Presidential Candidates And Pollard [Should candidates be asked re. Jonathan Pollard's release?]

We are now in the very early stages of the 2008 presidential campaign – an opportune time, as we see it, for the Jewish community to do something to alleviate the plight of Jonathan Pollard. We must make it clear to all the potential candidates that the Draconian treatment meted out to Mr. Pollard – and the reaction or non-reaction to that treatment on the part of those who aspire to the nation’s highest office – will be taken into account as we cast our ballots.

We should dismiss out of hand any fear that our doing so might be perceived as favoring parochial issues over loyalty to the United States. It is time to act on what we all know. Mr. Pollard has sat in his cell these past two decades not because of the magnitude of the damage he caused to the United States but because his crimes benefited the State of Israel. And here is why we think so: Advertisement

In the past this page has noted that Mr. Pollard is the only person in U.S. history to have received a life sentence, or anything even approaching it, for spying on behalf of an American ally. We have also noted that the circumstances of his sentencing suggested a special agenda. That is, a negotiated sentence had been unilaterally disavowed by the United States government and the sentencing judge, in consigning Mr. Pollard to life imprisonment, relied on a secret memorandum written by then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, whose antipathy toward Israel was no secret. Mr. Weinberger reportedly was enraged that Mr. Pollard had provided information to Israel on Arab military preparedness – information Mr. Weinberger opposed sharing with Israelis.

Further, we discussed the case of one Ronald Montaperto, a former Pentagon analyst sentenced by a United States judge to just three months in prison for passing highly classified information to China. According to U.S. officials, Mr. Montaperto’s actions severely hampered U.S. efforts to track China’s covert arms sales to nations sponsoring terrorism (such as Iran, Syria and Pakistan) and in fact led to the “drying up” of intelligence sources, as one newspaper euphemistically put it.

Of course, no two cases are exactly the same, but there are several noteworthy points to be made. The sentencing judge in the Pollard case relied on the secret Weinberger memorandum. In the Montaperto case the sentencing judge said that despite the “very serious charge” against him, he had been persuaded to reduce the sentence based on letters of support from current and former intelligence and Pentagon and military officials. This was despite the fact that the prosecutor told the court that Mr. Montaperto met at least sixty times with two Chinese military intelligence officers and provided them with top secret information.

The last time we looked, China could hardly be called an ally of the United States. Indeed, the U.S. continues to spend untold billions of dollars in order to defend itself against, among other things, what it still considers a very real Chinese threat. By contrast, Israel has long been one of America’s closest allies.

We would also remind our readers of the 12-year prison sentence meted out this year to Larry Franklin, a former (non-Jewish) Pentagon official convicted of providing classified information about internal Bush administration deliberations over Iran to officials of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. They, in turn, have been accused of passing the information to Israel. Once again, a seemingly apparent disproportionate reaction when Israel is involved.

When The Jewish Press editorial board met with Hillary Rodham Clinton during her first senatorial campaign, we asked her about Jonathan Pollard. She said she was following the lead of Senator Joseph Lieberman, who opposed doing anything on Mr. Pollard’s behalf. Now that Sen. Clinton no longer slavishly follows Senator Lieberman and has become a political star in her own right – as well as the early front-runner for her party’s presidential nomination – we should insist on her taking a stand on the Pollard matter.

As an influential member of the Senate’s new Democratic majority, she should push for a Senate investigation. In fact, she could take the lead from Congressman Peter Hoekstra, outgoing chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who has called for an investigation of the scope of the support for Mr. Montaperto in the intelligence community.

It really is time for action. Mr. Weinberger is dead, but Jonathan Pollard wakes up every morning – as he has day in and day out for more than twenty years – to a life behind bars.

From the Department of Energy Counterintellignece Academy's website:

"...Pollard was caught because a conscientious co-worker reported that he appeared to be taking classified documents from the office. "Grandiosity" is the name psychologists give to one of the character weaknesses often found in people who commit espionage.

Pollard: Grandiose Imagination This is a psychological assessment of Pollard, not a full account of the case. It illustrates psychological characteristics that have been found in many American spies.

Jonathan Jay Pollard was a Naval Intelligence analyst arrested for espionage on behalf of Israel. He used his access to classified libraries and computer systems to collect a huge amount of information, especially on Soviet weapons systems and the military capabilities of Arab countries. Over a period of 18 months until he was arrested in November 1986, he passed over 1,000 highly classified documents, many of them quite thick. He was sentenced to life in prison.

This account focuses only on Pollard's motivation, the personal characteristics that made him susceptible to betrayal, and how he was caught.

Pollard's father was a prominent professor of microbiology who often took his family with him to scientific conferences. At least a dozen Nobel Prize winners attended young Pollard's fourth birthday party, which was celebrated in Sweden where his father was attending a scientific conference. Formative experiences during his youth were his avid reading, especially about Israel and military history, and his repeated exposure to and suffering from anti-Semitism. His family lost over 70 European relatives during the Holocaust.

Grandiosity

Grandiosity is what psychologists call a character trait often found in individuals who commit espionage. Typical behaviors include immature fantasies of success, power or love, exaggerated expectations of recognition for ordinary job performance, hypersensitivity to imagined slights or poor performance evaluation, and excessive need for praise and admiration.

Extreme grandiosity can be a security concern, as disappointment and bitterness are inevitable when others fail to recognize one's self-perceived special talents. This can lead to resentment, retaliation, and misguided efforts to justify an inflated feeling of importance or power. A compelling emotional need for recognition, to feel important, or to have an influence on world events may lead to deliberate unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

Grandiosity was a dominant element of Pollard's personality. From a very early age, he led a rich fantasy life that centered on his becoming a superhero for the country he idolized. He became obsessed with the threats facing Israel and a desire to serve that country. He resolved early to move to Israeli when he got older. After he came to appreciate the material comforts of life in the United States, he suffered for several years an agonizing conflict between his desire to remain in America and stay close to his family, and his longstanding goal/fantasy of serving Israel. His decision to volunteer as a spy for Israel resolved that conflict. His espionage was a means of living his fantasy.

At Stanford University Pollard was known as a teller of tall tales, but he was so well informed and articulate that he "made what might otherwise have been an outlandish series of claims quite convincing." Pollard boasted that he had dual citizenship and was a colonel in the Israeli Army. He and a few friends spent a great deal of time playing war and strategy games, and this became a vehicle for acting out his fantasies.

Pollard’s Stanford senior yearbook photo listed him as "Colonel" Pollard, and he reportedly convinced almost everyone that Israeli intelligence was paying his tuition. After his arrest, Pollard said this was all "fun and games," and "no one took it seriously." But most of his fellow students did not see it as a game.

While working for Naval Intelligence, Pollard again gained a reputation as a teller of tall tales. Although he kept his pro-Israeli views to himself during this period, he did once claim to have worked for Israeli intelligence. This was never reported, as no one took it seriously. Pollard's tall tales about himself were more or less a joke in the office. He was unpopular among his colleagues, as they resented his bragging, his arrogance, and his know-it-all attitude.

At one point, Pollard received permission to establish a back-channel contact with South African intelligence through a South African friend he had known in graduate school. Through a combination of circumstances, Pollard's story about his relationship with the South Africans began to unravel. After telling Navy investigators fantastic tales about having lived in South Africa and his father having been CIA Station Chief there, Pollard's security clearance was pulled and he was told to obtain psychiatric help. After the doctor concluded that Pollard was not mentally ill, Pollard filed a formal grievance and got his clearance and his job back.

Pollard's need to feel important, and to have others validate that importance, led him to pass several classified political and economic analyses to three different friends whom he felt could use the information in their business. This was before he volunteered his services to Israel. Although he hoped to eventually get something in return, his principal motive was simply to impress his friends with his knowledge and the importance of his work.

Other Characteristics

In addition to grandiosity, there were minor indicators of antisocial tendencies and problems in interpersonal relationships. In college, Pollard had a penchant for playing dirty jokes on people. For example, he would wire room lights with fireworks so they would explode when turned on, and hide in people's closets and jump out at them when they walked into their rooms. Practical jokes are a socially accepted form of aggressive, antisocial behavior.

Although an ardent Zionist, Pollard never joined any Jewish organization in college. He was always a loner and never felt comfortable joining organizations.

Compromise

It was Pollard's grandiosity that first attracted adverse attention from his supervisor, leading to his eventual compromise. The supervisor caught him lying about his dealings with another government agency. The only purpose of the lie was apparently to make Pollard appear to be a more important person than he was. The supervisor began to wonder why Pollard would make up stories like this.

About this same time, Pollard failed to complete several work assignments in a timely manner (because he was devoting so much time to searching out information to meet Israeli intelligence requirements.) The supervisor noticed that Pollard was requesting so many Top Secret documents concerning Soviet equipment being supplied to the Arab world that it was becoming a burden on the clerk who had to log them in. Pollard did not have any apparent need for this information, but when questioned he had a logical explanation. The risk Pollard ran by requesting so many documents may also be explained by his grandiosity, as such persons often feel invulnerable, or too smart to be caught.

The administration office advised the supervisor that, despite two reminders, Pollard was four months late in submitting a personal history statement required for updating his security clearance investigation.

The supervisor perceived Pollard as an undesirable employee and resolved to get rid of him, but did not suspect a security problem until a coworker reported seeing Pollard take a package of Top Secret material out of the building about 4:15 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. The package was appropriately wrapped and Pollard had a courier pass to carry such material to a neighboring building, which was not unusual. However, it did seem suspicious to do this late Friday afternoon, especially since Pollard got into a car with his wife. Investigation rapidly confirmed that Pollard was regularly removing large quantities of highly classified documents."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.