Jonathan Pollard was an intelligence analyst, something that would not make a person famous, but his actions while working for the Naval Investigative Service (NIS) bought him national and international recognition in the wrong manner.
Jonathan Pollard was arrested and convicted in the mid 1980’s after the United States found that Pollard had been spying on the United States for Israel while working in the Naval Investigative Service. Something you are going to find more details about.
Jonathan Pollard prior to the Naval Investigative Service
Pollard was one of three children in a Jewish family who enjoyed an idyllic upbringing in his family environment in Indiana. The problems arose for Pollard when he was at school as he was tormented and bullied for his religious background and for being very small for his age.
As Pollard got older this bullying continued outside of education and even when he was on vacations such as one time when he visited Israel and was attacked by a non-Jewish Israeli.
Pollard did however gain a degree in political science from Stanford University in the mid 1970’s.
By 1979 Pollard was applying for jobs but the CIA turned him down after a lie detector test showed he had been taking illegal drugs during the 1970’s. The American Navy did however take him on; here he worked in the Naval Fields Operational Intelligence Office (NFOIO).
Within two months of starting with the NFOIO the director of the NFOIO wished to terminate his employment after Pollard asked if the director wished him to start under hand conversations with a foreign intelligence agency.
Instead of losing his job Pollard was reassigned to a lesser human gathering operation. Within a couple of months Pollard was on the move again though as he transferred to the Naval Investigative Service (NIS) Surface Ships Division in 1984. Again Pollard tried to speak to a senior official and ask about developing conversations with another foreign intelligence agency, this being South Africa.
This time the official asked for all security clearance for Pollard to be removed and for him to be put on non classified information analysis. The official then asked for the CIA to investigate Pollard and they found him to be a risk, they even put him under a polygraph test that made him tell the truth about lying to officials, taking drugs and contacts with foreign governments that was not sanctioned. This caused the NIS to remove his SCI (top secret) clearance and reduce his clearance to secret.
Pollard was incensed and threatened legal action; this move saw him start to gain glowing reports and his SCI clearance given back. He also then managed to get a job in the NIS as an analyst.
During all this time what no one knew was that Pollard had met Aviem Sella, an Israeli Air Force combat veteran, at the same time as joining the NIS and started trading US intelligence for money. The first information passed over gained $10,000 and two expensive rings for Pollard and then every month thereafter where he supplied information he was given $1,500.
It wasn’t until 1985 when a colleague saw Pollard taking sensitive information without consent that investigation proceedings started, something that did not take long for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) to ask for FBI help to unravel the truth.
Initially the FBI found him moving papers again, this time he said it was for another analyst but under voluntary questioning this was found to be false. Pollard asked to ring his wife and gave her a code word they had agreed on so she knew they had been found out and she summarily disposed of the information while Pollard was continued to be questioned. Eventually the FBI asked to search his home which was agreed, this was because Pollard knew his wife would have removed any incriminating information and this was true as the FBI found nothing.
The FBI dropped the case for a week or so before coming back and asking Pollard for a polygraph test, rather than take the test it was here that Pollard admitted to his treachery. Here the neighbour of the Pollards was found to be ringing military officials saying he had a heavy suitcase full of sensitive information he was asked to look after for the Pollards, further incriminating the couple.
Pollard was found guilty of his crimes on March 4, 1987. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison although there is the potential for parole after 2015.
