Chung Hwa Pak's Retraction of His Book "The Six Marys"

December 1999

I knew Chung Hwa Pak and his apology fits with the Mr. Pak as I know him.

I met him first in 1983 and over the next 14 years spent hours and hours with him, going over the fine detail of his experiences, including the Six Marys issue.

His attitude was a more extreme version of many other people's. Father had transformed his life, but he felt let down by him -- not because of the Six Marys, but because he got sidelined because he was a troublesome person and not as spiritual and obedient as most. It was clear that he was consumed with a vicious anger against Father. What he wanted more than anything in his life was for Father to embrace him and welcome him back. The Six Marys was the axe he used to drive into the source of his anguish.

He was a wonderful source because he had such a fine detailed memory. But his emotion -- and lack of evidence -- made the Six Marys stories difficult to accept. The six jumped to 66 and 18 abortions without any logic or evidence.

I saw Mr. Pak not long before he died. He was suing Hyo Min Eu, who had gone ahead and published his Six Marys book without permission. Mr. Pak was especially upset that Mr. Eu had added a Christian twist, suggesting that Sun Myung Moon was the anti-Christ and so on. Mr. Pak always said he wanted to set the record straight, not go on a crusade.

I did not know that it was Byung Il Ahn who brought him around. Mr. Ahn is an interesting man and I am sure would have approached this with deliberate strategy. I suspect that the threat of libel was a factor. It seems that Mr. Ahn recognized his anger and melted his heart. Mr. Pak had been melted several years earlier by the adoring faces of Japanese members.

As Mr. Pak admits in the text, the Apology was drafted after interviews by Mr. Ishii and Mr. Ahn. Neither of these facts mean the apology was false or unfelt.