The navy’s decision not to fire Pollard in 1980 was a fatal lapse that resulted in untold damage to U.S. security. But it was not the only failure, and when viewed with the benefit of hindsight, it is certainly not the most shocking
When Rear Admiral John Butts, USN (Ret.), told me that in January 1982, as commander of the NIC, he most certainly did not authorize or restore Pollard’s TS/SCI clearance, I was floored. His account contradicted the report of the JAG investigation. According to Butts, he decided that Pollard could retain his secret clearance only. His work would have to be monitored, and eventually, if he kept up his work, he could be reinstated and briefed back into SCI programs.1
Hoping to get to the bottom of the matter, I went straight to Rear Admiral William Horn, USN (Ret.), who from 1982 to 1986 was the Department of the Navy’s special security officer and Chief of the Security Division in the Naval Intelligence Command. In a discussion of SCI waivers, Admiral Horn informed me that the DNI and the commander of NIC could give SCI waivers. During his tenure, however, there had been no case of anyone gaining instant SCI access without a prior background investigation—that is, no “blind” waivers. The late Earl Fleischman, then in charge of the NIC’s personnel security branch, kept Pollard’s security file containing the notes on this issue in a special cabinet in the adjudications branch, not in the personnel folder at Pollard’s command. During the NIS and FBI investigation, Horn saw the file. In it was paperwork stating that special security officer Captain Mike McCutcheon, reacting to Pollard’s intensifying threats to sue the navy, strongly recommended against restoring his clearance. Horn also saw correspondence from McCutcheon addressed to Pollard’s command, in response to repeated requests for a renewed clearance, stating that he wasn’t eligible. Horn said this file was probably destroyed during an office move to centralize the navy’s personnel security adjudications.2 According to Horn, after several personal appeals from the commanding officer of the NISC, Captain Chauncey Hoffman, Admiral Butts phoned Fleischman and directed him to restore Pollard’s SCI access because Hoffman had promised to limit his access within the NISC to the merchant shipping branch, where he couldn’t do any damage. The merchant shipping branch had no TS/SCI material. Pollard would be working with information classified no higher than secret, a clearance he already held.
Did Butts actually restore Pollard’s SCI clearance? Perhaps the confusion over this question can be explained by the admiral’s belief that Pollard’s command wouldn’t allow him to work with SCI material until he proved himself, at which point he could be “read in” to SCI programs. This meant he had to listen to a short briefing for each separate SCI program and sign a non-disclosure waiver. This mandatory procedure never transpired.
In any event, Fleischman passed the word to restore Pollard’s SCI clearance to the Suitland Federal Complex Consolidated Security Office, but not before writing a memo for the record stating that he had been personally instructed by phone to do so.
In reviewing Pollard’s file, Horn was surprised to learn that, although the analyst had regained his SCI access (at least on paper, in Fleischman’s memo) and been given an access badge, he had never regained his TS clearance. A directive issued by the director of central intelligence authorizes certain high-level officials to give SCI clearances verbally, not for permanent access but only for short-term necessity, as in times of war or during special operations. Horn cited some U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel whose SCI clearances had been expedited quickly, but each of these individuals had already emerged intact from background investigations and possessed TS clearances, making them eligible to be read in to SCI. Regulations mandated that, with or without a waiver, a TS certificate had to be issued before someone could be authorized for SCI clearance, and the candidate had to pass a special background investigation before either clearance came through.3
According to the records, the matter of Pollard’s TS/SCI clearance was closed when his temporary access to SCI was removed in August 1980. After this date, the analyst was not entered into the official navy records of people with SCI clearances. Nonetheless, and despite being told repeatedly by Captain Mike McCutcheon as well as special security officer Captain Earl DeWispelaere that he wasn’t eligible for an SCI clearance, Pollard manipulated his way through the system and managed to obtain one. At the time there was a maxim that summed up the responsibility of the special security officer in authorizing SCI clearances: When in doubt, deny. In Pollard’s case, the special security officers heeded this advice. It was the NIC commander who possibly ignored it, using his authority to overrule them.
Pollard’s clearance came in January 1982, but again, it was on paper only. The stark fact is that from January 1982 until his arrest in November 1985, Pollard had still not passed a special background investigation, he had no TS or official SCI clearance, and he was not read back into SCI programs. The series of missteps boggles the mind. No other spy in history has been able to operate as freely as Jonathan Jay Pollard, who, like a child gone wild in a candy store, not only secretly removed page after page of his nation’s most highly classified documents but also did so with flimsy—indeed, nonexistent—credentials. Through sheer persistence, Pollard managed to shatter the glass security wall erected to protect the nation, and in so doing, he caused more harm to national security than anyone else engaged in espionage in recent memory—even the infamous figures arrested during the decade of the spy.
This never-ending story of the notorious navy analyst should serve as a constant reminder to those entrusted with America’s secrets of the danger of bending rather than following the rules. When in doubt, deny. Ultimately, the only safeguard the nation has against those bent on acquiring its secrets is the person who, through attentiveness, knowledge, education, and a firm grasp of the threat from within, knows to report suspicious behavior or security violations when “something just isn’t right.”