Morris Pollard on Why Is Jonathan Pollard in Prison? - 2008

The following was presented to me at a meeting I had with Dr. Morris Pollard, Jonathan Pollard's late father in his hotel room in Jerusalem. He was making yet another trip to the Knesset on behalf of his son. The date the document carries is October 2008. I have added, here and there, links (and will continue to do so).

Why is Jonathan Pollard in Prison?

Morris Pollard, Notre Dame, IN

Frequent inquiries regarding Jonathan Pollard’s continued incarceration point to one of the most troubling aspects of what has come to be called “The Pollard Affair.” Jonathan has been in federal prison for 23 years, and up to this point in time we did not know what and who ignited the vicious attacks directed against him. Jonathan was arrested and indicted by the grand jury on one count of transmitting classified information to Israel “for the benefit of Israel,” and the damage report stated “without damage to United States security.” The indictment: Jonathan informed Israel that Iraq had developed weapons of mass destruction. While treason was never mentioned in the indictment, propaganda promoting his sentence was more in line with those who committed treasonous acts.

Prior to his arrest in 1985, Jonathan ,a civil service analyst in the office of Naval Intelligence, had observed satellite photos of buildings in Baghdad, Iraq, that had been marked by unknown U.S.security personnel with the letters “WMD” (Weapons of Mass Destruction). He learned that contrary to the treaty existing between the United States and Israel, that Israel had not been informed of this threat. His superiors denied knowledge about those photos, did not know why this information was not transmitted to Israel, and suggested that perhaps an explanation required higher security clearance. Jonathan felt morally obliged to inform our ally, the Israeli government, of the danger it faced from weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the malevolent Saddam Hussein. In doing this, Jonathan broke the law.

The treaty pledged mutual exchange of vital information between Israel and the United States. The breach of the treaty was announced by then Deputy Director of the CIA “Bobby Ray” Inman. He was so furious that the Osirak nuclear reactor center in Baghdad was destroyed by Israel (June 7,1981) that he arbitrarily curtailed the vital flow ensitive classified information to Israel. Years later, Inman’s words were revealed in The Wall Street Journal (August 6, 1998) by Boston University Professor Angelo Codevilla, who was witness to that event as a member of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. By his act in changing the treaty between the U.S. and Israel, Mr Inman broke the law. The Constitution of the United states in Article 6 [2] describes valid treaties as “the law of the land”.

The Israeli government’s rapid response to the information Jonathan gave them, in securing gas masks for her citizens and mandating that each Israeli household seal a room against a gas attack. This response by Israel gives convincing evidence that Israel was not aware of Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. But what other information, of importance to Israel was omitted by the CIA during the previous 4 years? Equally important, who promoted and supported the WMD program in Iraq, and is Israel still receiving “curtailed”information ?

The Israeli response to the information from Jonathan created hysteria among certain members of the United States Administration. Jonathan was placed in solitary confinement without bail. The media was informed that Jonathan Pollard “knew too much” and that "he was a threat to the security of the United States". The intensity of the propaganda promoted such a pervasive “lynch mob” atmosphere that Jonathan’s attorney, Richard Hibey,* and the United States Prosecuting Attorney, Joseph Di Genova, recommended to Jonathan that he forego a trial by jury and sign a plea agreement for a sentence of” less than life “in exchange for his complete cooperation. However, soon after the plea agreement was signed, the attacks in the media were intensified with government-released announcements (especially from Secretary of  Defense Caspar Weinberger) that “Jonathan Pollard was the most dangerous spy in the history of our country” and that ”he should be shot”. United States Prosecuting Attorney Joseph Di Genova joined Weinberger in accusing Jonathan of “treasonous acts”, and secret testimony against Jonathan, submitted to the court under oath by Weinberger, was sealed in the name of “national security.” To this day, access to his testimony has been denied to Jonathan’s subsequent defense attorneys who had clearance to view “top secret” information.

Defense attorney Hibey refused to tell me anything about the status of the case because I was “not his client”. Errors by Richard Hibey, retrieved from the Court Record, were so blatent and so egregious that it is not reasonable to presume that they were simply accidental. He failed to protest the fact that presiding Judge Aubrey Robinson did not advise Jonathan of his right to file a direct appeal (this is considered grounds for a “reversible error” and could cause a sentence to be over-turned). Hibey failed to challenge: a) the arbitrary breach of the plea agreement, in view of the fact that there was no ”evidentiary hearing “on that subject; b) the unsupported accusations of “treason” by Weinberger and Di Genova; and, c) Weinberger’s secret sealed testimonies. Hibey, as revealed in the record presented confidential attorney-client conversations to presiding Judge Robinson. He constantly assured Jonathan that his (Hibey’s) errors would be reversed when the case would be appealed to a higher court. And surprise! Hibey, without telling anyone, including his client, did not sign the petition for appeal within 10 days after sentencing, thereby forever blocking Jonathan’s chances of mounting a direct appeal of his sentence. His client was condemned to life in prison. Hibey’s misconduct can be viewed as intentional incompetence. 

In my final meeting with him, in the privacy of his office, he revealed, in anger, his personal animosity against Israel that governed his failures as Jonathan’s defense attorney.

After Jonathan was sentenced to life in prison. he was immediately transferred to a Hospital for the Criminally Insane in the Federal Correction Facility in Springfield, Missouri. After incarceration in the” bedlam” of that Hospital for 10 months, Jonathan was” rescued” by Congressman Lee Hamilton, who handed a copy of Jonathan’s clinical record to me with the printed statement that “Jonathan Pollard was not in this hospital as a patient.” Jonathan was then transferred to the notorious maximum security Federal Prison in Marion, Illinois, where he was held in solitary confinement in a basement cell for over seven years. Our visits with Jonathan, his mail, and telephone calls were monitored by federal agents. Jonathan frequently asked me, in their presence, “why am I being punished so severely for dealing with an ally”? I had no logical explanation. Americans who actually spied against the United States for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Greece, China, South Korea, The Phillipines, South Africa and the Soviet Union were ignored by Weinberger, “by the anonymous government sources,” and by the CIA. Was this a “special agenda”that was aimed at Jonathan and not at the criminals noted below?

Jonathan is now in a medium security Federal Prison in Butner, North Carolina. He was transferred there only after public inquiries were made about the reasons for his continued incarceration in solitary confinement in Marion. At intervals, coinciding with appeals for leniency by Jonathan’s present attorneys, U.S. government “sources” issued reminders of the” serious crimes” committed by the “traitor” Jonathan Pollard. The “crimes” were never identified ; and no person ,no organization ,nor did anyone in the media demand identification of Jonathan’s alleged crimes and proof of the accusations.
The CIA illegally released records of “allegations of unsolved crimes ”that were attributed to Jonathan, to reporter Seymour Hersh who published the CIA records as “facts” under the title “The Traitor” in the New Yorker Magazine (1-1-1999). Jonathan was there portrayed as a “master spy”responsible for unsolved heinous crimes involving the sales of highly classified information and the destruction of our intelligence network in the Soviet Union .This ,in spite of the facts that he lacked security clearances for access to such programs ,nor was he formally charged with “treason”.

Years later, Americans in our security services, whose crimes had been attributed to Jonathan , were apprehended ,and are now serving long sentences for spying for the Soviet Union. They include: CIA agents David Barnett, who sold the names of 30 American agents; William Kampiles, who sold the Operating Manual of the K11 satellite; NSA Agent David Boone sold “the Manual of Secret Codes” ;and long time moles CIA Chief of Counter-intelligence Aldrich Ames and Senior FBI agent Robert Hanssen who were paid millions of dollars to destroy our intelligence apparatus in the Soviet Union along with the execution of many of our agents . No one in the United States administration,(including Caspar Weinberger) nor in the CIA fomented adverse public opinion against these indicted and convicted criminals. Nor were they publically-accused of “treason”.

Jonathan’s case, placed before the United States Circuit Court of Appeals by attorney Theodore Olson, was denied by two of the three judges, based on a “technicality”: there was no signed petition for appeal to be submitted within 10 days after sentencing ,from Jonathan’s former defense attorney Hibey . The third Judge, Stephen Williams, declared in his dissenting opinion that “because Jonathan Pollard’s plea agreement was arbitrarily breached by the lower court, the case is a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” One of the three judges, not identified in the record, then asked United States Prosecuting Attorney Fisher “How can it be justified that the Secretary of Defense used the term ‘treason’ and that the government lawyer used the term ‘treason’ in a case in which the government could not and did not charge treason?” Mr. Fisher responded “I think it is regrettable that that word was used by the Secretary of Defense.”

Jonathan’s frequent question “Why am I being punished so severely”. Accusations from government officials that “he knows too much” were clarified in 1993 by Alan Friedman, a prominent award-winning investigative reporter with the Financial Times of London and The Wall Street Journal. He wrote a documented book titled The Spider’s Web: The Secret History of How The White House Illegally Armed Iraq, Bantam Press. Friedman’s prologue states that 

”evidence now gathered tells a sorry tale of abuse of power by some of America’s highest level government officials. Some of our highest government administrators showed a frequent disregard for established laws and Constitutional procedures. 

Many of the things that were done were in violation of acts of Congress and of U.S. Arms Export laws. Among those who were identified with the illegal activities included George Herbert Walker Bush, James Baker, and others as the architects of a series of secret policies that illegally committed billions of American taxpayer dollars and allowed the reckless export of United States technology to some of the Iraqi dictator’s most cherished and lethal weapons projects. They believed that neither the public nor Congress could be trusted with the truth of America’s deepening involvement with Saddam. The Pentagon Chief (Caspar Weinberger) perceived Iraq as America’s secret ally against Iran.”

In the midst of all these activities, a former White House official recalled “there was substantially no leadership. Reagan was sleeping through it all ”. This may have been the early manifestation of Alzheimers disease in President Reagan..

“On July 8, 1992, twenty members of the House Judiciary Committee signed a letter addressed to Attorney General William Barr, asking that an independent prosecutor be appointed to look into charges of real crimes such as conspiracy to defraud the U.S., obstruction of justice, falsification of records, perjury, and financial conflict of interest by high .Executive Branch officials. The Committee was most disturbed about the mishandling and cover-up of investigations looking upon U. S. Policy toward Iraq..No attorney general of the U.S . had ever turned down a request from Congress to appoint a special prosecutor. Attorney General Barr was the first to do just that. The Bush administration’s attempts to hide the truth about their American policy was a more insidious threat to the proper functioning of democratic government than any weapon Saddam could have employed”{from chapter-“As the Cover-up Unravels”}.

To this day, few people may know about this illegal affair because within weeks after The Spider’s Web was delivered to book stores, the books had disappeared from their shelves. Clerks in Barnes and Noble Bookstore could not understand, from their store records, why the books had “disappeared.” Recently, I acquired a ”second-hand”copy of the book .

When Jonathan Pollard told Israel that he observed satellite photographs of buildings in Baghdad that had been labeled “WMD,” he was not aware of the source of the photographs, but he did recognize the significance of the letters “WMD.” The cabal responsible for the illegal operation probably figured that since Jonathan “blew the whistle,”on their operation, he must also know of their crimes. This very likely ignited the “cover-up” campaign by Caspar Weinberger to silence Jonathan Pollard.

However, if Jonathan did know of the crimes described in The Spider’s Web, he would certainly have revealed them to the Grand Jury ,convened to judge the worthiness of the case against him. Jonathan’s silence over 23 years of punishment for unspecified crimes that were emphasized by the word “treason” were not challenged by defense attorney Richard Hibey nor by the sentencing Judge Aubrey Robinson (who showed poor judgment in contravening the flawed use of the word “treason “in our Constitution and he condoned the inflammatory accusations of “treason” by Caspar Weinberger). Efforts aimed at compromising Jonathan’s future credibility by placing him in a hospital for the criminally insane, failed through intervention by Congressman Lee Hamilton. 

The seven years of silence during Jonathan’s solitary incarceration in Marion Prison was not experienced by any of those criminals noted above, who were convicted for committing identified heinous crimes against the United States. Jonathan’s silence must have convinced the cabal that their campaign to silence him did not need a cover-up ,that he obviously did not know of their criminal activities. In early 2002, Caspar Weinberger, in a tape- recorded interview with respected investigative reporter Edwin Black, responded to Mr. Black’s question “in your published memoir ’In the Arena,’ why was the Pollard incident left out of your book?” Weinberger casually replied, “because it was, in a sense, a very minor matter, but made very important.” Asked to elaborate, Weinberger repeated “as I say, the Pollard matter was comparatively minor. It was made far bigger than it’s actual importance.” Pressed on why the case was made far bigger than it’s actual importance, Weinberger replied “I don’t know why, it just was.” (New York Jewish News, June 21, 2002). Thus, Weinberger admitted in his comments, that his secret testimonies, under oath,against Jonathan were not true; so why is his testimony still sealed, and why is Jonathan Pollard still in prison?

Every time Jonathan’s case comes up for a clemency hearing, the government propaganda machine publicly demonizes him. This propaganda was – and continues to be - highly pervasive , emphatic and confusing to the media, as exemplified by a report in the New York Times (May 6, 1987), that “Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison for ‘treason’”; and, in theWashington Post, that he had a jury trial (January 1, 1999), thus illustrating the confused “mind-set” even among professional journalists.  Further, at a public meeting in Israel (May 2007),  the current U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Richard M. Jones, announced that” the United States showed mercy to Jonathan Pollard by not executing him for his crimes”. This ignited a furious response among the Israelis; and he apologized on the following day. Since ambassadors rarely initiate policy statements, who authorized Jones to deliver that inflammatory message? And what ”crimes” were committed ?

When President Clinton was considering clemency for Jonathan during the waning days of his second term, a letter signed by 60 Senators was sent to President Clinton urging him to deny clemency in “the interest of Justice and the National Security.” The letter was signed by Senators Lieberman and McCain. I wonder if any of the senators demanded that his “ crimes” be identified, the proof thereof, and the content of the secret testimony by Weinberger. Note that more than 23 years after Jonathan’s arrest, no evidence has yet to be presented of any damage caused to the United States by his actions, nor by any consequence that would even begin to justify his continued incarceration. Jonathan Pollard was not indicted, he was not tried, and he was not convicted of treason. He is not a terrorist, nor did he maim nor murder any one! Sadly, Jonathan Pollard is the target of a cover-up of a crime that was unknown to him.

What do we know now, 23 years later, that we did not know then? Without realizing it, Jonathan “stumbled” unknowingly into what was a secret conspiracy by U.S.Government Adminstrators to promote and support, through the CIA, the development of WMD in the hands of the dictator Saddam Hussein. The American people would be appalled that the CIA would knowingly entrust any WMD to a known vicious sociopath who, without remorse, murdered thousands of innocent Kurdish Iraqi men, women and children with poison gas in August 1988. Without prior knowledge and preparation for such a catastrophe, Israel might have suffered the same treatment .The treaty that was conceived for preventing such a catastrophe was “erased” by then Deputy Director of the CIA Bobby Inman, in cold disdain for probable tragic consequences. My objective assessment of the cynical intent by this CIA official was to leave Israel in a vulnerable position, to the will of Saddam Hussein.

Now, Weinberger is dead. However, with the retraction of his cover-up attacks against Pollard, why is it that his secret testimonies have not been declassified ,in accord with President Clinton’s Executive Order of October 1995, on intelligence that sets a 10 year shelf-life on state secrets. It is of added interest to note that after reading the secret testimony of Weinberger, Senator Charles Schumer "found nothing there that justifies a life sentence”.

No one, including my son, should be serving a life sentence that is based on secret testimony by a witness (Caspar Weinberger) whose history includes multiple counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. (“Firewall-The Iran Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up” by Lawrence E Walsh, Norton Press, 1997). He was pardoned by the elder Bush before court action We do not know of any crimes that Jonathan committed, other than that of passing information to an ally that was entitled by treaty to that information. If the action by Pollard can be called “treason” by Weinberger, was he calling Israel the enemy? His views were rejected by judges in the U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals and rejected by U.S. Attorney Fisher. 

It was a highly significant change of perception by Caspar Weinberger: from his early promotion of “ maximum sentence” for Pollard, including execution, to his more recent admission that “the Pollard matter was comparatively minor. It was made far bigger than it’s actual importance “. Thus, in the name of justice and accountability it is timely that the sealed testimony, made under oath by Caspar Weinberger be unsealed, including his message to Judge Robinson , prior to sentencing ,when he promoted “ maximum sentence”. But, let us not overlook the damage to Jonathan by his defense attorney Richard Hibey who, without the knowledge of his client, refused to sign the Petition for Appeal within 10 days after sentencing ,thereby condemning Jonathan to life in prison .By this maneuver, further assessment of his errors and of errors of judgment by the lower Court were, on a technicality, blocked. Hibey gave perfidious comfort to the criminals whose crimes were covered-up, and his client was, and is to this day being punished severely.

Decades ago it was clearly predicted by Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh that ”the Jonathan Pollard affair is a festering sore that will not go away”.  After reading this article, I hope that you will also agree with him and with Thomas Burke when he said, “It is necessary for good men to do nothing for evil to flourish”. 

It is urgent that we restore the rule of law and due process, and for the good name and honor of the American justice system to review the totality of the case against Jonathan Pollard, which I believe, would lead to his commutation and release after 23 years of severe incarceration.

So, why is Jonathan Pollard in prison?

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* Hibey is a Lebanese Maronite.

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