Pollard Revisited: Is Mr.X Spying in Washington Again?
by Yossi Melman
Yossi Melman, a journalist for the Daily Ha'aretz, specializes in
intelligence and terror affairs. He is coauthor of "Every Spy a
Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community"
(Houghton Mifflin).
TEL AVIV - What do they mean when they say "Mega"? Is it an
innocent code word used by the Israeli Mossad to describe the
CIA? Or is it a sinister cipher referring to an American traitor who
works for Israeli intelligence? Since last January, these
uncertainties have poisoned the usually good and collaborative
relations between the intelligence communities of United States
and Israel. They have also revived bad memories of the Pollard
affair.
Ironically, the latest espionage scandal began when U.S.-Israeli
relations seemed to be back on track. In January, Benjamin
Netanyahu's Cabinet signed off on a U.S.-brokered agreement with
the Palestinian Authority. Israeli troops withdrew from Hebron, and
handed most of the city over to Yasser Arafat's police and security
forces. As a guarantor, Secretary of State Warren Christopher gave
the two sides two different letters spelling out the U.S.
commitments. The Clinton administration revealed the content of
the two letters in only general terms.
Eager to see the exact wording of the letter given to the
Palestinians, Netanyahu asked Israeli Ambassador Eliahu Ben-
Elissar to get him a copy. Newly arrived in Washington and lacking
good contacts in the capital, Ben-Elissar turned to the chief of the
Mossad station at the Israeli Embassy. The chief, whose name
Israeli censors refuse to reveal, was reluctant to comply with his
request. He called his immediate superior, a senior official and
head of the Tevel (universe) unit at Mossad headquarters. Their
short conversation was intercepted by listening posts of the
National Security Agency. According to the Washington Post, the
station chief said: "The ambassador wants me to use Mega to get
the letter." His superior replied: "We do not use Mega for this."
As a matter of procedure, a translated transcript of the intercepted
communication was disseminated by the NSA to the other U.S.
intelligence agencies. FBI counterintelligence experts suspected
that Mega was a code word for a senior and well-connected
administration official with access to the letters, as well as to other
Middle East top secrets.
For more than a decade, the bureau and officials at the Department
of Justice have been obsessed with the suspicion that Israeli
intelligence is running a mole inside the administration. This
conviction originated in November 1986, following the arrest of
Jonathan J. Pollard at the gates of the Israeli Embassy. Pollard, a
U.S. citizen of Jewish origins, worked as an analyst at the
counterterrorism center of U.S. Navy intelligence. He was
sentenced to life in prison for spying on behalf of a secret Israeli
intelligence unit called Lakam, a Hebrew acronym for Scientific
Liaison Bureau.
U.S. prosecutors and investigators believed that Pollard and his
Israeli handlers were helped by another American, referred to as
Mr. X, who probably was a senior administration official. Mr. X
provided the reference numbers that helped Pollard pull out
requested files from America's most-secret intelligence computers.
But the investigators could not uncover Mr. X. Now, the FBI is
eager to determine whether the old Mr. X of the Pollard affair is
Mega. (See Jonathan Pollard's comments below)
Israeli officials have denied all. The Mossad has explained to the
CIA that Mega is a code word it uses to describe its formal liaison
relations with the spy agency. According to Rafi Eitan, a former
senior Mossad official and former head of the disbanded Lakam,
and who personally handled Pollard, the word Mega was derived
from Megawatt. During the '70s and '80s, it was the name of an
international gathering of representatives from a dozen Western
intelligence organizations, including the Mossad and CIA, who
exchanged information and assessments of Soviet capabilities and
intentions. That body no longer exists.
Yet, the Clinton administration refuses to accept Israeli
explanations at face value. Nor does it rule out the possibility that
Israeli agents are involved in illegal activities on U.S. soil. The
Pollard affair sowed the seeds of this mistrust.
In defense, Israeli officials claim they have learned the lessons of
the Pollard case. "We shall never again run agents in the U.S.A."
vows Eitan. He and other intelligence experts also point out that it
was not a coincidence that Pollard was handled by Lakam, not the
Mossad. The Mossad and the CIA have long enjoyed warm and
cordial relations. Mossad operatives are stationed, under diplomatic
cover, at the Israeli Embassy in Washington as liaison officers to
the CIA. U.S. spies posing as diplomats maintain their contacts
with their Israeli counterparts through the U.S. Embassy in Tel
Aviv.
In the United States, Mossad has not only avoided spying on
American targets, but has also refrained from operations against
third parties, mainly Arab installations. Nevertheless, Nahum
Admoni, the Mossad chief during the '80s, must have known that
Lakam was running Pollard. So must have Israeli Prime Ministers
Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres and Defense Ministers Moshe
Arens and Yitzhak Rabin.
On the other hand, since the CIA is reluctant to operate against
Israel on Israeli soil, it uses other intelligence agencies to obtain
information it wants. The late Yitzhak Rabin told me after Pollard's
arrest that Israel had uncovered five American spies operating in
sensitive nuclear and industrial facilities in the late '70s and early
'80s. The spies were questioned but Israel's flexible legal system
made it possible for the government to release and expel them,
thereby avoiding conflict with its best ally.
"It is clear to us," admits a former senior intelligence official, "that
both countries, despite their friendship and strategic cooperation,
are constantly involved in espionage against each other. The big
difference between the U.S. and Israel is in the methods of
information gathering." While Israel has relied more on "humint"
(operating agents), the United States has mainly used "sigint" and
"comint" (intercepting communication of all sorts and electronic
signals). This operational difference is a result of capabilities and
priorities.
The aerial forest on the roof of the four-story U.S. Embassy in Tel
Aviv is evidence of the NSA's capabilities and intentions. These
antennas intercept virtually every single phone call, fax
transmission and other means of communication originating in
Israel. But the most impressive coup by the NSA was, probably
unwittingly, revealed during the Mega crisis.
All Israeli diplomats and intelligence officers assigned abroad, and
especially to the United States, are briefed to act as if their
communication was intercepted. But now Israel knows for sure that
the United States broke the Mossad code. Israeli code breakers,
operating on "worst-case analysis," assume that other codes,
including those of the military and foreign ministry, have also been
broken. In such circumstances, concludes an Israeli Cabinet
minister, the damage to our national security is far greater than
Pollard or maybe other Israeli operations might have wrought in the
United States.
Jonathan Pollard Comments:
The American government has had documented evidence in its
possession for the last 13 years that clearly refutes the existence of
"Mr. X". Recycling the "Mr. X" theory which the government
knows is clearly a lie, raises serious questions about the motive and
intent of the US in doing so.
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