MY DINNER PARTNER: A FUTURE ACCUSED SPY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504290001-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 26, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504290001-4
,A,:,;: R
ON PAt:E ?
WASHINGTON TIMES
26 November 1985
dinner
My partner: A future
accused spy
Washington Times columnist
Steve Masty is acquainted with
Jonathan Jay Pollard, who is
accused of espionage. What follows
is a personal account.
5
By S.J. Master
THE NMSHINO ON TIMES
It was simply Jay Pollard then.
Not the televised Jonathan Jay Pol-
lard, age 31, haggard and hand-
cuffed in the back of a squad car.
Not the accused spy, just another
guy at another Washington dinner
party. Tbday, Mr. Pollard is under
arrest for espionage, his wife for
possessing classified documents.
It began in late September 1984.
His future wife, Anne Henderson,
worked with my brother Tom at the
National Rifle Association, and
Tbm cooked dinner for the four of
us. Anne was a plump redhead, vi-
vacious and guileless, given to
wearing unflattering jumpsuits -
the girl next door. Her boyfriend
was different - not ominous, just
different.
Paunchy but of slight build,
balding, bespectacled and sporting
a small mustache, Jay Pollard
looked like an accountant except
for the nervous edge, the slightly
taut undercurrent of a futures
broker or a Wall Street speculator
- someone who had had two cups
of coffee too many. But conjecture
was pointless, of course, because
Mr. Pollard talked. Thlked a lot.
I never met many spooks, cer-
tainly none who told you so before
the first gin-and-tonic, but Jay was
different. He worked for Navy In-
telligence. He monitored terrorist
organizations. He worked 18-hour
days and the Free World hung in
the balance. He knew everything
two weeks before it happened -
the Beirut bombing, the PLO, Red
Brigade and Weather Under-
ground, Beirut, Libya, Scranton
and Peoria. At least he said as
much.
It was no surprise, only the
Washington Power Trip - Primar.
ily an affliction of young movers
and shakers who have a lot to prove
- but Jay played it louder than
most. But talk soon turned to "clas-
sified information" beyond the
realm of Mippie upmanship.
Navy Intelligence had facts, he
said quietly - photographs, depo-
sitions and documents - proving
that American POW/MIAs were
alive in Southeast Asia. Earlier in
1984, a French expedition flew into
Vietnam out of China to rescue
some U.S. POWs from a camp.
They landed in Vietnam, but the
camp was unoccupied. The POWs
had been moved two days before,
he said.
It galled him, he said, that our
government would neither bring
the boys home nor acknowledge
their presence for fear of scandal.
It was sick, he said, to think that
American boys would spend an-
other Christmas in Viet Cong pris-
ons while Uncle Sam did nothing.
He was determined to do some-
thing about it. He was going to run
his own "operation."
He said he'd found a corrupt
Laotian official willing to sell a live
American POW in return for $3
million and safe passage out of
Laos through Thailand. He and
Anne, he explained, were working
with former Rep. John LeBoutel-
lier, the New York Republican, run-
ning Skyhook II, a POW/MIA sup-
port group.
They needed a minimum of
$50,000 to launch a direct mail
campaign to raise the ransom un-
der the guise of lobbying for ser-
vicemen missing in action. He
asked if The Washington Times
was interested in helping and in
covering the rescue? If legitimate,
it was a tempting proposition.
I spoke to Jonathan Slevin, then
serving in middle management.
He spoke with Mr. Pollard, but
"after I listened to him the idea
went no further at The Times," said
Mr. Slevin, who no longer is with
The Times. "He got no money, not
anything at all that I am aware of:'
From then on, my brother ex-
plains, Jay ceased returning his
phone calls. Tbm figured he had
nothing else to offer. A few months
later, at a cocktail party, Jay said he
was "still looking for funding:'
Mr. LeBoutellier sheds further
light: "I met him [Mr. Pollard] in
early September 1984, after I
spoke at the Heritage Foundation's
Third Generation lecture series.
He showed me his Navy creden-
tials and began spinning me a line
of BS. I was impressed for a mi-
nute, but it didn't take long to real-
ize this guy was a classic BS artist.
"He might have called me a few
times after that, but he was a pest,"
Mr. LeBoutellier said. "I'm amazed
that the U.S. government would let
a guy like that have access to clas-
sified documents:'
I saw them seldom after that.
Jay Pollard and Anne Henderson-
Pollard were married this summer
in a civil ceremony in Italy, their
holiday including a brief trip to Is-
rael, an alleged beneficiary of Mr.
Pollard's espionage. Five months
later, the couple is under indict-
ment.
Did the Navy documents, the
Laotian official, and the American
POW ever exist? Maybe, but the
Pollards went elsewhere in their
search for money.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504290001-4