ISRAEL CITES 'SHOCK' AT SPY CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302340003-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 25, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302340003-0
WASHINGTON POST
25 November 1985
Israel Cites 'Shock' at Spy Case
Espionage in U.S. Called 'Total Contradiction' of Policy
s) By Micha_sicadar and William Claiborne
WashIngton Post Foreign Service
JERUSALEM, Nov. 24?The Israeli gov-
ernment expressed its "shock and consterna-
tion" tonight over reports linking Israel to a
civilian U.S. Navy intelligence analyst ar-
rested and charged with providing secret
U.S. documents to a foreign country.
The statement, the first formal Israeli re-
action to the arrest of Jonathan J. Pollard out-
side the Israeli Embassy in Washington on
Thursday, indicated that the government
would take action against any Israelis in-
volved if the reports prove to be correct.
Today's statement for the first time
obliquely raised the possibility that there may
have been Israeli involvement in the incident,
despite Israel's stated policy of not conduct-
ing any intelligence activity in the United
States.
On Friday, an Israeli Foreign Ministry
spokesman had said, "We don't have the
slightest idea about this matter."
Two sources familiar with the case told
Washington Post staff writer Joe Pichirallo in
Washington that after Pollard learned last
week that the FBI had him under investiga-
tion, he got in touch with an unidentified Is-
raeli official in Washington and asked for help.
The sources said that the Israeli_nificial
knew Pollard and told him that he
:would try to help him if he could
:elude the FBI agents watching him.
? One source in Washington de-
:scribed the sequence of events this
?way: 'When the FBI confronted
:him, he said [he] would cooperate
:so they started to roll him . . . .
:Then all of a sudden he made con-
:tact with an Israeli intelligence
'agent or an embassy official and
:said, 'The FBI is on to me.' " The
:response from the Israeli official
; was something to the effect, "If you
:shake your surveillance, we'll see
: what we can do," the source said.
? Both sources declined to disclose
; how investigators knew Pollard had
: made the contact. Other knowl-
edgeable U.S. officials told Pi-
chirallo that court-authorized tele-
phone wiretaps are common in es-
pionage cases, and these officials
speculated that the FBI may have
monitored Pollard's telephone con-
versations last week.
One non-Israeli here, who spoke
on the condition that he and his na-
tionality not be identified, called the
affair a "huge, self-inflicted wound"
and likened it in its potential public
relations damage to the Israeli at-
tack on the USS Liberty, an Amer-
ican intelligence ship, at the outset
of the 1967 war.
In an official statement tonight,
Israel's Foreign Ministry said that
the alleged espionage would be in
"total contradiction" of Israeli gov-
ernment policy.
Because of the "close and special
relationship" between Israel and the
United States, the statement said,
it has been Israel's policy to refrain
from "any intelligence _activity re-
lated to the United States."
It added: "A thorough examina-
tion is being undertaken to deter-
mine whether there has been a de-
viation of any kind from this policy.
Should such a deviation be found to
have occurred, then necessary con-
clusions shall be drawn."
In the Israeli political lexicon,
"drawing necessary conclusions"
usually means the dismissal of pub-
lic officials, and senior Israeli offi-
cials said that any official engaged
in unauthorized intelligence oper-
ations would be disciplined.
Senior Israeli sources said both
Prime Minister Shimon Peres and
the Foreign Ministry are deeply
worried over the damage to Israel's
image with the U.S. public and Con-
gress if the allegations are proved
correct.
Pollard, who was an employe of
the Naval Intelligence Service, re-
portedly had boasted of an associ-
ation with Israeli intelligence in the
past, according to friends.
Several non-Israeli sources here,
who insisted that their nationality
not be identified, emphasized the
apparent inconsistency of the idea
of Israel engaging Pollard to pass it
intelligence information because of
the already extensive and long-
standing cooperation between U.S.
and Israeli intelligence organiza-
tions, formalized by the 1981 Stra-
tegic Cooperation Agreement be-
tween the two countries.
Informed sources here said that
while the United States supplies
large quantities of intelligence to
Israel, it does not give Israel every-
thing.
But they say that Pollard's access
to information did not appear, at
least as far as is now known, to cov-
er those areas in which Israel is
lacking information.
One official said that if, as re-
ported, Pollard worked with Navy
counterterrorism intelligence, "it's
a joke to think that Israel would not
be getting what it wanted. That's
one area where they are getting all
they need."
In areas where the United States
holds back some "raw intelligence"
.from srael?presumably involving
sitellite photo intelligence on Arab
countries friendly to Washington?
sources say it still provides Israel
with its "best judgment" on those
intelligence matters.
News reports that Pollard passed
to Israel secret codes of the U.S.
6th Fleet in the Mediterranean that
would give it access to information
gleaned from U.S. spy and commu-
nications satellites have not been
confirmed here.
Sources here said that both the
U.S. and Israeli governments were
trying to deal with what is dearly an
embarrassing situation for Israel in a
way that leaves a minimum of long-
term "scars," as one official put it.
Thus far, these sources say, they
believe the situation is being han-
dled well by Israel but that the true
extent and political explosiveness in
the United States of Pollard's ac-
tivities will only be known when the
FBI and other agencies in both
countries are able to verify in what
activities he was engaged.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/25 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302340003-0