textfiles-politics/politicalTextFiles/adlchek.txt

            History of Information Sharing With Israel

  Bullock's  attorney   turned  over  to  investigators   an  FBI
intelligence report on  the Nation  of Islam whose  disappearance
had caused alarm  at the bureau. The search of ADL offices in San
Francisco and Los Angeles turned up more FBI materials, including
a three-volume report on a Middle East terrorist group. Moreover,
Bullock's  written  reports  to  the  ADL,  which  he  said  were
channeled  across  the  country, contained  legally  confidential
material  that  he attributed  to  "official friends,"  the ADL's
euphemism for law enforcement officers.
  While denying that the ADL spies on individuals, Foxman testily
argued in  an interview that  the organization has a  right to do
whatever it must within the law to combat antisemitism. "What are
they [the FBI volumes] doing in our files?" Foxman said. "Because
they belong in  our files.  ... because somebody  shared it  with
us."
  Since  news  of  the  investigation  broke,  a  group  of  Arab
Americans  listed  in the  ADL's  files  has charged  in  a civil
lawsuit that the ADL invaded the Arab Americans' privacy with its
"massive spying operation" and forwarded confidential information
to the governments of Israel and South Africa.
  Evidence  of  the ADL's  information  sharing with  the Israeli
government is largely  historical. In  1961, former ADL  national
director Benjamin R.  Epstein wrote  to a  B'nai B'rith  official
that the  ADL  was  following  Arab diplomats  and  activists  in
America  and  sharing  its information  with  the  governments of
Israel and the United States.
  In his 1988 autobiography, ADL  general counsel Arnold Forster,
who oversaw  the  fact-finding operation,  described  how  "fact-
finding and counteraction became the  heart of the organization."
He  also wrote  that he  was  often a  "source"  for the  Mossad,
Israel's CIA, in tracking down suspected war criminals.
  "ADL  does  not  act  as  an  agent of  Israel,"  said  Foxman,
bristling at  the charge. He  called such  questions about  ADL's
conduct "antisemitism. ...  I'm sorry if it offends  some people.
This is  far reaching. We see  a conspiracy. I  see a conspiracy.
It's out there ... it's proved itself every day."
  Underlying the San Francisco case is a gradual evolution in the
ADL's mission. Soon after the organization was founded, the  1915
lynching of Leo  Frank, a leader  of the Atlanta  chapter of  the
Jewish fraternal organization  B'nai B'rith, caused the  group to
focus much of  its energy  on protecting the  physical safety  of
Jews by publicly exposing bigotry and forcing officials to act.
  Organized intelligence  gathering was  a natural  outgrowth. In
the 1930s, the  ADL "undertook a massive research operation which
uncovered  the interlocking  directorates of  hate groups,  their
links to Hitler's Germany and other centers  of Nazi propaganda,"
according  to an ADL account. In the  civil rights era, it worked
in concert with the FBI to combat the Ku Klux Klan.
  In 1975, the ADL  issued a report entitled "Target  U.S.A.: The
Arab Propaganda  Offensive" that  described how  mainstream Arab-
American groups were  allied with  non-Arab "apologists" such  as
"some church people, clergy and lay, a number of university-based
intellectuals  and  scholars,  plus   elements  in  the   liberal
community ... some groups formerly active in the antiwar movement
during  the U.S. involvement  in Vietnam, plus  the extreme Left,
Old  and  New,  segments of  the  political  Far  Right, and  the
traditional  anti-Jewish hate fringe . . .  and a small number of
anti-Israel, anti-Zionist Jews."
  Once this broad rationale took hold,  the civil rights watchdog
increasingly    devoted    its    investigative   apparatus    to
"counteracting" what it calls "anti-Israel" sentiment or "the new
antisemitism" in the United States.
  In  practice, this  means the  ADL keeps  track of  politically
active Americans or  groups that  repeatedly criticize Israel  or
lobby for Palestinian rights.  The ADL argues that any  threat to
Israel's  "image"  in  America endangers  the  $3  billion annual
package of U.S. military  and economic aid to Israel  and thereby
jeopardizes the long-term fate of all Jews.
  "I  understand  that   it's  difficult  for  other   people  to
understand," said Foxman,  but a "viable, safe, secure  haven" in
Israel  is  "part  and parcel  of  the  safety  and security  and
survival of the Jewish people."
  Bullock's work  as described in the  lengthy transcripts of his
interviews   with   police   and   in   FBI  summaries   of   his
statements  tracks the  shift in the ADL's emphasis. In the 1960s
and  1970s,   he  focused   primarily  on   tradtional  organized
antisemitic  extremist  organizations.  But   during  the  1980s,
Bullock  said  he  increasingly  focused  on groups  critical  of
Israeli policies, such as anti-apartheid  groups, but not overtly
antisemitic.

  Bullock's computer database  grew to  include more than  10,000
names  of  individuals  and  hundreds  of political,  social  and
business groups, including some that had worked closely with  the
ADL.  But his  primary  concentration was  on  groups he  labeled
"Right," "Arabs," "Pinkos," and  "Skins." He acknowledged sharing
his  information  with  law  enforcement,  a  fact  investigators
confirmed when they searched Gerard's police department files and
found duplicates of Bullock's files. Bullock told police that ADL
officials knew about his database.
  Bullock said he  got "checks regular once-a-week"  from the ADL
that  were  paid  through  Los  Angeles attorney  Bruce  Hochman.
Hochman  said in an  interview that he paid  Bullock at the ADL's
request to protect the undercover role.
  Bullock told police that he met Gerard at a meeting at  the San
Francisco  ADL  office  and   that  executive  director   Richard
Hirschhaut was aware that Gerard was a key source.
  The ADL dispatched  Bullock on  special assignments to  Chicago
and Germany. For  a particularly sensitive  operation he said  he
got  the  approval of  Irwin  Suall,  national director  of  fact
finding.  Both  officials   have  come  under  scrutiny   in  the
investigation. Suall and Hirschhaut declined comment.
  Bullock  told police  he  was the  ADL's  "resident expert"  on
antisemitism  in  San  Francisco and  maintained  the  ADL office
files. He said  he was the  only "fact finder, spy,  whatever you
want to call me, on the West Coast."
  Bullock monitored several  of the groups profiled in  the ADL's
published  reports,  occasional  exposes  that  are  a  blend  of
advocacy journalism and intelligence briefings. In  1987, Bullock
volunteered to  work on  a march  of the  Mobilization for  Jobs,
Peace and Justice,  a coalition of  liberal groups that  included
the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee  (ADC), according
to director Carl Finamore.
  "He [Bullock] just showed up at our  office one day to help. He
comes  in, he's  friendly, insinuates  himself,  asserts himself,
tells  a  little bit  about his  personal  background to  get you
interested in him  as a human being, makes suggestions," Finamore
said.

              Some `Material Is Clearly Contraband'

  The ADL wanted information on the  ADC, a group that challenges
defamatory   Arab   stereotypes,   because   it  considered   the
organization a "highly  active pro-PLO propaganda group."  An ADL
report  said  the  ADC's  members  favor "political  support  for
suspected PLO terrorists residing in the U.S."
  Bullock also  volunteered at the  ADC's San Francisco  Bay Area
chapter,  where  he carried  banners,  helped with  crowd control
during demonstrations  and took  photographs, according to  Osama
Doumani, who at the  time served as the ADC's  regional director.
"He would come to  my office and he would  hug me in a  comradely
fashion and  volunteer for  work. He  wanted to  have a  presence
whenever we had something important," he said.
  The ADL  has labored  to draw a  distinction between  Bullock's
more controversial activities  and work he  was authorized to  do
for ADL, leaving investigators largely unconvinced.
  In a  court affidavit,  San Francisco  Police Inspector  Ronald
Roth said that based  on a comparison of Bullock's  database with
the seized  ADL records, "It is believed that Bullock's databases
are in fact the ADL databases."
  Assistant District Attorney  Thomas Dwyer argued in  court that
"some of that [ADL] material is  clearly contraband." The ADL, he
said, does not "have the right to rap sheet photographs; they  do
not have the right to people's fingerprint cards."
  But  Foxman  and  other  ADL officials  say  its  fact  finders
basically employ the methods of investigative journalists, taking
notes at public  meetings, culling published material  for facts,
and  cultivating  law enforcement  sources,  in order  to publish
important exposes about bigotry and prejudice.
  "It's a First Amendment  right," Foxman said. "We have  a right
to  gather  information and  to disseminate  it.  ... We  look at
pieces. We look at individuals. We look at ideologies."

                              [end]



   The Washington Post
   October 19, 1993
   page A13

             EVOLUTION OF THE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE                      

        FULL NAME:  Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.

        MISSION:    "The  immediate  object of  the  league  is  to stop,  by
          appeals to reason  and conscience,  and if necessary,  by
          appeals to law,  the defamation of the  Jewish people and
          to  secure  justice and  fair  treatment to  all citizens
          alike." (ADL founding charter, 1913)

        ORGANIZATION: National director Abraham H. Foxman oversees 200
          staff members who  work in New  York, Washington, and  30
          regional  offices  in  major  cities.  About  15,000  ADL
          supporters donate time, money and advice.

        BUDGET:     $31 million in 1992, chiefly  raised through donations to
          the  ADL,  which  is  a  tax exempt  501(c)(3)  nonprofit
          foundation established for educational purposes.

        BRIEF HISTORY:

     1913    A group of Jewish attorneys in Chicago forms the ADL,
          using   a  grant  from  B'nai  B'rith,  an  international
          fraternal organization.

     1915    Lynching of Atlanta B'nai B'rith leader Leo Frank
          galvanizes the ADL to work toward protecting the physical
          safety of Jews.

    1930s    The ADL leads the U.S. fight against pro-Fascist groups
          and "America First" isolationists, establishing a pattern
          in which ADL research was shared with federal agencies.

    1940s    The ADL emphasizes involvement in civil rights
          litigation,  contesting  harsh  immigration policies  and
          opposing restrictive covenants  that prevented Jews  from
          moving into desirable neighborhoods.

    1950s    The ADL supplies federal agencies with information on
          alleged  subversives, but also  challenges Sen. Joseph R.
          McCarthy  (R-Wis.)  and  works  quietly  to  clear  those
          wrongly   accused   of   being    communists   or   their
          sympathizers.

    1960s    The ADL works closely with law enforcement authorities
          on various types of civil rights  litigation. It  forms
          department of Middle  Eastern affairs  after the Six  Day
          War in 1967 underscores Israel's vulnerability.

    1970s    The ADL increasingly focuses on the threat to Israel of
          pro-Arab or anti-Israel advocates  in the United  States,
          especially their efforts to persuade the United States to
          end its military assistance to Israel.

    1980s    The ADL emerges as a vigorous member of the pro-Israel
          lobby,  even  as it  continues  to investigate  left- and
          right-wing extremist groups. It develops a model for hate
          crimes legislation, which recently was upheld by the U.S.
          Supreme Court.

Recent ADL reports:  In addition  to its annual audits of antisemitic
incidents, the ADL has published reports  that discussed the views of
such diverse figures  as Patrick J.  Buchanan, David Duke, Lyndon  H.
LaRouche,  Jr.,  and  Louis  Farrakhan.  It  has  issued  studies  on
antisemitic sentiment among black nationalist and left-wing radicals;
the continuing activities  of Ku  Klux Klan leaders,  the pursuit  of
Nazi  war criminals, the phenomenon of  Skinheads and several reports
on what  it  calls the  "anti-Israel  Lobby" or  pro-Arab  propaganda
groups in the United States.


      Compiled by Barbara J. Saffir from news services and ADL.

                              [end]

The Washington Post
October 19, 1993
page A12

       Case of the Critical Librarians

 Research on Bibliographer Used to Counter Vote on Israeli Censorship

by Jim McGee

  Reference librarian David L. Williams says he learned firsthand how
the  ADL's  fact-finding  operation uses  information  to  counteract
critics of Israel.
  Williams, who works  at the Chicago  Public Library, was listed  in
ADL  fact  finder  Roy H.  Bullock's  files  as  an "Arab"  activist.
Involved in liberal  causes since the  Vietnam War, Williams in  1977
joined the Palestine  Human Rights  Campaign (PHRC), a  Chicago-based
group  that published  a newsletter  about  what it  considered human
rights abuses by Israel. The ADL has  described the PHRC as an "anti-
Israeli propaganda group."
  The Chicago ADL  office built up a  file on Williams,  according to
Barry Morrison, who headed the city's ADL office at the time. Bullock
told  the  FBI that  he  was sent  to Chicago  on  special assignment
specifically to investigate  the PHRC. Williams's name  was listed in
the  database  that  Bullock  shared  with  a  San  Francisco  police
intelligence officer, Thomas Gerard.
  Williams's interest in  the rights of Palestinians  dovetailed with
his duties  at the Chicago Public  Library, where he was  assigned to
order  books on the  Middle East. In  1989, Williams  prepared an in-
house bibliography for the Chicago library system on the Palestinian-
Israeli conflict.
  The ADL thought  the bibliography was weighted in favor of the pro-
Palestinian  authors  and  went  to  Williams's  superiors  with  its
information on his political activities.
  Williams  also was  a  member of  the American  Library Association
(ALA), which for years has approved resolutions condemning censorship
in other countries. In 1992, Williams and other ALA members persuaded
the association to adopt a  resolution criticizing Israeli censorship
in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
  Morrison  met  privately  with  ALA  officials  to  argue  that   a
resolution singling  out Israel  was unfair  and laid  out the  ADL's
information on Williams.  ALA President Marilyn Miller  said she told
the ADL officials that "we don't censor our own members."
  "Obviously I felt  strongly that ALA should take a stand on this or
I wouldn't have  gone to them  with this,"  Williams said. "...  They
[the ADL] equate that with antisemitism."
  In February, the  ADL issued a news release  condemning the ALA for
its failure to retract what the ADL called a "false and  biased anti-
Israel  resolution."  The   release  noted   that  the  ADL   "fights
antisemitism and all forms of bigotry."
  "When we ultimately found that despite numerous efforts that we had
failed, then we chose to condemn and attack the ALA,"  Morrison said.
"Ultimately their officials are responsible for the image, reputation
and stature of their organization."
  "I think  they [the ALA] were made to feel that they were in danger
of being  condemned for  being antisemitic  for voicing  any kind  of
criticism  of Israel," said  Mark Rosenweig, a  Jewish librarian from
New York who supported the ALA's censorship resolution.
  The ADL  began working  at the  "grass-roots  level," according  to
Morrison, encouraging Jewish librarians in the library association to
push  for retraction of  the measure. An ALA  group called the Jewish
Librarians Committee took the lead; a fact sheet prepared by  the ADL
was  distributed to ALA members. In June, at its annual convention in
New Orleans, the ALA revoked the Israeli censorship resolution.
  "ADL did not  engage in any form of pressure  or intimidation ...,"
said Kenneth Jacobson,  the ADL's director of  international affairs.
"We recognize  and respect  the  First Amendment  rights of  Israel's
critics  in  this country  and  fully  exercise our  own  free speech
rights. There is nothing illegal,  improper, or clandestine about our
efforts and nothing merits our apology."

                    [end]


The Washington Times
October 19, 1993
page A13

 Loudoun Investigator's Mission: An Expenses-Paid Trip to Israel

by Robert O'Harrow, Jr.

  For much of his  career, Donald Moore was an  investigator with
the  Loudoun County  sheriff's  department.  He loved  undercover
surveillance, and  sometimes went  through trash  dumpsters in  a
furtive search for clues.
  For eight  days in May  1991, More became a  police emissary of
sorts on  an all-expenses paid  "mission" to Israel  sponsored by
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith. He and 11 other
American   officers,  including  some   from  the   District  and
Montgomery County, received a military  briefing and shared ideas
with national police leaders.
  Two years later, the trip and other ADL-sponsored missions came
under scrutiny by  the San Francisco District  Attorney's office,
which has been examining whether the  ADL granted favors to peace
officers  to   encourage  them   to  share  confidential   police
information with the organization.
  One  officer  who  went  along  on  Moore's  trip,  former  San
Francisco  inspector  Thomas Gerard,  has  pleaded not  guilty to
felony  charges  that  he  passed  along  police  information  to
longtime ADL operative Roy H. Bullock.
  Authorities say Moore  and the other  officers on the May  1991
trip are not targets of the investigation; at  least three of the
officers have been interviewed by  the FBI or police  authorities
in California.
  Bullock  has  said  the  ADL   had  "numerous  peace  officers"
supplying  confidential criminal  records and  other information,
court records show. Some  civil rights groups and  privacy rights
experts say they fear the ADL, and possibly other private groups,
quietly have supplemented  police intelligence-gathering by doing
investigative work off limits to police.
  "That is  a  real  question  that  we have,  not  only  in  San
Francisco,  but also in  other communities,"  said John  Crew, an
American Civil Liberties Union attorney.
  ADL officials  acknowledge they  have worked  closely with  law
enforcement on investigating  bias crimes,  police training,  and
drafting hate crimes  legislation. But they say  such cooperation
is  part of  the  organization's civic  duty  and deny  knowingly
accepting illegal information.  "There's nothing that we  do that
is sinister  and there's nothing  that we do that  is against the
law," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL's national director.
  Moore and  other officers say they often have turned to the ADL
for help, but not to the point of sharing restricted information.
Moore  was  fired  last  year  in  an  unrelated  incident  after
sheriff's officials said he was found going through private phone
messages. He was  acquitted last year  of charges that he  helped
plan an  abduction of Lewis du Pont Smith, an heir to the du Pont
fortune  and a longtime follower of political extremist Lyndon H.
LaRouche Jr.
  It was  his investigation of  LaRouche that brought  Moore into
close  contact  with  the  ADL.  In  1986,  he  was  assigned  to
investigate  LaRouche   followers  after  the   group  moved  its
headquarters to Leesburg in Loudoun County.
  Working  as  a  local  point   man  in  an  investigation  that
eventually involved federal  agents in several cities,  Moore set
up a computer  database in  Leesburg listing LaRouche  associates
and cultivated local residents to help track their movements.
  Moore  began  working with  ADL  fact finder  Mira  Boland, who
joined  the  ADL  in  1982  and  was assigned  to  cultivate  law
enforcement sources. Boland is now widely known among police as a
source of reliable tips, sometimes from "snitches" who infiltrate
hate groups. Boland declined repeated requests to be interviewed,
saying ADL leaders denied her permission.
  Beginning in 1986,  court records show,  Boland said she  began
sharing  information  on LaRouche  with  Moore and  other Loudoun
sheriff's  deputies. The  two  regularly exchanged  details about
LaRouche,  including  clips  from his  groups'  publications  and
county gun permit records.
  When  LaRouche was convicted  of conspiracy  and mail  fraud in
1988 in Alexandria,  the ADL  celebrated with prosecutors,  Moore
and  others  involved in  the  case. Boland  has a  photo  of the
celebration in her office.

  Transcripts of a recent federal wiretap of Moore's telephone on
an unrelated case describe his relationship with the ADL. "I need
to  find a guy  the  ADL had a  little old woman  knocking on his
apartment in New York two hours after I had asked," Moore said on
the recording, court papers show. "I told the feds exactly where,
when and how to get him. And he was got."
  Moore  said  in an  interview that  he  has never  passed along
restricted records to the ADL. "Did  I share any information with
them? Nothing that wasn't public information," he said.
  Despite  questions raised by investigators about ADL's tactics,
Washington  area  police  agencies  praise  the group.  They  say
Boland's fact-finding office in the District and the publications
it produces are helpful in researching extremist groups.
  In Maryland, the  District and  Virginia, for instance,  police
are not allowed to  create files on individuals or  groups solely
because of their political or  racial views. The ADL has no  such
restraints, police  say. ADL officials  say fact finders  such as
Boland work in the same ways as journalists.
  "In one way,  it's like another  law enforcement agency,"  said
Lt. Tim  Boyle, of the  Maryland-National Capital Park  Police in
Montgomery, who went  on the 1991 ADL  trip to Israel. "They  can
tell you  who the leaders  are, when they  started, that  type of
thing. They have no restrictions on them."
  Boyle turned  to the  ADL  in 1989  when  a teenager  of  Asian
descent was  taunted as  a  "gook" and  attacked with  steel-toed
boots by a gang of Skinheads.
  When one of  the gang leaders  disappeared, the ADL offered  to
use its sources to help find him, Boyle said. Eventually, using a
young undercover operative, the ADL infiltrated the Skinheads and
found the suspect, who was arrested in Pittsburgh.
  Much  of  the ADL's  work  with  law  enforcement  goes  beyond
investigations. In New Jersey, the  ADL helped the state attorney
general's  office  produce  a   hate-crime  training  video,  now
circulated to some  700 police agencies  across the country.  The
ADL also helps police draft legislation to curb hate crimes.
  The ADL views its special police  missions to Israel as another
intensive training  activity, giving  officers a  chance to  meet
with  top  Israeli  police, intelligence  officers  and political
leaders.
  "They  have   been  our  unofficial  consultant,"   said  James
Mulvihill, a  New Jersey  assistant attorney  general who  speaks
with ADL officials on  an almost weekly basis. "I regard  them as
the premier prejudice fighting organization.

                              [end]