Discussion between Israel and the US has never abated in recent years for a Pollard pardon. First the AIPAC and the Jewish lobby groups, Shimon Peres and recently Israel’s PM Netanyahu. Personally I have no issue with granting a spy’s pardon due to age and ill health insofar he didn’t cause multiple deaths of CIA agents. Not all of the damage has been revealed in time.
What I am interested in is how Israel and Mossad agents have continued to spy on its “best” ally throughout the decades. The word of an Israeli minister is worth nothing. Most likely, Israel and any other nations they are dealing with aren’t on the same page in their playbook to deceive the world.
From the new declassified CIA material, some interesting facts have been revealed.
- HEU-235 material for nuclear bombs was stolen from the US
- 800 Krytrons devices and highly classified technology shipped from MILCO for Israel
- Espionage is going on as we speak, I do hope it’s reciprocal.
As I have written in recent diaries, Lebanon was thorougly in Mossad hands due to a massive Israeli spy network.
Ex-intelligence official blasts Pollard lobbying
(WaPo) Dec. 8, 2010 – Israel has angled periodically for Pollard’s release since 1998, when it admitted, after 13 years of denials, that the former naval intelligence analyst was not a rogue agent (video) but an officially sanctioned spy.
In September 2010, Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu relit the fires under the case when, according to Israeli Army Radio, he asked the Obama administration to release Pollard in exchange for a temporary halt in Israel’s construction of Jewish settlements.
A month later Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense at the time of Pollard’s arrest in 1985, asked President Obama in a public letter to commute Pollard’s sentence to time served — 25 years. A handful of members of Congress seconded the call, which has been bitterly resisted by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Now another key official at the time of Pollard’s arrest, former FBI and Navy lawyer M.E. “Spike” Bowman, is weighing in — against his release — in a forthcoming article [pdf].
“Since I was the only person who actually touched all aspects of the case I thought it was incumbent on me to lay out the facts,” Bowman, the top legal adviser to Navy intelligence at the time, and who later worked as senior counsel at the FBI and as deputy director of the National Counterintelligence Executive.
“There was also data provided from a rather primitive information system called the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Community On-Line Intelligence System (COINS). Information contained in that system was full of human intelligence (HUMINT) data. During the period from 1984-1985 Pollard was one of the heaviest users of that system. Pollard gave them every message for a whole year.
Probably the most serious disclosure (of those of which we are aware) was the TOP SECRET NSA RAISIN manual which lists the physical parameters of every known signal, notes how we collect signals around the world, and lists all the known communications links then used by the Soviet Union.”
The High Cost Of A ‘Rogue Operation’
(Chicago Tribune/NY Times) June 7, 1986 – The questions left hanging are these: Who in Israel knew of this operation? Who should have known? And after its cover was blown and the American spies were arrested, what did the government of Israel do to bring to justice all those who broke the United States law and acted against the best interests of Israel?
The line put out was that this was a “rogue operation,” run by that resourceful fellow Rafi Eitan [Eichmann rendition]. Israelis with diplomatic immunity in Washington were used as contacts. The “rogue operation” was able to employ the services of a scientific attache and a female secretary, who photocopied the reams of documents produced by the Pollards. Sella, then studying for a doctorate in computer science at New York University, was the control, reporting to Eitan, murkily associated with the prime minister`s office. The group produced stacks of material; did nobody in Shimon Peres` government ask how all this stuff was obtained?
If the Pollards’ confession is true, four Israelis are guilty of violating U.S. Criminal Code sections 641 (theft) and 794 (espionage). They should be prosecuted, here or there; if guilty of breaking our laws, they belong in jail. The same goes for any Americans who hire Israelis to steal their government`s secrets. We’re allies; our democratic values are the same and our national interests are generally parallel; some mindless spooks lose sight of the huge difference that makes.
Instead, Eitan was given a plush job in industry; the air force officer, after the Pollards were caught, was promoted to general, given command of the American-built Ramona base in the Negev, and is on the fast track to chief of staff. This will hardly deter future rogue spying.
CIA: Pollard’s life sentence due to `Post’ interview
(JPost) Dec. 17, 2012 – Judge Aubrey Robinson sentenced Pollard to life in prison in March 1987 despite a plea agreement in which Pollard agreed to cooperate with the investigation against him, in return for a promise that he would not receive such a sentence.
The CIA document surmised that Robinson delivered the sentence because of the plea bargain violation, along with his perception of the severity of the espionage offense.
“Pollard’s willingness to grant an interview to journalist Wolf Blitzer for The Jerusalem Post without obtaining advance approval of the resulting text from the Justice Department violated the terms of his plea bargain,” the document said.
“In the Blitzer interview, which was held on November 20, 1986, at Petersberg Federal Penitentiary, Pollard provided extensive information on his motives and objectives in conducting espionage for Israel. He also provided Blitzer a general account with important examples of intelligence he passed to the Israelis, and emphasized that the Israeli government must have been aware of and approved of his activities.”
The CIA speculated in the damage assessment that by giving the interviews, the Pollards were trying to mobilize support among American Jews and the Israeli government, but that strategy backfired.