Complicated Problem 99 Taurus

For awhile now the Air Conditioning hasn't worked at all, but everything else did.

Then recently when I was waiting in the drive through to Burger King, I felt the car shake violently three times with around 5 seconds in between each trembling, and then it started making strange noises. A bit later some white smoke started coming out of the left side of the front of the car under the hood.

We put more oil and anti-freeze in it, and managed to drive it home without anymore smoking. Now it's drivable but there's a noise which sounds like "surging" or an engine running noisily (though I am not sure it is the engine). When the Defrost/heating is turned on however, it runs progressively worse, louder, and there's a bad smell. I have a feeling eventually it'd start to smoke again if we left it on while we drove. So while we CAN drive the car, it's nearly impossible to do so comfortably (and without the windows fogging up).

I'm wondering what could be causing this problem and what should be done to fix it? My father's suggested that it might be the "compressor" whatever that is. I know next to nothing about cars.

Thank you for your input.