One addressed possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), in which her personal contact with Farid Handal, brother of Salvadoran Communist leader Shafik, was called into question.
Her parents were active leftists, participating in protests against military recruitment at high schools and hosting YES Club (Youth for Education and Social Action) gatherings in their home.
Davis, who later ran as CPUSA vice-presidential candidate twice, had been arrested (and was later acquitted) on charges related to the murder of Marin County Superior Court Judge Harold Haley.
[10] She was responsible for the council's international solidarity activities and in that capacity she organized US tours for Reverend Ernesto Cardenal the Nicaraguan revolutionary poet, liberation theologian, and now Nobel laureate; Quilapayun, a Chilean band in exile; and a group of South African students.
[11] In 1982, she was a key organizer of the then-largest march in history, which brought together close to 1 million people including a lead delegation of 25,000 children, in New York City to protest against the nuclear buildup between the US and the Soviet Union.
The conference passed a resolution to carry out various solidarity acts including educating Congress, holding demonstrations, calling for a boycott of Nicaraguan goods, etc.
[15] In 1980 Pollack co-founded the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), a leftist group in opposition to the Reagan administration's Central America policy, and served on its national council the rest of her life.
A story about the diary made its way into a John Birch Society publication Review of the News and a Republican House of Representative staffer passed a copy on to the FBI.
[16] The diary was said to outline Farid's visit to the US and his meetings with Pollack, in her dual capacity as USPC and CPUSA representative, and with the WOLA, NCC, Amnesty International, Congressmembers, and others with the expressed and sole purpose of creating a solidarity network in the US for the Salvadoran rebels.
[18] This was only a few months after Handal's trip in May 1980, during which he not only met with Pollack, according to her biography published by the US Peace Council, but she served as his interpreter and arranged meetings with affinity groups and Congress members for him in DC.
[19] However, members of the Los Angeles chapter, in response to allegations that CISPES was formed at the behest of Handal, claimed that they had been informally working together for a year before the founding conference in October.
[20] In the end, the FBI could not authenticate the diary and found no other verifiable evidence to prove direct control of CISPES by a foreign entity or to warrant further investigation.
In early 1982, Pollack and then USPC National Director Heidi Tarver travelled to Mexico City to set up the World Front in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.
[25] By March 1983, the FBI had received what it considered to be sufficient information to open a full investigation into whether CISPES was providing financial and other types of aid in support of the terrorist activities of the FMLN and FDR.
Over the years her relationships with Cuban diplomats serving in the US became so close that several of them wrote formal letters of condolence, eulogies, and poems to her memory many of which are included in her biography.
"[30] Cuba's newswire Prensa Latina quoted a letter to the families of the victims from Pollack's parents and US Peace Council Director Michael Myerson: "Our beloved Sandy dedicated her whole life and all her energies in defense of the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions.
It was attended by diplomats of Communist countries, representatives of leftist guerrilla insurgencies, exiled leaders from Chile and Grenada, and fellow traveller foot soldiers.