SPYING AMONG TWO CLOSE FRIENDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504050002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 15, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504050002-9
ARTICLE APPEARED BOSTON GLOBE
ON PAGE A-1 15 June 1986
,0~
.US-ISRAEL Spying `"A
two close
friends CIA and FBI's concerns
r
evived by Pollard case
By Jeffrey McConnell tween the two nations has become
Special to the Globe blurred. It is not Just that the uninitiated
he recent indictment of Jona-
than Jay Pollard, a former
Navy counterterrorism ana-
lyst. on charges of conspiring
tary secrets is only the latest chapter in a
long but murky history of Israeli spying
in the United States.
While Pollard's was the first case of its
kind to be tried since 1950, American
concern about Israeli operations has been
constant since then.
Israel has asserted that it has a policy
against espionage inside the United
States and that Pollard's activities were
an aberration. It says it agreed with the
United States long ago to share intelli-
gence only through approved channels
and that the two . countries would not
conduct intelligence operations against
each other. However, former US intelli-
gence officials deny the existence of such
a pact.
The Pollard affair "was typical of
many, many cases like that," Stephen
Millett, who handled the CIA's secret Is-
raeli account during the 1950s and
1960s. said in an interview shortly before
his death last month. "The uniqueness of
the Pollard case arose from its appear-
ance in the press."
Millett, one of only a handful of US of-
ficials to deal on a daily basis with coun-
terintelligence against Israel over such a
long period of time, said that other "peo-
ple got caught," even though the press
never reported those cases. "This is part
of a long pattern," he added.
Following Pollard's guilty plea, dis-
putes arose between Washington and Tel
Aviv, and within the Reagan administra-
tion, over the extent of Israeli espionage
in the United States.
Many officials in both countries would
like the whole matter to go away. and the
plea bargain was an unsuccessful at-
tempt to make that happen. Moreover,
the historical questions the case raises
threaten to further embarrass Israel's
fragile coalition government. It could also
again chill Intelligence cooperation be-
tween the United States and Israel, to
which the Reagan administration has as-
signed a high priority.
As more facts emerge. the simple and
rosy public portrait of cooperation be-
nave discovered that friends spy on
friends. The revelations highlight the ex-
tent to which Israel has depended on the
United States for Its survival and the
risks that Israelis are willing to under-
take to acquire information deemed Im-
portant. They also threaten to lead to a
tightening of the channels through which
Israel has made such acquisitions.
(Dispute over agreement
Some of the complexities are illustrat-
ed in the dispute over the existence of a
spying ban. One account of such an
agreement appears In Wolf Blitzer's re-
cent book, "Between Washington and Je-
rusalem." As a result of embarrassing in-
cidents between the United States and Is-
rael during the 1950?, the two nations
"reached an understanding to end covert
operations against each other," wrote
Blitzer, Washington correspondent for
the Jerusalem Post, "An letoleton, the head
of the Israel desk at the IA, was said to
have been largely responsible for arrang-
Ing the deal."
Millett, Angleton's assistant on Israel,
disputes this account. He said he knew of
no such agreement. Asked why the Pol-
lard affair was so special then, he replied
that it was "special just in ;that It was]
offending the State Department... People
in the field have a job to do. and they
won't be stopped by any [formal] agree-
ments."
Sam Papich, the FBI's liaison to the
CIA during the period Millett handled Is-
raeli matters, agreed last week: "I never
heard of such an agreement and doubt
that it ever existed." Papich should
know. Part of his Job was to coordinate
counterintelligence between the CIA and
the FBI. and he worked with Millett and
his colleagues on matters pertaining to Is-
rael.
Several former CIA and FBI officials
said in interviews that Israel's clandes-
tine activities in the United States are
unique, rooted as they are in the coun-
try's fight for independence and its his-
torical memory of the Holocaust.
For example, the officials pointed to
the Sonneborn Institute, a collection of
pro-Zionist businessmen assembled in
July 1945 by the late Baltimore business-
man Rudolf Sonneborn.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504050002-9
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504050002-9
The Sonneborn institute eventually
became a secret support network for the
Hagannah, the Jewish force in Palestine
fighting against the British and the
Arabs. Teddy Kollek, later to become
mayor of Jerusalem, came to the United
States to organize a smuggling effort to
transport contraband materials to Pales-
tine In violation of a US embargo on such
exports. The late Nahum Bernstein, a
lawyer and former member of the Office
of Strategic Services, set up a school for
Hagannah spies in Manhattan and han-
dled legal affairs for the smugglers.
The FBI watched these activities close-
ly. Although Kollek returned to Israel "be-
fore the FBI got its hands on me," as he
later wrote, six of his colleagues were ar-
rested and successfully prosecuted for
smuggling.
One agent who handled Israeli matters
for the bureau during the late 1940s and
early 1950s. W. Raymond Wannall, said
that in December 1948 or January 1949,
the FBI monitored the formation of a
group to supervise future Israeli espio-
nage in the United States growing out of
the Hagannah effort. He said it consisted
of two Israeli diplomats, a US lawyer and
an Israeli "troubleshooter" who traveled
between the United States and Israel.
Wannall said that, in the following
months, he checked out additional Israeli
operations "targeted at Arab activities in
the United States... and at securing in-
formation from our own government re-
lated to Arab capabilities." Wannall said
Israeli agents were able to obtain, largely
from sympathizers. "a dozen or more"
classified documents, although the
sources of the leaks were never found.
Problems continued after Wannall's
direct duties for Israel ended. In 1978, the
Justice Department released a list of 23
classified documents concerning investi-
gations of Israeli espionage inside the
United States between 1953 and 1959.
According to interviews with participants
in some of these investigations, as well as
in other cases, clandestine activities by
Israel were a matter of constant concern.
Wannall remembered a 1954 investi-
gation. In that case, accusations were
made that a US State Department official.
Fred Waller, had improperly disclosed
classified information to Israeli officials,
including Chaim Herzog, then Israel's de-
fense attache in Washington and cur-
rently its president. No charges were
brought against any Israelis, and Waller
was reinstated after appealing an initial
dismissal from the government.
Former FBI agent W. Donald Stewart,
briefly assigned to the FBI's Middle East
desk in 1956, recalled investigating alley
gations that Israelis receiving flight train;
ing at US bases were also gathering intel?
ligence. "What struck me." he said, "wal
that, here we had a new country - only
eight years old - and they were runnin4
around the country developing intellii
gence information."
Plato Cacherts, now a prominent;
Washington attorney, recalled supervis?
ing a major espionage probe later in 1954
soon after arriving at the Justice Depart,
ment. A separate inquiry the next year
apparently involved the Army and tha
National Security Agency.
John Davitt, then head of the Justic4
Department's espionage unit, recalled ~
1959 investigation Into alleged leaks to Is+
raeli officials from a State Department in:
telligence officer. This information, act
cording to another source, pertained td
the US Intervention in Lebanon the year
before.
Davitt, who continued to prosecute es-,
peonage cases until his retirement in,
1980, said that there were varying de 1
grees of concern about =Israeli espionage,
"straight through" his career. He saidg
that there were more cases earlier than,
later and that his "general recollection
was that they peaked during the 1960s.
A secret CIA study found in the US emr
bassy in Iran in 1979, and based on rer
search completed two years earlier, uni'
derscores Davitt's account. It treats lsrae;
It espionage activities in the United States
as a "principal activity" of the Israeli ire-
telligence services. Israel's "principal tar-
gets." after the Arab state, are the "col;-
lection of information on secret US policy
or decisions... regarding Israel" and "scar
entific intelligence in the US and other de-
veloped countries."
Whether the allegations of Israeli espi-
onage will be proved remains to be seen,
The Justice Department is continuing to
investigate the roots of the Pollard affair
- a probe certain to be helped by Pollard'g
agreement to talk. Meanwhile, the UPS
House of Representatives has opened its
own investigation into those allegations
to determine the extent of deliberate plan-
ning involved and the role of US officials,
These efforts may help clarify whether
the Pollard case was merely the aberra'
tion and "rogue operation" the Israelis air
leged it to be.
Jeff McConnell is a coauthor of a
forthcoming book, "CIA in America.
Richard Higgins of the Globe Staff Con-
tributed to this article.
z
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504050002-9