TheBush-Kim-MoonWashingtonTimes Axis of Love
At this past week’s summit, George W. Bush and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung disagreed publicly on how to deal with communist North Korea – Bush advocated a harder line. But the two leaders have a little-known bond in common: the political largesse of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
For more than three decades, Moon, the founder of the South Korea-based Unification Church, has spun a worldwide spider's web of influence, connecting to hundreds of powerful leaders through the silken threads of his mysterious money.
Moon’s beneficiaries include the Bush family and, according to U.S. intelligence reports, Kim Dae Jung.
Though seldom discussed publicly, the Moon-Bush connection has been reported before – and detailed in this publication. But Moon’s financial links to Kim Dae Jung – a longtime dissident who opposed the authoritarian governments that ruled South Korea during the Cold War – have remained secret.
U.S. intelligence stumbled onto the Moon-Kim connection while monitoring South Korean political developments in 1987.
But Moon must have understood the "respectability" equation well. With the election of Ronald Reagan, Moon began pouring hundreds of millions of dollars a year into conservative causes. He launched The WASHINGTON TIMES daily newspaper in 1982. He funded dozens of front groups. He bought political allies by the score with fat speaking fees and side business deals. His costly operations blasted anyone who crossed the Reagan-Bush administrations.
By that time, Moon’s Unification Church already had built close ties to the Reagan-Bush administration, especially through Moon's funding of conservative causes and his $100-million-a-year subsidy of the right-wing Washington Times, hailed by Ronald Reagan as his “favorite” newspaper.
Moon did not lose his inside track at the White House until Bill Clinton's election in 1992. But Moon continues to ride high in Washington. Moon sustains The Washington Times despite a never-ending hemorrhage of red ink and he keeps up close political ties with prominent Republicans. Moon's Washington Times Foundation flashed the cash again recently, with a $1 million-plus donation to George Bush's presidential library in Texas.
Given the controversy, Argentina's elected president, Carlos Menem, did decide to reject Moon's invitation. But Moon had a trump card to play in his bid for South American respectability: the endorsement of an ex-president of the United States, George Bush. Agreeing to speak at the newspaper's launch, Bush flew aboard a private plane, arriving in Buenos Aires on Nov. 22. Bush stayed at Menem's official residence, the Olivos. But Bush failed to change the Argentine president's mind.
Still, Moon's followers gushed that Bush had saved the day, as he stepped before about 900 Moon guests at the Sheraton Hotel. "Mr. Bush's presence as keynote speaker gave the event invaluable prestige," wrote the Unification News. "Father [Moon] and Mother [Mrs. Moon] sat with several of the True Children [Moon's offspring] just a few feet from the podium."
Bush lavished praise on Moon and his journalistic enterprises. "I want to salute Reverend Moon, who is the founder of The Washington Times and also of Tiempos del Mundo," Bush declared. "A lot of my friends in South America don't know about The Washington Times, but it is an independent voice. The editors of The Washington Times tell me that never once has the man with the vision interfered with the running of the paper, a paper that in my view brings sanity to Washington, D.C. I am convinced that Tiempos del Mundo is going to do the same thing" in Latin America.
Bush then held up the colorful new newspaper and complimented several articles, including one flattering piece about Barbara Bush. Bush's speech was so effusive that it surprised even Moon's followers.
"Once again, heaven turned a disappointment into a victory," the Unification News exulted. "Everyone was delighted to hear his compliments. We knew he would give an appropriate and 'nice' speech, but praise in Father's presence was more than we expected. ... It was vindication. We could just hear a sigh of relief from Heaven."
Bush's endorsement of The Washington Times' editorial independence also was not truthful. Almost since it opened in 1982, a string of senior editors and correspondents have resigned, citing the manipulation of the news by Moon and his subordinates. The first editor, James Whelan, resigned in 1984, confessing that he had "blood on his hands" for helping the church achieve greater legitimacy.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon1.html
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/031001a.html
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon7.html
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