Jonathan Pollard - Accused in the Media, Never in Court

November 12, 1998

THE TREND OF ACCUSING JONATHAN POLLARD IN THE MEDIA BUT NEVER IN COURT - BECAUSE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE ACCUSATIONS- CONTINUES TO THIS DAY, UP TO AND INCLUDING THE LATEST ROUND OF LIES AND DISTORTIONS IN THE NOVEMBER 11, 1998 ISSUE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOR EXAMPLE, POLLARD CONTINUES TO BE ACCUSED OF BETRAYING AMERICAN CODES, WHEN IN FACT THE US INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY SERVICES KNOW FULL WELL THAT HE DID NOT HAVE ACCESS TO CODES INFORMATION AT ALL!

THE FOLLOWING ITEM LEAKED TO TIME MAGAZINE IN DECEMBER 1993, AND JONATHAN POLLARD'S OWN COMMENTS THAT FOLLOW, PROVIDE INSIGHT INTO HOW THE US CONTINUES TO WILLFULLY DISTORT THE FACTS OF THE CASE IN THE MEDIA IN ORDER TO SERVE POLITICAL ENDS.


Time Magazine - Chronicles - Inside Washington

The Damage of Pollard's Espionage

The following item appeared in Time Magazine, December 6, 1993. Jonathan Pollard's comments follow the article.

As Israel presses the Clinton Administration to free Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst sentenced in 1986 to life in prison for spying for the Israelis, Time has learned that one document Pollard is believed to have slipped to the Israelis - thought to have landed in Soviet hands, albeit unintentionally - was a huge National Security Agency compendium of frequencies used by foreign military and intelligence services.

Gathering this information cost the U.S. billions of dollars, but Pollard rendered it useless. Officials assume countries that knew their frequencies had been discovered used them for disinformation. Additionally, officials fear the data in the book were so specific that is discovery may have cost informants their lives.

JONATHAN POLLARD COMMENTS ON THE ABOVE ARTICLE:

This Time magazine article was part of a very carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign that was designed to sabotage Prime Minister Rabin's initial efforts to secure my release. It also reflected the then ongoing effort to blame me - and by extension, Israel - for all the damage later attributed to Aldrich Ames. Of course, if the government had actually possessed any evidence which could have substantiated the claims made in this piece, the prosecutors should have, at the very least, indicted me for having intended to harm the U.S. But that never happened.

The fact is, the government did not formally charge me with having compromised either the identities of agents or sensitive communications intelligence, which it could have easily done - assuming, that is, I had actually committed those crimes. So what, exactly was the real story behind this NSA compendium?

Firstly, I should make it very clear that the document in question was not a "code book." Although the distinction may seem academic, it's critical to understand that I never had access to any cryptographic material. I'm stressing this point because both the "leakers" and the prosecutors have, from time to time, tried to leave the false impression that the compendium was some sort of super secret code-breaking manual which the U.S. never shared with any foreign intelligence service. And that, simply put, was not the case.

Secondly, court records clearly show that, when challenged, the government grudgingly admitted that approximately 1/3 of the compendium had been officially given to Israel. What was even more amazing, though, was the fact that the intelligence community absolutely refused to provide the court with any explanation as to why the remaining 2/3 had been unofficially denied to Israel.

Citing "national security" considerations, the government also declined to provide the court with a list of those foreign intelligence agencies which had received the entire document. This shows how the government used the compendium as a means of manipulating the criminal justice system.

Absent any demonstrable harm that I'd caused, the intelligence community had to do something "creative" to justify its last minute call for a life sentence. The fact that their subsequent misrepresentation of a rather obscure NSA document proved to be so effective actually says more, though, about the judge's willingness to be misled than it does about the credibility of the government's brief.

After all, here was a man who knew that he'd originally been given a false description of this compendium, yet, in the end, blindly accepted their wild, totally unsubstantiated assessment of the alleged damage caused by my having provided the Israelis with the remaining portion of the document. What's wrong with this picture?

Lastly, given all the unresolved issues surrounding the compendium, why wouldn't the judge even consider our request to postpone my sentencing until after an objective outside expert had reviewed the document? Assuming this person had all the appropriate clearances, what threat to national security was posed by our request?

Unfortunately, to this day, neither my lawyers not any other vetted third party has ever been able to regain access to the stack of classified sentencing material which was used against me.

What could possibly explain the government's absolutely unprecendented behaviour in this matter? A legitimate concern for security? Hardly.

I fully appreciate the fact that our country must be protected from those things which truly threaten our vital national interests. Perhaps it's time, though, for somebody to tell the intelligence community that "truth" should not be counted as one of them.