The questions, however, bore asking. The occasion was no mere outing-cum-pep rally for the Moon-struck disciples of the prosperous Unification Church; it was a strategic counterattack. Only a few days before, a prominent New Jersey official, state Insurance Commissioner James J. Sheeran, had charged he was beaten and gagged after he tried to locate one of his three Moon-maiden daughters at a church training center in upstate Barrytown, N.Y. Sheeran, a rugged ex-FBI man, claimed his daughters were victims of an "Oriental brainwash." Although the three women later appeared at a Manhattan news conference to defend their church, an official inquiry was begun that may lead to a grand jury investigation of the Barry-town center. The furor did nothing to quiet controversy already swirling about Moon himself, an evangelist claiming two million followers (30,000 in the U.S.) and a burgeoning industrial empire.
A militant anti-Communist with ties to the autocratic regime of South Korean President Park Chung Hee, Moon first appeared in the U.S. in 1973 on a 21-city "Day of Hope" tour. Later he rallied his followers in defense of President Nixon during the final months of the Watergate crisis. Last fall he kicked off another nationwide tour with a mammoth Madison Square Garden re-birthday rally that cost $350,000. While he has never proclaimed his divinity, Moon prophesies a second coming of Christ—from Korea, coincidentally—and many of his followers believe he is It.
A Presbyterian, Moon converted to his own brand of Christianity after an alleged visitation from Christ on a Korean mountainside in 1936. His first wife is reported to have left him in 1954—"She could not comprehend my mission," he explains—and he was married six years later to 18-year-old Hak-Ja Han. He has nine children, including a son, now 29, by his first wife, and an infant, Kwon-Jin, born in the U.S. last March.
Uncommunicative about matters beyond his ministry, Moon is perpetually surrounded by rumor. Antagonists in South Korea say he has had four wives rather than two, and that he married the third without divorcing the second—an oversight, they say, that caused his arrest. Moon's last known brush with the law occurred in Korea in 1955, when he was accused of draft-dodging and engaging in ritual sex with women of his church. Moon fought the charges and was acquitted.
Though church officials say Moon lives modestly in a two-story Korean-style house in a teeming residential section of Seoul, his personal fortune has been estimated at $15 million. A former electrical engineer, he, with his church, has managed to acquire a pharmaceutical plant, an air-rifle factory and a model vase factory. Since 1972 he has commuted between the U.S. and Korea. He and his family sometimes stay in a mansion in Irvington, N.Y., 22 miles north of Manhattan. While Moon himself has kept a low profile, his church has recently purchased more than 500 acres in the Hudson Valley and a future national headquarters in midtown New York.
Though orthodox churchmen consider Moon a charlatan of dubious Christianity, anguished parents like the Sheerans of New Jersey have found he has a powerful hold on their children. "Our kids were great," says Sheeran of his three oldest (three others are at home), "but they've gone into an intoxication that I can't understand."
Daughter Jaime, 24, the first to join Moon's sect, was followed by Vicki, 25, and Josette, 21. Tolerant at first, the elder Sheerans later became appalled by the paramilitary conformity of the organization. "The girls act different, they look different," mourns Mrs. Sheeran. "These people have taken all the spontaneity out of them. Everything is dedicated to his cause."
The girls protest they are only living up to their ideals. "People can't believe that three young, intelligent, ambitious women who have a lot going for them have decided to dedicate their lives to God and their country," says Josette. Yet their parents' frustration runs deep. "I don't want to be the father of three nerds," protests Sheeran. "I want them to do good things in this world." Adds his wife: "They're so young. They can't see how Moon could become a Hitler."
Apparently untroubled by the furor building around him, Moon rallied his troops at the bucolic outing. Arriving in a chauffeur-driven Lincoln Continental equipped with a radio linking him to nearby Unification Church centers, he goose-stepped across the grass to deliver an hour-long paean to himself. "People are scared, threatened, because we are growing so fast," he barked, slicing the air with karate chops. "But America is in need of such people as you. We are fighting for all nations and all of mankind!" Lashing out at Secretary of State Kissinger, architect of the détente Moon despises, and striking out at accusations of brainwashing, Moon led his followers through a well-studied litany. "Brainwash!" he snapped. "You were willing in the process, weren't you?" And the untroubled answer came rolling back: "Yes!"
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
