Rev. Moon Arrives in North Korea for Family Visit After 4 Decades

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, arrived in North Korea on Saturday for a reunion with his family, North Korea’s official news agency reported.

The Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo, said Moon, a U.S. resident, was met at the Pyongyang airport by Yun Gi Bok, chairman of the Korean Committee for Aiding Overseas Compatriots, and Kim Dal Hyon, a vice premier of the government Administration Council.

At the airport, it said, Moon had an emotional reunion with his family and relatives, from whom he had been separated for more than four decades.

Moon, who was born in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula in 1920, studied at a college in Tokyo before World War II ended in 1945. He founded the Unification of World Christianity in Seoul in 1954.

The North Korean news agency gave no further details of his trip.

In Seoul, the South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted government sources as saying the 71-year-old Moon might meet with North Korean government leaders during a weeklong stay in Pyongyang.

It said Moon planned to meet with North Korea’s paramount leader, Kim Il Sung, although anti-communism has long been part of Moon’s creed.

Moon met last year with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to talk about investing in the Soviet Union. In China, a U.S. company affiliated with Moon’s church has invested millions of dollars in building a car factory.

Moon, who divides his time between homes in Tarrytown, N.Y., and South Korea, has kept a low profile since his 1982 conviction for tax evasion in the United States. After serving 13 months in prison, he was released in 1985.