July 15, 2022 "Shinzo Abe and the Moonies"

 

You may dimly recall “Koreagate,” the 1970’s scandal in which agents of South Korea’s KCIA spy service, reacting to President Jimmy Carter’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops from the peninsula, covertly shoveled money and favors to U.S. politicians to block the move.  Congressional hearings laid bare how not just the KCIA, but agents of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's right-wing Unification Church,  used a prominent Georgetown socialite and nightclub impresario, Tongsun Park, to spread the largesse to some 30 members of Congress

We’re moved to take this stroll down memory lane because the church’s history played a background role in the July 8 assassination of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Turns out Abe had some ties to the church via an affiliate,  the Universal Peace Federation, which jointly sponsored a Sept. 2021 “Rally of Hope” and launch ceremony for “Think Tank 2022: Toward Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Peninsula,” where the former P.M.  delivered a speech. It further turns out that Abe’s assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami told police he was motivated to shoot Abe because his mother gave “large” sums to the church and went bankrupt 20 years ago.  The Unification Church denied it figured in the assassin’s motive. But there was no denying Abe’s connection to the self-proclaimed Korean messiah ran deep.  Abe’s late grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, the Japanese prime minister from 1957 to 1960, had been friendly with Moon, whose church opened its branch in Japan in 1959.