Posted on 05/26/2003 9:17:56 PM PDT by Nachum
As supporters of Jonathan Pollard prepare for a prayer rally on his behalf at the Western Wall on June 4, it appears that one of the most important questions surrounding his case has been answered. Former federal prosecutor John Loftus, in an article in the June issue of Moment Magazine, writes the following:
"There is a good reason why neither Congress nor the American Jewish leadership supports the release of Jonathan Pollard from prison: They all were told a lie - a humongous Washington whopper of a lie. The lie was [that] Pollard had supposedly given Israel a list of every American spy inside the Soviet Union... Soviet agents in Israel, posing as Israeli intelligence agents, passed the information to Moscow, which then wiped out American human assets in the Soviet Union...
"A week after [Pollard was sentenced to life in prison], the Washington Times reported that the United States had identified Shabtai Kalmanovich as the Soviet spy in Israel who supposedly worked for the Mossad but was actually working for the KGB; he had betrayed American secrets to Moscow. Washington insiders winked knowingly at one another: Pollard's contact in Israel had been caught. Just to make sure that Pollard was blamed, U.S. intelligence sources, several months later, leaked word to the press of the Kalmanovich connection...
Citing 'American intelligence sources,' the UPI announced that the 'sensitive intelligence material relayed to Israel by Jonathan Pollard had reached the KGB.'"
Loftus then fires off his bombshell:
"But it was all untrue. Every bit of it. Pollard wasn't the serial killer. The Jew didn't do it. It was one of their own WASPs - Aldrich Ames, a drunken senior CIA official who sold the names of America's agents to the Russians for cash. Pollard was framed for Ames' crime, while Ames kept on drinking and spying for the Soviets for several more years… Ames was arrested in February 1994, and confessed to selling out American agents in the Soviet Union, but not all of them. It was only logical to assume that Pollard had betrayed the rest of them, as one former CIA official admitted shortly after Ames' arrest…
"No one dreamed that yet another high-level Washington insider had sold us out to Soviet intelligence. Years passed, and eventually a Russian defector told the truth. A senior FBI official - Special Agent Robert Hanssen - had betrayed the rest of our agents. Hanssen was arrested in February 2001, and soon confessed in order to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole."
Loftus then writes that a low-level decision was finally made in the Navy's intelligence service to re-examine the Pollard case, and "with sickening chagrin, the Navy discovered that the evidence needed to clear Pollard had been under its nose all along" - namely, that Pollard did not have the special "blue stripe" clearance needed for access to the room in which the list of secret American agents inside Russia was kept. "There is no way on earth," Loftus concludes, "that Jonathan Pollard could have entered the file room, let alone the safe where the list was kept."
Loftus also writes that he then "began to realize that Pollard's tale was only the beginning of a much bigger story about a major America intelligence scandal" - a cover-up of the deep ties between Saudi Arabia and terrorists such as Osama Bin-Laden. "Whenever the FBI or CIA came close to uncovering the Saudi terrorist connection," Loftus writes, "their investigations were mysteriously terminated. In hindsight, I can only conclude that some of our own Washington bureaucrats have been protecting the Al Qaeda leadership and their oil-rich Saudi backers from investigation for more than a decade."
Loftus continues:
"I am not the only one to reach this conclusion. In his autobiography, Oliver North confirmed that every time he wanted to do something about terrorism, [then-Defense Secretary Weinberger, whose secret memo led to Pollard's life sentence] stopped him because it might upset the Saudis and jeopardize the flow of oil to the U.S. "John O'Neill, a former FBI agent and our nation's top Al Qaeda expert, stated in a 2001 book written by Jean Charles Brisard, a noted French intelligence analyst, that everything we wanted to know about terrorism could be found in Saudi Arabia. O'Neill warned the Beltway bosses repeatedly that if the Saudis were to continue funding Al Qaeda, it would end up costing American lives, according to several intelligence sources. As long as the oil kept flowing, they just shrugged. Outraged by the Saudi cover-up, O'Neill quit the FBI and became the new chief of security at the World Trade Center. In a bitter irony, the man who could have exposed his bosses' continuous cover-up of the Saudi-Al Qaeda link was himself killed by Al Qaeda on 9/11..." "Pollard never thought he was betraying his country. And he never did, although he clearly violated its laws. He just wanted to help protect Israelis and Americans from terrorists. Now in prison for nearly two decades, Pollard, who is in his late 40s, grows more ill year by year. If, as seems likely, American bureaucrats choose to fight a prolonged delaying action over a new hearing, Pollard will probably die in prison. There are people in power inside the Beltway who have been playing for time. Time for them ran out on 9/11. Sooner or later, they are going to be held accountable. I hope that Pollard lives to see it."
The full text of Pollard's attorneys' largely-laudatory response to Loftus' article is available at "www.jonathanpollard.org/".
An open question? I thought that question was settled when Pollard freely admitted to conspiracy to commit espionage -- a crime for which the Rosenbergs were both executed.
That Pollard gave up the names of US agents inside the USSR is ludicrous. That type of information is very closely held and would not end up on the desk of a low-level officer like Pollard.
False. Pollard was sending data to the Israelis for 18 months, After one trip to a classified government library, Pollard needed a handtruck to carry the documents out to his car--something not consistent with giving the Israelis "exactly one piece of information."
This says it all. Pollard should remain behind bars until he breathes his last. He was a spy who betrayed his country. To whom he betrayed it, or for what ostensibly idealistic reasons, is irrelevant. To say otherwise would be to excuse the "idealistic" Americans who betrayed their country to spy for the Russians, such as Alger Hiss and the Rosenburgs.
Traitors should be executed "for the encouragement of the others" -- to send a very clear message that treason will not be tolerated.
Hmm.. he was probably started off by that one thing, then. 18 months of activity isn't generally what you associate with a professional spy. They tend to last a little longer.
Then again, there are so many lies floating around regarding the Pollard case that I know about, that for all I know everything put out there may be lies.
Well, yes of course. The weird thing is how wound up people tend to get over this one spy, who was relatively harmless.
For example, I hear no clamoring to have Hanssen (who actually cost lives) shot. Neither do I hear any kind of recognition that US spies in other countries (they are wherever the US has interests, you know) actually should be rounded up and shot.
All this seems to add up to one set of rules for one country, or even for one person - which makes me suspicious as ... well, just suspicious :). Let's see if Loftus manages to shake a few things loose.
Never heard that one. This admission of his, where was that reported?
FWIW, I have deep admiration for John Loftus. He has ventured to expose the profound anti-Semistism driving both the US and UK State Department/Foreign Offices in his books.
That's because you don't hear the devotees of St. Pollard the Putupon clamoring to reduce Hanssen's sentence. There's no such thing as a "harmless" spy against the United States, which is why Pollard will die in his U.S. prison cell, just like Hanssen.
Diabolical seems the word for it.
There were reasons why people like myself were so infuriated at the visits to Crawford Ranch by Saudi Princes. It was a continuation of Baker Boy diplomacy.
Thank God (sincerely) that Bush answers to a higher source than his patrimony.
Lol. No, I don't expect it would be Pollard devotees clamoring for that, it would be Hanssen devotees. But for all that - wanna bet that they won't turn up when the case is a few years old? How long was the Hanssen sentence, btw?
There's no such thing as a "harmless" spy against the United States
Bah. Spying goes on all the time, and it's even an "accepted" part of international relations. The US spies, Israel spies, Belgium spies, Britain spies - you get the drift. They all spy on both friends and enemies, and generally nothing whatsoever happens to a caught spy except deportation or exchange.
If shooting spies became in fashion, we'd have a bloodbath.
FWIW, here's the "Pollard authorized version". Not exactly the one I had, but not exactly what you claim he admits to either.
He also learned that the objective of cutting off the flow of information to Israel was to severely curtail Israel's ability to act independently in defense of her own interests.
Furthermore, on May 12, 1998, Israel formally acknowledged Jonathan Pollard had been a bona fide Israeli agent. This fact wiped out any remaining doubt about Jonathan Pollard's motives. Being an official agent is, by definition, the polar opposite of being a mercenary.
Prior to sentencing, then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger delivered a 46-page classified memorandum to the sentencing judge. Since then, neither Pollard nor any of his cleared attorneys have ever been allowed to access the memorandum to challenge the false charges it contains-a clear violation of Pollard's constitutional rights.
The day before sentencing, Weinberger delivered a four-page supplemental memorandum to the sentencing judge. In it, he falsely accused Pollard of treason. Also in the supplemental memorandum, Weinberger advocated a life sentence in clear violation of Pollard's plea agreement. The implication that follows from Weinberger's false characterization of Pollard's offense as "treason" is that the country Pollard served, Israel, is an enemy state.
The Court of Appeals, in a two-to-one decision, rejected the challenge, largely on procedural grounds.
The majority placed heavy emphasis on the failure to appeal from the life sentence in a timely manner, and on the resulting far heavier burden faced by Pollard in seeking to challenge the sentence via habeas corpus. [Note: "Habeas corpus" is a procedure by which an incarcerated person may bring a court challenge to the legality of his or her incarceration - often long after the underlying case has been concluded.]
In a dissenting opinion, Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Williams called the case "a fundamental miscarriage of justice," and wrote that he would have ordered that Pollard's sentence be vacated.
The CIA claim that another highly-placed spy in the U.S. had to exist in order to give Jonathan Pollard his highly specific tasking orders is a complete fabrication. To understand how Pollard was tasked by Israel to secure specific documents, see: Was there another U.S. spy tasking Pollard? - Mr. ‘X’ Exposed.
The Israeli government recognized long ago that Jonathan's sentence was unjust, that the documents he delivered to Israel did not remotely cause the damage that the prosecution claimed but never proved. As a result of this recognition, various Israeli administrations have negotiated, as a matter of basic fairness, to secure Jonathan's release.
Since 1995, within the context of the peace process, the US has repeatedly exploited the plight of Jonathan Pollard to extract heavy concessions from Israel.
However despite express promises made by the United States to Israel, Jonathan Pollard remains in jail.
Although President Clinton promised Prime Minister Rabin that he would release Jonathan as part of a Middle East peace settlement, the President refused to honor his promise after Rabin was assassinated.
Both before and again during the Wye summit negotiations in the fall of 1998, President Clinton promised to release Jonathan Pollard. Pollard was the deal-maker at Wye which enabled the accords to be completed.
In September, 1998, just before the mid-term Congressional elections, President Clinton (who at the time was facing impeachment hearings and in need of a foreign policy PR victory) asked Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to attend a three-way summit with the Palestinians at Wye River, Maryland.
Clinton knew that a successful summit at Wye just before the Congressional elections would be good not only for his image, but would also reap great political benefits for the Democrats in their bid to regain control of Congress. As an inducement to Netanyahu, Clinton promised to release Jonathan Pollard within the context of the summit.
Understanding the value of Jonathan Pollard for his own re-election bid, and needing him as a sweetener to sell any kind of "peace" deal to the Israeli people, Netanyahu ignored the entreaties of Republican friends like Newt Gingrich and agreed to attend the summit. (Gingrich would later repay Netanyahu by leading the Republican charge of slander and lies against Jonathan Pollard.)
President Clinton personally worked out the details of the deal in a late-night private session with a Palestinian and an Israeli representative.
The Pollard negotiation was the deal-maker at Wye which allowed the summit to be successfully wrapped up and a signing ceremony to be planned for the next morning in Washington, on Friday October 23, 1998.
Netanyahu threatened not to attend the signing ceremony unless he got the Pollard side letter. Clinton said, "Trust me." Netanyahu, knowing he was about to be double-crossed by Clinton over Pollard for the second time, refused.
Netanyahu demanded that in the absence of a side letter of guarantee, Pollard should be freed into his custody immediately, or no signing ceremony. Arik Sharon supported Netanyahu and they threatened to leave Wye without signing the accords.
He sent emissaries to Capitol Hill to hold emergency meetings with leading Senators and Congressmen to enlist their support in publicly denouncing Pollard's release. Many lies were told by the CIA emissaries about Jonathan Pollard to convince the legislators to act swiftly and in unison. Believing the lies, the legislators complied and began an unprecedented series of public actions to prevent the release of Jonathan Pollard.
Under heavy public pressure and betrayed by his own Minister of Defense, Yitzhak Mordecai*, who closed ranks with Clinton, Netanyahu folded and accepted this private deal. The signing ceremony was held in Washington as scheduled. *(Mordecai himself is now on trial in Israel in 2001 for sexual assault.)
However, eye witnesses to the Pollard deal at Wye, including the Israeli and the Palestinian who had negotiated the deal with Clinton and the former Israeli Cabinet Secretary, all later contradicted the White House version of events and affirmed that President Clinton had committed himself to the release of Jonathan Pollard as an integral part of the Wye Accords.
Note: Prime Minister Netanyahu was the first prime minster of Israel to agree to free Palestinian terrorists with Jewish blood on their hands. That is the price the Americans demanded for Pollard at Wye. To this day, this represents a keen embarrassment for Netanyahu and his party, even more so since he did not receive Pollard but the Palestinian murders were released nonetheless. That is why no official source from the Netanyahu government ever wants to publicly admit to it. They keep the details to a minimum, but all concur that Pollard's freedom was bought and paid for by "concessions"at Wye.
The Palestinians were outraged, and insisted that these common criminals were not the prisoners that they had bargained for at Wye. The Americans angrily protested. Netanyahu reminded the Americans that the Wye Accords do not specify exactly which prisoners Israel must release. Critics wondered if the Prime Minister had lost his mind to antagonize the Americans this way.
Only those close to Prime Minister Netanyahu understood that this was Netanyahu's private, pointed reminder to Bill Clinton that if he was thinking of double-crossing him yet a third time over Pollard, he should think again. No Pollard, no release for the Palestinian murderers and terrorists.
Unfortunately for Jonathan Pollard, Netanyahu's government fell before he was able to act on this.
The story, though not logical, sounded plausible and it became popular to cite the opposition of the American Intelligence community as the reason Clinton did not honor his commitment at Wye to free Pollard.
This was soon exposed as the lame excuse it was when Clinton freed a group of unrepentant FALN terrorists in the fall of 1999, in an attempt to improve his wife's popularity with New York State's Hispanic community in her election bid for the Senate. (See Senate Race Page.)
To this day, the same lame excuse continues to be used to justify the unjustifiable failure of Clinton to honor his commitment.
Clinton ignored a solid wall of opposition from the Justice, Intelligence and Defense departments and Congress, invoked his powers of executive clemency and set the FALN terrorists free. In doing so, he unequivocally put the lie to the notion that any government agency might tie his hands or influence his decision in matters of clemency. (See FALN Page and Clemency Page.)
Rabbi Eliyahu repeated the same offer every year after that in private letters to President Clinton.
Every offer went unacknowledged until the fall of 2000, when Esther Pollard received a letter from the White House indicating that the President was aware of the former chief Rabbi's offer and that it would be part of the President's consideration in reaching a final decision on her husband's case.
When he left office in January 2001, Jonathan Pollard was not included among those that to whom Clinton granted clemency:
On his last day in office, Clinton granted clemency to 140 people. Many who received executive clemency had been convicted of very serious offenses, including murder, robbery and drug dealing. Some of those pardoned had served no prison time at all before being pardoned. Among those pardoned were Clinton's brother, and a former head of the CIA. (See Clemency Page.)
The motion, supported by documentation, presents a compelling and very disturbing picture of serious government misconduct that went unchecked by Mr. Pollard's then-counsel. As a result of that misconduct, and as a result of his attorney's ineffectiveness Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison on the basis of false allegations, and under circumstances that violated his plea agreement. (See Legal Doc: Declaration of Jonathan Jay Pollard In Support of Motion for Resentencing. See also Legal Doc: Memorandum of Law in Support of Jonathan Jay Pollard's § 2255 Motion for Resentencing.)
In September of 2000, Jonathan Pollard's attorneys filed a separate motion requesting that attorney Eliot Lauer be allowed access to the secret portions of the Pollard court docket. (See Legal Doc: Motion to Unseal the Pollard Record.)
Both Lauer and Semmelman hold TOP SECRET level security clearances, which they obtained from the Justice Department in order to be eligible to see their client's full record.
A motion for reconsideration was filed January 18, 2001. (See Legal Doc: Motion for Reconsideration of Court Order.)
Between close friends and strong allies, that ought to be enough.
For what it's worth, indeed. It's worth crap. It's like reading O.J. Simpson's version of "Who Killed Nicole Simpson"?
Of course we have. How do you think the not uncommon exchanges of jailed spies come about? By telepathy?
What is rather uncommon in the Pollard case is the sort of strange verbiage you just engaged in: "shamelessly lobbying" and similar.
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