Warder was responsible for managing News World, then Moon's daily newspaper in New York City. "Moon wanted total control of the media, so there would be no independent media with journalistic integrity, ? he said. ?? It would be a media totally loyal to Moon."
Moon's troubles in America had begun in the mid-Seventies, when Minnesota Democratic Congressman Donald Fraser launched the so-called "Koreagate" investigation -- in part a probe into Moon's relationship to the Korean CIA and the buying of political influence on Capitol Hill. Using its own media, Moon's organization struck back in an all-out effort to discredit Fraser.
"Moon wanted a whole series of articles going after poor Congressman Fraser, who was heading up the congressional investigations there, ? Warder confided. ??We would assign reporters to try and dig up all the dirt we could find on Congressman Fraser, and of course I would say to Moon, I said, 'On one hand, we're supposed to be doing this ?? but on the other hand, we're competing with the New York Times. And so there's matters of credibility here.' And he would, you know, bluster and get angry at these kinds of things and say, 'Just do what I'm ordering you to do and don't ask so many questions."
The Fraser Committee's final report concluded that Moon was the "key figure" in an "international network of organizations engaged in economic and political" activities. It uncovered evidence that the Moon Organization "had systematically violated U.S. tax, immigration, banking, currency, and Foreign Agents Registration Act laws," and detailed how the Korean CIA paid Moon to stage demonstrations at the United Nations and run a pro-South Korean propaganda effort.
Michael Hershman was the Fraser Committee's chief investigator. He told me, "We determined that their primary interest, at least in the United States at that time, was not religious at all, but was political. It was an attempt to gain power and influence and authority." The Fraser Committee recommended that the White House form a task force to continue to investigate Moon ?? but that never happened.
Perhaps the election of Ronald Reagan ?? hailed as the beginning of a conservative revolution ?? had something to do with that. In any event, Moon, a VIP guest at Reagan's inauguration, soon became a major funder of Washington's new conservative establishment.
Brent Bozell, now founder and president of the Media Research Center, was then one of the young Reagan Revolutionaries. "When the Moonies entered the political scene in the early Nineteen Eighties, ? Bozell said, ??One school of thought said"that because of their anti-communist commitment, conservatives ought to work with them."
Moon's most expensive political work involved the Washington Times. As former editor Whelan noted, "Washington is the most important single city in the world. If you can achieve influence, if you can achieve visibility, if you can achieve a measure of respect in Washington, then you fairly automatically are going to achieve these things in the rest of the world. There is no better agency, or entity or instrument that I know of for achieving power here or almost anywhere else ?? than a newspaper."
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