As Jonathan Pollard turned 40 on Sunday, supporters of the American Jew who spied for Israel were gearing up for several more rounds in the struggle to release him from his life sentence.
To mark his birthday, the more than 350 chapters of Citizens for Justice for Jonathan Pollard held rallies and letter-writing campaigns across the country. They are seeking clemency for the former Navy intelligence analyst who was arrested in 1985 and sentenced in 1987.
The campaign has recently garnered support from Hollywood celebrities, as well as from the leadership of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
On the legal front, meanwhile, Pollard’s supporters are considering a new appeal. And they have just received what they are taking as a sign that President Clinton may be open to reconsidering clemency for Pollard.
Clinton turned down a clemency request in March, saying his decision reflected “the grave nature” of Pollard’s offense and “the considerable damage that his action caused our nation.”
But Carol Pollard’s who has been leading the fight for her brother’s freedom as the head of Citizens for Justice, says a supporter recently received a letter from the White House that gave a glimmer of hope.
According to Carol Pollard, White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler wrote that Clinton’s denial of clemency was based on “the best information at that time.”
In a telephone interview from her home in Connecticut, Carol Pollard described the tone of the letter as much more positive than that found in previous letters from the White House.
She said she interpreted the letter as an indication that Clinton is open to reconsidering his decision. She said the Cutler letter indicated that in order to review the decision, Pollard must submit a renewed clemency request.
Carol Pollard said that she and her brother’s lawyers plan to do so immediately.
She attributed the change of heart in the Clinton administration to the fact that rather than going away, the Pollard campaign has only gathered strength.
Among the latest to sign on to a request for commuting Pollard’s sentence to time served are Jon Voight, Jack Lemmon, Whoopi Goldberg, Gregory Peck, Barbara Hershey, Merv Adelson and Roddy McDowell.
Also in Los Angeles, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has been active on Pollard’s behalf.
Cooper recently wrote to Clinton, suggesting that the Washington Declaration of non-belligerency between Jordan and Israel signaled an occasion for “the leadership of the Jewish community” to reiterate its call “to re-evaluate the case of Jonathan Pollard.”
Voight, the actor, recently wrote a letter to Pollard, describing how he had been in close touch with Cooper. He also said he had met Pollard’s family.
Urging Pollard to maintain his “will to live,” Voight wrote: “My dream is that your energy will be interwoven into the energy of men like Moses, and it would be like a ray of sunshine. When the sun shines, this energy will shine upon the new children of the universe.”
Meanwhile, Lester Pollack and Malcolm Hoenlein, chairman and executive vice chairman, respectively, of the Conference of Presidents, last month visited Pollard at his Buttner, N.C., prison. It was the first visit by the Conference of Presidents.
NEW LEGAL STRATEGY PLANNED
Carol Pollard, who speaks often with her brother on the telephone, said he thought the visit went well.
“He thanked them for any help they can give him, and also thanked any (member) organizations that have been supportive,” she said. “It was just a get-together. They wanted to come on a humanitarian visit.”
Meanwhile, Pollard’s lawyers are planning a new legal strategy, according to his sister.
While she would not disclose details, Carol Pollard said that “new material” that could provide grounds to reopen the case has surfaced in the past nine months.
Pollard last suffered legal defeat in March 1992, when an appellate court found there were not sufficient grounds to overturn his sentence, a decision based in large measure on procedural issues.
“I’m very excited about all that has come to light,” said Carol Pollard. “It will shed a light on why Jonathan did what he did; it will shed a lot of light on the workings of the government.”
One of the central points raised by Jonathan Pollard’s supporters has been that the classified information passed to Israel by the then-Navy analyst had, in fact, been promised to Israel, but was improperly held back.
This argument received new credence in the wake of the abortive nomination of former CIA chief Bobby Ray Inman to be Clinton’s defense secretary earlier this year.
Inman soon withdrew his name from consideration, citing media conspiracies against him.
In discussing his refusal to accept the post, he admitted to having cut back on American intelligence satellite sharing with Israel when he was at the CIA.
New York Times columnist William Safire, who Inman cited as a reason for his withdrawal, charged that “Inman’s animus also later contributed to the excessive sentencing of Jonathan Pollard.”
Carol Pollard indicated that the information revealed by Inman constitutes one of the pieces of new evidence she hopes will convince a court to re-hear the case.
The one topic Carol refuses to discuss is her new sister-in-law, Elaine Zeitz Pollard, who married Jonathan Pollard in prison earlier this year.
Carol Pollard is clearly not happy about the situation, but she will not say why.
Pollard’s new wife is considered to be a member of the more extreme pro-Pollard camp.
In response to Clinton’s denial for clemency, Zeitz, who heads a Canadian group working for Pollard, compared the U.S. president to Pharaoh and accused him of abdicating his “constitutional responsibility” in the decision.
Carol Pollard, for her part, seems intent on healing the fissures which surfaced last year, just as Clinton was considering the commutation decision, between those who thought Jonathan Pollard acted properly and was wrongly imprisoned, and those who thought that while what he did was wrong, he had served enough time.
“Most people are now agreeing that enough is enough, and the president should let him go,” she said.
Whether people think commutation is “a humanitarian gesture, or that the sentence was disproportionate, or that he shouldn’t have been in jail anyway they are all legitimate ways to express how you feel about Jonathan Pollard,” Carol Pollard said. “But they all come down to the same thing that he ought to be out of jail.”
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