Breaking Away? : Taylor Announcement Fuels Rumors of Turmoil Within AIDS Group AmFAR

Amid the swirl and hype surrounding Elizabeth Taylor’s eighth wedding, a brief press release about Sunday’s event unveiled a bitter controversy that is rocking the AIDS community.

The announcement by Taylor’s publicist, Chen Sam, said proceeds from the sales of the wedding pictures--expected to net millions of dollars--would be “directed to Elizabeth Taylor’s AIDS charity.”

On the surface, it seemed plausible enough. After all, the legendary screen star has been a tireless fund-raiser and spokeswoman for AIDS research. But to Hollywood and New York insiders, the release was significant for what it didn’t say--and it has triggered intense speculation about a rift between Taylor and the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), the nation’s most prominent private AIDS organization.

In recent years Taylor has raised and directed millions of dollars to AmFAR, helping tap contributors from Barbra Streisand to the late Malcolm Forbes. Since its founding in 1985, the organization has distributed more than $40 million to AIDS research, including a pioneering program to test potential AIDS drugs nationwide.

Now, there is a growing belief that Taylor’s refusal to specifically name AmFAR as the beneficiary of her wedding-picture proceeds reflects a threat on her part to split from the group, as well as the possibility that she may shift her support to a new foundation. Wedding bells may be ringing in California, but a nasty divorce could be brewing in New York, where the organization has its headquarters.

Indeed, even before the wedding took place, New York Post columnist Cindy Adams reported that Taylor was planning to set up her own AIDS foundation. Asked if that portends a break with AmFAR, Dr. Joel D. Weisman, the group’s Los Angeles-based chairman, says, “It sounds like it, doesn’t it?”

Weisman adds that Taylor has been periodically critical of AmFAR, noting that “occasionally, over the years, she’s threatened. . . . She wants the money to go here, she wants the money to go there--but nothing where I thought she was going to go off and set up her own foundation.”

The actress has refused comment on the issue, and most of AmFAR’s critics also have declined to speak publicly. But the dispute appears to focus on the tactics and philosophy of Executive Director Robert H. Brown.

Brown’s supporters defend his efforts to streamline the organization. They say he is helping AmFAR evolve from an activist-dominated group to a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar enterprise.

Under his leadership, they say, the group retains its overall mission and fund-raising goals.

“In the year I’ve been here as director, there has been a lower financial cost of administration and increased fund-raising, more money in support of activities than the previous year,” says Brown, who came from the March of Dimes. “I think that needs to be pointed out.”

Enemies, however, suggest that Brown has made homophobic and sexist comments and wants to downplay AmFAR’s traditionally strong links to the gay community. They view him as a man with little or no understanding of AIDS and a bottom-line mentality that alienates volunteers.

Taylor, the group’s founding national chairwoman, is known to be very concerned about Brown’s stewardship, especially as it affects some of her pet projects at AmFAR, such as increased funding for international AIDS programs, according to a source familiar with the organization.

Her unhappiness is significant because AmFAR has thrived on its links to VIPs. The group’s board of directors includes record and film moguls David Geffen and Michael Fuchs, the wives of Lew Wasserman and Michael D. Eisner, Abigail Van Buren, Pat Kluge, Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager.

The celebrities also spill over into the medical world. Dr. Mathilde Krim, AmFAR’s founding co-chair, was one of the first biomedical researchers to call attention to the deadly virus and is a respected name in AIDS circles, as is Weisman.

Beyond the marquee names, however, the controversy highlights a fierce battle behind the scenes over the group’s future. In recent months several key staff members who clashed with Brown either quit or were fired. Many of them suggest that AmFAR, once a beacon for activists, has become overly corporate and is in danger of losing its soul.

“At AmFAR, the people who cared about AIDS and understood the issue have either died or left,” says one source familiar with the infighting. “You have to wonder if the group is now just a shadow of its former self.”

Others contend the problem is poor leadership. In a July 10 letter to the group’s ranking executives, Jonathan Canno, a founding board member and a critic of Brown’s, said, “We have a real problem on our hands in the morale of the staff and of the members of the board,” adding that “we are in for further deterioration if a rapid resolution is not found.”

The conflict erupted a year ago, when Brown was named executive director. Previously, he had served for 19 years at the March of Dimes. Several officials at AmFAR believed their organization, which had been run by a five-member directorate, needed to become more efficient.

Almost immediately, key staff members began complaining about Brown’s style, calling him autocratic and distant. Soon he was accused of being homophobic, sexist and insensitive to people with AIDS. Critics also said Brown was trying to discourage links with grass-roots activists that could alienate potential mainstream donors.

In an April 16 memo to Brown, for example, the late Terry Beirn, an assistant director, charged that Brown had made “humorous” comments that several staff members viewed as chauvinistic or anti-Semitic. He chided Brown for not recognizing that such jokes were inappropriate, because the head of AmFAR had to be “held to a higher standard.”

Beirn, who subsequently died of AIDS, said there was a perception that AmFAR, in a drive to become more mainstream, “has become less ‘gung-ho’ in its response to certain aspects of the epidemic.” He referred to a “general uneasiness that AmFAR is losing its way and becoming less relevant to the overall efforts to contain and eventually cure HIV.”

In a June 27 letter, Trish Halleron, AmFAR’s director of education, submitted her resignation and launched a blistering attack on Brown.

“In addition to his poor leadership skills, Mr. Brown has been characterized both internally and externally as homophobic, sexist, crass, disrespectful and incompetent. . . . I have been personally and professionally offended by comments made in reference to my reproductive health,” Halleron said.

Richard Torrence, former director of development, submitted his resignation Sept. 6, warning AmFAR’s top-ranking officers that, “in the words of one AmFAR staff person, ‘the foundation is in deep crisis.’ And since news of the turmoil within AmFAR is unfortunately becoming known throughout the AIDS community, it can also be predicted that few new people will be eager to join the organization.”

Several other staff members also have left, and a prominent New York gay activist who asked not to be identified fears that “the old AmFAR may be a thing of the past. . . . You get the feeling that they’re changing rapidly and are much less open to the community than they were before.”

In his defense, Brown blames much of the fuss on disenchanted former employees who resent the changes he has instituted. Drawing on his experience as an executive with nonprofit organizations, he says it is natural for activist staff members of a group to feel uncomfortable or left out when the organization evolves into a businesslike enterprise.

“We did some restructuring, and any time you start to restructure, people who are there become uncomfortable,” Brown says. “And there were other factors. I wasn’t from the AIDS community, although I came from a nonprofit background. And people were quick to point out the differences.”

Critics, Brown says, “focused on the fact that I was a straight, white, middle-class guy from the suburbs, and I think that was most hard to swallow.” As for homophobic or sexist comments, Brown categorically denies trying to insult anyone, but concedes that “if you work 14 hours a day closely with people, if somebody is looking to hear something wrong, maybe there’s something that could be misconstrued that way.”

Other AmFAR officials say staff members have raised troubling questions about Brown, 49, but insist that he retains their full confidence.

The organization has experienced “major growing pains,” says Dr. Mervyn Silverman, AmFAR’s president. “There are people on the staff, many of whom have AIDS or have an incredible sense of urgency, and not inappropriately so. But that sense of urgency often comes into conflict with process, and there needs to be a very fine balance of the two.”

Brown has done a commendable job, he says, without jeopardizing the group’s philosophical objectives. “We’re not a gay or a straight organization,” Silverman notes. “We’re an AIDS organization.”

AmFAR officials say they believe the group will weather its internal storms. But a question lingers about Taylor’s relationship to the organization.

Krim insists that Taylor has not broken with her longtime friends. She agrees, however, that her press release was most ambiguous.

“I assumed her AIDS charity was AmFAR. It always has been,” Krim says. In the past, she adds, Taylor “has flatly stated to us she was going to give us this million dollars” from the wedding proceeds. If she doesn’t, Krim says, “I would be very disappointed.”