Unification Church

Left: Reverend Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon Meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in 1990. Right: Meeting President Kim Il-Sung in DPRK in 1991.

The Unification Church is a religious movement, often described as a cult, founded in South Korea by the late multimillionaire and self-proclaimed messiah Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Since its founding in 1954, the movement has attracted hundreds of thousands of members in more than 100 countries, mostly in Korea, Japan, and other East Asian nations. The church has been regularly accused of conning new recruits, holding them against their will, splitting families and forcing initiates to give over their life savings. The church and its adherents are sometimes colloquially and pejoratively known as Moonies.

The numerous political, business, cultural, and religious activities associated with Rev. Sun Myung Moon have also been referred to in U.S. government reports as the Moon Organization. According to a 1978 U.S. report, by the end of 1973, "industries run by the Moon Organization had become defense contractors for the Government, and ROK officials were attending anti-Communist indoctrination sessions at a Moon training center."

The church is known for its mass wedding ceremonies and promotion of the belief that international marriages will bring about world peace. The Unification Church has also had involvement in both the unification movement of the Korean peninsula, as well as holding strong conservative and anti-communist tendencies. There has also been a connection between the Unification Church and the Korean Central Intelligence Acency. Since the death of Reverend Moon, his various family members have continued carrying on on the work of the Unification Church. In particular, his wife, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, is a prominent figure in the church.

Ideology

According to the 1978 U.S. House of Representatives report on Korean-American relations, the Moon Organization's actions "become more comprehensible" in the context of Reverend Sun Myung Moon's professed ideological goals and religious beliefs, which are described as follows:

In many public statements and in applications for tax-exempt status, the goals of the Moon movement are said to be religious Actions which appeared to be clearly political or economic to outsiders were explained as necessary means to achieve religious goals. The apparent contradictions in many of the activities of the Moon Organization are explained by Moon's overriding religious goal — to establish a worldwide "theocracy," that is, a world order which would abolish separation of church and state and be governed by the immediate direction of God. [...] At the center of such a state would be Moon and his organization, based in Korea. In another speech, delivered to a crowd of over a million at an anti-Communist rally in Korea, Moon visualized the establishment of a "unified civilization" of the whole world, to be centered in Korea and "corresponding to that of the Roman Empire." [...] Anti-communism is one key reason for Moon's espousal of worldwide theocracy and rejection of some of the most fundamental tenets of American democracy. Moon finds "American-style democracy" to be "a good nursery for the growth of Communism." In a speech in Seoul, Moon proclaimed that God was helping to set up a final battle involving the United States, Russia China, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan. Illustrative of the stridency of his ideology, he said: "We should defeat Kim II Sun [President of North Korea], smash Mao Tse-tung, and crush the Soviet Union in the name of God."

According to Moon's biography on the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) website, Jesus appeared to him in 1935 and asked him to complete the task of establishing God's kingdom on earth and bringing peace to humankind. The International Federation for Victory Over Communism was the first of many organizations and activities founded by Rev. Moon to "bring about the peaceful downfall of communism." Rev. Moon taught that communism should be defeated ideologically "through education about the fallacies of Marxism-Leninism", offering a counterproposal consisting of universal principles called Godism, which he promoted through conferences, global networking, rallies and demonstrations in Asia, the United States and Latin America. According to the UPF biography, "God directed Rev. Moon to expand his ministry to the world level by going to the United States in 1971" and he went on a speaking tour in the U.S. with the purpose of reviving traditional Judeo-Christian values. Rev. Moon "spoke a message of determination to stand against communism in South Korea and establish a world centered on God."

Business and political connections

Former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper delivers a keynote speech at the 4th THINK TANK 2022 Forum, organized by Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon's Universal Peace Federation.

Over the years, the church built a business empire that included the Washington Times newspaper, the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan, Bridgeport University in Connecticut, as well as a hotel and a car plant, Pyeonghwa Motors (평화자동차), in DPRK. It acquired a ski resort, a professional soccer team and other businesses in South Korea, and a seafood firm that supplies sushi to Japanese restaurants across the United States. Additionally, a 1978 U.S. report states that Tong II Industries Co., a Korean component of the Moon Organization which manufactures parts for the M-16 rifle for the Korean Government, negotiated with the American patent holder for permission to export Korean-made M-16 rifles, apparently acting on behalf of the Korean Government.

In 2022, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, Reverend Moon's wife, co-founder of Think Tank 2022, hosted the Think Tank 2022 Forum, which featured a number of leading conservative figures and members of the bourgeois class, such as Raytheon lobbyist and former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, to discuss the question of security and reunification of Korea. Among the keynote speakers listed for the event were Shinzo Abe, Donald Trump, Samdech Hun Sen, 8th secretary-general of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, and multimillionaire investor Jim Rogers and also featured U.S. politicians Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence.

On July 7, 2022, while former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe was giving a speech in Okayama City, he was shot and killed by Yamagami Tetsuya, citing the former prime minister's involvement in the Unification Church as his reason. Yamagami's mother reportedly had given large amounts of money to the Unification Church.

Connection to Korean Central Intelligence Agency

According to a 1978 report conducted by a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, referencing earlier reports, describes the connection between the Unification Church and the KCIA's founder and future South Korean Prime Minister, Kim Jong Pil, as follows:

A February 26, 1963 report stated that KCIA founder and director Kim Jong Pil had organized the Unification Church (UC) of Sun Myung Moon for use as a political tool. A former U.S. official stationed in Korea told subcommittee staff that shortly after the 1961 coup, Kim Jong Pil had stated that he intended to "organize and utilize" the UC for Korean Government political purposes. According to a December 1964 report, the UC had formed a front organization known as the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation (KCFF) as "the first step toward organizing [the UC] in Washington." Pak Bo Hi, former military attaché at the ROK Embassy in Washington, was to return to the United States to run it.

According to the 1978 report, Pak Bo Hi, a military attaché at the ROK Embassy in Washington and a "key figure in the Moon Organization" was sought out by the KCIA (now called the National Intelligence Service) as part of its plan to "increase its manpower by using other than regular KCIA officials" and at one point, Pak Bo Hi "acted as a conduit for a KCIA payment of $3,000 to a Japanese Unification Church member" as well as held clandestine meetings including himself, Reverend Moon, the then-director of the KCIA, the American chairman of Radio of Free Asia (a separate but functionally similar organization to Radio Free Asia), and Kim Jong Pil, who was in the Korean National Assembly at the time. The report also states that "In pursuit of its own goals, the Moon Organization at various times has submitted to the control of, and has coordinated its activities with, the Korean Government" such as organizing and subsequently cancelling a demonstration in Washington "at the behest of the KCIA." Han Sang Gil, Moon's public relations counselor, was also a former KCIA officer.

Among the witnesses who testified before an investigation into the Moon Organization's activities was Lee Jai Hyon, a former official of the ROK Government who had been stationed at the Korean Embassy in Washington, who said that there was "a curious working relationship" involving the Korean Government, the Unification Church, and other organizations associated with Moon. Lee said that Pak Bo Hi, Moon's aide and translator and president of the Washington-based Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation (KCFF), had access to the Korean Embassy's cable channel to Seoul; that KCIA agents at the Embassy maintained contact with the Freedom Leadership Foundation (FLF), another Moon-related organization in Washington; that Moon had founded the ''Little Angels," a Korean children's dance troupe which had appeared around the world as official representative of the Korean Government; that South Korean President Park Chung Hee had mailed out 60,000 letters on behalf of the KCFF; and that Moon operated an anti-communist indoctrination center in Korea for Korean Government employees and military officers.

According to the report, Alan Tate Wood, a former Unification Church member, said that Moon, through the church and its numerous front organizations, wanted to acquire enough influence in the United States to be able to "dictate policy on major issues, to influence legislation, and move into electoral politics," that the political goals of the Unification Church and those of the KCIA "overlap so thoroughly as to display no difference at all," and that the fundraising of the Unification Church was often done under false pretenses. One witness said that many of Moon's activities in the United States were designed to impress the Korean Government with his importance.

Reverend Sun Myung Moon

Rev. Moon met with US President Richard Nixon during the Watergate crisis of 1974 and called on Americans to "forgive, love and unite."

By the mid-1970s, Moon held a rally attended by 1.2 million people. According to UPF, an estimated 300,000 people came to hear Reverend Moon speak at the "God Bless America Festival" on September 18, 1976 at the Washington Monument in the U.S. capital.

Moon also developed good relationships with conservative American leaders, including Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior. According to an article in The Guardian, Moon "met or received support" at various times from the British prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath, ex-presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush Sr., Canadian ex-premier Brian Mulroney, US senators Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, William Fulbright and Orrin Hatch, Reagan's defense secretary Caspar Weinberger, the former NATO chief general Alexander Haig, former US education secretary William Bennett, Boston University president John Silber, Christian Coalition ex-chief Ralph Reed, and the rightwing Christian leader the Rev Jerry Falwell.

At one time, Moon was found guilty of tax evasion in the United States, where he lived for 30 years, and served 13 months of an 18 month sentence. During his lifetime, Reverend Moon was imprisoned six times under four governments: Japan, North Korea, South Korea and the United States. At the time of his death in 2012, Reverend Moon had a net worth of $900 million.