The reporting by Black--a blustery muckraker who has written extensively about the Holocaust and Zionism--was not limited to the events at Durban; it was also a deeper assault on Ford's grant-making. Black obtained a sixty-page audit of LAW by the accounting firm Ernst & Young that had been commissioned by some of LAW's thirty or so European and American donors--many of which, like Ford, had developed deep concerns about LAW's fiduciary practices. According to Black, the audit showed that LAW had mismanaged several million dollars. Today LAW no longer exists, and none of its former executives could be located.

Black's series had powerful reverberations. A few days after it concluded, the American Jewish Congress called on lawmakers in Washington to examine the tax-exempt status of foundations like Ford--on the grounds that Ford, through its Palestinian grantees, may have financed "terrorists and terror-related activities." Shortly thereafter Berresford received a letter from Representative Nadler and nineteen members of Congress demanding that Ford "investigate these allegations fully and expeditiously." On November 13, 2003, Senator Rick Santorum also requested a formal investigation of Ford, and Senator Charles Grassley, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, expressed his concerns about the allegations directed at the foundation.

Ford's critics included two of the most powerful members of the American Jewish establishment: Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League and Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Also critical were New Republic editor in chief (and Jewish Telegraphic Agency board member) Martin Peretz, who insisted that Ford "wanted to squeeze Israel, and they allied themselves with despicable people to do so"; the New York Sun, which printed the JTA series and subsequently asked for Berresford's resignation in an editorial; and David Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine. A month after Black's series, the JTA reported that Ford "seems to be in disarray over its next move."

On November 17, 2003, Ford issued its response to Nadler: a detailed and deferential letter in which Berresford announced that Ford had decided to stop funding LAW; that it had "engaged the international accounting firm KPMG to create a risk matrix" to establish which Ford grantees will be audited; and that the foundation would soon turn its attention and resources to the "alarming rise of anti-Semitism around the world."

Perhaps most significant, Berresford announced that Ford's standard grant-agreement letter would be overhauled. Seven weeks later, Ford unveiled the new language in a brief memo to its 5,000 grantees: "By countersigning this grant letter, you agree that your organization will not promote or engage in violence, terrorism, bigotry or the destruction of any state, nor will it make sub-grants to any entity that engages in these activities." Moreover, the prohibition "applies to all of the organization's funds, not just those provided through a grant from Ford." [Emphasis added.] Georgetown's Pablo Eisenberg, a singular maverick in the tight-lipped foundation world, calls this a "most unusual" and "excessive" stipulation. Says Eisenberg, "Who is Ford to say what an organization can do with Soros money, for example?"

Berresford's announcement triggered indignation and dismay from some Ford staffers who felt she had capitulated to outside critics by instituting grant language that is vague and open-ended, on the one hand, yet unmistakably direct in its unstated reference to Israel, on the other. "Susan is very tough and principled," a former Ford staffer says, "so they must have really twisted her arm to get her to put in that new grant language." Other foundation executives share that dismay. Says one: "This is the kind of language that, had it been from the government, the ACLU would have to sue." (Ford is not the only private foundation whose grant language has been criticized. The Rockefeller Foundation's language, while less problematic, was also debated, as was the language of other foundations.)

In a ten-minute phone interview that Berresford granted to The Nation, she defended her decision to alter Ford's grant letter and denied it was done under duress. "We wanted to make very explicit and clear what our values were," Berresford said. "We don't want to support organizations that promote or engage in violence, terrorism, bigotry or the destruction of any state. Those are our values. I think that's what the public expects of us. I'm very proud to state those values clearly."

Nadler hailed the agreement with Ford as a "critical new chapter in the fight against anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of Israel's right to exist." But other critics in Congress remained dissatisfied with Ford's written response to Nadler: Santorum and Grassley expressed their desire to push ahead with hearings about the practices of American foundations, and the Wall Street Journal urged them to proceed with such an inquiry. Nadler's own allies were somewhat divided about what to do next: Some Jewish leaders wanted a full Congressional investigation, while Abraham Foxman of the ADL declared himself against hearings. Nadler, for his part, feared that an investigation could unfairly target liberal foundations. A JTA story from early 2004 bluntly outlined some of the potential hazards of applying excessive pressure on the Ford Foundation: "Certainly, there are things for the Jewish community to gain from good relations with a foundation as big as Ford." Foxman himself informed the JTA: "At the end of the day, I assume they will fund some project submitted to them by a mainstream Jewish organization."

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