Editing Jonathan Pollard (section)

==Espionage==
[[Image:Pollard videoframe.png|thumb|right|Surveillance video frame of Pollard in the act of stealing classified documents.]]

Soon after Pollard began working at NIC/TF-168, he met [[Aviem Sella]], a combat veteran of the [[Israeli Air Force]]. At the time, Sella was on leave from his position as a [[colonel]] to gain a master's degree in [[computer science]] as a graduate student at [[New York University]]. Pollard told Sella that he worked for U.S. naval intelligence, told him about specific incidents where U.S. intelligence was withholding information from Israel, and offered to work as a spy. Though Sella had wondered whether Pollard was part of an [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] operation to recruit an Israeli, he eventually believed him. Sella telephoned his air-force intelligence commander in [[Tel Aviv]] for further instructions, and the call was switched to the Air Force chief of staff. Sella was ordered to develop a contact with Pollard, but to be careful. He was warned that either the Americans were offering a "dangle" in order to root out foreign intelligence operations, or if this was a genuine spy, Sella would have to pay careful attention to his work.<ref>Thomas, p. 83</ref>

Within a few days, in June 1984, Pollard started passing classified information to Sella. He was paid $10,000 cash and given a very expensive diamond and [[sapphire]] ring, which Pollard later offered to his girlfriend, Anne Henderson, when proposing to her. Pollard was paid well by the Israelis: he received a salary that eventually reached $2,500 ({{Inflation|index=US|value=2500|start_year=1985|fmt=eq}}) a month, and tens of thousands of dollars in cash disbursements for hotels, meals, and jewelry. In his pre-sentencing statement to Judge Robinson, Pollard said the money was a benefit that was forced on him. "I did accept money for my services", he acknowledged, but only "as a reflection of how well I was doing my job". He said that he had later told his controller, [[Rafi Eitan]], a long-time spy who at the time headed [[Lekem]], a scientific-intelligence unit in Israel, that, "I not only intended to repay all the money I'd received, but, also, was going to establish a chair at the Israeli General Staff's Intelligence Training Center outside Tel Aviv".<ref name="hersh" /><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/dece_pollard.html|title=Secrets, Lies and Atomic Spies, Jonathan Jay Pollard|date=January 2002|publisher=[[Nova (American TV program)|NOVA]]|access-date=September 18, 2008}}</ref>

[[Naval Criminal Investigative Service]] (NCIS) investigator Ronald Olive has alleged that Pollard passed classified information to [[South Africa]],<ref>[[#refOlive2006|Olive 2006]], p. 12</ref> and attempted, through a third party, to sell classified information to [[Pakistan]] on multiple occasions.<ref name="Oliver 77-78" /> Pollard also stole classified documents related to China on behalf of his wife, who used the information to advance her personal business interests. She kept these secret materials in the house, where investigating authorities discovered them when Pollard's espionage activity was revealed.<ref name="o223" /><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/dece_pollard.html|title=NOVA Online &#124; Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies &#124; Jonathan Jay Pollard|publisher=Pbs.org|date=November 18, 1985|access-date=July 26, 2012}}</ref><ref>[[#refBlitzer1989|Blitzer 1989]], pp. 102–104, 247–248</ref>

During Pollard's trial, the U.S. government's memorandum in aid of sentencing challenged the "defendant's claim that he was motivated by altruism rather than greed". The government said that Pollard had "disclosed classified information in anticipation of financial gain" in other instances:
<blockquote>
The government's investigation has revealed that defendant provided to certain of his acquaintances U.S. classified documents which defendant obtained through U.S. Navy sources. The classified documents which defendant disclosed to two such acquaintances, both of whom are professional investment advisers, contained classified economic and political analyses which defendant believed would help his acquaintances render investment advice to their clients&nbsp;... Defendant acknowledged that, although he was not paid for his unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the above-mentioned acquaintances, he hoped to be rewarded ultimately through business opportunities that these individuals could arrange for defendant when he eventually left his position with the U.S. Navy. In fact, defendant was involved in an ongoing business venture with two of these acquaintances at the time he provided the classified information to them&nbsp;...<ref>[[#refOlive2006|Olive 2006]], pp. 44–45.</ref>
</blockquote>

During the course of the Pollard trial, Australian authorities reported the disclosure of classified American documents by Pollard to a [[Royal Australian Navy]] officer who had been engaged in a personnel-exchange naval-liaison program between the U.S. and Australia.<ref name="o44">Olive, pp. 44–45</ref> The Australian officer, alarmed by Pollard's repeated disclosure to him of data caveated [[NOFORN|No Foreign Access Allowed]], reported the indiscretions to his chain of command. It recalled the officer from his position in the U.S., fearing that the disclosures might be part of a "CIA ruse".<ref name="o44" /> Confronted with this accusation after entering his plea, Pollard admitted only to passing a single classified document to the Australian; later, he changed his story, and claimed that his superiors ordered him to share information with the Australians.<ref name="o44" />

{{As of | 2014}}, the full extent of the information Pollard passed to Israel has still not been officially revealed. Press reports cited a secret 46-page memorandum, which Pollard and his attorneys were allowed to view.<ref>[[#refBlitzer1989|Blitzer 1989]], p. 224</ref> They were provided to the judge by [[United States Secretary of Defense|Secretary of Defense]] [[Caspar Weinberger]], who described Pollard's spying as including, among other things, obtaining and copying the latest version of ''[[Radio-Signal Notations]]'' (RASIN), a 10-volume manual comprehensively detailing America's global electronic surveillance network.<ref name="hersh" /><ref name="Black">{{cite news|last=Black|first=Edwin|author-link=Edwin Black|title=Why Jonathan Pollard is Still in Prison?|work=Forward|date=June 29, 2002|url=http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.06.28/news.pollard.html|access-date=February 24, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060107223010/http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.06.28/news.pollard.html|archive-date=January 7, 2006}}</ref>

After Pollard's release, the former deputy chief of the Mossad [[Ram Ben Barak]] publicly regretted Pollard, saying that the recruitment and operation "were unknown by the intelligence leadership and unauthorized" with the resultant damage to the US-Israeli relationship far outweighing the value of the intelligence Pollard provided. "Our entire relationship with the U.S. deteriorated because of this. People lost jobs over it", according to Barak. "It made for years and years of suspicion, with Americans suspecting he wasn't the only one, and feeling that they hadn't gotten the necessary explanations. They didn't believe it wasn't authorized. It caused huge, huge damage. They saw it as a betrayal of them."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jonathan-pollard|title=Jonathan Pollard|website=[[Jewish Virtual Library]]|access-date=January 20, 2021}}</ref>