So why was it Lekem who had to recruit Pollard? This was a secret organisation that was primarily interested in scientific research. There are two reasons: firstly, Eitan never refused the opportunity to trump another Israeli intelligence agency. Secondly, Pollard was of great interest to them: the intelligence services of the US Navy were in possession of countless bits of technological information, such as codes, procedures, trade secrets etc., as well as other valuable data.
The privileged relationship that the US shared with Israel should have piqued his conscience, but ‘Dirty Rafi' had no such qualms. For him, only the outcome mattered and he was convinced that despite the agreements reached between the two countries, they [the Americans] were continuing to hold back vital information. Eitan played on the fact that Lekem did not officially exist: only the highest Israeli authorities knew of its operations.
At the time, it was a government of national unity at the controls. Shamir was the Foreign Secretary, Rabin for defence, and Shimon Peres, who was responsible for the creation of Lekem, was Prime Minister. It is therefore likely that the Prime Minister covered up the operation and afterwards informed the other two. Of course, the Israeli government would later deny knowing anything about the whole affair. But that is the rule: whenever something goes wrong, always blame it on the lower ranks.
There is further evidence of the Israeli government's duplicity in this case: the nature of the information provided by Pollard could leave no doubt of its American origin. Yet valuable information such as this had to be communicated to the authorities, on the condition that they would then exploit it to good effect. Therefore, Peres and the others could not ignore the fact that Eitan had a source in the US...
After this first contact with Sella, Pollard was put to the test and asked to prove how effective he could be and the initial information he sent to Lekem was dazzling: Pollard had gathered information on the military programmes of Israel's neighbouring Arab countries - information that the Israelis were unaware of. The most important thing the documents told them was that their suspicions had been right: the Americans were not telling them everything they knew.
Despite their links with Israel, the United States also had close relationships with a number of so-called ‘moderate' Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, but also with Egypt and Jordan. They sold them weapons, which they clearly had no intention of informing their Israeli ally about and in a way this justified Israel's decision to spy on them. Aware of the rich harvest of information Pollard could provide, the authorities in Jerusalem authorised Lekem to continue using him, fully aware of the political risk the operation posed.
Initially, Colonel Sella continued as Pollard's case officer and the two men became friends. However, this could not have lasted as the Israeli pilot was not an expert in the world of espionage. His role was taken over by a professional intelligence officer called Yagour, who was officially a scientific attache at Israeli Consulate in New York. This also meant that he benefitted from diplomatic immunity, which Sella did not.
From now on contact with Pollard became much stricter. Aware of the rather disturbing psychological profile of their agent, the Israelis made sure that he was buttered up the right way. What a pathological liar like Pollard needed above all was recognition and so his employers never failed to let him know that he was doing them a great service. This was, of course, the absolute truth: the documents that Pollard had provided them with were genuinely of the upmost importance. He was collecting information from the databases of the US departments to which he had access, or from the secret archives that he was allowed to view and then printing them. When it came to original documents, such as satellite photos, he borrowed them long enough to show them to his case officer. This was a risky procedure as leaving the office with top secret documents meant that he was at the mercy of having to undergo an unexpected search. It was a game he would eventually lose.
Jacques Derogy and Hesi Carmel
100
[In this extract the two journalists describe the meeting between Pollard and Colonel Sella at the home of Steven Stern, a rich Jewish man from New York.]
Sella sought the agreement of his boss, General Amos Lapidot, who encouraged him to submit a report to Rafi Eitan. Eitan was the head of Lekem, the obscure scientific bureau with links to the Ministry of Defence and which wasn’t even on the CIA’s radar of Israeli intelligence, and he gave Sella the green light to proceed. Pollard brought with him a file of top-quality information. Eitan was excited and believed the chance had come for him to outdo his Mossad rivals, but his subordinates at Lekem were not pleased: firstly, the service had no mandate to spy on Americans and secondly, Pollard’s handwriting left little to be desired. Consequently, they asked for a document from their leader showing that they had warned him of using such a dangerous character and that Colonel Sella should not act as his case officer. Determined to have his own way, Eitan flew to the US to convince Sella to keep manipulating his course, assuring him that he had been authorised to do so by the authorities.
After having received the documents, the Israelis followed the following procedure: every fortnight, Pollard would visit a house bought by Lekem near Washington, where he could make use of an ultra-modern photocopier.
