Washington Post Editorial: The Facts Of The Pollard Case

January 25, 1999

NOTE:

In a scathing editorial, (Jan 25 1999) the Washington Post toes the Intelligence and Defense establishment's line condemning Jonathan Pollard, but then pauses just long enough to ask some honest questions about the lack of due process in the Pollard case.

The Post observes that Pollard has never had the opportunity to challenge the Weinberger Memorandum in court- the document that was used to put him away for life - and wonders whether fairness was achieved in this case. Here are some excerpts from that editorial:


Monday, January 25, 1999; Page A20

JONATHAN POLLARD is the former naval intelligence analyst convicted in 1987 of spying for Israel and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is back in the public eye because Israel again has asked President Clinton to let him out on the grounds that the sentence was too severe...

... But in considering the sentence, we -- all of us -- come to an awkward spot. The review of the Pollard sentence is inhibited by secrecy. It is not just that, for national security reasons, secrecy continues to shroud the substance of his espionage. The practical effect is also to shroud public understanding of the (sentencing) process ...Secrecy has forced the public debate to rely on incomplete inferences drawn from bits of public speech and from government leaks and other unexamined and unexaminable official assertions...

...Judge Robinson gave the defendant the maximum sentence. (In violation of a plea agreement) He did so, it is evident, leaning largely on a 46-page still-secret affidavit submitted (at the last moment before sentencing) by Caspar Weinberger, then secretary of defense...

...the uncomfortable fact remains that he (Pollard) has not been able to test in court the official assertions that put him away. Nor do members of the public who are today trying to judge the fairness and appropriateness of the sentence have access to the materials requisite to an informed judgment....

As far as we are concerned, this man has earned no favor, no mercy, no benefit of any doubt...But as a defendant in an American courtroom he should have the protections available to others on trial. Right now he is in the position of having his fate determined in part by materials to which he had no access and proceedings of which he was not a part. The requirement here is not for relief for a...spy but for some degree of greater openness for the American people. Especially with the passage of time, cannot a way be found to pierce some of the secrecy and provide the public with a better means of judging whether fairness was achieved in this case?

Note: Bracketed insertions added for clarification.


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