PALAWAN, Philippines — Thomas J. Gerard, the former San Francisco police officer who fled here after being accused of passing confidential files to the Anti-Defamation League, enjoyed a private prank as he traveled the world for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Among the many passports and other fake identity papers that he used as an undercover CIA agent from 1982 through 1985 were five documents identifying him as Thomas P. Clouseau--as in Inspector Clouseau, the bumbling French detective in the Pink Panther films.
"I'm still surprised Central Cover staff at the agency let that one slip by," Gerard said with a laugh. "A little joke on the agency."
But the 50-year-old former spy and San Francisco police inspector is no longer playing games. He says he will blow the whistle on what he calls illegal CIA support of Central American death squads if he is indicted and tried for his suspected role in a growing California-based scandal over a nationwide intelligence network run largely on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League.
Gerard detailed his charges against the CIA in a three-hour interview on this jungle-clad southern Philippine island, where he fled Oct. 25. He said much of the proof is contained in a black American Tourister briefcase seized by San Francisco police from his gym locker there.
According to a police inventory, the bag contained not only Gerard's collection of false identity papers in 10 names, but a CIA cable marked "Secret," apparent CIA interrogation manuals, photographs of chained and blindfolded men, and a black, executioner-style hood.
All are proof, Gerard said, that the CIA was directly involved in the training and support of torturers and death squads operating in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala during the mid-1980s. He said he quit the agency in late 1985 because he could not stomach what he witnessed there.
"This was not good guys versus bad guys," he said heatedly. "This was evil, evil s---. This was something the devil himself is involved in. And I wanted no part of it."
The CIA, following practice, has refused to confirm that Gerard was a staff employee. The agency has repeatedly denied direct support of the right-wing death squads, which tortured and murdered thousands of political opponents, clergy, union members and peasants in bloody counterinsurgency campaigns in the three Central American countries in the mid-1980s.
But Gerard said a Manila envelope inventoried by San Francisco police and labeled "Interrogation Training Farm Prison 1984" is from a CIA training camp outside Williamsburg, Va.
Four envelopes in the bag were labeled "D.S.," which Gerard said refers to death squads. One includes a paper labeled "Secret Biodata of the Nominees to be Trained in Human Resource Exploitation (Interrogation) Course" with 13 names listed. Another envelope contains a green-covered book with more than 100 pages "on the subject of interrogations" that Gerard said was from the CIA.
Another envelope contains what Gerard said is a secret cable from the CIA station chief in San Salvador responding to a query from CIA headquarters in Langley on alleged human rights abuses.
"It shows they knew what was going on," he said.
Several photos, Gerard said, show CIA agents attending interrogations, or posing with death squad members. He denied working with the death squads.
The briefcase also contained a black loose-leaf binder stuffed with business cards, names, addresses and three pages with more than 100 names and phone numbers. The section is titled "International Activities Division-Special Activities Group," according to the police inventory.
"That's the who's who" of the CIA, Gerard said. "Oooh, that's gonna make people nervous. Oooh."
The International Activities Division handles the CIA's paramilitary activities, such as support for guerrilla movements, according to "The U.S. Intelligence Community," a book by Jeffrey Richelson.
When he left the CIA in 1985, Gerard said, he stashed the hood, classified cable, photos and other material in the briefcase in case he ever needed protection from the CIA. "The term is graymail," he said grimly. "Do what you gotta do."
Asked why he was going public, Gerard complained that the FBI and the San Francisco police were trying him in the press by alleging that he gave confidential law enforcement and motor vehicle information to the Anti-Defamation League and sold information to South Africa for thousands of dollars.
Gerard denied any criminal wrongdoing. "I shouldn't say I did no wrong," he said. "I should say I showed poor judgment. . . . But as far as criminal acts, no way."
Police say the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization, secretly collected information on more than 12,000 individuals and 950 activist groups over the last several decades. The ADL acknowledges that it collects information on groups that are anti-Semitic, extremist or racist, but denies any improper activity.
