Former US secretary of state George Shultz has joined a long list of former senior American and Israeli security officials calling upon US President Barack Obama to release Jonathan Pollard.
In a letter obtained by
The Jerusalem Post Tuesday night, Shultz wrote that he was impressed that the people who are best informed about the classified material Pollard passed to Israel now favor his release. He cited former CIA director James Woolsey, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dennis DeConcini, and former attorney- general Michael Mukasey.
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Shultz served as the US secretary of state from 1982-1989 under President Ronald Reagan and played a key role when then-defense secretary Caspar Weinberger took action to ensure that Pollard would be given a life sentence. Shultz is currently the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
“This is huge because he is the only one out of the Reagan- Weinberger-triumverate who were involved in the case who is still alive, and he is saying enough is enough,” Pollard’s wife Esther said.
“This is startling news that a man of his stature has gotten involved. It adds dramatically to the compelling nature of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s call for Jonathan’s release.”
Shultz is the first former US secretary to openly call for Pollard’s release and is a respected Republican figure. People involved in the effort to release Pollard said Shultz’s endorsement would go a long way toward persuading other Republicans to join the campaign.
As secretary of state, Shultz handled some of the earliest high-level contacts with the Israelis when the case first broke. According to the 1987 Eban Report by the Knesset committee that investigated the Pollard affair, Shultz requested and secured from then prime minister Shimon Peres a commitment to return the documents that Pollard had provided to Israel.
These documents were then used by the Americans to indict Pollard, and served as the only evidence against him.
Israel’s cooperation in this matter with the US was virtually
unprecedented. It was reportedly the only time in the history of modern
espionage that any country had ever cooperated in the incrimination and
prosecution of its own agent.