounced America for tolerating 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."

The Post series clearly touched a raw nerve. Dong Moon Joo, president of Moon's Washington Times, took out a full-page ad in the Post on Nov. 28 complaining that the criticism was inappropriate during "the Thanksgiving season." In a press release, the Unification Church said it was "exploring the possibility of legal action against The Washington Post and its writers for malicious persecution of a minority religion with intent to incite bodily injury."

But on Nov. 29, Moon's church weaknesses were on display again, with "Blessing '97" which Moon had touted as a mass wedding where he would pair up 3.6 million followers worldwide. Yet, at the main event at RFK Stadium in Washington only 1,300 brides and grooms could be rounded up for the ceremony. Moon's organizers padded the numbers with already married couples and non-church members who were lured to a music concert with free or discounted tickets.

The next day, The Washington Times led the paper with a glowing front-page story about the ceremony. The article accepted the 3.6-million-couple figure as fact. The story also quoted one participant declaring that the RFK event was "bigger than I thought it would be." Clearly, Moon still has the bucks to make his employees spin the stories the way he likes.

Over the past quarter century, Moon has been the master at spending billions of dollars to make the "respectability" equation work for him.

http://www.consortiumnews.com

The Bush-Kim-Moon Triangle of Money

By Robert Parry, March 10, 2001

At this past week’s summit, George W. Bush and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung disagreed publicly on how to deal with communist North Korea – Bush advocated a harder line. But the two leaders have a little-known bond in common: the political largesse of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

For more than three decades, Moon, the founder of the South Korea-based Unification Church, has spun a worldwide spider's web of influence, connecting to hundreds of powerful leaders through the silken threads of his mysterious money.

Moon’s beneficiaries include the Bush family and, according to U.S. intelligence reports, Kim Dae Jung.

Though seldom discussed publicly, the Moon-Bush connection has been reported before – and detailed in this publication. But Moon’s financial links to Kim Dae Jung – a longtime dissident who opposed the authoritarian governments that ruled South Korea during the Cold War – have remained secret.

U.S. intelligence stumbled onto the Moon-Kim connection while monitoring South Korean political developments in 1987.

By that time, Moon’s Unification Church already had built close ties to the Reagan-Bush administration, especially through Moon's funding of conservative causes and his $100-million-a-year subsidy of the right-wing Washington Times, hailed by Ronald Reagan as his “favorite” newspaper.

Back in South Korea, however, Moon's longtime coziness with his home nation's autocratic rulers was strained. Moon was on the outs with the ruling Democratic Justice Party (DJP), the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency noted in a cable dated Sept. 10, 1987.

“The UC (Unification Church) … has not been happy with the somewhat cold treatment it has received under the current DJP government,” the DIA cable reported.

In response to this chilliness, Moon secretly began financing several opposition figures, the DIA reported. One was a longtime Moon ally, Kim Jong Pil, not to be confused with North Korea's current leader Kim Jong Il.

By the late 1980s, Kim Jong Pil had a long record of association with Moon. A 1978 U.S. congressional investigation into the so-called “Koreagate” influence-buying scandal reported that Kim Jong Pil founded the South Korean CIA in the 1960s and assisted Moon's Unification Church in building its influence in Japan and the United States.

The congressional investigation concluded that Kim Jong Pil and the South Korean CIA helped Moon expand his church into a well-financed international organization. They then used Moon's organization to buy influence inside the U.S. government, the congressional investigation found.

Kim Jong Pil also had served as South Korean prime minister in the early 1970s. In 1987, however, Kim Jong Pil was out of power and considering a run for the South Korean presidency.

The DIA Reports

According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, Kim Jong Pil was one of the candidates who benefited from Moon’s estrangement from the ruling Democratic Justice Party.

“Kim Jong-Pil is reportedly receiving financial and organizational support for his KS (South Korean) presidential bid from the controversial Unification Church,” the DIA reported in its Sept. 10, 1987, cable.

But Moon’s organization did not stop with its old ally. The DIA discovered that Moon was hedging his bets by putting money into the hands of Kim Dae Jung and other leaders of the Reunification Democratic Party.

“Cult trying to win influence with the next KS government while defeating the current ruling party's candidate,” read the title of another DIA report dated Sept. 22, 1987.

“The controversial Unification Church (UC) is actively funneling large amounts of political funds to opposition Reunification Democratic Party (RDP) advisor Kim Dae-Jung, … RDP president Kim Young-Sam, … and former KS prime minister Kim Jong-Pil for their campaigns for KS president, leaving out only the ruling party candidate, Democratic Justice Party (DJP) president Roh Tae-Woo,” the DIA report said.

“The UC wants to see Roh defeated and is funneling large amounts of political funds to Roh's three opponents with the expectation that it will have influence with whomever of the three should end up as the next president.” [I obtained these DIA reports under a Freedom of Information Act request.]

Eventually, the race boiled down to a contest between Roh Tae Woo, Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam. On Dec. 16, 1987, Roh won with 36 percent of the vote. Kim Young Sam got 28 percent and Kim Dae Jung received 27 percent. Kim Jong Pil garnered only 8 percent. [For details on the election, see The Two Koreas by Don Oberdorfer.]

Discreet Relationships

Though losing that round, Moon’s beneficiaries did better in the years that followed. Kim Jong Pil again became prime minister, a post he held from 1998 to early 1999. Kim Dae Jung became president in 1998 and also won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Through the years, Kim Dae Jung did not advertise his ties to Moon. Kim's association with the theocrat who considers himself the new Messiah has remained discreet, with the two men generally avoiding contact in public.

One exception came on Feb. 1, 1999, when Moon and his wife – known to their followers as the “True Parents” – were holding a celebration at the Lotte Hotel in Seoul. To the surprise of Moon’s followers, Kim Dae Jung arrived and enthusiastically joined the couple in their ceremony.

According to the Unification News, the church's internal newsletter, the Lotte Hotel event was “the first time President Kim appeared in public with our True Parents.”

Though less secret, Moon’s relationship with the Bush family also remains little known to most Americans. Moon's organization has paid the Bush family directly – for speeches in the 1990s – but the alliance appears to have grown primarily through Moon’s extravagant financial support for The Washington Times, which has consistently backed the Bushes politically.

After its founding in 1982, The Washington Times staunchly supported some of the Reagan-Bush administration’s most controversial policies, such as the contra war in Nicaragua.

When the contra operation was embarrassed by initial public disclosures of contra drug trafficking in 1985-86, The Washington Times led the counterattack, criticizing journalists and congressional investigators who uncovered the first evidence of the problem.

Those attacks helped cement a conventional wisdom in the Washington political community that the contra-drug allegations were bogus, a belief that persisted until 1998 when the CIA's inspector general admitted that dozens of contra units were implicated in cocaine trafficking and that the Reagan-Bush administration had hidden much of the evidence. [See Robert Parry’s Lost History.]

The Washington Times also led the charge against Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The newspaper's rear-guard defense of its allies proved important when Walsh's investigation threatened to break through the long-running White House cover-up that was protecting Bush’s assertion that he was “out of the loop” on the scandal. [For details on The Washington Times' role, see Walsh’s book, Firewall.]

During national political campaigns, Moon’s Washington Times was especially influential, mounting harsh – and often inaccurate – attacks on the Bush family's adversaries.

In 1988, when George H.W. Bush was running for president, The Washington Times publicized false rumors about the mental health of Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis, an important first step in raising doubts about the Massachusetts governor.

President George H.W. Bush grew so appreciative of The Washington Times that in 1991, he invited its editor-in-chief, Wesley Pruden, to the White House for a private lunch. Bush explained that the purpose of the lunch was “just to tell you how valuable the Times has become in Washington, where we read it everyday.” [WT, May 17, 1992]

In Bush’s 1992 reelection campaign, The Washington Times was helping again, spreading new false rumors that Bill Clinton might have betrayed his country during a college trip to Moscow, possibly being recruited by the KGB as a spy.

Lining Pockets

After George H.W. Bush lost in 1992, The Washington Times shifted from defense to offense. The newspaper became a leading conservative weapon in mounting attacks on the Clinton administration.

During the Bush family’s years out of power, Moon put money directly into their pockets, too. Moon-affiliated organizations paid for speeches by former President Bush in the United States, Asia and South America. Sometimes, Barbara Bush joined her husband in these appearances.

The price tag for the speeches has been estimated at from hundreds of thousands of dollars to $10 million, a figure cited to me by a senior Unification Church official in the mid-1990s. The elder Bush has refused to divulge how much money he received from Moon-affiliated organizations.

During one 1996 appearance in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the senior Bush went beyond a mere speech to act as a kind of international lobbyist for the Moon organization.

At the time, Moon was planning to launch a new newspaper, Tiempos del Mundo, and his supporters were upset over critical coverage in South American newspapers. The South American press was pointing out Moon’s close association with right-wing “death-squad” governments of the 1970s and the so-called “Cocaine Coup” regime in Bolivia in the early 1980s.

Moon's defenders were forced to issue public denials that Moon's mysterious source of wealth came from drug trafficking and other organized-crime activities.

These allegations were threatening the Tiempos del Mundo launch, Moon's followers feared. But Moon had a special weapon to prove his respectability: the endorsement of the 41st president of the United States.

Bush arrived on Nov. 22, 1996, and stayed with Argentine President Carlos Menem at his official residence. The next day, Bush gave the keynote address at the newspaper’s inaugural dinner.

“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.”

Bush lavished praise on Moon and his journalistic enterprises. “I want to salute Reverend Moon,” Bush said. “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.”

Bush's endorsement wasn't exactly accurate. A stream of editors and correspondents have left The Washington Times, complaining about the interference of Moon's operatives. But Moon's followers believed Bush's intervention stanched the flow of negative press stories and saved the day.

'Satanic' America

In those eight years of the Bush family's hiatus from power, Moon also grew increasingly anti-American, often telling his followers that the United States was “Satanic.” He vowed to build a movement powerful enough to absorb America and eliminate what Moon saw as America's destructive tendencies toward individualism.

“Americans who continue to maintain their privacy and extreme individualism are foolish people,” Moon told his followers during one speech on Aug. 4, 1996. He then said, “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 2000 campaign, The Washington Times was back helping the Bush family achieve its political restoration. Day after day, the newspaper published articles undercutting Democrat Al Gore – even questioning his sanity – while boosting the candidacy of George W. Bush.

In late 1999, The New York Times and The Washington Post created a controversy by misquoting Gore as claiming credit for starting the Love Canal toxic-waste cleanup. The two newspapers quoted Gore as saying "I was the one that started it all" when in fact he was referring to a similar Tennessee toxic-waste case and said, "that was the one that started it all."

Yet, with the bogus quote touching off a wave of media ridicule about Gore's supposed lack of credibility, The Washington Times eagerly joined the pack and returned to its old game of questioning the sanity of its political enemies.