Articles in English

 

Pollard by M. Daskal

The spy who Loved me A  LoBaido

Fear Loathing or Sincerity by Si Frumkin

The Near Escape by Denise Noe

Parallels between Pollard and Dreyfus by Bruce Bill

My Beloved Yehonatan - Esther Pollard

Whos Afraid of Pollard - Hannah Newman

Pollard- The Great Conspiracy by Hezi Carmel

Terror in the US - Larry Dub

The Wye Double Cross

The Truth About Jonathan Pollard by John Loftus 

The True Motives- Angelo Codevilla

The Pollard Affair – Rabbi E. Sprecher

Peres is keeping Jonathan in prison - B. Chamish

Why jew didnt help Pollard - Brownfeld

FREE Jonathan by Jona

Pollard memorandum

 

Jews vs. Spooks by D Plotz

 

Letters By Esther Pollard

 

Letters and articles - Zeevi

 

AMERICAN INJUSTICE J-Post 1996

 

Jonathan Pollard by Lynn Handelman

 

Why Pollard Is Still In Prison- Edwin Black

 

Miscarriage_of_Justice-M_Shaw

 

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www.hermon.com/pollard 

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ôåìàøã îùéá îäëìà (òéúåï ìîùôçä)

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ôåìàøã áøàé äòéúåðåú

äøá àáéðø òì ôé îàîøå ùì ìåôèåñ  

 Jonathan and wife Esther

Background

By Haim Hermon

As a Navy analyst, Pollard illegally provided Israel with classified documents concerning activities of Arab countries, specifically the chemical, bacteriological and nuclear program in Iraq. This information had not been transmitted to Israel despite a Convention of Reciprocity signed between the United States and Israel. In spite of leniency pledges by the Justice Department in exchange for his cooperation with the FBI, he received life imprisonment, an extremely harsh punishment for spying on behalf of a friendly nation. In sentencing him, the judge allegedly was influenced by a confidential and still not revealed letter from former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.


The
background of that letter is the investigation on the Iranian scandal (shipping illegal arms to Iran-sponsored terrorists as part of a deal to free American hostages), and the collapse of the American spying network inside the USSR. Pollard became a victim as the figures involved in the scandals (Bush, Weinberger, Admiral Inman and Ames) inflate the Pollard case to relief the pressure from themselves.

 

Review

This Page has been placed on the web for the supporting of Jonathan Pollard. My contribution to this effort is to provide the most relevant links and a concise information about Jonathan Pollard in order to join the international move to release Jonathan from his prison cell.

 
First, I would like to respond to one of the important issues rose: does the American Jewish are able to support Israel and still be loyal to America? I have no doubt about that. Historically, the Jewish people at the Diaspora had been accused many times for "divided loyalty". Assuming this is true that the Jewish people are obligated to Zionism, I believe that it shouldn't create any conflicts with the local interest of any democratic nation. The Pollard case, which is an extreme example, provides support for this argument. What Pollard was doing was in fact, in favor of the US interests. In general, those who supports Israel are by the same time supporting the interest of the USA because Israel is the greatest ally of the USA in the world, and vise versa: those who supports the Arabs are at the same time harming the interest of the United states, because the Arabs hate the Americans and they are long supporters of the radicalism and fundamentalism trends using violence, and terrorism. For instance: helping the Iraqi industry (as happened in the Bush era) is contributed by indirect way to the international terrorism and to the proliferation of concealed mass destruction weapons in the world. Same thing stands for the Palestinians, the definitely are going to join the most extremist enemies of the USA. Jonathan Pollard has evaluated this complicated situation and decided to act in favor of Israel. Now is our turn to show our support for him, He needs to be on our agenda continuously until he will be free. Although he supplied Israel with intelligence, he didn't harm USA interest as the provided information was mainly related to the threaten came from Iraq's mass destruction weaponry project. Israel, on the other hand, didn't provided that information to USSR as it has been leaked by the state department officials. It is unfortunate that in return he was treated as a traitor (by the U.S.) or as a cheap contractor (by Israel). Why he was treated like that? Some articles given here, are shining a light on this case. One of the new facts revealed recently was that the leading intelligence officer Aldrich Ames had used Pollard as a cover to conceal his own role as the worst CIA traitor ever.

Now, beyond the matter how much time he has to serve in the prison, and acknowledging the fact that Pollard was ready to sacrifice his career or even his life for the sake of Israel, Israel has to act more seriously for his sake. Nobody else can do so but the state of Israel! But he was betrayed many times by all parties. Instead of acknowledge his role in favor of the nonproliferation efforts towards Iraq, he was over-punished much beyond anybody else in the democratic world! Why it was happened to him? Because it was easy to frame a Jew serving the interest of Israel instead of the USA. This is very sensitive issue among the American Jews. However, nothing to shame on. This is the extreme situation when an excellent navy officer decided against his supervisors, of what is better to the free world. The Gulf war provided the final proves that he was right and Ames-Weinberger-Bush were wrong if not worse than that. It's too bad that the United States still doesn't fully acknowledge the fact that Israel and US sharing common interest on the matter of nonproliferation issues.

The second issue I want to raise here is related to the fact that Pollard has been sentenced for life in the prison, while in the free world things going on like nothing were happened. Why we can't expect, at least from the Israeli government, to apply the same efforts to free Jonathan Pollard, as they did in order to free Ron Arad?  

The arguments of Jonathan Pollard's friends.

 

  • The sentence against Jonathan Pollard is unprecedented in the United States and grossly disproportionate to the offense committed.
  • The satellite pictures and other information he gave Israel should normally have been transmitted to Israel in accordance with a Convention of Reciprocity signed in 1983 between Israel and the United States.
  • Jonathan Pollard was never accused of "treason"; he was indicted on one count only: providing classified information to an ally-Israel.
  • The information transmitted to Israel dealt only with countries hostile to Israel:

- Iraqi chemical manufacturing plants.

- terrorist projects against Israel.

- satellite pictures of hostile neighboring countries (Lebanon, Syria, Libya, etc.).

- technical information about Soviet armament sold to these same countries.

  • This information helped Israel to protect itself against the attacks of Iraqi Scuds during the Gulf War in 1991. According to Israeli sources, the information provided by Jonathan Pollard concerning Iraqi military capabilities, and in particular its unconventional weapons, had been "critical and of utmost importance for Israel ". This information not only helped Israel to protect its population against an eventual attack of Iraqi missiles, "it also allowed Israel to take the decision not to react at this stage - and thus to respond positively to the request of the United States."

Jonathan Pollard's only motivation was the moral duty he felt to help Israel to protect its population.

Jonathan Pollard has been accused of having received "important amounts of money" from the Israeli government on "accounts in Switzerland". It has to be recognized that if there has not been any monetary fine imposed on Jonathan Pollard, it is precisely because the Jury could establish that he did not get any material profit out of his action.

Caspar Weinberger

 

Caspar Weinberger was Defense Secretary of State at the time of Jonathan Pollard's trial. He was employed (like George Bush) by the company BECHTEL which is well-established in Saudi Arabia.
One of his Under-Secretaries, Lawrence J. Korb, writing to Morris Pollard (Jonathan's father), describes Caspar Weinberger: "I do know that Weinberger had an almost visceral dislike of Israel and the special place it occupies in our foreign policy. "Could this "visceral dislike" be related to the fact that Weinberger has Jewish origin and is converted to Christianism?

Caspar Weinberger was probably Jonathan Pollard's worst enemy. He bears a great part of responsibility in the harshness and disproportion of the sentence. (On March 4th 1987, one hour before the sentence hearing, Caspar Weinberger transmitted a 47-page memo to Judge Robinson asking the stiffest sentence possible "commensurate with Pollard's 'TREASONOUS' behavior" ignoring that Jonathan Pollard was NEVER accused of treason)

His calumnious statements against Jonathan Pollard were complete non sense.

- He describes Jonathan as "the worst spy in American history"
- He declares that "the Pollards have succumbed to the same virus of treason as the Rosenbergs"
- He declares (talking about Jonathan): "If I could, I'd hang him."
- In a letter written to Judge Aubrey Robinson Jr., just before the sentence hearing, he writes: "[it is] difficult to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by the defendant..."

However, in December 1993, Weinberger said he would not oppose Jonathan Pollard's liberation as he did not represent a danger for the national security any more.
Another link (H.H.)to the role that the state department took in this case by leaking disinformation to the major Washington DC papers, is quoted here: "Geoffrey Aronson, relying on State Department sources, reveals about the Pollard affair ("The Christian Science Monitor", January 27). He writes that according to 'unanimous response' from these sources, what Pollard has been always said to have betrayed, were 'this country's most important secrets', namely the 'information relating to U.S. targeting of Soviet nuclear and military installations and the capabilities and defenses of these sites'. This seems to accord with Israel's global aspirations basedon its nuclear power. Aronson also quotes his sources to the effect that much of intelligence passed on by Pollard 'was unusable to the Israelis except as bargaining chips and leverage against the United States and other countries' interests'. In view of this fact Aronson conjectures that Pollard's intelligence was used by Israel for deals with Moscow consisting of 'trading nuclear secrets for Soviet Jews'." (Israel Shahak)"

Comparison of Pollard's Sentence With Others

The following tables show how grossly disproportionate the life sentence meted out to Jonathan Pollard is when compared with the sentences given to others that committed similar offences by spying for allied nations.

Pollard's life sentence is also disproportionate even when compared to the sentences of those who committed far more serious offences by spying for enemy nations.

 

Table I: American Allies

  • Jonathan Pollard is the only person in the history of the United States to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally.
  • On November 21, 1997, Pollard entered the 13th year of his life sentence, with no end in sight.
  • The maximum sentence today for such an offence is 10 years.

The median sentence for this offence is 2 to 4 years.

 Name

Country Spied For

Sentence

Time Served
Before Release

Jonathan Pollard

Israel

Life

 

Michael Schwartz

Saudi Arabia

0 years

0 years

Peter Lee

China

1 year in halfway house

 

Samual Morrison

Great Britain

2 years

3 months

Steven Baba

South Africa

2 years

5 months

Sharon Scranage

Ghana

2 years

8 months

Jean Baynes

Phillipines

3.5 years

1.4 years

Abdul Kader Helmy

Egypt

3.8 years

2 years

Geneva Jones

Africa

5.2 years

 

Joseph Brown

Phillipines

5.9 years

 

Michael Allen

Phillipines

8 years

 

Robert Kim

South Korea

9 years

 

Thomas Dolce

South Africa

10 years

5.2 years

Steven Lalas

Greece

14 years

 

 


Table II: American Enemies

Jonathan Pollard spied for an American ally. This chart shows that Pollard's life sentence

is far harsher than most of the sentences received by those who spied for enemies, and thereby

committed much more serious offences and treason.

Name

Country Spied For

Sentence

Time Served
Before Release

James Wood

Soviet Union

2 years

 

Sahag Dedyan

Soviet Union

3 years

 

Randy Jeffries

Soviet Union

3-9 years

 

Brian Horton

Soviet Union

6 years

 

William Bell

Poland

8 years

 

Alfred Zoho

East Germany

8 years

 

Nikolay Ogarodnikova

Soviet Union

8 years

 

Francis X. Pizzo

Soviet Union

10 years

 

Daniel Richardson

Soviet Union

10 years

 

Ernst Forbich

East Germany

15 years

 

William Whalen

Soviet Union

15 years

 

Edwin Moore

Soviet Union

15 years

 

Troung Dinh Ung

North Vietnam

15 years

 

Ronald Humphrey

North Vietnam

15 years

 

Robert Lipka

Soviet Union

18 years

 

David Barnett

Soviet Union

18 years

 

Svetlana Ogarodnikova

Soviet Union

18 years

 

Albert Sombolay

Iraq & Jordan

19 years

 

Richard Miller

Soviet Union

20 years

6 years

Sarkis Paskallan

Soviet Union

22 years

 

Harold Nicholson

Soviet Union

23 years

 

Clayton Lonetree

Soviet Union

25 years

9 years

Michael Walker

Soviet Union

25 years

 

Bruce Ott

Soviet Union

25 years

 

Earl Pitts

Soviet Union

27 years

 

H.W. Boachanhaupi

Soviet Union

30 years

 

Roderick Ramsay

Hungary &
Czechoslovakia

36 years

 

James Hall

Soviet Union
& East Germany

40 years

 

Christopher Boyce

Soviet Union

40 years

 

William Kampiles

Soviet Union

40 years

19 years

Veldik Enger

Soviet Union

50 years

 

R.P. Charnyayev

Soviet Union

50 years

 

Marian Zacharski

Poland

Life

4 years

Aldrich Ames

Soviet Union

Life

 

Aldrich Ames: A Case In Point

Aldrich Ames who spied for an enemy nation (the Soviet Union), committed treason, and was responsible for the deaths of at least 11 American agents, received the same sentence as Jonathan Pollard. Pollard's only indictment was one count of passing classified information to an ally. Pollard spent 7 years in solitary confinement, in the harshest unit of the harshest prison in the Federal system - FCI Marion.

Aldrich Ames' treatment was far more benign, and (except for a relatively short period of time during debriefing) did not include the rigors of long years of solitary; nor was he ever subjected to the harsh conditions of "K" Unit at Marion - even though his offence was far more serious.

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST POLLARD

March 18, 1994 - Chezi Carmel - Maariv Weekend Supplement: pp. 8-9

In Washington, anxiety lingers over Aldrich Ames, the director of U.S. counterintelligence revealed as the highest-ranking Russian agent to operate in American intelligence.

Many details are still unknown, but some suspect Ames mounted a conspiracy against Jonathan Pollard to allay Panic in U.S. intelligence circles over the infiltration of a mole and to deflect all suspicion from himself.

It appears Ames spread the word about a Russian mole in Israeli intelligence and claimed Pollard was responsible for the arrest and execution of dozens of agents that Ames himself had exposed.

 

"A Russian mole has infiltrated the Mossad and is transmitting highly sensitive American intelligence information to the Russians," stated the UPI report of December 14, 1987, which landed like a bomb in the bureaus of 400 daily newspapers around the world.

The UPI writer, relying on "American intelligence sources," reported that the chiefs of United States counterintelligence had learned that "sensitive intelligence material relayed to Israel by Jonathan Pollard had reached the KGB."

This past week it became clear that the false report was part of a disinformation campaign - and perhaps of a conspiracy - conducted by Aldrich Ames, Director of U.S. counterintelligence, to blame Jonathan Pollard for the arrest and execution of dozens of American agents that Ames himself had unmasked before he was recently exposed as the highest-ranking Russian agent ever to have infiltrated American intelligence.

Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 primarily because Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger alleged that he caused extensive damage to America intelligence as a result of the exposure and execution of numerous agents working for the United States in Russia.

The true story is altogether different. Like all tales of espionage and intelligence, some parts are clear and open; most are obscure, buried deep inside the safes of a half a dozen intelligence bureaus.

The obscure part is the one we aim to reconstruct, like a mosaic, from pieces of information and the evaluation of possibilities.

CIA Director of Counterintelligence Aldrich Ames was recruited in 1984 by the Russians and handsomely paid. For 10 years Ames supplied staggering amounts of information. The precise extent of the damage he caused may never be known. For the moment, what we do know is that in the early years he gave the Russians a great deal of information about the activities of U.S. intelligence agents in Russia. A good number of them, probably many dozens, were discovered, arrested and killed.

In the summer of 1984, CIA Director Bill Casey received a top secret briefing from the CIA bureau chief in Moscow concerning the collapse of the bureau. Bob Woodward, who investigated the affair, relates that the Moscow bureau chief’s report resembled the opening paragraph of a spy novel.

Agents had been arrested, electronic intelligence systems rendered inoperative, and four members of the intelligence bureau in Moscow, including the undersecretary of the American Embassy, were declared personae non grata and expelled from Russia. Adolf Tulkgachev, a Soviet aeronautics and ballistics expert and CIA agent who supplied the West with copious information about sophisticated Russian weapons systems, had been arrested and executed. It appeared a general collapse had occurred. The American espionage network in Russia was virtually destroyed.

No doubt a red light flashed at the highest echelons of American intelligence with the dissolution of a major sector of their espionage network. Several began to suspect the existence of a Russian mole. But it is highly unlikely, even though the facts sound as if they came straight out of Le Carré, that anyone suspected Ames of being the mole - the very man charged with ferreting out Russian spies.

Rumors about Russian moles had circulated more than once in the intelligence agency. One of Ames’s predecessors and a director of counterintelligence, the legendary James J. Angleton, was accused (falsely) by his rivals in the FBI of being a Russian agent.

Counterfeit Information

It seems the investigation into the debacle in Russia created serious problems for Ames and the Russians. Ames searched frantically for a scapegoat that would keep him out of danger. The opportunity arose much sooner than he expected.

On November 22, 1985, nearly 2 years after Ames had begun working for the Russians, Jonathan Pollard was arrested and charged with spying for Israel. President Reagan was on the plane heading back for America, following a summit meeting with President Gorbachev in Geneva, when he received the top-secret FBI briefing about Pollard’s arrest.

Ames received the news shortly after the President did and immediately recognized its tremendous potential and advantage. Soon thereafter Ames began assembling the file that - based on false information - was used to hold Israel responsible for leaking the data it received from Pollard to the KGB, a leak that Ames claimed blew the cover of American intelligence sources.

During the year he worked as an agent, Pollard passed on considerable intelligence to Israel about Russia weaponry in Arab states, among other things. The data about Russian arms and instructions for their use were gleaned, at least in part, from American agents in Russia.

In order to shift the blame onto Pollard and Israel for exposing the agents that Ames himself had delivered to the Russians, it was necessary to manufacture the story that a mole in Israel’s Mossad was retransmitting Pollard’s information to the Russians. According to Ames, the receipt of that information enabled the Russians to zero in on, and subsequently eliminate, all the agents who leaked out their information.

The Defense Department bought the story. So did Justice, since Ames’s allegation was the primary basis for the sentence of life imprisonment imposed on Jonathan Pollard on March 4, 1987 - an exceptionally harsh sentence when compared with those imposed on far more important and dangerous spies than Pollard.

Panic over the mole engulfed American intelligence again. Ames exploited the information he had shared on Shabtai Kalmanowitz as a Russian agent, and leaked the news about a Russian mole in the Mossad a week before Kalmanowitz was unmasked in Israel. Yet Ames was unsure if the complete collapse of the Russian intelligence network in Moscow could be wholly attributed to Pollard’s activity.

Previously, the Russians had tried to deceive the Americans differently in a ploy that had proven successful in the past, whereby an agent pretends to defect to the West, discloses information, and returns to Russia once the mission is complete.

In July 1986, KGB agent Vitali Yurchenko "defected" to the West. For four months, Yurchenko had numerous conversations with Ames’s boss, CIA Director Bill Casey. Yurchenko sold the Americans a large quantity of information that included some truthful data mixed with a generous dose of disinformation. The primary goal was to keep the most highly prized Russian agent - Ames - out of the line of fire.

Sacrificing an Expendable Agent

In fact, the ploy temporarily misled U.S. Intelligence. To the Americans, Yurchenko "revealed" the existence of a mole in the CIA whose code name was "Robert." With Yurchenko’s descriptions of "Robert" as their guide, the CIA (who else but Ames again?) tracked down their man, Edward Lee Howard, whom the CIA had recruited in 1981.

When he was 28, he underwent intensive training to become an "agent activator", and was ready to join the Moscow CIA branch as an activator of special agents in 1983. Ames had made the appointment so that the Russians could obtain inside information about U.S. intelligence operations in Moscow. But shortly before Howard was to leave for Moscow, he underwent a polygraph test that indicated he was a liar, heavy drinker, drug user and womanizer. The profile of a consummate agent…

Howard was immediately dismissed from the agency. His training for the Moscow post afforded him considerable information, but nothing that the Russians didn’t already have through Ames. For the Russians, Howard was expendable and they had no difficulty sacrificing "Robert" in order to shield their senior agent, Ames.

The FBI entered the picture. Its agents located Howard in New Mexico, where he was placed under close surveillance in order to discover who his contacts were. But "Robert", forewarned by Ames about the FBI’s plans, managed to circumvent the sophisticated surveillance and slip out of the United States undetected. Several weeks later he surfaced in Moscow, which granted him political asylum.

Now the Americans had information about a mole allegedly operating in the ranks, but couldn’t identify the individual to ascertain what caused the collapse of the America intelligence system in Russia.

Actually, the ever-suspicious Casey didn’t buy any of the merchandise the Russians tried to sell him. At one point, it seems that despite "Robert’s" exposure, suspicions about the existence of a mole within the CIA didn’t abate and actually intensified. The Senate subcommittee on intelligence affairs blamed Casey for the Russia debacle and sought to investigate if another Russian mole had burrowed its way into American intelligence.

In order to stem the new wave of panic engulfing U.S. intelligence over the mole, and to deflect suspicion from himself, Ames had to heighten the accusations against Pollard, and pad them with scenarios about a Russian mole in Israel’s Mossad.

Using the information he already had about Shabtai Kalmanowitz as a Russian agent, (about 2 weeks before the story was released by UPI on December 14, 1987), Ames betted astutely that the anticipated arrest of Kalmanowitz, who was in fact jailed a week after the story broke on December 23, 1987, would buttress the false report about a mole in the Mossad who leaked Pollard’s information to Russia.

Today we can assess that the report about Kalmanowitz’s intelligence work was also part of Ames’s disinformation campaign. For the Russians, it paid to sacrifice scum, and Kalmanowitz was no better than that, in order to magnify Pollard’s "horrendous" guilt and keep Ames out of the limelight.

Meanwhile, staff changes took place at the KGB, and the new staff was no longer interested continuing the game with the same players. Ames became the chief party in the intelligence operation and specifically chief architect of a defense to prevent his exposure. To that end, he had to sabotage any attempt to free Pollard.

As far as Ames was concerned, Pollard’s release could revive certain questions that might blow his cover. Ames’s precise role in Pollard’s suffering can only be determined when full details emerge during his trial. But even at this stage, the Government of Israel should demand the immediate release of Jonathan Pollard.

* * *

 

The CIA engaged in espionage against Israel.

The C.I.A. left intact in the embassy archive in Tehran an extremely damaging 47-page report on Israeli intelligence. Called: "Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services," the March 1979 was not only classified SECRET, but carried the labels NONFORN (not releasable to foreign nationals), NONCONTRACT, (not releasable to contract employees or consultants), and ORCON (meaning the originator of the report, the C.I.A.’s counterintelligence staff, controlled who in the American government saw it).

The report spells out in detail the sources and methods of Israel’s most secret intelligence services - including the Mossad, Israel’s equivalent of the C.I.A.; Shin Beth, Israel’s F.B.I.; and its other intelligence schools and services.

The report closely defines Israel’s foreign targets. It reveals tactics used, such as "false-flag" recruitments (where Israeli agents pose as NATO officers), surveillance and "surreptitious entry operations" (where Israeli agents break into embassies). It even reprints an organization table - including the names of top personnel, their photographs and their salaries. And it describes Israel’s most sensitive liaisons with foreign intelligence services in nations such as China and Kenya, with which it does not have diplomatic relations.

These incredible facts, which were secret up until the seizure of the Tehran archive, came in large part from secret Israeli government documents and investigations. Since they were not part of any public record, how did the C.I.A. get them?

The C.I.A. answers this question by explaining that "most of the information in this publication has been derived from a variety of sources, including covert assets of the Central Intelligence Agency." Since "covert assets" is the term of art for spies, it becomes evident how the C.I.A. obtained at least a portion of Israel’s secret documents: it used its moles and other covert assets in Israel to furnish these documents.

It appears from the data they provided that the spies were Israel government employees with access to the most closely held intelligence secrets. The C.I.A. was therefore engaged in espionage operations against Israel - at least this was clearly the case from 1976 to 1979, when the report was prepared.

This C.I.A. report also raises questions about the Jonathan Pollard case. When Pollard was arrested in 1985 for stealing U.S. Navy documents about Arab terrorists and selling them to Israel, the U.S. government denounced Israel for organizing an espionage operation in America. The judgment that allies don’t spy on allies turns out, in light of these documents, to be somewhat hypocritical.

Pollard’s activities were, like all espionage activities, clearly illegal; but they were not unique to Israel. The situation is anything but one-sided when it is revealed that American intelligence also routinely engaged in espionage against Israeli intelligence. This hardly justifies Israeli espionage, but it explains why it did not feel constrained in "collecting" the data it needed, just as the C.I.A. does.

Nor was the Pollard case as surprising as it appeared at first blush. The C.I.A. knew about Israel’s collection activities in the U.S. The report acknowledges matter-of-factly that Mossad routinely "collects" intelligence in the United States throughout its eighth department, noting without any indignation that Mossad’s "collection efforts are especially concentrated in the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as at the U.N..."

Whereas the damage that Pollard did to American intelligence remains questionable (as far as is known, the intelligence data he provided Israel did not fall into hostile hands), the damage the C.I.A. did to Israel through its espionage is evident, since it not only compromised all of Israel’s intelligence services with its report, but it left the report unprotected and unshredded in the Tehran embassy. That the report was unnecessarily captured and circulated among Israel’s enemies says something about C.I.A. security.

 

Excerpts from Judge Steven William’s Dissenting Opinion1992 Appeal

 

March 2, 1992 - Forward

The vote in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was 2-1 against Jonathan Pollard on his appeal for a new hearing on his sentencing.

Pollard had argued that he had been unlawfully coerced to plead guilty by the "wiring" of his guilty plea to that of his wife, Anne; he had also argued that the judge should have recused himself because of allegations that he’d received an out-of-channels communication from President Reagan’s secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger. These arguments were rejected by all three judges.

But on one of the defense arguments, Judge Stephen Williams filed an eloquent dissent, asserting that Pollard should be granted a new sentencing hearing before a new judge, because the U.S. prosecutors violated the spirit and, in an important element, even the letter of the agreement they had made with Pollard when he gave up his right to a trial and agreed to plead guilty to spying for Israel. It was the most important assertion to date that elements of the Pollard prosecution had gone awry.

 

Excerpts from Judge Williams dissent:

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, dissenting in part: I agree with the majority that the "plea wiring" was not an unlawful coercion of Pollard’s guilty plea and that Chief Judge Robinson did not abuse his discretion in refusing to recuse himself or to conduct a hearing into the claim of ex parte contacts. But because the government’s breach of the plea agreement was a fundamental miscarriage of justice requiring relief under [federal law], I dissent. ... Pollard’s plea agreement required him to plead guilty and to cooperate. On its side, the government made three promises of significance here.

First, it would bring to the court’s attention "the nature, extent and value of [Pollard’s] cooperation and testimony" and would represent that the information supplied was of "considerable value to the Government’s damage assessment analysis, its investigation of this criminal case, and the enforcement of the espionage laws."

Second, it would not ask for a life sentence (this promise was implicit but it is not contested by the government), though it would be free to recommend a "substantial period of incarceration."

Third, the government limited its reserved right of allocution to "the facts and circumstances" of Pollard’s crimes. The government complied in spirit with none of its promises; with the third, it complied in neither letter nor spirit.

Government Obligations

Though the government obliged itself to call attention to the "considerable value" of Pollard’s cooperation, in its principal sentencing memorandum, it buried its sole discussion of that cooperation in a section entitled "Factors Compelling Substantial Sentence."

The first paragraph of this section discussed the extent of Pollard’s offense, saying that he had compromised "thousands of pages of classified documents," and recommended a "substantial period of incarceration."

The second paragraph called Pollard’s activities a "flagrant breach of ... trust," a breach "all the more venal in that [despite Pollard’s contrary claims] it is clear that the money and gifts provided by the Israelis were significant, if not the primary factors motivating defendant."

 

The third paragraph said that Pollard "will undoubtedly urge the Court also to consider his post-arrest conduct i.e., [his] submission of a plea of guilty and his cooperation..." and noted the obvious point that plea bargaining and cooperation "may be considered by courts at the time of sentencing."

In paragraph four, the government provided nominal compliance with its promise, saying that Pollard "revealed a substantial amount of information regarding ... the espionage operation which was previously unknown to the government" and that this cooperation "has proven to be of considerable value to the government’s damage assessment analysis, and the ongoing investigation of the instant case."

In the fifth paragraph, though acknowledging that the defendant had been candid and informative, the government told the court that Pollard delayed his cooperation in order to assist the escape of three co-conspirators, devoting more space to this caveat than to its favorable words for Pollard’s cooperation. The rest of this section, of course, went on with further denunciations.

Thus the government came forth with the magic words "of considerable value," and even mentioned two of the three general areas of inquiry, specified by the agreement, to which Pollard’s cooperation contributed. But by placing the discussion square in the middle of its reasons why the sentence should be substantial, and by its heavy stress on the cooperation’s imperfections, it succeeded in conveying the impression, that, overall, the value was not "considerable" but slight. Perhaps the value was slight, but if so, then the government should not have embraced an obligation to say the contrary. ...

Flagrant Violation

On the promise not to ask for a life sentence, the government coupled its adherence to the letter with an even more flagrant violation of the agreement’s spirit.

It presented memoranda from Secretary of Defense Weinberger saying that "no crime is more deserving of severe punishment than conducting espionage activities against one’s own country," that "it is difficult for me ... to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by the defendant," and that "the punishment imposed should reflect the perfidy of [his] actions, the magnitude of the treason committed, and the needs of national security."

While these remarks did not expressly endorse a life sentence (or use a synonym...) the repeated use of superlatives implied an appeal for the maximum. Weinberger’s reference to treason took the point further. Whereas treason carries the death penalty, and involves aiding the nation’s enemies, Pollard was charged with espionage, carrying a maximum of life imprisonment and encompassing aid even to friendly nations - here, Israel.

Of course the sentencing judge knew the difference, but the government’s barrage expressed a viewpoint that the government had promised not to express. Weinberger’s subtext was that the heaviest possible sentence was the lightest that was just. ...

That the government had reserved the right to seek "a substantial period of incarceration" does not change the analysis. Of course the government remained free to lay out the details of the crime and its impact on national security. These, coupled with an explicit plea for a substantial sentence, might well have secured the government’s objective. But the availability of these methods scarcely entitled it to wheel out the heaviest rhetorical weapons, calling for a life sentence in all but name.

Marshaling Evidence

Finally, despite its agreement to confine its allocution to the "facts and circumstances" of the offenses, the government told the district judge that Pollard’s expressions of remorse were "both belated and hollow" and "grounded in the fact he was caught (emphasis in original); that Pollard was a "recidivist " who was "contemptuous of this Court’s authority" and "unworthy of trust"; that Pollard felt "blind contempt" for the U.S. military, and had a "warped" and "skewed" perspective; that Pollard was "traitorous," "arrogant [and] deceitful," "without remorse," and "literally addicted to the high lifestyle funded by his espionage activities."

The assistant U.S. Attorney note that he (the assistant) had been brought up to regard two sins as "unforgivable," arrogance and deception - precisely the two sins that he repeatedly imputed to Pollard. Pollard’s "loyalty to Israel transcends his loyalty to the United States," said Secretary Weinberger.

The government devoted much space to marshaling evidence that Pollard was driven by greed ("enamored of the prospect for monetary gain"; motivated by "the lure of money"), and not materially affected by anti-terrorist concerns, or, by implied extension, by any sympathy for Israel.

The government contends that in the phrase by which it retained "full right of allocution at all times concerning the facts and circumstances of the offenses," the limiting reference to "facts and circumstances" was a nullity. This is hard to swallow. As the majority points out, the contrast with the language in Anne Pollard’s plea agreement suggests that here the parties intended to excluded some otherwise acceptable elements of an allocution.

So the government was free to relate not only the intelligence implications of Pollard’s acts, but also details supporting an inference that his motive was pecuniary. But if the limit meant anything, it could not allow the government to wrap the raw facts in an inflammatory rhetoric, endlessly alluding to its (necessarily subjective) opinions that Pollard was greedy and immoral, depicting his conduct as the apogee of espionage, naming him a traitor, and delivering a tirade on his "arrogance and deceit."

Taken together, the government’s three promises worked a substantial restraint on the government’s allocution. Its commitments to restrict itself to facts and circumstances, and to assess Pollard’s cooperation as having considerable value, closed off a means by which it might demand a life sentence in all but name. ...

Pollard’s sentence should be vacated and the case remanded for resentencing. This should occur before a new judge as [the Santobello case] indicates, even though "the fault here rests on the prosecutor, not on the sentencing judge." ...

Though I do not wish to be too critical of the government, and though the analogy is inexact on some points, the case does remind me of Macbeth’s curse against the witches, whose promises - and their sophistical interpretations of them - led them to doom:

And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.

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Weinberger became aware that leading intelligence officer Aldrich Ames had used Pollard as a cover to conceal his own role as the worst CIA traitor ever. Ames made believe that it was Pollard's spying that resulted in an Israeli leak to the KGB, causing the deaths of 25 US agents in Russia.

 

Ames's arrest embarrassed the CIA. So, to avoid another scandal over its incompetence, it decided to ensure that Pollard stayed in prison permanently - even though he has no knowledge of any moles.

Whenever there is tension between Israel and the US, Pollard's name gets dragged in as yet another example of Israeli perfidy. As foreign policy strategist Gerald Steinberg puts it, "this becomes the killer issue."

Pollard fares just as badly with the Israeli administration and its intelligence communities.

He said: "The only Israeli leader who ever made a real effort to have me freed was prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. In 1995 Rabin reminded the White House of its promise made a decade earlier, that if Jerusalem was muted about my unprecedented sentence I would go free after 10 years."