Pollard Investigators Going to Israel Next Week

The State Department’s legal adviser, Abraham D. Sofaer, will head a U.S. team including FBI and Justice Department officials that will travel to Israel early next week to investigate the Pollard espionage case, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Friday.

“We have every reason to believe that the issues involved will be resolved satisfactorily,” Shultz told a news conference, referring to the case that has strained relations between the United States and one of its closest allies.

Israel is conducting its own investigation into allegations that Israeli agents in the United States recruited and used Jonathan J. Pollard, an American who was working as a civilian counterterrorism analyst for the Navy, to obtain U.S. military secrets.

Accumulating Evidence

American officials, hoping to obtain further evidence to prosecute Pollard and to learn the extent of his alleged espionage, are eager to accept Israel’s offer of cooperation. Shultz said “we expect matters to go forward expeditiously and properly.” The secretary did not take up the contentious matter of whether the U.S. team will be allowed to question Israelis involved in the Pollard case.

Meanwhile, Pollard and his wife remained in U.S. custody without bail while Anne Henderson-Pollard tried a third time to gain her release on bail, contending there was no risk that she would flee the country. Pollard, 31, was arrested Nov. 21 outside the Israeli Embassy. His wife, 25, who had accompanied him to the embassy, was arrested the following day.

Pollard is charged with selling classified U.S. documents to Israel in return for $2,500 a month. His wife has been charged with the lesser offense of unauthorized possession of classified documents. Pollard himself has not challenged the denial of bail.

At a hearing before U.S. District Judge John H. Pratt, attorney James F. Hibey, representing Anne Henderson-Pollard, contended Friday that the government is acting in a “harsh and extraordinary” way in holding her without bail.

“She had an opportunity to flee after her husband’s arrest and did not do so,” Hibey contended in asking Pratt to reverse the no-bail ruling of U.S. Magistrate Patrick J. Attridge.

‘Threat to Security’

But Pratt, citing Justice Department arguments that Pollard’s wife would have a motive for fleeing, told Hibey: “The government is not sure they have all the documents Pollard squirreled away or all the documents Anne Henderson-Pollard knows about. Those documents, if disclosed, could pose a threat to the security of the United States.”

Pratt said he would rule on the matter Monday. It is rare for a federal judge to reverse the bail decision of a magistrate.

In another espionage-related matter, two Democratic senators angered by evidence of Chinese spying here urged President Reagan to delay an agreement to sell China nuclear equipment and technology until officials there agree to further safeguards against its misuse for military purposes.

Sen. John Glenn of Ohio said in a letter that it “would be the height of hypocrisy” to sell China nuclear technology without further safeguards “at the very same time that U.S. government spokesmen are registering dismay over the stealing of our secrets” by retired CIA analyst Larry Wu-tai Chin.

“I am disturbed by what appears to be a public posture by the Administration of ‘business as usual’ . . . despite the evident serious nature of (Chinese) espionage activities,” Glenn wrote in a letter also signed by Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin. “At the very least, it ought to induce extreme cautiousness” about technology transfers to Communist countries, he said.

Certification Requirement

The 1984 agreement, which goes into effect this month unless one chamber of Congress votes to block it, allows American firms to sell nuclear reactors and equipment to the Chinese. The Senate this fall adopted a resolution urging Reagan to certify that “effective” means would be used to verify that the nuclear equipment is used for peaceful purposes.

Several senators, including Glenn and Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), have called for greater safeguards, saying that the Chinese have exported nuclear technology to such regimes as those of Iran and South Africa.

Glenn will attempt Monday to amend a $480-billion government spending bill to require further safeguards to the nuclear trade agreement, aide Leonard Weiss said Friday.

In a related development, retired Army Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, chairman of a commission that last month proposed broad improvements in Pentagon security, estimated that the first five years of the commission’s 63-point plan will cost $500 million a year to implement. But he said that economies proposed in the report could balance the added security outlays in future years.

At a joint hearing conducted by the House Judiciary subcommittee on constitutional rights and the civil service subcommittee of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, Stilwell firmly defended the commission’s support for continued use of lie detectors in national security investigations.

He said his group has collected considerable information on spies who have been turned up through the Defense Department’s polygraph program, but he declined to give details.

Times staff writers Don Irwin and Michael Wines contributed to this story.