Pollard Note Seen as Effort to Justify Spying : Clemency: Campaign to win his release from prison hits a snag. His comments seem to contradict statements of remorse for actions.

The campaign to win release for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard hit a snag Thursday with the disclosure of a note Pollard wrote that appears to express justification for his actions in selling classified information to Israel.

The handwritten note was dated last June and disclosed Thursday by Jewish Week, a New York-based newspaper. In it, Pollard praised an article emphasizing the moral rightness of his action and comparing him to Moses.

His comments are relevant because they appear to contradict a letter he wrote to President Clinton expressing contrition for his action. The letter was in support of his plea for leniency.

Justice Department and White House officials indicated Thursday that there would be no action before the new year on Pollard’s application for commutation, which is being supported by some American Jewish leaders and Israeli officials.

Pollard, who is serving a life sentence, was a civilian intelligence analyst for the Navy who received $50,000 for spying for Israel in 1984 and 1985, as well as promises of an additional $600,000 over the following 10 years. He has contended that he was motivated by the belief that Israel critically needed the information for its defense and had been unfairly denied it by its longtime U.S. ally.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said she was seeking “lots” of additional information before making a recommendation in the matter to Clinton. She said she was not aware that Pollard appeared to have contradicted his expression of contrition.

The dispute is important, because some members of Congress supporting his commutation had emphasized his remorse to the White House, and presidents often cite contrition in shortening sentences. Pollard wrote Clinton last March expressing moral repugnance over his conduct and saying he was driven by a “powerful emotional frenzy of idealism.”

Pollard’s lawyer, Theodore B. Olson, denied that Pollard meant to renounce his statement of contrition and said the basis of it was a dispute over religious meanings that had been “blown completely out of proportion.”

Olson said he had discussed the matter with Pollard, who is imprisoned in the federal penitentiary at Butner, N.C.

“Jonathan Pollard knows he broke the law, he pleaded guilty, he regrets taking the course he took, he is remorseful over his actions, their consequences and the harm he caused,” Olson said. “He knows that taking the steps he took were the wrong and inappropriate thing to do, and he’s sorry. That’s unequivocal.”

In the handwritten note that Pollard sent to Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, editor of Shema, a religion-oriented Jewish publication, he praised a piece written on his case by his personal rabbi, Avi Weiss of Riverdale, N.Y. Pollard said it was “the first piece that truly reflects my inner feelings.”

The Weiss article quoted Pollard as saying a year before the Persian Gulf War: “Granted, I broke the law. But to tell you the truth, I’d rather be rotting in prison than sitting shiva (in mourning) for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who could have died because of my cowardice” in not spying for Israel.

“Like Moses in the Bible,” Weiss wrote, Pollard “looked here and there, and he saw there was no person who would bear responsibility. . . . This is why many people now say that Jonathan was legally wrong but morally right in what he did.”

Olson said he could not discuss the nature of what Pollard had sold to Israel, noting his client’s prison sentence barred such comment.