Jonathan Pollard

About Jonathan Pollard

Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954 in Galveston, Texas) is a convicted Israeli spy and a former United States Naval civilian intelligence analyst. Pollard waived the right to trial in return for restrictions on sentencing, pleaded guilty and was convicted on one count of spying for Israel, receiving a life sentence in 1986 with a recommendation against parole. Israel publicly denied that Pollard was an Israeli spy until 1998, when he was granted Israeli citizenship. He was incarcerated at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois in solitary confinement for seven years, then transferred to Butner Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina. Israel has admitted he was a spy for them and wants him released, but the US Government will not do so, saying he caused worldwide damage to US intelligence collection efforts.

Shortly into his career as an intelligence analyst, Pollard had his security clearance reduced by Admiral Sumner Shapiro after presenting a plan to garner intelligence from South Africa. According to the Washington Post, Sumner dismissed Pollard as a "kook." "I wish the hell I'd fired him," Shapiro would later opine. Pollard's clearance was later reinstated.

Ron Olive, the agent in charge of counterintelligence for the Naval Investigative Service at the time of Pollard's arrest, published a book about the case in 2006. Olive told the BBC that the incident was "one of the most devastating cases of espionage in US history" during which Pollard stole over "one million classified documents".