United States Congressional investigation of the Unification Church

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In 1978, the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations (a subgroup of the United States House of Representatives) issued a 447 page report on Korean-American relations. Part of this document (pages 311 - 392) discusses Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Church, and related organizations.

The subcommittee, which was chaired by Representative Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota, issued a report entitled, "Investigation of Korean-American Relations", of which 81 pages concerned Rev. Moon's Unification Church. The report referred to the church and other groups Moon founded or inspired collectively as "the Moon Organization".

Bo Hi Pak, who was at that time one of the top leaders of the Unification Church and who was called to testify at the hearings, said about them:

Mr. Fraser conducted the most extensive congressional inquiry into a religious organization in recent history, alleging that the Unification Church was a front for the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. To prove this, he subpoenaed church officials, interviewed scores of present and former church members, minutely scrutinized church financial records (literally tons of documents were turned over to the subcommittee), probed the business and political affiliations of church members, sent investigators to Korea, and speculated about the meaning of the church's religious doctrines and teachings. Despite all of this, in the end he had to admit that all of his major allegations were false. Rather than apologizing for the ugly rumors his investigation had spread, however, Mr. Fraser buried his admissions in begrudging, single-line statements in the middle of a 447-page report that few people will ever read.

For instance, Mr. Fraser's final report on Korean-American relations had to recognize the following:

1. That the Unification Church and associated organizations were not agents for the Korean Government or the KCIA (Fraser report p. 389).

2. That the ridiculous rumor that the Director of the KCIA had founded the Unification Church-a rumor propagated by Mr. Fraser himself-had no basis in fact (Fraser report p. 354).

3. That the ugly stories, made public by the investigation, alleging that Rev. Moon had been arrested on morals charges in Korea also turned out to be utterly groundless (Fraser report p. 353).

4. That there was no evidence of funding by the Korean government and no collusion between the members of the Unification Church and Tongsun Park with regard to stock purchases in the Diplomat National Bank (Fraser report pp. 385-6).

No, Mr. Fraser could not bring himself to make these admissions publicly. Instead he made a series of new charges, many of which have nothing at all to do with Korean-American relations and are equally outlandish and unfounded. As a fig leaf to hide his own failure, Mr. Fraser has now asked for more investigations. After spending $685,000 and nearly three years, all he could recommend is that "somebody should investigate." When one Washington reporter heard this at his press conference he commented, "Do you mean after all this time and money, you're calling for another investigation? You've got to be joking!" [1]

An Adobe Acrobat document (170K size) of the Congressional report can be downloaded directly from this site:http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/m/moonies/fraserport.pdf