Truth Is My Sword Volume I - Collected Speeches in the Public Arena

by Bo Hi Pak

World Media Association President's Remarks

August 22, 1992

The following two speeches were delivered during the World Culture and Sports Festival in Seoul, which combined a number of Reverend Moon's projects for world peace under one banner. In the second speech, at the Fifth Summit Council, Dr. Pak reveals one of Reverend Moon's greatest accomplishments, his meeting with North Korean Leader Kim II-sung in Pyongyang the year before in 1991. The 12th World Media Conference was held August 2226, 1992, in Seoul, Korea.

Reverend and Mrs. Moon, Chairman MacArthur, distinguished speakers, ladies and gentlemen. It is my great honor to welcome all of you to the Republic of Korea for the 12th World Media Conference sponsored by the World Media Association and The Washington Times Corporation.

In 1990, two years ago, we conducted the 11 th World Media Conference in Moscow. It was one of the largest conferences in history. We indeed made a tremendous impact on the Soviet Union. The day after our opening session, April 11, 1990, our founders, Reverend and Mrs. Moon, were invited to the Kremlin for an historic and extraordinary meeting with the President Mikhail Gorbachev. Reverend Moon expounded the principle of God-centered freedom, free enterprise, and inspired him to move on with great courage with glasnost and perestroika.

What happened after that event of the 11th World Media Conference in Moscow is history. Approximately 18 months later, Christmas Day of 1991 to be exact, one of the greatest and most powerful empires on the face of the earth was banished from existence.

In the last two years a most incredible transformation has occurred in our world. Millions and millions of people since then received their freedom. New democratic nations and governments all over Eastern Europe and within the former Soviet Union itself have sprung up, joining the community of nations in our world. What an exciting era we are living in!

Now, roughly two years after the Moscow Conference we are gathered together again here in Seoul, Korea, for another extraordinary conference under the theme "Mass Communication and the Global Culture."

It is especially noteworthy that this year's conference is coming under the larger banner of the World Culture and Sports Festival, which is combining this and all the other efforts of our founders, the Reverend and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon. Reverend Moon is promoting this new combined activity for the purpose of promoting world peace and mutual human cooperation.

Especially, in my opening, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to our founders, Reverend and Mrs. Moon, who have been committed to the promotion of free and responsible media through the work of the World Media Association. Because he has been giving us much inspiration as well as moral and financial support, we came this far.

Besides the 12 meaningful conferences, we have also conducted numerous fact-finding tours around the world. All in all, the work of the World Media Association has contributed tremendously not only in the field of education of the media, but also in the area of securing freedom itself for millions and millions of oppressed people from around the world. Let us show are heartfelt gratitude and welcome to Reverend and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon.

Now it is my great pleasure to introduce this year's conference chairman, Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II.

As United States Ambassador to Japan from 1956 to 1960, he, more than anyone else, was responsible for establishing with Prime Minister Kishi of Japan, the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty, which still governs relations between those two countries today.

It was a time of great social upheaval in Japan, with riots and demonstrations outside the U.S. Embassy almost daily. There were many factions and divisions among the policy makers on both sides; there was a great deal of confusion, and many different roads we might have taken.

I believe it is largely because of Ambassador MacArthur's maturity and wisdom as a diplomat and his single-minded reliance on what he considered to be the genuine best interests of both countries, and the world, that relations between these once bitter enemies were set on the track of friendship and co-prosperity they still travel today.

Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II is, of course, the nephew and namesake of the great General Douglas MacArthur. He will sometimes kiddingly say that he comes from "a long line of licentious soldiers and sailors." But we know better than that.

His ancestors have an unbroken record of devoted service to America dating back to one of George Washington's officers.

A career foreign service officer since graduating from Yale University, he had time to gain proficiency in his profession in numerous assignment countries before being posted to the U.S. Embassy in France just before World War II. When France was overrun, he became an involuntary guest of Adolf Hitler for two years as a prisoner of war until he was freed in an exchange of prisoners.

In addition to Japan, his four postings as an ambassador of the United States included distinguished service in Belgium, Austria, and Iran. He served as an Assistant Secretary of State and, in all, has held six presidential appointments.

Testimony that his efforts in the cause of international peace have been recognized on both sides of the negotiating table came in 1984 when Ambassador MacArthur was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, by the Emperor of Japan, the highest decoration a non-Japanese citizen can receive from that country.

It has been our great blessing that this gentleman has consented to advise the efforts of our World Media Association for the past 10 years. Would you please join me in welcoming the chairman of the 12th World Media Conference, Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II.

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