Pentagon Memo and Pollard Case

* What amazes me is the statement contained in “Pentagon Warned of Israel Using ‘Ethnic Ties’ to Get Spies” (Jan. 30) that many military counterintelligence officials remain scarred by the 1985 revelation that Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard spied for Israel, as an excuse for the Defense Department warning last October that Israel was “aggressively” trying to recruit spies in the U.S. with “strong ethnic ties.”

The Pentagon withdrew this warning in December after it was decided that this singling out of Jewish ethnicity was improper.

What concerns me is that such views can still be held about Pollard in spite of the fact that what had been attributed to him by innuendo was later revealed as the work of CIA officer Aldrich H. Ames, and in spite of the several investigations about how Ames was able to get away with it for so long in spite of all the pointers and clues about him which were notably disregarded by the CIA “old boy network.”

Such allegations provide comfort to anti-Semitic hate groups in this country. They have selective amnesia for those of other ethnicities who spied, e.g. Abdelkader Helmy (Egypt), Albert Sombolay (Iraq) and most recently Michael Schwartz (Saudi Arabia).

Incidentally the last mentioned, Schwartz, is not Jewish and not only has this case received no media expressions of outrage but he will not serve a single day in jail.

LIONEL OKUN

Seal Beach

* Re “Leaked Pentagon Memo May Affect Pollard Case,” Jan. 31: President Clinton is presented with a golden opportunity in this case. Rather than pardon Pollard, he should sell Pollard to Israel. Upon delivery, the Israeli government would pay to the American government a sum equal to the amount of foreign aid given to Israel since Pollard’s arrest in 1985. The money would be applied to our national debt and Pollard would never be allowed to return to the U.S.

TERRENCE BEASOR

Santa Monica