BROOKE GLADSTONE: On Wednesday, the Washington newsletter thehill.com, noted that the Reverend Sun Myung Moon has embarked on an ambitious campaign to influence lawmakers and UN ambassadors with a series of junkets and seminars. Usually, the events occur under the umbrella of one of his many organizations with names like the Women's Federation for World Peace, the World Culture and Sports Festival, and the Middle East Peace Initiative. But most famously, roughly a dozen legislators gathered in a Senate office building this past March to honor his most durable brand name, the Washington Times, or so they thought. Actually, they were there to crown Moon, quote, "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent." According to the Washington Post, Moon told the group that, quote, "even dictators like Stalin and Hitler have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and have been reborn as new persons." Reporter John Gorenfeld broke the story of Moon's Capitol Hill Coronation on the websites gadflyer.com and Salon. We wondered whether the Washington Times is merely a conservative media outlet or whether it can be fairly called the mouthpiece of Sun Myung Moon. John, welcome to OTM.

JOHN GORENFELD: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So, as we talk through the history of the Washington Times, let's begin with the speech he gave at the paper's 15th anniversary dinner in Washington in June of 1997.

SUN MYUNG MOON: And the world was adrift upon the stormy waves of the Cold War. I established the Washington Times to fulfill God's desperate desire to save this world.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So Moon says that in the face of the rising threat of the Cold War, he established the Washington Times to fulfill God's desperate desire to save the world. Is this actually how Moon envisions the role of his paper?

JOHN GORENFELD: Yes, Reverend Moon envisions his paper as having a messianic role in Washington, DC as something that saved the world from Communism and will save the world from the evils that Reverend Moon sees in its culture. Reverend Moon says he wants to knock over the barrier between church and state, which he says is Satan's work. He wants to make the church replace the state and create a worldwide --and I'm not just making this up -- religious body with him in charge. Reverend Moon sees America as suffering from what he calls free sex, from homosexuality, which he says he wants to eliminate. And Reverend Moon hopes that the Washington Times will help to move America closer to his vision. I think being the owner of a newspaper has opened up a whole new world of deference to Reverend Moon, a figure who otherwise would have been not only on the farthest fringes of Washington society, but widely considered a menacing cult leader, or at least that was his reputation in the '70s.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And conservative politicians have certainly embraced at least part of his vision. Here's Ronald Reagan at that very anniversary dinner in 1997. CLIP, WITH MUSIC UNDER, PLAYS]

RONALD REAGAN: The American people know the truth. You, my friends at the Washington Times, have told it to them. It wasn't always the popular thing to do. But you were a loud and powerful voice. Like me, you arrived in Washington at the beginning of the most momentous decade of the century. Together, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. And, oh yes, we won the Cold War.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: He talks as if the paper were actually a partner in the conservative movement.

JOHN GORENFELD: The paper, and the Moon organization, really put its money where its mouth was and sent a check for a hundred thousand dollars to start Oliver North's Freedom Fund -- the Iran/Contra Project.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: He was also regarded as a counterpoint to the Washington liberal media establishment. We have a cut here from George Herbert Walker Bush. [CLIP PLAYS]

GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH: Normally, when I think of the Washington Beltway press corps, I think of well, not going to say it -- wouldn't be prudent. But when I think of the Washington Times, I think of a publication that has brought much-needed balance to the way Washington is covered these days.

JOHN GORENFELD: The Washington Times, as the first editor, Jim Whelan, told me, was influential just by virtue of providing a platform for columnists and television talking heads to promote the conservative voice, and of course, this was before Fox News Channel. And it really became an important part of the Reagan revolution.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But just because the Washington Times provided a right wing slant on the news that was welcomed by Washington conservatives doesn't mean that it was the tool of a religious cult leader with a messianic message.

JOHN GORENFELD: Well, since its creation, its editors have said that the paper is envied for its editorial independence. The trouble is that Reverend Moon, the owner of the paper, is consistently off-message, constantly boasting that the Washington Times has given him a direct ear to the president, that it is a paper that exists as the brain, as the nervous system in Reverend Moon's body politic of the Unification Church.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So I guess the question then remains, is he trying to fulfill his destiny through the pagers of the Washington Times? What makes you think that the Moon church meddles with the paper's content? Can you give us some examples?

JOHN GORENFELD: As recently as last year, the Washington Times devoted some space to promoting one of Reverend Moon's ideas for what he calls the Interreligious International Peace Council, with him in charge of it. This is something that the United Nations has not actually considered adopting, and yet the Washington Times, as well as UPI Wire Service, which Reverend Moon bought in 2000, have run articles suggesting that people think it's a good idea. The paper has also printed advertisements from Reverend Moon proclaiming that figures like Stalin and Hitler have endorsed Reverend Moon.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: He claims to have reformed Hitler and Stalin from beyond the grave, but that was, after all, an ad. What's your evidence that his influence is growing over the news pages at the Washington Times?

JOHN GORENFELD: The incident in 1987, when four editors of the Washington Times left, claiming that the Unification Church was dictating editorial policy -- that was one example of some of the things that have led people to continually question whether the Times really has the editorial independence that they very fiercely will defend.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: How did all of those politicians end up at that coronation, given the kind of -- let's face it -- what most of us would regard as lunacy -- coming out of the church?

JOHN GORENFELD: In many cases, conservatives who came to honor the Washington Times were surprised to find out that they were really coming to this coronation ceremony for Reverend Moon.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think they genuinely were surprised? I know that you asked former Washington Times editor James Whelan about it. Let's hear what he had to say.

JAMES WHEELAN: Humbug. I mean anyone who has bothered to look at, at events sponsored by the Moonies, including those involving the Washington Times, for the past 20 years or so knows perfectly well that Moon presides.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ouch. Is that fair?

JOHN GORENFELD: I think it's pretty fair. I think that for at least 20 years, Reverend Moon has been hosting these increasingly cheeky events where he's able to get all sorts of media professionals on stage, and then to announce that, yeah, that he's the Messiah. I think one sign that they may not have wandered in there by accident is that on February 4th, there was actually a kind of rehearsal for the event at the Reagan Building involving a number of congressmen as well as a crowning ceremony while Reverend Moon was anointed as an absentee Messiah. Certainly this should have gotten tongues wagging all over Washington. You would think someone somewhere in Congress would have said: You know what? Something really strange just happened at the Reagan Building.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So, as you lay it out, the Washington Times grew in power through the '80s and into the '90s, but where does it stand in the third millennium?

JOHN GORENFELD: I think right now there are many other alternatives that there weren't before for finding a conservative answer to what's perceived as the liberal media. But beyond that, I think that the relationship between some of the hard-line conservative at the Washington Times and the Unification Church is starting to fray as they start to find less and less common ground. After all, Reverend Moon preaches that "individualism is what God hates most," unquote. Certainly not a very Republican view of the world. And it also seems to be weakening financially with the sudden collapse of some of the Washington Times' sister publications this summer, one of them being Insight Magazine. Another is the The World and I. Both of them had their plugs pulled.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now, John it's fair to say that you're not entirely neutral on this issue. You clearly think that Moon is a pretty bad guy, and you've been hell bent on exposing him. Do you think that in any way influences your evaluation of the Washington Times?

JOHN GORENFELD: I don't think Reverend Moon is bad so much as fascinating, and whether all of this stuff should be taken literally, I'm still not quite so sure. But I am really just an amazed observer of this whole thing.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: John, thank you very much.

JOHN GORENFELD: Oh, thank you. It's been a pleasure.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: John Gorenfeld is a freelance reporter based in San Francisco, California.

BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, what's wrong with new hospital privacy laws, and medical news you probably can't use.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media, from NPR.