George W. Bush’s choice of Donald Rumsfeld to be U.S.
         defense secretary could put an unintended spotlight on the
         role of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon – a Bush family benefactor
         – in funneling millions of dollars to communist North Korea in
         the 1990s as it was developing a missile and nuclear weapons program.

         In 1998, Rumsfeld headed a special commission, appointed by the
         Republican-controlled Congress, that warned that North Korea had
         made substantial progress during the decade in building missiles that
         could pose a potential nuclear threat to Japan and parts of the United States.

         "The extraordinary level of resources North Korea and Iran are now
         devoting to developing their own ballistic missile capabilities poses a
         substantial and immediate danger to the U.S., its vital interests and its
         allies," said the report by Rumsfeld's Commission to Assess the
         Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States.

         "North Korea maintains an active WMD [weapons of mass destruction]
         program, including a nuclear weapon program. It is known that North
         Korea diverted material in the late 1980s for at least one or possibly two
         weapons," the report said.

         Rumsfeld’s alarming assessment of North Korea’s war-making capabilities
         now is being cited by Republicans as a justification for investing billions of
         taxpayer dollars in an anti-missile defense system favored by Bush and Rumsfeld.

         Yet, during the early-to-mid 1990s, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
         was monitoring a series of clandestine payments from Sun Myung Moon's organization
         to the North Korean communist leaders who were overseeing the country's military strategies.

         According to DIA documents obtained through the Freedom of
         Information Act, Moon’s payments to North Korean leaders included a
         $3 million “birthday present” to current communist leader Kim Jong Il and
         offshore payments amounting to “several tens of million dollars” to the
         previous communist dictator, Kim Il Sung.

         The alleged payments – and broader Moon-North Korean business
         deals reported by the DIA – came at a time of a strict U.S. government
         ban on financial transactions between North Korea and any U.S. person
         or entity, to keep hard currency out of North Korea's hands.

         Legal experts say that ban would have applied to Moon given his status
         as a permanent U.S. resident, even though he maintains South Korean citizenship.

         Bush Speeches

         While negotiating those business deals with North Korea in the 1990s,
         Moon’s organization also hired former President George H.W. Bush and
         former First Lady Barbara Bush to give speeches at Moon-sponsored events.

         During one Moon-sponsored speech in Argentina in November 1996,
         former President Bush declared, “I want to salute Reverend Moon,”
         whom Bush praised as “the man with the vision.”

         The father of the incoming U.S. president has refused to divulge how
         much Moon’s organization paid for these speeches which were
         delivered in the United States, Asia and South America.

         Some press estimates have put the fees in the hundreds of thousands of
         dollars, though one former leader of Moon’s Unification Church told me
         that the organization had earmarked $10 million for the former president.
         [For more on the Bush-Moon relationship, see the story in our Archives,
         "Hooking George Bush."]

         Ex-President Bush’s pro-Moon speeches came at a time, too, when
         Moon – now 80 – was expressing intensely anti-American views. In the
         mid-1990s, Moon denounced the United States as “Satan’s harvest” and
         condemned American women as having descended from a “line of prostitutes.”

         In a speech to his followers on Aug. 4, 1996, Moon vowed to liquidate
         American individuality, declaring that his movement would “swallow
         entire America.” Moon said Americans who insisted on “their privacy
         and extreme individualism … will be digested.”

         Beyond these anti-Americanism diatribes, other questions have arisen
         about how Moon finances his religious-business-political empire.
         Evidence has existed back to the 1970s indicating that Moon’s organization
         has engaged in money-laundering operations and has associated with right-wing
         organized-crime figures in Asia and Latin America.

         One of Moon's key early backers was Ryoichi Sasakawa, a leader of
         Japan's Yakuza organized crime family, according to the authoritative
         book, Yakuza, by David E. Kaplan & Alec Dubro. [For more on Moon
         and his history, see our Archives for "Dark Side of Rev. Moon."]

         In 1998, Moon’s ex-daughter-in-law, Nansook Hong, added first-hand
         testimony about one of Moon's money-laundering methods when she
         described how cash was smuggled illegally through U.S. Customs.
         Moon “demonstrated contempt for U.S. law every time he accepted a
         paper bag full of untraceable, undeclared cash” carried into the United
         States from overseas, she wrote in her book, In the Shadows of the Moons.

         Checkered Past

         To many Americans, Moon is perhaps best known as a 1970s cult
         leader who allegedly brainwashed young recruits into joining his
         Unification Church and then paired up his followers in mass marriages
         where Moon would preside wearing lavish costumes and crowns.

         But Moon also understood the importance of political clout. In 1978, a
         congressional investigation identified Moon as a part of a covert
         influence-buying scheme aimed at American institutions and run by the
         South Korean Central Intelligence Agency, a charge that Moon denied.

         In 1982, Moon was convicted of tax fraud and served an 18-month
         sentence in federal prison. Nevertheless, his political influence grew
         when he launched The Washington Times, also in 1982.

         In the years that followed, Moon developed a reputation for financing
         all-expense-paid international conferences for conservative politicians,
         prominent journalists and influential academics.

         Moon’s conservative newspaper grew in importance in Washington
         through the 1980s and early 1990s, as it staunchly supported
         Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

         In 1991, President Bush expressed his gratitude to Moon’s newspaper
         by inviting its editor, Wesley Pruden, to a private White House lunch “just
         to tell you how valuable the Times has become in Washington, where we
         read it every day.” [Washington Times, May 17, 1992]

         Moving North

         At about the same time as that lunch, Moon was beginning another
         initiative – establishing a business foothold in North Korea. The DIA, the
         Pentagon agency responsible for monitoring possible military threats to
         the United States, started keeping tabs on these developments.

         Though historically an ardent anticommunist, Moon negotiated a
         sweeping business deal with Kim Il Sung, the longtime communist
         leader, the DIA documents said. The two men met face-to-face in North
         Korea from Nov. 30 to Dec. 8, 1991.

         “These talks took place secretly, without the knowledge of the South
         Korean government,” the DIA wrote on Feb. 2, 1994. “In the original deal
         with Kim [Il Sung], Moon paid several tens of million dollars as a down-payment
         into an overseas account,” the DIA said in another cable dated Aug. 14, 1994.

         The DIA said Moon's organization also delivered money to Kim Il Sung's
         son and successor, Kim Jong Il.

         “In 1993, the Unification Church sold a piece of property located in Pennsylvania,”
         the DIA reported on Sept. 9, 1994. “The profit on the   sale, approximately $3 million
         was sent through a bank in China to the Hong Kong branch of the KS [South Korean]
         company ‘Samsung Group.’ The money was later presented to Kim Jung Il [Kim Jong Il]
         as a birthday present.”

         After Kim Il Sung's death in 1994 and his succession by his son, Kim Jong Il, Moon
         dispatched his longtime aide, Bo Hi Pak, to ensure that the business deals were still on track
         with Kim Jong Il “and his coterie,” the DIA reported.

         “If necessary, Moon authorized Pak to deposit a second payment for Kim Jong Il,” the DIA wrote.

         As described by the DIA, Moon's deal with North Korea called for construction of a hotel complex
          in Pyongyang as well as a new Holy Land at the site of Moon’s birth in North Korea.

         “There was an agreement regarding economic cooperation for the reconstruction of KN's
         [North Korea's] economy which included establishment of a joint venture to develop tourism at
         Kimkangsan, KN  [North Korea]; investment in the Tumangang River Development; and
         investment to construct the light industry base at Wonsan, KN. It is believed that during their meeting
        Mun [Moon] donated 450 billion yen to KN,” one DIA report said.

         In late 1991, the Japanese yen traded at about 130 yen to the U.S. dollar, meaning Moon's investment
         would have been about $3.5 billion, if the DIA information is correct.

         Pak's Response

         Contacted in Seoul, South Korea, Bo Hi Pak, a former publisher of
         The Washington Times, acknowledged that Moon met with North
         Korean officials and negotiated business deals with them in the early1990s.

         But Bo Hi Pak denied that payments were made to individual North
         Korean leaders and called “absolutely untrue” the DIA's description of
         the $3 million land sale benefiting Kim Jong Il. Bo Hi Pak also said the
         North Korean business investments were structured through South Korean entities.

         “Rev. Moon is not doing this in his own name,” said Pak.

         Pak said he did go to North Korea in 1994, after Kim Il Sung’s death, but
         only to express “condolences” to Kim Jong Il on behalf of Moon and his
         wife. Pak denied that another purpose of the trip was to pass money to
         Kim Jong Il or to his associates.

         In the phone interview, Bo Hi Pak also denied that Moon’s investments
         ever approached $3.5 billion. Pak did not give a total figure for the
         investments, but said the initial phase of an automobile factory was in
         the range of $3 million to $6 million.

         The DIA depicted Moon's business plans in North Korea as much
         grander, however. The DIA valued the agreement for hotels in
         Pyongyang and the resort in Kumgang-san, alone, at $500 million. The
         plans also called for creation of a kind of Vatican City covering Moon's birthplace.

         “In consideration of Mun's [Moon's] economic cooperation, Kim [Il Sung]
         granted Mun a 99-year lease on a 9 square kilometer parcel of land
         located in Chongchu, Pyonganpukto, KN. Chongchu is Mun's birthplace
         and the property will be used as a center for the Unification Church. It is
         being referred to as the Holy Land by Unification Church believers and
         Mun [h]as been granted extraterritoriality during the life of the lease.”

         North Korean officials clearly valued their relationship with Moon,
         granting him small but symbolic favors. Four months after Moon's 1991
         meeting with Kim Il Sung, the communist dictator granted a rare
         interview to editors from Moon's Washington Times.

         In February 2000, on Moon's 80th birthday, Kim Jong Il sent Moon a gift
         of rare wild ginseng, an aromatic root used medicinally, Reuters reported.

         Legal Issues

         Because of the long-term U.S. embargo against North Korea – eased
         only last year – Moon’s alleged payments to the communist leaders
         raise potential legal issues for Moon, a South Korean citizen who is a
         U.S. permanent resident alien.

          “Nobody in the United States was supposed to be providing funding to
         anybody in North Korea, period, under the Treasury (Department's)
         sanction regime,” said Jonathan Winer, former deputy assistant
         secretary of state handling international crime.

         The U.S. embargo of North Korea dates back to the Korean War. With a
         few exceptions for humanitarian goods, the embargo barred trade and
         financial dealings between North Korea and “all U.S. citizens and permanent
         residents wherever they are located, … and all branches, subsidiaries and controlled
         affiliates of U.S. organizations throughout the world.”

         Moon became a permanent resident of the United States in 1973, according to Justice
         Department records. Bo Hi Pak said Moon has kept his “green card” status. Moon
         maintains a residence near Tarrytown, north of New York City, and controls dozens
         of affiliated U.S.companies.

         Direct payments to foreign leaders in connection with business deals
         also could prompt questions about possible violations of the U.S.
         Corrupt Practices Act, a prohibition against overseas bribery.

         Political Fallout

         Today, however, the potential political fallout might be a greater concern
         than any legal action, especially once George W. Bush assumes the presidency.

         For the past two years, Republicans have used Rumsfeld's report to club
         President Clinton and Vice President Gore for alleged softness toward
         a recalcitrant communist enemy.

         In 1999, a House Republican task force followed up the work of
         Rumsfeld's commission and declared that North Korea and its missile
         program had emerged as a nuclear threat to Japan and possibly the
         Pacific Northwest of the United States.

         "This threat has advanced considerably over the past five years,
         particularly with the enhancement of North Korea's missile capabilities,"
         said the Republican task force. "Unlike five years ago, North Korea can
         now strike the United States with a missile that could deliver high
         explosive, chemical, biological, or possibly nuclear weapons."

         Ironically, Moon's newspaper joined in laying the blame for North Korea's
         progress at the feet of the Clinton-Gore administration.

         "To its list of missed opportunities, the Clinton-Gore administration can
         now add the abdication of responsibility for national security," a
         Washington Times editorial stated on Sept. 5, 2000.

         Not surprisingly the Times did not mention that its founder and financial
         backer, Sun Myung Moon, had lent a hand to North Korea by agreeing to
         multi-million-dollar business deals and allegedly putting millions of
         dollars in the personal accounts of the leaders masterminding the
         strategic weapons development.

         Equally unsurprising, former President George H.W. Bush and his
         about-to-be-president son have never explained the family's financial
         involvement with Rev. Moon, a messianic leader who has vowed to build
         a movement powerful enough to eliminate all individuality and freedom in
         the United States.

         Those questions also aren't likely to come up at the confirmation
         hearings for Donald Rumsfeld, who believes that the United States must
         now pursue an expensive missile shield  to counter the threat posed by North Korea.
 

           Robert Parry is a veteran investigative reporter, who broke many of the
           Iran-contra stories in the 1980s for The Associated Press and Newsweek.

         To see two of the DIA documents, click here.

         For more background on the Moon Organization, see our Archives for
         "Dark Side of Rev. Moon" or former Moon follower Steve Hassan's Web site.