The Washington Post
20 November '10
Twenty-five years ago this month, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian naval intelligence analyst, was arrested for passing to Israel classified U.S. data concerning Iraq, Syria and other Arab states, including evidence of Saddam Hussein's development of chemical weapons. Pollard was later sentenced to life in prison - the only person to receive such a punishment for spying for an American ally or neutral country. Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense at the time of Pollard's arrest, cited this dubious distinction in a recent letter to President Obama urging the president to commute Pollard's sentence to the 25 years served. Korb attributed Pollard's aberrational sentence to the "almost visceral dislike of Israel" on the part of Caspar Weinberger, who was then defense secretary.
In December 1993, The Post editorialized on a campaign seeking presidential commutation of Pollard's sentence. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was urging President Bill Clinton to commute Pollard's sentence to the eight years then served. That call was supported by members of Congress and a range of prominent religious and political figures. Longtime NAACP director Benjamin Hooks, who had himself served as a judge, wrote to Clinton: "I have rarely encountered a case in which government arbitrariness was so clear cut and inexcusable." While opposing Pollard's release at the end of 1993, The Post opined that "certainly a case can be made that a prison term ending when [Pollard] becomes eligible for parole in 1997 would be plenty long enough." Pollard has served more than double the 12 years The Post cited as sufficient punishment.
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