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Jonathan Jay Pollard

Jonathan Pollard, imprisoned in 1985 for spying for Israel, was released from strict parole conditions 20 November 2020, allowing his return to Israel. Pollard served 30 years for giving away classified US documents and had been confined by parole terms to the United States since his release in 2015, despite Israeli pressure to allow him to leave. “After a review of Mr. Pollard’s case, the US Parole Commission has found that there is no evidence to conclude that he is likely to violate the law,” the Justice Department said.

Pollard's long term incarceration had been not so much a punishment for his personal transgressions as it was a punishment for the Israeli violation of the "non-aggression" pacta between American and Israeli intelligence agencies - each agreeing not to spy on the other. Pollard's release had been repeatedly sought by successive Israeli governments, but vetoed by US intelligence agencies angered by the Israeli duplicity in theis case. Pollard's release from parole was undoubtedly part of Jared Kushner's "deal of the century" with Israel, though the quid pro quo in this instance is unclear. Possibly the Israelis got Pollard in return for the UAE getting to purchase F-35 stealth fighters, for for some other "two outfielders to be named later".

Joseph DiGenova, the U.S. attorney who prosecuted Pollard, believed that individuals caught spying for close allies like Israel should actually be punished more harshly than those caught spying for enemies, since there is a greater danger that individuals would feel more predisposed to help friends.

Pollard had served 30 years of a life sentence, far greater than anyone else convicted of similar crimes. In fact, a number of people convicted of spying for enemy countries, such as the former Soviet Union, have been given lighter sentences than Mr. Pollard--who was convicted of spying for a friendly country. Although the Justice Department did not per se request a life sentence, others, including Caspar Weinberger, did.

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.

Jonathan Pollard's short but intensive espionage career on behalf of Israel lasted from June 1984 until his arrest on 21 November 1985. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage on 5 June 1986 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 Mar.ch 1987. Following his guilty plea, which arose from a plea bargain, Pollard cooperated with US Government investigators, including officials of the Intelligence Community. Extensive post-plea debriefings of Pollard, yielded an extensive account of Pollard's espionage objectives, activities, and compromised documents.

Although Pollard was regarded by his former college professors and colleagues in naval intelligence as a capable - if eccentric - scholar and intelligence analyst, his personal and employment history is replete with incidents of irresponsib;le behavior that pointed to significant emotional instability. Pollard earned a 3.5 grade point· average as a Stanford undergraduate from 1972-76. Former student acquaintances told investigators that he bragged about his role as a Mossad agent and1 on one occasion, waved a pistol in the air and screamed that everyone was out to get him. Pollard's fantasies regarding involvement with clandestine US and Israeli intelligence operations continued during his employmnent with US naval intelligence.

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 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.

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.

When he was denied a top-level security clearance, Pollard threatened to sue his superiors. The result was that he was granted the clearance, promoted and given access to more highly sensitive information. Pollard’s superiors and coworkers seemed oblivious to his espionage activities, even though many of the classic indicators of espionage were present. Other indicators were: working late at night and on weekends; working alone in a highly classified area despite the facility’s two-man rule; financial problems, followed by unexplained affluence.

Although an ardent Zionist, Pollard never joined any Jewish organization in college. He was always a loner and never felt comfortable joining organizations. Pollard eagerly seized an opportunity to volunteer his services to Israeli intelligence in late June 1984. At that time, Poliard met his initial Israeli handler, Col. Aviem Sella - a noted fighter pilot on study leave in the United States - through a pro-Israeli activist, who was an old friend of the Pollard family. Pollard passed classified material to Sella concerning military developments in several Arab countries during at least three meetings, June-August 1984. Pollard received initial, formal instruction from the Israelis during three days of operational planning and tasking sessions in Paris in November 1984. Here, Pollard met Rafael Eitan, advisor on counterterrorism to Prime Minister Shamir, the man who "captured" Adolf Eichmann, and the senior Israeli in charge of the case, as well as Joseph Yagur, Counselor for Scientific Affairs at the Israeli Consulate in New York, who immediately replaced Sella as Pollard's direct handler.

Beginning in}late January 1985, he made large biweekly deliveries of classified material, on every other Friday, to the apartment of Irit Erb, a secretary at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Pollard recalled that his first and possibly largest delivery occurred on 23 January and consisted of five suitcasesfull of classified material, and that he maintained the biweekly schedule - interrupted only bY a second operational trip abroad ­ until his arrest in November 1985. Pollard also met Yagur at Erb's apartment on the last Saturday of each month to discuss additional taskings and the value of the intelligence he delivered. Pollard recalled that Yagur on at least two occasions indicated that selected items of his intelligence were known and appreciated by "the highest levels of the Israeli Government."

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. By the fall of 1985, Pollard's Navy supervisor had become suspicious of his activities because Pollard seemed to be handling large amounts of classified material concerning the Middle East and unrelated to Pollard's legitimate duties, which concerned North America and the Eastern Caribbean.

Investigation rapidly confirmed that Pollard was regularly removing large quantities of highly classified documents. An investigation ensued that led to Pollard being questioned by FBI and NIS officials beginning on 18 November and arrested on 21 November after an unsuccessful effort to gain asylum at the Israeli Embassy.

The unauthorized disclosure to the Israelis of such a large and varied body of classified material poses risks of several kinds to US intelligence sources and methods, analytical capabilities a:nd intelligence exchanges, and foreign-policy interests, including the possibility of extended compromise of some of Pollard's material to third countries. Analysis of the information received from Pollard would be a routine counter-intelligence function performed by the Israeli intelligence and security services.

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said December 13, 1998: "Jonathan Pollard did something bad and inexcusable; he spied in the United States; he collected information on behalf of the Israeli Government. I was the first Prime Minister—and this is the first government—to openly admit it. We think that he should have served his time, and he did. He served for close to 13 years. And all that I appealed to President Clinton for is merely a humanitarian appeal. It is not based on exonerating Mr. Pollard. There is no exoneration for it. It is merely that he has been virtually in solitary confinement for 13 years. It’s a very, very heavy sentence. And since he was sent by us on a mistaken mission—not to work against the United States but, nevertheless, to break the laws of the United States—we hope that, on a purely humanitarian appeal, a way will be found to release him."

The recipient of the information was probably one of the closest, if not the closest, ally of the United States. Since Israel's formal establishment in 1948, the United States provided substantial assistance to it, in the form of military hardware, financial aid, and intelligence information. Even though the United States never committe formally to defending Israel from aggression, a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy had been a self-imposed duty to ensure the survival of that nation. To that end, Israel remained the largest recipient of U.S. military equipment and financial aid, even though it is a diminutive country both in size and population.