C.I.A. Chief Vowed to Quit if Clinton Freed Israeli Spy
November 11, 1998 - The New York Times
(NOTE: JUSTICE FOR JONTHAN POLLARD COMMENTS APPEAR IN CAPS TO BRIEFLY DISPEL DISINFORMATION.)
By JAMES RISEN and STEVEN ERLANGER
WASHINGTON -- During the Middle East peace talks last month in Maryland, the director of the C.I.A. told President Clinton he would resign if Clinton agreed to release the spy Jonathan Jay Pollard, according to several administration officials.
The director, George Tenet, who was directly involved in the peace negotiations, gave his warning to President Clinton after learning that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made Pollard's case a key bargaining point, officials said.
In the end Clinton turned down Netanyahu's request, and the matter did not prevent the negotiators from reaching a peace accord.
Tenet refused to comment on the matter Tuesday, as did a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Tenet's threat to resign was a direct reflection of the depth of anger against Pollard that lingers among U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials 13 years after the former naval intelligence analyst was arrested for passing top-secret documents to Israel. He is now serving a life term.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement circles insist that the American spy should never be freed and dismiss the fact that he acted on behalf of a friendly nation. But the far right in Israel has made Pollard's release a celebrated cause -- and Netanyahu has raised it with the president virtually every time they have met.
During the recent talks, Netanyahu told Clinton that he needed Pollard's release in order to win over the right wing of his coalition to the peace agreement, according to senior American officials.
Clinton was open to what Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said they needed to help sell the peace agreement to their constituencies, these officials said. The president was considering Pollard's release, they officials said, when Tenet spoke up. "It was clearly on the table," said one U.S. official.
While a White House spokesman, David C. Leavy, refused to comment on whether Tenet threatened to resign over Pollard, he did say, "At no time did the president make a decision to release Mr. Pollard." (JUSTICE FOR JP: EYEWITNESS REPORTS STRONGLY CONTRADICT THE WHITEHOUSE VERSION OF EVENTS).
During the conference, at Wye Mills, Md., Clinton had been "impressed by the force of Netanyahu's arguments" on the Pollard matter, Leavy said.
The president then went back to consult with his advisers, including Tenet and national security adviser Sandy Berger, and eventually decided that he could not agree to Netanyahu's demand, Leavy added.
Ultimately, the opposition to releasing Pollard was persuasive, administration officials said. Clinton, who twice before denied Netanyahu's calls for releasing the spy, agreed only to review the case again, for the third time in five years.
Officials say that Tenet believed that he would lose his credibility with his rank and file in the intelligence services if he were to agree to Pollard's release.
"He knew that he was closely associated with these peace talks -- it wasn't like he was back at headquarters -- and he couldn't distance himself from this decision," one U.S. official said of Tenet.
Tenet's resignation would have forced Clinton to find his fourth C.I.A. director in less than six years -- making the post one of the most difficult and intractable personnel problems to plague his administration. Twice Clinton has had to stand by and watch as his nominees have been forced to withdraw before being confirmed by the Senate, and twice the president has had to find backup candidates.
Tenet, 45, who was named director of Central Intelligence in 1997, pledged to remain in the job for at least four years in an effort to provide the agency with some stability.
Since arriving at the C.I.A.'s Langley, Va., headquarters in 1995, first as the C.I.A.'s deputy director, Tenet has worked to revive the morale and provide a new focus after the cold war while winning increased funding from Congress.
The Pollard case was one issue on which it was impossible for Tenet to straddle both his political and intelligence constituencies.
As soon as word leaked out that Pollard's freedom had become a bargaining chip in the Middle East talks, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials went into nearly open rebellion, complaining that the president should not release someone who had so flagrantly betrayed national security. Accepting a Pollard deal with Netanyahu would have forced Tenet to side with the White House against his own lieutenants.
"If Pollard had been released, George would have had no choice but to resign," said one senior congressional official involved in intelligence matters.
The anger within the intelligence agencies was fueled by the fact that, during the 18 months he spied for Israel in 1984 and 1985, Pollard stole more top-secret documents than almost any other spy in American history. ( JUSTICE FOR JP: THIS IS UNSUBSTANTIATED HYPERBOLE!)
"He stole huge amounts of intelligence, measured in cubic yards," (JUSTICE FOR JP: THE CIA USES A FICTIOUS FORMULA TO MULTIPLY EXPONENTIALLY THE VOLUME OF THE DOCUMENTS THAT THEY ACCUSE JONATHAN OF PASSING. SEE FACTS PAGE FOR FORMULA. THE FICTIOUS FIGURE THE CIA ARRIVES AT WOULD HAVE REQUIRED POLLARD TO USE A MOVING VAN! POLLARD MADE 11 "DROPS" AND ALL THE MATERIAL FIT IN A SMALL BREIFCASE.) said R. James Woolsey, former director of Central Intelligence, who recommended that Pollard be denied clemency when his case was first reviewed by President Clinton in 1993.
He took thousands of pages of the government's most sensitive intelligence, (JUSTICE FOR JP: THIS WAS INFORMATION THAT WAS ROUNTINELY PASSED TO ISRAEL BEFORE IT WAS ILLEGALLY EMBARGOED BY THE LIKES OF INMAN AND WEINBERGER. SEE AUGUST 1998 ARTICLE BY ANGELO CODEVILLA.) including many concerning Soviet weapons system designs that came from Russian spies recruited by the C.I.A., as well as codes (JUSTICE FOR JP: JONATHAN POLLARD NEVER HAD ACCESS TO ANY CODES) and large caches of information from American spy satellites and listening posts. The information of great interest to Israel because its Arab opponents used Russian weapons.
He betrayed some of America's most sophisticated espionage technology, and handed over so many documents that his Israeli handlers had to equip a secure Washington apartment with a high-speed photocopier and photographic equipment to absorb it all. (JUSTICE FOR JP: THIS KIND OF EQUIPMENT IS STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, AND HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE VOLUME OF MATERIAL. SPEED AND EFFICIENCY ARE OPERATIVE WORDS IN THE WORLD OF ESPIONAGE. AGAIN, POLLARD MADE A TOTAL OF 11 "DROPS" USING ONLY A SMALL BRIEF CASE, NOT A MOVING VAN!)
Israel has refused to return those documents ever since, and U.S. intelligence officials say that the lack of Israeli cooperation has made it impossible for U.S. investigators to resolve one of the most sensitive questions raised by the Pollard case -- whether any of the thousands of pages of top secret documents he passed on might somehow have ended up in the hands of America's enemies, including the Soviet Union. (JUSTICE FOR JP: 14 YEARS LATER, IT IS CLEAR FROM SUBSEQUENT EVENTS THAT NONE OF THE INFORMATION PASSED BY POLLARD TO ISRAEL WAS EVER GIVEN TO THE SOVIETS. THIS IS JUST MORE SMEAR AND SPIN) Such an outcome would have given the enemies knowledge of what American intelligence had learned, and perhaps how.-30-
A FURTHER JUSTICE FOR JONATHAN POLLARD NOTE
RE: MEMO FOR INCREASED US- ISRAEL SECURITY COOPERATION
THE MEMO OF INCREASED SECURITY COOPERATION THAT WAS JUST SIGNED BY PRESIDENT CLINTON AND PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU AT THE WYE SUMMIT IS JEOPARDIZED BY THE CIA'S POSITON ON POLLARD.
THE CIA CLAIMS THAT THE INFORMATION POLLARD SHARED WITH ISRAEL IS SO DAMAGING TO THE US THAT POLLARD CAN NEVER BE FREED. YET THE INFORMATION-SHARING AGREEMENT SIGNED BY CLINTON AND NETANYAHU IS SO BREATH-TAKING IN SCOPE, IN QUALITY OF INFORMATION AND DEGREE OF COOPERATION TO BE EXTENDED BY THE US TO ISRAEL THAT IT BY FAR SURPASSES ANYTHING POLLARD MIGHT HAVE SHARED 14 YEARS AGO.
THEREFORE IF THE CIA BELIEVES THAT POLLARD WHO SHARED SO MUCH LESS WITH ISRAEL CAN NEVER BE FORGIVEN FOR THE "DAMAGE" HIS SHARING CAUSED, HOW CAN ANYONE BELIEVE THAT THE CIA ACTUALLY INTENDS TO HONOR THE AGREEMENT TO SHARE SO MUCH MORE WITH ISRAEL?
EITHER THE CIA'S POSITION ON POLLARD IS SPURIOUS, OR IT INDEED FEELS THAT ISRAEL DOES "KNOW TOO MUCH". IF THAT IS SO, THE CIA WILL THEN WORK TO UNDERMINE AND SABOTAGE THIS NEW ENHANCED INFORMATION-SHARING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE TWO NATIONS.