SIFTING THE TRUTH FROM INFORMERS ON LAROUCHE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100640002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 5, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: October 25, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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WASHINGTON POST
25 October 1986
Sifting the Truth From Informers on LaRotiche
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
In the 1960s, Ryan Quade Emerson was an
undercover FBI informer, working as a doorman
at an organized crime gambling joint in Los An-
geles. He recalls jotting down the heavy players'
car license numbers in the restroom on toilet
paper.
Later he worked undercover for the IRS at a
Florida warehouse, stacking tomato crates so he
could snap pictures of the operators of a big-time
prostitution ring with headquarters in the offices
upstairs.
Emerson, 54, a husky man who smokes a
white meerschauni pipe, has been a virtual ca-
reer informer for the past 20 years. But he said
nothing quite prepared him for his latest foray-
18 months inside the Leesburg-based movement
of political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr.
Emerson secretly informed on LaRouche to
the FBI, giving information that helped lead to
the Oct. 6 federal indictment of 10 LaRouche
associates on credit card fraud and obstruction-
of-justice charges, as well as helping in the fed-
eral-state raids of LaRouche group headquarters
in Virginia that day, according to Emerson and
law enforcement sources.
But some law enforcement officials have said
they still do not fully trust Emerson and are not
sure where his loyalty rests. The Secret Service
has concluded that while some of his information
is useful, other information has been incorrect,
law enforcement sources said.
In pursuing its two-year case against the
LaRouche organization, the Justice Department
has assembled a lineup of witnesses with some
offbeat resumes.
Prosecutors investigating secretive organiza-
tions such as drug rings, underworld factions and
extremist groups often must rely on informers
with shady backgrounds who have been connect.
ed with the groups.
LaRouche group lawyers have said they will
attack the credibility of the government's case if
prosecutors rely on the individuals the govern-
ment has identified so far, including more than
15 LaRouche "defectors"-former members of
the group-who have given information to the
FBI. Group lawyers also said they will challenge
the reliabilky of internal group doc-
uments that authorities said but-
tress their case.
Emerson and three other inform.
era cited by the government
worked for LaRouche's security
squad, and each has freely admitted
giving the group false "inte'-
gence"-about topics a g from
supposed plots against LaRouche to
the Mideast situation.
Besides Emersotb other govern-
mast wntttasses against the
LaRue group nckide.
? Roy Frankhauser, a longtime
leader of the Ku Klux Klan and oth-
er racist groups. Frankhouser, 47,
of Reading, Pa., is a convicted deal-
er in stolen dynamite who worked
for LaRouche for seven years as an
"intelligence'' expert. He told the
FBI that he concocted wild stories
from made-up CIA contacts to im-
press LaRouche.
? Forrest Lee Fick, 34, another
former Klansman from Reading,
said he also made up stories for
LaRouche's followers about intel-
ligence contacts so he could keep
his $1,000-a-week security job with
them. Until last year, Fick pub-
lished a magazine filled with anti-
Semitic essays referring to the glo-
ries of mystical Teutonic rites, ac-
cording to Irwin Suall, head of the
fact-finding division of the Anti-Def-
amation League of B'nai B'rith.
^ Mordecai Levy, 26, leader of a
militant Jewish organization who
was expelled from the Jewish De-
fense League because its members
believed that he was uncontrollable.
Levy worked with LaRouche for
four years, but Levy says he did so
to gather information about
LaRouche's alleged anti-Semitism.
Levy's group, the Jewish Defense
Organization, recently circulated
leaflets declaring LaRouche one of
the "enemies of the Jewish people,"
and it has issued oblique warnings
against LaRouche. "I wouldn't cry if
he got hurt," Levy said in an inter-
view.
William Moffitt, the attorney for
Jeffrey Steinberg, a top LaRouche
assistant indicted on obstruction
charges, said the informers will cause
trouble for the prosecutors. "Anytime
the government's case revolves
around putting on these types of peo-
ple (like Frankhouserl, the govern-
ment's got problems, particularly
since they are admitting they lied to
my clients," Moffitt said. "It's a fas-
cinating set of circumstances."
Law enforcement officials in-
volved in the case said that despite
the informers' pests, officials be-
lieve that they are telling the gov-
ernment the truth. The officials
said that in many cases, prosecution
witnesses, such as Mafia members
who turn informer, are not pristine.
STAT
"The [Justice Department] law-
yers would love to be able to bring
in a priest, a rabbi and a Boy Scout
leader," said one official who has
worked on the case. "But that's not
who the LaRouche people chose to
deal with."
Authorities have said publicly
that Frankhouser, one of the 10 in-
dicted, and Fick and Levy will be
crucial in proving allegations that
LaRouche group members ob-
structed a federal grand jury in Bos-
ton that investigated the group and
returned the 117-count indictment..
The charges center on allegations
that the group used the credit card
numbers of LaRouche contributors
without authorization.
The indictment said that top
LaRouche aides discussed ways to
"quash" the probe and that they sent
group members to Europe to avoid
testifying. Four of the 10 defendants
are at large, and authorities said they
are believed to be in Europe. The
other six, including Frankhouser,
have pleaded not guilty.
Emerson, Frankhouser, Fick and
Levy worked for LaRouche's so-
called "security-intelligence" staff,
which guards LaRogghe, investigates
the group's critics and carries out the
group's most sensitive assignments.
LaRouche's security staff for years
has continually issued alerts that
LaRouche is about to be assassinated
by stalking killers-supposedly sent
by narcotics traffickers, the Libyans
or international bankers-and it has
dispensed elaborate details of alleged
plots against the group.
LaRouche's organization was
Marxist in the 1960s, but he shifted
it to the right in the 1970s. Now its
politics is difficult to categorize.
LaRouche holds extreme sway over
his 500 to 1,000 supporters, who
unquestioningly follow his orders,
according to former members and
government' officials. LaRouche
says that the group is not a cult.
Also, the LaRouche group has
assembled a worldwide network of
contacts in governments and mil-
itary agencies who have met reg-
ularly and exchanged information
with the group's members, officials
and former group associates said.
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The group curried favor with of=
ficials of the National Security
Council, the CIA and numerous oth-
er agencies, including scientists re-
searching the Strategic Defense
Initiative missile defense system.
Most of the group's contacts with
government officials ended in the
last 18 months because of news sto-
ries about LaRouche, according to
the group and former members.
U.S. government officials who
have dealt with the LaRouche follow-
ers said that they treated them
warily but that much of their "intel-
ligence" was top flight. Norman Bai-
ley, a former high economics official
with the NSC and now a consultant,
said two years ago that the LaRouche
group had "one of the best private
intelligence services in the world."
This subterranean work-trad-
ing gossip with government offi-
cials, pursuing wild conspiracy the-
ories-was the bailiwick of the
LaRouche security squad, according
to former members and experts on
the group. The four informers, in-
cluding Emerson, were described as
central players.
Law enforcement officials 'and
friends portray Emerson as a man
fascinated by the intrigue of law en-
forcement. Several years ago, he had
his name legally changed, he said,
while on an undercover assignment.
According to Emerson and some of
his friends, he was a Los Angeles
County sheriff's deputy in the 1960s
and infiltrated neo-Nazi groups there.
He later moved to Miami, where he
attracted attention as a staff member
of a legislative committee investiga-
ting organized crime and as a Dade
County constable. A Florida newspa-
per described his skulking around
alleys finding underworld witnesses
and nicknamed him Miami's "crime
spy.*
Later he became an informer and
undercover operative for numerous
federal and local law enforcement
agencies, newspapers and friends
said.
"He envisioned himself as one man
against crime," said James Savage,
investigative editdr at the Miami
Herald, who has known Emerson for
years. "He always felt he was doing
important things for the country
.. He's sort of a Don Quixote."
Savage and other journalists and
law enforcement officials who dealt
with Emerson said that while some
of his information was reliable, a lot
of it was wrong. They said he has a
penchant for exaggeration. Emer-
son said for years that he workeu
for the CIA in the 1970s in Nevada,
but former law enforcement offi-
cials discounted that.
Emerson, who until recently pub-
lished newsletters on intelligence
and terrorism, said he started work
as a consultant with the LaRouche
group around April 1985. That isl
when he moved from Reno, Nev., to
a small house outside Leesburg to
work with the group.
He said he originally joined the.
LaRouche organization because he
wanted to write a book exposing the
group. But he said he felt comfortable
taking its money-several hundred
dollars for a few days' work in peri-
odic assignments-because law en-
forcement friends had described the
organization as "a conservative
group" that does "really productive"
research.
Emerson said that when he was
first hired, one of his main tasks
was to gather information about the
federal investigation of the group.
Emerson said he limited himself to
calling reporters and wrote reports
to the LaRouche group that pur-
ported to be based on information
from inside sources. Like the three
other informers, he said he often
gave the group information from.
sources that he had made up. .
Emerson said that he did not con-
tact law enforcement authorities
about the group until last May, a
year after he had started work,
when he called the FBI and started
giving information.
Law enforcement agencies were
split on whether he was a LaRouche
plant, Emerson and officials said.
The FBI eventually decided he was
trustworthy, but the Loudoun
County sheriffs department still
mistrusts him, Emerson said. In
dealing with Emerson, law enforce-
ment agencies operated under the
guidelines "get more than you give"
and "confirm nothing," a law en-
forcement source said.
Spokesmen for the FBI's Alex-
andria office and the Loudoun Coun-
ty sheriffs office declined to com-
ment on Emerson.
Emerson said LaRouche associ-
ates felt comfortable with him be-
cause they believed that he was, in
their words, a "rogue intelligence
agent"
But Emerson said that he was nev-
er entirely at ease in the group.
While he said he was impressed with
the top security staff-he described
various members as "sensitive," "gen-
tle" and "warm,* and LaRouche as
"very dynamic" and "a prolific writer
and thinker"-Emerson also noted
some "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" be-
havior in the group.
The group first showed signs of
political unpredictability in the mid-
1970s, when it had its first dealings
with another informer in the crim-
inal case, Roy Frankhouser, accord-
ing to former LaRouche followers.
The group hired Frankhouser in.
the late 1970s as "a good man on
security," as LaRouche described
him two years ago. Frankhouser
was then a leader of the Pennsyl-
vania Ku Klux Klan.
In court papers filed in connec-
tion with a case then under inves-
tigation, federal officials acknowl-
edged that Frankhouser had been a
federal informer in gun and muni-
tions theft cases and that he had
gone to Toronto around 1972 to
infiltrate the Black September Arab
terrorist group in an operation ap-
proved by the Nixon White House.
Frankhouser told LaRouche fol-
lowers that he had top contacts in-
side many government agencies,
including a CIA deputy director,
from whom he could gather infor-
mation, according to officials and
former members.
But Frankhouser may have been
lying about his sources-he told the
FBI, with whom he started cooper.
ating two days after he was indicted,
that he made up the CIA sources to
keep his well-paying job with the
LaRouche group, authorities said.
In 1981, Frankhouser brought in
Fick, a longtime friend and also an
activist in extremist groups, to
work with LaRouche. Fick joined in
Frankhouser's cover story and pre-
tended he too had government
sources, authorities said.
Lawyers for the indicted
LaRouche members said they will
use Fick and Frankhouser's admis-
sions of lying against them in court.
An FBI agent testified at a hearing.
this month that the two had made up
stories to feed to the LaRouche
group. But the LaRouche organiza-
tion-as well as former members and
some experts on the LaRouche
group-maintain Frankhouser did
have some ties to the intelligence
community.
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Emerson said that LaRouche
group leaders told him while he was
associated with the organization that
if the government prosecuted
LaRouche associates, the group
would stop the case by threatening to
leak details of the group's dealings
with the CIA and other agencies.
In an Oct. 9 statement, the
LaRouche group said that if the
government persists in the case.
"This will soon not be our problem.
but the CIA's."
The ex-Klansmen'.s claims are
not the only matter in contention.
There is also the controversy about
Mordecai Levy.
Levy is a New York City accoun-
tant whose small militant group
leads classes for Jews in marksman-
ship and self-defense. Levy has
bragged about picking fistfights
with people whom he believes are
anti-Semitic, such as members of
leftist and Arab groups.
Levy said he joined the LaRouche
security team in 1980 as a consul-
tant. He said he infiltrated meetings
of LaRouche critics and followed the
group's supposed enemies in cars.
Journalists and members of groups
such as the Anti-Defamation League
support Levy's contention that he
was leaking information to them'
about the LaRouche organization
during his four years with the group.
But some people raise questions
about Levy's motivations.
"His role was enigmatic," said
Suall of the Anti-Defamation
League, who said he received infor-
mation about LaRouche from Levy..
Suall said that because he feared
that Levy might be taking informa-
tion back to LaRouche, "I was as
certain as I could be not to give him
information that would be useful to
the LaRouche people .... I
thought he was playing some sort of
complex game."
Levy said he did nothing to help
the LaRouche group and that al-
most all the information he gave it
was made up. "They considered me
a very high-level source" with in-
telligence contacts, Levy said, but
I gave them nonsense."
The LaRouche group said last year
that while Levy was working with it,
the group had "turned" Levy against
his anti-LaRouche "controllers."
In a 1984 court deposition;
LaRouche said that the intelligence
Levy provided was "all highly accu-
rate" and that when Levy gets in
trouble. LaRouche gives him "fa-
therly" advice to calm down and "go
hide out for a while."
As for Emerson, the veteran un-
dercover operative said he is not
afraid of the LaRouche followers, de-
spite their reputation for harassing
people who leave the group. "They're
scaredy cats," Emerson said.
Now working on free-lance ar-
ticles from his house in Purcellville,
west of Leesburg, Emerson said his
affiliation with LaRouche? has hurt
him financially. His latest newslet-
ter recently folded, he said, because
many people thought he was a
LaRouche supporter. That, he said,
is why he wants people to know that
he was a government informer.
Emerson said he is philosophical
about the way people respond to
him. Undercover agents often are
thought to be part of the group they
are infiltrating, he said. "It goes
with the territory."
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