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SAN FRANCISCO A.D.L. SPY CASE NEWSPAPER STORIES Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith Conducted Massive National Surveillance Campaign -- Sold Dossiers on Leftists to Foreign Intelligence Agencies and Latin American Death Squad Governments Presented as a public information resource. FILE ONE OF TWO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright 1993 The Chronicle Publishing Co. The San Francisco Chronicle FORMER S.F. COP FOCUS OF PROBE He is suspected of peddling police files to South African spy BYLINE: Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross [JANUARY 15, 1993, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A21; "The Matier & Ross Report".] Local and federal law enforcement authorities are investigating charges that a former San Francisco police officer sold secret police files to a South African intelligence agent, The Chronicle has learned. The South African agent operating in the United States allegedly paid more than $ 20,000 for police information on hate groups. Some hate group files, which were supposed to be classified, eventually wound up in the hands of the Anti-Defamation League, according to law enforcement sources close to the case. San Francisco Police Chief Anthony Ribera confirmed the probe yesterday, saying: ''Our department is conducting a criminal investigation of Inspector Tom Gerard, and our special investigation division is working with the district attorney's office on this investigation.'' The FBI is also reported to be investigating the matter. Leaders of the Jewish group deny any improprieties and say they are cooperating with the investigation. They did not say how the police information got to them. Jerrold Ladar, an attorney for the ADL, emphasized that the ADL has no ties to South African or Israeli intelligence services. Law enforcement officials would not divulge the contents of the purloined material, but suggested that it contained information on Nazi skinheads and others considered to be violent anti-Semites. Gerard, a 25-year department veteran, quit the force last month and moved to the Philippines, according to law enforcement sources. Sources within the Police Department say this is the first known case in the history of the department where confidential information was allegedly leaked or sold to a foreign agent. News of the case renewed concerns within the American Civil Liberties over the police department's intelligence-gathering procedures. It "raises questions about what else is going on," said San Francisco attorney John Crew of the ACLU, which has been pressing the Police Department to overhaul its intelligence gathering operations. ''. . . This whole area is potentially subject to enormous abuse.'' The joint federal and local is expected to continue for at least two more weeks, and in the meantime, neither the FBI nor the district attorney's office will discuss it or even confirm its existence. Police Chief Ribera, while also declining to talk about any specifics of the case, said he would ''aggressively seek prosecution'' of any police officer who ''compromised state or federal law as far as disseminating confidential information.'' Gerard's attorney, Jim Lassart, could not be reached for comment yesterday. Last month, authorities obtained a warrant to search Gerard's boat in Sausalito, along with other addresses in San Francisco and Southern California. The search warrant was sealed by Superior Court Judge Lenard Louie. But one source said that among the material seized from the boat where Gerard lived was a computer disk containing information from San Francisco police computer files. ''It's stuff that would have to have been stolen or removed illegally,'' said a police source familiar with the investigation. With cooperation from the ADL, district attorney investigators also searched that organization's offices both in San Francisco and Los Angeles on December 10. The search of ADL offices turned up information that had recently been taken from a national police computer network. How it landed in the ADL's offices is a mystery, investigators say. But South African and Israeli intelligence groups have long had close links. ADL RESPONSE ''The Anti-Defamation League is aware of an investigation and has made files in San Francisco and Los Angeles available to law enforcement officials,'' ADL Regional Director Richard Hirschhaut said yesterday in a prepared statement. ''ADL has been told by law enforcement officials conducting the investigation that it is not a subject or a target of any investigation.'' Hirschhaut and others representing the ADL denied that the group has any connection to Israeli intelligence, but said: ''ADL has consistently worked with law enforcement agencies and community groups in providing information on extremist groups and in assisting law enforcement officers with training on such issues as anti-Semitic vandalism and hate crimes.'' In 1991, Gerard joined other law enforcement officials on an ''ADL law enforcement mission'' to Israel, Hirschhaut said. ''The law enforcement missions further ADL's mandate of monitoring and exposing extremist and anti-Semitic groups.'' Fellow officers describe Gerard as a knowledgeable and capable intelligence officer, but say he has been an enigma within the department for years. ''He wanted to be perceived as a mysterious figure,'' said one law enforcement source, declining to be named. CIA CONNECTION Besides his intelligence gathering duties in the Police Department, several law enforcement sources said, Gerard did a stint with the CIA in the late 1970s or early '80s -- although the details of his CIA connection have always been vague. Police personnel records show he took a leave of absence from the Police Department from 1980 to 1983. Gerard also served as the Police Department's official liaison to the FBI in the early 1980s, and apparently continued to have access to many of its files in his most recent job as a member of the Police Department's Gang Task Force. But law enforcement sources have confirmed that an investigation was begun several months ago with cooperation between the FBI and local district attorney's office. It is unclear precisely how authorities became aware of Gerard's supposed illegal dealings. Sources say local charges could involve theft and computer fraud. FEDERAL CHARGES POSSIBLE Gerard could also face federal charges involving his failure to register as a foreign agent, as well as possible computer-related violations. But some wonder if Gerard will actually face prosecution. While still on the police force, Gerard moonlighted as a security guard with Philippine Airlines. Since the search, he has left the country and is believed to be building a new home for himself in the Philippines. ============================================================ ARAB AMERICANS DEMAND PROBE OF REPORT ON FILES BYLINE: Teresa Moore, Chronicle Staff Writer [JANUARY 16, 1993, SATURDAY, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A15.] Arab American leaders gathered on the steps of the Hall of Justice yesterday to demand an investigation of reports that a former San Francisco police officer sold intelligence information to foreign agents. The Chronicle reported yesterday that former San Francisco police Officer Tom Gerard may have sold police intelligence files to foreign agents and that these files eventually ended up in the hands of the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL denied yesterday that it had any files on Arab Americans. Christine Totah, a spokeswoman for the Arab American Democratic Club in San Francisco, said local Arab Americans were unsure what information the files might contain, but they were concerned that Gerard was disseminating lists of names and addresses of Arab Americans who might be the target of anti-Palestinian forces. ''It's one thing for the San Francisco police to keep track of different communities -- they keep files on all sorts of groups,'' Totah said. ''But they have this guy who sells this information to foreign governments -- God knows how they are going to use it.'' Gerard, who quit the force last month and is thought to be living in the Philippines, is the subject of local and federal investigations into allegations that the 25-year department veteran sold classified police files on hate groups. Sources close to the investigation said that the Anti-Defamation League was in possession of some supposedly classified police files on hate groups. The Anti-Defamation League has turned files over to investigators on the Gerard case, but those files had nothing to do with Arab Americans, said Richard Hirschhaut, the organization's regional director. ''Under no circumstances whatsoever does the ADL maintain files on Arab American individuals or organizations in this country,'' Hirschhaut said. ''Our investigations and fact-finding work is related strictly to extremist groups and organizations who would do harm to Jews and other minorities, including Arab Americans.'' ===================================================== SEARCH WARRANTS TO STAY SEALED Case of ex-S.F. policeman who allegedly sold intelligence files BYLINE: Stephen Schwartz, Chronicle Staff Writer [JANUARY 23, 1993, SATURDAY, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A17.] A Superior Court judge ruled yesterday that search warrants relating to the investigation of former San Francisco police Inspector Thomas J. Gerard, who allegedly sold police intelligence files, will remain sealed. Judge Lenard Louie said release of the warrants would hamper the investigation. Louie noted that the investigation is scheduled to be concluded within a month's time and that he would then reconsider his ruling. Deputy Chief of Police Fred Lau, who is scheduled to testify about the case before a Board of Supervisors committee Tuesday, said Gerard is the only officer under investigation. Gerard allegedly transferred data from police files to Roy Bullock, a purported private investigator in a neo-Nazi bombing case. Bullock allegedly turned the material from Gerard over to the South African government and to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Gerard has reportedly fled to the Philippines. Meanwhile, Richard S. Hirschhaut, the local head of the ADL, firmly denied allegations that the ADL engages in illegal political spying or is an agent of the Israeli state. Hirschhaut said the group had long been the object of ''baseless'' claims by anti-Semitic groups that it is an agent of the Israeli government or Israeli intelligence. The ADL has denied any improper relationship with Gerard, and Hirschhaut said the group dealt with him only as it does with ''thousands'' of police personnel around the country in combatting hate crimes. He said Gerard joined an ADL-sponsored law enforcement visit to Israel in 1991. Hirschhaut said the ADL would rebuff any police officer who offered to engage in illegal activities. However, Hirschhaut also said the ADL would neither confirm nor deny the identity of any informant in its investigations of extremist hate groups. Hirschhaut said the group ''uses many sources of information, including its own research and investigative work.'' The ADL is not a target of the investigation and has cooperated with the inquiry into Gerard's activities, according to Hirschhaut. The Northern California Jewish Bulletin yesterday quoted San Francisco District Attorney Arlo Smith as saying the accusations against Gerard were leaked from inside the San Francisco Police Department or the FBI, both of which are investigating the case. The Jewish Bulletin several years ago published an interview with Gerard in which the inspector said he had discovered that his maternal grandmother was Jewish and perished in the Holocaust, leading him to want to become a religious Jew. ==================================================== ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE RAIDED BY S.F. COPS Search for illegally obtained police data BYLINE: Ken Hoover, Chronicle Staff Writer [APRIL 9, 1993, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A1.] San Francisco police raided the offices of the Anti-Defamation League yesterday looking for illegally obtained law enforcement information used in a nationwide political spy operation. The district attorney's office also released hundreds of pages of documents detailing how ADL operatives infiltrated political groups. The documents describe a widespread spy operation aimed at such diverse organizations as the white supremacist White Aryan Resistance, the Arab- American Anti-Discrimination Committee, Operation Rescue, Greenpeace, the NAACP, the board of directors of public television station KQED and the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper. The searches of the ADL offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles were the latest twist in a scandal that erupted in the San Francisco Police Department in November after Tom Gerard, a former inspector in the now-defunct police intelligence unit, was questioned by the FBI about whether he had illegally sold intelligence files to the South African government. An affidavit by Inspector Ron Roth said the searches were necessary because ADL officials did not turn over files as they had promised in December. Jerrold Ladar, an attorney representing the ADL, said the organization has continued to cooperate in the investigation. He did not elaborate. But Roth said: ''ADL employees were less than truthful with regards to the employment of Roy Bullock and other matters.'' Investigators believe that Bullock, a San Francisco art dealer, and Gerard, who has since fled to the Philippines, collaborated in developing a vast computer data base with 9,876 files on politically active people, including driver's license numbers, physical description and criminal records, according to Roth's affidavit. FULL-TIME SPYMASTER The investigators say that Bullock was for nearly 40 years a full- time spymaster for the ADL and that most of his data base was used by the Jewish group, which is dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism. Bullock told FBI agents that he and Gerard split $ 16,000 from the South African government over four years, according to Roth's affidavit. The affidavit, which was used to obtain the search warrants, said some material in the files came from what the ADL calls ''official friends,'' meaning law enforcement personnel who leak motor vehicle information and criminal histories. Roth's affidavit said most of the data were used for ADL purposes. ''I believe that Roy Bullock and the ADL had numerous peace officers supplying them with confidential criminal and (Department of Motor Vehicle) information,'' Roth said. 'A TON OF MATERIAL' Assistant District Attorney John Dwyer said it is a felony to obtain such confidential information. He said it would take a month or two to sift through what he described as ''a ton of material'' seized in yesterday's raids. No charges have been filed. The affidavit said police expected to find during their search files revealing that the ADL had driver's license and vehicle registration information on 10 percent to 15 percent of the Arab-American Anti- Discrimination Committee's membership. Founded in 1913, the stated purpose of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith is ''to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment for all citizens alike.'' It has 35 offices nationwide. Roth said that for the past 25 years, the ADL had secretly paid Bullock by funneling money to him through Los Angeles lawyer Bruce Hochman. Since July 1985, Bullock had received $ 169,375 in this manner, the affidavit said. The affidavit also alleges that: * David Lehrer, ADL executive director in Los Angeles, maintained a secret bank account from which Bullock's expenses and informants were paid. A checkbook for the account, in the name ''L. Patterson,'' was kept locked in a safe in the ADL's Los Angeles office. * Gerard's computer data base, seized in a December raid on his home, was divided into five categories: ''Arab,'' ''Pinko,'' ''Right,'' ''Skins'' and ''ANC,'' the last being a reference to the African National Congress. * Bullock's computer files, also seized by police, were similar to Gerard's right down to misspellings. * ADL operatives culled from the trash of the Christic Institute, a left-wing think tank, such items as phone messages and office notes. The affidavit also had documents relating to ''Operation Eavesdrop'' in which Bullock and the ADL allegedly paid a member of the White Aryan Resistance to obtain information on that group. 'SCUMBAG' Code-named ''Scumbag,'' the informant was introduced to Bullock by an agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Roth's affidavit said Scumbag gave the ADL names, addresses and phone numbers left on ''hotlines'' the organization maintained. Roth's affidavit said the ADL employed other field investigators, including a former police officer in Chicago code-named ''Chi-3,'' an Arab-speaking man in Atlanta called ''Flipper'' and someone in St. Louis called ''Ironsides.'' ======================================================== 'SPYMASTER' TRADED DATA ON EXTREMISTS WITH COPS He says Anti-Defamation League paid him BYLINE: Ken Hoover, Chronicle Staff Writer [APRIL 10, 1993, SATURDAY, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A1.] Roy Bullock, the self-proclaimed spymaster of the Anti- Defamation League, spent more than 40 years cultivating cozy relationships in which law enforcement agents gave him valuable tips on extremists in exchange for clues in hate crimes, court records indicate. In more than 200 pages of police transcripts released this week, the 58-year-old Bullock for the first time claimed that he was associated with the ADL, a Jewish group dedicated to exposing and fighting anti-Semitism, and with local and federal law enforcement agents. Bullock is a central figure in the widening investigation by San Francisco police and the FBI into a vast spy network that may have involved illegally obtained law enforcement information. The probe centers on former Inspector Tom Gerard, a Bullock associate, who fled to the Philippines after the FBI questioned him about the sale of police intelligence files to the South African government. Bullock, a Castro District art dealer, emerges from the transcripts as intelligent and articulate -- he laces his sentences with Latin phrases -- and is proud of his knowledge of radical political groups. He is a non-Jew with a lifelong fascination with extremists. In the 1950s, he attended a communist meeting in Moscow and ''jawed'' for several hours with a man who had threatened President Eisenhower's life, reporting back each time to the FBI. Referring to Bullock's fondness for picking through the trash of organizations for intelligence material, an interviewing officer joked, ''It's like a cop (and) a doughnut shop.'' QUESTIONS ABOUT LEGALITIES Although Bullock helped authorities solve serious hate crimes, such as synagogue bombings, his activities also raise questions about whether some agents crossed a legal line in recruiting him to investigate peaceful political activity. In his interviews, he stated that: * Despite the San Francisco Police Department's abolishing its Intelligence Division and ordering its files on political groups destroyed, Gerard turned some of them over to Bullock for safekeeping. * When FBI agents wanted to know more about a neighbor who had visited Libya, they showed him a picture of the man. Bullock said he rummaged through the man's trash a few times but found nothing significant. * The FBI had Bullock check out a left-wing group in Berkeley called No Business as Usual, which he described as an off-shoot of the Revolutionary Communist Party. After attending the group's meetings, he dismissed it in his report to the FBI as ''the usual collection of gas-bags and hot-air artists.'' Bullock said he worked for a short time as a records clerk for the Indianapolis Police Department in the early 1950s. But his real interest was infiltrating radical groups. He watched the popular television series ''I Led Three Lives'' about Herbert A. Philbrick, a Communist Party member who spied for the FBI. TRIP TO MOSCOW He said he worked unpaid for the ADL in Indianapolis from 1954 to 1960. He also volunteered his services to the local FBI office. At the FBI's request, he said, he attended the Sixth World Youth and Student Festival in Moscow in 1957 with a group of American communists. Later, he said, the FBI wanted to know whether one of the ''right- wing kooks'' with whom he corresponded in his undercover ADL role posed a threat to Eisenhower, to whom the rightist had written threatening letters. ''I sat around and jawed with the guy for a few hours,'' he said, and concluded that he was ''the usual windbag.'' Bullock moved to Seal Beach in Southern California in 1960 and went on to the ADL payroll, he said, although he was secretly paid through a prominent Beverly Hills attorney, Bruce Hochman. Bullock said he was making $ 550 a week in January. The ADL has not acknowledged Bullock's employment but said it is cooperating in the investigation. No charges have been filed. 10,000 NAMES IN DATABASE Bullock built a vast computer database of 10,000 names kept behind two bolted doors in his house, but dismissed many of the entries as unimportant. ''Throwing stuff in the files doesn't mean anything,'' he told interviewers. ''I threw them in, and 99.9 percent of the time, I have never called (them) up again since.'' But some law enforcement agents regarded the files as important, and relied on him and his investigative skills. Bullock said that when there was a rash of synagogue bombings in San Francisco during the 1980s, Gerard called him for help. Bullock went through his computer, sorting out possible suspects, neighborhood by neighborhood, and provided the information to police. He also boasts about his use of an informant with an ''egregious criminal history'' introduced to him by an agent of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. ACCESS CODE TO HOTLINES The informant, code-named Scumbag, was a member of the white supremacist White Aryan Resistance. Bullock said he paid the man $ 200 -- by giving it ''under the table'' in an ATF office -- in exchange for the access code that would allow Bullock to tap into phone messages left on the group's hotlines. This gave him the names and sometimes the addresses and phone numbers of the group's supporters. ''For a short time, it was wonderful,'' Bullock said. The informant, whom the ATF refused to use because of his criminal record, was convicted of a new crime and sent to jail, Bullock said. Bullock's job carried its dangers, he said. He was occasionally denounced by left-wing groups, he said, as a ''Jewish spy'' or a ''police stooley.'' In one incident, he said, a skinhead displayed a sawed-off shotgun and threatened to kill him because he thought Bullock was a spy. Later, when the skinhead was arrested, Gerard supplied Bullock with portions of the suspect's diary so that Bullock could prepare a report to the ADL on the man, Bullock said. Bullock said it was the only occasion in which he ever visited the San Francisco Police Department. ====================================================== FURY AT SPYING BY JEWISH GROUP Targets of Anti-Defamation League included friends as well as foe BYLINE: David Tuller, Chronicle Staff Writer [APRIL 10, 1993, SATURDAY, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A14.] Civil rights groups and progressive Jewish leaders expressed outrage and dismay yesterday over reports that the Anti- Defamation League of the B'Nai Brith gathered intelligence on an array of social and political organizations. Many of the organizations were extremist hate groups, like the Ku Klux Klan and the White Aryan Resistance. But liberal mainstream groups, such as the NAACP and the Asian Law Caucus, were also among those targeted. ''I'm kind of shocked, because we've worked with them on issues like hate crimes, discrimination, and stereotypes of minorities in the media,'' said Paul Igasaki, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, which was categorized in the ADL files as a ''pinko'' group. ''This is a threat to our ongoing relationship with them,'' he added. ''I would have been supportive of them monitoring extreme hate groups, but so many organizations that work for greater civil rights seem to have been targeted as suspicious for one reason or another.'' The Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, another apparent target of ADL activity, expressed similar concerns. ''It's outrageous and ridiculous,'' said news editor David Kaplan. ''We have no idea why they would have investigated us. Didn't they have anything better to do?'' Dennis King, a New York journalist who once agreed to an ADL request to monitor and report back on a right-wing political meeting, said that the organization has never hidden the fact that it kept extensive files on extremist groups. He said he broke ties with the organization in the late 1980s because of the anti-Communist stance of its fact-finding operation. ''The head of the fact-finding division was an out-of-control right-winger who was almost operating like a private J. Edgar Hoover, like an old-fashioned McCarthyite who had not changed since the 1950s,'' said King, who has written a book on Lyndon LaRouche. ''You have a bureaucracy there that is not accountable to anyone, and it has gotten out of control because no one is keeping a check on it,'' he said. San Francisco District Attorney Arlo Smith described the probable cooperation of various law enforcement officers as ''appalling.'' ''We are opposed to any agency, public or private, spying on a citizen,'' Smith said. ''This kind of illegal conduct leads to a chilling effect on a citizen's rights to assemble and to speak.'' Abraham Foxman, the national director of the ADL, said in a written statement that the numerous reports compiled by the ADL on hate groups were the product of extensive research and information gathered from various sources. It has never been ADL's policy to ''obtain information illegally as part of our ongoing research activities,'' Foxman said. But he declined to comment on the nature or the sources of the data, citing the ADL's wish ''to protect the confidentiality and physical safety of its sources.'' Local Jewish leaders also declined to talk about the situation. But Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish magazine, said that the spying activities of the ADL were ''a tremendous shame and embarrassment for American Jews'' but were not surprising given the organization's right-of-center orientation. ''There is a long history of lack of respect for dissent in the organized Jewish community, and many of us who support the peace movement in Israel have suffered from attempts to isolate and harass us,'' he said. ''So this is not a shock for any of us who know how the conservative Jewish organizations operate,'' he said. ''The ADL is part of that sector of American Jews that believes that everybody is against us and anti-Semitism is likely to pop out at any moment at any place. They have no boundaries for their fears.'' ======================================================== ISRAEL CRITICS SUE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE BYLINE: Ken Hoover, Chronicle Staff Writer [APRIL 15, 1993, THURSDAY, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A16.] Nineteen Bay Area critics of Israel filed suit yesterday accusing the Anti-Defamation League with violating their privacy by maintaining files on them that contained information illegally obtained from government agencies. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, is the first since public disclosure last week of an alleged network of spying by ADL operatives on political groups of both the right and left. No charges against the ADL have been filed. Jerrold Ladar, a lawyer representing the ADL, said he had not seen the complaint and had no comment on it. The lawyer filing the suit, former Republican Representative Pete McCloskey of Menlo Park, said it is class action open to any of the 12,000 people whose names appear in computer files seized by police investigating the leak of police data to Roy Bullock, a self-described spymaster for the ADL. McCloskey, who was identified with pro-Palestinian positions when he was in Congress, is among those who was the subject of a file kept by Bullock. ''I wasn't surprised they had stuff on me because I spent 15 years in government and was a public figure,'' McCloskey said. ''But they even had a file on my wife. That's going pretty far.'' The suit was filed under a statute that allows a minimum award of $ 2,500 and attorney's fees from anyone who discloses nonpublic personal information obtained from government files. Last week, the district attorney released hundreds of pages of transcripts and other documents in which Bullock, a Castro area art dealer, described how he maintained files on political groups of both the right and left and infiltrated some of them. Among the groups he said he closely watched were those opposing South African apartheid and those critical of Israel. Named as defendants are the ADL, its San Francisco executive director, Richard Hirschhaut, Bullock and Tom Gerard, a San Francisco police inspector who retired and fled to the Philippines when he came under investigation by the FBI. The FBI had tapped Bullock's phone and questioned both Bullock and Gerard about the sale to the South African government of information gleaned from police files on anti-apartheid groups. Bullock told interviewers earlier this year that he and Gerard were paid for information on anti- apartheid activity on the West Coast through an agent he knew only as ''Louie.'' Among the plaintiffs are Yigal Arens, son of former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens; Colin Edwards of Oakland, a former British radio reporter; and Donald McGaffin, former media critic for KPIX, who said he criticized Israel on the air. ===================================================== ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE BLAMES S.F. AUTHORITIES Spy case focus should be on police misconduct... BYLINE: Ken Hoover, Chronicle Staff Writer [APRIL 16, 1993, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A17.] Stung by raids on its offices, angry Anti-Defamation League leaders charged yesterday that San Francisco police and the district attorney have turned the spotlight on the Jewish organization to deflect attention from police misconduct. ''The real query ought to be what is going on with police officers and with intelligence collection,'' said ADL attorney Barbara Wahl in an interview with The Chronicle. The ADL broke its official silence for the first time since San Francisco police searched its offices April 8 as part of an investigation into the illegal possession of police files. Wahl and ADL national chairman Melvin Salberg were in San Francisco to try to repair damage to the organization's reputation in the aftermath of the raids. Coinciding with searches of ADL offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the district attorney's office released hundreds of pages of transcripts and other documents detailing its investigation. In the transcripts, Roy Bullock, a 58-year-old San Francisco art dealer, described himself as an ADL ''spymaster'' for 40 years, gathering information on political extremists, racists and anti-Semites. He said Tom Gerard, a police inspector who has since fled to the Philippines, gave him police intelligence files for safekeeping, files that were apparently supposed to be destroyed when the Police Department abolished its intelligence unit and agreed to stop collecting information on political groups. Gerard, he said, gave him driver's license information and criminal histories on people he was interested in, while in turn, Bullock helped Gerard and other officers with criminal investigations. In one case, Bullock boasted of using his computer data base to help track down synagogue bomber Coy Ray Phelps in 1985. District Attorney Arlo Smith denied any attempt to deflect attention away from the focus of the investigation. ''It has been clear from the beginning that Tom Gerard and Roy Bullock were the original central figures in the investigation,'' said Smith. ''You have to take the facts where they lead you.'' Smith said it would be a month to six weeks before anyone is possibly charged. Wahl acknowledged for the first time that Bullock works for the ADL, but she sought to put distance between him and the organization by describing Bullock as ''the classic independent contractor'' who was not an employee and also had other clients. She said Bullock's computer files, which police say contained 12,000 names, were apparently collected for his own purposes. The file contained information on a wide variety of political groups and people, among them pro-Palestinians and those opposed to South African apartheid. ''The ADL does not run a national spy ring,'' she said. ''It does not keep files on hundreds of thousands of people.'' Salberg and Wahl said the ADL was unaware of Bullock's other clients, which included other law enforcement agencies and the South African government. Bullock said he once received $ 500 from the FBI for attending meetings of a left-wing group in Berkeley. Salberg said he is uncertain whether the ADL would have terminated its relationship with Bullock if it knew he also worked for South Africa. The ADL, Wahl and Salberg said, has no relationship with South Africa and opposes apartheid. Salberg said that when the FBI was interrogating Arab Americans at the outbreak of the gulf war two years ago, the ADL went to the bureau and asked them to stop. He said it has consistently spoken out against violent acts against Arabs. He described the ADL as an organization dedicated to exposing racial hatred. He said when U.S. News and World Report did a recent cover story on race in the United States, its reporters came to the ADL seeking information. ========================================================== ADL's EXTENSIVE INTELLIGENCE UNIT Operation bigger than expected -- Memos on Cranston in seized BYLINE: Bill Wallace, Chronicle Staff Writer [APRIL 23, 1993, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION, Pg. A25.] The intelligence network operated by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith appears to have been significantly larger than originally suspected, according to documents filed in San Francisco Superior Court this week. Inventories filed by the district attorney's office show that police who searched the ADL's San Francisco and Los Angeles offices April 8 seized more than 300 file folders, which contained information on individuals and organizations. Those documents included two memos about former Democratic U.S. Senator Alan Cranston dating back to the 1970s. They also seized documents that appear to show the ADL had more undercover informants on its payroll than the six who had been previously disclosed. The documents were taken as evidence in an investigation of allegations that Tom Gerard, a former San Francisco Police Department intelligence specialist, illegally leaked restricted police information to the ADL through Roy Bullock, a San Francisco art dealer who has admitted spying for the League for more than 30 years. In a detailed statement to police released earlier this month, Bullock described how he and Gerard had shared confidential law enforcement information with the League and split $ 16,000 in spy fees from the South African government. The district attorney's investigation is still under way. Neither Bullock, Gerard nor the League has been charged with any wrongdoing. The ADL, which says it did not break any laws, contends that Bullock and Gerard were ''independent contractors'' who were not controlled by the League. Although the descriptions of documents contained in the inventories are tantalizing, they are frustratingly sketchy. The actual files remain sealed by order of Superior Court Judge Lenard Louie, and their exact contents are not known. A spokesman for the district attorney's office said 10 boxes of files were seized during the April 8 searches and investigators have not even started to read through them. Jerrold Ladar, an attorney for the Anti-Defamation League, was also unable to give details about the contents of the papers. ''We are reviewing the categories of materials to see what was seized,'' Ladar said last night. ''This inventory is the first real look we've had at it.'' Although none of the actual documents have been made public, the warrants under which they were taken allowed investigators to seize any restricted law enforcement intelligence reports or photos, lists of political organizations or their members or pay records related to ADL's intelligence collection operations. The inventories indicate many of the documents seized by police were reports on hate groups such as the White Aryan Resistance, but some appear to be collections of information on law-abiding political organizations and their members. Among those named in the documents are the Palestinian Solidarity Committee and the Network of Solidarity with Chile. Other ADL files included memos labeled ''Stinky,'' ''Cypress,'' ''Mittie,'' ''Sands,'' ''Rocky,'' and ''Apple.'' These appear to be files on previously undisclosed ADL informants who operated under the control of the League's Los Angeles regional office. =========================================================== POLICE PANEL TAKES ACTION IN SPY CASE Stormy S.F. commission hearing on intelligence-gathering... BYLINE: J.L. Pimsleur, Chronicle Staff Writer [APRIL 29, 1993, THURSDAY, FINAL EDITION] The San Francisco Police Commission last night voted unanimously to find former Inspector Thomas Gerard guilty of violating department guidelines when he allegedly engaged in unauthorized gathering and dissemination of intelligence on thousands of people. As a result of the ruling, an administrative finding, the commission announced that it would begin notifying the more than 7,000 individuals and numerous organizations whose names were on lists compiled by Gerard. Gerard, 50, a former San Francisco Police Department intelligence specialist, is under investigation by the district attorney's office after allegations that he illegally leaked restricted police information to the Anti-Defamation League through Roy Bullock, a San Francisco art dealer who has admitted spying for the league for more than 30 years. Gerard is in the Philippines, where he fled after being questioned by the FBI in November. Neither Gerard, Bullock nor the league has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. The ADL, which says it did not break any laws, contends that Bullock and Gerard were ''independent contractors'' who were not controlled by the league. The commission's notification process will begin in two weeks. But because the list is so large, commission vice president Clothilde Hewlett said, it could take as long as three months to complete the project. The commission's vote came at the end of a long and stormy public hearing at which more than two dozen speakers addressed the overflow crowd. American Civil Liberties Union attorney John Crew decried ''an atmosphere of deception'' surrounding what he called ''political spying by the department over the last several decades.'' Responding to Crew, the commission agreed to investigate earlier assurances by police that the department did not keep its political intelligence files and to determine why some of the files slated for destruction under the department's change of policy in 1990 apparently were never destroyed. The commission also agreed to investigate possible involvement of other officers in improper intelligence-gathering activities by Gerard and Bullock. Many speakers demanded a wide-ranging investigation. Arab-American Democratic Club vice president Christine Totah said ''the Anti-Defamation League, the FBI, Bullock, Gerard and countless others who have yet to be identified have become the Gestapo of the 1930s and '40s and Senator McCarthy of the '50s.'' Her comments angered several members of the San Francisco Jewish Community, including Rabbi Douglas Kahn, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council. Debra Pell, a former member of the Human Rights Commission, described the ADL as ''stalwarts in combatting anti-Semitism, bigotry and racism in this community and nationally. To suggest . . . that the ADL should be equated with the Gestapo is absurd and -- as a child of survivors of the Holocaust -- offends me, personally.'' ============================================================== S.F. EX-COP SEIZED AT AIRPORT Was Sought in Spy Scandal BYLINE: J.L. Pimsleur, Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff [MAY 7, 1993, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION] Thomas Gerard, the former San Francisco police intelligence officer who fled to the Philippines while under investigation in an alleged spying scandal, was arrested last night after stepping off a plane in San Francisco, police said. Acting on a tip from the Philippine government, police met a Philippine Airlines flight at 8:40 p.m. and arrested the elusive Gerard, who had been in hiding since being questioned by the FBI in November, said Police Chief Tony Ribera. Ribera's announcement came at a press conference at the Hall of Justice at the highly unusual hour of 2 a.m. today. Gerard was ''surprised but not shocked'' to have been met by police, Ribera said. Gerard said he came back from the Philippines out of fear of being a target of a CIA-linked hit contract, Ribera said. Late last month, Gerard alleged that he had saved documentation from his days with the CIA showing a CIA role in Central American death squads. He was booked on eight counts of theft of government documents, burglary and conspiracy, Ribera said, adding that bail was set at $ 250,000. Gerard, 50, has been under investigation by the district attorney's office for allegedly leaking confidential records to the Anti- Defamation League through Roy Bullock, a San Francisco art dealer who has admitted spying for the league for more than 30 years. Gerard and Bullock also allegedly sold information to the government of South Africa, police have said. The case, involving lists of individuals and organizations of all political stripes estimated variously to number between 7,000 and 12,000, has sparked renewed fears of police spying and most recently an uproar over the activities of the ADL. Until yesterday, Gerard -- as well as Bullock and the ADL -- had not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. On April 28, the San Francisco Police Commission voted to hold Gerard in violation of police intelligence-gathering guidelines. As a result of the ruling, an administrative finding, the commission announced that it would begin notifying the thousands of individuals and numerous organizations whose names were on lists compiled by Gerard. Police found copious amounts of restricted police material in a raid on Bullock's home. They also collected evidence in searches of Gerard's home and boat and in searches of ADL offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Much of the information consists of files on Arab-American groups as well as various organizations on both the left and right of the political spectrum. The ADL has been forced to mount a defense against charges of civil rights abuses following disclosures that Bullock, who was on the organization's payroll as an informant, infiltrated Arab American and other groups and compiled files on his home computer on nearly 10,000 individuals and 950 organizations -- including fellow civil rights groups. The case took an unexpected turn late last month when Gerard threatened to blow the whistle on what he called illegal CIA support of Central American death squads if he were indicted and tried for his suspected role in the widening scandal. ========================================================== ADL Critics Say Group Lost Sight of Original Goals Gerard accused of supplying data to organization BYLINE: Bill Wallace, Chronicle Staff Writer [MAY 8, 1993, SATURDAY, FINAL EDITION] As former officer Tom Gerard faces charges that he passed along police secrets to the Anti-Defamation League, some targets of the ADL's ''fact-finding'' operations say information collected by the league has been used to harass and intimidate them. Critics say the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, an organization founded in 1913 to protect the civil rights of Jewish citizens, has lost sight of the difference between virulent anti-Semitic forces preaching violence against Jews and law-abiding citizens exercising free speech on subjects such as Israel and the Middle East. They note that organizations named in the intelligence files that police have seized in connection with the spy scandal include Greenpeace, the San Francisco Labor Council, the Northern California Ecumenical Council and Mother Jones magazine. ''I am a Jew myself, and when I see the breadth of the organizations in these files that the ADL has conducted surveillance on, it is very clear to me that they have sort of lost touch with reality in terms of organizations that are engaged in real anti-Semitic activity,'' said Marc Van der Hout, a National Lawyers Guild attorney who works with some of the organizations named in the files. ''The ADL has done some very worthwhile work in the past,'' he said. ''Unfortunately, this incident will probably undermine much of the good it has done.'' ADL DENIES THE ALLEGATIONS ADL officials deny that any of its information collecting has violated innocent people's civil liberties, and they maintain that they only target hate groups. David Lehrer, the regional director of the league's Los Angeles office, said, ''We have never covertly, clandestinely conspired to have people fired or harassed or anything else. We have too much respect for the democratic system to do that.'' The league's fact-finding operations have gained notoriety in recent weeks as the result of a spying scandal involving Gerard, a former San Francisco police intelligence specialist, and Roy Bullock, an art dealer and part-time ADL fact finder. According to police and court records, Gerard and Bullock spied on anti-apartheid organizations for the Union of South Africa and unlawfully obtained police intelligence files and other law enforcement information. Police have seized computerized intelligence files at Bullock's home -- files compiled in connection with his work for the ADL -- that contain the names of thousands of individuals. ADL officials say Bullock and Gerard were acting on their own, and they have denied any connection to Bullock's computer files. The league says its fact-finding work is primarily journalistic, and it attempts to provide ''information on issues, groups and individuals of interest to the civil rights and Jewish communities.'' COURT RECORDS, INTERVIEWS However, a Chronicle survey of court records and interviews with numerous sources disclosed incidents in which critics say the ADL used intelligence information to tar its ideological opponents: * Lawyers for the ''Los Angeles Eight,'' seven Palestinian men and a Kenyan woman who are facing expulsion from the United States because of their alleged links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, say their clients were arrested in 1987 as the result of an investigation spurred by the ADL. They base their belief in part on statements that the ADL made to the press at the time of the arrests. * Carol El-Shaieb and Audrey Shabbas, two women who organize seminars on Arab and Muslim subjects for teachers, sued the ADL in 1984 for allegedly interfering with a workshop on Bedouin crafts at the San Jose Museum of Art. Their lawsuit -- which was settled out of court before trial -- charged that the ADL used information from a 1983 list of ''pro-Arab propagandists'' prepared by the organization to rally opposition to some proposed speakers. * In another incident, Shabbas said an ADL representative appeared before the board of directors of an association concerned with Middle Eastern relations in 1984 to argue that the group should not hire her to prepare seminars for teachers. Shabbas, whose husband was one of those named in ADL's 1983 list, pointed to official minutes of the meeting in which the ADL representative was quoted as saying that workshops sponsored by the organization ''should not have people sympathetic to the Arab point of view.'' * Noam Chomsky, a theorist of language and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is both Jewish and a strong advocate of Palestinian rights, claims that materials from ADL files have been used in attempts to discredit him as a public speaker. 100-PAGE ADL FILE Chomsky is traveling abroad and could not be reached for comment, but in the 1985 book ''They Dare to Speak Out'' by former U.S. Representative Paul Findley, he said he had obtained a copy of his 100-page ADL file from an anonymous source. ''Virtually every talk I give is monitored, and reports of their alleged contents are sent on to the league to be incorporated in my file,'' he told Findley. He added that when he appears at speaking engagements, the league often distributes literature containing distorted or fabricated accounts of his views in an attempt to discredit him and identify him as an anti-Semite. In the San Francisco spying scandal, police are investigating allegations that Bullock and Gerard spied on anti-apartheid groups for the South African government and that they amassed voluminous files of information on local political advocates, labor unions, newspapers, magazines and members of the KQED-TV board of directors. Gerard is accused of removing materials from San Francisco police intelligence files and turning them over to Bullock in violation of state law and Police Department regulations. He is also suspected of illegally channeling information from law enforcement computer systems to Bullock. Both Gerard and Bullock have denied wrongdoing. Gerard was arrested upon returning from hiding in the Philippines and has refused requests for an interview. In interviews with the FBI and San Francisco police, Bullock has admitted collecting intelligence for the South African government as a lucrative sideline to the ADL fact-finding job he held for the past 40 years. 'INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS' ADL officials have characterized both men as ''independent contractors'' who acted without the league's knowledge or approval. They also deny that any materials from the league's files have been used to intimidate or injure its ideological foes. They say that the league fact finders collect information solely for journalistic purposes, and they focus only on ''the activities of left- wing and right-wing extremist groups.'' ''There's no secret about the fact that we do information gathering,'' said Melvin Salberg, the ADL's national director. ''We are publishers and journalists. In order to do the kinds of things we do, we gather information.'' THE LOS ANGELES 8 But others say the league sometimes uses its intelligence files to do more than harass opponents. They point to the Los Angeles Eight case as an example. Shortly after the L.A. Eight were arrested in 1987, ADL's southwestern regional director, David Lehrer, told the Los Angeles Times that the league had turned information on members of the group over to the FBI. The Times said the FBI then launched the investigation that led to the arrests. They also noted that affidavits filed in the police spying scandal show that an ADL investigator named David Gurvitz compiled reports on three of the Los Angeles Eight defendants while working for the league as a fact finder. ADL's Lehrer denies that the league played any role in the Los Angeles Eight case and says that the only information the league gave to the FBI was a copy of its report on Arab groups in the United States. ''They (supporters of the group) think that we gave it to the FBI and started the investigation,'' he said. ''It just isn't true.'' --- endfile PART ONE