Can Buy Me Love: The Mooning of Conservative Washington
Ferguson, Andrew
Andrew Ferguson CAN BUY ME LOVE: THE MOONING OF CONSERVATIVE WASHINGTON Is the Unification Church conservative, or just rich? There are many ways to reach Washington, D.C. There are highways,...
...The invitations to the Seoul conference also encourage the participants to attend a three-day CAUSA International Seminar, "completely independent of the World Media Conference," being held in the same location immediately following the World Media Conference: "CAUSA has been kind enough to offer conference participants the opportunity to stay over at their expense in order to attend their seminar...
...A sample: In the Medieval Ages, they had to separate the cities-statesmanship from the religious field—because people were corrupted at that time...
...JoAn Wood, of Rigby, told the Thin Falls Times-News, "I have come away with a great deal of respect and I'm not willing to accept these charges [against the church...
...Without knowing it, even Pres...
...If we weren't on the up and up, why would these people be helping us...
...It worked...
...CAUSA sponsored a very effective presentation at and I really have no comment," said another...
...On June 18, the Times's "Inside the Beltway" column ran an item on an upcoming affair at the Cato Institute in honor of P. J. O'Rourke, the writer...
...They've put lots more than many millions into these groups...
...But the whole thing is based on deception...
...Moon, who (not coincidentally) was born in Chongju-Gun, Korea, in 1920, teaches that his work as the Messiah is necessary because the "First Coming" of Jesus was a flop...
...The Rev...
...the acquisition of political power as a theological imperative is a subject that hovers in the background when it is not addressed directly...
...Pak declined to be interviewed for this story...
...Then democracy—indeed all national distinctions—will be subsumed underan earthly kingdom ruled by the Messiah...
...What's more, the weekly Insight magazine, a Times subsidiary, has become, under the stewardship of John Podhoretz (the former executive editor for news, who recently left to join US...
...Heavenly Father is now recruiting volunteers to become a sacrifice over the next few years...
...A few examples: "My daughter works for the World and I [News World's telephone book-sized monthly publication on the arts]," said one...
...Similar sentiments were expressed by another activist whose organization received a considerable sum from CAUSA and who agreed to talk only on condition that I not identify him or his organization...
...And you will become soldiers, trained soldiers...
...History will make the position of Rev...
...One of the church's most unambiguous defenders among mainline conservatives is Rusher, who, in addition to his duties with National Review and the Times editorial advisory board, writes a nationally syndicated column carried in the Times "Commentary" section...
...My feeling is that just about everything about them is misunderstood...
...Ralph Reed is co-founder of Stu- dents for America and the former executive director of College Republicans...
...After making similar charges of editorial interference, the Times's first editor, James Whelan, had resigned in 1984, declaring, in high melodrama, that he had "blood on his hands" for conferring respectability on the Moonies by running their paper for them...
...Weyrich for one dismisses the old image: "What's spread around about a lot of people can't be believed," he said...
...The time will come when even a presidential candidate will need Father's endorsement in order to succeed...
...Our master is going to prepare for this system of economy...
...One day, when America follows Rev...
...March 1, 1973] In the long run, after awhile, we will be able to engraft all the people overnight...
...After all," one conservative activist said to me, off the record (it is difficult, I soon discovered, to get conservatives to talk on the record about the Unification Church), "aren't the Moonies pouring $30 million a year into the Times...
...March 1, 1973] As it now stands—both in the Democratic and Communist worlds—their ideologies are based upon their respective philosophies...
...When I was working for the church," Braindyberry said, "I thought that everything I was doing was purely for God...
...I've been on a number of invaluable fact-finding trips through the World Media Association," said yet another, "and I see no reason to repay their hospitality with voicing any reservations I may have about their beliefs or practices...
...This might put her in an uncomfortable position...
...They never quite spell things out...
...The intent of the agreement, of course, and the reason Times staffers insist on its inviolability, is to insure that the Washington Times is taken seriously as an alternative voice in Washington, as a legitimate source of news, and not as a propaganda sheet for "a church that's somewhat unpopular," as Wesley Pruden, the Times's managing editor, put it...
...Moon clear and His enemies, the American population and government will bow down to Him...
...Other exMoonies corroborate his story...
...There are highways, minor roads in the city, small towns to go through, avenues and lanes—many ways, roads through which you can reach the destination...
...And his new allies have obliged him with startling alacrity and a minimum of fuss...
...Instead, Moon gave conservatives many reasons to ignore the unpleasantness and refrain from questioning his growing involvement—millions and millions of reasons, all (as the old joke has it) with little pictures of George Washington on them...
...I much more value my relationship with them than I do with most conservatives," because they "don't have a hidden agenda...
...Already Father has great influence in Japan and within a few years the same will happen here in America...
...There was also, however, a good deal of truth to the common perceptions, and a good many former members look back with horror at their involvement with the Moonies...
...The Messiah, according to Moon's central religious writing, The Divine Principle, was born in Korea between 1917 and 1930...
...A common complaint among even the church's boosters is that church members evince a kind of caginess in discussing their beliefs in detail, particularly as they relate to politics...
...Of course, at any other newspaper, Cheshire's charges would be merely silly...
...But the Washington Times is not any other newspaper...
...Much of the ammunition for past and present critics of the, church has been drawn from Master Speaks, transcripts of speeches Moon gave in the early- to mid-seventies to his disciples in closed sessions...
...They're the best in town as far as putting their money where their mouth is," he said...
...Sun Myung Moon N o incident better illustrates the newborn respectability of the Unification Church—a.k.a...
...Moon's] modus operandi has always been to establish a front group, get some legitimate names attached to it, then use those names to establish his own credibility," said Steve Hassan, the Boston psychologist...
...It's been generally assumed that the paper's credibility rested on the agreement, because the owners of the paper are high-ranking officials of the Unification Church—popularly known, until recently anyway, as a cult...
...You must eradicate habitual things in every-day life under Democracy...
...C o for conservatives only anti-1.3 Communism is left, notwithstanding that the goal of Unification antiCommunism is a non-democratic, transnational state...
...So in future, this system of thought or system of economy will have a close relationship with religious organizations...
...But the crucial point is that for many conservatives a close association with the church is no longer considered distasteful, or something to be wary of...
...Foremost among these, in the conservative movement, are CAUSA and the World Media Association...
...said one former church member, now an active conservative, when I mentioned Rusher's comment to him...
...It's a sort of mission-oriented mentality that tells you that any enemy of my enemy is my friend...
...How about comparing Him to Pres...
...Click...
...Our way to work through those worlds is to develop our own ideology, or own thought, by analyzing those two ideologies—by criticizing...
...Listed as panelists are Pat Buchanan, Congressmen Bob Dornan, Dan Burton, and Denny Smith, NBC's Douglas Kiker, and John Silber, president of Boston University...
...His dealings with CAUSA, he said, have given him a special insight into the church...
...I've talked with leaders of the church [about their beliefs] and haven't been able to get satisfactory answers," says Weyrich...
...The KKK is anti-Communist, the neo-Nazis believe that Communism is the great evil of our time...
...There is also the matter of his famous mass weddings, for which Moon hand-picks the spouses, most of whom are virtual strangers to each other...
...More recently, two speeches Moon gave to followers (translated by Pak) on New Year's Eve and Day have been brought out of the church and made available through Family Action Information and Rescue, a London-based group made up of parents whose children are in cults...
...How do you feel looking at Him, is He the king of wisdom or the king of fools...
...The most quoted figure is $35 million.] If you pay the piper, you get to call the tune...
...To tell you the truth," he says, "I find much more temperamental fanaticism in the church's opponents than I do among the Moonies—the way their eyes begin to flutter, and their teeth glint, and they slip into a sort of don'ttry-to-tell-me attitude...
...That sort of comment [about the Grahams] is very loose talk...
...Every current Times staffer that I spoke with echoed de Borchgrave's statement...
...At that point we will be able to amend laws, articles of constitutions, if we wish to do so...
...Moon, I'm sure, has been successful beyond his wildest dreams," Reed said...
...One way to measure respectability is absence of criticism, and among Washington conservatives—who have, after all, been the main objects of his attention—he has succeeded to a remarkabledegree...
...I have yet to talk to a former Moonie who speaks wistfully of his life in the church...
...There will have to come ultimately a socialistic society centering on God," says The Divine Principle...
...It is a given in journalism that owners direct—indeed, have an obligation to direct—the editorial policy of their newspapers...
...Godism" is a diluted version of Moon's theology, comprising unexceptionable (to the conservative) platitudes about the nature of Communism—all presented without reference to Moon's role in the metaphysical scheme...
...the question is whether conservativesshould lend their reputations to him as he proceeds...
...The church has developed a prodigious network of organizations whose ostensible aim is anti-Communism...
...We will have restored the nations and influenced the entire political world...
...The collection was smuggled out of the church in the late seventies by Steve Hassan, a former high-ranking church official who is now a psychotherapist in Boston specializing in treating young people "who have been involved in totalistic cults like the Moonies...
...he was killed before he could accomplish his mission...
...Moon's way of life and salvation, the whole world will come to unite with them...
...There's a lot of loose talk about the Unification Church among -tives these days, as when Rusher, commenting on church recruitment, says, "Remember that this is a highly idealistic period in a young person's life...
...There are a lot of 501(c)3's [non-profit organizations] out there and let's face it, there's not a whole lot of money...
...But to Moon and his followers, these are utterly alien concepts...
...This is in a way very intramural, and I apologize," wrote Wesley Pruden, the Times's managing editor, in a column on the Cheshire resignations...
...Reagan is being guided by Father...
...As the controversy quicklyfaded, many conservatives were taking the line, sotto voce, that even if Cheshire's charges were true and the church was exerting control over the paper's content—well, what of it...
...At the time, Dolan spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the church: "We're kindred spirits...
...And to the extent the church's involvement in the conservative cause provokes discomfort, it does so largely for reasons of P.R...
...Because American democracy today affords the greatest political and religious freedom, the Messiah will have to effect the restoration of the world through it...
...The Association also sends journalists on allexpense-paid "fact-finding" tours of regions around the world.' The Association is similar to a sister organization, ICUS (the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences), in that it attracts recognizable names to church-related activities, quickly giving the church a legitimacy it would otherwise find difficult to come by...
...The item quoted extensively a review I'd done, for the Wall Street Journal, of O'Rourke's latest book, and although the original item as written had attributed the quotes to me, in the paper's edition the next day my name had been deleted by higher editors...
...He and his church are now, by implication, a legitimate component of what for the time being is a legitimate political movement, a movement upon which, it is safe to say, the survival of freedom depends...
...There are many angles and facets to Unification theology and hence its political "program," but the item that conservatives have seized on—and the church has publicly emphasized—to the exclusion of all others is anti-Communism...
...It's always been my position," he said, "that if they own the newspaper then they should be allowed to set the editorial policy of that paper...
...What shall it be for you, will you say yes or no...
...Are they conservatives in any real sense...
...The other 35% of the population who are holding the position of power were the ones who put Father into prison...
...As a Christian I can tell you exactly what I believe—about the Trinity, the Incarnation, and so on...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987 21 showdown has yet to come and we will show in the, end who was right and wrong, who was on the side of justice...
...Democracy was born out of corruption in the religious-field, and at that time the religious people ruled the world—like the Pope does...
...Some become brides of Christ, some join a monastery, some join the Peace Corps, some join the Communist Party, some join the Unification Church" (he added that he did not think that "the Catholic Church and the Unification Church are the same...
...That is Father's tactic, the natural subjugation of the American Government and population...
...Since its founding in 1982, the employees have worked under an "iron-clad" agreement from their employers that they would have total editorial independence, free from even the appearance of control...
...CAUSA (Confederation of Associations for the Unity of the Societies of America) is an international organization devoted to preaching "Godism" to the uninitiated...
...Not even the church's most vociferous critics suggest that Moon should be prevented from pushing himself and his cause—they are in fact one and the same—into respectability...
...But people on the outside that I know just assume that whoever owns the paper can determine its editorial policy...
...But you're living in a kind of socialistic environment, in a house with a dozen different people, and the social pressures that can be brought to bear are-intense...
...A glance at the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature from those years 20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987 reveals lots of titles like Glamour magazine's "I Was a Robot for Sun Myung Moon...
...But we checked it out very thoroughly and found that there wasn't really any truth to it and so we agreed to take some start-up money which would diminish over time and get less and less as we went along...
...I'm quite sure the Unification Church would get more positive treatment after this...
...We did it on condition that they have no input into the way the program was run...
...The final "One day, when America follows Rev...
...The World Media Association, "an international consortium of individuals and organizations concerned with advancing a high standard of journalistic ethics . . . and [the] maintenance of freedom of expression," puts on lavish conferences each year and invites well-known figures to attend, offering them very large honoraria for appearing...
...Justice cannot be suppressed...
...The Times's present editor, Arnaud de Borchgrave, a well-respected veteran journalist, was unequivocal in asserting that the autonomy agreement had not lost its integrity: "There has never been a hint of a whisper of a suggestion of editorial control from the owners...
...He refused, and a spokesman for College Republicans confirms that today the organization doesn't accept money from any Unification Church groups...
...And if he's acceptable to Washington conservatives, then who isn't...
...If I don't want something, it will not be done...
...A current list of church-sponsored front groups—that is, public, activist arms of a secretive, gnostic group—shows more than one hundred active businesses and organizations, from News World Communications to day-care centers to travel agencies to jewelry stores...
...On October 8, 1986, for example, the London Independent reported that CAUSA was "making available tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to support candidates who support their views" in Latin America...
...One prominent conservative who will go on the record is Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation...
...The conclusion: among Washington's conservative movement, the Moonies are legit...
...It was not always thus, of course, and for most Americans who concern themselves with such things, the Unification Church probably still connotes the bizarre mind-controlling, kidnapping cult it was taken to be in the seventies...
...Now, the people on the inside of the paper of course are concerned with what might happen if the paper ceased operation...
...I have likewise learned that I have been banned from writing book reviews for the Times—all this before the piece was even written...
...And I couldn't...
...It is difficult to gauge the extent to which CAUSA has insinuated itself into conservative groups in Washington, although one conservative fundraiser did tell me—not for attribution—that "CAUSA has its fingers in a lot of pies in town...
...22 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987 vigorously anti-Communist...
...Master Speaks offers the most complete picture available of thinking within the church...
...But I've seen kids take years to recover from their involvement with the Moonies...
...the Moonies—within the conservative movement than the recent resignations at the Washington Times...
...The minute there is is the minute I resign...
...They have also financed trips and seminars for Central American journalists and government officials...
...And at the beginning I looked very carefully at the church, and tried to find something invidious or insidious in the movement...
...Moon is dumb...
...Moffitt later told me that he called Burr to avoid a "bloodletting among us conservatives with an election year approaching...
...The crucial point is that for many conservatives a close association with the Unification Church is no longer considered distasteful, or something to be wary of...
...We have to purge the corrupted politicians, and the sons of God must rule the world . . . [May 17, 1973] The time will come, without my seeking it, that my words will almost serve as law...
...But with them, they'll just say, well, we're in favor of fighting the good fight against people who should be fought...
...We didn't have much of a track record, so that's not hard to understand...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987 23...
...The time for conservatives to check out strangers bearing gifts is at the beginning," he said...
...Perfect...
...You can't just take it at face value...
...CAUSA is particular'Among the journalists who have gone on World Media Association junkets are Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, TAS's managing editor, and several regular contributors to this magazine...
...About the famous charges of holding kids against their will, for example, one ex-Moonie told me, "It's true that there was no coercion in the usual sense...
...Meanwhile, Ralph Reed's objection, cited above, still stands...
...There is little else in Unificationism that American conservatives would find compelling...
...What kind of system of thought or economy can function to give those centralized instructions...
...Research for this article was undertaken with the assistance of Kenneth Kleinfeld, Wayne Barber, and the Cult Awareness Network of Chicago Illinois...
...We cannot trust the republican or democratic party, they will become the prey of communism...
...They want you to think of them as just another church, but that doesn't happen with mainstream churches—that sort of massive residual psychological damage...
...Moon's way of life and salvation, the whole world will come to unite with them...
...We weren't under lock and key...
...Postscript: When this article was being prepared, the publisher of TAS, Ronald Burr, received a phone call from Larry Moffitt, a church-member and the executive director of the World Media Association...
...January 21, 1973] The world is really our stage...
...Father would like America to be the model...
...Father would like America to be the model...
...Moon is not boastful or proud...
...Sure, they're out to buy credibility and make a name for themselves, but remember too they're stridently, There is little in Unificationism that American conservatives would find compelling...
...I have no problem with honest propagandizing and honest self-promotion...
...The church's critics, Rusher contends, might be better off looking elsewhere for kooks—like in the mirror...
...March 24, 1974] You know there are roughly two major ideologies, Democracy and Communism, but our resolution or our determination will be different from what they, under either Communism or Democracy, have had...
...Braindyberry agrees: "The names are used inside, too, to keep kids inside the church...
...Then, we come to the conclusion that God has to rule the world, and God-loving people have to rule the world—and that is logical...
...Reed says he thinks Moon has benefited greatly by "piggy-backing" the conservative movement, since now the church's organizations are largely accepted simply as mainstream conservative anti-Communist groups—groups with very deep pockets but, as Dolan said, "no hidden agenda...
...The money is there, and I will earn that money...
...Again, I must say that if we have the nation fully restored, from that nation we can influence all the nations of the world on the political base...
...Religion is the only system of thought or economy that can do that...
...I will reap the harvest...
...When William Cheshire, the Times's editorial page editor, and four members of his immediate staff walked out on April 14, charging the newspaper's owners with editorial interference, there was some fear among conservatives—and some delight among liberals—that the resignations would cripple Washington's conservative newspaper in its ongoing quest for respectability...
...Finally, he said, someone suggested he approach CAUSA...
...What these people don't realize," another ex-Moonie told me, "is that their names—especially the more famous ones—can carry a lot of weight, both in South Korea and over here in the organizations...
...And what attention is paid to economics results in a vague kind of socialism...
...We shall work to become an influential body in America...
...We were very wary of it at first because it's the kind of thing that could ruin us—we'd heard all the stories about the Moonies...
...His anti-Communism is just a tiny part of what he's about—absolutely minuscule...
...That sort of slippage isn't a healthy sign in an intellectual and political movement...
...Democracy not being the final goal under the providence of God, we must set up a new tradition transcendent of Democracy or any "ism" or ideology, and ours will be of higher dimension than any other ideologies existing in the world...
...The media was on the right track, but it oversimplified...
...And indeed the popular press, with its customary disregard for complexity, probably over-diabolized Moon and his church...
...or when Arnaud de Borchgrave says, "When I go on TV and I'm asked about the `Moonie paper,' I say, 'Do you refer to the New York Times as a Hymie paper?' " What's operating here, in this casual equivalence, is a sly slipping of standards, a creeping reluctance to make vital distinctions—to call a cult a cult, as it were—for the sake of a disreputable ally...
...News & World Report), one of the most consistently enjoyable and informative reads in journalism...
...Its most notable public contribution, of at least $500,000, was in 1984 to the Conservative Alliance, run by the founder of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, the late Terry Dolan...
...January 30, 1973] We must purge your old concepts of the American Movement under the Divine Principle...
...If I ask a certain thing, it will be done...
...Even the people who aren't taking money from him won't criticize him...
...We have a lot more in common with them than with most people in town, certainly more so than with the moderate or liberal groups...
...We are going to be the ones who restore and bring hope to every corner of the world...
...For under other circumstances the church would be anathema, roundly condemned as subversive of the very values conservatives have united to defend...
...How long the kids and the parents will be separated is determined by Moon or someone very close to Moon...
...Is a methodically deceptive, anti-family, socialistic, utopian, theocratic one-worlder who thinks he's God a plausible ally, a reliable ally, in the conservative cause...
...Given the theocratic nature of its philosophy, for example, church members are precluded from being democrats, except preliminarily...
...So we cannot separate the political field from the religious world...
...There will never be another opportunity such as the coming years of 1987 and 1988...
...January 31, 1974] This "restoration" is crucial to Unification theology, which asserts that the world has fallen away into the hands of Satan, whose present earthly manifestation is Communism...
...One day, everyone will declare the true position of Rev...
...If I recommend a certain ambassador for a certain country and then visit that country and that ambassador's office, he will greet me with the red carpet treatment...
...They point to these names and they say, look, these people are with us...
...When the 65% of the American population who all belong to minority groups come together, they will come to form the majority...
...But whether they're any worse than the Graham family [who own the Washington Post] is a matter of personal taste...
...In 1985, for example, twenty-six Idaho legislators—all Republicans—traveled on CAUSA junkets...
...Father will be recognized in every field, academic, scientific, cultural, religious...
...We've apparently already had a taste of the Times's severity...
...Moon...
...After that, said one former Moonie who became a father while in the church, "separating kids from the parents is an almost ritualistic practice, as though Moon's doing the will of God...
...The newsmagazines, too, had a good time with the church during its first fifteen minutes of fame, featuring mesmerizing pictures of Moon wrapped in imperial finery alongside quotes from brainwashed kids and agonized parents...
...When you start an organization like this, -it's very difficult to raise money...
...If we can make amendments on one of the articles of the constitution, we can do it overnight...
...I've seen the psychotic breakdowns...
...The relative merits of the byzantine charges and counter-charges arising from the Cheshire incident are not at issue here...
...After the wed-ding, the couple is separated for long periods before the marriage is consummated, and if they do eventually have children, it is only with Moon's approval...
...What movement conservatives don't seem to understand," he said, "is that you can sit in a room and disagree about politics with Walter Mondale,let's say, but at least you'll share some of the same values—traditional Western values about the dignity of the person and the value of freedom...
...Reagan...
...They'll have to go get otherjobs in journalism, and I think they see [the autonomy agreement] as a sort of insurance policy for their future...
...In form, content, and style (for example, Moon still refers to himself in the third person), they match the Moon revealed in Master Speaks...
...The ritual was meant as "a sacrifice for Father Moon's success in America...
...This was revealed to Moon at the age of sixteen in a vision on Easter Sunday (Moon's family converted to Presbyterianism when he was ten...
...It is this essential element that separates the Unification Church from Mormonism and Christian Science, with which many conservatives try to compare it...
...Well, that's not true...
...Let the show trials begin...
...If there's one point on which conservatives I spoke with agree in this matter, it's that Moon is—at the least—trying to achieve respectability with his various organizations and his vast sums of money (the source of which has never been wholly accounted for...
...And the paper is taken seriously in Washington, and not solely by conservatives...
...When church teachings discuss the family it is as a religious entity in relation to the "True Parents' Moon and his wife...
...Randy Braindyberry, a counselor in the Midwest who left the church in 1979 after serving as state leader in Hawaii and Utah (many church members lead peripatetic lives), recalls attending a Moonie demonstration in Washington in 1976 at which, he says, blood samples from 2100 church members were set afire in a vat on the_grounds of the Washington Monument, after nightfall...
...In researching this article, I heard any number of reasons why a potential source wouldn't criticize the church's goals or activities for the record...
...He did acknowledge that they had agreed to allow a CAUSA presentation to be given to their group.] And that's the way it worked out...
...Many of the speeches were translated by Bo Hi Pak, the president of the World Media Association, one of the more prominent church-sponsored groups in Washington, and of News World Communications, the parent company of the Washington Times...
...While holding the latter post, he was approached by a church member who tried to get CR to team up with CARP (Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles, the church front-group most involved on college campuses) and CAUSA—"all to legitimize Moon," Reed said...
...There is likewise little basis for considering the Moonies "pro-family" in any conventional sense...
...But when it comes to our age, we must have an automatic theocracy to rule the world...
...If anything," he said, "I think that conservatives are too wary of the Moonies...
...Most people I talk to seem to feel that way...
...Afterwards, Rep...
...And if you don't like it, well, you just have to tough it out...
...Cheshire's allegations...
...Moffitt told Burr he had heard that I was preparing an article on the Washington Times and the Unification Church, and that Burr should be advised that if any such article ran, the Times would "strike back and strike back severely...
...We could always leave if we wanted to—eventually, most people do drift away...
...All of the 350 invited "publishers, editors, columnists, reporters, broadcasters, media scholars and government officials" are offered free airfare, hotel rooms, and meals...
...CAUSA has also targeted state legislators, who are invited for out-of-town, all-expense-paid trips to CAUSA seminars...
...If anyone discovers a shortcut to Washington, D.C., many people will seek it...
...ly active as a funnel for church money to conservative groups in North and South America...
...Later this month, for example, the Association is holding the ninth World Media Conference in Seoul...
...There's a syndrome in the [conservative] movement where you begin to think that anything you do to get money—to advance the cause—is okay," Reed said...
...I second Wes, but I do admit to being unnerved by a comment made to me by a former Times employee: "In the grand Stalinist tradition," he said, "you are now a non-person...
...Do you think Rev...
...We put together a great advisory board, but the big-money guys, the high-dollar people, weren't showing up...
...The Moonies operate under a cloud of suspicion," Rusher added, "as some sort of obscure, exotic sect...
...The Unification Church has settled itself into the landscape of Washington as a good influence," said William Rusher, publisher of National Review and a member of the Times editorial advisory board...
...Does it sound easy or not...
...And what there is of it isn't based on the idea of freedom...
...A central theme that emerges from Master Speaks is the consanguinity of Unification theology and the church's political agenda...
...Only two years ago, Father was imprisoned by the American people who could not understand who Father truly is [Moon was sentenced to eighteen months in the federal prison at Danbury, Connecticut, after being convicted on a dubious charge of failing to report $162,000 in income in the early 1970s...
...There will never be another opportunity such as the coming years of 1987 and 1988...
...In Master Speaks, January 2, 1974, Moon says: "This system [i.e., a proposal to allow church members to buy only from Moon-approved manufacturers] should prevail so overwhelmingly, that even in Japan and Germany the people will not buy products from their own country, but will buy according to centralized instructions...
...Beyond this, however, there's the already widespread and growing sentiment that for conservatives there's really nothing about the church that warrants criticism...
...For this reason the paper's editors responded with great force to Andrew Ferguson is assistant managing editor of The American Spectator...
...For the most interesting thing about the ruckus and the unambiguous denials from the Times's editors is that the editors needn't have bothered...
Vol. 20 • September 1987 • No. 9
