The Israeli Spy Network That Jonathan Pollard Left Behind
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Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 25, Number 44, November 6, 1998 The Israeli spy network that Jonathan Pollard left behind by Joseph Brewda When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded miliating fiasco jeopardized U.S. interests throughout the that President Bill Clinton release imprisoned Israeli spy Jon- region, all to fulfill Israeli objectives of keeping its Arab athan Pollard before signing an agreement with the Palestin- neighbors enmired in war. The raid could never have occurred ians at the Wye Plantation summit in October, he had several except for two factors: massive intelligence conduited into objectives in mind. For one, Netanyahu wanted to pin the the U.S. government which falsely claimed that the factory blame for the hoped-for summit failure on Clinton, by making was a chemical warfare manufacturing site, and high-level an impossible demand. According to Joseph diGenova, the Israeli agents-in-place lobbying for the strike. U.S. Attorney who prosecuted Pollard, Pollard was involved EIR has long been concerned with the serious threat to in “the largest physical compromise of United States classi- U.S. national security posed by Israeli espionage. In what fied information in the 20th century,” an assessment backed follows, we review some of our investigations into the Pollard by then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who sent ring, notably as first reported in our 1986 Special Report, a memo to the court following Pollard’s 1986 conviction, “Moscow’s Secret Weapon: Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Ma- demanding that he serve life without parole. Major factions fia.” As one aspect of that investigation, EIR examined what within the U.S. intelligence establishment share that as- was dubbed the “X Committee,” the Israeli spy ring which sessment. got Pollard his job. But, blowing up the summit was not Netanyahu’s only objective. He also wanted to reassure the vast number of other Not a mole, but mole hills Pollards operating within all levels of the U.S. government’s When the FBI arrested U.S. Naval Intelligence civilian bureaucracy, that they won’t be abandoned, as Pollard ap- analyst Jonathan Pollard in November 1985 outside of his pears to have been, if they are caught. In fact, the spy ring office in Suitland, Maryland, U.S investigators had crucial that placed Pollard in U.S. Navy Intelligence has never been evidence that Israel was stealing U.S. intelligence secrets. apprehended, and is one of Israel’s most precious “crown But, more importantly, they knew Pollard was not acting jewels.” alone. The continuing importance of this ring has occasionally Among the immediate questions investigators posed, was come to light. In January 1997, for example, the National how Pollard secured what seemed to be a specially created Security Agency intercepted a phone call from a Mossad of- position in the Naval Investigative Service’s new Anti-Ter- ficer at the Israeli Embassy in Washington to Mossad chief rorist Alert Center, which gave him completely unnecessary Danny Yatom, asking whether he should access Secretary access to extremely sensitive documents from all agencies of of State Warren Christopher’s secret letters to Palestinian the U.S. government. Moreover, they determined that even a Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat though “Mega,” identified routine background check would have revealed that Pollard as an Israeli mole within Clinton’s inner circle. According to had bragged of being a Mossad agent since college, and that a leak to the U.S. press, Yatom reprimanded the agent for his father, Notre Dame microbiologist Morris Pollard, had even thinking of assigning the mole such a low-level task. worked closely with Israel’s scientific intelligence establish- U.S. investigators into “Mega” are also examining how the ment since the 1940s. In other words, Pollard had patrons. leak, which blew their top secret investigation, occurred. Ac- The cost of Pollard’s espionage was enormous. According cording to the U.S. and European media, “Mega” even suc- to Federal prosecutors, Pollard forwarded tens of thousands ceeded in taping Clinton’s phone, including tapping several of pages of highly sensitive, classified documents to his con- hours of his conversations with Monica Lewinsky. trollers in Lekem, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s scientific The disastrous U.S. bombing raid on a civilian pharma- intelligence agency. At the time, that agency was run by Rafi ceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, on Aug. 21, 1998, pro- Eytan, a longtime aide of Israeli Foreign Minister Gen. Ariel vides another insight into Israel’s spy ring in action. The hu- Sharon, who, among his other exploits, stole the uranium from EIR November 6, 1998 Investigation 55 © 1998 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. a Westinghouse plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania, used to make tors, that the so-called “X Committee” which planted Pollard, Israel’s first nuclear bomb. had its base of operations within a fiercely “anti-Communist” Worse, while Pollard and his supporters said his spying civilian network within the Defense Department. Members was necessary to help protect Israel from its hostile neigh- of that network had been posted there despite their known ties bors, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir forwarded many to Israeli intelligence. While many members of this network of the documents stolen by Pollard, to the Soviet Union. quietly left government in the aftermath of Pollard’s 1985 Shamir wanted Soviet Jews in exchange. It was also clear arrest and the 1986 Iran-Contra affair, overall, the network that Pollard was directed to steal documents with such trad- has remained in place, although not necessarily based at the ing purposes in mind. For example, why would Israel need Defense Department. the list of names of CIA agents operating in South Africa According to several EIR sources, Israel’s spy ring has that Pollard stole? And all this, at a time when the Reagan been massively expanded more recently by other agents who administration had already given Israel astonishing access do not display the “anti-Communist” fervor that was such a to U.S. classified information, supposedly necessary to com- useful cover during the Reagan years, but instead profess the bat the Soviet threat. “liberal” and “globalist” views considered more attractive As the investigation proceeded, more details emerged today. Without such liberal camouflage, these sources say, showing the far-reaching extent of the network, including the Israeli spy ring would never have been able to penetrate the its ties to leading U.S. Zionist organizations. highest level of the Clinton administration, and there would For one, investigations revealed that at least one of the never have been a “Mega.” persons who recommended Pollard for his job was his former Meanwhile, the “anti-Communist” division within the old professor at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts Uni- Pollard network, which has largely moved out of the Execu- versity, the Oxford-trained Sovietologist, Uri Ra’anan. Pro- tive branch, has taken over the “Conservative Revolution” fessor Ra’anan was not just any academic. Since the 1960s, network of Congressmen and evangelical Protestants running when he first arrived in the United States as an Israeli con- the anti-Clinton witch-hunt today; for example, Pollard’s for- sular official in New York, Ra’anan has played a crucial mer attorney, Ted Olson, who has openly justified Pollard’s intermediary role between U.S. and Israeli intelligence relat- spying in the U.S. press. Olson is a former law partner of ing to allegedly shared anti-Soviet concerns. Ra’anan’s first independent counsel Kenneth Starr, and personally organized major assignment was to revamp the B’nai B’rith Anti- and sponsored at his own Washington area home, the media Defamation League’s (ADL) intelligence department, to bet- and prosecutors “salon” running the anti-Clinton campaign. ter serve Israeli needs. He also established an anti-Soviet One of Olson’s top collaborators in that venture is American intelligence cell at Edgar Bronfman’s American Jewish Con- Spectator foreign editor Michael Ledeen, who was implicated gress. in both the Iran-Contra and Pollard affairs. Ra’anan’s actions at the ADL and American Jewish Con- Below, we focus on just two of the most important opera- gress were so egregious that they helped provoke Sen. Wil- tives that investigators consulted by EIR have cited as top liam Fulbright (D-Ark.) into convening public hearings into members of the Reagan administration “X Committee” who Israeli espionage in 1963, and led to a 1967 civil lawsuit continue to push Israeli interests over those of the United by a disenchanted ADL official, Saul Joftes, who charged States: Stephen Bryen and Richard Perle. As important as Ra’anan and the group with spying for Israel. But Ra’anan both operatives are, they are merely indicative of the deeper emerged unscathed, and he later nominally left Israeli gov- problem: a vast Israeli spy ring penetrating all layers of the ernment service to teach Russian history at several U.S. uni- U.S. government bureaucracy, active within both the admin- versities. istration and its Republican-centered opposition. As a result of Ra’anan’s groundwork, Israel had no prob- lem in placing Ruth Sella, the wife of Pollard’s Lekem Richard Perle controller, Air Force Gen. Aviem Sella, in the ADL’s Legal Currently at the Washington office of the Jerusalem-based Department, during the period that the couple supervised Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies Pollard’s spying. Mrs. Sella worked particularly closely with (IASPS), Richard Perle is the acknowledged top U.S. strate- the head of the ADL Legal Department, Arnold Forster, gist of the Netanyahu regime.