Two Very Different Religious Freedoms: International Forum for Religious Freedom and International Coalition for Religious Freedom
▲ Pictured: A picture of Dan Fefferman in the 70s as a young Moonie
Isn’t it interesting how there were members of the International Forum for Religious Freedom supporting a resolution proposed to the Ohio state legislature, and other state legislatures, to have Moon and the Unification Church investigated in 1977/1978, prior to the Jonestown massacre later in 1978?
Especially when considering that just a few years later, in 1984, an organization named International Coalition for Religious Freedom popped up, headed by Dan Fefferman, funded by the UC. This organization lobbied and organized for the legitimization of the Moonies, Scientologists, and other so-called “new religious movements” (a term popularized by cult apologists).
Fefferman felt recognized at a 2000 anti-cult conference when his organization was recognized for legitimizing cults to academics and governments:
Not to brag, but several speakers made reference to ICRF. They mentioned our four conferences and the cities in which they were held—Washington, Tokyo, Berlin, and Sao Paulo. They grudgingly praised our web site (www.religiousfreedom.com), and the "impressive array" of speakers whose papers we have posted there. A featured luncheon speaker, Prof. Stephen Kent of the University of Calgary, used the ICRF as a primary example of the way in which American new religious movements (NRM’s) are able to influence the American government and academic community. He admitted that ICRF has become an influential participant in the international human rights debate. Another speaker bemoaned the fact that ICRF had been able to get current and former congressmen, government officials, leading academics, and prestigious human rights leaders to join with us.
Related
Dan Fefferman attends an anti-cult conference (2000)
Introvigne’s silence on the most important “religious freedom” case in Italy
The Real Issue in the Case of Rev. Moon (1984)
Stranger in an Even Stranger Land: Report on an Anti-Cult Conference
Dan Fefferman
April, 2000
Washington, DC
In my capacity as director of the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, I decided to attend the annual conference of the Leo J. Ryan Foundation in Stamford Connecticut. Headquartered in Bridgeport, the LJRF makes no bones about its ties to the now-defunct Cult Awareness Network, which was put out of business by a lawsuit that tied it to an illegal deprogramming conspiracy. LJRF even bills itself as the renewed "Cult Awareness Community." Its current president is Priscilla Cole, who formerly ran the Cult Awareness Network, and several other CAN stalwarts can be found on its rolls.
Of course, it’s no coincidence that the group—named for the Congressman who was gunned down in the Jonestown massacre in 1978—has its headquarters in the town where the Unification Church is well known for its role in bailing out the financially troubled University of Bridgeport. LJRF’s executive director is Julia Bronder, an embittered former UB employee and UC critic.
Human Rights, but for Whom?
The title of the LJRF conference was "Human Rights and the New Millennium." This too may be no coincidence. Our own International Coalition for Religious Freedom (ICRF) sponsored a series of international conferences in 1988 entitled, "Religious Freedom and the New Millennium." Indeed a common thread running through the LJRF presentations was that "freedom of thought" is an even more fundamental human right than freedom of speech or religion. And since cultists can’t—by definition—have freedom of thought… Well, more on that later.
I have to admit that the conference was well run and well conceived to support its organizers’ purposes. I did feel a little out of place at times, especially with people who assumed I was an anti-cultist like themselves. One former UC member was so happy to see me, until I informed her that I was "still in." Another guy angrily accused me of being a private investigator hired by Scientology to harass participants and spy on them. Talk about bad vibes! But the majority of the organizers and participants I met were courteous, if cool, once they learned who I was. Below are some highlights. While many other groups other than the UC were dealt with, I’ve concentrated on what relates specifically to our work.
Accolades from the Adversary
Not to brag, but several speakers made reference to ICRF. They mentioned our four conferences and the cities in which they were held—Washington, Tokyo, Berlin, and Sao Paulo. They grudgingly praised our web site (www.religiousfreedom.com), and the "impressive array" of speakers whose papers we have posted there. A featured luncheon speaker, Prof. Stephen Kent of the University of Calgary, used the ICRF as a primary example of the way in which American new religious movements (NRM’s) are able to influence the American government and academic community. He admitted that ICRF has become an influential participant in the international human rights debate. Another speaker bemoaned the fact that ICRF had been able to get current and former congressmen, government officials, leading academics, and prestigious human rights leaders to join with us.
A special breakout session was devoted to the Maryland Task Force on Cult Activities which we’ve reported on previously in Unification News. The panelists—anti-cultists Ron Loomis, Denny Gulick, and Franz Wilson—declared the Task Force’s Final Report as a victory for their side. These men and other anti-cult activists on the Task Force were later given a special award for their efforts to create and influence the Task Force. The speakers acknowledged ICRF’s opposition to the Task Force, but naturally downplayed our effectiveness in blocking the anti-cultists’ aims. For example, they did not mention the fact that the state’s official task force on "Cult Activities" decided not even to use the word "cult" in its final report. Nor did they mention that one of its members, panelist Franz Wilson, interrupted UC member Alex Colvin’s testimony during a formal task force meeting and threatened him with violence.
Panelist Ron Loomis of the American Family Foundation avowed that the panel’s "agenda" was that "you should go back and attempt a similar effort in your state." But he warned about getting too much press in the beginning. "The best way to do it is locally," said Loomis, because national campaigns attract too much attention from NRMs and civil liberties groups. "Politicians are chicken," he complained. (In Maryland the legislation creating the Task Force was pushed through with almost no opposition voices raised, because our side did not find out about it until it had already passed the lower house and was on a fast track to pass the Maryland Senate. Four previous efforts by anti-cultists to pass similar legislation had failed when both sides were heard.)
Washington Times Targeted
The Washington Times and the WT Foundation were also major targets of LJRF speakers. One session was devoted exclusively to "Following the Money Trail in the Moon Movement." Led by Rev. Fred Miller, the session complained about the continued success of the Washington Times and its influence in conservative political circles. Miller seemed particularly upset by the success of the WTF’s American Century Awards. He named several high level political leaders who honored True Father Moon on that occasion. Miller was visibly disappointed by Jerry Falwell’s presence.
Another focus was George W. Bush. Several speakers mentioned him, believing that Rev. Moon must be a major financial supporter of Gov. Bush, if not directly then through his father. They are hoping to find evidence that UC money is ending up in Bush’s campaign treasury. They also bemoaned the fact that New Yorker seems to be a highly successful financial enterprise and that it has become a Ramada franchisee. Miller even reported on a meeting between himself and Ramada officials in which he sought unsuccessfully to influence them to end the relationship.
The anti-cult movement had been seriously discredited in the 1980s because of its association with deprogramming. It lost several major court cases, and also lost credibility among its mainstream funding sources. Now, however, it appears to have found a new "Sugar Daddy." Bob Minton is a reputed multimillionaire whose primary hobby in life is fighting against "cults." His main passion is attacking Scientology. However, he is also rumored to be a major funding source for the LJRF. Minton was a keynote speaker at this year’s conference, although he seems to have few credentials other than the green kind. He publicly announced that he had purchased 2,000 copies of former deprogrammer (now exit counselor) Steve Hassan’s new book, "Breaking the Bonds," which retails for 24.95. If you do the math, that’s a nice little contribution, and it doesn’t count any other donations to Steve’s new "Freedom of Mind Foundation" non-profit group.
No Hassle with Hassan
Speaking of Steve Hassan, I had several conversations with Steve during the conference. I’ve also been corresponding with him through e-mail. Notice the distinction I made in the above paragraph between "deprogramming" and "exit counseling?" Steve is adamant about making this distinction because deprogramming involves force and exit counseling does not. I think he has a point. I asked if he would be willing to put his opposition to forced deprogramming in writing to the Japanese Christian churches who—sometimes using his earlier books on "mind control" as their justification—are reportedly involved in forced kidnapping of hundreds our UC members. He agreed to do so. The letter says, in part:
"[An anti-cultist minister in Japan] told me this morning that sometimes, albeit infrequently, a family might hold their adult child against his/her will, and then a minister might be invited to speak with them. In my opinion, no minister should get involved in something like this as a matter of policy--even if the cult member requests a meeting in writing…
"I want this letter to stand as a public record that I think that any approach to help cult members should be one of love, compassion, and positive communication, not force. Otherwise, kidnapping or involuntary detention will invariably be traumatic… In fact, there was always another way that would have been less traumatic."
In return for his writing the above-mentioned letter, Steve asked me to clarify to the world community of Unificationists that he is not involved in holding people against their will. I think Steve is sincere in this, although he is certainly wrong in many of the things he says about the UC, Rev. Moon, "mind control," and NRM’s in general. Steve is a former deprogrammer, not a current one. What he does now is called "exit counseling," or in his current parlance "strategic interaction" to "break the bonds of mind control."
Now some of you will ask, "But isn’t what Steve does still really faith-breaking based on religious intolerance?" And I’d have to say yes. He gets paid by people who disapprove of other people’s religion (usually family members) to talk them out of it. And he also writes books and speaks out wherever he can trying to convince people of the need for the service he provides. But technically speaking it shouldn’t be called deprogramming unless force is involved. I’m hoping that since Steve wants UC members to avoid speaking in the present tense about things he did in the past (namely deprogramming), he’ll do the same and stop speaking about things we did in the past as if they were going on today. Watch this space.
Perhaps the most disturbing presentation of the LJRF conference was made by Jim Seigelman and Flo Conway, authors of the book "Snapping," which was instrumental in forming the anti-cult movement’s ideological basis in the late 1970s. Their presentation was entitled "Church vs. State," and it called for a new interpretation of the First Amendment that recognizes "freedom of thought" as the most basic human right, even more basic than freedom of speech or freedom of religion. (Another featured speaker, Stephen Kent of the University of Calgary eerily entitled his presentation "Human Rights vs. Religious Freedom.") Keep in mind that Conway and Seigleman and their cohorts, including exit counselor Steve Hassan, clearly argue that members of the minority religions they call "cults" do NOT have freedom of thought, because the cults have robbed them of it.
Seigelman actually called religion "the Achilles heel of American democracy." And Conway stated that "freedom of thought must be added to the first amendment." The both supported what they call a "judicial initiative" that will establish a "right to freedom of thought" in the same way that a "right to privacy" or a "right to have an abortion" has been established.
But if you unpack the Owellian newspeak, this type of "freedom of thought" simply stands the First Amendment on its head. Instead of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or abridging the free exercise thereof," Conway and Seigleman appear to say that "The Courts shall interpret the law so that anyone who joins an unpopular religion shall be declared incapable of exercising freedom of thought." The legal and political implications of such a doctrine are staggering.
At its closing banquet, the LJRF gave Conway and Seigelman its highest honor, the Leo J. Ryan Award. The first person they thanked and credited as a pioneer in "this work" was not other than the father of deprogramming himself, Ted Patrick.
Mr. and Mrs. Fefferman and FLF President Neil Salonen, together with representatives of the Japanese and European couples who participated in the wedding, Unification Church President Young Whi Kim and German Unification Church President Paul Werner met with Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil on February 5 in Seoul. Rev. Kim presented the Prime Minister with a contribution of more than U.S. $100,000 for the Korean New Village Movement, from contributions
Conservative pundit Bret Stephen's father Charles Stephens organized over 100 Moonies in the 70s, including Gary Jarmin, Dan Fefferman, Edwin Ang, etc., under the organization "Youth Committee for Peace with Freedom". They lobbied and protested on behalf of continuing the Vietnam War.
It's been said that the Unification Church benefited from the Vietnam War due to Tongil Heavy Industries' production of weapons used to fight the Vietcong.
Sun Myung Moon chose wives from each of the larger mass weddings to have sex with (probably six wives)
This was apparently reported by a number Japanese leaders.
Dan Fefferman is helpful on this topic.
6 or 7 Marys
Dan Fefferman January 2, 2001
Question:
Where did the concept of the 3 day ceremony come from? Was it from pikareum? Two nights the woman on top and the last night the man on top, who came up with this idea I wonder?
Answer by Dan Fefferman:
It certainly seems like it could be the remnant of a more traditional form of pikareum. Especially considering the significance: namely the woman represents the bride of the messiah for the first two nights, and the man represents the restored Adam on the third night.
As to the question of Zin-Moon Kim's reported take on this, let me say this:
1. I've heard so many versions of the "real story" from different sources, that I certainly don't accept Zin-Moon Kim's version as authoritative or complete.
2. I have no way of knowing whether the version of Zin-Moon Kim's take on this is accurately reported here.
Like I say, I'm sure that with so much smoke on this issue, there must be some fire somewhere. But the exact nature of the fire still is not clear to me. So no, I do not accept Zin-Moon Kim's reported version of the story as factual. Here are some pertinent facts as I see them.
1. Father was married, and left his wife to go to North Korea shortly after being involved with Baek-Moon Kim's group which MAY have practiced pikareum. [It was taught that Baek-Moon Kim DID practice pikareum the top Japanese UC lecturers in the early 1990s.]
2. There were charges in North Korea that Father's group practiced sexual orgies. These are denied by the UC.
3. After returning to South Korea, Father's first wife believed him to be involved with other women and divorced him in part because of this.
...
6. Some UC husbands believe their wives had sex with Father but no wife that we know of has ever admitted this.
7. Some members, reportedly including Zin-Moon Kim (though this is unconfirmed), believe Father had sex with various women representing various ages.
8. Others believe that one sister per blessing was chosen to have sex with him or that he had sex with various women during his first world tour. [Sun Myung Moon did have sex outside of his marriage to Hak Ja Han: Sammy Pak was conceived in 1965 and born in January 1966.]
9. Sammy Pak looks sort of like Father and many people believe he is Father's son.
10. Father says he never misused his sexual organ, which is not the same thing as saying that he has been entirely monogamous since marrying mother.
Moon’s religion was always involved in politics: ‘From Korea with Love’ by John D. Marks
https://www.tparents.org/UTS/DoH1/DoH1-11.pdf
___________________________________________
When you can’t even count on religion to ignore politics, then it is time to pay attention to the political beliefs of the religious.
___________________________________________
The Washington Monthly February 1974
From Korea with Love by John D. Marks
John Marks is co-author, with Victor Marchetti, of an upcoming book on the CIA.
The two most widely seen faces in American cities today may well belong to the 15-year-old Indian guru named Maharaj Ji and a 53-year-old Korean prophet named Sun Myung Moon. Followers of these two men energetically force leaflets on innocent pedestrians and hang their leader’s picture in fierce competition for poster space (and converts). Their success in littering the urban landscape may herald a new form of religious pollution.
The Indian, who calls himself the “Perfect Master,” seems to have reached a plateau of sorts in November, when he failed to fill even half of the Houston Astrodome for a declaration of “a thousand years of peace.” In any case, the faith he preaches—despite its appeal to former radical activists like Rennie Davis—is essentially spiritual, not political, in nature. His movement may be diverting energy from progressive causes, as Ramparts magazine has charged, but even the most bitter critics do not contend that the guru is interested in influencing American foreign policy or supporting the President on Watergate.
Directly in contrast, Sun Myung Moon interweaves politics and religion in the best tradition of the medieval popes. His Unification Church operates a vast network of affiliate organizations in over 40 countries, under the distinctly temporal banner of the International Federation for Victory over Communism. With the formidable task of selling a new messiah to the world, the Moonies (or “the Family” as they call themselves) are extremely media-conscious. Perhaps for this reason the American branch of the Victory over Communism effort has taken on the less strident title of the Freedom Leadership Foundation (FLF).
Political activities in this country are not nearly as developed as those in South Korea, where Moon operates a training school to which the government annually sends hundreds of thousands of civil servants, local officials, and military men for a course in militant anti-communism. Even as other Korean religious leaders have turned increasingly against President Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian rule, Moon has stayed an enthusiastic backer of the regime. Moon’s avowed interest is in fighting communism, not preserving democratic niceties, and, as FLF Secretary General Gary Jarmin asserts, “Even if Park got more dictatorial, we would support him.”
Jarmin is a 24-year-old ideologue who has the earnest, well-scrubbed, closely cropped look that I learned to expect in meeting Moonies. He would like to recreate in the United States—a la General Edwin Walker—the kind of indoctrination system that Moon runs in Korea. “I disagree with our military,” says Jarmin. “They teach our GIs how to kill but don’t give them enough ideological training in the nature of communism.”
Before Secretary General Jarmin is brushed off as a youthful extremist, it should be noted that by Moonie standards he is nearly middle-aged. The movement’s American president, Neil Salonen, is only 28, and virtually all of the sect’s 2,000 “core” members are in their early to mid-twenties.
Potential converts come to the sect largely from the ranks of disaffected young people, and there is no shortage of those. They exist all over the country—chafing under an unhappy lifestyle and looking for meaningful purpose in life. Whether they feel let down by their parents’ generation, by organized religion, by conventional or radical politics, by the counterculture, or whatever, a messianic religion like Sun Myung Moon’s offers something to believe in—at a time when credible institutions are in short supply. Older persons may share the same doubts, but they tend to be less willing to open themselves up to a radical new set of beliefs.
So far, at least, only the young have been willing to make the full-time commitment that the sect demands and move into the communal living centers where the Family lives in all 50 states. Being a Moonie is not easy: forbidden in practice, if not by formal rule, are smoking, alcohol, and drugs. Absolutely taboo is premarital sex, which Moon rails against as “fornication.” Even marriage between believers is a difficult proposition, since new converts are generally expected to have been in the sect for three years and to have achieved a high state of spiritual “perfection” before they wed.
For what does the Family make these sacrifices? Nothing short of “the kingdom of heaven on earth,” as promised to it by its leader, who claims to have found the way through a series of revelations he received from Jesus Christ between his sixteenth and twenty-sixth birthdays.
The sect’s bible, called Divine Principle, is the fruit of these “revelations,” and it tells how God’s original plans for a perfect world fell apart when the archangel Lucifer (Satan) entered the Garden of Eden, seduced Eve, and thus caused the “spiritual fall of mankind.” With the forces of the devil on the ascendency, Moon doctrine teaches, God tried to recoup by sending Jesus, “the second Adam,” to earth to marry, have “perfect” children, and kick off the messianic age. But Satan won again, and, contrary to God’s intentions, Jesus was crucified. Now, the new messiah has come to “fulfill” the promise of the Old and New Testaments.
As for the identity of that messiah, Divine Principle does not give his name, except to say that he was born in Korea, “the new Israel,” in the years after World War I. Ask a believer if Moon (born in 1920) is the one, and ‘there is a standard reply: “Many of us believe that Reverend Moon is the messiah, but we consider this a personal matter.” Moon, for his part, is perfectly aware that “many” of his followers regard him as the messiah, and he has apparently never made any attempt to convince them that this is not the case.
Divine Principle is more explicit about the reasons for the sect’s fierce opposition to communism, giving an analysis strikingly similar to the views of the late John Foster Dulles. In a lecture on the doctrine, Michael Beard, one of their preachers, explains that there are only two major blocs on earth, “the Communist and the Free Worlds,” that they are locked in a “Cain and Abel-type” conflict, and that communism represents the forces of Satan. The fact that Moon’s “revelations” reflect this early Cold War simplicity may be accounted for by the virulent strain of anti-communism to which he was exposed in Korea for over 20 years and also by Moon’s own imprisonment by the North Koreans for several years prior to 1950 [jailed from February 1948-October 1950 for bigamy] (just as the Divine Principle’s reliance on intricate diagrams and concepts like “the law of polarity” to explain all relationships may reflect Moon’s training as an electrical engineer).
Moon Over Moscow
For whatever reason, the sect’s Freedom Leadership Foundation opposes detente and works to “roll back the Iron Curtain.” Secretary General Jarmin explains, “If we’re willing to fight to the death to protect ourselves from communism, we should be willing to fight to the death to free other people, whether in Vietnam, Cambodia, or elsewhere.” He confides in a conspiratorial voice: “Although we don’t proclaim it, we’re talking covertly about smuggling our ideology and materials into communist countries.”
In its four years of existence, the FLF has started a number of programs which, while not coming anywhere near the ultimate goal—“Victory over Communism”—still are impressive in scope. Its specific target is the Marxist “enemy within” as well as the threat from abroad, and its three main areas of activity are:
1) The World Freedom Institute. This is the “educational and training arm” of the FLF, and it offers programs, courses, and seminars to train students and other young people “in techniques to overcome Communism in the way it is working hardest in America—ideologically.” The group plans an “international training center” in Washington and is already active on over 20 campuses. It worked closely with another Moonie group, the Committee for Responsible Dialogue, which up to a year or two ago attempted to “confront the negativity and falsehood of the radical left” on campus by organizing debates between leftist leaders and conservative spokesmen such as Senator William Brock and Representative Philip Crane. A related group in which the FLF as a whole was a leading participant was the American Youth for a Just Peace, which supported Administration policy in Vietnam and sent delegations of American youths to counterweight (in theory) the work of the anti-war movement.
2) The Rising Tide. This is a bi-weekly newspaper in its third year of publication which prints Moon’s position on various foreign policy issues, publicizes dissidence in communist countries, and generally puts out news with a rightist slant. (The causes they support are not necessarily rightwing, but their approach to them certainly is. For example, not only does the FLF bumper sticker urge the viewer to “Free Soviet Jewry” but also to “Free Russia from Communism.”)
3) Lobbying. According to Jarmin, the FLF is “already spending a lot of time on the Hill trying to influence” congressmen and senators on national security issues. Since the FLF (as well as the Unification Church) is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization under the Internal Revenue Service’s rules, it is forbidden to actually lobby for specific legislation, but Jarmin states it carries on “educational” programs especially for legislative aides. And soon, according to Jarmin, the FLF intends to spin off a separate, new organization which will carry on direct lobbying and support selected political candidates.
The FLF spends about $50,000 to $60,000 a year, not including the labor costs of its eight full-time employees (who receive no salary and who, as “core” members of the Family, live together in their own communal center, with Jarmin serving as their spiritual as well as temporal leader). Jarmin maintains that most of the FLF’s funds come from private donations and contributions from the parent Unification Church. He says there are 5,000 FLF members, including the 2,000 hard-core Moonies whose names were automatically inscribed on the organization’s rolls when they joined the Unification Church.
Several rank-and-file Family members with whom I talked had no idea that they also belonged to the FLF, and indeed were almost totally ignorant of the movement’s political side. In listening to roughly 12 hours of religious lectures at a weekend workshop designed to attract new recruits, I heard no mention of any of the group’s political activities. What came across after a weekend’s total immersion in the faith was an organization full of sincere people working feverishly to raise the spiritual level of mankind—not a political action group.
When I questioned Jarmin on why the political aspect of the movement was not mentioned, he admitted the omission was no accident: “People who attend the workshops have more concrete ideas about politics than about religion,” he said. “We try to avoid politics. If we came on strong about Vietnam, it would chase people away. Our anti-communism is religious, so until we convince people of a belief in God, it is to our disadvantage to politicize.”
From Anarchy to Apocalypse
I saw what he meant when I talked to Jeff, a thin, extremely intense young man who earlier had searched for spiritual fulfillment in the leftist Catholic Worker movement and in a monastery for nine months. A week before I met him, he had attended a two-day Family workshop—his first formal contact with the movement—had liked what he had heard, and “moved right in” to a communal living center. He admits to having been bothered by what he calls the “anarchy” of the Catholic left, and now he enthusiastically embraces the rigid discipline and absolute certainty of his new faith. He had seen the world in an “apocalyptic” state, but Divine Principle has convinced him that these “last days” were simply the prelude to the messianic age. Now his spiritual doubts have vanished, although he concedes “at first it hurt my intellectual pride that it was all so simple.”
Jeff was long active in the anti-war movement and on one occasion was arrested for protesting outside the Pentagon—while his Marine officer father worked inside. When I spoke to him he was a week into his career with the Family. He asserted he was still a radical but admitted he knew little about the politics of his new religion. In any case, he doubted that the Family is “real conservative” and is sure, for example, that it would have opposed the coup d’état against the Allende Government in Chile. (In fact, the September 24 issue of the Rising Tide newspaper extols the “inevitable end” of the Allende presidency.) When pressed about any inconsistency between his vehement opposition to the Vietnam war and Moon’s strong support of it, Jeff declared in exasperation, “All I know is that this is my calling.”
That Moon’s religion comes complete with its own brand of right-wing politics seems to bother only outsiders. Once newcomers are fully converted, they are all-accepting about every aspect of the sect. If Jeff turns out like the others I met, he will be that way after a few more weeks with the Family. Soon, perhaps, he will dismiss questions about Vietnam and South Africa as “irrelevancies,” the way former SDSer Felice Walton did to me. “What is important,” she declared, “is Divine Principle.” [SDS = Students for a Democratic Society which was a student activist movement in the US which was one of the main representations of the New Left.]
Presumably in keeping with Divine Principle, Moon took out an immigrant visa and moved permanently to this country in 1972. Working out of a posh, 22-acre estate in Tarrytown, New York, he apparently intends to use America’s potential as the Free World’s most powerful and god-blessed nation as his base for establishing the “kingdom of heaven on earth.” His effort moved into high gear in October when he launched a 21-city speaking tour, and his followers believe he is now making great progress in winning American hearts and minds.
But Moon’s travels have shown him “a troubled land [in] moral and spiritual decline... mortally wounded in spirit and soul by the tragedy of Watergate.” Moon says he hesitated to speak out, recognizing he was not an American citizen and waiting for “some great spiritual leader or evangelist [to] rally America around God above the Watergate.” But even Billy Graham remained quiet, so on November 30, Moon issued a personal statement on the scandal. Declaring that “God is testing America through the Watergate problem,” Moon said:
This nation is God’s nation. The office of the President of the United States is, therefore, sacred. God inspires a man and then confirms him as President through the will of the people.... At this time in history God has chosen Richard Nixon to be President of the United States of America. Therefore God has the power and authority to dismiss him. Our duty, and this alone, is that we deeply seek God’s guidance in this matter and support the office, itself. If God decides to dismiss this choice of His, let us have faith that He will speak.
Dan Fefferman, 25, and a former student and anti-war activist at Berkeley, is director of Moon’s National Prayer and Fast for the Watergate crisis. In an interview, Fefferman asserted that while the Family is “not taking any stand on the President’s innocence or guilt, we do feel he should be considered innocent until proven guilty. The attitude of some sectors of the American public and press has been just the opposite.” Stating that “Nixon is being made a scapegoat” and that “Watergate is tearing the country apart,” Fefferman concluded that the scandal “inhibits the ability of government to move forward on issues such as the Mideast and the energy crisis.”
While these words may sound like they were written by Ron Ziegler, Fefferman insisted that the Moonie effort is non-partisan and in support of the presidency, not the man. “We’re not taking a political stand,” he said, “but we have to recognize that any social action has political overtones.” In this spirit, six members of the Family have been regularly “visiting” congressional offices of both parties and asking the legislators to sign a petition in support of Moon’s Watergate “forgiveness” statement. “We’re tax exempt, but we can lobby about attitudes,” Fefferman asserted.
At the end of the year, this effort had been endorsed by four conservative Republican senators (Curtis, Fong, Hansen, and Thurmond) and 28 congressmen (mostly from the Republican right). Additionally, they have launched a seven-day public fasting campaign on the Capitol steps as part of the larger 40-day Prayer and Fast, and have tried without too much apparent success to organize interfaith support in their behalf.
And Then the Red Sea Parted
On December 13, hundreds of Moonies—self-described as “well-dressed and prayerful”—rallied in front of the White House “to lift the spirit of the President,” bearing signs reading “SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT” and “GOD LOVES NIXON.” Shortly after 11:00 p.m., the President himself appeared to greet the Family. They knelt down when he came near and, according to Fefferman, “Mr. Nixon seemed moved.” After a warm exchange of greetings, the Family joined hands and blocked traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue so the President could return home. Jamie Canton, yet another earnest young man, who bears the title Assistant Director of the Media Team for the Watergate Crisis, describes, somewhat in awe: “We stopped the world for him and he passed between us.”
According to Fefferman, Moon took money from his own personal funds to buy the numerous newspaper ads used to spread his Watergate gospel. The Unification Church-tax exempt organization that it is—has since assumed the media cost, which the sect’s 25-year-old financial advisor, William Torrey, says has amounted to $72,000. Altogether, Torrey estimates that the Church is currently operating on about a $3million annual budget, not including the cost of supporting the 2,000 “core” members who must be housed, fed, and clothed—at a conservative estimate of another $5 million a year.
Where does all this money come from? Well, until recently, Torrey claims the main source of income has been the hawking of decorative candles, followed by the contributions of about 2,500 sympathizers—but not “Family members”—who live and work outside the church.
As incredible as it may seem, in 1972, when a down payment was needed for the $850,000 estate-headquarters in Tarrytown, every Family member in the entire country—then about 1,500—dropped all other work and went out to sell candles for 40 days straight. Torrey reports this saturation campaign netted close to $500,000.
However, as with other sectors of American life, the energy crisis has changed things—by making paraffin for candles scarcer and more expensive—and the Family has now switched from candles to hand-filled terrariums for their principal sales item. These little glass-enclosed rock gardens take a great deal of effort to make, but the 2,000 American Moonies are a ready source of free labor. Their dedication is such that they work (and study and proselytize) seven days a week, without indulging themselves in what the rest of us call leisure activity.
But even their herculean effort at street peddling has its limits. While financial advisor Torrey claims that this technique, coupled with the contributions from fellow travelers, covered the rapidly expanding budgets of the last few years, he believes the sales now have about saturated the market. Already the Family is planning to move into labor-intensive businesses like house painting and cleaning. Moreover, they have opened a tea house in downtown Washington and hope to expand to other cities.
From the Family’s point of view, tea houses are ideal—they make money and they bring customers into a congenial atmosphere where the general pleasantness thrown off by almost all Moonies (or at least the 15 or so I met) is a lure for potential converts. Moreover, the tea houses are an outlet for the ginseng tea which is exported from Korea by a company controlled by none other than Sun Myung Moon.
Moon’s River of Riches
While Moon’s American operation is largely limited to penny-ante capitalism, in Korea he is a virtual conglomerate holding, besides the tea business, air rifle, pharmaceutical, titanium, and still other companies. His empire is worth well over $10 million, but Torrey insists that all profits go into the Unification Church and affiliate organizations.
Torrey may well be correct, but there are those who do not think so, especially in the Korean exile community. Lee Jai-Hyon, who was a top diplomat in South Korea’s Washington embassy until opposition to the Park regime caused him to defect to the U.S. in June, 1973, equates Moon with another Korean messianic leader, Park Tae-Seon, who, Lee says, also raised large sums of money from fanatic believers and grew rich from his business holdings.
Lee and his colleagues in the Korean democratic opposition see Moon as an opportunist who has supported the present government in return for personal gain.
The Park Chung Hee regime of course welcomes the backing offered by Moon, but its interest in his movement may well extend into the murky world of espionage. According to both Lee and State Department sources, the Korean government is actively concerned about improving its dictatorial image in this country, and they do not doubt that its intelligence organization, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), has on occasion secretly subsidized ostensibly private organizations for this purpose—just as the American CIA has done for the last 26 years.
The KCIA has in fact grown up in a skewed mirror image of its American big brother. It even suffered its own Bay of Pigs last year when it got caught, after the fact, kidnapping Kim Dae-Jung, the losing candidate in the 1971 presidential election, from a Tokyo hotel room and spiriting him to Korea. Not known for its subtlety, the KCIA’s harassment of Korean residents in the U.S. became so blatant in 1973 that the State Department ordered an FBI investigation of KCIA activities in this country and complained on at least half a dozen occasions to the Korean government. What is more, the KCIA is involved in virtually every aspect of Korean life, and it would be unusual if its interest did not extend to a burgeoning religious/political movement run by a Korean who supports virtually all of its goals and who is in a position to work and lobby for its government’s position on the American political scene.
And Moon would have to be on good terms with the KCIA, or else he would not be permitted to operate his anti-communist school for Korean government employees. As Richard Halloran reported in The New York Times on August 20, 1973, one of KCIA’s bureaus “is in charge of internal propaganda and anti-communist indoctrination” in Korea, and Moon would not continue to hold the training franchise if he refused to cooperate.
If there is any intelligence connection between Moon and the Park Chung Hee regime, it is almost certainly limited to the very top level of the Moon organization and probably involves the organization in lobbying or public relations work for the Korean government—and not intelligence collection.
None of the American Moonies would be likely to know of any intelligence relationship. Their interest in the movement comes from Moon’s charismatic appeal and the message of salvation he preaches. For most, his political ideas had little or nothing to do with their conversion. In fact, the rank-and-file Family members do not even seem to know that they belong to a right-wing pressure group, and those who are knowledgeable firmly believe that the movement’s politics are completely in line with god-given Divine Principle.
It would be wrong to take the Family too seriously as a political movement, but the ease with which its young members have overlooked or accepted the group’s political aims may have its importance. We have for some time been in an era of retreat from politics into personal fulfillment and spiritual concerns, somewhat like the 1950s retreat into career. It’s attractive for those in retreat to assume that politics will mind itself during their absence, or at least have the courtesy not to come bothering them in their new interests. The standard complaint against movements like Guru Maharaj Ji’s is that they distract people from all political concerns. But as Moon’s story shows, politics can chase them down and, when they’re not looking, put them on the wrong team. When you can’t even count on religion to ignore politics, then it is time to pay attention to the political beliefs of the religious.
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Minions and Master, an extract from Gifts of Deceit
Allen Tate Wood on the Moon Org.
United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization
Politics and religion interwoven
The Moon Organization Academic Network (1991) – Daniel Junas
Moon Rising: The History and Politics of the Unification Church – Daniel Junas
Robert Parry’s investigations into Sun Myung Moon
Moon sought to influence the American political agenda by pouring more than a billion dollars into media.
My experience within the hierarchy of the Moon cult during its years of expansion in Russia and in the CIS
Moon and the Bushes – Kevin Phillips
Missing Pieces of the Story of Sun Myung Moon – Frederick Clarkson
Fraser Report: Excerpts from the Testimony of Allen Tate Wood
Sun Myung Moon organization activities in Central & South America
The Resurrection of Reverend Sun Myung Moon
The forgotten figure who explains how Trump got almost 74 million votes
Why do so many evangelicals continue to deny that Biden won the election?
Wealthy Korean “cult” president of Family Federation and World Peace and Unification (FFWPU), Hak Ja Han Moon, arrived in the country on Monday ahead of the Peace and Family Festival, and there are some fishy reports claiming that a certain section of the Christian fraternity is organising an emergency morcha.
Reports are that the pastors are seeking an immediate clearance letter from the Zimbabw…
Dan Fefferman and Michael Mickler comment on the UC of America
from Dan Fefferman’s November 2000 review of ‘40 Years in America’
“As most long-time members recognize, the American Unification movement experienced substantial and rapid growth in the early 1970s, virtually doubling in membership every year from 1970-1974. Michael Mickler offers an intriguing thought as to the nature of the brick wall we hit after that. He sees the experimental Barrytown training project in 1975 as symptomatic of a departure from the American tradition that had previously brought such success. He cites four factors:
1) the sharpening of in-out distinctions between the movement and world
2) an extreme emphasis on fallen nature and obedience to central figures
3) a counterproductive shift away from center life and toward individual pioneering by young members and
4) the creation of an unattractive sense of desperation that failed to bring about the hoped for Pentecost.
But Barrytown was only one symptom of a larger problem. “To a large extent,” says Mickler, “Barrytown was a Japanese import... The Japanese outlook and modes of operation became even more pervasive in the church’s mobile fundraising teams.”
The result was a new church culture. College-aged Americans took on a soldier-like demeanor that had little appeal to their peers. They wore ties while witnessing, spoke urgently of the dangers of Communism, testified less frequently to the joys of their international community, stopped singing popular songs in favor or oriental Holy Songs, and sometimes even spoke in stilted English with a Japanese accent. The American movement may only now be fully recovering from that cultural shift.”
From the Oakland Family to Koreanization of the UC of America
