the Damage of Pollard’s Espionage

As Israel presses the Clinton Administration to free Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst sentenced in 1986 to life in prison for spying for the Israelis, Time has learned that one document Pollard is believed to have slipped to the Israelis — thought to have landed in Soviet hands, albeit unintentionally — was a huge National Security Agency compendium of frequencies used by foreign military and intelligence services. Gathering this information cost the U.S. billions of dollars, but Pollard rendered it useless. Officials assume countries that knew their frequencies had been discovered used them for disinformation. Additionally, officials fear the data in the book were so specific that its discovery may have cost informants their lives.