US MILITARY SECRETS STOLEN BY ISRAEL R. Jeffrey Smith
A
Defense Department security official issued a confidential warning to many
military contractors in October that the Israeli government in October that the
Israeli government was "aggressively" trying to steal US military and
intelligence secrets, by trading in part on it's "storing ethnic
ties" to the United States to recruit spies.
The warning, which described Israel as a "non-traditional adversary"
in the world of espionage, was circulated by the Defence Investigative Service
with a memo noting similar intelligence "threats" from other close US
allies. The warning about Israel was "cancelled" and withdrawn by the
Pentagon in December last year after senior officials decided it's author had
improperly singled out Jewish "ethnicity" as a specific
counter-intelligence concern.
The warning nonetheless provoked a vigorous protest on by the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, a prominent Jewish organisation, which made the
matter public and called on the Pentagon to conduct an internat investigation.
"This is a distressing charge which impugns American Jews and borders on
anti-Semtism," said ADL director Abraham H. Foxman in a letter to Defense
Secretary William J. Perry.
The government memo, and ADL's angry reaction to it, highlight a particularly
delicate issue for the Defence Department. Many military counter-intelligence
officials remain scarred by the 1985 revelation that Navy intelligence analyst
Jonathan Jay Pollard stole what the memo refers to as "vast quantities of
classified information" on Israel's behalf over a 17-month period.
Pollard, who is Jewish, said he was motivated partly by sympathy for Israel.
The Israeli government since then has granted him citizenship and
unsuccessfully appealed to senior US officials for his early release from a
sentence of life in prison. The appeal has been supported by the some US Jewish
groups, although not by B'nai B'rith, which said to found no evidence of ethnic
bias in the US government's handling of the case.
A cover letter to the Defence Investigative Service memo described it's
dissemination as part of a new effort by the Pentagon to alert military
contractors to the dangers of attempted spying by what it refers to as
"military friends" such as France, Italy, Japan, Germany, and
Britain.
"It is obvious that their is far more economic and industrial espionage
than previously suspected," said the memo, which Pentagon officials said
was drafted by an industrial security specialist at the Defence Investigative
Service office in Syracuse, New York, and sent to 250 facilities military work.
The service is responsible for overseeing securing programmes at such
contractors and conducting background checks on both civilian and military
employees in sensitive posts. The employee sent similar memos detailing
intelligence threats from the other US allies.
The confidential memo on Israel began by noting that the country, a major
recipient of US military and economic aid, "is a political and military
allly." But it continued, "the nature of espionage relations between
the two governments is competitive." It said Israel "aggressively
collects US military and industrial technology," including spy satellite
date, missile defence information, and data on military aircraft, tanks,
missile boats, and radars.
Drawing on the example of the Pollard case and four other Israeli espionage
operations in the United States, the memo said that the country's recruitment
techniques include "ethnic targeting, financial aggrandisement, and
identification and exploitation of individual frailties" of US citizens.
"Placing Israeli nationals in key industries.... is a technique utilised
with great success," the memo said.
It alleged that Israeli agents stole "proprietary information" from
an Illianois optics firm in 1986 and test equipment for a radar system in the
"mid-1980s." The memo also repeated previously publicised charges -
denied by Israel and never officially proven by US investigators - that Israel
may have provided China with sensitive fighter jet technology obtained from the
United States.
In publicising the memo, which was first obtained by the Jewish weekly Moment
magazine, ADL director Foxman complained not only about it's reference to
Israeli recruitment techniques but also it's harsh tone regarding an ally that
"only five years ago ... refrained from taking military steps against Iraq
despite Scud missile attacks because it's US ally asked for restraint."
Assistant Secretary of Defence Emmett Paige Jr., who has responsibility
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