UPI - 'Seed Of Fire' By
Gordon Thomas Has 'Explosive Implications'
1-30-2
(Note - You can hear Gordon Thomas' sensational 12-19-01 interview with Jeff in
our program Archives.)
United Press International has alerted the world's media that Seeds of Fire
already a runaway Internet bestseller has explosive implications for U.S.
relations with Israel.
"Seeds of Fire is likely to doom new Israeli efforts to free spy Jonathan
Pollard, the former U.S. naval intelligence officer serving a life sentence for
betraying his country, UPI said Monday, January 28, in a major wire-service
story.
Written by award-winning former foreign correspondent Gordon Thomas, Seeds of
Fire: China and the Story Behind the Attack on America ($25.95, Dandelion Books)
is available in bookstores, at www.dandelionbooks.com and www.gordonthomas.ie.
Said UPI: "Former (and probably next) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
scheduled to be in Washington this weekend for a Conservative conference, will
be lobbying hard for Pollard and wants to take up the matter in person with
President Bush.
face="Times New Roman"Seeds of Fire contains the full, untold story of the role
played by Pollard in the biggest-ever theft of U.S. defense secrets. (See
attached backgrounder.)
UPI states that, as a result of the startling evidence published in Seeds of
Fire, it is now "unlikely that Pollard will be freed.
It is not only UPI that has recognized the importance of Seeds of Fire.
Hours after it was published, the CIA confirmed that key documents in the book
secret briefing papers by the agency on the threat China poses were accurate.
The CIA then published the secret documents already revealed in Seeds of Fire.
But Seeds of Fire contains many more documents that have yet to be published.
UPI praises Thomas as the author of the acclaimed history of the Mossad Gideon's
Spies. Seeds of Fire is also the result of careful research leading to
"explosive implications and conclusions.
NOTE TO THE MEDIA: THOMAS, WHO LIVES IN IRELAND, IS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS.
Contact: Publicity Dept., Dandelion Books 250 South Hardy Drive Ste. 3067 Tempe,
Arizona 85283 480-897-4452 info@dandelionbooks.com
www.dandelionbooks.com
, www.gordonthomas.ie
BACKGROUND TO THE POLLARD CASE IN SEEDS OF FIRE
Seeds of Fire: China and the Story Behind the Attack on America reveals why
Pollard was sentenced to die in prison after he had been found guilty of being
the greatest traitor in the history of the United States.
Seeds of Fire shows how, compared to Pollard, the damage done to U.S. security
by others spying against the U.S. pales in significance.
Pollard was a civilian senior analyst in the most secret Field Operational
Intelligence office in Suitland, Maryland. The post required top security
clearance because Pollard had access to highly classified files in the entire
U.S. intelligence community.
Seeds of Fire documents how a powerful lobby within the United States has
lobbied to have Pollard freed. It names the lobbyists. They are headed by
Harvard Law School Professor, Alan M. Dershowitz, once Pollard's attorney.
Seeds of Fire quotes the attorney thus: "There is nothing in Pollard's
conviction to suggest that he had compromised the nation's
intelligence-gathering capabilities or betrayed worldwide intelligence data.
Backed by such powerful sources, Israel has now begun a new campaign to persuade
the Bush Administration to set Pollard free.
But CIA Director, George Tenet, as Seeds of Fire reveals, is leading the
opposition to such a move.
Tenet is not the only one who has joined in the battle over Pollard's future.
Four retired U.S. admirals, one who had served as a director of U.S. Naval
Intelligence, have circulated a paper within the Washington intelligence
community that bluntly states Pollard's release would not only be "irresponsible
to the highest degree, but also a victory for the clever public relations
campaign waged for the worst traitor this country has had.
So far such trenchant views have remained within the intelligence community, but
a number of senior members of the CIA, FBI and other agencies who were involved
in assessing the damage Pollard did, have begun to say they will go public on
what they know the extent of that damage to be.
Though reluctant to be named "for the moment, one FBI agent told Gordon Thomas:
"Pollard stole every worthwhile intelligence secret we had. We are still trying
to recover from what he did. We have had to withdraw dozens of agents in place
in the former Soviet Union, in the Middle East, South Africa and friendly
nations like Britain, France and Germany. The American public just don't know
the full extent of what he did.
Ironically, Pollard in his youth had made no secret of his support for Israel.
The youngest son of an award-winning microbiologist, his family and friends have
described his near obsession with "the power of Mossad. At Stanford University
he said he was "waiting for the day when Israel will call upon me. Nobody took
him seriously; many thought he was a fantasist. For that reason the CIA rejected
his job application, dismissing him as a "blabbermouth.
But the agency also saw that he had an extraordinary gift as an analyst. This
talent allowed Naval Intelligence to overlook his other faults.
His former chief, David Muller, admitted "despite his stories about his visits
to Israel when he claimed to have met with Mossad, he was a genius when it came
to breaking down complex data. He was a one-off in every sense of the word. With
hindsight we all should have listened to the alarm bells ringing. Pollard had a
drug habit. He had huge debts. He lived well above his salary. In every sense he
was a prime target for a foreign intelligence service to recruit.
No other U.S. spy in modern intelligence has generated such controversy as
Jonathan Pollard. Now forty-seven years of age and incarcerated in a maximum
security jail supposedly for the rest of his life, no one publicly still knows
the full extent of the damage he did after he was recruited in November 1984 to
spy for Israel.
The man who did the recruiting was Rafi Eitan, Mossad's legendary spymaster who
captured Adolf Eichmann. Pollard was to be an even greater triumph for Eitan and
Israel.
Eitan is one of the few who knows the full extent of the top-secret materials
Pollard passed over. But within the Israeli intelligence community it is
accepted that Pollard also provided a clear picture of U.S. intelligence
gathering methods in the Middle East.
For over eleven months Pollard had raped U.S. intelligence. His trial was told,
"Over 360 cubic feet of paper was transmitted to Israel.
Yitzhak Shamir, then Israeli's prime minister, had personally approved the
recruiting of Pollard.
Pollard was arrested on November 21, 1986, outside the Israeli embassy in
Washington. He elected to plea-bargain rather than face a full trial. The U.S.
government agreed with alacrity: no state secrets would have to be revealed,
especially about the extent of Israeli espionage.
After the plea bargain, the Justice Department supplied the court with a sworn
declaration signed by Caspar W. Weinberger, the Secretary of Defence, which
detailed by categories some of the intelligence systems that had been
compromised.
In prison Pollard divorced his first wife, Anne (who had been sentenced to five
years imprisonment for being his accomplice) and converted to Orthodox Judaism.
In 1994 he married, in prison, a Toronto schoolteacher named Elaine Zeitz.
Esther Pollard, as she was from then on known, became the spearhead of the
campaign to have her husband freed. Now she has been enjoined by Benyamin
Netanyahu.
"Much of what he knows is still in his head. And some of what he stole is still
in use by us, Seeds of Fire reveals. "The reason the key was thrown away to his
cell is because until he died he would be useful to Israel. They would just have
to show him something and he would know how to extrapolate from it. A man like
that doesn't lose his touch because he is locked away.
Yet the lobbyists are now arguing that Pollard has to be seen within the context
of the "big picture in the Middle East, says Gordon Thomas.
A former FBI officer who had been involved in tracking Pollard told the author
he would have no objection to a deal over Pollard "providing Israel listed
everything Pollard had stolen and what they have done with the materials in
terms of all their friends in Beijing.
He conceded that such a hope was forlorn. Far more realistic he thought, was
that one day soon Jonathan Pollard might yet get to use the Israeli passport
that spymaster Rafi Eitan had provided him.
Certainly the old spymaster is more than ready to welcome Pollard to Israel. "It
would be really nice to see Jonathan again and discuss old times, Eitan has told
Gordon Thomas.
The full untold story of Pollard, Eitan and Israel's secret operations in the
United States are documented in Seeds of Fire: China and the Story Behind the
Attack on America, by Gordon Thomas, ISBN 1893302547, Dandelion Books;
Paperback; 524 pages; large number of official documents; $25.95.