Rabid Weinberger

From this interview of Brian Lamb with Sally Denton who wrote The Profiteers on the Bechtel Corporation (and read here from p. 301 on):

So how does -- again Jonathan Pollard play in this book and his relationship to Cap Weinberger and the attitude supposedly of the Bechtel people about Israel?

Well he had -- in his own words and in Wolf Blitzer who wrote a book about him. He had been encouraged to or was inspired to spy for Israel, he was working for Office of Naval Intelligence and came upon information about chemical weapons plants being built by American companies and in Syria and in Iraq and in Libya, and he went to his superior in the navy and told him, you know we've got a treaty with Israel they need to know that, you know their enemies are armed -- getting armed for chemical weapons, their neighbors and the -- he was told by his officer -- his boss basically who -- he -- as he recounts it, the boss laughed and said, you know we can't tell the Jews about this, they're sensitive about gas, which was a reference obviously to the mustard gas that the Nazis used.

And so there was some impetus on his part to start spying for Israel, which he did for next, I think 18 months during that time. The -- he pled guilty and was expecting to get a two year sentence, that was the plea bargain that he had made with the US government, but when he pled guilty he was given a life sentence. And the justification for that was a sentencing memorandum written by Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of Defense who, you know, I mean Pollard would have been in his defense department at that time, about the extensive damage that had been done by what Pollard gave to the Israelis. And I think the justification was also for the life sentence was that he had violated his plea agreement by speaking with Wolf Blitzer who went on to write a book about it.

Cap Weinberger also -- I don't remember the exact legal language but was indicted or found to perjure himself in the whole Iran-Contra thing but was pardoned by George W. -- H. W. Bush. What was -- what's your take on Weinberger's relationship to the Saudi Arabia and also George Shultz?
  Sally Denton
I…
  And Saddam Hussein?

Yes. I -- you know there was a time -- I mean -- I think Weinberger and Shultz represented a direct shift from the American government more toward away from Israel and more toward the Arab states and that was certainly felt by the Israelis at the time, and of course the Israelis were always skeptical of Bechtel dating back to, you know the '40s and '50s and '60s and the Arab boycott. And so there was always some, a little bit of skepticism that the Israelis felt towards Bechtel and Bechtel have never done, here they were building throughout the Middle East but no projects in Israel.

And you think -- do think after your research that there was a direct connection?

Between…

The attitude on the part of George Shultz and Cap Weinberger toward Israel.

No I don't think so. I think maybe Cap Weinberger, he was very -- he was rabid on the subject of Israel and George Shultz I think was really a statesman and I think that was -- you know, he was going forward with the policy, he was influencing Reagan and that I think they were in lockstep with each other and I think Cap Weinberger was really kind of a more of a neo-con.

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