Congressional Research Service ˜˜ The Library of Congress
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Order Code RS20001
Updated January 31, 2001
Jonathan Pollard: Background and
Considerations for Presidential Clemency
Richard A. Best, Jr.
Specialist in National Defense
Clyde Mark
Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs
Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division
Summary
Jonathan Jay Pollard and his wife, Anne Henderson Pollard, were arrested in 1985
on charges of spying for Israel. Pollard pleaded guilty and received a life sentence, and
remains in prison. Anne Henderson Pollard received a five-year sentence, and was
released early in 1989. At first, the Israeli government claimed Pollard’s activities were
not sanctioned by the Israeli government and were part of a rogue operation, but the
Israeli government granted citizenship to Pollard in 1996, and admitted that Pollard was
spying for the government of Israel in 1998. Israeli Prime Ministers on several occasions
requested that President Clinton grant clemency to Pollard, but the Clinton
Administration ended without a reprieve. It is likely that the Israeli government will raise
the issue again and some U.S. groups continue to advocate Pollard’s release. At issue
is the question: should the President grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard? Those
supporting clemency argue that Pollard has served long enough, that he spied for a
friendly nation, not an enemy, that his release will help the peace process, and that the
United States reneged on the plea agreement. Those who oppose clemency argue that
Pollard’s spying exposed U.S. intelligence methods and personnel, that the Pollard case
is not related to the peace process, that who he spied for is irrelevant, and that the
judges’ sentence was justified by the magnitude of the crime. The report will not be
updated.
Introduction
The case of Jonathan Jay Pollard (b. 1954), convicted of espionage on behalf of Israel
in 1986 and given a life sentence as a result, has been raised repeatedly by the Israeli
government in an effort to obtain his release. The Clinton Administration rebuffed three
efforts to secure Pollard’s release, one during the final hours of the October 1998 Wye
River conference when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu repeated his plea for
clemency. President Clinton agreed to review the case by January 1999 after the views of
