The Jonathan Pollard Spy Case

[Adele Edisen]

Fri, December 14, 2012 11:36:40 AM
FW: The Jonathan Pollard Spy Case: The CIA's 1987 Damage Assessment Declassified
From: Tree Frog <treefrog@ix.netcom.com>
The Jonathan Pollard Spy Case: The CIA's 1987 Damage Assessment Declassified

New Details on What Secrets Israel Asked Pollard to Steal

CIA Withholding Overturned on Appeal by National Security Archive

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 407

Posted - December 14, 2012

Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson

For more information contact:
Jeffrey T. Richelson/Thomas Blanton
202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington, D.C., December 12, 2012 -- When Naval Investigative Service
analyst Jonathan Pollard spied for Israel in 1984 and 1985, his Israeli
handlers asked primarily for nuclear, military and technical information on
the Arab states, Pakistan, and the Soviet Union -- not on the United States
-- according to the newly-declassified CIA 1987 damage assessment of the
Pollard case, published today by the National Security Archive at George
Washington University (http://www.nsarchive.org).

The damage assessment includes new details on the specific subjects and
documents sought by Pollard's Israeli handlers (pages 36-43), such as Syrian
drones and central communications, Egyptian missile programs, and Soviet air
defenses. The Israelis specifically asked for a signals intelligence manual
that they needed to listen in on Soviet advisers in Syria. The document
describes how Pollard's handler, Joseph Yagur, told him to ignore a request,
from Yagur's boss, for U.S. "dirt" on senior Israeli officials and told
Pollard that gathering such information would terminate the operation (page
38).

The damage assessment also features a detailed 21-page chronology of
Pollard's personal life and professional career, including his work for the
Israelis, highlighting more than a dozen examples of unusual behavior by
Pollard that the CIA suggests should have, in retrospect, alerted his
supervisors that he was a security risk. Prominent on the list were false
statements by Pollard during a 1980 assignment with Task Force 168, the
naval intelligence element responsible for HUMINT collection. Pollard is now
serving a life sentence in prison for espionage.

The CIA denied release of most of the Pollard damage assessment in 2006,
claiming for example that pages 18 through 165 were classified in their
entirety and not a line of those pages could be released. The Archive
appealed the CIA's decision to the Interagency Security Classification
Appeals Panel, established by President Clinton in 1995 and continued by
Presidents Bush and Obama. The ISCAP showed its value yet again as a check
on systemic overclassification by ordering release of scores of pages from
the Pollard damage assessment that were previously withheld by CIA, and
published today for the first time.

Check out today's posting at the National Security Archive website -
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB407/

Find us on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/NSArchive

Unredacted, the Archive blog - http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/


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Adele

[Phil Dragoo]

The October 1983 NSDD provided a much more durable basis for the development of U.S.-Israeli strategic cooperation than its precursor of 1981. When Premier Shamir visited Washington in November, the two sides agreed to the establishment of a new, formal Joint Political-Military Group (JPMG) that would convene every six months. President Reagan announced that the JPMG would, "give priority to our mutual interests posed by increased Soviet involvement in the Middle East. Among the specific areas to be considered are combined planning, joint exercises, and requirements for prepositioning of U.S. equipment in Israel."3'

The JPMG held its first meeting in January 1984, and over the next four years its achievements in shepherding increased strategic cooperation appeared impressive. Naval vessels from the U.S. Sixth Fleet started making regular port calls to Haifa; the United States leased 25 Kfir C-l fighters from Israel to simulate Soviet MiG planes in combat training; fleets from the two countries held joint anti-submarine warfare (ASW) maneuvers and passing exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean; Sixth Fleet aviators conducted bombing practice against targets in Israel's Negev Desert; several squadrons of USAF F-16s were deployed in Israel for joint exercises with the Israeli Air Force. In May 1986, Israel became the third country, after Britain and West Germany, to sign on to the SDI research and development program; the FY 1987 DoD budget bill reportedly authorized about $70 million for prepositioning American war material in Israel; and in July 1986, Israel agreed to the installation of Voice of America transmitters which would beam American programming into the southern parts of the Soviet Union."


The U.S.-Israeli Relationship in the Reagan Era

[Jan Klimkowski]

The document describes how Pollard's handler, Joseph Yagur, told him to ignore a request, from Yagur's boss, for U.S. "dirt" on senior Israeli officials and told
Pollard that gathering such information would terminate the operation (page 38).

The actual section can be seen on page 38 here.

It reads:

Yaqur and Eitan provided initial, detailed taskings on
the intelligence Pollard was to obtain. Yagur
emphasized that Pollard should .seek military and
scientific intelligence on Arab States, Pakistan, and
the Soviet Union in its role a:'s military patron of the
Arabs. Eitan requested the only specific document
mentioned at the Paris meetings, the "RASIN Manual,"
which he could only describe as a document concerning
signals intelligence. Eitan also requested information
on PLO Force 17, material reporting "dirt" on Israeli
political figures, any information that would identify
Israeli officials who were providing information to the
United States, and any information on US intelligence
operations targeted against Israel.

If this account is correct, Pollard's handlers at different levels disagreed about whether Pollard should obtain "material reporting 'dirt' on Israeli political figures".

In a world where Information is Power, and lives are entirely disposable, this is curious to say the least.

On page 39 we read, in oh so familiar phraseology:

In addition to conveying operational instructions
and taskings, Eitan used the Paris meetings to test and
strengthen Pollard's motivation. Eitan presented a formal,
highly alarmist briefing to Pollard on the Middle East situation,
which described how Israel could be quickly overrun by a Syrian
attack. He emphasized that Israel £aced a "technological Pearl
Harbor" and badly needed access to the material Pollard could
provide. In his debriefings, Pollard commented that the
presentation was calculated to strengthen his commitment to the
espionage operation, and it was accompanied by a "ceremony"
wherein he was "sworn in" as an Israeli citizen.

Later on page 39:

26. According to Pollard, security and cover matters
were addressed only perfunctorily. Pollard was assured that US
authorities would be unlikely to take any action against him if
he were detected, and any action that was initiated could be
contained by Israel. The "Uncle Joe Fisher" cover story,
originally created to explain the financing of the Paris trip to
Henderson, was extended to cover the purchase of the diamondsapphire
ring as a gift for her. Eitan commented that he could
"backstop" the "Joe Fisher" identity in New York; Pollard then
composed a letter from "Fisher" to Pollard referring to the gift
and indicating that "Fisher" was sorry to have missed seeing
Pollard and Henderson in Paris.

Page 43:

Pollard claimed to investigators that he again
expressed concern about what would happen to his wife and himself
if his espionage was detected. Eitan again assured him that no
drastic action would be taken by the United States. He also
repeated his pledge that Israel would take care of Pollard; and
informed Pollard that in addition to his salary, Israel was
setting up a Swiss bank account for him, into which Israel would
deposit $30,000 per year.23 Pollard was to continue his
espionage for Israel for 10 years, after which Pollard and his
immediate family would emigrate to Israel. He could then use the
projected $300,000 to establish himself in his new homeland. The
Swiss account would be in the name of "Danny Cohen," which would
be Pollard's Israeli identity. Eitan commented further that
Israeli passports would be prepared for the.Pollards.

A glimpse into the Israeli Mockingbird on page 45, and an Israeli double-cross?

37. On 18 November 1985, FBI and NIS agents
confronted and questioned Pollard for the first time as he left
the ATAC building in Suitland, Maryland. They found classified
material in Pollard's possession for which he had no
authorization to remove from the building. Pollard at first
claimed to be delivering the material to another US intelligence
organization. Once this story broke down, he alleged that the
information was destined for a journalist contact, Kurt Lohbeck,
who was interested in helping the Afghan Mujahidin. (footnote 25) Early in
the three-day period of questioning by NIS and FBI investigators,
Pollard alerted Yagur by telephone and volunteered false
information to investigators thereby giving Yagur, Erh,. and Sella
time to flee the country. Pollard was placed under 24-hour
FBI/NIS surveillance on 19 November with the two-fold objectives
of identifying his real contacts and preventing his escape from
the United States. Pollard and his wife were arrested by the FBI
on the morning of 21 November after a security officer at the
Israeli Embassy refused to allow them entry into the building.
Probably, Yaqur, Sella, and Erb already had left the United
States.

(Footnote) 25 Pollard and Lohbeck had met on a number of occasions to
discuss Middle Eastern, Soviet-Afghan, and arms-transfer issues.
Lohbeck was a pro-Mujahidin.lobbyist, who maintained contacts
with Afghan guerrilla leaders as well as US and Pakistani
government officials. As far as can be determined from
investigation, Lohbeck had no role in Pollard's espionage.

Page 48 - Mockingbird efforts backfire? Note the nature of the intelligence Pollard chose to leak.

42. While his cooperation in debriefings was most
helpful to government investigators, Pollard's willingness to
grant an interview to journalist Wolf Blitzer for The Jerusalem
Post without obtaining advance approval of the resulting text
from the Justice Department violated the terms of his plea
bargain. In the Blitzer interview, which was held on 20 November
1986 at Petersburg Federal Penitentiary, Pollard provided
extensive information on his motives and objectives in conducting
espionage for Israel. He also provided Blitzer a general
account, with some important examples28, of intelligence he
passed to the Israelis and emphasized that the Israeli Government
must have been aware of and have approved of his activities. The
interview, first published in excerpted segments in The Jerusalem
Post over several months, was replayed in The New York Times and
The Washington Post. Anne Henderson-Pollard followed up with her
own commentary on the case in an unauthorized interview on "60
Minutes" on 1 March 1987, just three days before the Pollards
were sentenced. ($'~)
43. This publicity, which the Pollards apparently
hoped would mobilize sympathy and support from the Israeli
Government as well as from within the American Jewish community,
backfired on both them and on the Israelis. Following a series
of delays in sentencinq from 10 September 1986 until 4 March
1987, Judge Aubrey Robinson pronounced sentences of. life
imprisonment for Jonathan Pollard and two concurrent five-year
terms for Anne Henderson-Pollard. Although his perception of the
severity of the espionage offense probably was the chief factor
in Judge Robinson's sentencing decision, he likely also took into
account the Pollarde' plea-bargain violations. ~~)

(Footnote) 28 The examples included intelligence on PLO headquarters in
Tunis, Iraqi and Syrian chemical warfare production facilities,
Soviet arms shipments to Syria and other Arab states, Pakistan's
nuclear proqram, and the US Intelligence Community's assessment
of a new Soviet fighter.

Sourcewatch tells us that:

Wolf Blitzer served as lobbyist for the powerful American Israeli Public Affairs Committee AIPAC.

[Magda Hassan]

Newly revealed CIA document shows Jonathan Pollard was asked to get intel on Israel

The convicted Israeli-American spy's statements under questioning after his imprisonment in the U.S. have been published by the National Security Archive in Washington.

By Amir Oren | Dec.14, 2012 | 10:31 PM | 20

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In the early 1980s, one of Jonathan Pollard's Israeli handlers asked him to provide "dirt" on Israeli politicians, according to a newly released CIA document.
Pollard has been imprisoned in the U.S. for the past 27 years after receiving a life sentence in 1987 for spying on behalf of Israel. He had worked as a civilian analyst for U.S. naval intelligence. The request came from one of his Israeli contacts, Rafi Eitan, the head of Lekem (the Defense Ministry's Bureau of Scientific Relations).
Pollard's detailed confession, verified by polygraph tests, was published Friday by the National Security Archive in Washington. His confession was included in a damage assessment document that was compiled by the Pentagon following his sentencing.
Until now, only a highly censored version of the document had been published, but the Archive succeeded in its battle to lift censorship on many of the sections.
The report reveals Pollard told his interrogators that Eitan had asked him to provide information that would help identify Israelis who had provided information to the United States. The investigators concluded that Pollard's collaboration with them was sincere and complete.
In their opinion, Pollard agreed to the requests of his Israeli handlers, but went even further and provided additional material on his own initiative. He passed thousands of documents to Israel, including ones attributed the highest levels of classification - higher even than "top secret."
Eitan asked Pollard for psychological analyses written by CIA experts on Israeli figures, and other dirt on senior Israeli officials, as well as information that could help locate Israeli moles - Israelis Eitan believed had leaked information to the Americans.
Pollard says Yossi Yagur, his operator on behalf of Lekem, stood behind Eitan during a meeting in Paris and shook his head emphatically in response to the requests. Afterward, while Eitan was not present, Yagur told Pollard the operation would stop if he acceded to Eitan's requests.
Yagur was a state employee, while Eitan was close to Ariel Sharon. The paragraph that determines whether Pollard did in fact transfer "dirt" was censored, so the question remains unanswered.
The authors of the damage assessment report determined that Pollard had endangered sources and methods of the U.S. intelligence community, as well as intelligence cooperation and state interests.
The report findings included the following:
* A top priority for his handlers was intelligence on nuclear weapons in Arab states and Pakistan. Following that were the following tasks, in descending order of priority: the special weapons capability, such as chemical and biological weapons, of those states; Soviet warplanes; the Soviet air defense system (ground-to-air missiles ); Soviet air-to-air missiles and ground-to-air missiles; and the military organization, forces, deployment and readiness of Arab states.
* Since he was a youth, Pollard suffered from problems of emotional and mental stability. He often suffered from hallucinations (he boasted, as a student, that he was a Mossad agent ) and was not accepted to a CIA program because of his use of soft drugs.
* Eitan advised him to resign from naval intelligence, so he would not have to take a polygraph test.
* Yagur told Pollard that the highest-ranking officials in the Israeli government knew and appreciated his material.
* Pollard told his interrogators that, if he had not been captured, he would have tried to be accepted to the State Department's research unit, where no polygraph test was required for entry.
* Pollard rationalized his motivation by saying he was trying to help Israel win its next war. U.S. intelligence commented that the Israel Defense Forces would have easily achieved victory without Pollard's help.







http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-de...m-1.484924