Book Review | Capturing Jonathan Pollard: How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice

CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence
Studies in Intelligence, 2007

Capturing Jonathan Pollard: How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice

Ronald J. Olive. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 256 pp., photos, index.

Reviewed by Hayden B. Peake, curator of the CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection

His towering arrogance got Jonathan Pollard into jail and it keeps him there— eligible for parole years ago, he refuses to apply, demanding instead clemency or a pardon! In Capturing Jonathan Pollard, retired Naval Investigative Service (NIS) officer Ronald Olive, the man who headed the investigation that led to Pollard’s arrest, gives a portrait of the self-styled super agent, from his Texas birth in 1954 to his repeated unsuccessful demands for clemency. Olive tells of this son of privilege who attended Stanford University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. There, he amused his classmates with his espionage fantasies—he claimed to be a Mossad colonel—but he wasn’t taken seriously. When Pollard’s application to the CIA was rejected, he went to the NIS and found a home in its Anti-Terrorist Alert Center (ATAC). Olive tells how, with the help of his fiancé who became his wife, Pollard went on to become the most prolific supplier of highly classified documents for a foreign government in US history. Olive spends the bulk of the narrative on how Pollard came under suspicion and how he got caught. There are details on the technical surveillance, the bureaucratic battles among investigative elements, the Pollards’ abortive attempt to defect to Israel, Olive’s elicitation of Pollard’s confession, and the plea-bargain process.

Olive also considers damage-assessment questions. For example, even though Pollard only worked at espionage for about 18 months before his arrest in 1985, and recognizing that he was a clumsy practitioner of the tradecraft—the book has many examples—Olive asks, could this period have been reduced or prevented entirely? He finds reasons to answer “yes” to both possibilities. His most remarkable finding is that Pollard was given TS/SCI access without ever being formally cleared; his background investigation was never completed. (263) A close second is the fact that Pollard once temporarily lost his classified access because of mental problems. Instead of dismissal, his access was restored when Pollard threatened to complain. Olive describes other important details about the case, including the fact that Pollard spied for more than one country and that his wife was directly involved—she received five years in prison. Olive also notes that former president Clinton confirmed in his memoirs that DCI George Tenet did indeed threaten to resign if Pollard were pardoned in response to Israeli requests. (247).

Capturing Jonathan Pollard is a well-documented, first-hand account of a benchmark espionage case. Within are important lessons for serving officers and those who aspire to join the profession.