WASHINGTON — Republicans have scored points in the long-running political fund-raising scandal. Between videos of President Bill Clinton embracing a fund-raiser with close ties to Asian businesses and saffron-robed Buddhist nuns justifying a money-raising lunch attended by Vice President Al Gore, pressure is building for the appointment of an independent counsel to examine the Democrats' scramble for campaign donations.
But Republicans are also vulnerable on the foreign-money issue. Indeed, they are especially lucky that one of their most questionable relationships has gone virtually unmentioned amid the controversies about mysterious Asian political money. That is the GOP's long and lucrative relationship with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his Korea-based Unification Church.
Over the past quarter-century, the 77-year-old Moon has given the U.S. conservative movement sums estimated in the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Most notably, Moon's deep pockets have financed the Washington Times, a leading conservative voice and one of the capital's two daily newspapers. But he also has invested heavily in building the right's political infrastructure, from direct-mail outlets to video-production houses, from think tanks to academic centers.
Much of Moon's influence-buying is done in secret and often occurs when conservatives are vulnerable to being bought. A recent example is Christian right leader Jerry Falwell, who feared his fundamentalist Liberty University in Virginia was slipping into bankruptcy. Desperate for an infusion of cash, Falwell and two associates made an unannounced trip to South Korea in January 1994, where they solicited help from Unification Church representatives, according to documents on file in a court case in Bedford County, Va. Months later, Moon's organization funneled $3.5 million to Liberty University through a clandestine channel. The money was delivered through one of Moon's front groups, the Women's Federation for World Peace. It then passed through the Christian Heritage Foundation, a Virginia nonprofit corporation that was buying up--and forgiving--Liberty's debt.
On Jan. 28, 1995, during his nationally televised "Old Time Gospel Hour," Falwell credited the directors of the foundation, Daniel A. Reber and Jimmy Thomas, with saving Liberty. Falwell made no mention of his more prominent financial angel, Moon, who is objectionable to many fundamentalist Christians because of his unusual biblical interpretations and his recruitment of young people away from their families.
I discovered the $3.5-million contribution while examining the Internal Revenue Service records of Moon-connected organizations. On the 1995 tax report for the Women's Federation, there was a line item listing $3.5 million going to the Christian Heritage Foundation. Susan Fefferman, the federation's vice president, admitted the money was targeted for Falwell's Liberty University.
In many indirect ways, Moon's companies have generated money for conservative businesses, in effect, tiding them over during slack times so they are still around to do nitty-gritty political work in election years. Moon's Insight magazine, for example, in 1991 granted a $5-million contract to Direct Mail Communications, a small firm in Forest, Va., run by Falwell's friends, Reber and Thomas. The Insight contract constituted more than one-third of the firm's annual revenue. During later campaign seasons, DMC was available to do political mailings for the Republican National Committee, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the National Rifle Assn. and Iran-Contra figure Oliver L. North.
Some of DMC's political direct-mail work was allegedly performed at a discount. In 1994, when DMC's owners had a falling out, one faction accused Reber and Thomas of undercharging favored conservative organizations and political figures. Falwell's televangelist organizations and a GOP candidate for a congressional seat in Florida were given a financial break, according to court records. Other conservative politicians seemed to have gotten extended credit when DMC performed work for them. After North lost his run for the U.S. Senate in 1994, his largest debt, $89,033, was to DMC, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Over the years, Moon's hidden money has helped many Republicans through hard times. In the 1980s, the American Freedom Council defended North against Iran-Contra charges and distributed 30 million pieces of political literature to help elect George Bush in 1988. It was later revealed that the AFC was backed by $5 million to $6 million from business interests associated with Moon.
Moon's organization also kept the right's direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie afloat in the 1980s. At one stage, Viguerie profited from a big contract with the Washington Times for subscription solicitations, then, while facing a financial crisis that threatened his company's future, Viguerie sold a building to a top Moon aide, Bo Hi Pak, for $10 million.
