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The Pollard case was the most controversial in last week's triple play because it involved an intimate U.S. ally. The son of a University of Notre Dame microbiologist, Pollard attended Stanford and Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he earned a reputation as a strongly pro-Zionist Jew. Pollard used to perplex friends at college with elaborate tales about being an officer in the MOSSAD, Israel's version of the CIA.
In 1979, Pollard became a civilian analyst at the Naval Investigative Service in Suitland, Md. He first came under suspicion last month when co-workers reported that he had been taking home classified material. Two weeks ago FBI agents confronted Pollard as he was leaving his office. He was carrying about 60 highly classified papers on the military and intelligence capabilities of several foreign countries. During questioning, Pollard confessed to receiving $2,500 a month since early 1984 in exchange for U.S. documents that he gave to Israeli contacts in Washington. Agents later discovered a suitcase crammed with top-secret papers in the basement of Pollard's apartment building. Anne Henderson-Pollard had planned to destroy the material.
The frightened analyst and his wife agreed to cooperate with the FBI and were placed under 24-hour surveillance. But according to one agent, after a couple of days Pollard "just freaked out" and called an official at the Israeli embassy. "If you can shake your surveillance," Pollard later said the Israeli told him, "you should come in." That morning Pollard and his wife drove into the compound seeking political asylum. After ten minutes they were escorted back outside into the waiting arms of FBI agents.
Pollard's arrest soon turned into an ugly diplomatic snarl. Despite its promises to cooperate with American authorities in investigating the episode, Israel recalled from the U.S. two diplomats apparently involved in the case: Yosef Yagur, the science attaché at the New York City consulate, and Ilan Ravid, deputy science attaché in the Washington embassy. The U.S. demanded that the two officials be returned for questioning.
According to an internal investigation ordered by Prime Minister Shimon Peres, which leaked even as it was being presented to the Israeli Cabinet, Pollard worked for an unnamed high-level Israeli official who specialized in counterterrorism and ran his own spying operation in Washington. At least two Israeli newspapers named the official as Rafi Eitan, who served under former Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir as special adviser on counterterrorism from 1978 to 1984. When Peres came into power last year, he removed Eitan from his counterterrorism post but bowed to pressure and kept him on in a vaguer intelligence capacity. Last week Eitan denied the press allegations, saying "My name is in the news by mistake."
Experienced agents acknowledge that it is common for friendly nations to spy on each other. "You do what you can," said former CIA Director Richard Helms, adding "Getting caught is the sin." Most observers doubt that Pollard passed along information of great importance, since Israel is already privy to most American secrets. "Pollard should be punished for his disloyalty," said one former officer, "not for the harm he caused to U.S. interests."