Spies Against Armageddon

by Dan Raviv

  Pollard was a civilian who had worked for the U.S. Navy for six years, most of that time in intelligence and counterterrorism units. Lest that sound too swashbuckling, he was only a desk man. But he was a man whose desk included a computer with access to almost every secret collected and stored by America’s huge intelligence network.

  While Pollard considered himself a loyal American, he was also a fervent supporter of Israel. He was born in Texas in 1954 to a Jewish family that moved to South Bend, Indiana.

  Pollard went to Stanford University, one of the nation’s finest, where his international relations professors found him to have an overactive imagination. He claimed to be a colonel in the Israeli army, and he even told acquaintances that the Mossad was grooming him to be a spy in America.

  Pollard’s stories always involved Israel, and he left some people with the impression that the Mossad was paying his tuition fees. While the tales did not all seem credible, they were told with such conviction that it was hard to believe they were totally false—but they were.

  He was hired by the United States Navy as a civilian intelligence analyst in 1979, and he was later assigned to an anti-terrorism center that was created in 1984 in response to the upsurge of Hezbollah attacks in Lebanon. His job gave him access to facts, clues, and rumors collected by U.S. agencies and agents across a wide range of countries.

  Pollard also held Washington’s most valuable library card—a “courier card” that permitted him to visit high-security archives and carry documents back to his office for analysis.

  The nightmare of why his American employers failed to detect his erratic personality traits in school, his exaggerated boasts and his outright lies, would go on to haunt security officers in Washington for years.

  Before joining the Navy, Pollard had applied for a more prestigious job at the CIA but was rejected. The Agency never told the Navy about its assessment of Pollard as “a fanciful liar, a closet spy, a Zionist zealot, and a drug abuser.”

  Pollard set out to live his fantasies. Through a New York businessman he knew, Pollard was introduced in May 1984 to an Israeli air force colonel, Aviem Sella, who was on leave in New York, studying for a post-graduate degree.

  It was conspiracy at first sight. Pollard told the colonel that he had absolute proof that the United States was not sharing all the intelligence data it should with Israel, and Pollard said that made him livid. For instance, he said, Iraq had a highly active chemical weapons program, and America was not giving that information to Israel. Pollard hastened to add that his goal was to help the Jewish state, which he truly loved, and not ever to hurt America.

  Sella, one of Israel’s finest pilots—one of the élite who who had bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor—listened with interest.

  Colonel Sella dutifully sent a message to the air force in Tel Aviv about the angry American intelligence analyst who offered to keep Israel fully informed. His report made its way to Aman and to the Mossad. Yet the Mossad director, Nahum Admoni—who succeeded Yitzhak Hofi in late 1982—immediately decided that he did not want to risk angering the United States by running a spy there.

  The report also went to Rafi Eitan, the veteran “Mr. Kidnap” who now had the very limited role of directing Lakam—the small defense ministry agency for technological and nuclear espionage. Eitan had grand ambitions to expand his agency, and the offer made by Pollard as a “walk-in” seemed to be great timing.

  In weighing whether to use him, Eitan had to consider what most Israeli intelligence chiefs had decided many years earlier: not to use local Jews as spies for Israel inside their own countries. Egyptian and Iraqi Jews who served Israel had been tortured and hanged after being caught, and their families and communities had suffered.

  Yet, Israeli officials might be forgiven for assuming that they could get away with almost anything inside the United States. Ronald Reagan, who became president in 1981, got off to a somewhat bumpy start with Israel—as he sold sophisticated weapons to Saudi Arabia, steamrollering opposition by pro-Israel lobbyists, and then condemned Israel for its invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

  After attacks by Syria and Hezbollah on Americans in Lebanon, though, Reagan turned strongly pro-Israel. He gave enthusiastic backing to a formal memorandum on strategic cooperation with Israel, which included more port visits to Haifa by America’s Sixth Fleet, the pre-positioning of U.S. military equipment in Israel, joint training exercises, and heightened cooperation between the intelligence communities.

  CIA veterans with long years of service in the Middle East concluded that Israel could do almost anything and be forgiven by official Washington. One American intelligence officer told a Mossad contact, only half jokingly, that Israel was lucky it never became the 51st state.

  “Why are we so lucky?” the Israeli wondered.

  “Because then,” said the CIA agent, “you would only have two U.S. senators, and this way you have at least 60.”

  Still, the intelligence communities of both countries knew enough to be suspicious of each other. The FBI was especially wary of Israel’s aggressive acquisition of technology.

  No one was better qualified than Rafi Eitan to know about the sensitivities of spying in America. He himself was involved in the suspected disappearance of uranium from Numec in Pennsylvania. As a seasoned professional, he also knew enough to be suspicious of an over-eager walk-in like Pollard. It could be a “sting” operation by the U.S. authorities or a trap of another sort.

  Eitan also knew, however, that the young American’s input could be priceless. Despite formal exchange agreements, Israel’s intelligence community always assumed that the United States was not sharing everything. Pollard could fill the gaps.

  Knowing that Lakam had enjoyed unquestioned backing from the top political echelon in decades past, Eitan felt he had an implicit green light to proceed.

  He used “Avi” Sella, on his study break in New York, as a local case officer. The colonel was instructed to continue his contacts with Pollard, and he had several guarded conversations with him from telephone booths. In the summer of 1984, Sella met with Pollard in Washington and purposefully forged a friendship. They spoke for hours about Israeli history and strategy.

  Pollard also handed over classified documents. The Lakam agency’s science attachés in New York and Washington assisted Sella by photocopying papers and rushing the copies to Eitan in Tel Aviv.

  The results were astounding. Now the Israelis could see what the Americans had: a lot of information on issues of major importance to Israel’s defense.

  There was information on some of the newest weapons systems obtained by Israel’s Arab neighbors: lists and descriptions of arms recently purchased by Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Because those three countries were seen as pro-America moderates, the United States had always refused to share its intelligence about them with Israel. Now, Eitan realized, Israel had a new window into those countries. And this was just a sample of what Pollard could deliver.

  The American agent’s enthusiasm was overwhelming. After he was promoted within the Navy’s anti-terrorism center in October 1984, he told the Israelis that his higher security clearance could get them almost any document in the American intelligence networks—including photographs taken by spy satellites. Israel, at that time, did not have its own roving eyes in orbit.

  Eitan was so pleased that he decided to launch a new phase. Pollard and Anne Henderson, then his fiancée, were flown to Paris at Lakam’s expense in November 1984. There, a little surprise awaited them. Sella was on the scene, taking them out to fancy dinners—and then introducing Pollard to his new case officer, Yossi Yagur.

  Yagur, an employee of Israel Aircraft Industries, was now Lakam’s science attaché at the Israeli consulate in New York. In case the worst should happen, Yagur was protected by diplomatic immunity.

  As a further surprise, Pollard got to meet the legendary Eitan, whose exploits (such as kidnapping Eichmann) were outlined to the young American to impress him. Eitan was intro
duced as director of the entire operation involving Pollard. Eitan and Yagur sat down with their volunteer agent to discuss their next moves, including specific documents they hoped he could acquire.

  In more relaxed moments, Sella encouraged Jonathan and Anne to admire the windows of some of the French capital’s most elegant jewelry stores. When Henderson saw a large sapphire and diamond ring she liked, Sella urged, “Go ahead and buy it.” The Israeli paid, on condition that they make it their engagement ring.

  It cost around $10,000, and in many ways it was the tangible mark of the Pollards’ engagement by Israel. The couple would marry the following August in Venice and spend a three-week honeymoon in Italy—which was not only paid for by Israel, but included a detour to Tel Aviv to meet Eitan again.

  In compensation for expenses and as a token of their appreciation, the Israelis told Pollard, he would be paid $1,500 a month. In addition to Anne’s ring, Pollard was immediately given $10,000 in cash, and Eitan told him that a Swiss bank account had been opened for him. His fees would be deposited directly, for Pollard’s use in 10 years.

  By then, the American replied, he would hope to live in Israel. Yagur responded to that by showing him an Israeli passport already prepared for Pollard with his photograph and the false name “Danny Cohen.” Pollard was pleased.

  The diamond ring and the cash were part of a classic technique to ensnare a secret agent and keep him. The spy who tells his controllers he is acting voluntarily, out of ideological affection for the country he is helping—or disgruntled hatred of the nation he is betraying—can easily be overcome by fear or change his mind. Being a volunteer, he feels he can withdraw at any time.

  A paid agent cannot. He feels obliged to deliver, and in the background lies the threat of blackmail.

  Pollard’s motivation was a combination of Zionism and excitement. He felt certain that he was helping Israel defend itself, and he had the thrill of being a spy, with exotic trips and secret payments.

  As soon as he returned from Europe, Pollard got right to work. He brought an entire suitcase full of documents—and the fabled satellite photographs of the Middle East—to a house in Maryland, where he met Yagur. The Lakam officer taught Pollard some code words to be used in case communication or cancellation of an expected meeting was necessary.

  Yagur told Pollard to come, every other Friday, to a special photocopying facility in a Washington apartment building where Irit Erb resided. She worked as a secretary for the Lakam office in the Israeli embassy.

  The apartment she used belonged to an American Jew, working as a lawyer in Israel, who apparently did not know what the defense ministry was doing in his Washington residence. There was so much high-speed and high-quality copying hardware there that a special electronic shielding system was installed, to block electromagnetic waves from causing interference to the neighbors’ television sets.

  The Israeli handlers knew how to keep Pollard interested in his work: They stroked his ego. Yagur frequently told Pollard that he was extremely valuable, and that various parts of Israel’s intelligence and defense communities were using the information he had provided. Because Pollard was in the business of analyzing such matters, he was not satisfied by generous but general platitudes. He insisted that Yagur find out, line by line, agency by agency, who in Israel was using the secret documents and how.

  The various agency chiefs in Tel Aviv—and officials as senior as the prime minister himself—had to have known that Eitan’s scoops were coming from Washington. After all, only an American source could have provided satellite photographs. Yet no one asked Eitan who his agent was. Revealing details would violate compartmentalization.

  Thanks to their eccentric but effective spy, the Israelis received CIA analyses, copies of messages exchanged among American facilities in the region, details of Syrian chemical weapons, reports on Iraqi efforts to revive its nuclear program, and lists of Soviet arms deliveries as seen by U.S. secret agents and satellites.

  The photographs and analyses provided by Pollard allowed the Israelis, for nearly a year until he was caught, to monitor in detail the movement of various navies’ vessels in the Mediterranean. There was also a CIA file on Pakistan’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon, which could be the “Islamic bomb” that Israelis long had feared.

  The most valuable pieces of purloined intelligence, in terms of enabling the Israelis to carry out a specific mission, were the aerial photographs of PLO headquarters in Tunis. There were also reports on the air defense systems of the North African states on the way to Tunisia, including Colonel Qaddafi’s Libya. Israel’s air force bombed the PLO complex on October 1, 1985, in the most distant Israeli bombing raid ever at that time. It flattened much of Yasser Arafat’s post-Lebanon base, and Pollard took pleasure in knowing that he had helped make it happen.

  The spy was, however, driving himself too hard. His enthusiasm gave way to fatigue, and the Navy’s Anti-Terrorism Alert Center (ATAC) noted that his job performance markedly declined. He was doing a full-time job analyzing data and reports for the Navy, and then a full-time moonlighting job as a spy.

  His boss at ATAC, Commander Jerry Agee, began to have doubts about Pollard after catching him telling lies about some trivial matters. Agee started paying attention and noticed stacks of secret documents on Pollard’s desk, many of them unrelated to his assigned projects.

  The boss noticed that every Friday, Pollard was accessing Middle East message traffic and more computerized files than usual. Naval counterintelligence planted surveillance cameras over Pollard’s desk, and it looked like he was amassing his own intelligence library.

  He was detained for questioning on November 18, 1985. He told naval intelligence agents that he could help them uncover a multinational spy ring of which he was aware. They let him call his wife, and while pretending to explain that he would be coming home late that night, he also told Anne to “take the cactus to friends.” It was a code they had developed earlier, indicating that he was in trouble and any secret documents at home should be removed at once.

  Ironically, the Pollards were scheduled to have dinner that evening with Avi Sella, who was no longer their primary contact but was on a visit to the United States. Sella had told the Pollards that the air force had promoted him to brigadier general, and they ought to go out to celebrate. Instead, as Anne left for the dinner date, she was in a state of panic.

  “Jay is in trouble,” she told Sella at a Chinese restaurant on K Street. The new Israeli general sensed severe danger and nervously told Anne not to admit that they had ever met. They never saw each other again.

  Pollard was allowed to go home that night, after the first round of questioning. He and Anne decided to call their case officer and got through to Yagur in New York. Pollard demanded asylum and transport to Israel. Yagur said: “You’re probably being followed. If you shake your surveillance, come in and we’ll try to help.” The remark was unusually sloppy for an espionage handler: If Yagur believed that his agent was being followed, he should have known that Pollard’s telephone was being wiretapped, too.

  Israel and the Pollards would all pay for their lack of professionalism in this most delicate and dangerous operation. The Israelis were in an unseemly race to see who could flee fastest. Yagur and Sella flew home from New York; Erb and her boss, deputy Lakam attaché at the Washington embassy Ilan Ravid, left for Israel from the capital.

  Israel’s intelligence operatives were making a clean getaway, but they were abandoning their paid agent in America.

  Three days after the Pollards’ arrest, Israel first admitted the possibility of having been involved with the couple. There was worldwide amazement that Israeli intelligence would have been so stupid as to have allowed an agent to be arrested at Israel’s embassy. And the assumption, which surprised the international press, was that the Mossad had acted stupidly.

  Within a few days, however, it was revealed that “a scientific agency named Lakam”—whose existence never had been mentioned before
—was responsible. Officials tried to dismiss the humiliating affair as a mere “rogue operation.” The Israeli government announced that Lakam would be dismantled.

  On the American side, there was puzzled anger and a sense of betrayal. President Reagan, thinking of the juicy aid with which he nourished Israel, said: “I don’t understand why they are doing it.”

  His astonishment also stemmed from the fact that at that very time, agents of the two countries were in the middle of a secret project—so sensitive that U.S. government agents lied to Congress about it, and Israeli agents hid it from the Mossad. This was Irangate, or the Iran-Contra affair, and it proved that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

  The idea was to win the release of Western hostages by Hezbollah in Lebanon. As one step in a sequence of secret moves in 1985, American arms would be supplied to Iran. The incredible irony was that Iran was an enemy of the United States and Israel, labeling them “the Great Satan” and “the Little Satan.”

  Here was the scheme: Israel delivered weapons to Iran, which was then struggling in a brutal war against Iraq. The United States would replenish Israel’s arsenals. The Saudis would pay for the deal, and part of the money would be illegally funneled—behind the backs of Congress and the CIA—to the Contra rebels fighting a leftwing government in Nicaragua.

  Iran did issue instructions to Hezbollah, and a few hostages were released. But the affair came to a halt when a Beirut newspaper leaked its essence. The Reagan Administration was greatly embarrassed, in part because the president’s policy of “never dealing with terrorists” was plainly violated by his own employees.

  When Jonathan Pollard’s espionage activities were revealed, most American authorities were not very surprised. The CIA, for one, always assumed that Israeli spies were active in the United States. A secret study by the agency declared that after gathering intelligence on its Arab neighbors, the second and third priorities of Israeli intelligence were the “collection of information on secret U.S. policy or decisions, if any, concerning Israel,” and the “collection of scientific intelligence in the United States and other developed countries.”