Pollard’s Mossad handler says he failed to follow agreed escape plan
December 2, 2014 Leave a comment
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A convicted spy who betrayed American secrets to Israel in the 1980s was captured by the FBI because he failed to follow a prearranged escape plan to flee America for Israel, according to his Israeli former handler. Jonathan Jay Pollard is a former intelligence analyst for the United States Navy, who has so far served nearly 29 years in prison for selling American government secrets to Israel. Ron Olive, an Assistant Special Agent at US Navy Counterintelligence, who in cracked the Pollard case, leading to the spy’s arrest and conviction, has called Pollard the most damaging spy in American history. “Pollard stole so many documents, so highly classified, more so than any other spy in the history of this country, in such a short period of time”, he said in 2012. On November 21, 1985, while under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Pollard panicked and attempted to gain asylum at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. However, he was thrown out by embassy guards and was immediately arrested by FBI agents, who had surrounded the Israeli embassy. Ever since his arrest and conviction, Pollard and his family have repeatedly hinted that his Israeli handlers failed to protect him when he sought their help. But in an interview on Israeli television, Rafi Eitan, Pollard’s handler at the time of his arrest, placed the blame squarely on Pollard himself. Eitan was at the time head of the Scientific Relations Office, an obscure unit inside Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, for which Pollard had agreed to spy in exchange for money. On Monday, he told Israel Channel 2 television’s flagship investigative program Uvda that Pollard had been specifically instructed by the Israelis to stay away from their Washington embassy. Instead, said Eitan, the American spy had agreed to follow “a prearranged escape plan that would get him safely out of the United States”. But instead of following the plan as soon as he was approached by the FBI, Pollard waited for three days before panicking and deciding to go to the Israeli embassy without giving his Mossad handler prior notice. Eitan told his Channel 2 interviewers that he received a telephone call notifying him that Pollard was at the gates of the embassy asking for asylum, while the embassy had been surrounded by FBI personnel. “I immediately said ‘throw him out'”, said Eitan, “and I don’t regret it”, since offering Pollard asylum in the presence of a strong FBI force around the Israeli embassy, would have “created an even greater crisis between the United States and Israel”, said the former Mossad spy handler. Eitan added that he took full responsibility for the decision to abandon Pollard. As for the decisions that led to Pollard’s arrest, he said: “you can’t wage war without making mistakes”.
intelNews.org 
Revealed: Decorated Nazi commander became Mossad assassin
March 29, 2016 by Joseph Fitsanakis 4 Comments
Skorzeny survived the war and ended up living in Spain under the protection of the country’s far-right dictator, Francisco Franco. The Mossad, Israel’s covert-action agency, which had made it a priority to arrest or kill senior Nazis who had survived the war, intended to kill Skorzeny. However, two veteran Israeli intelligence observers, Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, revealed on Sunday that, instead of killing Skorzeny, the Mossad decided to recruit him. Based on “interviews with former Mossad officers and with Israelis who have access to the Mossad’s archived secrets”, Raviv and Melman allege that Isser Harel, who directed the Mossad from 1952 to 1963, decided that the former Waffen SS commander would be a useful asset against other Nazis operating in Europe and the Middle East. Specifically, Harel planned to use Skorzeny as a trap to lure a number of Nazi scientists who were secretly working for Egypt’s missile program.
According to Raviv and Melman, a Mossad team was sent to Spain to meet Skorzeny. After a tense incident that involved Skorzeny pointing a loaded weapon at two Mossad operatives, the former Nazi soldier agreed to cooperate with Israel in return for assurances that his name would be removed from the Mossad’s assassination list. Raviv and Melman claim that one of Skorzeny’s most high-profile operations as an agent of the Mossad culminated in the assassination of Heinz Krug in Munich in 1962. Krug was a German rocket scientist who was working for the Egyptian government under the tutelage of Dr Wolfgang Pilz, another rocketry expert who had put together a top-secret missile program for Cairo. Krug was targeted for assassination by Yitzhak Shamir, Israel’s future prime minister, who was then commander of the Mossad’s clandestine operations service.
Krug, who was worried for his life after receiving threatening messages from individuals he believed were connected with the Mossad, reached out to Skorzeny in hopes that the former Waffen SS commander could give him advice on enhancing his personal security. But Skorzeny, operating on orders of the Mossad, shot dead the German scientist in a remote wooded area outside Munich. A Mossad team then poured acid on Krug’s body before burying it in a grave that had been dug in preparation for his killing. According to Raviv and Melman, Skorzeny also sent German scientists in Egypt a number of mail bombs designed by the Mossad, which killed a number of people. Raviv and Melman also state that they received oral confirmation from Rafi Eitan, a legendary Mossad operations officer, that he “met and ran Skorzeny” on behalf of the Israeli intelligence agency.
Skorzeny died of cancer in Spain in 1975. He was 67. It is believed that the Mossad never tried to kill or kidnap him.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 29 March 2016 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with assassinations, Germany, Heinz Krug, history, Israel, Mossad, News, Otto Skorzeny, Rafi Eitan, Wolfgang Pilz, World War II