Frontline is a presentation of the documentary consortium.
Reverend Sung-Young Moon has been spending vast sums of money lately,
investing in tourism and industry in North Korea,
and trying to buy a university in Bridgeport, Connecticut for $50 million.
But Moon's objectives have remained a mystery.
Now Frontline has completed a revealing year-long investigation of Moon.
According to a highly placed source in the Unification Church,
a top priority mission was to stop this report from airing.
Tonight, the story of Reverend Moon.
Fifteen years ago, Moon was best known as a cult leader.
But today, Moon presides over financial, political, and media empire.
Frontline investigates the extent of his power and the ultimate sources of his funding.
Here is what disturbs me. It is the lack of knowledge of who is behind it,
where the funding is coming from, and what are their ultimate objectives.
Tonight, the resurrection of Reverend Moon.
With funding provided by the financial support of viewers like you,
and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
this is Frontline.
On February 9, 1991, in Rapid City, South Dakota,
more than a thousand people rallied in support of U.S. troops fighting in the Persian Gulf.
The rally was sponsored in part by a group of local veterans.
Diane Peterson was the rally's principal organizer.
I'm a vet myself, and I had a sister over there,
and I really just wanted to do something in support of the troops.
So I organized what I call the Little Yellow Ribbon Walk.
It's great. Much more than I expected.
And I was approached by the American Freedom Coalition,
who told me that they had a rally planned for the same day and wanted to merge with me.
The American Freedom Coalition was a group few people in Rapid City had heard of.
And one citizen, Marv Kamerer, was curious.
About the same time, I noticed a billboard on the east side of Rapid City
that said, support our troops, join the freedom march.
And on that same sign was the American Freedom Coalition.
You know, when people buy billboards, it takes money.
And local groups don't spend that kind of money.
I get to thinking, where is this?
I ask my congressmen and senators, and they don't tell me.
They don't give me the information.
So I go to the library, and I find some interesting things.
The American Freedom Coalition is an extension of the Unification Church, Mooneys for short.
And find out the Unification Church is behind it.
That sort of threw me out. I said to myself, what are they trying to gain from this?
Because, you know, everybody's heard of the Unification Church.
We've all heard of the Reverend Moone. What's he got behind it?
I felt a little bit abused. Because I felt I was used.
My influence with the veterans' organizations was probably a little bit used.
The vets did not know who they were associated with, and that is their own damn fault.
One has to be very careful when people start waving the flag, finding out really what is behind it, what are their motives.
We have a weakness in this country to almost give away the bank if someone waves the flag high enough and long enough.
Especially if he packs a Bible.
The day before the Rapid City Rally, the 18th annual Conservative Political Action Conference was underway in Washington.
Part cocktail party, part political bazaar, part serious examination of the issues, its sponsors included pillars of the American right, such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Conservative Union.
There was also the American Freedom Coalition.
Robert Grant, president of the American Freedom Coalition, spoke at a conference banquet.
In his remarks, Grant announced that the AFC was sponsoring pro-desert storm rallies, not just in South Dakota, but in all 50 states.
With governors and congressmen and senators and veterans' organizations working together to send a message across the seas to set down the same and to the men and women of desert storm.
Once again, let's say God bless America!
God bless America!
Come on, God bless America!
USA! USA! USA!
The American Freedom Coalition's desert storm rallies are only the latest effort by Sun Myung Moon to influence American public opinion.
USA! USA! USA!
Moon's unification movement has long supported the projection of American military power overseas.
With a mission to fly and a job to be done. He's missing his wife and his children.
Moon has also consistently promoted a conservative political agenda in the United States.
His efforts have not gone unnoticed at the White House.
Douglas Weed was a special assistant to President Bush, responsible for liaison with conservative groups.
I'd say right now there are probably two groups among conservative organizations that really have an infrastructure, that have grassroots clout.
Concerned Women of America would and American Freedom Coalition would.
Vice President George Bush, the Republican nominee.
During the 1988 election, the AFC printed and distributed 30 million pieces of political literature, including these glossy voter scorecards.
I think the scorecards and some of the independent literature published had an enormous effect.
In fact, we had huge notebooks filled with published materials from a wide variety of organizations.
The best was probably AFCs. There was by far the slickest and the finest produced material.
And when that doesn't cost you anything and is not charged against the campaign and is widely distributed to mailing lists across the country, that has a very important impact.
We're sponsoring 50 national rallies.
The AFC's activities have prompted renewed questions about Sun Myung Moon's involvement in American politics.
The AFC calls itself a grassroots organization committed to supporting conservative causes.
AFC leaders deny that their group is an appendage of Moon's movement, and they are sensitive about the issue.
When we asked Robert Grant to discuss AFC ties to Moon, he refused.
In a letter to Frontline, Grant stated, I see no point in speaking with you either on camera or off camera.
Good afternoon, American Freedom Coalition. Please hold.
And when Frontline reporter Eric Nadler visited AFC headquarters, no one would talk.
We were just here hoping someone could speak to us.
Not at this time.
Okay, not at any time, according to your
We had hoped to ask Robert Grant about allegations that the AFC is violating federal law, namely the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Just before World War II, Congress passed the act, concerned that Japanese and German interests in the U.S. were influencing American public opinion.
The act states that any organization involved in political activities and controlled or directed by a foreign principal must register with the Justice Department.
It must also report on its activities and provide detailed accounts of its foreign sources of funding.
Is the American Freedom Coalition a foreign agent?
In 1989, Robert Grant wrote in the Washington Post that more than five million dollars, one third of the AFC's money, came from business interests of the Unification Church.
Church officials say that their money comes from overseas, primarily from Japan.
Media analyst Brent Bozell is a member of the AFC National Policy Board.
If it were to come out that what the AFC is doing is being done at the direction of the Reverend Moon, it would lose its 50 chapters overnight.
That allegation has been out there since the day that AFC was formed, and it hasn't stuck because nobody has come up with a smoking gun that he's done it.
But Moon's influence over the AFC is underscored by this 1988 letter front line obtained from a source who once worked within the Moon organization.
AFC President Robert Grant, writing to Reverend Moon, thanks him for investing heavily and helping to bring the AFC into being.
Grant concludes by telling Moon, without your leadership, vision, and the support of your devoted followers, the AFC would not exist.
The last time most Americans paid attention to some young Moon was nearly a decade ago.
These are the images many still retain of Moon and the Moonies, as his followers once called themselves.
Mass weddings of complete strangers chosen as mates by Moon.
Flower peddling in the street, and repeated allegations of mind control and brainwashing.
Who can parents turn to when they realize their children have been innocently enslaved by Moon?
Within one weekend, I was totally, my mind was totally coerced into leaving home, into leaving my parents, into dropping out of school, into thinking that I was working for God.
A federal investigation into Moon's finances led to a 1982 trial on charges of conspiracy and filing false tax returns.
I must tell you that I am innocent.
As a convicted felon, Moon was sent to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut.
During his 13 months in prison, he faded from public consciousness.
This thing still lead us, really still lead us. That requires good practice. Knowing this, we should proceed.
But Moon has been quietly gaining strength in the United States ever since. He still hints that he is the Messiah, most recently before 500 religious leaders in San Francisco in August 1990.
While Moon remains a controversial spiritual leader, his church in America has a surprisingly small following, estimated to be no more than 5,000 members.
His movement, once labeled a cult, is now more accurately described as a conglomerate.
From media operations in the nation's capital, to substantial real estate holdings throughout the United States, and from large commercial fishing operations,
to advanced high-tech and computer industries, a Fifth Avenue publishing house, and literally dozens of other businesses, foundations, associations, institutes, and political and cultural groups,
Moon and his money have become a force to be reckoned with.
All we know is they are spending a great, great deal in this country.
James Whelan was the editor and publisher of a Moon-financed newspaper, The Washington Times.
Probably more on influence and the obtaining of influence, of power, than of any organization I know of in this country.
And that includes the AFL-CIO, that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that includes General Motors, that includes anybody.
How and why did Sun Myung Moon amass such power and influence?
The search for answers begins here in Korea, nearly 6,000 miles from America's shores.
The Unification Faith is a new religion. It traces its origins back to Easter Sunday, 1936,
when Jesus Christ supposedly appeared and asked the 16-year-old Moon to complete God's work on Earth.
Moon's evangelical mission eventually landed him in a North Korean labor camp, where he claims he was tortured repeatedly.
Moon escaped, and according to church lore, he marched south for weeks carrying a wounded follower on his back.
In 1951, in this shack made of U.S. Army ration boxes, Moon established his first church.
After the Korean War ended, several young military officers, including one named Bo-hee Pak, converted to the new Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity.
As the 50s ended, Moon and his missionaries left Korea to spread their faith.
Their earliest success came in Japan.
There, the church made political alliances and quickly established itself as much more than a religious movement.
1960 really represents the founding moment of the Moon Organization as a political entity.
Daniel Junas is the author of Moon Rising, a forthcoming history of the Unification Movement.
But now grafted onto that, you began to have a whole set of political operations.
And this is where Moon really developed his theocratic ideology, where politics would be married to religion.
1960 was a pivotal moment in U.S.-Asian relations.
The Japanese and American governments signed a treaty allowing the Americans to maintain military bases in Japan and providing the Japanese access to America's capital and technology.
The signing today of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between Japan and the United States is truly a historic occasion.
The pact also allowed American forces in Japan to be equipped with nuclear weapons.
Thousands stormed the gates of the Japanese Parliament and raged at the military concessions to the Americans.
Japanese business and political leaders moved to quell the unrest as brigades of right-wing students staged counter-demonstrations.
Sun-Young Moon's Japanese followers soon took to the streets as political activities on behalf of conservative business interests became central to the Unification Movement.
When Moon's missionaries came to America in the 60s, their activities centered on Capitol Hill and college campuses.
When Moon came to the United States, his organization would play much the same role in American society that it was already playing in Japan and South Korea.
During the Vietnam War, Moon worked to build a right-wing student movement as a counterweight to the left-wing student movement that was objecting to American military involvement in Vietnam.
And in America, as he had in Japan, Moon began to move among the political elite.
From Dwight Eisenhower to Strom Thurmond to Richard Nixon, Moon has glad-handed and corresponded with an astonishing array of political figures.
Moon sought to influence the American political agenda by pouring more than a billion dollars into media.
Moon looked on the media as almost the nervous system for a global empire.
In the 1970s, Michael Warder became one of the most important Americans in the Unification Movement. Warder says he had close contact with Moon for six years.
Moon was the brain, and the media were to be the communications vehicle for his body politic surrounding the globe.
Warder was responsible for managing News World, Moon's daily newspaper in New York City.
Moon wanted total control of the media, so there would be no independent media with journalistic integrity. It would be a media totally loyal to Moon.
In 1977, Minnesota Democrat Donald Frazier launched the so-called Koreagate investigation, in part a probe into Moon's relationship to the Korean CIA and the buying of political influence on Capitol Hill.
Using its own media, Moon's organization struck back in an all-out effort to discredit Frazier.
Mr. Frazier follows the far leftist political line and is a well-known opponent of the Korean government. For him, Koreagate was a golden opportunity.
One of Moon's media weapons was this film, Truth is My Sword. Moon's aide, Bo-hee Pak, led the charge.
What if you are an agent of influence for Moscow here on Hill? If these things are true, then the government of the United States is itself in grave danger.
America's very survival and the security of the free world are at stake.
Moon wanted a whole series of articles going after poor Congressman Frazier, who was heading up the congressional investigations there.
And so we would assign reporters to try and dig up all the dirt we could find on Congressman Frazier.
And of course I would say to Moon, I said, well, on the one hand, we're supposed to be doing this, but on the other hand, we're competing with the New York Times.
And so there's matters of credibility here. And he would, you know, buster and get angry at these kinds of things and say, just do what I'm, you know, ordering you to do and don't ask so many questions and that sort of thing.
And of course Colonel Pak would reinforce these messages for Moon.
I cannot help but believe that you are being used as an instrument of devil. You, yes, an instrument of devil.
I said it. You else, who else would want to destroy a man of God but the devil?
I didn't appreciate the accusations they were making against me. They were absolutely false. I think they knew they were false.
Donald Frazier is now the mayor of Minneapolis.
The fact that they would make them in a public forum like that, I was really totally turned off and disgusted.
And so history might remember Donald Frazier if it remembers him at all.
The Frazier Subcommittee investigation, in fact in a strange way, helped the movement because for members it became this cosmic struggle of good against evil, of God against Satan.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I feel no evil for thou art with me. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
From the standpoint of the members, it was Jesus taking on the Roman Empire. It was big. It was cosmic.
The Frazier Committee's final report said Moon was the key figure in an international network of organizations engaged in economic and political activities.
The committee uncovered evidence that the Moon organization had systematically violated U.S. Tax, Immigration, Banking, Currency, and Foreign Agents Registration Act laws.
It also detailed how the Korean CIA paid Moon to stage demonstrations at the United Nations and run a pro-South Korean propaganda effort.
Michael Hirschman was the Frazier Committee's chief investigator.
I think we determined that their primary interest, at least in the United States at that time, was not religious at all, but was political. It was an attempt to gain power and influence and authority.
The Frazier Committee recommended that the White House form a task force to continue to investigate Moon. That never happened.
By the time Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, the idea of investigating Sun Myung Moon's political activities was a dead issue.
Ronald Reagan's presidency was hailed as the beginning of a conservative revolution. Activists from all over the United States came to the nation's capital.
Ironically, with the revolution seemingly won, traditional sources of money for conservative politics, such as direct mail fundraising, began to dry up.
But Moon, a VIP guest at the inauguration, soon became a major funder of Washington's new conservative establishment.
Brent Bozell was one of the young Reagan revolutionaries.
When the Moonies entered the political scene in the early 1980s, one school of thought said that they were a good organization and that because of their anti-communist commitment, conservatives ought to work with them.
David Finzer was another conservative activist who came to Washington in the early 80s. Finzer says he took more than $400,000 from the Moon organization.
He recalls one project the money paid for.
When the left would run an anti-South Africa campaign, we'd run an anti-Soviet campaign. We'd say, OK, you want to disinvest from South Africa? Fine, let's also disinvest from the Soviet Union.
And it was a successful, it was a pretty successful campaign. We did some neat stuff. They'd build shanty towns. We'd build gulags around them.
Moon's most expensive political project was a newspaper, The Washington Times.
Washington is the most important single city in the world. If you can achieve influence, if you can achieve visibility, if you can achieve a measure of respect in Washington, then you fairly automatically are going to achieve these things in the rest of the world.
There is no better agency or entity or instrument that I know of for achieving power here or almost anywhere else than a newspaper.
The Washington Times had an immediate impact. The President of the United States, seen here with Times President Bo He Pak, said it was the first paper he read in the morning.
Moon had money and he was willing to spend it.
Paul Weirich, a co-founder of the Moral Majority, refuses to take Moon's money, but he hails Moon's newspaper as an antidote to its liberal competitor, The Washington Post.
The Washington Post became very arrogant and they just decided that they would determine what was news and what wasn't news and they wouldn't cover a lot of things that went on. And The Washington Times has forced The Post to cover a lot of things that they wouldn't cover if The Times wasn't in existence.
Soon, Washington Times columnists found even greater exposure on television.
If The Washington Times did not carry the conservative columnists that they carry, like a Patrick Cannon, like a Bill Rusher, like a Mona Sheeran, I wonder if the television community would be aware of them and would tap them to use them in television.
By 1984, despite his paper's growing influence, James Whalen was unhappy.
When we started the paper, there was never any question that it would in any fashion project the views or the agenda of Sun, Young, Moon or the Unification Church. All to the contrary. We said, look, we're going to put a high wall in place. It's going to be a sturdy wall and it will divide us from you.
But Whalen's wall of editorial independence was often breached.
Moon himself gave direct instructions to the editors of who in fact calls the shots. Ultimately, Moon calls the shots.
The Washington Times has become a Mooney newspaper.
Whalen resigned. Time spokesman said the dispute was really over money. Whalen was later replaced by former Newsweek editor Arno de Borgrave, seen here in a Moon sponsored film.
When I was in Europe recently, I was delighted to hear the Washington Times quoted every hour on the hour on The Voice of America and on the BBC to worldwide radio networks that happened to reach hundreds of millions of people.
de Borgrave has consistently denied taking orders from Moon. But the man who ran the editorial pages under de Borgrave tells a different story. William Cheshire.
I protested to de Borgrave. I went up to his office when I saw this happening, telling him this was unethical, improper, unprofessional, it ought to stop. Also it was dumb.
Cheshire and four others resigned after de Borgrave ordered an about face on an editorial critical of the South Korean government.
And told him, I said, Arno, we have a problem. He said, what's the problem? I said, the problem is you have conferred with the owners of this newspaper, come back downstairs and demanded a reversal of editorial policy on their say so.
Questions about foreign control of the Washington Times have persisted for years. Other journalists, including Lars Erik Nelson of the New York Daily News, have called for a Justice Department investigation to determine if the Times violates the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
And the Justice Department doesn't seem to want to know. And I've never gotten a clear answer from them as to why they don't want to know.
What have they told you?
They said, hmm, that's an interesting point. They say, hmm, we'll think about that. And they never get back to me.
The real question is why the Justice Department has such an absence of curiosity.
Washington Times officials repeatedly refused to comment to Frontline, even when we showed up with our camera to press for some answers.
And I've got a film crew here and I'm looking to see if there's anyone that I can interview at the Washington Times for the story we're doing.
The answer was no. And when we visited another Moon-funded publication, The World and I, the reception grew even colder.
Yes, sir. You all are on private property. You've been told that. You will wait here. The Metropolitan Police will come here.
I'm going to ask you to leave the property.
Okay.
Okay, fine. Who are you, sir? Are you with the Metropolitan Police Department or are you with the security?
I'm with the security department.
Of the Washington Times Corporation?
Of the Washington Times, that's correct. And I'd like you to leave right now, please.
Okay, I'll leave.
Thank you.
Why are the police here, by the way?
Later, the Times sent this statement, which said that the complete editorial independence of the Washington Times is well-known and envied throughout the newspaper industry.
The Times gained respect and influence throughout the Reagan years, lending editorial support to causes favored by the administration.
Freedom fighters will huddle close to their radios, hoping to catch word that the administration in America will remain their friend.
The Contra forces battling the Sandinista government in Nicaragua received editorial support and money from the Washington Times. Here's how it worked.
In March 1985, Oliver North wrote this top-secret memo, proposing the formation of a private foundation called the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund.
Its purpose was to circumvent a congressional ban on aid to the Contras.
Less than two months later, the Washington Times announced the birth of the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund in a front-page editorial.
Times editor Arno de Borgraaf insisted he was surprised at the coincidence between his paper's initiative and North's secret project.
The Washington Times contributed the first $100,000 to the Freedom Fund.
The worst outcome we could have would be the consolidation of a communist client state in Nicaragua.
When Oliver North was questioned by Congress about his role in funding the Contras, the American Freedom Coalition rushed to his defense.
The AFC produced this video, Oliver North, Fight for Freedom, which it broadcast more than 600 times on over 100 television stations.
The program asked for donations. Tax records revealed that the video raised more than $3.2 million for the AFC.
It only takes 30 minutes for a missile to get here from the Soviet Union. How far do you think you can get in 30 minutes?
Another project of the Reagan administration was the Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI, or Star Wars.
The SDI system using smart...
It also received support from the Washington Times and the American Freedom Coalition.
If you really value life, if you want your children and your grandchildren to get out from under the threat of nuclear annihilation, then please, please demonstrate your support for SDI.
This pro-Star Wars video was paid for and distributed by the AFC.
We can't stop it. We can't stop one damn missile.
All I can do is watch a million people die or start blowing up the whole world. They are my only choices.
Reverend Moon's organization has been very supportive of Strategic Defense Initiative.
Former defense and central intelligence official Daniel Graham, who sits on the AFC National Policy Board, co-produced the video.
It's called One Incoming. It includes a scenario that I got Tom Clancy to write for us and I got Charlene Heston to do the voiceover.
As for America, our choice will remain nuclear vengeance or nothing until SDI is deployed.
It cost a lot of money to produce it, about $200,000, and Grant said it could raise the $200,000. Now, Grant is supported substantially by the Reverend Moon, so I'm sure that that's where that money came from to produce that movie.
According to Graham, the film has been seen on 400 television stations.
Do what's right. Let's protect our nation, our families, our loved ones.
What has been passed by unification will only have to be passed.
Besides paying for his own media, Moon sought to influence other press outlets. One vehicle was the World Media Association.
And the founder is Reverend Moon, who is deeply concerned for the world media, particularly in the battle against the communism all over the world, who sees that the role of the media is so vital and so important for the salvation of our civilization.
The World Media Association sponsors all-expense paid conferences and junkets for journalists all over the world.
As Bo He Pak told public station KQED in 1984, the unification movement used the association as a weapon in a larger crusade.
But it's a total war, basically war of ideas, war of mind. The battlefield of the human mind, this is where the battle is fought.
So in this war, the entire thing will be mobilized, political means, social means, economical means, and propagandistic means, and basically trying to take over the other person's mind.
That is what the Third World War is all about, the war of ideology.
While waging its global war of ideas, the unification movement was also fighting another battle to overcome the stigma of Moon's 1982 conviction for tax evasion.
To clear his name, Moon launched a campaign termed the New Birth Project. Its strategy was to show that Moon's prosecution was really racial and religious persecution.
I'm here today only because my skin is yellow and my religion is unification church.
And it's a powerful state trying to break one religion. And what happens to Reverend Moon, watch out, will happen to many other religious figures.
For dine is a kingdom, power, and a glory forever and ever. Amen.
Church leaders charged the media were part of the problem.
We don't like it. We don't like to be abused by any newspaper. We don't like to be abused by the media and we're not going to take it.
But an adroit use of the media was part of the unification plan. Moon bought full page ads in leading newspapers and sent videotapes explaining his theology to other religious leaders at a cost of more than four million dollars.
Press conferences outside Moon's prison helped spread the word.
Today we have witnessed a travesty of the judicial system of our United States. The Reverend's son, Young Moon, has been unjustly convicted.
Reverend Moon, like myself, is a minority here in this country and we don't have the popular views of the mainline churches. We are about liberation.
The New Birth Project worked and Moon was born again as a martyr to bigotry.
After he left prison, he was celebrated by more than 1700 clergy at this God and Freedom Banquet in Washington.
Ironically, and perhaps historically, there is something similar here to other religious movements. From this persecution has come the greatest support and acceptance of the unification movement.
Part of the New Birth Project employed familiar Moon tactics. In July 1985, a front organization was formed called the Committee to Defend the United States Constitution. Moon insider David Finzer was asked to join the board.
We executed all of the documents and I understand the corporation was incorporated the very next day. Now that was the last I heard of the Committee to Defend the United States Constitution for about two years.
Finzer now claims that he didn't learn until much later that the Committee to Defend the United States Constitution was a front group.
All of the money was spent for publications or advertising or events that supported Reverend Moon.
We found a magazine that was put out under the Committee's name. My name was listed as one of the directors that I had never seen before.
We found a check that showed that to the printer was something like $174,000 printed for that.
Now the real purpose was not, I can tell you what it was not, it was not to support religious liberty. What it was, was to support and sanitize Reverend Moon's name to give the appearance of independent support instead of wholly owned, bought support to make him some kind of a First Amendment hero.
Moon ultimately went to the top in his effort to clear his name, seeking a presidential pardon for his crimes. The point man was Max Huguel, a former Reagan campaign official and one-time Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in charge of covert operations.
It is so important to have a superb intelligence agency. Huguel was forced to leave the agency in the wake of a stock scandal.
Can you tell us why you're not choosing to stay on and fight?
Huguel later went into business with Jonathan Park, the son of Bohi Pak.
Through two huge sound locks are the best outfitted teleproduction studios in the region.
Huguel worked with Park to expand Moon's electronic media empire while also brokering contacts between Bohi Pak and Vice President George Bush.
In this April 1988 memo to Unification Church member Mark Lee, Huguel offers to arrange for Pak to have his picture taken with the Vice President at a cost of $50,000.
Huguel also promises to try to get Bush to write to Pak. Two months later, Bush did write to Pak and told him, I hope we can meet again soon.
Did they discuss a pardon during their meeting? Neither President Bush nor Bohi Pak would comment to Frontline.
Later in 1988, Huguel also recruited the law firm of one of Ronald Reagan's best friends to assist in Moon's pardon effort, former Senator Paul Laxalt.
The friend who understands you creates you, a wise man once said. Paul created because he always understood, and for that I am and shall always be grateful.
Laxalt's law firm was paid $100,000 upfront and $50,000 a month to obtain a presidential pardon for Moon.
According to billings submitted by the lawyers, Laxalt was directly involved in the pardon effort.
This petition for executive clemency was delivered to the Justice Department accompanied by letters from Senator Orrin Hatch, publisher William Rusher, civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy endorsing the pardon.
The Washington Times also became involved in the pardon campaign. First, editor Arnaud de Borgrave wrote a letter from the editor.
Not really a letter to the editor, it was a letter to President Reagan, urging President Reagan to grant Reverend Moon a presidential pardon.
Later, the Times ran this article examining Reagan's record on pardons. After it appeared, Laxalt's partner Paul Perito became alarmed.
Perito warned Bo He Pak that if a case can be made that the church allegedly controls and dictates the activities of organizations such as the Washington Times, this will affect our credibility and could materially damage our prodigious efforts.
Any last thoughts for us, President and Mrs. Reagan on your way out?
Ronald Reagan never pardoned Sun Myung Moon. Moon's pardon application is still pending before the Bush administration.
Max Huguetl, Paul Laxalt, and Paul Perito all refused to comment. Ronald Reagan also declined to comment.
Is the new birth project continuing? In June 1991, Inquisition, a new purportedly independent investigation of Moon's 1982 tax fraud prosecution, was released by a Washington publisher, Regnery Gateway.
Its author, Carlton Sherwood, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who once worked for the Washington Times.
Inquisition has a curious history. It was printed once before by an obscure publishing house called Andromeda.
The phone number listed for Andromeda in a leading publishing directory is the home phone of former Reagan National Security Council official Roger Fontaine, an ex-reporter at the Washington Times.
When we called, Fontaine's wife Judy answered and said she knew nothing about Andromeda. Then she told us that the company was bankrupt and that Inquisition was published by Regnery Gateway.
Alfred Regnery is the head of Regnery Gateway.
It's not unlike a lot of other books we've published. It's a story that deals with the First Amendment, which is something that's very dear to publishers, of course.
Alfred Regnery was told by Carlton Sherwood that the Moon organization would purchase 100,000 copies of Inquisition, at least according to former Washington Times editor James Whelan, another Regnery Gateway author.
But Alfred Regnery denies it.
I never said that to Jim and I've never had any conversations with, what's his name, Bo?
Bo Hippock.
I'm not even sure who he is.
One week after talking to Regnery, Frontline obtained a copy of a letter addressed to Sun Myung Moon.
The letter was written by James Gavin, a Moon aide.
Gavin tells Moon he reviewed the overall tone and factual contents of Inquisition before publication and suggested revisions.
Gavin adds that the author, Mr. Sherwood, has assured me that all this will be done when the manuscript is sent to the publisher.
Gavin concludes by telling Moon, when all of our suggestions have been incorporated, the book will be complete and, in my opinion, will make a significant impact.
In addition to silencing our critics now, the book should be invaluable in persuading others of our legitimacy for many years to come.
Although he refused an on-camera interview, Carlton Sherwood told Frontline that the Unification Movement exerted no editorial control over his book.
When we visited Gavin's office in McLean, Virginia, our request for an interview was refused.
Excuse me.
Many questions about the Unification Movement remain unanswered, but none is more pressing or perplexing than this.
Where does all the money come from?
The Moon Organization has spent an astonishing amount in the United States.
More than $800 million on the Washington Times.
Hundreds of millions on national periodicals.
Tens of millions on electronic media.
At least $40 million on New York newspapers.
More than $10 million on a New York publishing house.
Millions on World Media Association junkets and conferences.
Millions more on New Right organizations, including the American Freedom Coalition.
Well over $100 million on real estate, including the New Yorker Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
At least $40 million on commercial fishing operations.
At least $75 million on the New Birth Project.
It all adds up to more than a billion dollars.
But most of Moon's operations in America are losing money.
Virginia Commonwealth University Professor David Bromley.
Most of the Unification Movement businesses, as far as I can tell, have lost substantial sums of money.
Again, the best example is the Washington Times, which may have lost as much as $50 million a year.
A major loser.
So where does the money come from?
Moon himself told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 1984, the money comes from overseas.
Several hundred million dollars have been followed into America.
Because this nation will decide that the destiny of the world, these contributions are primarily coming from overseas.
But from where overseas? Not from Korea.
According to the Far Eastern Economic Review, many of the Church's businesses in Korea are performing poorly or need to make major new investments.
For nearly two decades, it has been reported that one major Moon patron is Rioichi Sasagawa, one of the richest men in Japan.
Sasagawa's money comes from his monopoly on the motorboat racing industry.
Legalized gambling on the sport is a $14 billion a year industry in Japan.
For more than a half century, Rioichi Sasagawa has been one of the primary political brokers inside Japan.
Author Pat Choate, whose book, Agents of Influence, examines Japan's campaign to shape America's policy and politics.
When Reverend Moon expanded his operations inside Japan, he asked Sasagawa to be one of the principal advisors to his church inside Japan.
Many of their operations, the Sasagawa operations, the Moon operations, seem to parallel each other.
They operate in many of the same ways.
Giving away money, a great deal of attention to media and media organizations, the establishment of think tanks and other policy organizations.
That operate across national borders and the maintenance of a very right-wing conservative focus.
A position of patent injustice!
Sasagawa's right-wing associations go back more than 50 years.
In 1939, he flew to Italy to meet Benito Mussolini, whom he called the perfect fascist.
He formed one of the most radical of the fascist parties inside Japan.
He was one of those individual business leaders that was calling for war with the United States.
Immediately after the war, Sasagawa was arrested and imprisoned by the U.S. Army.
Sasagawa was sent to prison with two other suspected war criminals, Yoshio Kodama and Nobusuke Kishi.
Kodama went on to become a leader of the Yakuza, or Organized Crime Syndicate of Japan.
Kishi went on to become Japan's prime minister.
All three men reportedly played key roles in the early days of the Moon Organization.
Kishi had emerged as a front man for the Moon Organization in Japan, and Sasagawa served as an advisor.
He was the behind-the-scenes power broker who was manipulating the Moon Organization.
Moon, in his own speeches, refers to his Japanese friend, who is quite wealthy, Mr. Sasagawa.
In 1967, Moon and Sasagawa are reported to have formed the Japanese chapter of the World Anti-Communist League,
which funded anti-communist insurgencies worldwide.
Thousands cheered Moon at the
1970 rally in Tokyo. Today, Sasagawa denies providing any financial or political assistance to Moon.
Sasagawa told Frontline that he only met Moon once, 25 years ago.
Yet Moon, in a 1973 speech, claimed he was very close to Sasagawa, and Bohi Pak called for a meeting with Moon.
Yet Moon, in a 1973 speech, claimed he was very close to Sasagawa, and Bohi Pak called Sasagawa Moon's chief ally in the battle against communism.
If they're using substantial amounts of the Japanese money, is that they're not only running a Korean agenda,
but they're also serving as political mercenaries for the Japanese, and it should be a matter of great concern.
Support our troops! Support our troops! Support our troops!
Moon has been operating in the United States for 30 years.
Whether Americans know it or not, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon is a force in their political lives.
God bless America, my home sweet home.
But some Americans are suspicious of Moon, and question whether his political activities are in the interest of America.
Here is what disturbs me. It is the lack of knowledge on the people who are being taken in by this activity of who is behind it, where the funding is coming from, and what are their ultimate objectives.
This should be the ultimate congressional investigation, is to lay all this out before the American people, bring it into the sunshine, and stop it.
Since 1978, Congress has demonstrated little interest in investigating Moon, and when we visited the Justice Department, officials there had nothing to say.
I'd like you to come down and answer the question why the Justice Department isn't investigating the Washington Times under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. No comment is your answer.
We asked the White House to comment on the unification movement's activities in America.
We asked specifically about Bo He Pak's 1988 meeting with Mr. Bush at his home, about the President's knowledge of the campaign to obtain a pardon for Sun Myung Moon,
about the help that the American Freedom Coalition gave his election campaign,
and whether the President thought his Justice Department should investigate the Washington Times for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The White House declined to comment.
Finally, Reverend Moon also refused to talk to Frontline.
But in this church-sponsored film, Reverend Moon in America, he had this to say.
Now, whether positively or negatively, America knows me, and it happened quickly. At least I have America's attention.
Because of that, I will be able to tell the people the truth of God, the new revelation.
The worst treatment America could give me is to ignore me. Now I can preach the truth.
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