Customer Reviews

Capturing Jonathan Pollard: How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice

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Some people like to call Jonathan Pollard "America's Dreyfus." Pollard's own supporters tried to get the Israeli government to accord him "prisoner of Zion" status (i.e. formal designation as someone suffering persecution for Zionist activities).

If you read Olive's recounting of Pollard's sordid little life and his sordid betrayal of the US, you will quickly see that he is neither. Dreyfus was an innocent man framed as a traitor by anti-semites in France. Prisoners of Zion are people like Natan Scharansky and others in the Soviet Union who suffered imprisonment and worse for expressing their Jewish identity and a desire to emigrate.

What Olive's book shows Pollard to be is something much less heroic, namely a grubby little man who deliberately and willfully betrayed over a million pages of top secret and secret documents to a foreign power.

Now, the refrain to this is "Israel is a US ally." Olive's response (and mine) is that it doesn't matter. The specific laws that Pollard broke don't prohibit conveying classified information to US enemies. No, the laws prohibit conveying classified information to any foreign power.

Israel is a foreign power, and believe it or not, sometimes its interests differ from those of the US. Therefore, Pollard, a lowly GS-12, had no right to do what he did.

Also, people shouldn't be fooled by Pollard's representation of himself as an Israeli patriot. Olive shows that Pollard approached four other nations and offered classified information to them. One of them was Pakistan! But it was the Israelis that took Pollard up on his offer. But I have no doubt that if the Pakistanis or South Africans had taken him up on his offers and the money had been right, Pollard would have been working for them instead of Israel.

I really do believe that before anyone becomes emotionally vested in the "plight" of "America's Dreyfus," they would do well to read Olive's book.

This case has become politically charged more than any other spy case on record. As a result, there is a flood of misinformation, primarily on the internet, which attempts to obscure the facts of the case. Mr Olive, by virtue of his role as investigator into the matter is in a unique position to separate the actual facts from the spin, which came later. I have had an interest in this case and have followed it since it came to public attention. Mr Olive's book is the first objective account (from the governments viewpoint) that I have seen, and I found it to be an intresting account that tallied with what facts I had learned previously from multiple sources.

Pollards behaviour was bizarre at times, to say the least, and should have gotten him "weeded out" several times in the course of his career as a spy. The lesson here, of lax "vetting" and even more lax physical security, seems to be repeating itself lately at the White Sands complex, with uncontrolled access and highly classified material finding its way out the door. I hope that this book will find an audience that will not be dissuaded by "spinmeisters" attempting to turn a well paid spy into a self-sacrificing hero.

"Luck had nothing to do with it". How many times have we heard that statement? In the case of Jonathan Pollard,luck had EVERYTHING to do with it. Having spent 12 years in Army counterintelligence, and almost 30 years in the security field myself, I was amazed at how often luck favored him. Eventually, Pollard's luck ran out. The story of his downfall, as told by the man who was there, is a fascinating tale of how the true counterspy does his job. In spite of its length, this is a fast, compelling read; lucidly written. The interactions among the various agencies involved, including the FBI, US Navy, and the CIA, were fascinating to follow, and allowed the reader to begin to understand the mind-set of those agencies. A word of warning, however; do not start this book late in the evening, because you will not want to put it down until you finish.

This is an excellent documentary from someone who actually "was there". No spin or cover-up is offered here. The author tells even the most embarrassing details of a case that should be studied by all investigative branches of our government in hope of preventing this from occurring again.
There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Pollard has received the punishment he deserved. I would discount those who would attempt to downplay the harm that he did to our country. They are naively accepting his self-portrayal as a protagonist of the Israeli nation.

A fast paced, well written book by an author who personally interacted with Pollard and who was intimately involved in the investigation.

Olive was the NCIS agent at the heart of the Pollard investigation and for the first time exposes decade old myths about this notorious spy case. Olive provides a candid, and sad but true account, of how Pollard was able to walk off with 360 cubic feet (1 million pages) of classified documents. He sold them over to Israel-a foreign government.

Olive articulates how blatant Pollard was at stealing our nation's top secrets, and how his strange and bizarre behaviors were ignored from the beginning. It tells how he manipulated the system time and time again and how our intelligence agencies were ransacked. He exposes how the navy and the intelligence community, in trying to give a guy the "benefit of the doubt" and in some cases "another chance" made bad decisions and overlooked things that "just weren't right." Pollard should have been fired long before he became a spy and should never have gone down in the history books.

In his first book, Ronald Olive takes us deep inside the espionage investigation where "Murphy's Law" was always one step ahead and the confession he eventually garnered. He tells of how Anne and Pollard fell in love, what her involvement was, and how her actions-at the end of this spy game-expedited their arrest. A story that some might say is "stranger than fiction." Sad as this tale is we can learn from the lessons it teaches us and should be mandatory reading-especially for law enforcement agencies.

Revealed in the epilogue is most unbelievable and another revelation to me and a scary one, is how Pollard himself, through the years has manipulated the intelligence community and the media (and still is) into believing he is a sufferer for a cause-an Israeli patriot. This is simply not the case. Jonathan Pollard is a traitor to his country and is right where he belongs.

Ron Olive presents a well-written, factual and objective account of Jonathan Pollard's perfidy. This book is well organized and fast-paced. Mr. Olive does not spare criticism of the agencies and individuals who must bare much of the responsibility for the complete lack of or breakdown in security. Israel continues to exemplify that countries do not have friends, only national interests.

Unfortunately, there are supporters of Jonathan Pollard who attack the messenger rather than accept the message. Mr. Olive's account of Pollard's espionage is a continuation of Olive's outstanding service to our country. Those who support Pollard do a great injustice to U.S. - Israeli relations, by continuing to remind us that even those countries heavily supported by America, can bite the providers hand. This book is a textbook for all who study international relations, national security, counterintelligence, and counterespionage.

The full amount of damage inflicted by Pollard will not be known for years. Pollard clearly deserves his sentence and should never be released.

Mr. Olive's book on Capturing Jonathan Pollard is a "five star" - no doubt. To me, a 34 year law enforcement/intelligence officer, I believe this book should be required reading by every rookie police or military intelligence person.

Mr Olive clearly lays it out - complaciency on the part of the American people is a fatal disease. Worse yet, many of our top level administrators in the law enforcement and intelligence field took so long to get to their high positions that they have forgotten what really goes on at the operational level.

I hope Ron Olive writes another book (or three)

After reading this book, you will really wonder about how our so called intelligence agencies can manage anything. The amount of incompetence and negligence detailed in this book is almost unimaginable. Overall a good and interesting book. Recommended for those spy book lovers.

Olive's first-hand account of the treason committed by Jonathan Pollard was not only intriguing but enlightening. As a student of the field, I found the step-by-step description of the investigation and the techniques employed by the US government to be extremely helpful for someone like myself, who is interested in pursuing a career in national security. In addition, Olive's conclusions and the resulting sentence handed down to Pollard seem to be spot-on and appropriate given the fact that Pollard stole over 1 million pages of secret and top-secret information and sold them to Israel, all the while being unrepentant for his actions against the United States. I would recommend this inside account of "spy catching" to anyone who is interested in learning more about the techniques used by those who spend their careers trying to protect the rest of us. Too often is the case that "traitors among us" get off with a proverbial "slap on the wrist." Some think Pollard is being too harshly punished by receiving a life sentence for his spying, despite it being done for an ally; personally, I think he got off lightly.

Although I have heard of Jonathan Pollard I really knew nothing about him in regard to his spying on behalf of Israel. Based on what the author of this book says I would regard Pollard as an amateurish spy who claims he didn't do anything wrong since Israel was an ally of America. He took very few pains to conceal his espionage activities, didn't arrange for drop-offs locations, and didn't agree on what monetary compensation he was to receive. Pollard just stuffed his briefcase with top secret materials without even knowing what he was including, and to think a spy as careless as him was able to get away with it for so long illustrates how lax the security was where he worked. Initially it took a co-worker who wondered where he was going with these top secret sealed envelopes. Thankfully this individual didn't just dismiss this as nothing out of the ordinary. Pollard had to know what he was doing was wrong, and, to me, his wife was equally culpable as her panic behavior indicated when she desperately tried to stash documents before the authorities arrived. Pollard believed his Israeli contacts would provide him safe passage to Israel, but they, themselves, were too busy winging their way out of the country to assist him.

Pollard was charged with aiding a foreign government and not with the intent to endanger our national security. Should Pollard eventually receive a pardon it will send a message to others that it is okay to pass on secrets to another country as long as they are given to an ally.

The reason Jonathan Pollard got away with his espionage practices was due to complacency on the part of the United States in enforcing the practices it already had in place. This, to me, is the main lesson to learn from the case of Jonathan Pollard. To think an amateurish spy was able to get away with his behavior he must have realized how lax security was among his American fellow workers and had to feel contempt for them.