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Jonathan Pollard, American Who Spied for Israel, Released After 30 Years
Jonathan Pollard, American Who Spied for Israel, Released After 30 Years
(about 11 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Jonathan J. Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel, walked out of prison early on Friday after 30 years, but the Obama administration had no plans to let him leave the country and move to Israel and his lawyers immediately went to court to challenge his parole conditions.
WASHINGTON — He was spirited out of a federal prison on Friday under cover of night, eluding witnesses in a cloak-and-dagger coda to a spy story that has strained relations between two allies for three decades.
Mr. Pollard, who as a Navy intelligence analyst passed suitcases filled with classified documents to Israeli handlers in the mid-1980s, was released in the early morning hours from a federal prison in Butner, N.C., after receiving parole on a life sentence, ending a long imprisonment that has been a constant irritant in relations between the United States and Israel.
But while Jonathan J. Pollard, one of the most notorious spies of the late Cold War, tried to stay out of sight after emerging from custody almost as if from a time machine, the United States and Israel hoped his release would finally heal a long-festering open wound in their partnership.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement that the people of his nation “welcome the release” and that he, personally, “had long hoped this day would come.”
For 30 years, Mr. Pollard was at the center of a profound struggle between Washington and Jerusalem, one that shadowed American presidents and Israeli prime ministers since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. The Americans called him a traitor. The Israelis deemed him a soldier, to some a hero. At times, both made him a diplomatic bargaining chip.
“After three long and difficult decades, Jonathan has been reunited with his family,” Mr. Netanyahu said, noting that he had “raised Jonathan’s case for years” with several American presidents. “May this Sabbath bring him much joy and peace that will continue in the years and decades ahead.”
The only American ever sentenced to life in prison for spying for an ally, Mr. Pollard was freed on parole to an uncertain future. After ducking cameras outside the prison in North Carolina, he was spotted hours later in New York, where his lawyers went to federal court to challenge the terms of his parole, including an ankle bracelet to monitor his movements.
A spokesman for Free Pollard, a group based in Israel that has campaigned for his release, said it had been confirmed by Mr. Pollard’s wife, Esther, who had seen him. The spokesman declined to give any specifics about the timing of the release or about the couple’s whereabouts.
Grayer and thicker around the middle, Mr. Pollard, 61, would hardly be recognizable to most Americans anymore. Wearing khaki pants, a button-down blue shirt, dark glasses and a skullcap, he walked into the federal probation office with his wife, Esther, holding his arm, as if not to let him out of her presence again. His lawyers said he would be working as an analyst at an investment firm.
“We know that he is out of jail; we can’t give more details,” said the spokesman, who asked that his name not be published to avoid personal attention. “He met his wife. It was a really, very, very moving moment, as you can imagine — the first time that they have been together as a couple out of jail, something that is really, really hard to imagine.”
“After three long and difficult decades, Jonathan has been reunited with his family,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement from Jerusalem. Noting that he had “raised Jonathan’s case for years” with American leaders, Mr. Netanyahu added, “May this Sabbath bring him much joy and peace that will continue in the years and decades ahead.”
But Mr. Pollard remained under parole conditions that he and his supporters denounced as onerous. Under federal rules, he cannot leave the country for at least five years without permission. He has asked for an exception so that he can move to Israel where his wife now lives.
There was no celebration by the American government. “This was one of the 10 most serious espionage cases in history,” said Joseph E. diGenova, the former United States attorney who prosecuted Mr. Pollard. “I’m delighted he served 30 years. I wish he would have served more.”
The federal authorities also insisted that he wear an electronic bracelet with a global positioning system so that his movements could be tracked at all times and stipulated that any computers he uses, including those of any employer that hires him, be subject to monitoring and inspection. His lawyers on Friday asked a federal judge in New York to overturn those conditions, calling them illegal and unnecessary.
The outspoken Mr. Pollard chose restraint on his first day out of prison. “I have no comment, sorry,” he told reporters outside the New York probation office. “I can’t say anything right now.”
“The notion that, having fought for and finally obtained his release after serving 30 years in prison, Mr. Pollard will now disclose stale 30-year-old information to anyone is preposterous,” his lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, said in a statement. “Apart from the fact that the information is useless, disclosing it will result in Mr. Pollard’s swift return to prison to serve out his life sentence.”
Mr. Pollard remained under parole conditions that he and his supporters consider to be onerous. Under federal rules, he cannot leave the country for at least five years without permission, and the White House repeated on Friday that it would not intervene to let him move to Israel, as he has requested.
In documents filed in federal court, the lawyers said Mr. Pollard has obtained a job as a research analyst in the finance department of an investment firm in New York, which would be complicated by computer monitoring. The lawyers attached statements from Robert McFarlane, who was President Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, and former Senator Dennis DeConcini, a Democrat from Arizona who served on the Intelligence Committee, stating that any classified information Mr. Pollard may remember from 30 years ago would be useless.
Besides insisting that he wear an electronic bracelet on his ankle, federal authorities stipulated that any computer he uses, including those of an employer, be subject to inspection. His lawyers want a federal judge to overturn both conditions.
The court documents made no mention of Mr. Pollard’s desire to immediately move to Israel, which would require a waiver of federal parole rules. Israel Today, a newspaper based in Jerusalem that often reflects the views of Mr. Netanyahu, reported on Thursday that the prime minister had personally appealed to President Obama during their meeting this month to lift the standard prohibition on parolees leaving the United States but received no response. American officials confirmed that the request was made.
“The notion that, having fought for and finally obtained his release after serving 30 years in prison, Mr. Pollard will now disclose stale 30-year-old information to anyone is preposterous,” his lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, said in a statement.
Two Democratic lawmakers wrote to the Justice Department last week urging Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch to grant the request, saying that Mr. Pollard would be willing to renounce his American citizenship and never return to the United States. They noted that a spy for Cuba was allowed to renounce his American citizenship and live in Cuba in 2013 after serving his sentence.
Mr. Pollard grew up in a Jewish family and began dreaming about emigrating to Israel at age 12, according to a declassified damage assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency. As a student at Stanford University, it said, he fantasized about being a Mossad agent.
But the White House repeated on Friday that it would not intervene in the matter. “The president has no plans to alter the forms of his parole,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters on Air Force One en route to Malaysia, where the president was traveling. He referred questions to the Justice Department.
Rejected from a C.I.A. fellowship, he went to work for the Navy as a civilian intelligence analyst in 1979, earning a reputation as “a capable — if eccentric — scholar and intelligence analyst” with “significant emotional instability,” according to the damage report.
Other senior administration officials who asked not to be named discussing internal deliberations said on Thursday that the Justice Department was not considering Mr. Pollard’s request either, and that it had no plans to consider it. Administration officials have been loath to appear to grant Mr. Pollard special consideration in the face of strong opposition by intelligence agencies that call his actions a grievous betrayal of national security.
In June 1984, he began passing suitcases of classified documents to Israeli handlers, including information on Arab and Soviet weaponry as well as satellite photographs. A manual he gave handlers provided a guide to American signals intelligence, media reports said. He was paid tens of thousands of dollars and given jewels and foreign trips.
“They don’t want to make it look like they were being too lenient,” said Joseph E. diGenova, the former United States attorney who prosecuted Mr. Pollard. If Mr. Pollard were allowed to go to Israel, where his case has been a cause célèbre for years, Mr. diGenova said there would be a “parade” and “events just rubbing it in the United States’ face.”
He and his first wife, Anne, were arrested in November 1985 after being turned away from the Israeli Embassy, where they had sought asylum. Mr. Pollard agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of conspiring to commit espionage, but he gave remorseless prison interviews that were deemed a violation of the plea agreement and a judge sentenced him to life in prison.
The Israeli news media reported that Mr. Netanyahu and supporters of Mr. Pollard were discouraging public signs of celebration at his release to avoid antagonizing Washington. Israel radio reported that he was released before dawn on Friday to keep the event as low-profile as possible, given the international attention to his case.
Anne Pollard was sentenced to five years for helping him. After she was released, the two divorced, and he later remarried. For years, the Israelis disavowed Mr. Pollard, but eventually granted him citizenship, acknowledged his work for them and renounced spying on the United States.
Supporters said it was churlish to deny Mr. Pollard the chance to leave the country now that he has completed his sentence.
His supporters call his punishment disproportionate, harsher than that for violent criminals or spies for hostile powers. “The United States spies on a lot of its allies. A lot of our allies spy on us. It’s the way of the world,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, chief executive of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
“I don’t know why we wouldn’t approve that,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who wrote last week’s letter along with Representative Jerrold Nadler, another New York Democrat. “He served his full term. I don’t know what good it does except to keep the whole show going.”
Others said he deserved to be punished, but believe the fervor in the American intelligence community was exacerbated by bias. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former C.I.A. officer, said he would have kept Mr. Pollard behind bars for life. But he added: “With some folks, the emotional intensity of the Pollard issue unquestionably springs from a fairly serious anti-Israeli sentiment. Some of those are anchored in anti-Semitism.”
The show has been going for three decades. Arrested in 1985, Mr. Pollard eventually pleaded guilty to handing Israel suitcases full of classified documents that included intelligence about Arab military systems and Soviet weapons as well as satellite photographs and information about American “sources and methods” of its own spycraft.
Mr. Pollard’s critics denied that, and many Jewish Americans were among those who denounced him, worrying about questions of dual loyalty. “He wasn’t an Israeli,” Mr. diGenova said. “He was an American citizen who betrayed his country for money.”
In the ensuing years, multiple governments in Jerusalem pressed for Mr. Pollard’s release, only to be rebuffed by successive American presidents. The only American ever given a life sentence for spying for an ally, Mr. Pollard was granted Israeli citizenship during his imprisonment.
In Israel, Mr. Pollard became a cause célèbre. Posters with his face were plastered on walls in Jerusalem, and his case became a regular talking point when Israeli leaders visited the White House.
At one point, the Obama administration considered freeing him as part of a broader effort to induce Israel to make concessions in a peace deal with the Palestinians, but ultimately opted not to. In the end, officials said Mr. Pollard served the full amount stipulated by federal law, which requires a parole hearing after 30 years of a life sentence.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton considered releasing him to seal an Israeli-Palestinian, peace agreement, only to back off after George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director, threatened to resign. President Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, last year proposed more or less the same thing, but it went nowhere.
While the Obama administration did not facilitate his early release, it also chose not to object to granting him parole, but it denied that it was trying to assuage Israel after a rupture over the president’s nuclear deal with Iran. The United States Parole Commission announced in July that Mr. Pollard had met the legal standards for release.
In the end, Mr. Obama made no move to release Mr. Pollard early, but did not object when the United States Parole Commission decided to let him out after 30 years.
Mr. Pollard left the prison in North Carolina under cover of night, eluding reporters, photographers and television crews waiting on the other side of a country highway. Guards prevented the journalists from entering the prison grounds, directing them across the road, where the only sight of anyone coming or going was through the windows of moving cars.
Mr. Pollard left the prison in Butner, N.C., before dawn on Friday without being spotted by journalists waiting across a highway. An Israeli couple touring the United States in a recreational vehicle pulled up at 6:30 a.m., hoping to see his release.
An Israeli couple that had been touring the United States and Canada since last month pulled up to the east entrance of the prison in a Pace Arrow recreational vehicle around 6:30 a.m. “We came to see Pollard get out,” said Laya Saul. “I’ve been praying for him for years.”
“He did something wrong,” said Laya Saul, who came with her husband, Yaron Jackson. “He deserved to do some time. But people who have done some really dark crimes have gotten less time than he did.”
“He did something wrong,” she added. “He deserved to do some time. But people who have done some really dark crimes have gotten less time than he did.”
In Israel, Mr. Netanyahu sought to avoid celebrations that would provoke the Americans, but some could not resist. “A free man!” Ayelet Shaked, the hawkish justice minister, exulted on her Facebook page over Mr. Pollard’s photograph.
Her husband, Yaron Jackson, wearing the sidelocks of Orthodox Judaism, said he wished 10,000 more Jews had come. “There’s a mitzvah, a commandment, to bring a Jew out of prison,” he said. “It’s just kind of a custom to pray for a Jew to get help. This is God answering our prayers and saving one of our brothers.”
Nachman Shai, a lawmaker from the center-left Zionist Union who heads a Parliament caucus that pushed for Mr. Pollard’s release, vowed to keep pressing his case. “We will not rest,” he wrote in a letter to Mr. Pollard, “until you are free to depart the United States for any destination of your choosing, first and foremost Israel.”
Mr. Netanyahu had asked his ministers to refrain from discussing the case in order to tamp down the air of celebration. On Friday morning, though, Ayelet Shaked, the hawkish Israeli justice minister, exulted on her Facebook page, “A free man!” over his photograph, and made a biblical reference that implied that he should be allowed to emigrate to Israel.
“Sons will yet return to their borders,” Ms. Shaked wrote, a twist on a verse from the Book of Jeremiah, “And thy children shall return to their own border.”
Nachman Shai, a lawmaker from the center-left Zionist Union who heads a Parliament caucus that pushed for Mr. Pollard’s release, wrote in a letter to Mr. Pollard that the group would “not cease its activity until we remove the limitations imposed upon you upon your release.
“We continue to demand the removal of any restriction on your freedom of movement, communication, or other violation of your rights,” Mr. Shai wrote. “We will not rest until you are free to depart the United States for any destination of your choosing, first and foremost Israel.”
