Sun Myung Moon Ends Ministry in the U.S. With Anti‐Communist Speech in Capital
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Sept. 20, 1976
CSeptember 20, 1976, Page 18Buy Reprints
WASHINGTON. Sept. 19—The Rev. Sun Myung Moon ended his four‐year ministry to the United States at a mass rally here yesterday, leaving behind a highly publicized but much criticized movement that must face, among other things, the questions of Congressional investigators.
Special to The New York Times
About 50,000 persons—about half as many as organizers had predicted would’ turn out—showed up at the Washington Monument for a “God Bless America” rally organized by Mr. Moon's Unification Church. Most seemed to be there for the music and the fireworks display—billed by the 56‐year‐old evangelist's followers as “the world's, greatest international fireworks.”
But those who listened to Mr. Moon's address heard him make explicit the fundamental purpose of his movement—a purpose that appears to he political as much as it is religious.
‘A Time for Awakening’
“This is a time for awakening,” Mr. Moon told the crowd through his interpreter, Col. Bo Hi Pak, a former military attache at the South Korean Embassy. “America must accept her global responsibility. Armed with Godism, she must free the Communist world, and at last, build the Kingdom of God on earth.”
The three nations that Mr. Moon declares are at the heart of his global design are Israel, the bearer of the Old Testament tradition; the United States, the current bearer of the New Testament, and Korea, the home of the Unification Church.
To critics of the church, this argument sounds like a convenient rationale for American support for the South Korean Government of President Park Chung Hee. The critics contend that the Unification Church is laying the groundwork for American involvement in a war against North Korea.
For Mr. Moon's followers, however, his anti‐Communist stand has nothing to do with politics.“Communism is an ideology which opposes God,” said one young follower from Ohio. “Opposing Communism is not political, it's religious.”
Self‐Defense Urged
“Sometimes, if you turn the other cheek you get smashed,” said Susan Reinbold, a media coordinator for the church. “I think America and the democratic world should defend itself.”
A House subcommittee investigating activities of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency in the United States is interested in Mr.. Moon's close ties with President Park's Government.
As he was making final plans for yesterday's rally, Neal A. Salonen. president of the Unification Church, was being sought by investigators from a subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee.
The subcommittee's staff consultant, Robert B. Boettcher, tried to present Mr. Salonen with a subpoena to appear before the panel to answer charges by Jai Hyon Lee, who was chief cultural and information attache at the Korean Embassy before he resigned in 1973.
Among Mr. Lee's allegations was charge that Mr. Moon's translator, Colonel Pak, had access to the embassy's secret cable channel to Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
Voluntary Appearance Planned
Mr. Salonen evaded service of the subpoena, but agreed to make a voluntary appearance before the committee in his capacity as president of the Freedom Leadership Foundation, but not as president of the church.
Mr. Moon's followers insist that the church and the foundation are separate, despite what they call the “coincidence” of leadership.
A number of parents have charged that the movement ‘has “brainwailied” their children. and separated them from their homes. Parents protesting'. these alleged tactics were prominent at the rally.
The Unification Church has replied to these charges with an advertising campaign and court suits against parents who the Church contends tried to “kidnap” their children.
The advertising campaign—partly orchestrated by Steven Baker, who put together the “let your fingers do the walking” series for the telephone Yellow Pages—included regular spot commercials and a series of 11 full‐page and two‐page advertisements in the Washington newspapers.
In all, the movement spent about $1 million on the rally—roughly $20 for every person who attended.
