Parole for Pollard?
"..President Bush ...granted a pardon to (Charles Winters), who broke the law to supply aircraft to Jews fighting in Israel's 1948 war of independence.......Winters died in 1984."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 24, 2008, page 12A.
The outgoing President could generate even more gratitude from Israelis and pro-Israel Americans by commuting the sentence of a living man who also broke American law to help Israel: Jonathan Pollard.
Pollard was a civilian analyst for the Naval Investigate Service (now known as NCIS), who plead guilty in 1986 to one count of passing classified information to a foreign country, Israel. Although the Justice Department (pursuant to a plea agreement) asked for only a "substantial number of years" in prison, the judge followed the recommendation of then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and imposed a life sentence. Although Pollard has been eligible for parole since 1995, he has not yet applied for parole. He will be entitled to mandatory parole in 2015 if he complies with all prison rules till then. (1)
Pollard's offenses are actually much more serious than the one count to which he pleaded. He stole about a million classified documents, including a manual of US electronic surveillance codes. He passed information to South Africa, and tried to sell other info to Pakistan, among other countries. He earned tens of thousands of dollars from Israel alone for his perfidy. After his arrest, he also violated an agreement not to discuss classified information without Navy clearance in several interviews.
At first the Government of Israel denied that Pollard was spying for the Jewish state, then said he was doing so for a rogue operation. (Pollard's Israeli handler, Aviem Sella, was subsequently put in charge of an air force base; some rogue!) Later Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu admitted that Pollard did spy for Israel, and asked President Bill Clinton to release him in connection with the Wye River negotiations. When CIA Director George Tenet threatened to resign in protest if Clinton did so, the matter was dropped. Since then, both the Government of Israel and American Zionists have urged President George W Bush to pardon Pollard or at least commute his sentence to time served.
On the other hand, six former Secretaries of Defense who served after Weinberger, including Vice President Dick Cheney, have urged that Pollard remain in prison. I do not believe that Bush would go against Chaney on this issue, so further pressure in this direction is useless. Perhaps the Winters posthumous pardon was a gesture to the pro-Israel community to compensate (however insufficiently) for Bush's refusal to spring Jonathan Pollard.
Although Pollard spied for a friend, Israel, he got the same sentence as Aldrich Ames, John Walker and Robert Hanssen, all of whom worked for the Soviet Union. Morton Sobell, who also spied for the Soviets during World War II (when the USSR was allied with the US), was sentenced to 30 years in 1951, but was released in 1969. Unlike Pollard, Sobell did not have a plea agreement, and admitted his guilt only in September of this year.
In my judgment, the Pollard case is more similar iln severity to the Sobell case than to the Ames/Walker/Hanssen cases. Although Pollard harmed both the US and fellow Jews (who may have suffered discrimination in getting security clearances after his capture), I believe that he has suffered enough for his crimes, nearly a quarter-century of imprisonment. He poses no threat today: he will never again be entrusted with secrets, and any secrets he may still remember and might reveal are nearly 25 years old.
But why has he not applied for parole? Perhaps he is sure that it will be denied, perhaps he is holding out for a pardon or some other form of vindication.
I say to Jonathan Pollard: forget the pardon, forget the vindication. You have earned neither. With Cheney against a commutation, Bush won't grant it. If you don't like prison, apply for parole now!
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(1) Wikipedia biography of Jonathan Pollard.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 24, 2008, page 12A.
The outgoing President could generate even more gratitude from Israelis and pro-Israel Americans by commuting the sentence of a living man who also broke American law to help Israel: Jonathan Pollard.
Pollard was a civilian analyst for the Naval Investigate Service (now known as NCIS), who plead guilty in 1986 to one count of passing classified information to a foreign country, Israel. Although the Justice Department (pursuant to a plea agreement) asked for only a "substantial number of years" in prison, the judge followed the recommendation of then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and imposed a life sentence. Although Pollard has been eligible for parole since 1995, he has not yet applied for parole. He will be entitled to mandatory parole in 2015 if he complies with all prison rules till then. (1)
Pollard's offenses are actually much more serious than the one count to which he pleaded. He stole about a million classified documents, including a manual of US electronic surveillance codes. He passed information to South Africa, and tried to sell other info to Pakistan, among other countries. He earned tens of thousands of dollars from Israel alone for his perfidy. After his arrest, he also violated an agreement not to discuss classified information without Navy clearance in several interviews.
At first the Government of Israel denied that Pollard was spying for the Jewish state, then said he was doing so for a rogue operation. (Pollard's Israeli handler, Aviem Sella, was subsequently put in charge of an air force base; some rogue!) Later Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu admitted that Pollard did spy for Israel, and asked President Bill Clinton to release him in connection with the Wye River negotiations. When CIA Director George Tenet threatened to resign in protest if Clinton did so, the matter was dropped. Since then, both the Government of Israel and American Zionists have urged President George W Bush to pardon Pollard or at least commute his sentence to time served.
On the other hand, six former Secretaries of Defense who served after Weinberger, including Vice President Dick Cheney, have urged that Pollard remain in prison. I do not believe that Bush would go against Chaney on this issue, so further pressure in this direction is useless. Perhaps the Winters posthumous pardon was a gesture to the pro-Israel community to compensate (however insufficiently) for Bush's refusal to spring Jonathan Pollard.
Although Pollard spied for a friend, Israel, he got the same sentence as Aldrich Ames, John Walker and Robert Hanssen, all of whom worked for the Soviet Union. Morton Sobell, who also spied for the Soviets during World War II (when the USSR was allied with the US), was sentenced to 30 years in 1951, but was released in 1969. Unlike Pollard, Sobell did not have a plea agreement, and admitted his guilt only in September of this year.
In my judgment, the Pollard case is more similar iln severity to the Sobell case than to the Ames/Walker/Hanssen cases. Although Pollard harmed both the US and fellow Jews (who may have suffered discrimination in getting security clearances after his capture), I believe that he has suffered enough for his crimes, nearly a quarter-century of imprisonment. He poses no threat today: he will never again be entrusted with secrets, and any secrets he may still remember and might reveal are nearly 25 years old.
But why has he not applied for parole? Perhaps he is sure that it will be denied, perhaps he is holding out for a pardon or some other form of vindication.
I say to Jonathan Pollard: forget the pardon, forget the vindication. You have earned neither. With Cheney against a commutation, Bush won't grant it. If you don't like prison, apply for parole now!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Wikipedia biography of Jonathan Pollard.
Labels: Pollard
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 1:58 PM
2 comments
