“Forgive, Love, Unite!”

This week in history, November 30-December 6:

• True Father’s “Answer to Watergate” statement appears in newspapers in 21 cities, November 30, 1973
• Over 1000 women who had received the Holy Marriage Blessing go to live in the Korean Peninsula for three years, December 1, 1970
• True Father leaves Pyongyang and goes to South Korea, December 2, 1950
• The first 40-Day Inter-Religious Leadership Seminar for Muslims is held, December 2, 1990
• True Parents meet Kim Il Sung, December 6, 1991

November 30, 1973

True Father’s “Answer to Watergate: Forgive, Love, Unite!”

True Father’s “Answer to Watergate” statement appeared in newspapers in 21 cities.

The “Watergate Crisis,” which implicated the White House in a break-in of the Democratic Party’s National Headquarters in 1972, embroiled the United States in controversy and weakened it in the face of communist aggression in Vietnam. True Father viewed this as “more than a political, social and economic crisis.” He viewed it as “a crisis of the human soul” and, because of America’s position in the world, as “a crisis for God.” As a consequence, he took two weeks off from his 21-City Day of Hope speaking tour in late 1973 and returned to Korea “in a desperate search for an answer and new hope for America.” His conclusion was that “God’s command at this crossroads in American history is Forgive, Love and Unite!”

True Father’s “Answer to Watergate” statement appeared in full-page advertisements purchased in newspapers in each of the twenty-one cities of the Day of Hope itinerary, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, beginning November 30, 1973. Over the next two months, it was published in one newspaper in every state except Hawaii. In addition, the National Prayer and Fast for the Watergate Crisis Committee (NPFWC) organized vigils, rallies, letter writing and leafleting in all fifty states to publicize its theme and to obtain signatures of people promising to pray and fast for the Watergate crisis. At least eight U.S. senators and fifty-three U.S. congressmen either signed the statement or responded with messages of support. Congressman Guy Vander Jagt (R-Michigan) read True Father’s Watergate statement into the Congressional Record of December 21, 1973.

December 1, 1970

Korean Blessed Wives Depart for Three-Year Condition

It had been a tradition of the Korean church for Unificationists to take part in summer and winter 40-day evangelical campaigns, later termed “pioneer witnessing” in Japan. However, on December 1, 1970, one hundred twenty teams consisting of 1,200 women who had received the Holy Marriage Blessing of the Unification Church went to 120 locations throughout the Korean Peninsula for three years. This necessitated a great deal of sacrifice, and in some instances, mothers placed their children with relatives or even in orphanages. The purpose of the mobilization was to consolidate the church’s foundation in Korea as a basis for True Parents to launch their global ministry. There was a good deal of public negativity at first, but according to True Father, “After two years passed, public opinion was unanimous that if all the Korean people loved their country as much as [Unificationists], then indeed the nation would be saved.” He noted that Korean Unificationists had “successfully fulfilled their course” and “I could come out of Korea for the worldwide dispensation.”

December 2, 1950

True Father Departs Pyongyang for the South

The North-South Korean border during the Korean War.

True Father’s ministry to North Korea, which began in June 1946, ended on December 2, 1950, when he left Pyongyang for the South in advance of the invading Chinese army. He departed with Won Pil Kim, his “first disciple,” and Jung Hwa Park, a follower from Heungnam prison camp who had a broken leg and whom True Father alternately carried and pushed on a bicycle on the route south. True Father had been released from Heungnam on October 14, spent ten days walking to Pyongyang and forty days there seeking former followers, most of whom he didn’t find. Won Pil Kim testified, “As we left Pyongyang … the city seemed to be totally on fire because of the many secret, confidential documents being burned. As Father looked around, he cried to see the condition of Pyongyang.” True Father previously had told them, “I came to make Pyongyang the second Jerusalem, but it rejected me and sent me to prison.”

December 2, 1990

The First 40-Day Inter-Religious Leadership Seminar for Muslims

True Parents and the Grand Mufti of Syria.

Unknown to most, Unificationists had cultivated contacts within the Muslim world since the early 1980s. While conventional mission work was exceedingly difficult, the Middle East Times gave the movement a presence in the region. In addition, the Professors World Peace Academy (PWPA) held a series of six highly successful conferences that brought together Arabs, Israelis, Greeks and Turks on a variety of topics. On the foundation of these meetings, the Council for the World’s Religions convened several conferences of high-level Muslim religious leaders, including the grand muftis of Syria and Yemen.

As a result of several audiences with True Parents, the grand mufti of Syria agreed to send forty core followers to New York for a forty-day Inter-Religious Leadership Seminar (IRLS) that included three cycles of the Unification Principle, beginning December 2, 1990. The grand mufti of Yemen with forty participants from his country took part in the second IRLS from April 21 to May 31, 1991. They were followed by separate Egyptian, Jordanian, Turkish and Sudanese groups. These activities culminated on April 10, 1992, when forty-two Muslim couples took part in a Holy Marriage Blessing of the Unification Church in Seoul, Korea. True Father termed the participation of Muslims in the wedding “a miracle.” In effect, it broke an interreligious barrier, enabling True Parents to extend the Blessing to people other than Unificationists.

December 6, 1991

True Parents Meet Kim Il Sung

After much preparation, True Parents have a successful meeting with Kim Il Sung.

True Parents met North Korean President Kim Il Sung on December 6, 1991. Their meeting was the high point of a week-long visit to North Korea that had begun on November 30. It also culminated more than four decades of True Father’s public work as he returned to the land of his birth, upbringing and call to ministry. More than that, it encapsulated and vindicated True Parents’ life course as they turned a former enemy into a friend. True Father stated on his return:

“No one can claim more justification than I for harboring feelings of ill will against North Korea. I received severe persecution from the current government of North Korea because of my position as a religious leader and my unswerving anticommunist principles. I was tortured harshly and then imprisoned for nearly three years in a labor camp. There I witnessed the deaths of many who also had been imprisoned without cause. …

Now I have visited North Korea in the spirit of true love. True love is love that loves even that which cannot be loved. …

As I set foot in Pyongyang, my heart was as clear as the autumn sky. I did not feel that I was entering the house of my enemy, but rather that I was returning to my hometown to visit the house of my brother. I carried with me to North Korea the principle that I have always lived by: that is, to forgive, love and unite.”

Still, it wasn’t easy. North Koreans were shocked by the manner and extent to which True Father criticized their ideology. Besides saying, “Juche ideology is not going to work. … The world is not this small. … You people are in … [a] cave,” True Father made several staggering proposals. In one meeting he asked the government officials in the audience to persuade Kim Il Sung to place a large announcement in the North Korean newspaper instructing that the 30,000 to 40,000 spies and agents in the South surrender to Rev. Moon and be instructed in his headwing ideology. In another session, True Father stated that he had to be the initiator and leader of reunification efforts, with Kim Il Sung and South Korean President Roh Tae-woo working as deputies under him.

North Korean officials who had dealt with True Father were fearful of a disastrous encounter with their leader. However, their fears were misplaced. Kim Il Sung directed that True Father’s speech at an opening banquet be published in North Korea’s only newspaper, Rodong Shinmun, and it was, word for word, including all references to God. He also overruled his subordinates and insisted that he wanted not only to meet Rev. Moon but also “to have lunch with him as well.” According to Dr. Bo Hi Pak, “The big man recognized the big man.” Significantly Kim Il Sung chose to meet True Parents at his Hamheung palace, about one hundred and fifty miles from Pyongyang, near Heungnam. In fact, the route from the state guesthouse to Kim Il Sung’s residence passed right by the Heungnam prison and fertilizer plant where True Father had been imprisoned for two years and eight months from 1948 to 1950. Dr. Pak speculated that this was a symbolic apology for earlier mistreatment.

On meeting, True Father and Kin Il Sung gave one another “a big bear hug.” Their private 90-minute conference went exceedingly well, with True Father cordially presenting his ideas for Korean reunification and Kim Il Sung reportedly initiating applause and saying “thank you” three times. They exchanged hunting and fishing stories during the two-and-a-half-hour luncheon and afterward strolled hand in hand down a long hallway for official pictures. The Pyongyang newspaper carried a large front-page photo of them holding hands with big smiles on their faces, something that North Korea experts regarded as extraordinary. Later, the Segye Ilbo carried the same photograph. Kim Il Sung reportedly requested True Father to arrange a meeting with U.S. President George H.W. Bush. He also offered True Father first rights to develop North Korea’s Diamond Mountains as a tourist area. They both agreed to cooperate in establishing a place where members of separated families could meet and in facilitating the exchange of mail. Kim Il Sung told True Father that he would preserve his birthplace as a shrine and that he was welcome to return any time.

This Week in History briefly lists significant events in the history of the Unification Church, the lives of the Founders, and world events that are momentous to Unificationists. Most items are marked according to the solar calendar. Items marked “H.C.” correspond to the Cheon-gi or Heavenly Calendar, which is based on the lunar calendar. This installment covers the week of November 30 – December 6.