SUMMER 1982 ~ GO OYES 0 AF leA oon Shines on Apartheid n May 17, a new, conservative newspaper hit the support pro-apartheid groups around the world. When the streets of Washington, D.C. The first daily to take the details of this plan were eventually divulged in 1978, the place of the Washington Star which folded last ensuing scandal (dubbed "Muldergate") forced all of these O summer, the Washington Times bills itself as the South African officials to resign. "alternative" to the well-established, "liberal" Washington Post. Less than one month after that planning meeting, Michigan There is just one catch: the paper is owned, financed, and partly publisher John P. McGoff met with Rhoodie and other 001 staffed by the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and officials in South Africa. According to the official South is associated with pro-apartheid interests. African Erasmus Commission findings, released in December Moon and his church have been the subject of great contro­ 1978 after an intensive investigation, at least $11.75 million versy over the past decade, including charges of brainwashing, was given to McGoff by the DOl through the South African illegal business practices, illegal projects to buy political influ­ Department of Defense to buy the Washington Star and a ence (the most well-known being the "Koreagate" scandal of the share in UPI Television News (UPITN), the second largest late 1970s), and accepting money from assorted right-wing governments and industrialists. Moon is presently appealing a recent conviction for tax evasion and faces possible deportation. '~Whe/an and McGoff are Moreover, Moon has chosen to ally himself with any government or group that promotes anti-communism, one of the center­ nowable to do what McGoff pieces of his doctrine. Consequently, it is not surprising that many members of the could not do eight years Times' top management have strong connections to the South African government. Leading the list is John McGoff, a 58-year­ ago: counter the Washing­ old Michigan publisher and primary American recipient of South African Department of Information "Muldergate" funds in the ton Post." 1970s. The return of John McGoff and his associates to Washington in producing the Times gives Pretoria a strong, new voice in the nation's capital. newsfilm producer in the world. McGoff offered $10 million of the money as part of his unsuccessful $25 million bid for the Did Rhoodie'and McGoff Achieve their Goal? Star. In December 1975, after the Star deal had collapsed, he bought the Sacramento Union instead for about $6 million. He In February 1974, Secretary of the South African Depart­ also-used $1.7 million of the secret m.oney to buy 50% interest ment of Information (DOl), Eschel Rhoodie, met with Prime in UPITN. Although he calls these charges "utter nonsense," Minister John Vorster, Minister of Information Connie Mulder, McGoff remains the subject of an on-going investigation by and General Hendrick Van den Bergh, head of the Bureau of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, for possible State Security (BOSS), to discuss South Africa's propaganda violation of US securities law, and the Department of Justice, efforts around the world. According to Rhoodie, he told for failing to register as a foreign agent. Vorster and his aides, "I want you to approve, not an The surreptitious purchase of the Star would have been a information asset, but a propaganda war in which no rules or propaganda coup for Pretoria. The apartheid regime viewed regulations would count." The officials approved a plan that the influential Washington Post as "anti-South Africa," and would spend a minimum of $73 million on more than 160 wanted a media outlet to counterbalance it. As the Erasmus secret projects to buy politicians and media enterprises and report states: "For understandable reasons such a newspaper ® 67 _ • !O! 5 S • 5 • S • lQ S !O! in the heart of Washington could ... do a great deal for South South African Ties Run Deep Africa if it had a positive attitude towards the Republic." Although the editorial might appear to reflect nothing more than the standard right-wing rhetoric of support for the South African regime, McGoff's close connections with Pretoria When the Washington Times' first prototype copy was suggest that some of the Times' top managers deserve closer published on March 1,1982, Mc­ attention: Goff had recently sold his share • James R. Whelan, editor and of the Sacramento Union to con­ publisher. Before Whelan be­ servative millionaire Richard Mel­ came editor of the Sacramento lon Scaife. The editor of the Union in 1980, he served as vice Union, James R. Whelan, re­ president and editorial director signed to become editor of the of McGoff's Panax Corporation Washington Times, inviting John for three years. Whelan's official McGoff to serve on his editorial biography explains that he advisory board. worked as a reporter all over McGoff and Whelan are now Latin America for a variety of able to do what McGoff could newspapers and news agencies not do eight years ago: counter for twenty years before coming the Washington Post. As Whelan to Panax. In April 1961, he was stated in March: "I really believe assigned to "a special, secret that our nation is at peril because UPI team in Miami organized to we don't have an alternative voice cover the Bay of Pigs invasion." in the nation's capital. I can't His career also included a two­ remember a time when the right year stint in the late 1960s with was adequately represented in the Western Hemisphere division daily print journalism here." of International Telephone and "Many conservatives feel that Telegraph (ITT), a corporation the news coverage of the Post is known for its connections with actually detrimental to the na­ the CIA in Latin America. When tion, particularly in the effect it the Washington Tribune asked has on foreign policy," add Moon: A marriage of convenience with Pretoria? executive editor Smith Hemp­ Washington Tribune reporters stone about suggestions that Mark Jenkins and Charles Paul Freund in their in-depth Whelan has the taint of the CIA, Hempstone replied, "So what? expose of the Washington Times and the Unification Church. I thought they were on our side." "Among the Post's worst sins, conservatives maintain, is the • Smith Hempstone, executive editor. Hempstone is coverage it has featured from Africa and Central America." known as the long-time associate editor of the Washington Whelan insists that the Washington Times will never be an Star. He is also a long-time apologist for South African organ of the Unification Church. "I don't speak for the Church. apartheid and Ian Smith's former regime in Rhodesia. The paper doesn't speak for the Church," claims Whelan. Hempstone recently wrote a lauditory article on Jonas Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, although, Savimbi in the February 1981 i~,e;;ue of Reader's Digest after significantly, over one-third of the paper's staff are "Moonies." traveling with South Africa-backed UNITA for ten days in Nevertheless, the Unification Church and the American Right southern Angola. Entitled, "Angola: Where the West Can Still have found a genuine marriage of convenience, putting Win," the article states: "If ever there is a place and a time in differences aside to promote their virulant anti-communism. which the lengthening string of communist victories and That anti-communism, intentionally or unintentionally, plays Western defeats is to be ended, that place could be Angola and directly into the hands of the South Africans. the time 1981." Only three days after it began publishing daily, the Hempstone began promoting South Africa and US inter­ Washington Times expounded its view of apartheid in a vention in Africa in early issues of the Washington Times. In an protracted editorial response to a letter from Gilbert H. April 7 column, he wrote that what the Reagan Administration Caldwell, Associate General Secretary of the Commission on "ought to do is to retaliate against the Kremlin by making mat­ Religion and Race for the United Methodist Church. Among ters extremely unpleasant for the Russians and the Cubans by other questions, Caldwell had asked: "Why is conservative vigorously supporting viable nationalist guerilla movements in philosophy so vehemently anti-communist because of its places such as Angola and Ethiopia, Cambodia and [communism's] suppression of individual liberty, and yet so Afghanistan." In his May 20 column entitled, "South Africa: tolerant of 'democracies' (South Africa), that deprive persons Slow to Change, but Modest Reform Happening," Hempstone of color of the right to participate with equity in government, wrote: "Blacks now dine in swank Johannesburg restaurants business, etc.?" The new daily responded true to form: once as pristinely white as Washington's were 30 years ago. Blacks receive equal pay for equal work, and can aspire to any "We reply that we are totally opposed to South Africa's job in industry." Hempstone failed to mention the upsurge in apartheid . .. [However, we] feel that the democratic arrests of trade unionists and church activists, the mass institutions prevailing in South Africa, distorted though removals of the squatters near Cape Town, the continued they are by racist restrictions, offermore hope in the long military occupation of Namibia, and the invasion of Angola in run for a genuinely free society than their violent over­ his complementary article." throw would . ... [W]hen we think of South Africa, we • Carlyle Reed, associate publisher and general manager. think of geopolitical strategies and unique mineral re­ Reed published the conservative Sacramento Union from sources as well as apartheid.