Irwin Suall (1924 – 17 August 1998) was an American socialist, union organizer, civil rights activist, investigator, and researcher. He served as national director of fact-finding for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from 1967 to 1997, directing the organization's undercover intelligence gathering on extremist groups.
Early Life and Education
Suall was born in 1924 on East Broadway in a former hospital on the Lower East Side of New York City to immigrant parents. His father, Abraham, was a Russian émigré, and his mother, Flora (née Rosen), was from Poland. He grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and graduated from Samuel Tilden High School. After briefly attending Brooklyn College, Suall joined the Merchant Marines in 1945 for three years. While serving, he visited Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe living in Shanghai, an experience that left a lasting impression on him. Following his time in the Merchant Marines, he studied at Ruskin College, Oxford on a Fulbright scholarship, graduating with a BA in political science in 1950. At Oxford, he met fellow student Sarah "Sally" Mountain, whom he married in 1949.
Career
Suall joined the Young People's Socialist League as a teenager. After returning from England, he worked as head of public relations for the Jewish Labor Committee, education director for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and national secretary for the Socialist Party–Social Democratic Federation. In 1957, he replaced Herman Singer as Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America, a role he held until 1962.
He was a close friend and colleague of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who invited Suall to join the organizing committee for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Suall joined the ADL as director of fact-finding in 1967. The Six-Day War that same year had a profound effect on him; after visiting Israel, he reportedly became "a changed man" according to ADL head Abraham Foxman. At the Socialist Party's final convention in December 1972, Suall and James Glazer presented a majority report urging the group's name be changed to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA), which was approved by a 73–34 vote.
During his three decades with the ADL, Suall monitored hate groups on both the far left and far right, employing a network of informants. Information he collected was shared with the FBI and local law enforcement, leading to the arrest and prosecution of numerous individuals, including the killers of Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw in Portland and Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama. He partnered with Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center to sue the Mobile chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and Tom Metzgar of the White Aryan Resistance. His investigative work into Lyndon LaRouche contributed to LaRouche's conviction for credit card and bank fraud.
Suall made numerous national television appearances, including on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Phil Donahue, and CBS News, and was frequently quoted in The New York Times. His work was not without controversy; he was criticized for expanding his focus to Black nationalist, Arab, and leftist groups in addition to far-right organizations. He was also sued by the LaRouche-led U.S. Labor Party, though the court granted ADL summary judgment and dismissed the lawsuit in April 1979.
Suall remained head of the ADL's fact-finding department until 1997, when emphysema forced his retirement. He died of emphysema in August 1998.
Personal Life
Suall married Sarah "Sally" Mountain in 1949. She worked as an assistant to the director of SANE, the world's first nuclear disarmament organization, and died in 1969. They had one son, Mark, a New York City musician. Suall's brother Bert and sister-in-law Joan were also active in the Socialist Party and SDUSA.
Selected Works
- This is Socialism! (1950)
- The American Ultras: The Extreme Right and the Military-Industrial Complex (1962)
- Anti-Semitism in the United States, 1972 (1972)
- Extremism Targets the Prisons (1986)
- Shaved for Battle: Skinheads Target America's Youth (1987, with David Lowe and Michael Lieberman)
- The Skinhead International: A Worldwide Survey of Neo-Nazi Skinheads (1994)
