The Moon also rises

Christopher Hitchens

Astriking feature of the American Right is its ostentatious Christianity. The coalition of groups and individuals who made Reagan the candidate for President, and who claim to have got him elected by their efforts, is animated by the most tradi- tional religious convictions. It wants to restore prayer in the schools. It wants to uphold and defend the threatened values of the family. And, in many cases, it demands that each individual recognise the figure of Jesus. Christ as a personal saviour (what is known as being 'born again'). How odd, then, that in the past few years American conservatives have become more and more beholden to a man who rejects Jesus Christ, who makes blasphemous claims to be the returned Messiah, and whose organisation is a notorious destroyer of families. This is the story of the rise and rise of the `Reverend' Sun Myung Moon.

Those who take Moon's money and apologise for his cult are in no position to Plead innocence or ignorance. His attempts to influence American politics go back a long way. In 1964 he set up the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation. His winning ways and his firm anti- communism, not to mention his untold and untraceable wealth, ensured him an impres- sive letterhead for this outfit. Former Presidents Eisenhower and Truman were On it. So was future President Nixon, and several Senators. A distinguished retired ad- miral named Arleigh Burke was the titular President. But he resigned in 1965 because of his doubts about the provenance of the Money and his uncertainty about the purely cultural' nature of the organisation.

Nonetheless, the vegetable growth of Moon's operations continued, and there seemed no shortage of gullible col- laborators. Senator Strom Thurmond, veteran segregation politician and senior

statesman, intervened to help Moon with difficulties over his visa. Richard Nixon received him in the White House for a private audience, and gave him some cuff links and a tie pin in gratitude for his cam- paign against impeachment over the Watergate scandal. (Moon says God visited him on a mountain top and told him to save Nixon. He founded a National Prayer and Fast Committee which petitioned and held vigils across the country. Chief spokesman for the committee was Moon's associate Don Fefferman, who has been promised the prime ministership of Israel when Moon's evangelising of the world is complete.) It has been shown, also, that Moon is strongly connected to the efforts of a foreign government to influence American domestic affairs. The regime in South Korea has been found guilty of this on several occasions. The best known was the so-called `Koreagate', during which Con- gressional hearings discovered a vast slush

fund for the purchase of Senators and Representatives. This show was put on the road by a beaming entrepreneur named Tong Sun Park, a friend of Moon's and, like him, a close collaborator of the Korean CIA. The KCIA, whose director Kim Jae Kyu was later to be convicted of the murder of President Park Chung Hee, was cease- lessly active in the United States. Several of its officers have been declared persona non grata for their bullying of Korean dissidents living here, and for their attempts to buy or steal classified documents. It was the KCIA which pulled off the kidnapping of opposi- tion leader Kim Dae Jung from Japan — his All this, or much of it, could or should have been known to President Ronald Reagan, when on the night of his election he was photographed holding a copy of News World — the first paper to foretell his dramatic victory and the most enthusiastic supporter of it. News World is, however, a well-known front for Moon's so-called `Unification Church'. And many of its sup- porters, who are nothing if not hard workers, had managed to attach themselves to the Reagan campaign. Three of them even managed to get jobs in the White House mail room, but were fired when detected.

None of this has arrested the growth of Moon's influence. On the contrary, the bet- ter known his operations become, the more the new Right seem to embrace him. Last year, Moon sank $20 million into the laun- ching of the Washington Times, a rancid daily sheet designed to combat the allegedly `liberal' near-monopoly of the Washington Post. Two of its senior staff members are former members of the Reagan Administra- tion, and its list of columnists and feature writers reads like the social register of the new Right. John Lofton, editor of Conser- vative Digest, Patrick Buchanan, Edwin Feulner — these are the original propagan- dists of the Reagan revolution. In battles over whether the Administration is too moderate, the Times is always ready with a leak, the lowdown on some potentially liberal appointee, or simply a word of en- couragement to the believers like Senator Jesse Helms or Senator John East (who sent a message of congratulation to the paper when it began). The Times is very ecumenical: it enjoys the endorsement of ultra-Protestant Jerry Falwell, and on its board sits William Rusher, the publisher of William Buckley's arch-Catholic National Review.

It is not difficult to work out what Moon sees in his influential new friend's and employees. Nor is it very hard to discover what they see in him. He is deeply, beautifully and uncontrollably rich. For an example of the wonderful things that can happen to his true friends, take the case of Richard Viguerie. Viguerie is famous in America as the man who pioneered direct mail campaigning. He is credited with unseating the dozen or so key liberal Democrats in the 1980 elections, and he is polling consultant to every organisation on the new Right (of which he is himself a

charter member). Viguerie has everything that is summed up in the word 'clout'. His computer mailing list has been given the contract to solicit subscriptions for the Washington Times. Moon and Viguerie know they can trust one another. They have done business before.

In 1975, Viguerie's firm organised a direct-mail fund-raising programme for a Moon project entitled 'Children Relief Fund', a subsidiary of the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation. Heartrendingly drafted, the postal appeal told recipients that 'thousands of little boys and girls are suffering from the terminal forms of malnutrition . . what better could you give than a gift to fight suffering and death?' Thus $1,508,256 were raised. The auditors in New York State later found that of this grand sum, only six per cent ever reached any charitable object: $920,000 went to Richard Viguerie's firm — more than 60 per cent of the take. The remainder was split between Bo Hi Pak, the KCIA man who now oversees the Washington Times business end, and other Moonie hangers-on. Moon is, as all are agreed, a great man to do business with.

Nor is this Moon's only resource. His Tong II industries in Korea are extensively engaged in arms manufacture and, for in- stance, have the contract to make the M-16 rifle which is standard issue for the South Korean army. With Richard Viguerie, Bo Hi Ilak and Takeru Kamiyana, Moon has also started a bank in Washington DC. It is called the Diplomat National Bank, and it is under scrutiny by the authorities because the 'Unification Church' owns 53 per cent of the stock. Takeru Kamiyana was last year convicted in a tax evasion case brought against the Moon empire.

All of this is well known to all who wish to know it. So is the character of Moon's 'church'. It is organised around the so- called 'divine principle', a litany of sinister balderdash which holds that Moon himself is the Redeemer. It is wearying and rebarba- tive stuff to read, but worth detailing when one bears in mind how many pious and noisy Christians have fallen in with it.

The Moonie myth holds that history is a ceaseless re-enactment of a struggle bet- ween Adam, Eve and Lucifer. Adam and Lucifer battle for the affections of Eve, and Adam is destined to win in the end. There have been only three Adams — the original one, Jesus Christ and Sun Myung Moon. Jesus was a flawed Messiah, because he was a child of adultery (Mary is said by Moon to have been impregnated by Zachariah, thus arousing jealousy and misery in the home). He was further disabled by his inability to arouse real loyalty among his disciples. None of them was prepared to die for him, and he could not marry and father real children because of his unhappy home life. Thus, he failed to win Israel. Today, Israel is like Korea. It is the promised land because it is shaped like the male organ as a peninsula, and because there a line against atheist communism has been drawn. The job of Korea is to convert America, which in case you were wondering, is the arch- angel country of Lucifer. Moon, as Adam, will do the rest. As Moon put it not long ago: 'Some day in the near future, when I walk into the Congressman's or Senator's offices without notice or appointment, the aides will jump out of their seats, and go to get the Senator.'

We should not take Moon's bluster at face value, though there is no doubt that he is serious. But, to take the most noticeable instance, Moon seems to have the ear of Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Reagan loyalist and chief whip of the Senate conservatives. In a film about leftist subversion in America, Senators Helms and East lent their names to a widely distributed message which was sponsored and paid for by Moon's cult.

As I keep saying, this whole opportunist alliance is between Moon and his dirty millions, and the most vociferous Chris- tians and 'libertarians'. Moon peddles the most egregiously heretical opinions about Christ. He breaks up, families and demands that his followers call him 'Father' or 'Master'. (He has also, incidentally, done his best to remedy the Christian weakness which did not demand death or suicide from the disciples.) His group, which is easy to join and very hard to leave, is totally op- posed to the individual and teaches that conscience is the prompting of Satan.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is nobly worded and guarantees freedom of worship. It is on this alibi that Moon survives. In fact, he only styled himself 'Reverend' in 1969, and changed his 'Unified Family' to 'Unifica- tion Church' the next year, in order to qualify for the tax and legal exemptions which apply here. There would be no reason to change an outstanding and tolerant law in order to 'get' Moon. But this does not justify the protection and in- dulgence which he is getting from the Republican Right.

There are a few stirrings of disquiet and revulsion in Washington today. The Ripon Society, a liberal Republican study group chaired by Congressman Jim Leach of Iowa, has produced a document calling for a party inquiry into Moonie infiltration (a document which I gratefully acknowledge). The attention paid to this protest has been almost nil. The Washington Post has been sadly reluctant to wield the hatchet, because it does not want to be accused of commer- cially motivated attacks on a rival paper. The churches are silent for the most part for similar reasons. The courts do not have the power to override the First Amendment, though they have convicted Moon of cer- tain obvious financial 'corner cutting', Worst of all/ the thunderous and powerful conservative columnists, whose voices and sinews are normally at the service of 'American values', are tongue-tied about the activities of this cruel, stupid and energetic man. Or perhaps I am wrong, and he does represent their deepest yearnings after all? It can't just be the money.