'Someone's Gotta Tell the Freakin' Truth': Jerry Falwell's Aides Break Their Silence

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45. Lots of moonie ties

Bush Sr. To Celebrate Rev. Sun Myung Moon – Again

Next month the Washington Times, the conservative newspaper with close ties to every Republican administration since Reagan, celebrates its 25th anniversary. Former President George H.W. Bush will be the headliner.

And the former President deserves the honor. Barbara Bush ought to get a rousing cheer as well. The two of them have been beating the bushes for Reverend Sun Myung Moon for years.

Moon and his Unification Church came to America in the 1970s and quickly plunged into Washington politics. “In the 1970s, church officials organized prayer breakfasts and rallies in support of President Richard M. Nixon, dispatched young female members to infiltrate congressional offices and had extensive ‘operational ties’ with the Korean Central Intelligence Agency as part of the agency’s efforts to influence U.S. officials, according to a 1978 report by a House subcommittee,” the Washington Post would later report.

Those ties became fodder for the 1976 Koreagate scandal, which centered around the figure of Washington lobbyist Tongsun Park, a man legendary for his lavish parties and gifts of cash in white envelopes. He, too, was long suspected of being connected to Korean intelligence; he was also an influence peddler of great renown, and anywhere from 30 to more than 100 members of congress were said to be under his thumb at the time. Park was never charged with any crime in connection with Koreagate, but last year he was convicted on conspiracy charges for his role in Saddam Hussein’s United Nations oil-for-food machinations.

Moon was not prosecuted in connection with Koreagate, but he later became a target of an IRS investigation and in 1982 was convicted of conspiracy and filing false tax returns. He spent 18 months in federal prison. It was also in 1982 that he launched the Washington Times, which—with its access to conservative figures and reporters drawn from the newsroom of the defunct Washington Star —soon became essential reading for political news junkies.

Through the early 80s, while Bush served as Vice President, Moon operatives were building ties with the New Right—flying Hill staffers to junta-ruled El Salvador, and supporting the Nicaraguan contras’ fight against the Sandinista government. The late Terry Dolan, chairman of the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) and often credited with pioneering the modern political attack ad, helped Moon burrow into the conservative mainstream.