LOW-LEVEL FALLOUT FROM ISRAELI SPY INCIDENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807340006-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: December 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807340006-7
FEARED
5 By LALLY WRYMOUTM
NEW YORK-From the moment
nav
Low-level fallout from Israeli spy incident
for sellin . secrets-not to the
Soviet
of State George P. Shultz did what he
cou to minimize e damage to U.S.-
Israeli relations.
A few days after Pollard's Nov. 21
arrest for espionage, Shultz and Prime
Minister Shimon Peres of Israel re-
portedly fo lowing day, the telephone coni
government issued its apology.
To some partisans this looked like
the end of the affair. It wasn't Shultz
apparently succeeded in playing down
the Pollard case at the top levels, but
there has been damage at lower levels.
The question is how significant Is this
damage,
"What Shultz told Peres is irrelevant
compared to what mid-level bureauc-
rats are doing, including federal raids
on factories supplying military equip.
ment to Israel," said one U.S. govern-
ment defense analyst The message be-
hind those recent raids, he said, is
"from now on we're going to treat them
as enemies."
Another harsh response comes from
a former U.S. official: "Plenty of peo-
ple say that no Jews or Arabs should be
involved in Middle East policy. This
will reinforce the argument and rein-
force those who have suspicions about .
Zionists working in the government It
will strengthen the argument that we've
treated them with kid gloves and that's
how they treat us."
Pollard. 31, was arrested by the FBI
outside the Israeli Embassy in Washing-
ton, reportedly on the basis of informa.
tion from his former Navy colleagues.
A U.S.-born Jew and an ardent Zionist,
Pollard went to the embassy with his
wife, his cat and stolen documents,
apparently hoping to defect There was
silence at first from Israel. Then the
Israeli ambassador to the United States,
Meir Rosenne, claimed that no Israeli
diplomat had left this country. But the
following day sources confirmed that
two Israeli diplomats went home short.
ly after the arrest They were said to be
Pollard's contacts.
Israeli newspaper correspondents in
Washington provided the first informa-
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
23 December 1985
lion_on who might have been Pollard's
boss. They named ae a
le en ary Israeli Intel ence officer
as the man ea running covert
ration. tan a leadina pan
41 the drW= arrest of Ado,I)h Fich.
mann 25 years ago. After service in the
enci Eitut became Prime Minister
Alenac
m 's a viser on term
tam. Last spring Peres
remov Eitaan
from this Post infuriating tan's
fg ennd Industry and a NEfliter
Adel Sharon.
ou Eltan lost one job, he
reportedly continued to head a secret
scientific data gathering unit called
Lekem. This unit, according to an
Israeli journalist, Haaretz editor Ze'ev
Schiff, was founded more than 20 years
ago by Pere,, then in the Ministry of
Defense. It is unclear when Eitan be-
came head of the unit and to whom, if to
anyone, he reported.
Israel's official version of events
downplayed Lekem, according to
Israeli radio sources. Peres reportedly
told New York Times correspondent
Thomas Friedman that the unit was a
free-wheeling operation, reporting to
no one in the political arena.But a
reliable Israeli told me that Eitan re-
ported at least some of his activities to a
committee in the Israeli Parliament
After a week's silence, Israel issued
its apology, promising to disband the
unit involved Shultz sprang to accept
the apology, as did Sen.. Daniel Patrick
Moynihan (D-N.Y.), who called it "hand-
some." Richard C. Helms former Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency tor, said
that In the intelligence business every-
one spies on everyone, even friends on
friends, that the only rule is don't get
cau
u at least one senior Federal
Bureau of Investigation official wasn't
satisfied. Two weeks after Pollard's
arrest, he complained that the Israelis
still hadn't let FBI and Justice Depart-
ment officials interrogate those
involved.
Peres, perhaps aware of such feel-
ings, dispatched Moshe Arens, a minis-
ter without portfolio, to talk with
Shultz They struck a deal: the U.S.
could interview Israeli diplomats and
Eitan as long as the questions con-
cerned only the Pollard case. Then
Shultz dispatched a team led by State
Department Legal Adviser Abraham D.
Sofaer to interrogate officials in Israel.
The fact that Israel agreed to allow its
diplomats to be questioned by U.S.
officials is most unusual.
But many unanswered questions re-
main: Why did the Israelis mount a
covert operation against the United
States? Did Israel believe it was being
denied data critical to its security? If so,
was this data worth risking the possible
consequences? Who saw the data Pol-
lard provided? If Eitan was really
operating as a loner, who authorized
payments to Pollard?
At the time of Pollard's arrest, U.S..
Israeli cooperation seemed at an all-
time high. The two countries had col-
laborated closely and successfully dur-
ing the Achille Lauro affair, Israel
providing key intelligence to the United
States.
In hiring Pollard, Israel broke an
understanding that the two countries
would not spy on each other except in
"orthodox" ways, according to a senior
Mossad official-meaning military
attaches could take photographs of in-
stallations but could not hire Amer-
icans or mount covert operations.
"They broke an unwritten rule not to
recruit Americans," said a former U. S.
government official who is Jewish.
"What they've also done is violate it
with an American Jew. It's fodder for
anti-Semites who want to claim the
Jews can't be trusted."
The Mossad had been careful not t.
use foreign Jews in friendly countrie
for fear of compromising the Jews ir,
those nations. Israelis remembered the
disastrous 1954 Lavon affair, when
Egyptian Jews were arrested planting,
bombs intended to blow up American
facilities in Egypt, hoping to cool U.S.
Egyptian relations.
The arrest of Pollard has raised the
ugly question of double loyalty, said
one government official, who also hap.
Pens to be Jewish. "It is lethal," he
noted, "Jews must be allowed to define
their own loyalties, and Israel must not
create linkages of this kind."
Yet Helms disagrees: "I don't think
the long term effects will be much of
anything. The most unpleasant aspect is
using American money to spy on the
United States."
UT DISPUTES over damage con-
0 tinue. If Shultz has done his part,
the Israeli government has
perhaps not Some observers suggest
that Israel create a commission of in.
quiry or, alternatively, discharge those
responsible for the operation. U.S. De-
fense analyst Edward Luttwak put it
bluntly: "The Israeli government has so
far failed to take strong enough action
to make it credible that Pollard was an
aberration."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807340006-7