How Smith induced Clair George to give him the affidavit that, like a loose thread, eventually unraveled all the plots against Pottker and the animal rights groups remains a mystery. In August 2000, when Roger Simmons, Pottker's lawyer, placed the affidavit in front of George during his deposition and asked him to reaffirm the truth of it, the following remarkable exchange took place.

"Well, I can't swear to that," said the aging spy master, now 70 and nearly blind from eye disease. "I accept the fact that I signed something I can't swear to (now)."

But you swore to it at the time, didn't you? Simmons asked.

"I sure did," George replied, "because the squeeze they put on me you'll never dream."

"Would you explain what you just said?" Simmons asked.

"No," George replied.

"Who is 'they'?" Simmons asked.

George, according to the transcript, gave "no oral response."

"Are you refusing to answer?" Simmons pressed.

"I'm refusing to answer," George said.

When George's 1998 affidavit surfaced it led to more suits against Feld. In June 2000, the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) filed suit in California. Eleven months later, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed their own suit in Norfolk, Va., where the organization is headquartered.

According to the PAWS suit, Feld's assault on PETA began in 1989, when his security man Richard Froemming allegedly dispatched a man and a woman (improbably named Martin and Lewis) to PAWS's headquarters in Galt, Calif., where they posed as former activists at PETA and joined the organization as volunteers. Over the next three years, according to the allegations, the two undercover agents stole "thousands of pages" of PAWS' internal documents, including donor lists, that they used to solicit funds for an antagonistic organization, "Putting People First." To hide its hand in the scheme, Feld Entertainment farmed out the job to Richlin Consultants, a private security firm.

In particular, Feld's spies targeted the group's leaders, executive director Patricia Derby (a veteran Hollywood animal trainer), and secretary Edward Allen Stewart, going so far as to photograph the interior of their homes and offices, the suit claimed. Douglas Martin also "attempted to solicit Stewart to commit an illegal act involving the theft of Ringling Bros. animals," the suit charged, while Julie Lewis ingratiated herself so successfully with PAWS's director Pat Derby that in May 2000 she accompanied her to Washington, where Derby was scheduled to testify before a congressional committee on pending legislation. At Derby's side, Lewis attended sensitive meetings and sent intelligence reports back to the circus, the suit charged.

Again, it was a blunder by Chuck Smith that exposed the operation. When Smith left Feld in 1997 (after his videotapes of his girlfriend fell into her hands), he hired a Northern Virginia firm, Aegis Security Associates, according to sources close to the case, to gather up incriminating documents on Feld. Those included the documents his spies had stolen from PAWS, including internal documents, surveillance reports from Martin and Lewis, unauthorized pictures of the office and homes of Derby and Stewart, and photocopies of such personal documents as Stewart's Social Security card and driver's license. But last May, according to the PAWS complaint, Aegis finally tired of waiting for Smith to pay them for this discreet service. Its proprietors, Carl Rowan Jr. and John Materras, called up PAWS to see how much the documents might be worth to them.

Pat Derby said she'd like to see some samples first, so Rowan and Matteras flew out to California. When Derby got a look at the purloined material, she not only didn't pay Rowan and Matteras, she promptly filed suit against Feld Entertainment, Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey, Richard Froemming and Froemming's own private security firm, Richlin Consultants, which had managed the spying operation for Feld. A suit by PETA soon followed.

Feld quickly settled the PAWS suit out of court with an undisclosed cash payment. Richlin Consultants went out of business (although Froemming is still employed by the circus). Feld also turned over a number of Asian elephants to PAWS, along with funds to take care of them. PETA's suit, however, is ongoing.

Why would Feld go to such lengths to destroy his antagonists? Besides his fury at Pottker for reporting on his father's bisexuality, an obvious answer is that he was desperate to protect his company's image. Today Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey is one of the world's most well-known, family-friendly brand names, undoubtedly worth billions of dollars. But if the name of Ringling Bros. ever became synonymous with cruelty to animals or children, it could go the way of Big Tobacco.

That was, of course, precisely what could result if PETA dug up enough dirt on Ringling Bros. PETA, for one, was a formidable adversary. It had circulated reports by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, describing horrible conditions at the circus's Center for Elephant Conservation in Polk City, Fla. On Feb. 9, 1999, USDA inspectors found two tightly chained baby elephants with lesions and scars on their legs, evidently caused by constant friction with their restraints. The manner in which they were chained limited the offspring to "some side to side swaying," according to the USDA report.

But that wasn't all. Asked about it, the elephant handlers told the inspectors that baby elephants were "routinely" chained to forcibly separate them "from their mothers," which they called "an industry standard." The handlers tried to block the inspectors from taking pictures and angrily asked them why they were making such "a big deal" about it.

PETA infiltrates testing labs and harasses fur advocates, but spokeswoman Lisa Lange said there was a big difference between them and their adversaries.

"First of all, we don't steal documents in our investigations," she told the Associated Press when PETA filed its suit to little notice last May. "More importantly, we investigate situations where we have reason to believe, either through whistle blowers or industry practices, that illegal and abusive treatment of animals exists."

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