Jonathan Pollard

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Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) is a former civilian intelligence analyst who pled guilty and was convicted on one count of spying for Israel, and in 1986 received a life sentence with a recommendation against parole.

In 1985, Pollard's superiors at the Navy Field Operational Intelligence Office (NFOIO) in Washington, D.C. grew suspicious of Pollard's conduct. Stacks of classified documents unrelated to his work were repeatedly found in his office. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was soon called in to investigate, and they arrested Pollard in November 1985. Any hopes of keeping the scandal under wraps were dashed when Pollard attempted to flee arrest by requesting asylum at the Israeli embassy, as originally ordered by his Israeli handlers from the Lekem (his controller was Rafi Eitan, former head of Lekem.) The Israeli embassy nevertheless refused to grant Pollard and his wife asylum, and Pollard was subsequently apprehended by the FBI.

Israel paid Pollard tens of thousands of dollars for his spying, but he claims not to have been motivated by money. Exactly what information he gave to Israel has still not been officially revealed. Press reports cited a secret 46-page memorandum, provided to the judge by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, describe Pollard's spying as including, among other things, obtaining and copying the latest version of Radio-Signal Notations, a 10-volume manual detailing America's global electronic surveillance network. (Edwin Black, "Why Jonathan Pollard is Still in Prison"; Seymour Hersh, [1]) This memorandum was leaked to the press, but Pollard's attorneys were denied access and this may have affected their ability to conduct his defense. In a 2002 letter to IMRA, U.S. District Court Judge George N. Leighton wrote:

"At the time Mr. Pollard was sentenced in March of 1987, the court placed under seal approximately forty pages of material filed in the court's docket. These included portions of a declaration by then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and portions of pre-sentencing memoranda submitted to the court by the government as well as by the defense. The materials were sealed because the government said they contained classified information, some of which could affect national security if disclosed inappropriately.... Mr. Pollard and his attorney at the time were permitted to read the sealed pages before sentencing. However, despite the provision in the protective order for future access, no attorney representing Mr. Pollard has been permitted to see these pages since 1987. While this denial of access has severely hampered the efforts of Mr. Pollard's new attorneys to secure justice for their client, it has proved convenient for his adversaries. For years, adversaries have exploited the sealed pages to generate political opposition to relief for Mr. Pollard by spreading, in the press, rumors and outright falsehoods. Since the accusations floated in the media are nowhere to be found in the open court file, they would either be substantiated in the sealed pages, or not at all. As no one representing Mr. Pollard has been allowed access to the sealed pages, Mr. Pollard's adversaries have had unbridled license to spread falsehoods with virtually no risk of contradiction... 'The government's conduct in this case is highly disturbing."

On June 4, 1986 Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government. In UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. JONATHAN POLLARD 747 F. Supp. 797; 1990 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11844 filed a motion to withdraw the plea among other things. The motion was denied. Several parts of the plea agreement are mentioned in the appeal, United States of America v. Jonathan Jay Pollard 295 U.S. App. D.C. 7; 959 F.2d 1011; 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 4695. The appeal was also denied.

Pollard had, in the meantime, begun plea discussions with the government. He sought to plead guilty both to minimize his chances of receiving a life sentence and to enable Anne Pollard to plead as well, which the government was otherwise unwilling to let her do. The government, however, was prepared to offer Pollard a plea agreement only after Pollard consented to assist the government in its damage assessment and submitted to polygraph examinations and interviews with FBI agents and Department of Justice attorneys. [**6] Accordingly, over a period of several months, Pollard cooperated with the government investigation, and in late May of 1986, the government offered him a plea agreement, which he accepted.

By the terms of that agreement, Pollard was bound to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government (18 U.S.C. § 794(c)), which carried a maximum prison term of life, and to cooperate fully with the government's ongoing investigation. He promised not to disseminate any information concerning his crimes without submitting to pre-clearance by the Director of Naval Intelligence. His agreement further provided that failure by Anne Pollard to adhere to the terms of her agreement entitled the government to void his agreement, and her agreement contained a mirror-image provision.

In return for Pollard's plea, the government promised not to charge him with additional crimes, entered into a plea agreement with Anne Pollard, and made several specific representations that are very much at issue in this case. The critical provisions are paragraphs 4(a) and 4(b) of the agreement, in which the government "agreed as follows":

(a) When [Pollard] appears [**7] before the Court for sentencing for the offense to which he has agreed to plead guilty, the Government will bring to the Court's attention [*1017] the nature, extent and value of his cooperation and testimony. Because of the classified nature of the information Mr. Pollard has provided to the Government, it is understood that particular representations concerning his cooperation may have to be made to the Court in camera. In general, however, the Government has agreed to represent that the information Mr. Pollard has provided is of considerable value to the Government's damage assessment analysis, its investigation of this criminal case, and the enforcement of the espionage laws.

(b) Notwithstanding Mr. Pollard's cooperation, at the time of sentencing the Government will recommend that the Court impose a sentence of a substantial period of incarceration and a monetary fine. The Government retains full right of allocution at all times concerning the facts and circumstances of the offenses committed by Mr. Pollard, and will be free to correct any misstatements of fact at the time of sentencing, including representations of the defendant and his counsel in regard to the nature and extent [**8] of Mr. Pollard's cooperation. Moreover, Mr. Pollard understands that, while the Court may take his cooperation into account in determining whether or not to impose a sentence of life imprisonment, this agreement cannot and does not limit the court's discretion to impose the maximum sentence.

Before sentencing, and in violation of the plea agreement, Pollard and his wife Anne gave defiant media interviews in which they defended their spying, and attempted to rally American Jews to their cause. In a 60 Minutes interview, Anne said, "I feel my husband and I did what we were expected to do, and what our moral obligation was as Jews, what our moral obligation was as human beings, and I have no regrets about that." (Edwin Black, "Why Jonathan Pollard is Still in Prison").

Before sentencing, as noted above, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger delivered a 46-page classified memorandum to the sentencing judge, the contents of which were not shown to Pollard's attorneys. On the day before sentencing, Weinberger delivered a supplemental four-page memorandum to the judge. Pollard and his attorneys were only shown the supplemental memorandum briefly before sentencing. Pollard claims that, in the memorandum, Weinberger accused him of treason and suggested a lifetime prison sentence. However, the United States Constitution provides that "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Art. III, Sec. 3, cl. 1. As Pollard did not levy war against the U.S., and since Israel was and is a U.S. ally, Pollard's supporters argue that he was not guilty of treason.

Pollard was sentenced to life in prison on one count of espionage for an ally. Pollard and his supporters protested that this was a sentence unprecedented for such a charge, and was in violation of his plea agreement.

Pollard's attorneys then inadvertently failed to file his appeal within the mandated ten-day period after sentencing. Several years later, with a different attorney, Pollard filed a Habeas Corpus petition. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled two-to-one to deny Pollard's petition, primarily due to the failure of Pollard's original attorneys to file his appeal in a timely manner. The dissenting judge, Judge Stephen Williams, called the majority's holding "'a fundamental miscarriage of justice."

In 1987, Pollard began his life sentence, which he is still serving. Pollard's wife, Anne, was sentenced to five years in prison but was released after three and a half years due to health problems.

Pollard was awarded Israeli citizenship in 1998. The Israeli government has repeatedly asked for his release, and Israeli leaders often raise the Pollard case in discussions with U.S. officials, including with Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The latest Israeli request for Pollard's release made in New York on September 14, 2005 was again declined by President Bush. In 1998, Israel admitted in a statement from then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Pollard had been an Israeli spy. Some Israeli sources claimed that President Bill Clinton promised to put Pollard on Netanyahu's plane when the Prime Minister visited the U.S., possibly to go to an Israeli jail, possibly to go free, but then reneged. The Clinton Administration denied that any such deal had been made.

There were press reports at the time of the Camp David 2000 Summit that Clinton had offered to pardon and release Pollard as an inducement to then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak to enter into an agreement with the Palestinians, but nothing ever came of it. There were also rumors that Pollard was among the many whom Clinton considered for a Presidential pardon on his last day in office, January 20, 2001.

A request on Pollard's behalf that he be designated a Prisoner of Zion was rejected by the High Court of Justice of Israel on January 16, 2006.

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Controversy over severity of Pollard's sentence

Pollard's supporters argue that his sentence was excessive: "The median sentence for the offense Pollard committed - one count of passing non-injurious classified information to an ally - is two to four years."[2]. Although Pollard pled guilty as part of a plea bargain, he was shown no leniency and was given the maximum sentence, comparable to that of Aldrich Ames, the chief of CIA counterintelligence in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, who was indicted for treason, convicted of passing critical defense secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and was found responsible for the deaths of at least 11 U.S. agents.

Pollard maintains that he provided only information which, at the time, he believed was vital to Israeli security and which was being withheld by The Pentagon, in violation of a 1983 Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries regarding the sharing of vital security intelligence. According to Pollard, this included data on Soviet arms shipments to Syria, Iraqi and Syrian chemical weapons, the Pakistani atomic bomb project, and Libyan air defense systems ("Territory of Lies", Wolf Blitzer, NY: Harper & Row, 1989, pp. 166-171).

Since then, however, he has publicly expressed remorse for operating outside the law:

"Unfortunately, I failed to appreciate the fact that such concerns did not justify my indifference to the law." (Pollard's public letter of remorse of June 6, 1991, addressed to his parents but published widely in newspapers)

and

"I realize that no matter what my motives may have been, I did not have the right to violate the law. ... I have also made it very clear that I do not consider myself to be a "hero" and would prefer that people simply see me as someone who made a terrible mistake and who has paid dearly for my mistake. Please accept this as my unconditional statement of heartfelt remorse for my actions." (Pollard's public letter of remorse of May 26, 1996, addressed to President Bill Clinton).

In recent years, others have argued that Pollard's punishment is too harsh, including Caspar Weinberger, who had a major influence on his sentencing in the first place. Jewish and Zionist organizations and individuals are split over the case, however, with some believing that he received an excessively harsh sentence as a Jew spying for Israel, others arguing that any leniency shown him would reflect badly on the loyalty of American Jews, and most standing in the middle. While Eric Margolis (external link below) alleges that Pollard's spying may have led the capture and execution of CIA spies in the Eastern Bloc after Israel forwarded Pollard's information to the Soviet Union, John Loftus (external link below), argues that Pollard did not have access to agent lists and that Israel would have had no reason to disclose such names to the Soviet Union, even if it had them. Loftus believes that the exposure of the CIA agents actually resulted from the ongoing activities of top CIA official Aldrich Ames, arrested in February 1994, and FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen, arrested in February 2001. Their activities only came to light long after Pollard's conviction.

In July 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected Pollard's latest appeal. Pollard had sought a new trial on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel, and he sought to receive classified documents pertinent to his new lawyers' efforts in preparing a clemency petition. The Court of Appeals rejected both arguments, however, and Pollard remains imprisoned. On February 10, 2006, lawyers for Pollard filed an appeal with the United States Supreme Court to attempt to gain access to the classified documents. The Supreme Court denied this appeal on March 20, 2006.

His story has inspired Eric Rochant for a French movie Les Patriotes (The Patriots).

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