Conspiracy Against Pollard and Israel

WINSTON MID EAST ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY
January 12, 1999

Freeman Center For Stategic Studies
Emanuel A. Winston, a Middle East analyst & commentator

Never in our recorded history have so many Intelligence Agencies, the Military and the Politicians conspired to keep one man in jail. Their zeal verges on mass hysteria which is so blatant it makes one wonder if they are anxious to protect the United States - or themselves.

Jonathan Pollard betrayed a trust - or did he? He gave Israel information about Soviet supplied weapons to Iraq, Syria, Libya and other Arab countries, including NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) materials and missile technology to deliver it. According to several prior MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) including 1983 by a long line of American Presidents and Congress, this vital information was to be shared with Israel as part of American policy to insure Israel's defensive viability against a host of surrounding hostile Arab countries.

And yet powerful men like Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, Deputy CIA Director embargoed this life and death information from Israel. Inman was enraged by Israel's bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1991 and from that point on, deliberately withheld this information from Israel. Weinberger tried to insure a "Level Playing Field" for the combined Arab confrontation States arrayed against Israel. (What exactly was the Weinberger - Inman relationship with Saddam which enraged them.)

Caspar Weinberger revealed his knowledge of Saddam Hussein's intentions to use gas capability against Israel during a radio interview which we heard during the first SCUD attack on Israel, January 18,1991. Weinberger said: "It's a shame that Saddam is using poison gas against Israel." In 1983 when Pollard protested the embargo of this information from Israel, he was told by his superiors: "Don't tell the Jews. They're too sensitive about gas." Weinberger's secret memorandum to Judge Aubrey Robinson before his sentencing of Pollard to "Life with No Parole" has never been shown to any of Pollard's lawyers, violating American justice of the defendant's rights to confront his accusers. We know from Justice Arthur Goldberg's admission that Weinberger falsely accused Pollard of spying for South Africa to enrage Judge Robinson (who is black).

After the US government abrogated its plea agreement with Pollard, they locked him down in solitary first in a prison for criminally insane and then at Marion Illinois' maximum security prison for over 7 years. He is now in his 14th year of prison - 4 times what others who spied for allies received. Clearly, the conditions of lock-down were more than to keep him isolated and more like an effort to break him, possibly ending in a staged suicide.

Whenever the American and Israeli people, the Congress and the Knesset have moved in unity to urge commutation of Pollard's sentence to time served or for any kind of leniency against his sentence of "Life with No Parole", the Intelligence community has arisen in a vast coordinated movement to stop it. By now the punishment has gone beyond any imprisonment of any spy, particularly one who warned an ally that Saddam Hussein was building up his NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) arsenals - with Israel as his first target. Several spies for enemies like the Soviet Union have been released after 4, 6, 9 and 19 years (of a 40 year sentence) respectively. The maximum sentence for spying for an ally is 10 years, the median sentence is 2-4 years or nothing.

Was the release of Jonathan Pollard after 14 years a risk to the nation years after the secrets were stale? Or were these same Intelligence Agencies, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Defense Secretaries acting so maliciously because of their own risk of exposure as co-conspirators in a nefarious plan to eliminate an ally, Israel, whose presence disturbed their Arab oil market clients? Angelo Codevilla, professor of International Studies at Boston University and former Naval Intelligence officer served on the staff of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the Pollard arrest and conviction. He has written that: "Some US intelligence experts say the Intelligence community in Washington no longer opposes Pollard's release. The group that wants to keep Pollard in jail consists mostly of those who dealt with the case in the mid 1980s: Weinberger, Bobby Ray Inman and the US prosecutors [possibly one desperate former President]. It is a straightforward political matter.

"In briefings to the Senate Committee, US officials never claimed that Pollard gave intelligence methods and sources to Israel. Instead, he relayed data, analysis and photographs - the sort of material that Israel had received from the US. Pollard angered US government leaders by his effort to undermine what he regarded as a pro-Iraqi policy by Washington. The US policy of aiding Iraq was a disastrous policy which led to the Gulf War. The authors of that policy were Shultz, Weinberger and Inman." "Inman said they [the Israelis] had used US satellite pictures to plan the bombing [of Osirak]..and had harmed sophisticated US efforts to build an important relationship with Saddam. Therefore, he [Inman] personally cut Israel off from satellite information about Iraq and later began to send satellite pictures to Saddam." (1)

George Bush, then VP (former Director of the CIA) and Jim Baker (Reagan's Treasury Secretary) were deeply involved in manipulating the Reagan administration's buildup of Iraq, a policy they continued as President and Secretary of State until the day Saddam invaded Kuwait. And, since Bush ended his Desert Storm after only 4 days on the ground, allowing Saddam and his top Revolutionary Army to survive, facilitating his transfer of 100 jets to Iran (later shipped to Syria), one wonders about their complicity in building Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction and responsibility for its eventual victims. This includes victims of the Gulf War - as well as those casualties of Saddam's poison gas attacks against Iran and his own Kurdish citizens.

Another question begging for an answer: Was Saddam given President Bush and Sec. of State Baker's approval to invade Kuwait, to take its $80 billion in assets so Saddam could continue his massive purchases of weapons and continue fulfilling our aberrant foreign policy? According to reports, US Amb. April Glaspie under orders from Baker, told Saddam "the US wasn't interested in his border disputes." This was the "green light" for Saddam to invade Kuwait.

Saddam still claims Kuwait Iraq's sovereign territory. So it's not over yet. Thanks to Bush/Baker's premature halt to the first Gulf War and to Clinton's wimpy occasional bombing, Saddam is still the power and threat to the Middle East. Denials notwithstanding, Col. Scott Ritter disclosed that Secretary of State Albright had interfered with UNSCOM's surprise inspections to avoid a political confrontation with Saddam in order to continue our foreign policy to protect him. (2) Is it OK for the CIA to spy in Iraq today in order to expose Saddam's NBC arsenal, but in 1984 it wasn't OK for Pollard to blow the whistle on Saddam's intention to eliminate Israel? Saddam declared that he would "burn half of Israel" - and he had the weapons from the West to do it.

For years Pollard's accusers hinted mysteriously that he had done terrible things such as betraying the intelligence methods and identities of American spies in the Soviet Union. But, lo and behold, the spy who did this turned out to be a deep and powerful CIA mole who himself created the disinformation against Pollard because he was in charge of that brief. Aldridge (Rick) Ames, chief of the CIA's Soviet/Eastern Europe counterintelligence, was convicted of the very crimes for which he accused Pollard and which precipitated the deaths by execution of at least 34 of these American and allied agents in the Soviet Union. Ames identified 55 clandestine US and allied operations in the Soviet Union, thus causing the deaths of many others.

However, even after Ames was revealed as the spy and mole who caused these deaths by his leaks to the USSR, Pollard was then and is still being falsely accused by the Intelligence Agencies of Ames' crimes. Pollard has been wrongfully blamed for the deeds of a CIA Director (Ames) who had for years transferred every secret he could lay his hands on. One can understand why the present CIA Director, George Tenet tasked to improve the image of the CIA, would threaten to resign if Pollard were released. The coverup of the CIA failure was to be erased from the American mind by keeping Pollard as their permanently jailed scapegoat.

According to former Justice Department attorney John Loftus, "In order to hide his own espionage for the Russians, Rick Ames successfully point the finger of suspicion at Pollard for the spate of serious leaks that crippled US networks inside the Soviet Union." How does Loftus know? He cites: "recent disclosures in the intelligence community'. Several investigations from the CIA and NIS (Naval Investigative Service) have made sheepish admission that Pollard was the victim of hysterical over-reaction." The first key to this turnaround, says Loftus, is "the recent confession of CIA agent Ames that he (not Pollard) was responsible for leaking top level secrets to the Kremlin." Loftus quotes Naval Intelligence sources as admitting that "90 percent of the things we accused [Pollard] of stealing, he didn't even have access to." (3)

John Loftus wrote in "Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People 1920-92" that "Pollard had little access either to communications intercepts or satellite data , let alone secret NSA codes. His primary access US Navy data banks on ocean shipping. His private focus was on arms shipments to terrorists." Which, according to Loftus, "is where the ugly truth lies. Pollard noticed a pattern of vessels back and forth from Greece to Yemen, where the PLO had a major base. Summer of 1984 the Israelis tipped off the Greek authorities to seize an entire shipload of arms destined for the PLO. Neither Pollard nor Israel was aware that they had smashed George Bush's first shipment of arms to Iran. The British Secret Service had arranged the Greek shipment to ransom American hostages held in Lebanon. Pollard never realized that he had busted the most secret White House operation of modern times. The summer 1984 Greek shipment was a dagger over George Bush's head. The Greek shipment in 1984 exposes the entire White House coverup." (4)

Jerry Agee, Pollard's superior in Naval Intelligence told Wolf Blitzer, he and another colleague were suspicious of the number of classified documents Pollard was taking home with him. They concluded that the information was almost certainly going to Israel. As the materials dealt with Soviet weapons systems and Arab military capabilities, it was not something the Soviets would be interested in. As Agee said to Blitzer: "It didn't take a fool to find out that the Soviets were not buying back all their own information." (5)

Now, with President Clinton about to commute Pollard's sentence, the Intelligence, Military and Justice Department communities have become frantic. As a desperate measure they released, through a journalist who was fed the "correct" information, the great secrets that Pollard was to have transferred.

On January 11, the deadline day of Clinton's promised clemency decision, an article was printed in the NEW YORKER by Seymour Hersh. Of course, the article was cooked and planted by the same Intelligence Agencies, and "leaked" it to a journalist known for his susceptibility for sensational stories. Of course, Seymour Hersh is known for gullibly accepting the disinformation, including rumors, he propagates in the Pollard chapter of his book "The Samson Option." Hersh gains much profit by the credibility the NEW YORKER article lends to his reputation and his book. But, Hersh is thought to be an empty vessel' into which the disinformation entities pour their vitriol.

What is so outrageous about the NEW YORKER article is that Hersh drowns his listener in what even he calls "Tom Clancy" stuff - details and extrapolations of technical espionage that the US carries on against friends and allies alike. He fails to footnote, uses numerous "unnamed" sources: and quotes all the defamatory false accusations we've seen piled up against Pollard since 1985. One man he does quote by name is a former convict, now journalist. However, in alia, Hersh reveals that the US does indeed spy on its friends and allies, including especially Israel. Nothing is mentioned regarding US transfer of this information to such nations as Saudi Arabia, Syria or Iraq - consistent with an aberrant foreign policy pushed by special oil interests.

And, of course, in this day of the Internet and instant communications, it simultaneously appears in the NEW YORK TIMES: "US Now Tells of Must Deeper Damage by Pollard Than Thought" by Tim Weiner and repeated in the JERUSALEM POST: "Pollard Stole 10-volume Intelligence Bible'", etc. They threw in every false accusation printed before and made up now for "effect" - to scare off those members of Congress, Knesset,

American and Israeli publics who smell a collective rat. Most have appeared before and been refuted:

Volume of material: an absurdity. He would have needed a moving van on several occasions. Inveterate liar: (9 months of polygraphs proved Pollard told the truth.) Cocaine abuser: Accuser a convicted felon. Disproved along with spurious and salacious charges of alcoholism and homosexuality. A test for drug use by a private physician was negative. Strangely, that medical file disappeared.

These now-to-be released "secrets" of what Pollard was to have stolen include a "10 Volume Directory of electronic frequencies and signals intercepted by the NSA (National Security Agency - the US primary electronic eavesdropping service and its biggest espionage entity) which listens to every nation in the world. Hersh admits there is no documented proof for the accusations leaked to him.

But, if this was that important, why hadn't the Soviets tasked Aldridge Ames to secure these volumes. Clearly, Ames had the highest level of security rating and access to this information years earlier. It would seem that our Intelligence Agencies, in an effort to keep hidden some of their ugly work against Israel, huddled and thought up a number of chilling scenarios which they could feed to the President (distracted by his own personal trials) and the American citizens via the media to justify their unjust continued imprisonment of Pollard. But, mostly they acted to assure their own personal safety and continued employment.

Have our President, Military Intelligence, CIA, NIA, NSA or politicians every lied to us? You bet. Do Politicians lie? Examine the Iran/Contra and Iraq-gate lies. Yes, indeed, these people are following the psychology explained by Carl Jung, wherein you blame your victim for what you are about to do to him.

"They" are telling us Pollard committed "Treason" (which he was never accused of nor indicted for). But, it was "They" who aided Saddam to build up his NBC arsenal, that, according to VP Al Gore, could kill off all the people on Earth. The "They" who should be questioned includes, among others: George Bush, Caspar Weinberger, Bobby Ray Inman, prosecutor Joseph Di Genova, George Shultz, James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, and various heads of the Intelligence Agencies and Justice Departments during the 1980s and 1990s. They have been aided and abetted by willing journalists, always eager for the scoop and sensation that gets them and their papers or TV/radio stations profits and good ratings.

The great American nation and its wonderful people have been an example to the world in its humanity for others. True, we have our crooks, our dirty politicians, our murderers and rapists - like all other nations. The problem is that as a super-power, we attract the power brokers who believe they know best. We find them often at the highest levels of government and in our Intelligence Agencies. They all believe they are doing right for the country and themselves by using any means - illegal or unethical - to a achieve their goals. They know the American people would not approve of their methods and so they go underground.

"They" tell us Pollard is guilty of crimes not originally spoken about during his "in camera" hearing. Pollard never had a trial. He gave up his right to a trial because they promised his ill wife Anne better treatment with no prison term and a light sentence for Pollard. The government broke its plea agreement and Pollard received a life sentence. Let us then have an open, fair trial where his accusers can openly charge Pollard and then have their accusations tested by lawyers who know to dig out the facts from this reluctant cabal bent on keeping themselves out of the docket and possibly jail. Let the liars lie under oath and we'll see where it leads.

Some may recall the hearing at an Appeals Court where three judges heard some of the evidence. Two concluded on a technicality that it was too late for such a trial. One was Ruth Bader Ginsberg who shortly thereafter was appointed to the Supreme Court. But the third Judge Stephen Williams said that "This was a gross miscarriage of justice." No, he did not receive an appointment to higher position.

So, we have an amoral President, a twisty State Department, Intelligence Agencies who will do anything to achieve their goals and cover their backsides, certain industrialists connected to Arab oil and their markets - all seemingly coalesced to assure that this one man stays in prison til he dies. You have to wonder why.

The true story of the Wye fiasco was exposed by Kenneth Timmerman. "Apparently, at 4 am on Friday at the Wye Plantation President Clinton agreed to a request - not from Mr. Netanyahu but from PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat - to release Pollard as part of a prisoner exchange to get Israel to drop its demand that Israel extradite the 36 Palestinians wanted on terrorism charges. The key terrorist of the 36 was the commander of the Palestinian Police, Ghazi Jabali. Arafat wanted to exchange Pollard for Jabali. President Clinton agreed. Several hours later, after the CIA jawboned him, he back out. And when Mr. Netanyahu balked at Clinton's reversal, Clinton threatened the US would recognize a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood in May - the equivalent of dropping a nuclear weapon on Netanyahu and his supporters." (6) Of course, the head of the CIA, George Tenet had to threaten to resign to achieve this full score effect.

This sounds like the Dreyfus Affair, except that Pollard readily admits his guilt for transferring vital intelligence to Israel and has often expressed deep remorse. However, his accusers seem to have adopted a plan to elevate Arab military power to a level that could wipe out Israel.

Pollard was not charged with nor convicted for treason but it is highly probable that his accusers may have committed treason and are now desperately trying to cover up their black deeds.

Footnotes

1. "Israel's Spy Was Right About Saddam" by Prof. Angelo M. Codevilla WALL STREET JOURNAL August 6, 1998
2. "Richard Perle Suggest Albright May Need to Resign Over Iraq: "Day-Long AEI (American Enterprise Institute) Symposium (Oct. 14, 1998) Demonstrates Flaws of Clinton ME Policy as Wye Summit Threaten to Compound Them" by Frank Gaffney Center for Security Policy #98-D 174
3. "Whose Crimes? Pollards or Ames's?" by Hershel Shanks, Editor MOMENT MAGAZINE 12/95
4. "Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People 1920-1992" by John Loftus & Mark Aarons, St. Martin's Press 1994 p. 402
5. "CIA Aims at Pollard for Scapegoating" by Arnold Forster & David Kirschenbaum HERITAGE SOUTHWEST 11/25/94
6. "Peace Process or Spin Politics?" by Kenneth Timmerman WASHINGTON TIMES 10/27/98