McCain was on board of Rev. Moon front group

Moon coronation ceremony in 2004

In addition to the previously revealed relationship between McCain adviser Charlie Black and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon — Black was involved with setting up and inviting people to the now-infamous Moon coronation ceremony in a Senate office building in 2004 — it has now come to light that in the early days of his career McCain was on the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, one of the many front groups founded by Moon. A.P. reports:

Republican Sen. John McCain served on the advisory board to the U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America in the 1980s.

The U.S. Council for World Freedom also aided rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. That landed the group in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair and in legal trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which revoked the charitable organization’s tax exemption.

The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international league’s chairman.

Singlaub says McCain’s involvement was minimal but that McCain was a supporter of the group and allowed them to use his name on their letterhead:

“I don’t ever remember hearing about his resigning, but I really wasn’t worried about that part of our activities, a housekeeping thing,” said Singlaub. “If he didn’t want to be on the board that’s OK. It wasn’t as if he had been an active participant and we were going to miss his help. He had no active interest. He certainly supported us.”

McCain resigned from the organization before the Iran/Contra scandal broke:

McCain said he had resigned from the council in 1984. Further, McCain said that in May 1986 he asked the group to remove his name from the letterhead. McCain’s office produced two letters from 1984 and 1986 to back his account.

The dates on the resignation letters in 1984 and May 1986 coincided with McCain election campaigns and increasingly critical public scrutiny of the World Anti-Communist League, the umbrella group Singlaub chaired.

In 1983 and 1984 for example, columnist Jack Anderson linked the league’s Latin American affiliate to death squad political assassinations.