Viewpoint Major media ignore ties connecting Bush to
Unification church
By Norman Solomon
When George Bush jumped out of an airplane last spring, his
skydiving feat was big news. But this countrys media outlets have failed
to inform the public about far more important activities by the former
president.
Last November, four months before his leap with a parachute, Bush
traveled to South America where he provided a major boost for the launch of a
newspaper that belongs to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
Since leaving the White House, Bush has been quite helpful to
Moon. However, the news media have lacked curiosity about Bushs ties to
the shadowy power-broker who heads the Unification church. Moons global
empire combines cult-like authority over Moonies with extensive
media holdings.
President Bush has no relationship with Rev. Moon or the
Unification church, Bush spokesman Jim McGrath assured me in a recent
interview. But the facts tell a very different story.
On Nov. 23, 1996, Bush walked to the podium at the Sheraton Hotel
in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and deliver a speech to 900 guests invited by Moon
to celebrate the opening of his regional daily paper, Tiempos del Mundo.
As Moon beamed a few feet away, Bush lauded his host.
I want to salute Rev. Moon, who is the founder of The
Washington Times and also of Tiempos del Mundo, Bush said. He
praised the Washington newspaper for fostering sanity -- and added
that Moons new paper in Argentina is going to do the same
thing.
The 15-yearold Washington Times doesnt rank among the
top 100 U.S. dailies in circulation. Yet, financed by the Unification
churchs deep pockets, it wields enormous influence in the nations
capital. Elevating innuendo into news, the paper excels at smearing
liberals and centrists.
During the last couple of years, Bush has spoken at high-profile
Moon events on three continents. He went to Asia in September 1995, giving
several speeches for a group led by Moons wife, Hak Ja Han Moon. In
Tokyo, Bush addressed a gathering of 50,000 Moon followers. Ten months later,
in Washington, Bush spoke at a Moon-sponsored conference.
Instead of growing, press attention to Bushs links to Moon
has gone from scant to almost nonexistent. Bushs role in Buenos Aires
last fall barely got reported in the United States.
But former Newsweek correspondent Robert Parry has shone
some light with an extensive report, The Dark Side of Rev. Moon in
I.F. Magazine, A new periodical named in memory of the late I.F. Stone
and George Seldes (the editor of the muckracking newsletter In
Fact).
A few samples of of Parrys findings:
- Prior to the premiere of Tiempos del Mundo, much of the
Latin American press was hostile to the newspaper project. But Bushs
ringing endorsement allayed some concerns about Moons ownership. In the
words of a Unification church bulletin, Mr. Bushs presence as
keynote speaker gave the event invaluable prestige.
- Although Bush wont disclose how much money he has
received from Moon-affiliated organizations, Parry reports that estimates
of Bushs fee for the Buenos Aires appearances alone ran between $100,000
and $500,000. Sources close to the Unification church have put the total
Bush-Moon package in the millions. According to one source, Bushs
net could be as high as $10 million.
- Bushs lucrative courtship of Moon may help the
ex-president lay groundwork for his son George W. Bush, the current governor of
Texas, who is expected to run for the new Republican presidential
nomination.
- A silent testimony to Moons clout, Parry
writes, is the fact that his vast spending of billions of dollars in
secretive Asian money to influence U.S. politics -- spanning nearly a
quarter-century -- has gone virtually unmentioned amid the current controversy
over Asian donations to U.S. politicians.
What Moon seeks to accomplish with his riches is chilling to
consider. As Frederick Clarksons book Eternal Hostility (Common
Courage Press, 1997) explains, Unification church operatives have been
close to neofascist movements all over the world.
Here in the United States, it ramains to be seen whether the
national media will finally focus on the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his tacit
alliance with George Bush.
An important question about American journalism hovers in the air:
Whos afraid of the Rev. Moon?
Norman Solomon is a syndicated columnist. His book Wizards
of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News (coauthored with Jeff
Cohen) has just been published by Common Courage Press.
National Catholic Reporter, September 12,
1997
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