FBI releases new files on Milk, Moscone, and White

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released a new batch of files detailing its various investigations into corruption accusations against former San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, gay former Supervisor Harvey Milk, and former Supervisor Dan White, who assassinated the two progressive politicians inside City Hall on November 27, 1978.

The nearly 1,800 pages of documents provide a glimpse into the activities of the federal investigators and the lengths they went to trying to find evidence to back up claims of political misdeeds at both City Hall and in Sacramento during the 1970s. Among the files are reports from agents in New Haven, Connecticut; Atlanta; and Houston who were involved in tracking down potential witnesses in the various investigations.

The documents include agents' handwritten notes, redacted transcripts with informants and potential witnesses, city contracts, and press clippings. There are also copies of lawsuits filed by the city of San Francisco in one alleged corruption scheme involving Port Commissioners and the concession agreements at Pier 39.

The Bay Area Reporter obtained the latest documents from local blogger and gay activist Michael Petrelis, who in early 2010 filed a federal Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI for any material the agency possessed on the three deceased San Francisco politicians. After the FBI released an initial batch of 60 pages to Petrelis last year, the agency contacted him again because more documents had been discovered.

"Part of the reason I filed the FOIA was because you never know what they are declassifying and I wanted every effort made to get every scrap of info the FBI may have about the assassinations," said Petrelis, who arrived in San Francisco in August 1977 and later moved back to New York in 1980.

As it turns out, there is very little about the murders in the files other than old newspaper articles and a report about the murders that the San Francisco office shared with its counterparts in San Diego, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and FBI headquarters back east.

The new files do reveal the name of the unidentified person mentioned in a story published by the website Raw Story in May 2010 that was based on the documents initially released to Petrelis. The article related how in 1983 FBI agents met with a man who claimed during a meeting with White in early 1978 the supervisor claimed he would "get rid of three bastards," referring to Milk, Moscone, and a third person whose name was redacted.

According to an agent's notes included in the new documents, the person's name was John Patrick Elia, listed as 68 years old and "dressed like a bum." The agent, whose name is redacted, also wrote that based on a phone call from Elia requesting a meeting that he "sounds drunk."

In another document the agent noted that Elia's mother had him committed to a mental institution in 1942 following his discharge from the Army. Ultimately, the FBI concluded Elia was not a credible witness.

The interview with Elia took place as then-United States Attorney William French Smith was under pressure to bring federal charges against White, who was about to be released from jail, for interfering with Milk and Moscone's political duties.

Corruption investigations

It has long been known that all three of the local lawmakers had caught the eye of the FBI. White became a focus of federal investigators probing accusations that he had received a sweetheart deal on a restaurant lease at Pier 39. The documents also reveal agents were looking into if the pier developer had bribed City Hall officials and politicians.

Two months prior to his death, the news media disclosed that Moscone was the subject of an investigation led by the FBI's Sacramento bureau into whether he accepted a $10,000 check from movie mogul Howard Hughes in return for favorable treatment of Hughes's airline during a planned renovation at San Francisco International Airport.

Moscone repeatedly denied the charges throughout October and November of 1978 as more details about the investigation were leaked to reporters. The mayor also lashed out at the FBI, which at the time, refused to publicly confirm Moscone was a target of the inquiry.

In fact, U.S. Attorney G. William Hunter on October 16, 1978 had authorized the FBI to look into a number of allegations the FBI had received about both Moscone and Milk. An FBI memo written on October 20 that year listed nine different leads agents were ordered to investigate.

The inquires included if Moscone had received $10,000 for helping a McDonald's restaurant on Geary Street at Van Ness obtain permits. Another allegation claimed that Milk, with Moscone's assistance, had formed his own Pride committee in order to use federal funds for his own purposes.

According to Randy Shilts's Milk biography The Mayor of Castro Street, Milk "didn't take the investigation seriously" as he believed it was "prompted by one of his gay adversaries who was jealously trying to get funding for his own community center."

Former B.A.R. political editor Wayne Friday, who was friends with Milk and worked on Moscone's campaign, recalled that during that time in the city rumors were rampant about the FBI paying gay informants for dirt on the two politicians.

"Milk never expressed any concerns to me about them," Friday said of the FBI's investigations. "I think he would have told me about it."

As for the FBI documents, Friday said, "I wouldn't put a lot on them."

Following Milk and Moscone's deaths, the FBI closed its investigations into the two lawmakers. It also ended its pursuit of the Pier 39 claims against White and others after city officials filed their own lawsuit in the matter.

There is one set of files that may shed some light on why the FBI had taken such a strong interest in Moscone. A memo dated December 26, 1963 reports on a workshop held earlier in the month in San Francisco called "Civil Rights Civil Liberties What Now?" One of the meeting sponsors was Moscone.

The speakers included Frank Wilkinson, listed as the executive director of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Commission. HUAC, as it was known, had led the hearings into the alleged communist infiltration of both government and Hollywood.

Included with an FBI report about the workshop was a listing from the "Guide to Subversive Organizations" that claimed Wilkinson ran an L.A.-based group called the Citizens Committee to Preserve American Freedoms aimed at abolishing HUAC and "discrediting" the FBI.

It is unclear if the FBI has more documents about Moscone, Milk and White to release. A spokeswoman for the agency's San Francisco bureau told the B.A.R. that the FBI's FOIA division handles archival materials.

"We wouldn't have visibility here on what else is here," said Public Affairs Specialist Julianne H. Sohn. "That is handled by headquarters."

A spokesman for the agency's class=highlightedsearchterm>FOIA Requestor Service Center did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Anyone interested in reviewing the latest FBI documents can do so by going to the San Francisco Public Library's San Francisco History Center on the sixth floor of the Main Library in the Civic Center. Inquiries should be addressed to librarian Tim Wilson.

Wilson said he has given the documents a cursory look and couldn't say if they would be of value to researchers or historians.

"I don't know enough about any of that to say how important they are or not," said Wilson.

The Bay Area Reporter has posted several of the files on its website at www.ebar.com/Moscone_Milk_files.pdf.