There's Something About Mary: Unmasking a Gun Lobby Mole

Page 3 of 3

Related Articles Environmental Espionage: Inside a Chemical Company's Louisiana Spy Op Exclusive: Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups Update: Green Spies, Black Ops TOOLS E-mail article Print article BACKTALK E-mail the editor

Shocked to learn that McFate was a spy, gun control advocates have pondered the obvious questions: How did she manage to fool everyone for so long? How much money did she earn for being a mole? To whom in the gun lobby did she report? The NRA? The firearms manufacturing industry? Did her covert effort extend beyond mere intelligence gathering? Did she manage to shape the decisions and actions of anti-gun groups to the gun lobby's liking? And was she the only one?

While Sapone was a spy with a big secret, as McFate she led a relatively high-profile life. In Sarasota, Florida, McFate heads the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She has served as a substitute teacher at a local military academy, and once joined a coalition of residents who fought to save a 112-acre forest from development. Several years ago, McFate cofounded an organization called Lead Our Leaders, which boasted the "audacious mission" of changing "the way politics is done in America" by creating "a mechanism for the American electorate to effectively communicate their policy instructions to our elected leaders." A 2005 profile of her in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune began, "Mary McFate wants to save the world." (She told the paper, "I'm an optimist by nature.") During a short-lived attempt at blogging, she wrote a small number of postings using the handle "SolutionGal" and touted her Lead Our Leaders effort. (She stopped blogging in February 2006, and the website of Lead Our Leaders is no longer active.)

Sapone's earliest known private intelligence operation occurred in the mid-1980s, when she served as an operative for Perceptions International, a Connecticut-based security firm. Working for Perceptions, which has since been shuttered, she infiltrated the animal rights community for US Surgical Corporation, a target of activists who objected to its testing on dogs. According to a 1989 article in New England Business, Sapone appeared on the animal rights scene in 1986 and quickly became "involved in at least a half dozen animal rights groups." She "made a point of getting to know all of the key people in the movement," and "traveled around the country to most protests, meetings and conferences." At meetings, activists would later say, Sapone advocated taking illegal or violent action to advance the movement. She befriended a 33-year-old activist named Fran Trutt, who in November 1988 would be arrested for planting a remote-controlled pipe bomb near the parking space of US Surgical chairman Leon Hirsch. According to Trutt, on her way to carry out the bombing she lost her nerve and placed a call to Sapone, who convinced her to follow through with the plan—a fact that prompted activists to accuse Sapone of acting as an agent provocateur. (Another Perceptions International operative, Marcus Mead, drove Trutt to US Surgical on the day of the attempted bombing.)

In the 1990s—while working within the gun control community as McFate—Sapone formed her own intelligence-gathering business. And she enlisted family members for its operations. "In our business, it's my daughter-in-law, Montgomery Sapone [who] does all the analytic reports, forecasting, and white papers," Sapone wrote to a client in an August 1999 email obtained by Mother Jones. "She produces a very professional product." Sapone continued, "We are warning our clients that activist groups are moving towards ballot initiatives…And it's easy for groups like Greenpeace to emotionally shape a looming crisis in a 10 second TV spot 2 days before a referenda election. My daughter Shelley specializes in that aspect of our business. We are doing a lot of work now to help clients in the 2000 election."

A resume that Montgomery Sapone used around 1999 describes her role within Mary Lou's business: "Collect and analyze intelligence on European activities of major international environmental organization for a company specializing in domestic and international opposition research, special investigations, issues management and threat assessment. Write weekly intelligence update on European animal rights and eco-terrorist activity. Assist in confidential litigation support research." Sapone's son Sean, a Brown- and Harvard-educated paratrooper who served with the 82nd Airborne Division, was managing director of this firm, which at one point was called Strategic Solutions Group LLC and maintained an office in Washington, DC. According to a Strategic Solutions Group invoice sent to BBI in November 2000, Montgomery Sapone—a Harvard law school grad and Yale-trained anthropologist—once billed the security firm $400 for four hours of her time, which included a "visit to target's office."

Sapone made her gun control work a family affair as well. Around 2003, Montgomery volunteered at the Brady Campaign, according to Becca Knox, the group's research director. Occasionally, Montgomery would also sit in for her mother-in-law at Washington strategy meetings attended by officials of the gun control movement, according to the Violence Policy Center's Kristen Rand. And Sean Sapone once offered to help Rand's group on a campaign against the civilian use of .50 caliber rifles, Rand recalls. But after attending one meeting, Sean Sapone never followed through.

These days, Sean and Montgomery Sapone are better known as Sean and Montgomery McFate, a successful Washington couple whose current bios make no mention of any past intelligence-gathering or opposition-research work. Sean is currently the program director of the national security initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank boasting an advisory board composed of four former Senate majority leaders: Howard Baker, Bob Dole, George Mitchell, and Tom Daschle. An expert on military affairs, he previously worked for Amnesty International and for military contractor DynCorp. According to an online biography, he helped to organize "the first major legal arms shipment to Liberia in 15 years." Montgomery has made a name for herself as one of the primary architects of the US military's human terrain program, which teams social scientists with military units in Iraq and Afghanistan to help soldiers better understand the local culture. (The controversial program has been sharply criticized by the American Anthropological Association, which fears it may cross an ethical line, and has been described by detractors as "mercenary anthropology.") Now a top Pentagon adviser, Montgomery also contributed to the Army's Counterinsurgency Field Manual drafted under the guidance of General David Petraeus.

Montgomery McFate did not respond to an email request for comment. Nor did Mary Lou Sapone's daughter, Shelley McGonnigal. During a brief phone call, Sean McFate told Mother Jones, "I'm familiar with what you are doing. But I don't want to talk to the media." Asked to explain his mother's double life as Mary McFate and Mary Lou Sapone, he said, "You have to talk to Mary Lou." Then he hung up.

Previous Page

James Ridgeway, Daniel Schulman, and David Corn are reporters in Mother Jones' Washington, DC, bureau.

Photo from Mary McFate's blog.

Comments: