Spying: Punishment and Rewards

Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy who confessed to spying for Israel, has been sentenced to life imprisonment. His wife and helpmate in espionage, Anne Henderson-Pollard, will go to jail for five years. What secrets did Pollard steal and pass on to his Israeli handlers? Virtually anything that they asked for, and that was plenty--in all, 40 cubic yards of intelligence data on everything from U.S. fleet movements to details about Algeria’s military equipment and Pakistan’s nuclear-arms program.

Pollard says that he spied for Israel out of deep concern for that country’s security. That concern was happily sweetened by considerable personal gain. Pollard’s Israeli contacts had paid him $45,000 in the 18 months that preceded the discovery of his espionage. Hundreds of thousands of dollars more had been promised in the years ahead.

While the Pollards can look forward to languishing in prison, the Israelis directly involved in their crimes are enjoying rewards. Aviem Sella, an air force officer who obtained documents from Pollard, has been promoted to general and given command of a major air base. One day before the Pollards were sentenced, Sella was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington and so became the first official of an American ally ever to be charged with espionage against the United States. Rafael Eitan, who directed the intelligence operation from Jerusalem, has been given a cushy job as head of a government-owned chemical company after the spying unit that he ran was supposedly disbanded.

The Israeli government has contended from the beginning that the Pollard case was a “rogue” operation, unknown to higher authority; presumably only clerks and corporals peeked at the information that Pollard provided. But some Israeli officials, appalled by what occurred, have privately let it be known that awareness of Pollard’s spying extended all the way up to cabinet level. Pollard himself has said he believes that Israel’s highest officials knew what he was doing.

Israel throughout has demonstrated remarkable obtuseness to the implications of its espionage against the United States--first seeking to dismiss the matter as of little consequence, later complaining that the whole thing should have been settled quietly and without judicial process, finally withholding cooperation with the U.S. investigation. Its denials of official involvement have never been credible, nor are they now. Demands are being made in Israel, in both the press and the Knesset, for a candid accounting. The Israeli government clearly still has much to answer to.