[citation needed] A number of the Vanguard founders had previously written for the Los Angeles Free Press.
While writing for the Vanguard, Lindorff was given the Grand Prize of the Los Angeles Press Club for his reporting as well as an award for Best Article in a Weekly.
[citation needed] According to Lindorff, the Vanguard was infiltrated by an undercover member of L.A.'s Public Disorder Intelligence Division (PDID) squad, under Daryl Gates.
[citation needed] The lawsuit CAPA v. Gates, with the Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) as one of two dozen or so plaintiffs, later sued the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on First Amendment grounds, exposing unlawful harassment, surveillance, and infiltration of the progressive movement in Los Angeles by LAPD agents — and a link to a right-wing outfit called the Western Goals Foundation, which was assembling the collected spy dossiers and making them available to law enforcement nationwide and to the federal spy agencies that were feeling hamstrung by the post-Watergate reforms limiting such spying.
A police commission ordered the disbandment of the PDID, which took place in January 1983.