Out in the Cold

...That, as Blitzer observes, pleased no one...

...At the time of his arrest, which came after Ronald Reagan approved the initial arms sales to Iran, he had in his possession documents describing missile systems manufactured by other countries that could be sold to Iran...

...Was he, as the spy claimed, pursuing an aggressively anti-Israeli foreign policy, independent of the Administration...

...Allmen," Rebecca West wrote, " should have a drop of treason in their veins, if the nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy bears...

...Finally, why didn't it make a difference to Weinberger that Pollard had not spied for the Soviet Union but for one of America's closest allies...

...Blitzer quotes former White House adviser Stuart Eizenstat's eminently sensible comment that the effect of the Pollard episode was "not necessarily all bad because...

...For example, Eitan would later say that Moshe Arens, then Israel's Defense Minister and now its Foreign Minister, knew of Pollard's espionage...

...These questions point to a larger and perhaps ultimate issue, the U.S.-Israel relationship...

...The small, quasiindependent intelligence agency was run by Rafi Eitan, a veteran spy who hungered for the power and cachet to be had from the information an American mole could obtain...

...A remarkable mixture of strategy and sentiment, it is driven above all by Israel's genuine fear of annihilation—the source of its impressive military and intelligence capabilities as well as its often hesitant and frustrating policymaking...

...Throughout Blitzer movingly allows Jonathan Pollard to tell much of the story in his own words...

...After Pollard offered his services, he was asked by the Israelis to obtain topsecret American intelligence regarding Soviet and Arab military capabilities...

...The shadow of the whole case suggests further lines of inquiry that one hopes Blitzer or other students of the Middle East conflict will pursue in the future...

...This blunder and its misplaced faith in the press and public opinion typifies the tragic amateurishness of Pollard and his well-meaning supporters throughout the affair...

...Why did he so vehemently urge a harsh sentence for Pollard...

...Pollard acted out of genuinely held political beliefs...

...One also hungers for more details regarding Caspar Weinberger's involvement in the Pollard case...

...But there is much to ponder here...

...investigation, but not fully...

...Blitzer, in fact, is at his best in his concluding chapter, where he focuses his informed judgment on the broader implications of the case, including the subsequent willingness of more American Jews to publicly differ with Israel than before...

...Was the damage to American intelligence as great as Weinberger claimed in his memorandum to the judge...

...A bright and complicated Naval Intelligence analyst who had read too many spy novels, he idealized Israel and considered its strategic interests to be identical with those of the United States...

...If true, the attitudes of Israeli policymakers toward their American allies may be more complex than they seem...

...It was Jonathan Pollard's misfortune to enact the deepest fears and most fantastic impulses of many American Jews...

...From the summer of 1984 to the fall of 1985, he provided Israel with thousands of pages of documents and photos...

...Once he became convinced that the U.S...

...Achieving a lucid understanding of the sensitive and high-stakes U.S.-Israel connection, taking account of the illusions and realities on both sides, may not be possible...

...Reviewed by Yehudah Mirsky Writer, political consultant Compared with the dizzying deceptions regularly engaged in by the intelligence services of major powers, the case of Jonathan Jay Pollard chronicled in Territory of Liesby Wolf Blitzer, Washington bureau chief of the Jerusalem Post, would seem to be small beer...

...Incredibly, they had given no thought to his possible arrest...

...The possibility of some connection between Pollard and the Iran-contra affair bears investigation, too...

...was systematically denying Israel vital information in violation of the strategic partnership of the two countries, he contacted Israel's Office of Scientific Liaison...

...when you have a false stereotype of a country, even one in which we have such a close relationship, then it's not healthy...

...The affair was perhaps the dry run for the deeper intramural divisions to come over the Palestinian uprising...

...The sentence, stiffer than the punishments regularly meted out to convicted spies for the Soviet Union, resulted partly from a blistering memorandum Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger sent to the judge, and partly from Pollard's having given interviews from his cell to Blitzer and to 60 Minutes, in direct violation of his written agreement with the court...

...Pollard was tried by a Federal court and sentenced to life imprisonment...

...In Territory of Lies we discover a troubled, naïve, intelligent, and finally romantic man who unwittingly sacrificed himself and his family for the Israel of his imagination...

...When his swagger and the sheer irregularity of his document requests gave him away (Pollard's particular assignment with Naval Intelligence gave him no cause to see documents relating to the Middle East), he was left to hang by his Israeli handlers...

...The Israeli government, caught between allegiance to America and loyalty to its spy, cooperated with the U.S...

...but it is certainly a good, if painful, idea...