Moon himself has announced an ambitious plan for a worldwide transportation and propaganda system. To his followers, he has boasted about plans for building a network of small airstrips throughout South America and other parts of the world, supposedly for tourism. In one speech on Jan. 2, 1996, he even announced a scheme for deploying submarines to evade coastal patrols.

"There are so many restrictions due to national boundaries worldwide," Moon lamented during the speech, which the Unification Church posted on its Internet site. "If you have a submarine, you don't have to be bound in that way."

(As bizarre as Moon's submarine project might sound, a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Japan, dated Feb. 18, 1994, cited press reports that a Moon-connected Japanese company, Toen Shoji, had bought 40 Russian submarines. The subs were supposedly bound for North Korea where they were to be dismantled and melted down as scrap.)

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon's business empire, which includes the conservative Washington Times, paid millions of dollars to North Korea's communist leaders in the early 1990s when the hard-line government needed foreign currency to finance its weapons programs, according to U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency documents.

The payments 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 partially declassified documents said.

Moon's largesse is additionally suspect because Moon has never publicly accounted for his mysterious source of wealth. Much of the money apparently comes from shadowy Asian industrialists, some with links to organized crime and fascist political circles. But Moon has refused to open his books, even in the late 1970s when a congressional investigation identified his church as a front for the South Korean CIA, which was then engaged in a secret political influence-buying scheme known as "Korea-gate."

Better than Jesus?

[Jerry] Falwell also might have been shy about disclosing his alliance with Moon because the Korean's theology upsets many Christians. Moon asserts that Satan corrupted mankind by sexually seducing Eve in the Garden of Eden and that only through sexual purification can mankind be saved. In line with that doctrine, Moon says Jesus failed in his mission to save mankind because he did not procreate.

Moon sees himself as a second messiah who will not make the same mistake. He has engaged in sex with a variety of women over the decades. The total number of his offspring is a point of debate inside the Unification Church.

Moon's rhetoric has turned stridently anti-American, another problem for the Religious Right and its strongly patriotic positions. On May 1, 1997, Moon told a group of followers that "the country that represents Satan's harvest is America." [ Unification News, June 1997] In other sermons, he has vowed that his victorious movement will "digest" any American who tries to maintain his or her individuality. He especially has criticized American women who must "negate yourself 100 percent" to be a receptacle for the male seed. [For details of Moon's speeches, see The Consortium, July 28, 1997]

Still, despite his controversial remarks, Moon continues to buy friends on the American right -- as well as among African-American religious figures -- by spreading around vast sums of money. The totals are estimated in the billions of dollars, with much of it targeted on political infrastructure: direct-mail operations, video services for campaign ads, professional operatives and right-wing media outlets.

Through The Washington Times and its affiliated publications -- Insight magazine and The World & I -- Moon has not only showcased conservative opinions, but he has created seemingly legitimate conduits to funnel money to individuals and companies he seeks to influence.

That same year [2003] some Christian ministers began joining Rev. Moon's 'take down the cross' campaign theme which was started in the belief that the cross was a symbol of religious intolerance to many non-Christians, especially Jews and Muslims.

For example, front groups for controversial South Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon have benefited. Moon founded the Unification Church and preaches that he is the messiah sent to complete the failed mission of Jesus. He has a slew of organizations, publishes the right-wing Washington Times and has maintained cordial relations with both Bush presidencies.

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services via its Com­munity-Based Abstinence Educa­tion Pro­­gram awarded a three-year im­plementation grant of $800,000 to a Moon front group called Free Teens USA. Free Teens is an org­anization that promotes abstinence until marriage, and its Web site includes lurid statements of teen­agers and adults on the terrible consequences of engaging in sex.

The organization is headed by Rich­ard Panzer, an alumnus of Moon’s Unifi­cation Theological Seminary and head of the American Constitution Com­mittee, a political organization affiliated with Moon.

It is the second time Free Teens has won a grant from the Health & Human Services Department. Writing for Salon.com, John Gorenfeld noted that Free Teens won a $475,280 allocation in 2003.

The San Francisco Chronicle has noted that David Caprara, a longtime political operative in Moon front groups, was the director of the faith-based office for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). The CNCS operates AmeriCorps, which as the Chronicle reported, doled out $61 million to faith-based groups in 2003.

Late last year, the CNCS awarded an $80,000 grant to another group with Moon connections called Service for Peace. The group’s public records reveal that Michael Balcomb, a long-time Moon operative, is its executive director. The records also show that Service for Peace is affiliated with the Collegiate Associ­ation for the Research of Principles, a Moon group for college students.

The faith-based grants to Moon fronts are not the only ones that suggest the administration agenda is deeply mired in politics. And the politics surrounding the faith-based initiative is apparently part of the reason Bush has been unable to prod Congress into action. As it stands now, a future president, with the stroke of the pen, can reverse the faith-based initiative.

In late March, The Washington Post reported, “Under the auspices of its religion-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies….”