To Free Anti-Soviet Jews, Israel Sold U.S. Secrets, Collected by Traitor Jonathan Pollard, To the Soviets

The name Jonathan Pollard remains a deep scar in U.S. intelligence history. An American civilian analyst for the U.S. Navy, Pollard was arrested in 1985 for stealing and handing over vast quantities of classified information to Israel. But the most damning—and often suppressed—element of the Pollard affair is this: Israel did not keep those secrets to itself. It reportedly traded them to the Soviet Union.

Pollard’s espionage haul was massive—by some estimates, tens of thousands of top-secret documents. They included detailed data on American nuclear strategy, global surveillance systems, and even the identities of U.S. agents operating inside the USSR. The scope and sensitivity of the materials led Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger to call it “the greatest compromise of U.S. national security to that date.”

According to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and multiple former CIA officials, Israel turned around. It handed portions of that intelligence to Moscow, likely as part of a Cold War deal to secure the emigration of Soviet Jews. Former CIA Director William Casey was said to be “livid” upon learning that not only had an ally spied on America, but that the Soviets had indirectly gained access to American intelligence through Israeli hands.

The results were catastrophic: U.S. agents vanished, SIGINT capabilities were exposed, and entire surveillance systems had to be restructured. Far from a case of misguided loyalty, this was strategic betrayal.

Pollard, who pleaded guilty in 1987 and received a life sentence, was hailed as a hero in Israel. After three decades in prison, he was released in 2015 and moved to Israel in 2020, receiving a hero’s welcome and personal blessings from then-Prime Minister Netanyahu.

This episode highlights a bitter truth: in the brutal realpolitik of global intelligence, even “allies” can make deals with adversaries at the expense of trust—and lives.  Above all, it proves to all Americans that Israel has betrayed America.  There were other ways to achieve the same outcome (e.g., trade sanctions were then also proposed and used), such as the freedom of the “refuseniks” living in the Soviet Union. They decided to betray America. 

July 12, 2025, n.stamatakis@aol.com   www.helleniscope.com

DISCLAIMER: The views and statements expressed in this article constitute constitutionally protected opinions of this author.

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Sources:

• Seymour Hersh, The Traitor: The Case Against Jonathan Pollard, The New Yorker, Jan. 18, 1999.

• Ronald J. Olive, Capturing Jonathan Pollard, Naval Institute Press, 2006.

• George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, HarperCollins, 2007.

• Interviews with Admiral Thomas Brooks and other intelligence officials in Washington Post, CNN, and New York Times archives.