Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case

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Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case

Washington, D.C., November 24, 2020 – Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst who pleaded guilty to spying for Israel in 1987, was released from parole this week.  Pollard, 66, spent almost three decades in prison before being paroled in 2015 on condition that he could not travel outside the United States, had to submit to a curfew, and wore an electronic monitor.  Any company that employed him had to have special government monitoring software on its computer systems.

Pollard's case was a constant source of tension between the United States and Israel as successive American presidents came under pressure from Israeli leaders and domestic constituencies to reduce or end his sentence.  On the other side of the ledger was the U.S. intelligence community, which consistently expressed outrage over the incident.  As recently as 2006, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet threatened to resign if the White House released Pollard.

Today, the National Security Archive is reposting an Electronic Briefing Book on the Pollard case.  First published in December 2012 by then-Senior Fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson (who passed away in 2017), it features almost two dozen CIA, Defense Department, and other records on the case, Pollard's background, the impact of his espionage, and the Israeli intelligence establishment.  Among the highlights are a detailed 1987 CIA damage assessment, initially heavily redacted but later substantially restored after an Archive appeal to an interagency panel, and a Defense Intelligence Agency biographic sketch of Pollard's initial Israeli handler.

See the report and archives here:  https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2012-12-14/jonathan-pollard-spy-case-cias-1987-damage-assessment-declassified?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=bac820f2-ef5e-4e1a-9306-9eb202a70196

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