Is Washington Times owner Reverend Sun Myung Moon a North Korean agent?
One has a reputation as the world’s most volatile ruler and is seen as a potential nuclear threat to the United States. The other is known as a media tycoon who rarely gets mentioned these days, existing chiefly in fading memories of young people marrying strangers during mass ceremonies at Madison Square Garden. Both are subjects of cultish veneration by their respective faithful.
Wherever Kim goes, storm clouds seem to shrink from gathering, according to the North Korean news service (which also lauds the “Dear Leader” as a better golfer than Tiger Woods, routinely shooting three or four holes-in-one per round), while Moon claims to be able to speak with the dead. Each man’s followers fervently believe that he exists beyond the plane of normal human experience.
In the material world, however, the flourishing relationship between the Unification Church and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea raises difficult questions for the conservative Republicans who have built The Washington Times with Moon’s billions — and about the extent to which he, his aides, and his front organizations, including his daily newspaper, have collaborated with the North Korean dictatorship.
An American Prospect investigation reveals that The Washington Times offices, housed in an imposing building on a northeast Washington strip otherwise known for tire shops and fast-food joints, serve as the base of operations for Moon’s diplomatic missions to his homeland. Moreover, the paper itself has served as an instrument of Moon’s partnership with the communist regime. Throughout the 1990s, as Western observers predicted that the Kim dynasty that rules North Korea would collapse for lack of hard currency reserves, the Moon organization invested tens of millions of dollars, which apparently included payments made before U.S. sanctions eased in 1999.
Long piece, but interesting nevertheless.
(Hat tip to reader)
One Comment
The book Rogue Regime has a good section in it that describes Moon’s dealings with North Korea also. The author tends to believe that Moon formed his own personality cult much the same way Kim Il Sung created his due to training from the Norks. Definitely interesting reading.