Conclusion

This article has traced only some of the contributions which Rev. Moon and organizations which he founded made to the struggle against communist expansionism. Such efforts expended more than capital. In the late 1960's and the early 1970's, Unification Church missionaries were sent clandestinely to every Eastern European country. In the USSR, some were imprisoned and later expelled from the country. In Czechoslovakia and in Poland, Church missionaries were jailed for up to six years. Several members were executed after the communist takeover of Ethiopia because of their Church affiliation. CAUSA filmmaker Lee Shapiro, who had produced Nicaragua was our Home, was killed by Soviet soldiers on October 9, 1987 while filming with the Afghan Resistance. Martin Bauer, President of CAUSA International in the Dominican Republic, was assassinated in 1985.59

Rev. Moon's activities may have filled a unique niche during the Cold War. While nongovernmental, his media initiatives and educational initiatives in key sectors of society bolstered internal support for governments opposed to communism. A distinctive feature of his work was the extensive popularization of a comprehensive ideological critique of Marxism-Leninism. Meanwhile, Rev. Moon carried out activities in communist nations themselves which seem designed to help the leadership of those nations come closer to the leading Western powers.

Rev. Moon receiving a piece of the Berlin Wall.
Rev. Moon was acutely attuned to the dominant importance of the United States in the struggle against communism. Perhaps for this reason, he placed so much emphasis on the need for an anticommunist president to guide the nation, which for him was fulfilled in the person of Ronald Reagan. Upon Reagan's election, Rev. Moon systematically developed programs designed to support the President in his stance against communism-programs such as The Washington Times and the various organizations which worked to develop an anticommunist consensus among a broad spectrum of politicians, religious leaders, statesmen, and civic and educational leaders.

How different would the course of the Cold War, and more specifically the fate of Nicaragua, SDI, and the Reagan doctrine have been, had Rev. Moon's educational and grassroots activities and The Washington Times never existed? Would this void have otherwise been filled? Any such assessments constitute mere speculation, yet one matter remains evident. During the 1970's and 1980's Rev. Moon's anticommunist activities were the target of derision in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, and The Los Angeles Times, and they were the focus of decided animosity in Leftist publications including Izvestia, Pravda, El Nuevo Diario, Barricada, Granma, CounterSpy, USSR Today, Nation, and CovertAction.60 Yet today he and the organizations which he founded do not appear in Western accounts of the demise of communism

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By Thomas J. Ward and Frederick A. Swarts* This article is presented with the permission of the Editor of the Journal of Unification Studies