[Intelforum] Pollard's Life Sentence

[IntelForum Mailing List]

Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:10:53 -0600
To: intelforum at lists101.his.com
From: Anthony Damato <a-damato at northwestern.edu>
Subject: Re: Pollard's Life Sentence

At 12:02 PM 1/21/2008, Mike Levin wrote:

>Jonathan Pollard's job in the NISC (Naval Intelligence Support 
>Center) was to receive intelligence from producers and study its 
>possible application to the Navy's planning and operations. He had 
>no responsibility for exchange of intelligence with foreign 
>countries and had no access to details of any bilateral intelligence 
>exchange agreement with any country. These exchange agreements, when 
>they exist, are carefully prepared, are very detailed, and are based 
>on national interest. Distribution is limited to those having 
>responsibility for exchange of intelligence with foreign countries. 
>Unless Damato holds some specific evidence that has not been made 
>public, I will continue to believe that the story that the US 
>withheld information that it was committed to exchange with Israel, 
>is another fairy tale perpetuated by pro-Pollard apologists.
>
>

MY COMMENT: I do not have any specific evidence that has not been 
made public regarding Pollard's disclosures to Israel. However, as 
just a layperson reading what the government makes available, does 
Mike Levin's comment follow that `I am telling fairy tales or that I 
am just another pro-Pollard apologist? In Intelforum, is Mike in 
favor of suppression of all hypotheses or conjectures unless they are 
backed by evidence that is in the exclusive possession of himself or 
the government?

In addition, examining Mike's statement further, he appears to be 
saying that Pollard could not have sent Israel compromising 
information because Pollard was not aware of the details of bilateral 
intelligence exchange agreements with Israel. I'm sorry, but this is 
quite a howler. (1) Pollard could have sent to Israel whatever 
intelligence information he might have grabbed whether or not it was 
allowed or prohibited by the bilateral intelligence exchange 
agreement. (2) Even if Pollard knew what the bilateral intelligence 
exchange agreement contained, he certainly could have decided to 
violate it.

As for "evidence" that backs up my hypothesis, as I said I have no 
direct evidence. But I did observe Casper Weinberger's livid and 
furious reaction to Pollard's activities. Weinberger lobbied everyone 
to get the death sentence for Pollard, or at least a lifetime 
sentence. People like Weinberger do not get furious if secrets are 
leaked to Israel or to the Soviet Union. We have had all kinds of 
major spies leaking sensitive information to the Russians for years, 
but they are not serving life sentences (as far as I know).  What, 
then, is a reasonable conjecture that explain's Weinberger's anger? I 
suggest that Weinberger must have given the Israelis his personal 
guarantee that he would not withhold intelligence from them that we 
were required to disclose under the terms of the bilateral 
intelligence exchange agreement. It is furthermore deducible that 
Pollard gave Israel precisely such information, thus making 
Weinberger out to be a liar. That, to me, would "explain" what lit 
Weinberger's fuse.

A non-believer-in-fairy-tales (after the age of 6),

Anthony DAmato
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists101.his.com/pipermail/intelforum/attachments/20080122/847bd9c6/attachment.html