I love Cold War espionage and spy stories and I intend to read the book by Olive (headed Counter Intel) during this time. Have you read the book? If you have, curious as to your impression.
It tells me something that the Judge did an extraordinary thing. After the plea agreement (which intel people say Pollard did not uphold his side of the bargain by giving comprehensive info) the Judge was going to give Pollard a fairly mundane light sentence.
But Cap Weinberger, interceded with strong enough of a case that the Judge gave him Life.
Since then 4 Chiefs of Naval Intelligence have went public and private to strongly advise that Pollard not be shown leniency. 7 Secretaries of Defense have done the same.
The guy let out some bad info to include the actual Manual of electronic intelligence/surviellance around the world. That was huge. There are also Intel claims that some Intel people behind the Iron Curtain were killed and methods compromised permanently and severely.
George Tenent interceded when Clinton was going to pardon him after a promise was made to Bibi at Wye River. We will never know the whole story but something was up with this guy.
I haven’t. What I find troubling is the fact that he was sentenced based on essentially extrajudicial evidence which he didn’t have the opportunity to confront, for all practical purposes doesn’t even know the contents. And the fact that the assessment was done by a Soviet spy. Adding in the fact that his lawyer “forgot” to file an appeal, his case reflects poorly on our justice system, irrespective of the level of his guilt. I wouldn’t expect the NIS or the DD to support leniency, I don’t support a pardon either. I do think the letter should be made public, and he should have an opportunity on appeal to address the evidence. I don’t want to address all the claims because obviously we don’t know, but many of those compromised agents were the reason Ames went to jail. If Pollard did it, well maybe Ames is unjustly imprisioned. It is fodder for a spy novel, except these guys would get killed off instead of clogging the legal system.