#Gary Scharff

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Gifts of Deceit – Chapter 6, Minions and Master

        ▲ Richard Nixon with Sun Myung Moon during the Watergate crisis

Gifts of Deceit (1980) by Robert B. Boettcher   pages 144-186

Chapter 6 – Minions and Master

An army of obedient servants would have to be recruited and trained to restore the Kingdom of Heaven to earth under Sun Myung Moon. They would have to work as people had never before worked because there had never been such a great mission. They would have to go wherever Moon sent them to raise the $300 million he needed for making his project worldwide and the billions more he needed to control the wealth of the planet. But Moon did not have shiploads of chained tribal people at his disposal when he arrived in America in 1971. Involuntary servitude was against the law. Could he make people think they were actually willing to be slaves?

He got the answer he wanted from idealistic American youth. He and they were ready for each other. They were people in the age group eighteen to twenty-four, in transition from adolescence to adulthood, student to professional, getting in or getting out of school, family life to life alone. For one in search of a coherent view of the world, college had the effect of making things more confusing by presenting so many different approaches to life without identifying one as altogether right. In the “real” world, problems abounded, from family disunity to the threat of nuclear destruction. At best, things were in disarray; at worst, life was chaotic, depressing. Such minds were fertile soil. Their idealism was the key. Describe how happy people would be if discord could be turned into harmony. Show how this can be done through unified love for God. Then play on the distance between what a person thinks he is and what he wants to be. Hold up ideals and make him ashamed of not living up to his own standards. Instill ideas of self-worthlessness. Make him feel guilty about putting concern for himself above group unity. The burden of guilt could be lightened by working as a family with others who believe the ideals can be attained here on earth. The family has a father who will lead the way. The harder one works for Father, the closer one gets to achieving the goal. Follow Father. God has shown him alone the path to perfection because he is the Messiah.

Moon taught a clear strategy for attracting prospective converts. Until the prospect is converted, he must not know that a strategy is being used. Later he will appreciate being deceived because the motive was his own salvation. First, all church members must make as many new acquaintances as possible. Befriend them by taking a personal interest; do not disagree with their views, whether right or wrong. Do favors. Find the right style to use on each kind of person. Classify his personality. Introduce him to a church member with a similar personality, but don’t reveal that he is a church member. Meet together like that two or three times. Get into conversations on current issues, ethics, or morality. Then say, “I know where there are many serious young people talking about things like this,” or “I have heard of some lectures about a new philosophy, very sincere, very interesting, talking about the problems of life. I would appreciate it if you would go with me so I can get your opinion on it.” The prospect will pay attention to the lecture because he has been asked for criticism. When he says it was wonderful, say, “Oh, I don’t know. Not necessarily so.” But suggest going again in order to learn more about it.

Significance Of The Training Session Reverend Sun Myung Moon Third Directors’ Conference Master Speaks    May 17, 1973  Translated by Mrs. Won Pok Choi

“Good morning! Sit down!

I am going to speak about the significance of a training session like this. Master’s intention is to have the State Representatives, Commanders, and the Itinerary Workers pass the examination, getting at least 70 points. I will continue this until the last one of the responsible members has passed the examination.

For fallen men it is their duty to pass through three stages of judgment! Judgment of words, judgment of personality, and judgment of love or heart. All through history, mankind has been in search of the truth, true words. The truth is the standard by which all the problems of mankind can be solved. We know man somehow fell in the beginning, and to fall means to fall into the bondage of Satan. So, in order for us to return to the original position, we have to get rid of the bondage of Satan. For fallen people, there is no other message which is more hopeful and desirable than the message of restoration to the original position, To be restored is, in another sense, to be liberated from Satanic bondage – and this is the gospel of gospels for fallen men.

Then what is judgment? Judgment is the measurement of the standard on which all our acts are judged. If our acts cannot come in accordance with the original rule or measurement, we must be judged or punished.

…

Through 40 days you will have six cycles of Divine Principle lectures. If you study hard, after the sixth cycle of lectures – or in the course of them – you can imagine what will come next when the lecturer gives you a certain chapter. You can even analyze or criticize President Kim’s lecture. You may think, “The last time I came he gave a dynamic lecture, but he is tired this time; when I give the lecture I will never be tired,” etc. In your own way, you can organize your lecture. In order for you to be a dynamic lecturer, you must know the knack of holding and possessing the listeners’ hearts. If there appears a crack in the man’s personality, you wedge in a chisel, and split the person apart. For the first few lectures, you will just memorize. But after that, you will study the character of your audience, and adapt your lecture. If he is a scientist, you will approach him differently than a commercial man, artist, etc. The audience as a whole will have a nature, and you must be flexible.

At least two weeks – you must experience flower selling – two weeks to 30 days. Whether in two weeks or in one full month, until you raise 80 dollars a day; then you go to rallies, witnessing, and then if you cannot bring in three persons in one month’s time, you cannot go. That’s the formula you have to go through. Twenty people are now going through flower selling. They were supposed to go to New York Center to help in witnessing to the people; but since time is limited, they will have to go out in place of those who will come for training. Commanders on the mobile teams, the rest of the people who are here for the conference, will have to go through those stages – even though the time will be shorter. If you attain that standard in passing the examination on the Divine Principle, and if you make that amount of money per day, then witnessing and bringing people in so many days, then you can go out. If you accomplish it in more days, your time will be prolonged. People will be circulated like that. If you fail in doing that, you will have no foothold.

In this way, I am going to elevate you to the same standard. Then, I will assemble future leaders from all over the world and do the same to them and with them. Do you understand? Be ready to go through that. Each and every one of you. Either toward the end of June, or very possibly the first part of July, I may have to go back to Korea via Europe before coming back this fall. I cannot leave unless I have made 400 mobile team members.There are many things to be straightened up by me in Japan and Korea, so I have to go back, but then I will return.”

http://www.tparents.org/moon-talks/sunmyungmoon73/SM730517.htm

Chris Elkins was president of his fraternity at the University of Arizona when John Shea, a recent acquaintance, invited him to attend a lecture about something called the One World Crusade. What he heard was philosophical, nonreligious, and interesting. So he went again each week for a month or more. The One World Crusade was explained as a movement encompassing all aspects of life. He was impressed by the magnetism of the lecturer, Dr. Joseph Sheftick. He and his fifteen or twenty followers had an aura of confidence, friendliness, and sincerity. They related well to his own interests and seemed warmly concerned about him. As the lectures progressed, a Korean named Sun Myung Moon was mentioned as a great teacher, but the main stress was on the coming of a Messiah to build heaven on earth. It dawned on Elkins that Sun Myung Moon must be the Messiah in question, although no one had said he was. During dinner with the group one night, he stated that observation. Dr. Sheftick raised his head, sat up straight, and announced, “We have a new brother: Chris Elkins.”

Elkins did not affirm Sheftick’s declaration, nor did he deny it. He simply went along for the time being. In fact, he was seriously considering joining. The goals were so noble: peace and brotherhood at all levels. Fund-raising didn’t appeal to him, but he could swallow it because he felt he and the movement really belonged together. And the people gave him so much love and attention that he couldn’t just say no. His best friend tried to dissuade him. When his family protested, Dr. Sheftick warned that Satanic forces work best through those most loved.

Euphoria prevailed during his honeymoon period with the Moon cult. Then the atmosphere became more serious. Elkins didn’t like fasting and staying up all night praying aloud with the others. After a couple of weeks, it all seemed too heavy. Driving back to Illinois to visit his mother in the hospital, he was in a daze. He tried to think things out. What had he got into? Was this the life for him, separated from the rest of the world? The love . . . the concern . . . heaven on earth. . . . What if Moon was really what they said he was? Could he risk losing what they offered? From Illinois, he called the group. It felt good to hear their voices. He would return.

He resigned as president of the fraternity. The Moonies sent him to Phoenix to fund-raise by selling peanuts on the street. He was still restless because Satanic spirits were at work inside him, so he was grateful that another member was by his side at all times. His parents wanted the car back, but a leader chided him: “Who needs it more? Your parents or the movement?”

He was learning. The great crusade required everything he had. The attachment to Father must be total, as Father said:

“Your whole body, every cell of your body, every movement, every facial motion, even every piece of hair, every ounce of energy must be directed to this one point.”

Just as other members were always with him physically, Father was always with him too:

“You must live with me spiritually all the time—while you are eating, while you are sleeping, while you are in the bathroom, while you are taking a bath, taking a rest, even in dreams you can be sitting with me and discussing with me. That’s the only way. This is the secret of our movement. Whoever has that basic, fundamental attitude and that spiritual power will perform miracles.”

Spiritual regeneration required mental somersaults. What once seemed true was now false. What once seemed unreal was now real. The world Elkins had known since birth was the product of original sin. The fall of Adam opened the floodgates to Satanic spirits, which had inundated the lives of Elkins’s ancestors. If he gave himself to Moon completely, he could rid himself of that awful heritage and be restored:

“You will rearrange the mechanism within yourself in good order so that you will feel in the right way, think in that way, say things in that way, and act out in that way. So you are your body, but your mind is my mind.”

Chris Elkins had sung in choirs before, so he was told that joining the New Hope Singers was something he might like to do. Rehearsals were held at the Belvedere training center in Tarrytown, New York, purchased after a nationwide candle-selling blitz had yielded about $800,000.

▲ Belvedere from above

The schedule at Belvedere was rigorous: get up out of the bunkbed at 6:00; exercise at 6:05; clean up and get dressed at 6:15; pray at 6:35; eat oatmeal and water at 7:00; do chores at 8:00; attend training sessions at 8:45; eat bread, butter, and jelly sandwiches at 1:00; tend the grounds at 1:45; shower at 3:30; attend training sessions at 4:00; eat casserole with flecks of meat at 7:00; attend training sessions at 8:00; go to team meetings at 11:00; do individual study at midnight; go to bed at 1:30. There was no free time, and everything was done in groups supervised by a leader.

The three functions in the life of a Moonie—to be indoctrinated, to fund-raise, to recruit new members—required so much time that only a few hours were left for sleep. Working with limited rest was a purifying act of self-sacrifice that proved one’s allegiance to Moon. The timetable for achieving his goals was short. In three years’ time he had to have thousands of servants “marching the main streets of the capital of each nation.” And by 1981, Communism was to be defeated. To keep down individual dissatisfaction about sleep, he whipped up group thinking in his training speeches:

MOON: Would you prefer to sleep seven hours instead of six hours?

CULT: NO!

MOON: Would you prefer to sleep for seven hours or five hours?

CULT: FIVE!

MOON: Would you prefer to sleep five hours or four hours?

CULT: FOUR!

MOON: Would you prefer to go to work without sleeping or sleeping?

CULT: WITHOUT SLEEPING!

MOON: I don’t want you to die, so I will let you sleep barely enough to sustain your life. What I’m thinking is that although you get thin like ghosts, with big eyeballs, skinny all over and stooped down like this in walking, stuttering—but if by your doing that, by your being like that, we are successful in God’s providence, I would prefer to have you do that.

Commitment was total. Cult members should commit suicide rather than fail in their duty to Master. They were even made to practice wrist-slashing techniques.

And there have been suicides.

April 3, 1975: Bill Daly went down to the railroad tracks near Moon’s seminary, took off all his clothes, placed his neck over a track, and was decapitated by an oncoming train. Friends, ex-Moonies, say the cult’s constant hammering about guilt had gotten to him.

June 6, 1976: Allen Staggs fell twenty stories down an elevator shaft to his death in the old New Yorker Hotel, which, under Moon’s ownership, was renamed the “World Mission Center.” The Moonies said it was an accident. A policeman who investigated the incident was surprised that Staggs’s fellow church members acted as if they didn’t know him and appeared “annoyed that their schedule was being interrupted by the whole thing”; “they didn’t seem to care.” The police closed the case without ruling whether the death was an accident or suicide.

August 23, 1976: Kiyomi Ogata, a Japanese Moonie, plunged from the twenty-second floor of the New Yorker.

August 23, 1979: Junette Bayne, again the New Yorker Hotel, from the twenty-first floor. Her estranged husband, not a Moonie, said, “If she wasn’t pushed physically, she was pushed psychologically out that window.”

Health problems were a nuisance Moon could not be bothered with. If the spirit was strong, the body would follow. If the body was weak, there must be spiritual problems. A girl with a broken ankle was told to pray and drink ginseng tea. She fund-raised for three days before getting treatment at a free clinic on her own. Another girl was left with permanently impaired eyesight after an emergency operation for a detached retina. The doctors said she would have been all right had they been able to treat her months earlier when she skipped the appointments her father had made. Listening to lectures on the Divine Principle was more important, cult leaders had said. She almost went blind. A Moonie from Kansas suffered a nervous breakdown. When Chris Edwards finally went to a hospital and was told his infected hand might have to be amputated, he felt ready to welcome the loss as justifiable “indemnity” for his sins.

Across the road from the training center, Moon and his family lived at a $600,000 estate—East Garden. Master had fresh sheets put on his bed every day and his clothes were washed three times before wearing. He told the cult his estate and fine car were necessary in order to show the world something other than the miserable side of life.

With the New Hope Singers, Chris Elkins accompanied Moon on the twenty-one city “Day of Hope” speaking tour during the fall of 1973. The tour began with three nights of lectures at Carnegie Hall in New York City. An advance team of one hundred to two hundred spent two weeks in each city at fund-raising, putting up posters announcing Moon’s appearance, luring dignitaries to a banquet for Moon, and saturating the local media with press releases. Among Moon’s tour trophies were appointments with governors and mayors (always with a Moonie cameraman in tow), keys to cities, and many “Day of Hope” proclamations and telegrams from unsuspecting officials—including New York Mayor John Lindsay, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Washington Mayor Walter Washington, Ohio Governor John Gilligan, and Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia.

Chris Elkins had become an accomplished fund-raiser. He had learned to vary his sales pitch. Depending on the kind of person being solicited, he asked for money for drug rehabilitation, a youth center, or a new choir called the New Hope Singers. Connection with Moon or the Unification Church was not revealed. All the money was turned over to church leaders.

Elkins made a good impression on Neil Salonen, the president of the Unification Church in the United States. Salonen also headed the Freedom Leadership Foundation, one of the political arms of the Moon organization, and he thought Elkins was suitable for use in the movement’s expanding political activities in Washington. Elkins welcomed the transfer. It would relieve him of what he liked least—fund-raising—and involve him in Father’s exciting new campaign to save Richard Nixon: Project Watergate. When Nixon’s image was rehabilitated with Moon’s help, Elkins was told, Nixon would be forever indebted to Moon.

Moon was standing on a mountainside in Korea one day in November 1973 when he and God agreed it was up to him to rescue Nixon from Watergate. No one else could do it. Moon, in the position of Adam, must help Nixon the archangel. On the lower level of America rather than the universe, Nixon was an Adam, to be supported by his wife in the position of Eve and by the American people in the position of servant archangels. Since the people did not perceive this divine relationship, it was Moon’s responsibility to show them. In the 1972 election, God chose Nixon to be President for four years. Since God had not given the people a different message in the meantime, they had no right to impeach him. God’s command to America, through Moon, was “Forgive! Love! Unite!”

The day after returning from Korea, Moon began publishing full-page Watergate statements, featuring his picture, in fifty-one major newspapers. It was his first personal political act in the United States. Until that time, Americans had known him only as a vigorous evangelist with an unorthodox theology. Now, he initiated a forty-day prayer and fast period under his newly formed National Prayer and Fast Committee headed by Dan Fefferman (whom he had also designated to be Prime Minister of Israel when the time came). Moonies handed out leaflets, marched to state capital buildings dressed as Americana figures, prayed in public places, and collected 75,000 signatures for Moon’s Watergate declaration. The drive was geared for maximum news coverage. Praying on camera was stressed, with “medium prayer” recommended as most effective (although one girl got high marks for being filmed crying as she prayed because she pulled it off with an appearance of sincerity).

Wherever Nixon traveled, a contingent of Moonies was sent to rally for him. Elkins was a point man, making sure the Moonies were up front with pro-Nixon signs so bystanders and spectators would appear to be a crowd of enthusiastic Nixon backers. Father had said they must act to make ten seem like ten thousand. Sometimes it was too much even for Nixon’s White House. When Elkins went to Nashville for the President’s visit to the Grand Ole Opry, the secret service asked the Moonies to tone it down since it was Pat Nixon’s birthday.

They planned a big splash for the 1973 National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony. The D.C. Armory was rented for a closed rehearsal to turn the tree lighting into a Nixon support rally. Salonen divided 1,200 people into twelve “tribes” and choreographed them to lunge forward with a “spontaneous” cheer for the President. In a side room at the Armory, six hefty Moonies, dubbed the “Horse Team,” were organized for an additional plan, kept secret from the others. On Salonen’s cue, the six were to converge on Nixon and hoist him up on their shoulders. The stunt was rehearsed several times with Salonen playing Nixon’s part.

A White House aide called the Christmas Tree Lighting “a fiasco.” Traditionally, it was a quiet, quasi-religious event. Nixon had no desire to inject Watergate into it, pro or con. It was to be one of those cherished occasions when he could just be President. A choir sang, a minister offered a prayer, and the President read a little statement about Christmas. Just as Nixon—along with a Boy Scout—moved to press the button to light the trees, a large crowd of people tore down the fence and came rushing forward to the edge of the platform cheering and waving banners that read God loves Nixon! and support the president! News cameras flashed. Nixon hurriedly exited by the rear of the platform. The Horse Team was unable to get to Nixon because he did not leave in the direction Salonen had expected. The Moonies recongregated in Lafayette Square across from the White House, still cheering and waving banners in the bitter cold. Salonen told his flock he had faith the President would appear.

Inside the White House, Nixon was furious over the Moonies’ conduct at the tree lighting. On the other hand, he thought, they were a well-organized group supporting him all the way. He would need them in the coming months. He decided to go outside and shake a few hands. When Nixon crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, they rushed him again. The Horse Team—still obsessed with hoisting Nixon—tried to get close enough to grab him, but he was surrounded tightly by secret service men. The “horses” were disappointed that the secret service stood in God’s way.

When the President was ready to leave, the Moonies joined hands in two lines across Pennsylvania Avenue to block traffic. One Moonie said, “We stopped the world for him and he passed between us.”

Paradoxically, Moon’s effort to save the President of the United States was run by Koreans and Japanese. The same was true of all activities of the Moon organization. Salonen was a figurehead and legworker, rarely brought into important policy discussions. The Japanese handled the money and the Koreans made the big strategy decisions. Moon’s word was final on any matter, and he involved himself to a surprising degree in details. Above the Americans was a power clique consisting of Bo Hi Pak, David S. C. Kim, Choi Sang-Ik (Papasan Choi), Takeru Kamiyama, and Osami Kuboki. It was in accordance with the Divine Principle. America was only an archangel while Korea was Adam and Japan was Eve.

As nationality dictated one’s function in the cult, so did race. Orientals were to make “spiritual” contributions. Whites should put their “analytical” abilities to work. “The talented area of black people is in (the) physical aspect,” said Moon, mentioning basketball as an example.

The man behind the scenes in Moon’s pro-Nixon drive was Dr. Joseph Kennedy. Kennedy had been hired by the Moon organization as a consultant to help with the “Day of Hope” program in Atlanta. He also had good connections in the White House. Whatever the exchange between Moon and God on that mountain in Korea, it was Kennedy who planted the basic ideas in Bo Hi Pak’s head. In Atlanta in early November 1973, he had expressed concern to Pak over Nixon’s Watergate problems, mentioning an essay by Lincoln about praying and fasting in times of national crisis.

Splendid, thought Pak. Moon thought so, too. This was what they had been waiting for. Moon could make his American political debut with the hottest issue in the country by giving it a religious slant. Unity of religion and politics was what the Divine Principle was all about. When Lincoln wrote that essay, God had tucked it away so He could bring it out for Moon a hundred years later. Moon and Pak picked up the ball and ran with it.

Dr. Kennedy, pleased with the activity for Nixon, had complied with Pak’s request to have the cult admitted at the Christmas tree ceremony. He had also obtained a seat for Moon at the President’s National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton to be held in January 1974. Moon’s planned presence drew criticism from Congress and the clergy, so the White House stressed that he would not be sitting at the head table. Moon had to be content merely with attending alone, although he had wanted to bring along an entourage and have hundreds of his followers flood the hotel switchboard during the breakfast with calls to Forgive, Love, and Unite.

Dr. Kennedy was able to set up a meeting between Nixon and Moon the day after the prayer breakfast. The White House handled the matter quietly. The appointment did not appear on the President’s published schedule for the day. Moon was ushered into the Oval Office. He shook hands with Nixon, prayed aloud in Korean, then urged the President “not to knuckle under to the pressure.” Nixon thanked him for the support and gave him a pair of cuff links and a tie pin. 

Moon told his followers the meeting was absolute proof that Nixon would survive Watergate.

Why?

“This is the equivalent to the Roman Emperor having invited Jesus and welcomed Jesus in the past.”

It was no accident of history. It was a dramatic event of the highest importance, an act of God. And Nixon realized it, said Father. When they bowed their heads and prayed together, Moon was sure Nixon knew there was only one person on earth who could save him: Sun Myung Moon. Nixon and Moon achieved spiritual unification.

From that moment forward “the Unification Church and the White House where Nixon resides can be very close places.”

At the Freedom Leadership Foundation, life for Chris Elkins was less arduous than before. His days were not as regimented as they had been when he was on the streets or in training. At first he felt uneasy about not having someone keeping a close watch over him. But now he was able to read newspapers and sometimes even watch television. Religious indoctrination continued. Salonen made sure he spent a couple of hours each day studying the Divine Principle in a group. At work he stayed busy with Watergate and foreign affairs on Capitol Hill. The Moonies were doing a lot of lobbying to drum up support for South Vietnam, the Lon Nol government in Cambodia, and, most important, South Korea. Using phony letterheads of ad hoc committees fabricated for the occasion, Elkins worked all night sending letters to Congressmen.

Inside Congress, they were helped by unsuspecting people in the cause of anti-Communism. David Martin of the Senate Internal Security Committee staff furnished names of Senators and Congressmen to be lobbied, obtained the Senate Caucus Room for a Moonie political meeting with the press, and expedited Moon’s permanent resident visa. (It was issued by virtue of his wife’s permanent visa. Hers had been obtained by Bo Hi Pak’s listing her as an employee of the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation.) Congressman Richard Ichord obtained the House Caucus Room for a Moon meeting, and Senator Strom Thurmond continued to help the Moonies on the Hill. When Moon was having trouble getting into the country in 1971, Thurmond had intervened and Moon was admitted.

Congress was a keen concern to both Moon and the Korean government. This was particularly true in 1974 because of Watergate and the $93 million cut in military aid to South Korea resulting from Congressman Fraser’s hearings. Moon and the Korean government lobbied intensively, separately but coordinately. As early as 1971, Moon had organized teams called “PR sisters” under Mitsuko Matsuda. She was Japanese, as it should be, since the archangel Americans could return to their original position only though Eve. The duties of the “PR sisters” were to cultivate friendships with members of Congress and staffs, explain the Unification Church and dispel negative attitudes, and urge full support for South Korea. Moon would thus be able to impress the R.O.K. government with his influence in the United States. Later, he issued a call for “many good-looking girls,” planning to assign three to each Senator: “One is for the election, one is for the diplomat, and one is for the party. If our girls are superior to the Senators in many ways, then the Senators will just be taken in.” (In fact, several Congressmen were entertained in a Washington Hilton hotel suite rented by the cult.) Everything they learned about Senators and Congressmen was to be entered in the cult’s confidential file, including details of personal lives.

One such girl was Susan Bergman, a regular morning visitor to Speaker Carl Albert for two years. She prepared ginseng tea for the Speaker and his secretaries when they arrived for work. The Speaker wasn’t interested in her talk about religion, but he did find her pleasant and attractive. She liked to impress others with her close relationship with him. Showing a fellow Moonie around the Capitol one day, she picked up a telephone, dialed a number, and said, “Hello, Carl, how are you? I wanted to know if you got my flowers.” On another occasion, she got a long-distance call from Albert while she was at Moon’s training center in Barrytown.

President Park Chung Hee did not have to ask Moon to take up Nixon’s cause, although he favored it. Moon didn’t need the encouragement. Like Tongsun Park, he was self-propelling for his own purposes as well as for those of the government. Park Chung Hee viewed him as an asset for Korean influence in the United States. The Moon organization remained a key element in the influence campaign (as intended ever since the original plans were developed at the meetings in the Blue House in 1970).

While the Blue House meetings were still going on, Bo Hi Pak had rushed to Seoul with an appealing project: a letter to be signed by President Park for 60,000 Americans who had contributed to Radio of Free Asia (ROFA). The mailing served the purposes of both the influence campaign and the Moon organization. In it, the R.O.K. government personally reminded Americans that the Communists were “increasing the hostilities” against South Korea; ROFA was endorsed and the contributors thanked; and Bo Hi Pak was credited by name with having informed the President about the contributors’ service to anti-Communism. Without asking for money, the letters generated more contributions.

A few months later, Pak was ready with another project. A public relations man for ROFA, Donald Miller, was writing a biography of President Park. Visiting Seoul with Bo Hi Pak, manuscript in hand, Miller received the President’s approval during a personal appointment. The book was never published, but no matter; the Moon organization was making the right impressions on the Blue House.

Like Tongsun Park, Moon had developed extensive contacts on Capitol Hill and was using them to support the Korean government position. Like Tongsun Park, Moon had successful businesses in Korea and the United States, with operations in a number of other countries. Both Moon and Tongsun cleverly cultivated powerful and wealthy Americans. Both were strong supporters of Park Chung Hee, cooperating closely with his senior officials, including the KCIA director. Bo Hi Pak had been the willing conduit for Prime Minister Chung Il-Kwon to transfer money into his personal bank account in the United States, and other government officials had been so favored as well.

While Tongsun Park’s service was both profitable for Korean officials and helpful with important members of Congress, Moon beamed his activities to a mass audience. The Little Angels were a propaganda bonanza for the government. Moon’s anticommunist campaigns, such as the 1970 conference of the World Anticommunist League (WACL) in Tokyo and Radio of Free Asia, helped keep the world mindful of the North Korean menace at a time when the United States was more interested in negotiation than confrontation with the Communists. The attraction of American youth to Moon was seen as a welcome offset to the disturbing leftist student activities of the late sixties.

In Korea, Moon was providing anti-Communist indoctrination to government personnel at his training center at Sutaek-ri outside Seoul. 

▲ Sutaek-ri Training Center

Each year the government sent thousands of officials to Moon’s school from local, provincial, and national agencies. Moon was permitted to stage large demonstrations in Seoul—pro-government, anti-Communist, and pro-Nixon—in the tightly controlled climate of the Park dictatorship. Industrial components of the Moon organization were awarded lucrative government contracts, including the manufacture of military weapons. KCIA Director Kim Jong-Pil’s decision in 1962 to utilize Moon’s fledgling church had stood the test of time.

For Moon, that was fine as far as it went. But he was bigger than the KCIA and Park Chung Hee, as he often told his cult. As he saw it, he was organizing and utilizing the R.O.K. government, not the other way around. The government officials indoctrinated at his school would be led to the Divine Principle by way of anti-Communism. Building military hardware under government contract would make the government dependent on him while providing funds for him to expand worldwide. The government was indebted to him for the cultural propaganda he had generated through his Little Angels. If he could save Nixon, his power would overshadow Park Chung Hee, and ruling the Adam country would be only a step away. He could assume his rightful position. He reminded the cult that what he was doing in Project Watergate was far more significant for its impact in Korea than in the United States.

On Capitol Hill, Project Watergate brought some early results. In January 1974, a two-day lobbying blitz for signatures on Moon’s Watergate declaration yielded about a hundred Congressmen and some ten Senators. The lobbyists concealed their affiliation with the Unification Church from legislators.

Several months later, anti-impeachment leader Rabbi Korff and Nixon aide Bruce Herschenson appealed for another Moonie display of mass support for Nixon. They valued Moon’s help because he could mobilize large numbers of people anywhere on short notice and with good results. Moon was cool to the request. He said no. Korff and Herschenson asked again and again, but Moon kept turning them down. The Lord of the Second Advent wanted homage from the President. Nixon should repent to Moon for his failure of leadership; then Moon would rally the troops. Salonen was caught awkwardly in the middle. He had no decision-making power. All he could do was transmit messages back and forth between the White House and Moon’s Korean-Japanese, Adam-Eve hierarchy. Korff and Herschenson offered no possibility of Nixon’s kneeling before Moon. Ultimately, Moon decided to hold a three-day fast on the Capitol steps—independent of White House appeals, he insisted.

It was July of 1974. Things were grim for Nixon. It was time for a miracle. If anyone could deliver, Moon said, it was he.

Chris Elkins helped staff the fast on the Capitol steps. Placards and posters were designed; literature was prepared and distributed; a press corps was set up. They hoped to get Nixon to address the fasters in person. Six hundred Moonies were shipped to Washington to do the fasting and praying. That number was chosen so as to have each Moonie pray for one Senator, Congressman, and cabinet member, with Salonen and his wife taking President and Mrs. Nixon. They prayed for releasing God’s power to turn the heart of America toward forgiveness for Nixon. Nixon did not appear: he sent a telegram instead. At the end of the third day, Moon came, accompanied by Rabbi Korff. He addressed the fasters, telling them they had completed their mission successfully. It was the only time Chris Elkins ever heard Father bestowing full approval on his followers.

On the day Nixon resigned, a small group of Moonies went to the White House. Bruce Herschenson talked to them at the gate briefly. After the resignation, the members of the Horse Team from the Christmas Tree Lighting felt a heavy burden of guilt. Failure to lift Nixon up on their shoulders, Father had said, had doomed him to decline and fall.

Neil Salonen had an unusual assignment for Chris Elkins. Around breakfast time on the morning of September 14, 1974, he was told that he and four other Moonies were to throw eggs at the Japanese Embassy. A car would take them there at noon. If possible they were to hit the car carrying the Japanese ambassador to lunch. If the ambassador did not appear within thirty minutes or so, they would pelt the Embassy building and run to a car waiting to take them back to Unification Church headquarters. It was important, Salonen explained, that the timing of the incident coincide with a street demonstration by the Freedom Leadership Foundation (FLF), which was to divert police attention from the area around the Japanese Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. A large group of Moonies, representing FLF, were to march with placards from Dupont Circle to the White House protesting the Japanese government’s position on the assassination of President Park’s wife in Seoul the previous month. The assassin was a Korean resident of Japan with pro-North Korean sympathies. A major crisis in Korean-Japanese relations had resulted because the Japanese government refused to take responsibility for the killing as demanded by Korea. President Ford was scheduled to visit Tokyo in November with no plans to go to Seoul. The South Korean government and the Moonies saw Ford’s itinerary as an indication that the United States was siding with Japan in the dispute with Korea. The Moonies’ anti-Japanese demonstration and egg-throwing were designed to show the support of the American people for Korea’s position and convince Ford to visit Seoul.

The eggs were bought. Elkins and his colleagues were ready to go. He had never been told to do anything like this before. But many of the things he did for Father were new. Father worked in new and different ways and there had never been anyone like him before.

About 11:00 a.m. Salonen went into his office to call Moon for the final approval before dispatching the egg team. Fifteen minutes later he reappeared downstairs where they were waiting. Father had learned that President Ford had decided to make a stop in Seoul between Tokyo and Vladivostok, he said. That would show more than enough American support for South Korea, so the egg attack would not be necessary.

What Elkins did not know was that the KCIA had initiated the whole thing. According to U.S. intelligence reports, the KCIA had paid Moon thousands of dollars and used him to stage demonstrations at the United Nations and elsewhere to show American support for the aims of the Korean government. Moon was willing when others were not. In September 1974, KCIA headquarters in Seoul ordered anti-Japanese demonstrations in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco on the occasion of a visit that month by Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. Kim Sang-Keun, a KCIA officer in the Korean Embassy, had been unable to find local Korean residents who were willing to demonstrate, so his chief, Kim Yung-Hwan, arranged for Moon to stage demonstrations at the White House and the Japanese Embassy. At the last minute, the U.S. government learned of the plans through intelligence sources and objected. Kim Yung-Hwan told the Moonies to cancel the operation.

With an eye on protecting its tax-exempt status, the Unification Church insisted it never engaged in politics, especially election campaigning and lobbying for legislation. After Chris Elkins spent almost a year lobbying Congress, he was sent to Westchester County, New York, to campaign for Charlie Stephens, who was running for Congress against Richard Ottinger in the fall of 1974. The entire staff of the Freedom Leadership Foundation was mobilized. In order to keep the Washington office running, pairs of persons were rotated in and out of the campaign. Stephens was a close ally of the Moonies, having organized American Youth for a Just Peace with Allen Tate Wood in 1970. While Elkins was busy electioneering for Stephens, the New Hampshire Moonies were fully engaged in Louis Wyman’s Senate campaign. Success in these two states was important because with one more state, Moon would be on his way to taking over:

“If we can turn three states of the United States around, or if we can turn seven states of the United States to our side, then the whole United States of America will turn. Let’s say there are five hundred sons and daughters like you in each state. Then we could control the government. You could determine who became Senators and who the Congressmen would be.”

He was disappointed that there were only fifty states. With seventy, it would be easier to divide and conquer.

Chris Elkins liked politics, and he was looking forward to a job in Wyman’s Senate office. Wyman had promised to give a church member a job if he won the election. Salonen and Dan Fefferman picked Elkins because he had more political experience than the Moonies in Wyman’s campaign. The prospect of a congressional staff job was exciting. He would be serving Father and fully enjoying it for a change. Events were holding promise for Father’s prophecy that:

“Some day, in the near future, when I walk into the Congressman’s or the Senator’s offices without notice or appointment, the aides will jump out of their seats, and go to get the Senator. They will get their Senator or Congressman, saying he must see Reverend Moon.”

When Wyman lost the election, Elkins was transferred to the Columbia University campus to work in Moon’s college front organization, the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP). Father had said the Communists were stirring up trouble at Columbia.

It was unfortunate for Joe Tully that Takeru Kamiyama didn’t happen to like him. Being on the wrong side of Kamiyama meant trouble for a Moonie. Kamiyama was part of the Korean-Japanese power clique close to Moon. Although Tully held the position of state director of the Unification Church in New York, no one questioned Kamiyama’s seniority. Tully was only an archangel.

Kamiyama set up a meeting with Moon to dispose of the problem. It was a kangaroo court. All of the New York leaders were there except Tully. Kamiyama accused him of not being able to unite with church members. Tully was arrogant and individualistic, he explained. The New York leaders gave automatic agreement. No one but Father could dispute Kamiyama. If Tully couldn’t unite with members, that meant he couldn’t unite with Father.

Moon asked Kamiyama what he proposed to do about it.

▲ Sun Myung Moon and Takeru Kamiyama in the 1970s.

“Joe Tully is a good lecturer, so you could send him to Barrytown,” suggested Kamiyama.

Moon laughed. “Great! That’s what we’ll do. We’ll give him to Ken Sudo in Barrytown.” Everyone joined in Father’s hearty laugh over pawning off the state director.

Tully, trying not to show disappointment, was shipped off to the training center. His final humiliation was Moon’s choice of a wife for him: a Japanese girl who even Kamiyama thought was “a crazy fanatic.” (Moon often warned cult members he might marry them off to someone ugly or unlikely.) Moon needed to marry his foreign cult members to Americans to avoid deportation. The Immigration and Naturalization Service was bearing down on them. Tully’s punishment was his “indemnity” for arrogance and individuality: he would pay a price in work and suffering.

Obedient leaders were essential to Moon’s totalist system. If leaders had a slave mentality themselves, they would be better slaves to Moon. All the brainwashing notwithstanding, Moon had serious doubts that more than a few hundred of his cultists would really be willing to die for him. He saw America as the land of greatest opportunity for scaling the heights of the power he craved. If he could do it here he could do it anywhere. It would be difficult, though, because Americans had a disturbing tendency to go their own way.

When Moon moved to the United States in 1971 he was appalled by the individuality he saw. During the first months he said he was sorry he had come to America because he found no one prepared to do his work. He thought of relocating in Germany, where people “were trained in totalism,” so it would be easier for his mission. He launched a crash program to tighten organization, instill discipline, recruit more members, and raise money. It was successful. Some former members recall that Nazi films on organizing Hitler Youth were shown as examples to Moonie leaders. Nothing was more important than developing a cadre of strong leaders totally subservient to his will.

Steve Hassan was such a leader. He was not only prepared to die for Moon; he felt capable of killing his own father for Moon. Bright, energetic, young, and, most important, idealistic, Hassan was perfect Moonie material. He was drawn into the cult at nineteen while a student at Queens College, having concluded that all college had to offer was memorization by rote. The Unification Church offered an ideology for bettering the world with a clear-cut path straight to eternity. After successfully completing forty days of isolation and indoctrination, Hassan was put to work. He started the Queens College chapter of the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles, served as assistant director of the Unification Church in Flushing, lectured on the Divine Principle, managed transportation to the Moonie demonstrations in support of South Korea at the United Nations, prayed and fasted for Nixon on the steps of the Capitol, and fund-raised. He had worked loyally and hard, and he became one of Kamiyama’s favorites. Kamiyama adored him so much that when Moon moved the national headquarters of the church to Manhattan from Washington, Hassan was placed in a newly formed church unit inside the national headquarters for the purpose of setting an example for Salonen and the others to follow. Kamiyama wanted them to demonstrate “the Japanese standard of sacrifice and devotion.”

Hassan experienced feelings of great achievement. His life had a new worthwhile purpose. In less than a year he had come so far, yet he was still so young. And it was recognized by those he had come to respect most.

Hence, he never expected to hear what Kamiyama said to him at a meeting with all the regional commanders assembled: “You are having spiritual problems now. It’s better you go out fund raising.”

Spiritual problems? What had he done wrong? He lived by the Divine Principle. It was his guide for every thought, word, and deed. All questions left his mind after not more than a split second. As he bowed his head in reverent obedience, his only remaining thought was, “Dear God, not as I will, but as You will.” “It’s all right,” Kamiyama said. “You don’t have to fund raise.” He then turned to the regional commanders and stated, “This is your model for sacrifice and devotion.”

It was a test like God’s test of Abraham’s faith when He had ordered him to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Hassan had passed— and he felt joy, not relief. Kamiyama was right. Hassan was a model. The cult had fully conquered his mind.

When Hassan did go out fund raising again several months later, it was a promotion, not indemnity for spiritual problems. He worked in Manhattan, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore as head of a model fund raising team whose proceeds went to special projects picked by Moon exclusively. As always, a special Japanese “team mother” was sent to live with the group, to cook, sew, clean house, and encourage cohesion. Her real purpose was to spy for Kamiyama by writing him detailed reports regularly. Hassan’s fund raisers were out hawking flowers or candy from dawn until midnight, or later if quotas were not met. They worked the streets, supermarkets, parking lots, offices, airports, gay bars, straight bars, discotheques, factories, and house-to-house. They identified themselves as whatever seemed likely to elicit cash from a person’s pocket. Sometimes a more direct approach was used by crawling along the floor in a bar or restaurant, popping up at a table to pin a flower on a woman’s dress, and saying to her escort, “That will be two dollars, please.” A surprising number of people paid. If the man became angry and called a waiter, Hassan made a quick dash across the floor to a far corner so he could keep working if not caught and ejected. If thrown out, he tried to slip in again and take up where he left off.

Change was sometimes hard to get once money was in a Moonie’s hand. If a Moonie was handed a $10 bill, it could be a $10 contribution even if unintended. Ancestors, acting through the contributor, were paying indemnity.

At the airport, one Moonie got a dollar for pinning a flower on a nun. Discovering the solicitor was a Moonie, the nun’s niece returned the flower and demanded the dollar back. There was no refund. The niece had another twenty minutes before her plane departed so she followed the Moonie around the airport, telling people: “Don’t buy anything from this girl; she just stole a dollar from a nun!”

Hassan’s team took in about $1,000 a day. Twice each week he took the cash to a bank and wired it directly to a Unification Church account at Chemical Bank in New York. He was never told what the money was used for, or how much was raised nationwide. He has since estimated conservatively that on the basis of a thousand Moonies collecting $75 a day per person, the annual gross would be about $28 million. A thousand fund raisers and $75 per day are low base figures, however; $100 was the minimum expected per fund raiser per day, and one-third of the Moonie membership is supposed to be out fund raising all the time.

Money is important to Moon but only as a necessary means for achieving what he wants most: power. The cult’s businesses in Korea had made him a millionaire before he began his American mission. Moon enterprises were worth at least $15 million in the early seventies from manufacturing and selling ginseng tea products (Il Hwa Pharmaceutical Company), stone vases (Il Shin Stoneworks), titanium dioxide (Hankook Titanium and Dong Hwa Titanium), lathes, boilers, air rifles, and parts for military weapons (Tong Il Industries). Members of his cult were directed to set up “missions” to sell ginseng tea and stone vases in 120 countries by April 1975. One of his first American companies, Tong Il Enterprises, began marketing his tea and vases in 1973, and later became involved in his tuna fishing businesses. When the first shipments of tea arrived in America, he told his followers he planned “to explore a worldwide market for this heavenly product, along with the worldwide spread of unification principles for mankind.”

Il Hwa ginseng tea, made and marketed by Moon, is on sale at most health food stores in the United States.

By 1979, Moon’s world business empire included weapons, newspapers, banking, tea, chemicals, candles, vases, folk ballet, candy, fishing, movies, shipbuilding, sound recording, food processing, travel agencies, furs, jewelry, restaurants, and large real estate holdings.

In order to ensure “that the currency will be freely coming back and forth,” Moon informed the cult he would establish “an international bank” by pooling the money made from his businesses. An opportunity came within a few months when the Diplomat National Bank was being organized by Charles Kim, a Korean-American businessman in Washington who was not a Moonie. Kim approached a number of Asian-Americans, including Bo Hi Pak, about buying shares in the new bank. It was another godsend. Pak arranged for Kim to meet Moon, who invested $80,000 from a $555,000 time deposit (transferred to a personal checking account at Chase Manhattan). Kamiyama put in $75,000, coming mostly from Moon’s time deposit, stated as loans to Kamiyama from the Unification Church. Neil Salonen’s $30,000 investment also came from persons in the church. Jhoon Rhee, the wealthy karate master who turned over all his earnings to the cult in the early sixties, invested $100,000. Bo Hi Pak bought $75,000 of stock for himself, $18,000 for his housekeeper, and $738,000 in the names of thirteen Moonies. He arranged loans for investments of $5,000 each for two of his employees at the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation, Judith Lejeune and Gisela Rodriguez, instructing them to make their monthly loan payments by taking money from cash donations to the foundation. Pak even furnished the funds for bank chairman Kim’s own investment of $100,000, again from cult money. Moonie money thus bought 53 percent of the bank’s total stock, an investment of $1.28 million. The Diplomat National Bank had been organized under a requirement by the U.S. Controller of the Currency that no individual stockholder have an interest in more than 5 percent of the bank’s total stock. Also, banking laws prohibit any organization from owning more than 25 percent of the stock in an American bank.

The day after opening for business, the bank approved two loans totaling $250,000 for Bo Hi Pak without a meeting of the loan committee, a violation of the bank’s own rules. Two months later, the Controller of the Currency told the bank the loans were “in contravention of the intent of the law.” Pak’s two loans then had to be considered as one, with the amount reduced so as not to exceed the bank’s lending ceiling.

The Moon organization was one of the bank’s largest depositors, with over $7 million going into the account of the Unification Church International between December 1975 and March 1977.

Getting into the media business was important to Moon in order “to guide the academic world, including professors, the communications world and then the economic world.” He told the cult it was time to start a newspaper with mass appeal. The News World, published in New York, began operating in December 1976. Running a deficit of over $200,000 per month, it was supported by $2,700,000 from the Unification Church International account at the Diplomat National Bank. A conscious effort was made to make it appear to be an objective, legitimate newspaper like the Christian Science Monitor. Some non-Moonies were included on the staff and actually paid salaries, and the paper printed material from the major wire services. The editorial board, however, consisted almost entirely of cult members and prominent coverage was given to issues of importance to Moon, such as accusing Congressman Fraser of being a Soviet agent and suggesting that the Internal Revenue Service was harassing the Unification Church. The New York newspaper strike in 1978 was seen by the Moonies as an act of God: it shut down the competition in order to bring the Divine Principle into the homes of New Yorkers, many of whom—thanks to Heavenly Deception— did not know at first that the paper was an organ of the Moon cult.

Besides newspapers, Moon’s media business included movies. He told the cult in 1974 he was forming a movie company in Japan. He was looking for the right script for a film on the life of Jesus, but was open to other subjects also. He could produce films to serve his unified three-pronged purpose: religious propaganda, political propaganda, and business profit. Mitsuharu Ishii, a Japanese Moonie, became president of One Way Productions with offices in Tokyo and Los Angeles. One Way’s main project was to make an anti-Communist war spectacle on General MacArthur’s landing at Inchon in the Korean War. Money and actors were to come from Korea, Japan, and the United States.

At Times Square in July 1979, New Yorkers were treated to neon lights advertising the News World and a movie being filmed in Korea, Inchon!, starring Laurence Olivier, Jacqueline Bisset, Ben Gazzara, David Jansen, and Toshiro Mifune.

Moon’s drive to dominate the American fishing industry was perhaps his most ambitious business undertaking. International Oceanic Enterprises was incorporated in Virginia in November 1976, along with a subsidiary, International Seafood Corporation, located in Norfolk. Bo Hi Pak was president. The company engaged in operating fishing boats and processing and selling seafood products. With the Unification Church International pumping millions into the business, International Seafood was able within a few weeks of its incorporation to disburse monies to other components of the Moon organization, including $200,000 to Tong Il Enterprises, and $400,000 to U.S. Marine Corporation for buying 700 acres of waterfront property in Bayou LeBatre, Alabama. U.S. Marine Corporation was yet another Moonie concern. Its shipbuilding affiliate was appropriately named Master Marine. In Richmond, Virginia, housewives could buy fresh seafood at a store named Father’s Fish. Moon’s fishing and seafood tentacles spread to San Francisco; Gloucester, Massachusetts; and Kodiak, Alaska. He had a built-in competitive advantage—abundant capital flow from church sources and negligible labor costs using cult manpower. He envisioned a food crisis in the future when the world would come begging to him.

Making and selling M-16 rifles made sense both economically and politically. In public, Moon and the cult denied being involved with the M-16, the basic infantry weapon of the South Korean army. Moon conceded to Newsweek magazine that Tong Il Industries produced armaments for the Korean government but would not say which weapons, claiming the information was classified by his government. However, information from the U.S. State Department and American and Korean businessmen in the arms field shows that Tong Il Industries makes parts for the Vulcan anti-aircraft gun, the M-79 grenade launcher, the M-60 machine gun, and the M-16 rifle. One American businessman was shown the machinery used to make the weapons during a tour of Tong Il’s plant near Busan.

▲ Vulcan M61 pod anti-aircraft gun

H. P. Stone, vice-president of Colt Industries of Hartford, Connecticut, learned how close the operational ties are between Moon and the Park regime. His experience left the impression that with respect to the M-16 rifle, the Moon organization and the Korean government were one and the same. Colt holds the patent for the M-16 and has a co-production agreement with the R.O.K. government approved by the American government. The agreement allows the R.O.K. Ministry of National Defense to make the rifle in Korea for the R.O.K. army. Stone got a letter from Tong Il Industries in September 1977 asking for approval for Tong Il to produce the M-16 for export. Stone answered in the negative, saying his company did not have authority to approve and he was certain the U.S. government would be against the Koreans’ exporting the rifles.

In October, Stone cabled the Ministry of National Defense on another matter. Since the U.S. State Department had approved Korea’s request to make another 300,000 M-16s, Stone offered the Ministry a new extended contract. For several weeks there was no reply. Then, to his surprise, an answer came not from the Korean government but from Tong Il Industries. Tong Il said it would send representatives to Hartford in December to discuss the extension of the M-16 production contract. The discussions took place as scheduled, with the president of Tong Il, Moon Sung-Kyun (Master’s cousin), negotiating for a contract between the R.O.K. government and Colt Industries. When Stone asked if Tong Il was formally representing the Korean government, Moon Sung-Kyun smiled and said, “If you ask the Ministry of National Defense, they will say no.”

Father has also promised to buy Pan American World Airways and the Ford Motor Company. When the time comes, he intends to buy the Empire State Building to commemorate the restoration of Manhattan Island under him.

The manpower in Moon’s business, political, and religious enterprises has been interchangeable and unified, perfectly reflecting the totalism of his ideology. Just as money flowed freely among the various parts of his empire, so did people, whether leaders or laborers. A sample of the interlocking leadership:

Sun Myung Moon: chairman, International Cultural Foundation; director, International Oceanic Enterprises; chairman, Tong Il Enterprises; investor, Diplomat National Bank; director, One Up Enterprises; founder and chairman, Unification Church International; founder and director, News World.

Mrs. Sun Myung Moon (Hak Ja Han): director, Tong Il Enterprises; director, Unification Church International.

Bo Hi Pak: president, Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation; president, Little Angels; president, International Oceanic Enterprises; president, Unification Church International; director, International Cultural Foundation; investor, Diplomat National Bank; director, One Up Enterprises; president, U.S. Foods Corporation.

Neil Salonen: president, Unification Church of the U.S.A.; secretary general, Freedom Leadership Foundation; director, International Oceanic Enterprises; director, Tong Il Enterprises; investor, Diplomat National Bank; director, International Cultural Foundation; director, One Up Enterprises.

Michael Young Warder: director, Tong Il Enterprises; secretary general, International Conference for the Unity of the Sciences; director, International Oceanic Enterprises; director, Unification Church; director, One Up Enterprises; president and publisher, News World.

Takeru Kamiyama: director, New York Unification Church; investor, Diplomat National Bank; director, Tong Il Enterprises; director, International Oceanic Enterprises; director, One Up Enterprises.

Osami Kuboki: president, Japan Unification Church; director, International Cultural Foundation.

Judith Lejeune: secretary, International Oceanic Enterprises; director, Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation; incorporator, Unification Church International; secretary to Bo Hi Pak; investor, Diplomat National Bank.

Mitsuharu Ishii: president, Toitsu Industries (Japan); president, One Way Productions; officer, International Cultural Foundation; president, Sekai Nippo (World Daily News) of Japan; financier for investments in Diplomat National Bank.

R. Michael Runyon: president, One Up Enterprises; president, U.S. Marine Corporation; vice president, International Oceanic Enterprises.

Kim Won-Pil: president, Korea Unification Church; director, Unification Church International; director, International Cultural Foundation; president, Il Hwa Pharmaceutical Company (Korea).

Moon himself acknowledges his system as totalist. Oneness pervades, even in nomenclature: Unification Church, One World Crusade, Unified Family, One Up Enterprises, Tong Il (“unification”) Enterprises, One Way Productions. To members of the cult, this is perfectly natural. They are reminded every day that there is only one way and that is Father’s way. Father had all the answers straight from God and they covered everything.

He has promised to accomplish what the saints and sages have failed to do for six thousand years. In his lifetime, he will bring total heaven to earth at last. Adam had failed. Jesus had failed. Even God had failed.

And when Moon succeeds, God will say: “ ‘Reverend Moon is far better than me, the Heavenly Father.’ ”

In dealings with the outside world, however, the cult has denied the unity of Moon’s family. The non-Moon world was in the position of Cain. The Family was in the position of Abel. Abel the good must deceive Cain the evil to reverse the sin of original deception and restore perfect goodness. The “petty” laws of the United States were the laws of Cain, so they must not interfere with Father’s mission. Heavenly Deception was the way to get around them.

Accordingly, the Unification Church was granted exemption from taxes because the Moonies swore it did not engage in political or business activities. Cain’s government could not be permitted to take more than a bare minimum in tax money from the Family. Hundreds of foreign Moonies were imported to work in the Family businesses, entering the United States on short-term visas as “students” or “religious trainees” and then staying for years. Millions of dollars were transferred from tax-exempt church accounts to Family business accounts and vice versa. Money moved freely from country to country. Moonie investigators gained access to the legitimate press corps by posing as journalists. Moonie money from foreign countries bought a controlling interest in an American bank without regard for banking laws and securities regulations. The Moonies lobbied for the South Korean influence campaign in Congress and staged political demonstrations, ordered and reportedly paid for by the KCIA, without registering as agents of the Korean government.

The Family not only denied any wrongdoing, it insisted defiantly that to question any of the cult’s activities was an infringement of First Amendment rights to freedom of religion. From that point of view, it made perfect sense. In Moon’s totalist system, everything can be religion: owning a bank, working for the KCIA, selling weapons of war, brainwashing, destroying families, buying the Empire State Building, taking over the world.

The press, the Fraser Subcommittee, and federal, state, and local investigators began exposing illegal and deceptive activities of the Moon cult in 1976. Salonen and Bo Hi Pak, as the chief spokesmen, were models of Heavenly Deception. Fund raisers in the street would have done well to emulate them: Moon “never received KCIA money, not one red cent”; Moon had nothing to do with running the Unification Church in the United States; the components of the Moon organization were completely independent of one another; the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation and the Unification Church had nothing to do with each other; the Little Angels and the Unification Church had the same founder but nothing else in common; the money for the Diplomat National Bank stock came from a long-established “Unification Church Pension Fund International” for family assistance to elderly church members; there was never any plan to throw eggs at the Japanese ambassador; Bo Hi Pak was a private citizen who had nothing to do with the Korean government; listing Moon as “chairman” or “founder” of corporations and having him sign corporate checks were merely symbolic gestures. (Concerning this claim, a New York judge wrote, “Such contentions strain the credulity of this Court.”)

In the North Korean prison thirty years earlier, Mrs. Ho had ignored Moon when he told her she would be set free if she denied her revelations from God. She was killed instead. Salonen and Pak would not make the same mistake.

Moon was not cowed by the bad publicity. He welcomed it. It was part of his strategy to shake the world. He needed opponents besieging him from all directions so he could be “a lightning rod.” That would be “the quickest strategy to take over the rest of the world.” His opponents—the established churches, the Frasers—were striking out at him because they feared him, he said. He saw the negative press as a definite plus. Without it, he would get only an inch or two of coverage now and then; with it, the world knew who the Reverend Moon was.

With all the controversy over Moon in the United States, President Park Chung Hee felt it best to give the outward appearance of putting himself at a distance from the New Messiah. Park’s own image was at an all-time low in America and was still sinking. Ambassador Hahm issued a statement in Washington saying the R.O.K. government and Moon had nothing to do with each other. It was similar to statements made about relations with Tongsun Park, except for the inclusion of some emphasis on freedom for all religions in Korea.

Moon understood. Both he and the government had to conceal their close working ties in the influence campaign. It came easy to him. Whatever Park Chung Hee and Ambassador Hahm had to do for the sake of appearance, Moon and the government continued to work hand in hand. And he told the cult the Korean government was strongly on his side, “begging for our opinion and actions.” The banquet held in his honor in Seoul in 1975 was a good sign, he said. It was attended by a host of dignitaries including Chung Il-Kwon, Speaker of the National Assembly and former Prime Minister. Other things, not told to cult members, revealed even closer ties, such as Bo Hi Pak’s reported access to the secret telecommunications facilities at the South Korean Embassy.

Thomas Scharff wanted to know what had happened to his son’s life. It had been a year since Gary dropped out of Princeton and moved in with the Moonies in Louisville. Increasingly, Gary had become a stranger to his father and mother, especially after three months of indoctrination at Belvedere. He was living in Philadelphia as the Pennsylvania state director of the Unification Church, apparently not at all interested in going back to college. W. Farley Jones, then president of the Unification Church, had assured the elder Scharff that Gary would return to Princeton in the fall. If his son could just get back in school away from the cult’s controlled environment, Scharff thought, maybe he would begin to lead his own life again. Scharff wrote to Moon demanding to know what had been done to his son.

Moon couldn’t be bothered with parents. Who were they to question the Lord of the Second Advent? He ignored the letter and had it returned unopened. When another letter came, it got the same treatment. Scharff then angrily threatened to “expose Moon to the world.” David S. C. Kim of Moon’s inner circle moved to head off a possible problem by talking to Gary.

“What would it take to appease your parents?” Kim asked. “Oh, they’d be satisfied if I went back to school, even though I’ve made it clear that’s not what I want.” Gary had important work to do for Father.

“Well, you had better go, then. They could cause trouble if you don’t. But they will burn in Hell for insulting the Messiah.” Gary graduated from Princeton the following spring after writing his senior thesis on the Divine Principle. Every spare moment during the school year was spent with the cult, working at the Philadelphia center, demonstrating for Nixon at the Christmas Tree Lighting, lecturing, and setting up a speaking engagement for Moon at Princeton.

Parents had no right to resist Moon’s control over their children. They were only “physical” parents anyhow. Moon and his wife were True Parents, to be revered and obeyed absolutely as Father and Mother. The members of the cult were their children, all brothers and sisters in the Unified Family. There was no question of choice between the Unified Family and the physical family. Moonies had a divine duty to deny parents, brothers, and sisters. Hold fast to Father. Cling to him. If parents try to drag you back to the outside world of Cain, stand against them firmly and say: “ ‘I’m the son of God before being your son.’ ”

If they insist you are a member of their family, tell them: “ ‘I want to be a member of the Unified Family, rather than of this small family.’ ”

Ties with enemies must be severed and, said Moon, “Your utmost enemy is in your family.”

Steve Hassan lay helpless on the sofa at his sister’s house with his leg in a heavy cast. His father had taken away his crutches. People kept coming in saying terrible things about the Family, and there was no way for him to escape to the nearest Moonie haven. He would still be fund raising in Baltimore if he hadn’t fallen asleep at the wheel of a church van and run into a truck after three days with no sleep. Now he was captive to his father’s conspiracy to turn him away from Master. He wanted to strangle his father, but decided it wasn’t necessary since he was determined to get away somehow soon. He told his parents they were wasting their time with him. He was Kamiyama’s model of sacrifice and devotion. This was another test of his faith and he was sure he would pass just as he always had. Father had taught him to withstand the temptations of the Satanic world. The deprogrammers’ arguments seemed feeble. They tried to prove faults in the Divine Principle, but he knew Father’s teachings better than they. After eight hours of talk the first day, he went to sleep contentedly. This was going to be easy, he thought.

After breakfast the next morning, he was moved to an unfamiliar apartment in Queens because the deprogrammers had learned the Moonies were on their way to rescue him from his sister’s house. Disabled with a broken leg, and his family having eluded his brethren, he agreed to stay for a week, no more.

As the harangues continued he was told he had been suckered, manipulated, and used by the cult. Impossible. How could he believe he was exploited by someone he had committed everything to? At first he refused to let himself think about it. Each night he went to bed repeating to himself, “I cannot leave! ... I cannot leave! ... I cannot leave! . ..” He remembered a showing of The Exorcist, held on Moon’s orders, and Moon’s stern admonition that the movie was a prophecy of what would happen to those who did not stand firmly with him. But after three or four days Hassan was saying, “I cannot leave! ... I cannot leave. ... Why can’t I leave?” He was forced to consider the possibility that Moon might not be the Messiah. As he listened to each negative point raised about the cult, worse points entered his mind that he could not counter.

By the fifth day, he had found himself again. He realized the cult had robbed him of all reference points. Having been manipulated to believe Moon’s goals were desirable, he had had to believe they were true also. If they were true, then all the degradation and deceit had to be desirable. He felt he had been riding on a slave train that never stopped.

Free from the cult, Steve Hassan began to think for himself again. In the absence of mind control, he was unsure of himself at first and had to rely heavily on his family and friends for help. It took about a year for him to fully regain his former confidence.

Chris Elkins left the cult, too, in a rare instance of voluntary departure after two years as Moon’s slave. Gary Scharff also got out, having been rescued by his parents.

There were others not so fortunate. Moon’s devastation of Wendy Helander and her family still continues after more than five years. She was taken by the cult suddenly during her first semester at the University of New Hampshire, a month after her eighteenth birthday. Spending the 1974 Christmas holidays reluctantly with the family in Guilford, Connecticut, she said she was happy being a member of the Unification Church. But she cried every day. Her parents wanted to know more about the movement that had caused her to drop out of school and move in with other members only a few days after she had been invited on a weekend “camping trip” with them. It was so unlike Wendy. She had always excelled in class and a variety of activities. In high school she had been a cheerleader, played flute in the band, and loved arts and crafts. A fluent speaker of French, she had visited France twice. Her only answer to her parents’ questions about the Unification Church was to invite them to a three-day training workshop at Barrytown.

▲ UTS Barrytown

Elton and Carolyn Helander found a strange world at Barrytown. When they arrived, Wendy and about forty others were in a pandemonium of frenzied prayer, shouting over and over out of unison: “Dear Heavenly Father, forgive my sins! You have suffered so much for me; now I will sacrifice everything for you!” In another ritual, a group faced toward Korea with hands in the air and cheered for Master and the Fatherland: “Mansei! Mansei!” When the Helanders felt the urge to get up and leave a training session, the lecturer’s eyes locked on theirs and they stayed in their seats. One young man left his seat and attempted to walk out. They were shocked to see him dragged back, yelling and kicking, by five leaders. Later they were to learn that another trainee, Bill Giannastasio, was able to escape from a weekend workshop only by jumping out of a second-floor window.

The lecturer for the weekend was one of the cult’s best, Gary Scharff. Skillfully weaving Moon’s convoluted logic, he emphasized points by gliding his open hands outward, repeating, “This is true. . .. This is true. . . . This is true . .. ,” softening each repetition until the last was a whisper. He was like a hypnotist.

The Helanders were the only parents among the seventy-two trainees that weekend. On the one occasion when they were allowed to have a meal with Wendy, Gary Scharff was there to chaperon. She was happy, she said, and would stay.

Elton and Carolyn Helander were horrified by everything about the cult. The inexorable “love” bombardment was overbearing and phony. There was no such thing as free will at Barrytown.

The cult had taken control of Wendy’s mind. The Helanders were determined to give her the chance to make choices for herself again. An opportunity came when they heard about deprogrammer Ted Patrick a few days later. The following Sunday, Wendy was allowed to spend the day with her parents. She remained with them and was then “deprogrammed.” She seemed happy to be free after two months of enslavement. Her sense of humor began to return, and she busied herself redecorating her room. But the cult would not leave the family alone. Wendy’s sister Holly was frightened by a Moonie who entered her college apartment, set his suitcase inside the door, and threatened to spend the night unless she put him in contact with Wendy. Vans were seen cruising slowly past the Helanders’ house. Moonies wrote letters and came to the door. They appeared in town fund raising on the chance of meeting Wendy to intimidate her with the warning that she would die within a year unless she returned to the cult. Wendy was worried about her own vulnerability, so she made a sworn statement. It requested “immediate action by the authorities to come and physically remove me from the cult” if she were retaken because “regardless of what I may say or do, I will not be acting of my own free will.”

Wendy went out to do some shopping one afternoon, saying she would be back in a few minutes. That evening her brother found the family car abandoned on the Connecticut Turnpike. The cult had enticed her back after only a month.

The FBI reported she was in Washington. With the authority granted by Wendy’s affidavit, the Helanders expected no serious problem in freeing her. They were wrong. She did not appear in court when ordered by a writ of habeas corpus. Instead, Moonie lawyers played a tape of Wendy’s voice: speaking in a monotone, she said she was acting on her own free will and wanted to stay in the Unification Church. The judge dismissed the case on September 23, 1975, for lack of evidence. The cult touted the decision as legal proof that there was no brainwashing. For Wendy and her family, the nightmare continued.

The family heard nothing from Wendy for weeks. Then in November she invited them for a visit to Barrytown. Her parents managed to walk alone with her to the edge of Moon’s vast estate. There they were met by their two sons with a car in which to rescue her.

For the next three months the entire family lived away from the house in Guilford. The harassment had been so heavy before that they feared for their own safety this time. Elton Helander and son Joel moved in with a relative. Forrest, Wendy’s younger brother in high school, lived with a neighbor. Carolyn Helander and Wendy moved around through seven states trying to elude the cult’s searchers. In the meantime, the neighborhood in Guilford was again harassed. Vans cruised regularly and neighbors got phone calls asking probing questions about the Helanders. When some Moonies were apprehended by police in Warwick, Rhode Island, for prowling around the house of another ex-member, they were found to be carrying photographs of Wendy and her parents, a Japanese wooden sword, a can of Mace, and a Bible containing a devil mask used to frighten defectors into returning. The same van had been seen in the Helanders’ neighborhood a few hours earlier.

After three months the Helanders received a summons to appear in court. Wendy was the plaintiff in a suit charging them with false imprisonment. She knew nothing about it but recalled having signed something at one time or another; she now realized it had probably been power of attorney for the cult.

Numerous ex-Moonies had been helping to rehabilitate Wendy. It was therefore not unusual when Richard Conrad visited the home where she was staying in Ohio in February 1976. He seemed such a nice young man, so Mrs. Helander did not object to his suggestion that he could help best by talking to Wendy alone. He reported good progress and after three days took Wendy out for a walk. They never returned.

Six days later Michael Runyon, an official of the Moon organization, proudly announced to the press that “a young man from the Unification Church pretended to undergo the deprogramming, and after gaining the confidence of the deprogrammers, brought about the escape.” Now that the cult had her back, the false imprisonment suit against her parents was dropped.

For ten months the Helanders tried in vain to contact Wendy. In September they journeyed to Washington, hoping to see her at the big “God Bless America” rally Moon was mounting. They plied through the mass of Moonies with no sign of their daughter. Then they caught sight of Richard Conrad among uniformed cult members in white jumpsuits emblazoned with Moon’s emblem.

“What happened on the short walk?” asked Carolyn Helander, controlling her anxiety.

“It was extended,” Conrad replied casually.

“How could you do such a thing?” cried Wendy’s mother.

Conrad pointed skyward and smiled. “Only one person knows.” He turned to walk away.

“Don’t back off!” exclaimed Mr. Helander. “Where’s Wendy? How is she?”

“I don’t know.” Conrad shrugged and walked away to tend to Master’s work.

Former Moonies had reported that Wendy was in poor condition emotionally and physically. Because of her parents’ previous efforts to get her out of the cult, she was being kept from sight, held like a prisoner. The Helanders were contacted by a stranger who told them Wendy wanted to escape but was afraid to try. They went to New York to meet her at a hotel where she was to have been brought by someone in the cult supposedly concerned about her. She did not appear.

In May 1977, Wendy Helander filed a $9 million lawsuit against her parents and the deprogrammers for kidnapping and forcibly violating her right to freedom of religion. Her parents countersued the cult for abducting their daughter. The suits were dropped in September 1978 by mutual agreement. Wendy agreed to restore close relations with her family; her parents agreed not to interfere with their daughter’s “religion.”

The Helanders have had no personal contact with Wendy since February 1976 when she was enticed back to the cult by Richard Conrad. She and her parents have seen each other in courtrooms, where she appeared sad and frightened, her chin quivering, seated between the cult’s lawyers, Richard Ben-Veniste and Jeremiah Gutman. She seemed a robot in her movements and statements. The Helanders well remember, in the courtroom, the lawyers coaching Wendy constantly and even insisting successfully that a United States marshal be positioned, as Gutman said, “so the parents will not kidnap her again.”

The Moon cult has controlled Wendy from the age of eighteen well into her twenty-fourth year. She has become a national cause célèbre in the cult’s drive to use freedom of religion to serve Moon’s megalomania. The Moonies have paraded her out as a “show” witness at hearings in state legislatures, flanked on either side by her leaders, where she mouths the cult’s position in a lifeless tone that seems alien to the person she used to be. Having performed her public function, she is then returned to isolation from non-Moonies. Neil Salonen, Unification Church president, explained the purpose for using her: “The Wendy Helander lawsuit is designed to set a legal precedent against deprogramming.” Normal life has become an illusion for the Helanders. Carefree relaxation at home is a thing of the distant past. In terms of money alone they have been hit with more than $60,000 in legal bills. With the cooperation of their church, a group of friends started “The Wendy Fund” to help pay. Far worse than the financial drain are the feelings of anguish and frustration. If money could save their daughter, Elton and Carolyn Helander say, they would be willing to give up their house. Although they know money can never restore the free will of Wendy’s former self, they do not know what can.

NOTES

Chapter 6  MINIONS AND MASTER

144 “$300 million”: Master Speaks, Nov. 17, 1974 (KI Appendix C-223).

144-145 Description of the kind of person Moon succeeds in taking in: interviews with former Moonie leaders, including Steve Hassan.

145-146 “Moon taught a clear strategy for attracting prospective converts”: Master Speaks, “On Witnessing,” Jan. 3, 1972.

146-148, 151-153, 156, 161-164, 181  Chris Elkins: interviews with Elkins.

147 “Your whole body”: Master Speaks, April 14, 1974 (KI Appendix C-216).

147 “You must live with me spiritually”: ibid.

148 “You will rearrange the mechanisms within yourself”: Master Speaks, Jan. 1, 1973.

148 “your mind is my mind”: Master Speaks, April 14, 1974 (KI Appendix C-216).

148 “$800,000”: interview with ex-Moonie leader Allen Tate Wood, who ran the candle factory in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

148 “The three functions”: interview with ex-Moonie leader Gary Scharff.

149 “Moon: Would you prefer to sleep seven hours”: Master Speaks, Sept. 22, 1974 (KI Appendix C-221).

149 “Cult members should commit suicide”: Allen Tate Wood’s testimony, June 22, 1976 (SIO-II, p. 21); interviews with former Moonies; “Mass Suicide Possible in Moon Church, 3 Say,” New York Times, Feb. 20, 1979, p. D-14.

149-150 Deaths of Moonies: New York Daily News, June 7, 1976; New York Times, August 24, 1976; Detroit News, August 16, 1979; New West magazine, January 29, 1979, p. 63; interviews with police officials and former Moonies.

150 Health problems: interviews with ex-Moonies; Crazy for God, by Christopher Edwards, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1979, pp. 82-92.

151 “Among Moon’s tour trophies”: Day of Hope in Review, Part 1, published by the Unification Church, 1974.

151-152 “Moon was standing on a mountainside in Korea”: interviews with ex-Moonies giving Moon’s story of the origins of the support campaign for President Nixon.

152 “full-page Watergate statements”: Day of Hope in Review, Part 1, published by the Unification Church, 1974.

153 Moonie preparation for the Christmas Tree Lighting: interview with Gary Scharff who was a member of the “Horse Team.”

153 “A White House aide”: John Nidecker, in testimony before the Fraser Subcommittee, June 1978 (KI Part 5, pp. 15-16).

154 “We stopped the world for him”: “From Korea with Love,” by John D. Marks, in the Washington Monthly, Feb. 1974.

154 “power clique”: interviews with ex-Moonies identifying the core of Moonie leadership.

154 Moon’s comments on racial talents: Master Speaks, July 29, 1974 (KI Appendix C-218).

154-155 “Dr. Joseph Kennedy”: KI Report, pp. 340-341.

155 “He . . . urged the President ‘not to knuckle under to the pressure’ ”: Day of Hope in Review, Part 1, published by the Unification Church, 1974.

156 “This is the equivalent of the Roman Emperor”: Master Speaks, Feb. 14, 1974 (KI Appendix C-214).

156 “the Unification Church and the White House ... can be very close places”: Ibid., Feb. 14, 1974.

156 “David Martin”: interview with Chris Elkins.

156 “his wife’s permanent visa”: KI Report, p. 402.

157 “Congressman Richard Ichord”: interview with former House Speaker Carl Albert.

157 “Senator Strom Thurmond”: KI Report, p. 402.

157 “PR Sisters” and “many good-looking girls”: KI Report, p. 342; Master Speaks, Dec. 29, 1971 (KI Appendix C-209); untitled speech by Moon, May 7, 1973 (KI Appendix C-321); interviews with ex-Moonies, one of whom reported having visited the Washington Hilton suite and being shown photos of Congressmen and Moonie girls with their arms around each other.

157 “She was Japanese, as it should be”: In Master Speaks, July 26, 1974, Moon said, “Eve has been working really hard in places like this, and in the future everybody will follow this pattern.”

157 “one for the diplomat” presumably means one to function as a diplomatic persuader in a Senator’s office.

157 “The Speaker wasn’t interested”: interview with former House Speaker Carl Albert.

157 Susan Bergman’s telephone conversations with Albert: interview with an ex-Moonie who was present on both occasions.

158 Barrytown: Not to be confused with Tarrytown; Moon has large facilities for training at both villages on the Hudson.

158 “Park Chung Hee viewed him as an asset”: interviews with former Korean and American government officials.

158 President Park’s letter to ROFA contributors: KI Part 4, p. 185. After American officials complained about the letter, Bo Hi Pak obtained a letter from Senator Strom Thurmond to the effect that the State Department had no objection to “courtesy contacts” by heads of foreign states with American citizens. Although this letter did not say whether the State Department was referring to the ROFA mailing, Bo Hi Pak claimed the letter vindicated his role in the mailing (KI Report, p. 365, KI Part 4, pp. 187-188).

158 Donald Miller’s book: KI Part 4 Supplement, p. 468; KI Report, p. 365.

159 Bo Hi Pak as a conduit for Prime Minister Chung Il-Kwon to send money to the United States: KI Report, p. 366.

159 Moon’s anti-Communist training center: KI Report, p. 352.

159 Manufacture of military weapons: KI Report, pp. 83, 326, 352.

160 “He reminded the cult”: New Hope News, a Moon publication, April 21, 1975; KI Report, p. 342.

160-161 Project Watergate, activities in Congress, role of Rabbi Korff and Bruce Herschenson in the three-day prayer fast: interviews with former Moonies.

161 “Failure to lift Nixon up”: interview with Gary Scharff.

161-162 Chris Elkins and the egg-throwing plot: KI Report, pp. 343-345; Elkins’s testimony before the Fraser Subcommittee, Sept. 27, 1976 (SIO-II, pp. 44-49).

162-163 “According to intelligence reports”: declassified summaries of intelligence reports and testimony by Kim Sang-Keun (KI Part 5, pp. 71-72). The intelligence summary, approved for public release by the originating agency, said, in part: “The head of the Washington KCIA arranged with Reverend Moon’s group for demonstrations in front of the Japanese Embassy and the White House. The KCIA had used Moon and members of the Unification Church to stage rallies in the United States in support of Korean government policies and aims, and on at least one occasion Moon received KCIA funds for that purpose. Due to State Department objections, the planned anti-Japanese rallies had to be called off at the last minute by the KCIA chief through one of Reverend Moon’s subordinates. The thousands of dollars already expended on the aborted demonstrations had to be written off to good will.”

163-164 Chris Elkins’s political activities while a Moonie: testimony of Chris Elkins (SIO-II, pp. 45, 46, 51-53).

163-164 “If we can turn three states of the United States around”: Master Speaks, Mar. 24, 1974 (KI Appendix C-215).

164 “Some day, in the near future”: Ibid.

164-168 Based on interviews with ex-Moonies, including Steve Hassan.

165 Tully’s wife: ex-Moonie Steve Hassan recalled Moonie leader Takeru Kamiyama having described her as “a crazy fanatic.”

165 “if leaders had a slave mentality themselves”: Elaborating on this point, ex-Moonie Steve Hassan said that by taxing leaders with impossible goals, Moon endeavored to suppress the ego that might emerge if goals were accomplished. Early in 1975, Moon levied a requirement on Kamiyama to recruit three thousand new members. Hassan’s quota for the Flushing, New York, center was four hundred. Neither goal came near being met. After an all-out effort, Hassan’s group was able to bring in only about thirty.

166 “appalled by the individuality he saw” and “Germany, where people ‘were trained in totalisin’ ”: Master Speaks, Jan. 3, 1972.

166 Showing Hitler Youth films: interviews with ex-Moonies.

168 Annual gross from street fund raising: Former Moonie leader Allen Tate Wood gave a higher estimate than Steve Hassan. After testifying in the Manhattan Supreme Court in connection with a case involving the Unification Church’s tax-exempt status, Wood said on the basis of 2,000 Moonies fund raising every day, the average per person is $150 to $300, for an annual gross of $109.5 to $219 million (New York Post, May 16, 1979).

168-175 Moon’s business activities: KI Report, pp. 325-332, 372-376; confidential interviews.

169-170 Moonie interest in the Diplomat National Bank: Findings regarding stock purchased with Moonie money are based on sworn testimony and subpoenaed bank records (KI Report, pp. 377-378); loans to Bo Hi Pak (KI Report, p. 382); ruling by Controller of the Currency (letter at KI Appendix C-252); $7 million in Moonie transactions (KI Report, p. 382).

169 “that the currency will be freely coming back and forth” and “an international bank”: Master Speaks, Feb. 16, 1975 (KI Appendix C-224).

170 “to guide the academic world”: Master Speaks, Feb. 16, 1975 (KI Appendix C-224).

172-173 M-16 rifle negotiations: KI Report, pp. 367-368, 83; KI Appendix C-34-39, 41-45.

173 Moon’s plans to buy the Empire State Building, Ford Motor Company, and Pan American World Airways: Master Speaks, Nov. 22, 1974; interview with a former Moonie leader.

175 “ ‘Reverend Moon is far better than me, the Heavenly Father’ Master Speaks, July 31, 1974 (KI Appendix C-219).

175 The “petty” laws of the United States: notes taken by a Unification Church member at a meeting with Moon in Barrytown, N.Y., June 1, 1977. The subject of the discussion was the newspaper, News World.

176 International movement of Moonie funds: KI Report, p. 337; the Fraser Subcommittee said “there was massive evidence that (the Moon organization) had systematically violated” U.S. currency laws (KI Report, p. 388).

176 Visas: KI Report, pp. 335-336; summary of Immigration and Naturalization Service investigations of Moon (KI Appendix C-212).

176 “never received KCIA money”: testimony of Bo Hi Pak (KI Part 4, p. 666).

177 “Unification Church Pension Fund International”: Pak’s testimony (KI Part 4, p. 308); KI Report, pp. 380-381.

177 “a New York judge”: George D. Burchell, Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, Westchester County, in a ruling on a tax dispute between the Village of Tarrytown and the Unification Church, August 14, 1979.

177 Bad press as a “lightning rod,” and “the quickest strategy to take over the rest of the world”: Master Speaks, Feb. 23, 1977 (KI Appendix C-227).

178 Moon organization’s closeness to the R.O.K. government: KI Report, pp. 351-355; interviews with government officials, present and former. An unexplained hint of ties with the KCIA came, surprisingly, from an attorney for the Unification Church, Michael Golden. During a conversation with one of Congressman Fraser’s investigators on Nov. 4, 1977, Golden said in response to a question about his client, “You know who makes the decision. It’s made in the Korean CIA office.”

178 “begging for our opinion and actions”: Master Speaks, Sept. 22, 1974 (KI Appendix C-221).

178 Gary Scharff: interviews with Scharff.

179 “ ‘I’m the son of God before being your son,’ ” and “ ‘I want to be a member of the Unified Family’ Master Speaks, Nov. 17, 1974 (KI Appendix C-223).

179 “Your utmost enemy is in your family”: Master Speaks, Feb. 14, 1974 (KI Appendix C-214).

179-181 Steve Hassan: based on interviews with Hassan.

181-186 Wendy Helander: confidential interviews.

184 “a young man from the Unification Church”: New Haven Journal-Courier, Feb. 23, 1976.

186 Neil Salonen’s comment on the lawsuit: New Haven Register, June 20, 1978.

Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park, and the Korean scandal – Chapter 2 – The Lord of the Second Advent

Gifts of Deceit – Chapter 12, Dueling with the Moonies

Gifts of Deceit – Chapter 13, The Menace

Moonie “Dirty Tricks” against Donald Fraser

United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization

Moon sought to influence the American political agenda by pouring more than a billion dollars into media.

Politics and religion interwoven

Sun Myung Moon: The Emperor of the Universe

[climatemayors]

305 US Climate Mayors commit to adopt, honor and uphold Paris Climate Agreement goals

STATEMENT FROM THE CLIMATE MAYORS IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT

The President’s denial of global warming is getting a cold reception from America’s cities.

As 305 US Mayors representing 61 million Americans, we will adopt, honor, and uphold the commitments to the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement. We will intensify efforts to meet each of our cities’ current climate goals, push for new action to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target, and work together to create a 21st century clean energy economy.

We will continue to lead. We are increasing investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. We will buy and create more demand for electric cars and trucks. We will increase our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a clean energy economy, and stand for environmental justice. And if the President wants to break the promises made to our allies enshrined in the historic Paris Agreement, we’ll build and strengthen relationships around the world to protect the planet from devastating climate risks.

The world cannot wait — and neither will we.

Signed,

Mayor Eric Garcetti City of Los Angeles, CA

Mayor Martin J Walsh City of Boston, MA

Mayor Bill de Blasio New York City, NY

Mayor Sylvester Turner City of Houston, TX

Mayor Madeline Rogero City of Knoxville, TN

Mayor Rahm Emanuel City of Chicago, IL

Mayor Ed Murray City of Seattle, WA

Mayor Jim Kenney City of Philadelphia, PA

Mayor Kasim Reed City of Atlanta, GA

Mayor Lioneld Jordan City of Fayetteville, AR

Mayor Trish Herrera Spencer City of Alameda, CA

Mayor Kathy Sheehan City of Albany, NY

Mayor Sharon Konopa City of Albany , OR

Mayor Allison Silberberg City of Alexandria, VA

Mayor Ed Pawlowski City of Allentown, PA

Mayor Jeanne Sorg City of Ambler, PA

Mayor Ethan Berkowitz City of Anchorage, AK

Mayor Terence Roberts City of Anderson, SC

Mayor Christopher Taylor City of Ann Arbor, MI

Mayor Van W Johnson City of Apalachicola, FL

Mayor Susan Ornelas City of Arcata, CA

Mayor Peter R Porcino City of Ardsley, NY

Mayor Esther Manheimer City of Asheville, NC

Mayor Steve Skadron City of Aspen, CO

Mayor Steve Patterson City of Athens, OH

Mayor Steve Adler City of Austin, TX

Mayor Catherine E Pugh City of Baltimore , MD

Mayor Gordon T Ringberg City of Bayfield, WI

Mayor Denny Dole City of Beaverton, OR

Mayor Kelli Linville City of Bellingham, WA

Mayor Jesse Arreguin City of Berkeley, CA

Mayor Robert Donchez City of Bethlehem, PA

Mayor Michael P Cahill City of Beverly, MA

Mayor Ben Kessler City of Bexley, OH

Mayor Richard C David City of Binghamton, NY

Mayor William Bell City of Birmingham, AL

Mayor Ron Rordam City of Blacksburg, VA

Mayor John Hamilton City of Bloomington, IN

Mayor Dave Bieter City of Boise, ID

Mayor Suzanne Jones City of Boulder, CO

Mayor Carson Taylor City of Bozeman, MT

Mayor Eric Mamula City of Breckenridge, CO

Mayor Joseph P Ganim City of Bridgeport, CT

Mayor William W Moehle City of Brighton, NY

Mayor Lori S Liu City of Brisbane, CA

Mayor Brenda Hess City of Buchanan, MI

Mayor Byron W Brown City of Buffalo, NY

Mayor Miro Weinberger City of Burlington, VT

Mayor Elizabeth B Kautz City of Burnsville, MN

Mayor E Denise Simmons City of Cambridge, MA

Mayor Edwin Garcia City of Camuy, PR

Mayor Jim Brainard City of Carmel, IN

Mayor Lydia E Lavelle City of Carrboro, NC

Mayor Mike Webb City of Carver, MN

Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen City of Champaign, IL

Mayor Pam Hemminger City of Chapel Hill, NC

Mayor John J Tecklenburg City of Charleston, SC

Mayor Jennifer Roberts City of Charlotte, NC

Mayor Mike Signer City of Charlottesville, VA

Mayor Andy Berke City of Chattanooga, TN

Mayor Chuck Cahn City of Cherry Hill, NJ

Mayor Mary Casillas Salas City of Chula Vista, CA

Mayor Ted Terry City of Clarkston, GA

Mayor Frank G Jackson City of Cleveland, OH

Mayor Brian Treece City of Columbia, MO

Mayor Stephen K Benjamin City of Columbia, SC

Mayor Andrew Ginther City of Columbus, OH

Mayor Rebecca Tooley City of Coconut Creek, FL

Mayor Jeff Katz City of Cooperstown, NY

Mayor Brian Tobin City of Cortland, NY

Mayor Biff Traber City of Corvallis, OR

Mayor Jeffrey Cooper Culver City, CA

Mayor Savita Vaidhyanathan City of Cupertino, CA

Mayor Michael S Rawlings City of Dallas, TX

Mayor Robb Davis City of Davis, CA

Mayor Cary Glickstein City of Delray Beach, FL

Mayor Michael Hancock City of Denver, CO

Mayor T M Franklin Cownie City of Des Moines, IA

Mayor Mike Duggan City of Detroit, MI

Mayor Josh Maxwell City of Downingtown, PA

Mayor Roy D Buol City of Dubuque, IA

Mayor Emily Larson City of Duluth, MN

Mayor William V Bell City of Durham, NC

Mayor Mark Meadows City of East Lansing, MI

Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens City of Eden Prairie, MN

Mayor Kris Teegardin City of Edgewater, CO

Mayor Dave Earling City of Edmonds, WA

Mayor Janet Abelson City of El Cerrito, CA

Mayor David Kaptain City of Elgin, IL

Mayor Catherine Blakespear City of Encinitas, CA

Mayor Lucy Vinis City of Eugene, OR

Mayor Stephen H Hagerty City of Evanston, IL

Mayor Ray Stephanson City of Everett, WA

Mayor Edward Malloy City of Fairfield, IA

Mayor Peter Lindstrom City of Falcon Heights, MN

Mayor David Tarter City of Falls Church, VA

Mayor Colleen Mahr City of Fanwood, NJ

Mayor David Coulter City of Ferndale, MI

Mayor Coral J Evans City of Flagstaff, AZ

Mayor Karen Weaver City of Flint, MI

Mayor Wade Troxell City of Fort Collins, CO

Mayor Jack Seiler City of Fort Lauderdale, FL

Mayor Tom Henry City of Fort Wayne, IN

Mayor Bob Scott City of Franklin, NC

Mayor Lily Mei City of Fremont, CA

Mayor Kachen Kimmell City of Gambier, OH

Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson City of Gary, IN

Mayor Tammy Stempel City of Gladstone, OR

Mayor Bruce J Packer City of Glen Rock, NJ

Mayor Bryan Kennedy City of Glendale, WI

Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken City of Gloucester, MA

Mayor Rosalynn Bliss City of Grand Rapids, MI

Mayor Nancy Vaughan City of Greensboro, NC

Mayor Knox H White City of Greenville, SC

Mayor Samuel Henderson City of Gulfport, FL

Mayor Joy Cooper City of Hallandale Beach, FL

Mayor Karen Majewski City of Hamtramck, MI

Mayor Luke Bronin City of Hartford, CT

Mayor Peter Swiderski City of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY

Mayor Harry Kim City of Hawai’i , HI

Mayor Barbara Halliday City of Hayward, CA

Mayor Shaun McCaffery City of Healdsburg, CA

Mayor Gayle Brill Mittler City of Highland Park, NJ

Mayor Nancy R Rotering City of Highland Park, IL

Mayor Patrick Taylor City of Highlands, NC

Mayor Tom Stevens City of Hillsborough, NC

Mayor Dawn Zimmer City of Hoboken, NJ

Mayor Josh Levy City of Hollywood, FL

Mayor Alex B Morse City of Holyoke, MA

Mayor Paul Blackburn City of Hood River, OR

Mayor Candace B Hollingsworth City of Hyattsville, MD

Mayor Jim Throgmorton Iowa City , IA

Mayor Svante Myrick City of Ithaca, NY

Mayor Pete Muldoon City of Jackson , WY

Mayor Steven M Fulop Jersey City, NJ

Mayor Bobby J Hopewell City of Kalamazoo, MI

Mayor Sly James Kansas City, MO

Mayor Nina Jonas City of Ketchum, ID

Mayor Steven T Noble City of Kingston, NY

Mayor Jose Alvarez City of Kissimmee, FL

Mayor Tim Kabat City of La Crosse, WI

Mayor Christine Berg City of Lafayette, CO

Mayor Michael Summers City of Lakewood, OH

Mayor Adam Paul City of Lakewood, CO

Mayor J Richard Gray City of Lancaster, PA

Mayor Virg Bernero City of Lansing, MI

Mayor William Sprague City of Lapeer, MI

Mayor Richard J Kaplan City of Lauderhill, FL

Mayor Leslie Soden City of Lawrence, KS

Mayor Theodore W Becker City of Lewes, DE

Mayor Mark Stodola City of Little Rock, AR

Mayor Robert Garcia City of Long Beach, CA

Mayor Adam Schneider City of Long Branch, NJ

Mayor Dennis Coombs City of Longmont, CO

Mayor Mary Prochnow City of Los Altos, CA

Mayor Gary Waldeck City of Los Altos Hills, CA

Mayor Marico Sayoc City of Los Gatos, CA

Mayor Greg Fischer City of Louisville, KY

Mayor Robert Reichert City of Macon-Bibb County, GA

Mayor Paul R Soglin City of Madison, WI

Mayor Gary Christenson City of Malden, MA

Mayor Skylar Peak City of Malibu, CA

Mayor Barry Greenberg City of Maplewood , MO

Mayor Stephanie M Burke City of Medford, MA

Mayor Kirsten Keith City of Menlo Park, CA

Mayor Tomas Regalado City of Miami, FL

Mayor Philip Levine City of Miami Beach, FL

Mayor Gurdip Brar City of Middleton, WI

Mayor Daniel Drew City of Middletown, CT

Mayor Sean Strub City of Milford, PA

Mayor Benjamin G Blake City of Milford , CT

Mayor Reuben D Holober City of Millbrae, CA

Mayor Jeff Silvestrini City of Millcreek, UT

Mayor Tom Barrett City of Milwaukee, WI

Mayor Mark Gamba City of Milwaukie, OR

Mayor Betsy Hodges City of Minneapolis, MN

Mayor Wayne Messam City of Miramar, FL

Mayor John Engen City of Missoula, MT

Mayor Mary O’Connor City of Monona, WI

Mayor John Hollar City of Montpelier, VT

Mayor Timothy Dougherty City of Morristown, NJ

Mayor Jamie Irons City of Morro Bay , CA

Mayor Arlene Burns City of Mosier, OR

Mayor Fred Courtright City of Mount Pocono, PA

Mayor Ken Rosenberg City of Mountain View, CA

Mayor Jill Techel City of Napa, CA

Mayor Jim Donchess City of Nashua, NH

Mayor Megan Barry City of Nashville, TN

Mayor Jon Mitchell City of New Bedford, MA

Mayor Toni N Harp City of New Haven, CT

Mayor Mitch Landrieu City of New Orleans, LA

Mayor Tim Rogers City of New Paltz, NY

Mayor Ras J Baraka City of Newark, NJ

Mayor Donna D Holaday City of Newburyport, MA

Mayor Setti Warren City of Newton, MA

Mayor Paul Dyster City of Niagara Falls, NY

Mayor Chris Koos City of Normal, IL

Mayor Connie Leon-Kreps City of North Bay Village, FL

Mayor Francis M Womack City of North Brunswick, NJ

Mayor Smith Joseph City of North Miami, FL

Mayor David J Narkewicz City of Northampton, MA

Mayor Jennifer White City of Nyack, NY

Mayor Libby Schaaf City of Oakland, CA

Mayor Cheryl Selby City of Olympia, WA

Mayor Buddy Dyer City of Orlando, FL

Mayor Victoria Gearity City of Ossining, NY

Mayor Greg Scharff City of Palo Alto, CA

Mayor Jack Thomas Park City, UT

Mayor Donald Grebien City of Pawtucket, RI

Mayor David Glass City of Petaluma, CA

Mayor Greg Stanton City of Phoenix, AZ

Mayor Cindy S Perry City of Pittsboro, NC

Mayor William Peduto City of Pittsburgh, PA

Mayor Kurt R Metzger City of Pleasant Ridge, MI

Mayor Lamar Fisher City of Pompano Beach, FL

Mayor Ethan Strimling City of Portland, ME

Mayor Ted Wheeler City of Portland, OR

Mayor Jack Blalock City of Portsmouth, NH

Mayor Liz Lempert City of Princeton, NJ

Mayor Jorge O Elorza City of Providence, RI

Mayor Nancy McFarlane City of Raleigh, NC

Mayor Donald Terry City of Rancho Cordova, CA

Mayor John Marchione City of Redmond, WA

Mayor John Seybert Redwood City, CA

Mayor Hillary Schieve City of Reno, NV

Mayor Tom Butt City of Richmond, CA

Mayor Levar Stoney City of Richmond, VA

Mayor Lovely Warren City of Rochester, NY

Mayor Daniel Guzzi City of Rockwood, MI

Mayor Mike Fournier City of Royal Oak, MI

Mayor Darrell Steinberg City of Sacramento, CA

Mayor Alan Galbraith City of Saint Helena, CA

Mayor Christopher Coleman City of Saint Paul, MN

Mayor Kim Driscoll City of Salem, MA

Mayor Chuck Bennett City of Salem, OR

Mayor Jacob Day City of Salisbury, MD

Mayor Jackie Biskupski Salt Lake City, UT

Mayor Bob Grassilli City of San Carlos, CA

Mayor Kevin Faulconer City of San Diego, CA

Mayor Ed Lee City of San Francisco, CA

Mayor Sam Liccardo City of San Jose, CA

Mayor Pauline Russo Cutter City of San Leandro, CA

Mayor Heidi Harmon City of San Luis Obispo, CA

Mayor John Thomaides City of San Marcos, TX

Mayor Miguel Pulido City of Santa Ana, CA

Mayor Helene Schneider City of Santa Barbara, CA

Mayor Lisa M Gillmor City of Santa Clara, CA

Mayor Javier M Gonzales City of Santa Fe, NM

Mayor Ted Winterer City of Santa Monica, CA

Mayor Chris Coursey City of Santa Rosa, CA

Mayor Joanne D Yepsen City of Saratoga Springs, NY

Mayor Chris Lain City of Savanna, IL

Mayor Michael J Gonnelli City of Secaucus, NJ

Mayor George Van Dusen City of Skokie, IL

Mayor Scott A Saunders City of Smithville, TX

Mayor Matt Larson City of Snoqualmie, WA

Mayor Joe Curtatone City of Somerville, MA

Mayor Pete Buttigieg City of South Bend, IN

Mayor Philip K Stoddard City of South Miami, FL

Mayor Domenic J Sarno City of Springfield, MA

Mayor Lyda Krewson City of St Louis, MO

Mayor Len Pagano City of St Peters, MO

Mayor Rick Kriseman City of St Petersburg, FL

Mayor David Martin City of Stamford, CT

Mayor Elizabeth Goreham City of State College, PA

Mayor Michael Tubbs City of Stockton, CA

Mayor Glenn Hendricks City of Sunnyvale, CA

Mayor Michael J Ryan City of Sunrise, FL

Mayor Daniel E Dietch City of Surfside, FL

Mayor Timothy P Kearney City of Swarthmore, PA

Mayor Stephanie A Miner City of Syracuse, NY

Mayor Marilyn Strickland City of Tacoma, WA

Mayor Kate Stewart City of Takoma Park, MD

Mayor Andrew Gillum City of Tallahassee, FL

Mayor Bob Buckhorn City of Tampa, FL

Mayor Drew Fixell City of Tarrytown, NY

Mayor Sean Murphy City of Telluride, CO

Mayor Mark Mitchell City of Tempe, AZ

Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson City of Toledo, OH

Mayor Patrick J. Furey City of Torrance, CA

Mayor Jim Carruthers Traverse City, MI

Mayor Eric E Jackson City of Trenton, NJ

Mayor Jonathan Rothschild City of Tucson, AZ

Mayor Brian Stack Union City, NJ

Mayor Shelley Welsch University City, MO

Mayor Diane W Marlin City of Urbana, IL

Mayor Dave Chapin City of Vail, CO

Mayor Muriel Bowser City of Washington, D.C.

Mayor Oscar Rios City of Watsonville, CA

Mayor Shari G Cantor City of West Hartford, CT

Mayor Edward O’Brien City of West Haven, CT

Mayor John Heilman City of West Hollywood, CA

Mayor John Dennis City of West Lafayette, IN

Mayor Jeri Muoio City of West Palm Beach, FL

Mayor Christopher Cabaldon City of West Sacramento, CA

Mayor Daniel Corona City of West Wendover, NV

Mayor Daniel J Stermer City of Weston, FL

Mayor Thomas M Roach City of White Plains, NY

Mayor Ryan Reynolds City of Whitney Point, NY

Mayor Debora Fudge City of Windsor, CA

Mayor Allen Joines City of Winston Salem, NC

Mayor Angel Barajas City of Woodland, CA

Mayor Joseph M Petty City of Worcester, MA

Mayor Mike Spano City of Yonkers, NY

Mayor Amanda Maria Edmonds City of Ypsilanti, MI

Updated signatories as of 10:30am PT on June 15, 2017

[shihtzuman]

187 #ClimateMayors adopt, honor and uphold #ParisAgreement goals

Badman Nishioka/3rd report /1st 62 Mayors, 2nd 88 Mayors, 3rd: The 187 US Mayor's commit to adopt, and uphold Paris Agreement!

HP: Climate Mayors

U.S. #Climate Mayors working together to advance local climate action, national emission reduction policies, & the Paris Climate Agreement www.climate-mayors.org. Jun 2

187 US Climate Mayors commit to adopt, honor and uphold Paris Climate Agreement goals

STATEMENT FROM THE CLIMATE MAYORS IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT June 1st 2017

The President’s denial of global warming is getting a cold reception from America’s cities.

As 187 US Mayors representing 52 million Americans, we will adopt, honor, and uphold the commitments to the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement. We will intensify efforts to meet each of our cities’ current climate goals, push for new action to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target, and work together to create a 21st century clean energy economy.

We will continue to lead. We are increasing investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. We will buy and create more demand for electric cars and trucks. We will increase our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a clean energy economy, and stand for environmental justice. And if the President wants to break the promises made to our allies enshrined in the historic Paris Agreement, we’ll build and strengthen relationships around the world to protect the planet from devastating climate risks.

The world cannot wait — and neither will we.

Sign

*Mayor Eric Garcetti, City of Los Angeles, CA/

*Mayor Martin J Walsh, City of Boston, MA/

*Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City, NY/

*Mayor Sylvester Turne, City of Houston, TX/

*Mayor Madeline Rogero, City of Knoxville, TN/

*Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City of Chicago, IL/

*Mayor Ed Murray, City of Seattle, WA/

*Mayor Jim Kenney, City of Philadelphia, PA/

*Mayor Kasim Reed, City of Atlanta, GA/

*Mayor Lioneld Jordan, City of Fayetteville, AR/

*Mayor Trish Herrera Spencer, City of Alameda, CA/

*Mayor Kathy Sheehan, City of Albany, NY/

*Mayor Allison Silberberg, City of Alexandria, VA/

*Mayor Jeanne Sorg, City of Ambler, PA/

*Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, City of Anchorage, AK/

*Mayor Terence Roberts, City of Anderson, SC/

*Mayor Christopher Taylor, City of Ann Arbor, MI/

*Mayor Van W Johnson, City of Apalachicola, FL/

*Mayor Susan Ornelas, City of Arcata, CA/

*Mayor Esther Manheimer, City of Asheville, NC/

*Mayor Steve Skadron, City of Aspen, CO/

*Mayor Steve Adler, City of Austin, TX/

*Mayor Gordon Ringberg, City of Bayfield, WI/

*Mayor Jesse Arreguin, City of Berkeley, CA/

*Mayor William Bell, City of Birmingham, AL/

*Mayor Ron Rordam, City of Blacksburg, VA/

*Mayor John Hamilton, City of Bloomington, IN/

*Mayor Dave Bieter, City of Boise, ID/

*Mayor Suzanne Jones, City of Boulder, CO/

*Mayor Carson Taylor, City of Bozeman, MT/

*Mayor Eric Mamula, Town of Breckenridge, CO/

*Mayor Lori S. Liu, City of Brisbane, CA/

*Mayor Brenda Hess, City of Buchanan, MI/

*Mayor Byron W Brown, City of Buffalo, NY/

*Mayor Miro Weinberger, City of Burlington, VT/

*Mayor E Denise Simmons, City of Cambridge, MA/

*Mayor Lydia Lavelle, City of Carrboro, NC/

*Mayor Pam Hemminger, City of Chapel Hill, NC/

*Mayor John J Tecklenburg, City of Charleston, SC/

*Mayor Jennifer Roberts, City of Charlotte, NC/

*Mayor Andy Berke, City of Chattanooga, TN/

*Mayor Mary Casillas Salas, City of Chula Vista, CA/

*Mayor Brian Treece, City of Columbia, MO/

*Mayor Stephen K Benjamin, City of Columbia, SC/

*Mayor Brian Tobin, City of Cortland, NY/

*Mayor Biff Traber, City of Corvallis, OR/

*Mayor Jeffrey Cooper, Culver City, CA/

*Mayor Mike Rawlings, City of Dallas, TX/

*Mayor Robb Davis, City of Davis, CA/

*Mayor Cary Glickstein, City of Delray Beach, FL/

*Mayor Michael Hancock, City of Denver, CO/

*Mayor Frank Cownie, City of Des Moines, IA/

*Mayor Josh Maxwell, City of Downingtown, PA/

*Mayor Roy D Buol, City of Dubuque, IA/

*Mayor William V Bell, City of Durham, NC/

*Mayor Kris Teegardin, City of Edgewater, CO/

*Mayor David Kaptain, City of Elgin, IL/

*Mayor Lucy Vinis, City of Eugene, OR/

*Mayor Stephen H Hagerty, City of Evanston, IL/

*Mayor Coral J Evans, City of Flagstaff, AZ/

*Mayor Jack Seiler, City of Fort Lauderdale, FL/

*Mayor Tom Henry, City of Fort Wayne, IN/

*Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, City of Gary, IN/

*Mayor Rosalyn Bliss, City of Grand Rapids, MI/

*Mayor Nancy Vaughan, City of Greensboro, NC/

*Mayor Joy Cooper, City of Hallandale Beach, FL/

*Mayor Luke Bronin, City of Hartford, /

*Mayor Peter Swiderski, City of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY/

*Mayor Nancy R. Rotering, City of Highland Park, IL/

*Mayor Gayle Brill Mittler, City of Highland Park, NJ/

*Mayor Tom Stevens, Town of Hillsborough, NC/

*Mayor Dawn Zimmer, City of Hoboken, NJ/

*Mayor Josh Levy, City of Hollywood, FL/

*Mayor Alex B Morse, City of Holyoke, MA/

*Mayor Paul Blackburn, City of Hood River, OR/

*Mayor Josh Levy, City of Hollywood, FL/

*Mayor Candace B Hollingsworth, City of Hyattsville, MD/

*Mayor Svante Myrick, City of Ithaca, NY/

*Mayor Steven M Fulop, Jersey City, NJ/

*Mayor Sly James, Kansas City, MO/

*Mayor Nina Jonas, City of Ketchum, ID/

*Mayor Steve Noble, City of Kingston, NY/

*Mayor Adam Paul, City of Lakewood, CO/

*Mayor Michael Summers, City of Lakewood, OH/

*Mayor Christine Berg, City of Lafayette, CO/

*Mayor Richard J Kaplan, City of Lauderhill, FL/

*Mayor Mark Stodola, City of Little Rock, AR/

*Mayor Robert Garcia, City of Long Beach, CA/

*Mayor Dennis Coombs, City of Longmont, CO/

*Mayor Marico Sayoc, City of Los Gatos, CA/

*Mayor Paul R Soglin, City of Madison, WI/

*Mayor Kirsten Keith, City of Menlo Park, CA/

*Mayor Tomas Regalado, City of Miami, FL/

*Mayor Philip Levine, City of Miami Beach, FL/

*Mayor Gurdip Brar, City of Middleton, WI/

*Mayor Daniel Drew, City of Middletown, CT/

*Mayor Reuben D. Holober, City of Millbrae, CA/

*Mayor Jeff Silvestrini, City of Millcreek, UT/

*Mayor Tom Barrett, City of Milwaukee, WI/

*Mayor Mark Gamba, City of Milwaukie, OR/

*Mayor Betsy Hodges, City of Minneapolis, MN/

*Mayor Mary O’Connor, City of Monona, WI/

*Mayor John Hollar, City of Montpelier, VT/

*Mayor Timothy Dougherty, City of Morristown, NJ/

*Mayor Fred Courtright,City of Mount Pocono, PA/

*Mayor Ken Rosenberg, City of Mountain View, CA/

*Mayor Megan Barry, City of Nashville, TN/

*Mayor Ras Baraka, City of Newark, NJ/

*Mayor Jon Mitchell, City of New Bedford, MA/

*Mayor Toni N Harp, City of New Haven, CT/

*Mayor Mitch Landrieu, City of New Orleans, LA/

*Mayor Francis M. Womack, North Brunswick Township, NJ/

*Mayor Donna D Holaday, City of Newburyport, MA/

*Mayor Setti Warren, City of Newton, MA/

*Mayor David J. Narkewicz, City of Northampton, MA/

*Mayor Jennifer White, City of Nyack, NY/

*Mayor Libby Schaaf, City of Oakland, CA/

*Mayor Cheryl Selby, City of Olympia, WA/

*Mayor Buddy Dyer, City of Orlando, FL/

*Mayor Greg Scharff, City of Palo Alto, CA/

*Mayor Jack Thomas, Park City, UT/

*Mayor Greg Stanton, City of Phoenix, AZ/

*Mayor William Peduto, City of Pittsburgh, PA/

*Mayor Ted Wheeler, City of Portland, OR/

*Mayor Liz Lempert, City of Princeton, NJ/

*Mayor Jorge O Elorza, City of Providence, RI/

*Mayor Nancy McFarlane, City of Raleigh, NC/

*Mayor John Marchione, City of Redmond, WA/

*Mayor John Seybert, Redwood City, CA/

*Mayor Hillary Schieve, City of Reno, NV/

*Mayor Tom Butt, City of Richmond, CA/

*Mayor Levar Stoney, City of Richmond, VA/

*Mayor Daniel Guzzi, City of Rockwood, MI/

*Mayor Mike Fournier, City of Royal Oak, MI/

*Mayor Darrell Steinberg, City of Sacramento, CA/

*Mayor Christopher Coleman, City of Saint Paul, MN/

*Mayor Kim Driscoll, City of Salem, MA/

*Mayor Jackie Biskupski, Salt Lake City, UT/

*Mayor Kevin Faulconer, City of San Diego, CA/

*Mayor Ed Lee, City of San Francisco, CA/

*Mayor Sam Liccardo, City of San Jose, CA/

*Mayor Pauline Russo Cutter, City of San Leandro, CA/

*Mayor Heidi Harmon, City of San Luis Obispo, CA/

*Mayor Miguel Pulido, City of Santa Ana, CA/

*Mayor Helene Schneider, City of Santa Barbara, CA/

*Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor, City of Santa Clara, CA/

*Mayor Javier M Gonzales, City of Santa Fe, NM/

*Mayor Ted Winterer, City of Santa Monica, CA/

*Mayor Chris Lain, City of Savanna, IL/

*Mayor Scott A Saunders, City of Smithville, TX/

*Mayor Joe Curtatone, City of Somerville, MA/

*Mayor Pete Buttigieg, City of South Bend, IN/

*Mayor Philip K Stoddard,City of South Miami, FL/

*Mayor Domenic J Sarno, City of Springfield, MA/

*Mayor Lyda Krewson, City of St Louis, MO/

*Mayor Len Pagano, City of St Peters, MO/

*Mayor Rick Kriseman, City of St Petersburg, FL/

*Mayor Michael Tubbs, City of Stockton, CA/

*Mayor Glenn Hendricks, City of Sunnyvale, CA/

*Mayor Michael J Ryan, City of Sunrise, FL/

*Mayor Daniel E Dietch, City of Surfside, FL/

*Mayor Stephanie A Miner, City of Syracuse, NY/

*Mayor Marilyn Strickland, City of Tacoma, WA/

*Mayor Kate Stewart, City of Takoma Park, MD/

*Mayor Andrew Gillum, City of Tallahassee, FL/

*Mayor Bob Buckhorn, City of Tampa, FL/

*Mayor Jim Carruthers, Traverse City, MI/

*Mayor Eric E Jackson, City of Trenton, NJ/

*Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, City of Tucson, AZ/

*Mayor Shelley Welsch, University City, MO/

*Mayor Diane Marlin, City of Urbana, IL/

*Mayor Dave Chapin, City of Vail, CO/

*Mayor Muriel Bowser, City of Washington, D.C./

*Mayor Oscar Rios, City of Watsonville, CA/

*Mayor Edward O’Brien, City of West Haven, CT/

*Mayor John Heilman, City of West Hollywood, CA/

*Mayor Jeri Muoio, City of West Palm Beach, FL/

*Mayor Christopher Cabaldon, City of West Sacramento, CA/

*Mayor Daniel Corona,City of West Wendover, NV/

*Mayor Thomas M Roach, City of White Plains, NY/

*Mayor Debora Fudge, City of Windsor, CA/

*Mayor Allen Joines, City of Winston Salem, NC/

*Mayor Angel Barajas, City of Woodland, CA/

*Mayor Joseph M Petty, City of Worcester, MA/

*Mayor Mike Spano, City of Yonkers, NY/

*Mayor Amanda Maria Edmonds, City of Ypsilanti, MI

Updated signatories as of 8 AM PT on June 3, 2017

Climate Mayors (aka, Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, or MNCAA) is a network of 200 U.S. mayors — representing over 54 million Americans in red states and blue states — working together to strengthen local efforts for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and supporting efforts for binding federal and global-level policy making. Climate Mayors recently released an open letter to President Trump to oppose his actions thus far against action.

If you would like to sign this statement, or require further information about the Climate Mayors (MNCAA) and its activities please email info@climate-mayors.org or visit our websitehttp://www.climate-mayors.org.

NOTE 2pm, 6/2: Please note that we are receiving a significant amount of interest from US cities in joining Climate Mayors and we may be delayed in responding to you. Climate ChangeTrumpParis AgreementCitiesGlobal Warming

Climate Mayors U.S. #ClimateMayors working together to advance local climate action, national emission reduction policies, & the Paris Climate Agreement

https://medium.com/@ClimateMayors/climate-mayors-commit-to-adopt-honor-and-uphold-paris-climate-agreement-goals-ba566e260097

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

“I hated him – a tarantula,” Barbara Underwood recalls after meeting Gary Scharff. Then she married him.

by Dianna Waggoner – People Magazine – January 28, 1980 

“I hated him,” Barbara Underwood recalls after meeting Gary Scharff. “I thought he was the most evil person I’d ever encountered—a tarantula.” Scharff’s impression of the small, intense Barbara was a sentimental cliché. “She was really tough,” he confides, “but I also knew she had a heart of gold.”

The marriage that eventually resulted was not made in heaven, but just outside the dominion of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church. Since the messianic Moon first came to the U.S. in 1971, the church has attracted an estimated 30,000 members and become a multimillion-dollar business. Scharff and Underwood were two of the young people lured to it by a promise of spiritual fulfillment and a community of loving brethren. After spending a total of eight years in the church, Scharff and Underwood left—feeling disillusioned, exploited and betrayed. Ironically, it was their break from Moon that united them.

In March 1977 an upset Barbara Underwood entered a San Francisco courtroom with four other Moonies determined to fight their parents’ legal attempts to win them back. One of the witnesses during the 12-day hearing was Scharff, an ex-Unification Church disciple then involved in the “deprogramming” of former members. He testified on the mind control tactics of church officials. The parents were granted temporary custody and Barbara’s deprogramming began. Although Moonies are taught to think that “every word spoken by an ex-believer is a lie,” she decided to listen because “I really wanted to know why some of my friends had left.” One person she listened to was Scharff. “He showed me contradictions in the movement, how Moon said one thing but did another,” she remembers. “The first time we talked we must have gone on for 12 hours straight.”

Underwood’s rehabilitation continued at Joe and Esther Alexander’s Freedom Ranch in Tucson, Ariz., a half-way house for former cult members, where Scharff was working as a counselor. Although he was attracted to Barbara in the courtroom, he remained aloof. “As her counselor,” he says, “I considered myself a professional.” Underwood made the first move. “It took a while, though,” she reports, “because I came out of the movement frightened of sexuality and men in general.” (Sex outside of marriage is forbidden in the Unification Church.)

When Underwood enrolled at Berkeley to study sociology in 1978, Scharff coincidentally ended up at the Graduate Theological Union in the same city. “He says he would have gone there even if I hadn’t,” laughs Barbara, “but I have my doubts.” They were married last September.

Scharff, 28, and Underwood, 27, both joined the Unification Church in the name of scholarship. Gary had studied theology for three years at Princeton and in 1972 took a year off to live with his parents in Louisville, KY. He went to work in a nearby tool factory and his second week home ran into a team of Moonies. “My initial response,” Gary recollects, “was that their beliefs were highly naive and crude. What struck me was the sincerity and conviction of the members.” Two months later he moved into a Moonie residence in Louisville. “It’s hard to pinpoint when the shift in my focus came,” says Scharff, “the transition from earnest student to true believer—and fanatic. My hopes and beliefs began to change and merge with those of the church.”

Underwood’s path into the church was similar. The daughter of a lawyer and a writer of children’s books, Barbara was raised outside of Portland. After she had spent three years at UC-Santa Cruz, a friend persuaded her to enter the church in 1973. “I told everyone that I was going to study the group for three months and write a paper on it,” says Underwood. “Five days later I was hooked.”

Neither of them was physically coerced to join the church, but both were smothered with “sincere affectionate pressure,” in Barbara’s words. “You are constantly surrounded by loving people who don’t give you five minutes to yourself. They even went into the bathroom and talked to you through the door.”

Both Barbara and Gary became important functionaries in the church. He went back to Princeton in 1974 to appease his parents but remained a Moonie and returned to church headquarters after graduation. His job was to train recruits in leadership.

At the same time, Barbara was raising as much as $800 a day peddling roses and carnations on the streets. (She was named the West Coast’s top salesperson in 1975.) She and fellow Moonies often lied to prospective buyers, she admits, telling them they were soliciting for Christian youth organizations.

In 1976 Scharff’s father (a pharmacology professor at the University of Louisville) persuaded him to meet with an ex-Moonie. “I was so convinced about my beliefs that I agreed to spend a week talking to anybody,” says Gary. Then, because of a court order requested by his father, he was obliged to listen to more and more disillusioned members of the church. Gary began to see the dark side of the Moon religion. “Eventually the whole facade began to crumble,” he concedes.

Meanwhile, Barbara’s doubts about Moon were also growing. One reason was the disparity in their styles of living. “He had his own gold-plated flatware, while we were sleeping on the floor.” After the San Francisco hearing, “I slowly felt a sense of betrayal,” she recalls. “I had been exploited. I was practicing idolatry by believing in Sun Myung Moon instead of God.”

Nowadays Scharff and Underwood worship at the Catholic Newman Center, not far from the large, tidy Berkeley house they share with three friends. They are frequently asked to describe their experiences to high school, college and religious groups. The newlyweds get by on small fees from lecturing and counseling, Gary’s $7.99-an-hour salary as a part-time Bekins moving man and the modest advance Barbara received for Hostage to Heaven, an account of her four years as a Moonie and how her parents handled it. The book, published by Crown last month, was co-authored by her mother, Betty. “We’re at a career crossroads,” admits Gary, who is interested in social work while Barbara is thinking about publishing.

They have continued to help in deprogramming, which took them as far away as Australia in December. They spent a disappointing 13 days there trying to sway a Moonie of 5½ years. “She just didn’t listen to us,” says Gary sadly. “There are times when I would like to walk away from it,” adds Barbara, “but I can’t because I understand the pain people are in and the urgency they feel.” Her young husband sums up: “For these messed-up souls, it’s a matter of life and death.”

http://people.com/archive/ex-believers-gary-scharff-and-barbara-underwood-battle-the-dark-side-of-the-reverend-moon-vol-13-no-4/

Here are some comments Betty Underwood wrote to a reviewer of the book:

What cults can do to individuals is indeed terrible. Nobody understands that better than parents who have watched it happen to their family members. But in order to respond in a realistic and helpful way, the Unification Church in all its complexity must be understood and described.

For many, if not most, Unification Church members, their membership is not experienced as one long nightmare. With painful honesty, Barbara Underwood has described the experience in all its multi-level realities. At the expense of personality and autonomy, membership can release from depression and personal crisis, it can provide strong religious feelings, it can give security. And therein lies its enormous threat, not defined as a simple-minded exercise to titillate but as the ambiguous, complex and baffling experience it is. Until this is fully reckoned with, we are helpless before it.

The hearing was intended to be the climax of Hostage to Heaven. ... After Barbara came out of the Unification Church she wrote “…I have struggled to piece together my past, to regain the positive aspects of my surging idealism. It’s not easy to go from being a ‘world server’ to being just one person among billions. Especially as a lone student matriculating at a crowded undergraduate university, I often felt crippled…. Often I was depressed by the harshness of real life…. As I gradually and painfully learned to accept appropriate limits, I have said good-bye to many of my dreams…. I stormed through feelings of marginality, anonymity, and purposelessness.” ...

Several of the country’s major theologians have praised Hostage to Heaven. I believe ... they have understood its bitter, complex, and alarming implications. ...

              Betty Underwood (Portland, Oregon)

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 1

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 2

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 3

Interview with Gary Scharff in May 1978

A list of former UC members who have written about their experiences

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

The “sophisticated honey of 1960’s counterculture jargon” by Mose Durst

▲ Two of a series of booklets by Mose Durst full of the “sophisticated honey of 1960’s counterculture jargon.” The back cover of each is below.

_____________________________________ MOONWEBS – Journey into the Mind of a Cult A gripping personal account (1980) by Josh Freed (Award Winning Canadian Journalist)

Here are a few edited extracts:

“…when Moon arrived in 1971, he furiously reorganized the U.S. Church, changing its structures and beginning a major recruiting drive. According to Gary Scharff, a top Moon instructor at the time, Moon single-handedly brought in the rigid indoctrination techniques that were first practised at the New York Barrytown center under the title of “100-day Training Program”.

“Moon gave us the specifics as soon as he arrived from Korea,” recalls Scharff. “The hours a day, the precision of activities, the discipline—we had to be up at 6 a.m. and in formation at 6:08 like the cadets. Moon developed the 100-day training program entirely on his own…he’s a very effective human manipulator.”

Moon’s heavy-handed methods were immediately effective at turning veteran Church members into disciplined zealots, but did not attract youth of the sixties generation. The Church required one more addition before it could begin its ascendancy in America: the arrival of Dr. Mose (Martin) Durst, a fuzzy-haired west coast teacher who coated Moon’s mind-bending indoctrination techniques with the sophisticated honey of 1960’s counterculture jargon.

Durst is an English professor at Laney College and joined the Church’s hierarchy after marrying Moon missionary [Onni Yeon-Soo Lim] in December 1974. West Eden is their $325,000 home in Berkeley. 

Ex-Moonies who have visited the couple’s residence describe a magnificent manor with a park, an enclosed pool and a sauna. Four Church members act as servants, closets are stuffed with furs and silk dressing gowns, and a solid-gold replica of a Korean crown is said to adorn the living room.

As head of the Creative Community Project, Durst soon helped introduce many of the features of today’s Boonville program: the deception, misrepresentation and progressive indoctrination that lures recruits into the Church step by step.

“With no labor costs and people willing to work 15 hours a day, you can undercut anyone,” says Jeff Scales, former manager of Aladdin’s restaurant. Scales says he once took about $20,000 from staff’s salaries to buy a metallic blue Mercedes as a gift for Mose and Onni Durst.”

_____________________

Boonville was purchased in 1970 by Sang-Ik Choi, known as Papasan Choi. He and his wife, known as Mamasan, led the International Re-Education Center [in San Francisco] which he had founded. Mamasan’s role in the community was significant.

Papasan Choi’s secular teachings, The Principles of Education, were the foundation for the teaching methods used in Oakland and Boonville by Onni Durst, Mose Durst, Kristina Morrison Seher and the Creative Community Project team.

Ref: A History Of The Unification Church In America, 1959-74 – Emergence of a National Movement  (1993) by Michael L Mickler

_____________________

Rev. Sun Myung Moon (1978) by Chong-Sun Kim. University Press of America

“Furthermore, the International Re-Education Foundation had owned some land in Boonville, California, sometimes known as [New] Ideal City Ranch, which it turned over in a simple transfer of title in 1974 to the Unification Church.” (page 111)

_____________________

In this way Onni Durst inherited the Boonville property at around the time she was married to Mose Durst by Sun Myung Moon and made the leader of California (except Los Angeles) in December 1974.

_____________________

“Onni Durst is a woman of guts. While she was at a slot machine in Las Vegas, she completely ran out of coins; she went to the next person, smiled, and borrowed some coins.”

Sun Myung Moon (May 19, 1980, New York City)

_____________________

Moonwebs by Josh Freed

Papasan Choi and Boonville’s Japanese origins

Barbara Underwood and the Oakland Moonies

Life Among the Moonies by Deanna Durham

Ford Greene – the former Moonie became an attorney

Inside Look at a Boonville Moonie Training Session

Mitchell was lucky – he got away from the Unification Church

My Time with the Oakland Family Moonies – by Peter from New Zealand

Crazy for God: The nightmare of cult life by Christopher Edwards

The Social Organization of Recruitment in the Unification Church PDF 
by David Frank Taylor, M.A., July 1978, Sociology

“Socialization techniques through which the UC members were able to influence” by Geri-Ann Galanti, Ph.D.

The FFWPU / Unification Church and Shamanism

Sun Myung Moon’s theology used to control members

“Project Volunteer” – Moonies Infiltrate Aid-To-The-Elderly Groups, (Berkeley Barb, Oakland 1978)

Mose and Onni Durst – their legacy

Onni Durst’s trips to Las Vegas casinos, New York, and Seoul – and her luxurious lifestyle.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

So intense was the terror of deprogramming inside the cult that some Moonie leaders passed out razor blades

▲ 2717 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley, California

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 3

By Bill Keller    The Pittsburgh Press, page 11   Friday, June 3, 1977

Tucson, Arizona – Deprogramming, the psychological antidote to alleged brainwashing by exotic religious cults, has become almost as controversial as the cults themselves.     It is such a chilly, 1984-ish word even those who practice it would rather call it something else.    To a member of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, the word conjures up kidnaping, confinement, torture, loss of friends, loss of God, loss of hope.    Barbara Underwood, who was deprogrammed a few weeks ago, now calls the experience “sensitive and compassionate,” and says she may want to try it herself on those still in the church.    But while she was in the Moon movement she was warned that deprogramming tactics might include cursing, beating, humiliation, seduction or even rape.    A few months ago she was secretly spirited out of California to avoid deprogramming. Another time she went, armed with chemical mace and a deafening noisemaker, to stake out a house in Ohio where a Moonie was undergoing deprogramming and, if possible, aid in an escape.    So intense was the terror of deprogramming inside the cult, she said, that some Moonie leaders passed out razor blades, with instructions that captured Moonies should attack their deprogrammers or hurt themselves so they would have to be taken to a hospital.    The horror stories of deprogramming, ex-Moonies claim, are largely church propaganda, fed by reports from disciples who have been partway through the process and escaped back to the church. Ex-Moonies say the escapees embellish their stories to enlarge their hero-status within the cult.    One recent escapee from deprogramming has claimed his captors poured water up his nose; witnesses who were present say one of the deprogrammers sprinkled water in his face in an effort to break his trance-like state. Another Moonie says she was beaten with pillows; witnesses say an ex-Moonie gently tossed a pillow at her to get her attention.    Ex-Moonies don’t deny that occasionally a cultist has been slapped or sworn at, or that it has sometimes taken considerable force to hold a deprogrammee — especially in cases where the youngsters have been snatched without the authority of a court order. But they maintain such instances are exceptional.

   Berkeley psychologist Dr. Margaret Singer, who has studied more than 100 former members of the Unification Church, said she knows of “nothing untoward” about the deprogrammings of any of Moonies.    Dr. Singer says that almost all the ex-cultists she studied continued to be deeply religious, either returning to the faith of their childhood or developing “a basic religious belief of a kind they say is really theirs.” Barbara said she has kept a deep faith in God, without feeling attached to any particular religion.    But concern about deprogramming is not limited to Moonies, nor based entirely on exaggerated stories of brutality.    Ralph Baker, attorney for the Unification Church, said he believes the pillow-beating and water-up-the-nose stories but feels even nonviolent deprogramming “is kind of alien to our American way.”    Baker says deprogrammers often charge “$15,000 to $25,000 a head,” and are simply profiteers taking advantage of gullible parents.    Deprogramming is expensive, though less so than Baker claims. The Freedom of Thought Foundation in Tucson, which wrestled Barbara from the Moonies says it charges parents a $10,000 retainer for legal work, travel, motels and the actual deprogramming. The foundation also provides several weeks of “rehabilitation” in a bungalow on the outskirts of Tucson, paid for by a Detroit philanthropist whose daughter left a cult.    Ann and Adrian Greek, a Portland, Oregon couple whose son, Phil, was pulled from the Unification Church under an Oregon court order and deprogrammed in the state, said it cost them about $4,000. Neither family complained of the cost.    According to Barbara and several other former Moonies, the deprogramming process consists of two basic elements: confinement and conversion.    After the “pick-up” of a Moonie, sometimes a forceful kidnaping but now more commonly under a court-ordered conservatorship, the cult member is confined in a motel room, at least until he or she seems unlikely to attempt escape.    The deprogramming period, usually a matter of days, often includes walks and trips to restaurants. In the case of Barbara who responded rapidly, the first few days included a picnic, horse-back riding and a tour of a California winery.    All of those interviewed said the cultists are given three meals a day and at least 8 hours of sleep a day. Under the conditions of Barbara’s court order, she was allowed to talk to her church attorney, to have any reading material she wanted and to practice her religion.    “I’d rather talk to you well rested, well fed and with all your faculties,” said Joe Alexander, a veteran deprogrammer with the Freedom of Thought Foundation. “You can accept what I have to say much better.”    Alexander, a high-school-educated former Ohioan who used to run a chrome and nickel plating shop in Akron, got into deprogramming six years ago when he helped pull his nephew out of a small cult called The Christian Foundation.    He claims a 90 per cent success rate, working with hundreds of young people in more than 30 cults. The Moonies, Children of God, the Hare Krishnas, Divine Light Mission, Scientology, The Christ Family, The Way International – “All of the groups are carbon copies of each other,” he said.    The key figures in a deprogramming are not usually the professionals like Alexander, however, but ex-members of the cult who are fluent in the church jargon and can reassure the “client” that they’ve been through it themselves.    The goal ls to get the cultist to listen.    “Eventually each person deprograms himself,” Barbara said. “Eventually a person talks out all the defenses until they’re tired of talking out their defenses, and then they begun to listen.”    The process was easier for Barbara than for most.    She says her faith in the church had already been rattled when her two closest friends – Eve Eden and Jeff Scales – were taken and deprogrammed last December. Both now practice deprogramming.    Then during the 12-day courtroom fight for her custody, Barbara said, the give and take aroused her curiosity. Why, she puzzled in her journal, had her attorneys not tried to convince the court of the alleged abuses that take place in deprogramming? And if all those charges were true, she wondered, why would her parents be willing to put her through it?    When the judge awarded her parents a 30-day conservatorship, Barbara and four Moonie co-defendants were driven to the Travelodge near San Francisco Airport, where they were met by a large team of deprogrammers and ex-Moonies.    The families split up into smaller groups, Barbara with her parents, her old friends Jeff and Eve, and Gary Scharff, once the top East Coast lecturer for Moon, now an official of the Freedom of Thought Foundation.    Many cultists resist for days, chanting to themselves, praying, pacing the room. Eve Eden said she “tried to fake it” for four days; pretending the talk was sinking in but actually chanting inside and concentrating on the possibility of escape. Barbara, however, had decided from the start to give it a try.    “I really had confidence that if I talked, it wouldn’t shake my beliefs,” she said. “I’d spent four years believing it and I’d sacrificed my whole life for it, 20 hours a day working for it and four hours dreaming about it.    “I just couldn’t conceive of anything short of brutality and torture that would get me to change my mind.”    For the past several weeks, Barbara has been relaxing in Tucson with other ex-Moonies; swimming and hiking, reading and studying, “trying to reclaim my past.”    Her future plans are uncertain, which is not unusual. Dr. Singer says it takes most Moonies eight months to a year to return to a “normal” way of life.    “Once you’re deprogrammed, that’s one thing,” says Eve Eden. “Then you’ve got to face yourself.”    In New York recently to be interviewed for a television talk show, Barbara worried for a long time whether to wear her long brown hair down, a style considered “satanic” in the church. Concerned about the Moonies who might be watching, she wore it up.    But despite such emotional tugs she feels she is free of the Unification Church, and glad of it.    “I can’t express the amount of relief I feel about being rescued,” she said. “And I really feel it was a rescue, because I know that I never would have left on my own. It would have been absolutely impossible. It’s so hard for anybody outside of the experience to understand the depth of that.”

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 1

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 2

Interview with Gary Scharff in May 1978

Barbara Underwood from her book, Hostage to Heaven Who Is the Captive?

One Family meeting with Onni Durst scarred my soul

Onni Speaks

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

For Moonies ‘Deprogram’ Meant Torture

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 3

By Bill Keller    The Pittsburgh Press, page 11   Friday, June 3, 1977

Tucson, Arizona – Deprogramming, the psychological antidote to alleged brainwashing by exotic religious cults, has become almost as controversial as the cults themselves.      It is such a chilly, 1984-ish word even those who practice it would rather call it something else.     To a member of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, the word conjures up kidnaping, confinement, torture, loss of friends, loss of God, loss of hope.     Barbara Underwood, who was deprogrammed a few weeks ago, now calls the experience “sensitive and compassionate,” and says she may want to try it herself on those still in the church.     But while she was in the Moon movement she was warned that deprogramming tactics might include cursing, beating, humiliation, seduction or even rape.     A few months ago she was secretly spirited out of California to avoid deprogramming. Another time she went, armed with chemical mace and a deafening noisemaker, to stake out a house in Ohio where a Moonie was undergoing deprogramming and, if possible, aid in an escape.     So intense was the terror of deprogramming inside the cult, she said, that some Moonie leaders passed out razor blades, with instructions that captured Moonies should attack their deprogrammers or hurt themselves so they would have to be taken to a hospital.     The horror stories of deprogramming, ex-Moonies claim, are largely church propaganda fed by reports from disciples who have been partway through the process and escaped back to the church. Ex-Moonies say the escapees embellish their stories to enlarge their hero-status within the cult.     One recent escapee from deprogramming has claimed his captors poured water up his nose; witnesses who were present say one of the deprogrammers sprinkled water in his face in an effort to break his trance-like state. Another Moonie says she was beaten with pillows; witnesses say an ex-Moonie gently tossed a pillow at her to get her attention.     Ex-Moonies don’t deny that occasionally a cultist has been slapped or sworn at, or that it has sometimes taken considerable force to hold a deprogrammee — especially in cases where the youngsters have been snatched without the authority of a court order. But they maintain such instances are exceptional.

    Berkeley psychologist Dr. Margaret Singer, who has studied more than 100 former members of the Unification Church, said she knows of “nothing untoward” about the deprogrammings of any of Moonies.     Dr. Singer says that almost all the ex-cultists she studied continued to be deeply religious, either returning to the faith of their childhood or developing “a basic religious belief of a kind they say is really theirs.” Barbara said she has kept a deep faith in God, without feeling attached to any particular religion.     But concern about deprogramming is not limited to Moonies, nor based entirely on exaggerated stories of brutality.     Ralph Baker, attorney for the Unification Church, said he believes the pillow-beating and water-up-the-nose stories but feels even nonviolent deprogramming “is kind of alien to our American way.”     Baker says deprogrammers often charge “$15,000 to $25,000 a head,” and are simply profiteers taking advantage of gullible parents.     Deprogramming is expensive, though less so than Baker claims. The Freedom of Thought Foundation in Tucson, which wrestled Barbara from the Moonies says it charges parents a $10,000 retainer for legal work, travel, motels and the actual deprogramming. The foundation also provides several weeks of “rehabilitation” in a bungalow on the outskirts of Tucson, paid for by a Detroit philanthropist whose daughter left a cult.     Ann and Adrian Greek, a Portland, Oregon couple whose son, Phil, was pulled from the Unification Church under an Oregon court order and deprogrammed in the state, said it cost them about $4,000. Neither family complained of the cost.     According to Barbara and several other former Moonies, the deprogramming process consists of two basic elements: confinement and conversion.     After the “pick-up” of a Moonie, sometimes a forceful kidnaping but now more commonly under a court-ordered conservatorship, the cult member is confined in a motel room, at least until he or she seems unlikely to attempt escape.     The deprogramming period, usually a matter of days, often includes walks and trips to restaurants. In the case of Barbara who responded rapidly, the first few days included a picnic, horse-back riding and a tour of a California winery.     All of those interviewed said the cultists are given three meals a day and at least 8 hours of sleep a day. Under the conditions of Barbara’s court order, she was allowed to talk to her church attorney, to have any reading material she wanted and to practice her religion.     “I’d rather talk to you well rested, well fed and with all your faculties,” said Joe Alexander, a veteran deprogrammer with the Freedom of Thought Foundation. “You can accept what I have to say much better.”     Alexander, a high-school-educated former Ohioan who used to run a chrome and nickel plating shop in Akron, got into deprogramming six years ago when he helped pull his nephew out of a small cult called The Christian Foundation.     He claims a 90 per cent success rate, working with hundreds of young people in more than 30 cults. The Moonies, Children of God, the Hare Krishnas, Divine Light Mission, Scientology, The Christ Family, The Way International – “All of the groups are carbon copies of each other,” he said.     The key figures in a deprogramming are not usually the professionals like Alexander, however, but ex-members of the cult who are fluent in the church jargon and can reassure the “client” that they’ve been through it themselves.     The goal ls to get the cultist to listen.     “Eventually each person deprograms himself,” Barbara said. “Eventually a person talks out all the defenses until they’re tired of talking out their defenses, and then they begun to listen.”     The process was easier for Barbara than for most.     She says her faith in the church had already been rattled when her two closest friends – Eve Eden and Jeff Scales – were taken and deprogrammed last December. Both now practice deprogramming.     Then during the 12-day courtroom fight for her custody, Barbara said, the give and take aroused her curiosity. Why, she puzzled in her journal, had her attorneys not tried to convince the court of the alleged abuses that take place in deprogramming? And if all those charges were true, she wondered, why would her parents be willing to put her through it?     When the judge awarded her parents a 30-day conservatorship, Barbara and four Moonie co-defendants were driven to the Travelodge near San Francisco Airport, where they were met by a large team of deprogrammers and ex-Moonies.     The families split up into smaller groups, Barbara with her parents, her old friends Jeff and Eve, and Gary Scharff, once the top East Coast lecturer for Moon, now an official of the Freedom of Thought Foundation.     Many cultists resist for days, chanting to themselves, praying, pacing the room. Eve Eden said she “tried to fake it” for four days; pretending the talk was sinking in but actually chanting inside and concentrating on the possibility of escape. Barbara, however, had decided from the start to give it a try.     “I really had confidence that if I talked, it wouldn’t shake my beliefs,” she said. “I’d spent four years believing it and I’d sacrificed my whole life for it, 20 hours a day working for it and four hours dreaming about it.     “I just couldn’t conceive of anything short of brutality and torture that would get me to change my mind.”     For the past several weeks, Barbara has been relaxing in Tucson with other ex-Moonies; swimming and hiking, reading and studying, “trying to reclaim my past.”     Her future plans are uncertain, which is not unusual. Dr. Singer says it takes most Moonies eight months to a year to return to a “normal” way of life.     “Once you’re deprogrammed, that’s one thing,” says Eve Eden. “Then you’ve got to face yourself.”     In New York recently to be interviewed for a television talk show, Barbara worried for a long time whether to wear her long brown hair down, a style considered “satanic” in the church. Concerned about the Moonies who might be watching, she wore it up.     But despite such emotional tugs she feels she is free of the Unification Church, and glad of it.     “I can’t express the amount of relief I feel about being rescued,” she said. “And I really feel it was a rescue, because I know that I never would have left on my own. It would have been absolutely impossible. It’s so hard for anybody outside of the experience to understand the depth of that.”

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 1

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 2

Interview with Gary Scharff in May 1978

Barbara Underwood from her book, Hostage to Heaven

Who Is the Captive?

One Family meeting with Onni Durst scarred my soul

Onni Speaks