The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Anti-Defamation League.md

---
created: 2026-06-13
updated: 2026-10-14
title: Anti-Defamation League
aliases:
  - ADL
  - Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith
  - ADL of B'nai B'rith
tags:
  - Organization
  - CivilSociety
  - Intelligence
  - Surveillance
  - Wiretap
  - DomesticIntelligence
  - ExtremismMonitoring
category: "Private Organization"
summary: "The Anti-Defamation League is a Jewish civil-rights organization founded in 1913 whose paid fact-finder Roy Bullock kept files on thousands of people and groups, drawn in part from police sources."
start: 1913
location: "New York City"
relations:
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[Abraham Foxman]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "national director"
    start: 1987
    end: 2015-07
    fn: 18
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[Jonathan Greenblatt]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "national director"
    start: 2015-07
    fn: 18
  - type: employed_by
    with: "[[Arnold Forster]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "head of fact-finding division"
    start: 1940
    fn: 8
  - type: employed_by
    with: "[[Irwin Suall]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "director of fact-finding"
    fn: 22
  - type: employed_by
    with: "[[Roy Bullock]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "paid fact-finder"
    start: 1960
    fn: 22
  - type: employed_by
    with: "[[Richard Hirschhaut]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "director, San Francisco office"
    fn: 35
  - type: employed_by
    with: "[[Saul Rosenthal]]"
    reverse: true
    role: "director, Denver office"
    fn: 41
  - type: investigated
    with: "[[San Francisco District Attorney's Office]]"
    reverse: true
    start: 1993
    fn: 35
  - type: investigated
    with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]"
    reverse: true
    start: 1993-04
    fn: 26
---
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a Jewish civil-rights organization founded in [[Chicago]] in 1913 by the Independent Order of [[B'nai B'rith]], "to eliminate, as far as possible, publication of literature prejudicial to the repute of the Jews."[^1] Its stated mission is "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all," and it is headquartered in [[New York City]] at 605 Third Avenue.[^2][^3] Its fact-finding division has supplied files and reports to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and police departments since at least the early 1940s.[^8][^12] According to the [[San Francisco]] district attorney's 1993 investigation, the ADL and its paid fact-finder, [[Roy Bullock]], had solicited and received non-public government information, some of it from San Francisco police officers, and a Colorado jury later awarded $10.5 million against the ADL and its Denver office director in a wiretap and defamation case that the [[Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals]] largely upheld.[^35][^41]

### Federal files and liaison, 1939 to 1962

In August 1939 a witness before the [[House Un-American Activities Committee|Special Committee on Un-American Activities]] chaired by [[Martin Dies]], Henry B. Allen, testified about his arrest in [[San Diego]] for distributing anti-Jewish leaflets. He told the committee that San Diego police had passed his seized literature to Nate Baranov, "head of the Anti-Defamation League of San Diego," and that it had gone "direct from the police department to the head of the Anti-Defamation League of San Francisco, first." Asked how long the material stayed with the league, he answered "I think it was there several days" and said he was relying on what his attorney had told him.[^4]

A February 3, 1950 FBI memorandum to Assistant Director [[Louis B. Nichols]] on [[Arnold Forster]] (born Arnold Fastenberg) records that Forster had applied twice to become an FBI special agent, in 1937 and 1939, and was rejected both times, and that he joined the ADL about 1940 as an undercover agent and rose to head its Legal Division and its Fact-finding Division. From about 1941, according to the memorandum, he supplied the FBI's New York office by visit and telephone with "a great deal of information" on cases involving the Foreign Agents Registration Act, sedition and internal security. An informant told the Bureau that at the November 1939 [[Fritz Kuhn]] trial Forster said he was an undercover man for the ADL while practicing law.[^5]

The same memorandum records a dispute over an affidavit. On October 7, 1942 ADL officials brought the FBI a carbon copy of a sworn statement by Aleksy Pelypenko, a former paid FBI informant, alleging that Father [[Charles Coughlin]] had been a paid German agent; Pelypenko had signed it in Forster's presence and Forster had paid him $300. The Bureau pressed Forster for the original and all copies from October 26, 1942 to February 24, 1943, and Assistant Director [[D. Milton Ladd]] concluded that the "ADL lied in its dealings with the Bureau." Copies of the affidavit reached [[Albert E. Kahn]] and the newsletter *In Fact* in early 1946. The memorandum also records a conference on November 25, 1942 at which Nichols told ADL representatives that the Bureau had heard the ADL "reported having made 370 investigations for the Bureau," a rumor the memorandum traces to a former FBI agent then with the [[American Jewish Committee]], and an informant report that Forster possessed a list of about 240 incidents in which inquiries had been made by "the Washington agency."[^6]

On May 13, 1948 CIA Director [[Roscoe Hillenkoetter]] thanked Forster for adding him to the mailing list for the ADL's confidential monthly report on anti-Semitism, "The Facts." Forster's letter, written at the suggestion of the ADL's Washington director, Paul Richman, asked that the contents receive no publicity without clearance from the league, and Hillenkoetter replied that Forster could be assured he would abide by those wishes.[^7] A 1957 report from the FBI's New York office records that Forster and a researcher in the ADL's Civil Rights Division furnished the office on February 14, 1957 with press releases and pamphlets from the Committee to Secure Justice for [[Morton Sobell]] and made the ADL Research Section files on the committee available to agents.[^9] A 1962 FBI memorandum records an FBI official telling Forster that a claim reaching him, that the Director had endorsed Dr. Fred Schwarz's anti-communist crusade, was "absolutely false."[^10]

The FBI's headquarters file on [[Irwin Suall]], later the ADL's director of fact-finding, begins with a State Department special inquiry that [[J. Edgar Hoover]] ordered on February 8, 1951 when Suall was working at the [[Voice of America]]. The file records his January 1945 arrest in Chicago, a $25 fine for disorderly conduct, as national organizer of the Young People's Socialist League during a protest against peacetime conscription.[^11] The [[University of Kansas]] Spencer Research Library holds, in the Laird M. Wilcox Papers, FBI files on the ADL dated 1942, 1944, 1954 and 1970 and a folder on ADL collaboration with the FBI dated 1974, 1979, 1985 and 1987 to 1989.[^12][^13]

### Leadership, finances and lobbying

[[Abraham Foxman]] joined the ADL in 1965 and was named national director in 1987. In November 2014 the organization named [[Jonathan Greenblatt]], then a White House aide, to succeed him, with Foxman to step down in July 2015.[^18]

ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer lists the ADL under EIN 13-1818723 with a tax exemption issued in June 1948.[^3] The organization's filings report total revenue of $105,430,775, functional expenses of $100,194,254, total assets of $93,995,360 and $2,575,323 in compensation of current officers for the year ending December 2022, against revenue of $53,760,549 for 2011.[^19]

The Senate lobbying disclosure database lists the ADL (registrant 4072, Washington office at 1100 Connecticut Avenue NW) with quarterly reports beginning with the first quarter of 2022. The reported lobbying expenses are $340,000 for 2022 ($85,000 in each quarter), $723,000 for 2023, $1,400,000 for 2024 and $1,440,000 for 2025, with $720,000 for the first two quarters of 2026. The 2026 reports list activity on the Antisemitism Awareness Act, the Holocaust Education and Antisemitism Lessons Act, the Violent Antisemitism Threat Assessment Act, the Jewish American Security Act, the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, the Countering Hate Against Israel by Federal Contractors Act, and appropriations for the Departments of State and Homeland Security.[^20]

### The San Francisco investigation, 1992 to 1993

The [[San Francisco Police Department]] had disbanded its intelligence unit in 1990 under new guidelines. In 1993 Chief Tony Ribera acknowledged that files on non-criminal political activity had not been destroyed as the guidelines required, in the course of the scandal around intelligence officer Thomas Gerard.[^21] The [[San Francisco District Attorney's Office|San Francisco district attorney]] began an investigation in 1993 after the police department learned that one or more of its officers might have been improperly giving confidential government information to Bullock, who was employed by the ADL to investigate organizations opposing the policies of the governments of [[Israel]] and [[South Africa]].[^35] The [[Los Angeles Times]] reported on April 13, 1993 that the district attorney's office had released nearly 700 pages of investigative documents, including transcripts of FBI and police interviews with Bullock and with David Gurvitz, a former Los Angeles-based ADL operative, and that police and FBI investigators had searched the ADL's San Francisco and Los Angeles offices in early April 1993 under warrants supported by an affidavit from San Francisco Police Inspector Ron Roth.[^22][^26]

Bullock told investigators that he began working as an ADL and FBI volunteer in Indiana in 1954, that the ADL signed him as a paid investigator after he moved to Los Angeles in 1960, and that his salary, $550 a week by 1993, was paid through a Beverly Hills attorney so that the league would not be officially connected with him. His ADL code name was Cal. He told investigators he had compiled files on 9,876 individuals and more than 950 groups, among them the [[American Civil Liberties Union]], Earth Island Institute, the United Auto Workers, Jews for Jesus, *Mother Jones*, the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Asian Law Caucus and ACT UP, and that the files also covered members of Congress including [[Nancy Pelosi]], [[Ron Dellums]] and [[Pete McCloskey]]. Investigators identified confidential police information on at least 1,394 people, including as many as 4,500 members of the [[American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee]]. Bullock described an operation in which a paid informant helped tap the message system of the [[White Aryan Resistance]] and said he had passed a confidential FBI report on the [[Nation of Islam]] through a shredder at the ADL's San Francisco office. Gurvitz told investigators that the Los Angeles ADL office kept a record of any Arab-American with "anti-Israel leanings," and that he had once telephoned an Israeli consular official to warn of a pro-Palestinian activist about to board a flight to Haifa.[^22]

The ADL denied that its information gathering was a spy network and contended that the files were Bullock's personal files; prosecutors contended they were the ADL's.[^23] Bullock said he infiltrated about 30 groups, that the league might have asked him specifically about 2 percent of the 10,000 names in his computer, and that he had worked with officers in ten law-enforcement agencies. He said the only law-enforcement payment he received was $500 from FBI agents.[^23]

Al Miskin reported in the July 22, 1993 issue of [[Middle East Research and Information Project|MERIP]] that Bullock had worked for the ADL for more than three decades, that his database held files on some 12,000 individuals and 950 organizations, and that the material included information from Gerard. Miskin wrote that the targets included Dellums, the ACLU, New Jewish Agenda, MERIP and Arab-American, Palestine solidarity and anti-apartheid groups, and that Bullock's original assignment in the 1960s was to infiltrate white supremacist and far-right groups. Miskin also reported that Representative [[Don Edwards]] had announced he would investigate whether the FBI had used Bullock as a surrogate to collect information the Bureau was barred by law from collecting directly.[^26]

Mark Ames wrote in 2014 that the partnership between Bullock and Gerard began in the ADL's San Francisco office in 1986 when [[Richard Hirschhaut]], the regional executive director, introduced the two, and that a Hirschhaut memorandum to Suall praised Gerard for providing "a significant amount of information" on Arab organizations in the Bay Area. Ames also reported that the ADL's Washington office funded a 1991 trip by Gerard to Israel. Ames wrote that the ADL later said it had no relationship with Gerard.[^25]

### Thomas Gerard and the South African sales

[[Thomas Gerard]] was an inspector in the San Francisco police intelligence unit. The Los Angeles Times described him on April 13, 1993 as "a former CIA agent and San Francisco police officer," and reported that a briefcase left in his police locker held passports, driver's licenses and identification cards in ten names, identification cards for four American embassies in Central America, blank birth certificates and official stationery from various agencies, material on death squads, a black hood and photographs of blindfolded, chained men.[^22] The San Francisco Chronicle later described him as "a former CIA bomb expert."[^29]

Gerard fled to Palawan in the Philippines on October 25, 1992 after an interview with the FBI, and told the Los Angeles Times in a three-hour interview published April 27, 1993 that he had been an undercover CIA agent from 1982 through 1985 and had left because of what he witnessed supporting Central American death squads. He said he would disclose the agency's work if indicted. The CIA, following its practice, declined to confirm that he had been a staff employee.[^24] Gerard said that he and Bullock had routinely searched through trash collected outside the homes of people affiliated with the groups they watched. "We were the kings of garbage," he said. He said he had brought Bullock to the FBI about 1986, after a Bullock file helped police find a man who bombed synagogues, and had persuaded the Bureau to hire Bullock as a paid informant; court documents showed Bullock was a part-time FBI informant who received one $500 payment. Gerard denied Bullock's account that the two began selling information to the South African government in 1987 and split about $16,000.[^24] Bullock told investigators that Gerard had given him complete SFPD intelligence files on Nazi groups that were supposed to be destroyed, and that the pair sold information on anti-apartheid activism to South African agents, including a report on Dellums. Bullock told the FBI in 1992 that the ADL had put him in contact with a South African agent, then told authorities he had lied to protect Gerard, who made the initial contact.[^22][^23]

Gerard returned to the United States in early May 1993 and was arrested; he said on his return, according to Miskin, that he was a CIA agent and that the agency had a contract out on his life.[^26] In 1994 he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of illegally accessing police computer records and was sentenced to 45 days. The ACLU of Northern California reports the fine as $2,500, and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported a $25,000 fine and three years of probation.[^27][^30]

Robert I. Friedman wrote in *The Village Voice* that the files numbered roughly ten thousand individuals and more than nine hundred organizations, and that the material was passed to the governments of Israel and South Africa.[^28] Cockburn and Silverstein wrote that the matter was settled through civil agreements without criminal charges against the organization.[^31]

### Settlements, 1993 to 2002

In November 1993 the district attorney sued the ADL and Bullock under California Business and Professions Code section 17200. The ADL agreed to a permanent injunction barring it and Bullock from obtaining documents or information they knew could not legally be disclosed to them.[^35] The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on November 17, 1993 that the ADL admitted no wrongdoing and paid no fine, that the settlement barred criminal prosecution of the ADL and Bullock, that the ADL agreed to a San Francisco hate-crimes award fund of $25,000 over two years and a program training assistant district attorneys to speak in schools, and that Foxman said the district attorney "moved heaven and earth to find something he could charge us with." Foxman said the ADL continued to work with Bullock.[^32] Later accounts put the payments at up to $50,000 for the reward fund and up to $25,000 for the school program.[^33] In 1996 the ADL's San Francisco director said Bullock "still does various assignments for us but not on an undercover basis."[^34]

A civil action filed in April 1993 by 17 individuals under California Civil Code section 1798.53, which provides a damages action against the intentional disclosure of information known to have been obtained from government records, alleged that the defendants gathered and disclosed information about the plaintiffs because of their opposition to the apartheid policy of the South African government or to Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. Bullock, the ADL, Hirschhaut and Gerard were defendants, and [[Audrey Shabbas]] appeared in propria persona for the plaintiffs.[^35] In its November 16, 1998 decision the California Court of Appeal held that the ADL and Bullock, as journalists, were protected by the First Amendment as to all but one and possibly two of the plaintiffs, who were limited-purpose public figures, but not as to the remaining nonpublic plaintiff or plaintiffs. It held that the journalist's privilege would not protect discovery into whether nonpublic information was privately disclosed to a foreign government, because that use is not journalism, and it vacated the discovery order.[^35] The case ended in February 2002 when the ADL agreed to pay $178,000 to the three remaining plaintiffs. The plaintiffs' attorney was former Representative Pete McCloskey. A San Francisco Superior Court judge had dismissed two plaintiffs the preceding July but not a third, who claimed the ADL had obtained his Social Security number "for non-journalistic purposes."[^36][^37]

A federal class action filed in Los Angeles in 1993 by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the [[American Indian Movement]], the [[National Lawyers Guild]], the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Bay Area Anti-Apartheid Network and other groups alleged that the ADL had hired intelligence agents with police ties to run a private national intelligence operation. A tentative settlement in 1996 provided for $175,000 toward legal fees, a $25,000 community-relations fund and an injunction against obtaining information from California government employees the ADL knew or should have known were barred from disclosing it. The final settlement, reached in September 1999, added a purge of arrest records, Social Security numbers and similar data from ADL files on the plaintiffs, supervised by a referee, with the removed data held for six years and then destroyed.[^38][^39] In May 1999 the City of San Francisco separately settled the claim that its police had given the ADL confidential law-enforcement information, agreeing to revise the police department's investigation orders and to pay $47,500 in legal fees.[^29] The ACLU of Northern California records that San Francisco settled a National Lawyers Guild suit over the Gerard scandal in 1999 by making its intelligence guidelines enforceable through a court decree.[^27]

### Quigley v. Rosenthal

The Quigleys, William and Dorothy Quigley, were residents of [[Evergreen, Colorado]], a suburb in the foothills west of [[Denver]].[^40] In October 1994 a neighboring couple, after a dispute with the Quigleys, contacted the ADL's Denver office, which referred them to a Denver criminal-defense attorney who volunteered for and sat on the local board. The neighbors had been recording the Quigleys' cordless telephone conversations, which they overheard with a police scanner, and delivered copies to an assistant district attorney. The attorneys filed a federal complaint on the neighbors' behalf on December 6, 1994, quoting snippets of the recordings.[^40]

The ADL's Denver director, [[Saul Rosenthal]], held a press conference at the ADL office on December 7, 1994 and appeared the same day on the Greg Dobbs radio program.[^40] On January 6, 1995 Rosenthal sent a memo to the Denver office's associate director directing that the office "[m]ake hay while the sun shines," alert the [[Intermountain Jewish News]], and keep the ADL's New York and Los Angeles offices informed.[^40] On January 20, 1995 the district attorney's office dismissed all charges against the Quigleys except one against Mr. Quigley. The Quigleys later sued the district attorney, and that suit settled in the fall of 1995 with two published letters of apology.[^40]

The Quigleys' settlement with the neighbors and their attorneys on February 20, 1998 did not include their claims against the ADL or Rosenthal. The ADL reimbursed the attorneys for the full amount of their malpractice deductibles.[^40]

In April 2000 the case went to a jury in the [[United States District Court for the District of Colorado]].[^42] On April 28, 2000 the jury found for the Quigleys on five claims: defamation against Rosenthal and the ADL over the press conference, defamation over the radio appearance, false light invasion of privacy, invasion of privacy by intrusion against the ADL, and a violation of the [[Federal Wiretap Act]] against the ADL for its use of the intercepted calls. The itemized awards total $10.5 million, including $5,000,000 and $2,500,000 in federal punitive damages against the ADL. The district court reduced the compensatory awards by $175,000 to reflect the settlement with the attorneys and reduced Mrs. Quigley's state punitive award to $325,000.[^40][^43]

The Tenth Circuit decided the appeal on April 22, 2003. It reversed the intrusion and false-light judgments, with no effect on the damages, and affirmed the rest. The majority held that the evidence supported treating the attorneys as agents of the ADL. Circuit Judge Hartz concurred in part and dissented in part: he would have reversed the defamation verdict because the jury was not instructed that malice was required, and would have reversed the federal punitive award because the jury was told the ADL was presumed to know the Wiretap Act.[^40] The Supreme Court denied certiorari on March 1, 2004, and the parties advised the district court on March 11, 2004 that the judgment had been fully satisfied. The Quigleys then sought about $6.4 million in fees and costs; the district court denied the request as untimely, and on October 17, 2005 the Tenth Circuit affirmed.[^43]

### Intelligence-community and FBI relations, 1982 to 2025

[[William J. Casey]], Director of Central Intelligence, addressed an ADL appeal dinner honoring James A. Finkelstein at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York on June 3, 1982.[^14] A July 1984 State Department cable copied to the CIA's legislative liaison office reports that ADL officers were organizing a group of 20 to 25 Black and Jewish community representatives for a September 1984 visit to Morocco and Israel, following an ADL visit to Morocco in December 1983 and January 1984 with a congressional delegation.[^15] [[William H. Webster]], then Director of Central Intelligence, addressed the ADL's national leadership conference in Washington on March 22, 1988, recalling earlier addresses to B'nai B'rith in Chicago in 1985 as FBI Director and to the ADL's annual meeting in New York in the late 1970s. In May 1988 a CIA staff memorandum recorded an invitation from the ADL's Washington director, David Brody, to keynote an ADL dinner in Los Angeles on June 23, 1988 and attached a letter of regret.[^16][^17]

In May 2017 FBI Director [[James Comey]] told an ADL conference: "For more than 100 years, you have advocated and fought for fairness and equality, for inclusion and acceptance."[^44] In early October 2025 the Associated Press reported that FBI Director [[Kash Patel]] had said in a statement that the bureau would end its relationship with the ADL, and then said it would sever its relationship with the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]], after complaints about both groups from some conservatives and allies of President [[Donald Trump]]. Patel wrote on X that Comey had "embedded FBI agents with" the ADL, "a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans." Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement that the ADL "has deep respect" for the FBI. The ADL announced the same week that it was discontinuing its Glossary of Extremism.[^44]

### Police exchanges with Israel

More than 1,000 people, mostly senior law-enforcement officials, have gone on police trips to Israel run by the ADL, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported in March 2022 that the ADL had considered ending its trips and decided not to. A June 9, 2020 memo to Greenblatt from George Selim, the ADL's senior vice president of programs, and Greg Ehrie, vice president for law enforcement and analysis, recommended ending the trips and said "we must ask ourselves difficult questions, like whether we are contributing to the problem" of police brutality by militarized forces in the United States. The memo put the cost of each trip at $115,000 and the staff cost at upward of $200,000 a year. The ADL paused the trips in 2019 and described the memo as a draft that was part of an internal review.[^45]

### Extremism reporting

The ADL's Center on Extremism reviewed the manifestos left by the two teenagers who attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18, 2026, killing three people, and reported on May 19, 2026 that they reflected several ideologies, most prominently white supremacist accelerationism and inceldom, along with Islamophobia and antisemitism.[^46] The Center's analysis of an August 12, 2024 stabbing attack in [[Eskişehir]], Turkey, found that the attacker was fueled by accelerationism and motivated by past mass killers, including white supremacists.[^47]

### Footnotes
[^1]: "Events in 5674: United States," *The American Jewish Year Book*, vol. 16 (5675, 1914-15), p. 145 (entry "14. At Chicago, Ill., Anti-Defamation League founded by Independent Order B'nai B'rith, to eliminate, as far as possible, publication of literature prejudicial to the repute of the Jews," listed under November 1913). https://archive.org/details/americanjewishye0016unse
[^2]: Anti-Defamation League, "About ADL," archived 2022 ("Founded in 1913, its timeless mission is 'to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all'"). https://web.archive.org/web/2022/https://www.adl.org/about-adl
[^3]: ProPublica, "Anti-defamation League," Nonprofit Explorer, EIN 13-1818723 (address 605 Third Avenue, New York; tax exemption ruling June 1948). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131818723
[^4]: Testimony of Henry B. Allen, August 24, 1939, *Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States*, Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 76th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 6, pp. 4100-4102. https://archive.org/details/HCUAInvestigationOfUnAmericanPropagandaActivitiesInTheU.S.Vol.6
[^5]: FBI memorandum, Jones to Nichols, "Arnold Forster, aka Arnold Fastenberg," February 3, 1950, FBI headquarters file 100-367944, released under FOIA. https://archive.org/details/forster-arnold-hq-100-367944
[^6]: FBI memorandum, Jones to Nichols, February 3, 1950, sections III ("The Aleksy Pelypenko Matter") and IV ("Rumor That ADL Investigates for the FBI"), FBI file 100-367944. https://archive.org/details/forster-arnold-hq-100-367944
[^7]: R. H. Hillenkoetter to Arnold Forster, May 13, 1948, with file note quoting Forster's letter of May 11, 1948, CIA-RDP80R01731R001300130057-6, CIA Reading Room. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001300130057-6
[^8]: FBI memorandum, Jones to Nichols, February 3, 1950, section II ("Bureau Contact with Forster") and biographical section, FBI file 100-367944. https://archive.org/details/forster-arnold-hq-100-367944
[^9]: SAC, New York, to Director, FBI, "Mr. Arnold Forster, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Research (Crime Records)," February 19, 1957 (New York file 62-6755), in FBI file 100-367944. https://archive.org/details/forster-arnold-hq-100-367944
[^10]: FBI memorandum to Mr. Mohr (C. D. DeLoach), 1962, subject Arnold Forster, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, FBI file 100-367944. https://archive.org/details/forster-arnold-hq-100-367944
[^11]: J. Edgar Hoover to SAC, Washington Field, "Irwin J. Suall, Special Inquiry, State Department, Voice of America," February 8, 1951, and report synopsis, FBI headquarters file 123-8550, released under FOIA. https://archive.org/details/suall-irwin-j.-hq-123-8550
[^12]: University of Kansas Libraries, Laird M. Wilcox Papers (RH WL MS 1), Box 31, Folder 29, "Miscellaneous Federal Bureau of Investigation files on the Anti-Defamation League, 1942, 1944, 1954, 1970." https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/379026
[^13]: University of Kansas Libraries, Laird M. Wilcox Papers (RH WL MS 1), Box 31, Folder 12, "Anti-Defamation League collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1974, 1979, 1985, 1987-1989." https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/379009
[^14]: "Remarks of William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence, at Anti-Defamation League Appeal Dinner Honoring James A. Finkelstein, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, June 3, 1982," CIA Reading Room document 0001446213. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001446213
[^15]: State Department cable 195996, "Visit - ADL Mission," July 4, 1984, to the embassies in Rabat and Tel Aviv, CIA Office of Legislative Liaison incoming copy, CIA-RDP90B01370R000801050032-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90b01370r000801050032-3
[^16]: William H. Webster, "Remarks at Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith," Washington, March 22, 1988, CIA-RDP99-00777R000302110002-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00777r000302110002-6
[^17]: CIA memorandum and letter of regret, "Speaking Invitation, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, Los Angeles, California, 23 June 1988," May 1988, CIA-RDP90G01353R001900090004-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90g01353r001900090004-3
[^18]: "ADL names White House aide as Foxman's successor," *Jewish Ledger* (JNS), November 2014. https://www.jewishledger.com/2014/11/adl-names-white-house-aide-as-foxmans-successor/
[^19]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, filings series for EIN 13-1818723 (tax years 2011 and 2022: total revenue, functional expenses, total assets, compensation of current officers). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/131818723.json
[^20]: U.S. Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database, registrant Anti-Defamation League (ID 4072), quarterly reports for 2022 through the second quarter of 2026. https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?registrant_name=anti-defamation
[^21]: American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, "SFPD Intelligence-Gathering Practices and Reforms: An Abbreviated History," entries for 1990 and 1993. https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/asset_upload_file321_10599.pdf
[^22]: "New Details of Extensive ADL Spy Operation Emerge," *Los Angeles Times*, April 13, 1993. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-13-mn-22383-story.html
[^23]: "Infiltrated 30 Groups, ADL Figure Says," *Los Angeles Times*, April 21, 1993. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-21-mn-25487-story.html
[^24]: Bob Drogin, "Ex-Spy Threatens CIA Scandal," *Los Angeles Times*, April 27, 1993. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-27-mn-27930-story.html
[^25]: Mark Ames, "The Kings of Garbage, or, The ADL Spied on Me and All I Got Was This Lousy Index Card," *Pacific Standard*, March 10, 2014. https://psmag.com/news/kings-garbage-76228/
[^26]: Al Miskin, "ADL's Spy Ring," *Middle East Research and Information Project*, July 22, 1993. https://www.merip.org/adls-spy-ring/
[^27]: American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, "SFPD Intelligence-Gathering Practices and Reforms: An Abbreviated History," entries for 1994 and 1999. https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/asset_upload_file321_10599.pdf
[^28]: Robert I. Friedman, "The Enemy Within," *The Village Voice*, May 11, 1993.
[^29]: Seth Rosenfeld, "B'nai B'rith spy case deal near," *San Francisco Chronicle*, May 11, 1999. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/b-nai-b-rith-spy-case-deal-near-3084067.php
[^30]: "ADL payout finally lays 9-year-old lawsuit to rest," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 26, 2002 (Gerard "pleaded guilty to a lesser count of illegally accessing a computer," sentenced to three years probation, a $25,000 fine and a 45-day jail term to be served on a sheriff's work detail). https://www.jta.org/?p=408911
[^31]: Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein, *Washington Babylon* (London: Verso, 1996).
[^32]: "ADL Settles California Case over Collecting Information," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 17, 1993. https://jta.org/archive/adl-settles-california-case-over-collecting-information
[^33]: "ADL payout finally lays 9-year-old lawsuit to rest," *J. The Jewish News of Northern California*, February 22, 2002. https://jweekly.com/2002/02/22/adl-payout-finally-lays-9-year-old-lawsuit-to-rest/
[^34]: "ADL settles with plaintiffs of 1993 spying lawsuit," *J. The Jewish News of Northern California*, September 6, 1996. https://jweekly.com/1996/09/06/adl-settles-with-plaintiffs-of-1993-spying-lawsuit/
[^35]: *Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith v. Superior Court*, 67 Cal. App. 4th 1072, 79 Cal. Rptr. 2d 597 (Cal. Ct. App. 1998) (No. A080694), Kline, P.J. https://static.case.law/cal-app-4th/67/cases/1072-01.json
[^36]: Bob Egelko, "Jewish defense group settles S.F. spying suit," *San Francisco Chronicle*, February 23, 2002. https://www.monabaker.org/?p=4314
[^37]: "ADL payout finally lays 9-year-old lawsuit to rest" (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 26, 2002), citing the 1998 Court of Appeal decision and the 2001 Superior Court dismissals. https://www.jta.org/?p=408911
[^38]: "ADL to Pay $200,000 to Settle Suit Alleging Spying Activities," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, September 6, 1996. https://jta.org/archive/adl-to-pay-200000-to-settle-suit-alleging-spying-activities
[^39]: "ADL settles case with ethnic groups, ending six-year-old class-action lawsuit," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, September 28, 1999, https://www.jta.org/?p=405282; "ADL ready to settle 1993 class-action suit on spying," *J. The Jewish News of Northern California*, May 14, 1999, https://jweekly.com/1999/05/14/adl-ready-to-settle-1993-class-action-suit-on-spying/
[^40]: *Quigley v. Rosenthal*, 327 F.3d 1044 (10th Cir. 2003) (No. 01-1228), Briscoe, J., with Hartz, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part. https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2003/04/22/Quigley_vs._Rosenthal.pdf
[^41]: *Quigley v. Rosenthal*, 327 F.3d 1044 (10th Cir. 2003), affirming in part the judgment of the District of Colorado. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/163405/quigley-v-rosenthal/
[^42]: *Quigley v. Rosenthal*, 43 F. Supp. 2d 1163 (D. Colo. 1999) (Nos. 94-N-2782, 95-N-2916), caption and procedural history. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2423082/quigley-v-rosenthal/
[^43]: *Quigley v. Rosenthal*, 427 F.3d 1232 (10th Cir. 2005) (No. 04-1501), affirming denial of fees and nontaxable costs; certiorari denied, 540 U.S. 1229 (2004). https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2005/10/17/Quigley_vs._Rosenthal.pdf
[^44]: Associated Press, "FBI cuts ties with Southern Poverty Law Center, Anti-Defamation League following complaints," October 4, 2025. https://www.wbrc.com/2025/10/04/fbi-cuts-ties-with-southern-poverty-law-center-anti-defamation-league-following-complaints/
[^45]: Philissa Cramer, "The ADL considered scrapping its US police training trips to Israel but decided not to," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 18, 2022. https://www.jta.org/?p=1805687
[^46]: Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism, "San Diego Mosque Shooters' Apparent Manifestos Reveal Anti-Muslim Extremism, Antisemitism, and Broader Extremist Ideology," May 19, 2026. https://www.adl.org/resources/article/san-diego-mosque-shooters-apparent-manifestos-reveal-anti-muslim-extremism
[^47]: Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism, "Turkey Attacker Inspired by Accelerationism and Mass Killers, Manifesto Shows," August 16, 2024. https://www.adl.org/resources/article/turkey-attacker-inspired-accelerationism-and-mass-killers-manifesto-shows