Where in Washington, D.C. is Reverend Moon?: <i>Washington Times</i> owner Moon's unexamined relationship with North Korea

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5/25/2004

Washington Times owner Moon's unexamined relationship with North Korea

Josette Shiner, U.S. Deputy Trade Representative and former Washington Times editor

Just who was that enigma coronated at the Senate office building? He's not just an eccentric like Joshua Norton, who used to hang around Gold Rush-era San Francisco claiming to be king of the United States. Reverend Moon is a billionaire media owner -- as well as a man with a worldwide interest in harvesting classified information. Here's what he said in 1986:

With the Washington Times as the core, we are establishing preeminence in the American print media, a field of more than 1,750 American newspapers. By doing so we can include all fields of intelligence. Today we have in this area surpassed the liberal New York Times and Washington Post, and continually gaining important confidential information not only from America but also from other governments all over the world.

Specifically, Moon enjoys a special relationship with North Korea dictator Kim Jong-Il, through his car company Pyonghwa Motors -- which has a monopoly on car sales to the Communist Party in Pyongyang.

Pyonghwa has also gained such benefits from the North as an exclusive right to car production, tax exemption until 2007, as well as additional exclusive rights to buy and sell used cars.

But how did it gain such benefits? The answer, those familiar with the deal say, is the strong relationship between the North Korean government and the Unification Church, or Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

The church, which owns Pyonghwa and such companies as the Tongil Group, the Washington Times, and UPI news service, among others, has had close ties with the North. ...

Mr. Moon then worked to improve the image of the North. He, for example, sent a Washington Times reporter to the North and made the country known to the West with a better image. Since then, the North has confided in the church."

That reporter sent to the north, by the way, was longtime Moon follower Josette Shiner. In 2003, George W. Bush tapped her to be the U.S. Deputy Trade Representative. It's a pretty good job, and involves determining national trade policy. The ex-journalist claims to have converted to mainline Christianity in the 1990s. But when I called her office to ask whether she'd had a change of heart about Moon's views (including the extermination of gay people, absolute obedience to the True Father, that kind of thing), her press secretary said I should have my journalism credentials taken away for asking such an outrageous question.

"I don't know how you can be asking that," he sputtered.

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"John Gorenfeld: The first man on the Moon"
-- Ana Marie Cox ("Wonkette," Time.com Washington editor)

"Thanks to the superb reporting of John Gorenfeld on Salon.com and his indispensable Web page, Moon's shenanigans are routinely scrutinized. Maybe some of Gorenfeld's discernment will rub off on preachers and politicians."
-- Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist

"The scene summoned the moment in Robert Graves's "I, Claudius" when Emperor Caligula declares himself a god in the Roman Senate; a fawning solon instantly offers a prayer."
-- New York Times editorial on the Crown of Peace scandal

"I am happy that our work is being challenged and improved in consistency, openness and coordination, by the accountability your spotlight demands. I am not talking about simply removing stuff from websites..."
-- Moon spokesman the Rev. Phil Schanker

"Instead of welcoming Reverend Moon, this government put me into prison. History will reveal the truth in the future and the American government and people will realize what an evil thing they did. What will they do then? They will bow down. Again, that is the way of natural subjugation." -- Moon in 1987

"A political movement basing its appeal on old fashioned patriotism and family values simply cannot justify an alliance with a cult that preys on the disintegration of the American family and advocates allegiance to an international social order operating with cell-like secrecy."
-- Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA)