By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars....
http://blogs.myspace.com/russellhkelley2
I was quite taken aback by the various comments that “Pollard's defense claims Weinberger made a statement before his death that The Pollard Affair was a relatively minor matter....”
I talked with Weinberger, who was up at his residence in Maine, over a period of years until just before his death. I won’t quote him, but his reaction to Pollard’s treason was consistently one of implacable outrage. Let me add that anyone who would believe the declaration of a defense attorney about anything appears to be someone who suffers from the disease of mental gullibility. If a defense attorney told me the time I would immediately look at my watch.
Former senior DOD and CIA officials told me that Weinberger gave a secret statement to the court, before Pollard’s sentencing, that detailed the trading of stolen US data to the Soviet Union and the extent of the damage that trading had caused.
The former senior CIA officials told me of the KGB-Sharon deal that took place on Cyprus in 1981 The KGB and the Israelis held regular meetings there. Weinberger never confirmed this, but we spoke on condition that he would correct what was false or mistaken in my writing. He never corrected this. It has to be understood that the trading of the Pollard information had a dual purpose. The first was to get more Jews out of the Soviet Union, but the second was to recruit Jews working for the Soviet Union on sensitive missile and/or nuclear issues.
But what the soviets got in return was severely damaging to US security. The Soviets were ravenous to find out anything about US ballistic missile submarines, to them the most sinister threat, and Pollard gave the Soviets a great deal of data. Soon, like the aftermath of John Walker’s treason, Soviet attack subs began to turn up at critical rendezvous points for US ballistic subs on patrol which then were forced to hastily abort. This clearly impaired US war fighting capability, at least for a time. (As a point of fact, I was the first US reporter to break this story as well.)
However, Pollard’s most damaging gift to the Soviets was that of the US. war plan against the Soviet Union. including firing locations, sequences, and coordinates.
It should also be remembered that Mossad has no station in Moscow, and that 99.9 percent of its information came from what one Mossad agent called, “positive interrogation” – interviewing Jews emigrating from the Soviet Union and analyzing their information. In addition, there is a super-secret division of Mossad, called Al which in Hebrew means “above” or “on top.” Al is so secret that most Mossad employees did not know of its existence, and the few that did had no access to its computerized files. Al operatives use fake U.S. passports and if they are caught in the U.S. they are jailed as spies. They have no diplomatic immunity.
Al operates stations all over the world, but one of Al’s functions was to take data from Jews emigrating from the Soviet Union and repackage it to make it more attractive to the Soviets by inserting things like radar information from the Danes or reports of troop movements in West Germany and other NATO chit chat to provide a fuller, more enticing picture. Al agents most certainly played a part in repackaging the Pollard thefts to make them more attractive to the Russians.
When the Pollard data began to arrive in the Eastern Bloc, US installations that spy on Israel like the NSA listening post near Harrogate in England or the unmanned listening post on Cyprus could detect an immediate damage to efforts to recruit new agents, a reluctance on the part of prospective U.S. agents to join any outfit so thoroughly penetrated by a foreign power. One thinks of LeCarre’s tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy and the agonies of double agents when they hear that another has been uncovered.
Six feet long, six feet wide, and ten feet tall - that is the space the Pollard stolen documents occupies to this day. The story that Pollard stole all this because he was some sort of super Israeli patriot is the rankest horse dung.... Weinberger insisted over and over that Pollard had tried to spy for South Africa and that his first love in life was not Israel but money. Weinberger was well aware of Pollard attempting to use the proceeds of his treason to buy expensive jewelry for his wife. He thought Pollard morally disgusting....
To conclude, when I used the phrase “with grace” in regard to returning Pollard’s body to Israel, I thought I was dripping with almost vulgar irony.....
On Russian immigration to Israel.... In addition to a significant change in cultural outlook it is also sure that there are a significant number of Russian agents within the Israeli government and military industries.....Sympathy For The Devil–Continued Calls For Pollard’s Release Yet Another Symptom of America’s Failing Health
As a result of Pollard’s treason, not only were America’s methods and sources of acquiring/maintaining her National Security secrets compromised, but as well over 1,000 intelligence agents were caught by the Soviets and executed. The reason the Soviets became a factor in this disaster was because Israel–America’s only “ally” in the Middle East and recipient of as much as $30 million a day in direct U.S. aid, traded the highly-sensitive information in return for increased Jewish emigration to Israel from the U.S.S.R..
Despite all this–the espionage equivalent of a nuclear weapon being detonated in the U.S. intelligence community, Israel (and more specifically, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) make it a part of their regular demands that Pollard be released from his prison cell in Butner, North Carolina.
http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/sympathy-for-the-devil-continued-calls-for-pollard%e2%80%99s-release-yet-another-symptom-of-america%e2%80%99s-failing-health/
Guess who else is there?
Madoff's Butner Prison Is The "Crown Jewel" Of Federal Prison System
The North Carolina prison where the convicted Ponzi schemer has been to serve his life sentence is considered "the crown jewel" of the federal prison system. It’s a place where many convicts hope to be sent. It may not be "club Fed" but it is the closest thing that exists in the federal prison system to a country club prison.
The Butner Federal Correctional Complex is about 45 minutes northeast of Durham. From the outside you could mistake it for a college campus, except perhaps for the barb-wire.
It’s often sought after by convicts because its staff and facilities have a good reputation. There are no hardcore maximum security type criminals there. It’s all minimum, low and medium security.
Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling requested he be allowed to serve his sentence there.
Butner houses about 3,600 inmates. Notables include former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, former Adelphi CEO John Rigas, and former Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard. In the past the Butner prison has housed would be presidential assassin John Hinckley Jr. and televangelist Jim Bakker.
http://www.businessinsider.com/madoffs-butner-prison-is-the-crown-jewel-of-federal-prison-system-2009-7
Is this what they mean when US politicians talk about that 'special relationship' with Israel?
P.S. When HRM Hillary was an attorney at the Rose Law firm in Arkansas, guess who was an associate there?
POLLARD....
Gosh, what a small world!
Pollard's friends are remarkably active of late. Four members of the House have signed a letter to Obama pleading for clemency for this convicted spy and traitor. They include Barney Frank, Anthony Weiner and a couple of other dummies. Their justification is the argument that such a gesture would be encouraging to the Israeli people "in this time of their need." Frank and Weiner puzzle me. I would find Frank a comic person if it were not for his obvious skill in financial legislation. Weiner? Much the same thing although I seem to remember that he wrote some nonsense about Israel's innocence in its treacherous attack on USS Liberty.
And then there is Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense. His defense of espionage and treason against the US is simply incomprehensible. Does Pollard's betrayal of his trusted access to US Navy war plans count for nothing to Korb?
And there is also James Woolsey, the former DCI and self proclaimed "anchor of the Presbyterian wing of the neocon movement." Is he a Presbyterian? He, too, is reported in the Jerusalem Post to have asked for mercy for Pollard, that noble citizen of Israel.
