The End of Communism: A Vision for the Future - CARP Conferences

David Doose
March 1984

CARP panel members Dennis Jamison, Jean Rondon, and Esteban Galvan receive questions from the audience.

Father's victorious VOC tour in Korea and Heung Jin Nim's victory over death through his heart of filial piety in life have set the standard for church members and their activities in 1984.

Everyone is filled with great hope as representatives from 70 different countries are now in Korea actively organizing the grassroots network that Father envisions as the key to a worldwide victory over communism.

At the same time, however, members working in America are thinking and praying about how to bring a VOC victory in the West. In CARP especially, the responsibility for VOC is taken very seriously and is a primary concern. Dr. Joon Ho Seuk, whose motto is "Advance Father's Plan," directed late last year that CARP should begin to organize VOC conferences all over the United States.

As a result, during the weekend of November 19, 1983, 315 participants gathered in four different cities for a conference on "The End of Communism: A Vision for the Future." The conferences were held in Valley Forge (Pa.), Chicago, Houston, and Monterey (Ca.), and were attended by university students professors and members of more than 70 different groups opposed to communism.

Topics discussed included: Prologue to the Contemporary World Crisis: the Growth of Communism and Decline in the West; Ideology and Foreign Policy; The Human Cost of Communism; and Suggestions for a Progressive Response to Communism.

Participants included members of groups representing Poland, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Angola, U.S.S.R., Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Germany, Rumania and Albania. The featured speaker at the Chicago conference was Mr. W. Raymond Wanall, former Assistant Director of the FBI. In Monterey the participants heard Mr. Thomas Schuman, a native Russian and former Soviet intelligence agent.

The conferences were an unqualified success, but this was only the growth stage. As soon as the conferences were over CARP members began the task of organizing the next set of conferences.

The second set of conferences took place on the weekend of January 28, 1984, in Los Angeles Concord (Ca.), Chicago, Charlotte (N.C.), and Valley Forge (Pa). These conferences focused on the topic "Strategies for World Freedom: 1984 and Beyond." This time many of those who participated previously returned and brought friends with them so that they too could get inspired by what CARP is doing and become a part of the effort to create a grassroots VOC network in America.

The two conferences in California attracted m re than 60 participants. At the one held on the UCLA campus, Mr. Thomas Schuman, a former KGB agent who served in India and who presently is the editor of a Russian newspaper in L.A. called "Panorama," talked about the Soviet tactics used to subvert a country. In Concord Eldridge Cleaver, who is now running for Congress in California, was the featured speaker. He and Dr. Victor Comerchero, an English professor at California State University/Sacramento, engaged in an impromptu debate over whether ideology was an important factor in the struggle against communism after John Dickson's talk about the falsity of Marx's philosophy.

Forty-three people participated in the first conference CARP's Southeast Region held on the University of North Carolina campus in Charlotte. Jack Ashworth, the Carolina CARP director; Howard Self, the assistant National Director of CARP; and Mark Tobkin, Southeast CARP director, all gave VOC lectures.

Guests at this conference included Mr. Robert Miller, National Director of Spirit of America Revived and President of Libertas (an anti-communist coalition). Mr. Miller gave a talk about "Terrorism as a Political Strategy of the Soviets" at the evening banquet. Also attending the conference were Dr. Gabrielle Tabor, professor of Romance Languages at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and Dr. Bor Shu Chang, who is involved in urological research at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

In Valley Forge, Pa., 64 people attended the conference that featured the world premiere of the film entitled "Beyond the Khyber Pass," a documentary about the struggle of the Afghani people against their communist oppressors. Mr. Kurt Lohbeck and Ms. Ann Hurd, the filmmakers, were on hand at the conference to explain how it was made. The film, which was financed by CARP, features many interviews with people caught up in the effort to resist communist aggression. One very revealing interview is with a Soviet soldier who defected and is now fighting with the Afghanistan freedom fighters.

Speakers at this conference included the regional leaders of New York CARP and Washington, D.C. CARP, Esteban Galvan and Denny Jamison, as well as Dr. Tyler Hendricks, assistant National Director of CARP, and Anthony Clarke, a CARP member studying Political Science at Queens College in New York.

Participants in this conference included representatives from the Afghan Community of America, the Afghanistan Liberation Movement, the Albanian Freedom Movement, Polish Solidarity, the Captive Nations Committee, World Anti-Communist Action Front, the United Baltic Appeal, Overseas Youth for a Free Vietnam, CSI-US Inc., Radio Liberty, and the Soviet Nationality Survey, as well as representatives from the Universities of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, Columbia and the colleges of CCNY, Queens, Montgomery and Bryn Mawr.

The Chicago conference, held at a hotel in the downtown area, was perhaps the most successful of all five conferences. Ninety-one guests from 21 different organizations attended. Featured speakers included Brigadier General John D. Lawlor, a graduate of West Point who has a degree in International Relations from Georgetown University and who has spent many years in Washington, D.C. doing strategic and military planning; and author Richard Dunlop, who wrote a biography of General William Donovan (one of America's master spies) and who has done guerrilla intelligence work in Burma, China, India and Greece.

Many of the statements made by participants of the Chicago conference are representative of statements made at all five conferences and are worth noting. A Board member of the Cardinal Mindszenty Association said: "I am going to bring my whole family to your next conference and I pray that they will all come and work with you." A leader of a Polish activist group said: "There are 700,000 Poles in Chicago and many Polish groups, but we almost never collaborate in our activities. CARP has brought us together for the first time in the history of Chicago. This is a great day." Also, a leader of the Conservative Caucus of Illinois said: "I've been to conferences addressing the important issues of freedom for 15 years but this is the best organized and most moving conference I have ever attended. Where have you people been? You have given us new hope."

Chicago CARP, under the direction of Michael Smith, showed its serious intent to support further activities by announcing that it would initiate a newsletter that would he published monthly and distributed throughout the Midwest so that all the various groups could keep in touch with the others' activities.

Also, as soon as the conference closed, Chicago CARP showed its true activist character by attending a rally held in front of the Polish Consulate to protest the brutal slaying of a young boy in Poland. Many of the conference participants attended the rally as well. The rally was covered by Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, who, following the rally, broadcast the contents of Michael Smith's speech and a report on the rally to all the people of Poland.

Plans are already under way for CARP's next set of VOC conferences, to be held in March.