Parallels between Pollard and Dreyfus

by Bruce Bill

(The SA Jewish Times Passover 5755, Friday 31 March 1995)

NONE of the events organized in 1994 to mark 100 years since the Dreyfus Affair drew any parallels with the Pollard affair. Yet a close look reveals striking similarities.

In both cases there was extraordinarily cruel treatment. Dreyfus was exiled not to New  Caledonia, which was usual, but to the solitary hell of Devil's Island. Pollard received life imprisonment for passing intelligence to an ally. Until recently, he was held in solitary confinement in an underground cell at Marion Federal Penitentiary. Today he is in Butner Prison, North Carolina, where many of his fellow prisoners are Black Moslems and American Nazis who threaten his life.

In her opening remarks at the Inter-national Dreyfus Centennial Conference, MK Shulamit Aloni noted that the major Dreyfus protagonists, Georges Picquart and Emile Zola, were Gentiles. Likewise, of the three judges reviewing Pollard's trial, only Steven Williams, the  only non-Jew, said unequivocally: "The government's conduct in this case resulted in a fundamental and complete miscarriage of  justice."

Lucie Dreyfus never abandoned hope of her husband's eventual acquittal. She first petitioned the Chamber of Deputies to reopen the investigation, and later petitioned Premier Brisson for cabinet approval to conduct another review, which began in November 1898.

Similarly, first Ann Henderson Pollard and then Pollard's second wife Elaine, together with his sister Carol, are in the forefront of the battle to secure justice for Pollard.

In both cases, a setup was orchestrated within the intelligence community. In the Dreyfus case, is intricacies took years to unravel.

Hidden within the US intelligence community, Jew-free cells work to undermine Israel. To "create" a Jonathan Pollard and concomitant whispers of dual loyalty would serve them well.

In 1974, toward the end of my US Army Service as a Mideast traffic analyst for the US National Security Agency, NSA, I applied to continue my work as a civilian, and was given a polygraph interview. I was asked, "Can you foresee any circumstance in which you would disclose classified intelligence to a foreign national?"

I answered no. The polygraph machine indicated I was "having a problem with that question."

In advance of the surprise attack of the Yom Kippur War a year earlier, we at NSA knew of the planned invasion and did not inform the Israelis. In 1974, I was indeed "having a problem" about that.

After the interview, the possibility that I might violate my secrecy oath WAS on record - and yet I was offered a position.

Was a potential "Pollard" being sought back in 1974?.

Pollard's dedication to the Jewish people was well known. He was recruited to his position, barraged by anti-Semitic harangues from his coworkers, privy to intelligence vital for Israel and was granted a courier pass facilitating his taking classified material. This surely smells of a setup.

Dreyfus's counterintelligence coworkers falsified documents. Dreyfus's chief detractor, Major Hubert Henry, furtively submitted a forged document to the presiding judges just before the verdict, leading to a unanimous guilty verdict.

Caspar Weinberger slipped a recommendation to Pollard's judge. In both cases, the submission was illicit, and the contents of the documents kept from the public and the defense.

The French Jewish community distanced itself from the Dreyfus Affair; so has the US

Jewish community vis-a-vis Pollard.

Dreyfus eventually had the full support of the intellectual community, with writer Emile Zola in

the vocal vanguard. After nine years in prison, Pollard is still waiting for his Zola.