Early Thursday morning, 21 November, Pollard left his apartment and slipped past surveillance for the third time. FBI Agent Mike Rolince told me later that no one knew how this had happened. Perhaps the proximity of Pollard’s apartment and Ronald Pelton’s girlfriend’s caused some confusion, or perhaps there was a temporary absence of eyes because the FBI field office had been stretched to the limit. In addition to Pollard, they were surveilling Pelton and Larry Wu Tai Chin. Whatever the cause of the foul-up, it must have given a boost to Pollard’s confidence in his ability to outmaneuver the authorities.
With no one trailing him, the analyst made his way to a pay phone, dialed the Israeli embassy, and this time got a security officer on the other end who spoke English. Again he explained his story and announced his intent to seek asylum. The officer told Pollard to come to the embassy, but only if he could shake surveillance. He should arrive at around ten thirty or eleven that morning, at which point the security gate would be open. Then the officer got a description of Pollard’s car and hung up.
Pollard returned to his apartment and gave Anne the news. Free at last! Elated, they gathered their suitcase, their cat, and the small red carrying bag, piled into their 1980 Ford Mustang, and drove to the Washington Hospital Center for Anne’s procedure.
By now, whatever chinks there had been in the FBI’s surveillance were closed and a full team was shadowing Pollard. The analyst later claimed he knew he was being watched, but the agents conducting the surveillance, priding themselves on their ability to trail a suspect invisibly, disagreed. At any rate, when the Pollards arrived at the hospital, one agent followed them in, thinking Anne would be staying overnight because of the suitcase in the Mustang. That proved not to be the case. An hour or so later, when the procedure was over, the couple went down the elevator, returned to their car, and drove away.
Agent Rolince was in the lead surveillance vehicle, in front of the Pollards’ Mustang. Following the Mustang was a vehicle carrying Agent Max Fratodei, another with Agent Phil McNally, and following him, several more cars transporting members of the FBI Special Surveillance Group. Rolince assumed the Pollards would be returning to their apartment. Instead, the analyst began driving in a different direction, going up Wisconsin Avenue Northwest and then making several turns that suggested he knew he was being followed and was trying to lose his pursuers. He drove in circles, down one street and then another, leading the FBI into an unfamiliar neighborhood. Presently, the suspect turned right onto Van Ness, then put on his blinker for another right turn. Now he was at the corner of Van Ness and International Drive. One agent cautioned his team not to arouse Pollard’s suspicions. “Who cares if he’s suspicious?” someone said over the radio.
What unfolded next was unorthodox by FBI standards. Normally, when the FBI is about to arrest a suspect for espionage, they have gradually built up their case with wiretaps and photographs and other evidence gleaned from deliberate investigative efforts. When the suspect is moving about, the surveillance team has a good idea where he or she is headed and stations agents at the destination point pending the arrest. In this case, however, they had only had their suspect under surveillance for three days. Nobody knew what country Pollard was working for, if any, or where his Mustang was going. Rolince later told me no one on the FBI team would have ever suspected their quarry was zeroing in on the Israeli embassy. Israel wasn’t even on the FBI’s criteria country list.
So yes, the surveillance team was supposed to be cautious and not arouse suspicion, but at the same time they were intent on preventing Pollard’s escape.
At the time, I was working in my office at the Washington Navy Yard, out of touch with what was unfolding, but my agents from the NIS, Rich Cloonan and Veronica “Ronnie” McCarthy, were in the operations center at the FBI field office. The surveillance team was communicating Pollard’s progress by FBI radio, and Cloonan and McCarthy were listening in. When Cloonan heard the agents mention the corner of Van Ness and International Drive, it occurred to him that the only place of importance in that area was the Israeli embassy. Because he had worked out the protective detail for Defense Minister Rabin just a few weeks earlier, he knew the neighborhood like the back of his hand. But this was just a fleeting thought, and Cloonan didn’t act upon it. No one had any idea that Pollard was working for the Israelis.
Aerial view of Israeli Embassy, Washington, D.C. —NIS/FBI PHOTO
According to Rolince, what followed next happened so fast it was hard to keep track of events. At approximately 10:20 AM, Pollard turned onto the 3500 block of International Drive. In response, Rolince executed a U-turn halfway down the block and pulled off to the side, then watched as Pollard entered a compound where a secret service car was parked. Agent Fratodei, not familiar with the location, got on the radio and announced that the Mustang was heading into some kind of mission. As soon as the car pulled through the gate, it closed, cutting off Pollard’s pursuers. Then the Mustang proceeded down a driveway and came to a stop under an overhang.
According to several later reports, an embassy deputy drove through the gate ahead of the Mustang. Rolince told me that while this was possible, he didn’t recall seeing any other car.
Israeli Embassy driveway, Washington, D.C. in 2005 —RON OLIVE
Though the FBI agents still couldn’t identify the compound, it didn’t take them long to grasp what was happening. This was obviously some sort of official residence, and Pollard was trying to seek asylum.
As the G-men piled out of their cars, the FBI radio erupted with the news: “Pollard just turned into the Israeli embassy!”
Back in the operations center, Cloonan’s hunch was confirmed. That was it—Pollard had been spying for Israel. Phones began ringing off the hook and people flew into action. McCarthy dashed upstairs to an office where the FBI special agent in charge was holding a meeting with his assistants and the NIS special agent in charge, John D’Avanzo.
“You’ll have to interrupt the meeting,” McCarthy told the secretary breathlessly. “Something important has broken in the Pollard case.”
“They can’t be interrupted,” she responded, whereupon McCarthy blew by her, burst through the door, and said, “I’m sorry to barge in, but I thought you needed to know. Jonathan Pollard just entered the Israeli embassy.”1 That got their attention.
Meanwhile, the street outside the embassy was beginning to look like a parking lot for a Redskins football game, except the cars were all FBI. The bureau had the entire compound surrounded. The surveillance teams radioed headquarters and told their supervisors what was going on, setting off a flurry of flash phone calls to VIPs that didn’t die down for twenty minutes. The FBI was in a legal gray zone. Because they couldn’t make an arrest unless a violent felony crime was committed in their presence, a grand jury handed down an indictment for an arrest, or the attorney general authorized one, they had to await word from the Department of Justice.
What ensued is not entirely clear. Evidently, two men were at the embassy gate, a guard and a uniformed secret service officer. One FBI agent also saw a man standing in a window looking down on the proceedings. After Pollard’s Mustang stopped under the overhang, the person in the window disappeared. Someone emerged from the embassy and began talking to Pollard under the overhang.
According to Rolince, who spoke to the secret service officer afterwards, it was this officer who was instrumental in keeping Pollard outside the embassy building. Evidently, the officer, whose name Rolince didn’t recall, told the Israeli conferring with Pollard that because this case involved espionage it came under the FBI’s jurisdiction, and that he couldn’t let Pollard remain on the embassy grounds. A discussion ensued, and at last Pollard was told that he could come into the embassy but only after parking his Mustang on the road.
Pollard’s account is somewhat different. According to him, an Israeli vehicle followed his Mustang down the driveway. Pollard stopped and he and Anne got out, whereupon the man in the other vehicle climbed out and came over and embraced him. A second man, a security guard, emerged from the embassy and greeted him. Pollard recognized the man’s voice as the same he had heard on the phone earlier. The security guard walked back to the gate and talked to an FBI agent standing on the other side. Then, Pollard claims, he talked to someone else, probably the uniformed secret service officer. Finally, the guard returned to Pollard and said, “I hate to tell you this—you have to leave.”
“Do you know who I am?” Pollard replied, incredulous. “Do you know how important it is for me to get to Israel? Can’t I claim the right of return?”
Pollard’s red Mustang. —NIS EVIDENCE PHOTO
“It isn’t permitted,” the guard said. “You can leave now or I’ll have to let them in.”2
Pollard believes that had it not been for the presence of so many FBI agents and vehicles, which put psychological pressure on the Israelis, he would have been allowed to stay.
Soon afterward the Department of Justice sent word to the FBI: The bureau could arrest Pollard if he left the embassy grounds and was passed on to the agents on the scene. However, they did not have authorization to arrest Anne.
By now, Anne was crying hysterically and Pollard, having badly miscalculated his moves, was dismayed and confused. Reluctantly, the couple climbed into their car and the Mustang inched up the embassy driveway. As soon as the two front tires touched the blacktop of International Drive, Agent Rolince reached through the window, grabbed Pollard by the arm, and ordered him to turn off the engine. He arrested Pollard and seized his Mustang with all of its contents.
It appears the suspect couldn’t wait for a game of one-upmanship. Much to Rolince’s surprise, no sooner had he packed Pollard into the back seat of his FBI vehicle than the analyst leaned forward and began chattering away. “You botched it!” he cried. “You thought this was a Soviet bloc operation, didn’t you?”3
Anne, free to go, told the FBI agents she wasn’t feeling well and they drove her and her cat back to the apartment.
D’Avanzo called me from the FBI field office and informed me of Pollard’s arrest. The FBI wanted me to come over and interview the suspect again with Special Agent Jechorek. I made a beeline for the field office, on the way over visualizing Pollard handcuffed in the interview room, shoulders sagging, thinking his whole world had collapsed. The person I would be talking to this time would be vastly different from the man who just yesterday, with evident pride, had produced a handwritten statement detailing his sundry crimes. This new man, the wind taken out of his sails, would be frightened and meek. I couldn’t have been more mistaken.
