BTW, there is a huge qualitative difference between espionage that costs lives and espionage that doesn’t, IMHO, which goes to the reasonableness of the sentence.
By comparison to any espionage case, Pollard has received much harsher treatment, starting with the government breaking its plea agreement with him through the conditions and length of his confinement.
No. I’m not saying he’s a hero, a patriot or whatever. I’m not saying what he did was right. On the contrary, what he did was very wrong. But his punishment has been way out of proportion to the crime.
Pollard broke it, not the government. His wife went on TV whining about the entire affair after they'd promised, as a condition of the plea agreement, not to speak publicly about the case.