Jonathan Pollard | Biography, Released, Conviction, & Facts
Jonathan Pollard, American civil defense analyst who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for having sold classified information to Israel; he was paroled in 2015. His arrest caused acute embarrassment to Israel, whose officials were caught spying on a key ally. Learn more about Pollard.
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Jonathan Pollard (born August 7, 1954, Galveston, Texas, U.S.) is an American civilian defense analyst who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for having sold classified information to Israel; he was paroled in 2015. His arrest caused acute embarrassment to Israel, whose officials were caught spying on a key ally. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres apologized for Pollard’s activities and dissolved the scientific intelligence agency that had worked with him.
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In 1984 he was assigned to the U.S. Navy’s Anti-Terrorist Alert Center. With access to all government documents that could help with his job, he contacted officials at the Israeli embassy who were connected to that country’s Bureau of Scientific Relations and began to supply them with boxes and suitcases full of information from the Departments of State, Defense, and Justice, the CIA, and the National Security Agency.
On October 25, 1985, he was seen carrying a large bundle from his office to his wife’s car and was placed under surveillance. On November 21 he was arrested outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, where he and his wife had gone in hope of asylum; his wife was arrested the next day.
