Passing of secret data to Israel

Does passing of secret data to Israel echo Pollard scenario?

By MATTHEW DORF

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 21, 1997

WASHINGTON -- A decade after Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison for spying for Israel, a new FBI investigation into another American Jew's government activities has hit a raw nerve among Israeli and Jewish officials.

Federal officials on Saturday searched the home of Army engineer David Tenenbaum, a 39-year-old Detroit-area Jewish resident, after he said he had inadvertently shared classified data with Israeli military officials.

Israeli officials were quick to say that this case is different from that of Pollard, the former Navy analyst whose case rocked U.S.-Israel relations and whose life sentence became a cause celebre.

"I don't think this is a Pollard 2," the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Gadi Baltiansky, told the Jerusalem Post Wednesday.

Israeli officials, who said there has been no official contact with the United States on the case, warned that Israeli personnel stationed in the United States should only accept classified data through official channels and said they are told that routinely.

Baltiansky of the Israeli Embassy pledged "full cooperation on the matter" if the United States seeks Israeli assistance.

According to an FBI affidavit filed Friday of last week at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, "Tenenbaum admitted to divulging non-releasable classified information to every Israeli Liaison Officer (ILO) assigned to TACOM over the last 10 years."

Tenenbaum worked at TACOM, the U.S. Army Tank Automotive and Armaments Command, located north of Detroit. It designs and maintains the fleet of vehicles for the U.S. Army.

After a routine polygraph test he took last week as part of a security-clearance upgrade, Tenenbaum told investigators he gave classified documents on Patriot missiles countermeasures, Bradley tanks and various U.S. Army vehicles to Israelis assigned to work with the U.S. Army.

Tenenbaum told investigators he gave classified information to Dr. Reuven Granot, scientific deputy director of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, according to the affidavit.

Jewish organization officials expressed concern and caution. "It's a disturbing story," said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

The FBI has not filed any criminal charges.

The affidavit, necessary to obtain a search warrant, said Tenenbaum could be charged with gathering and transmitting defense information, gathering and delivering information to aid a foreign government and disclosing classified data.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.

No one answered the phone Wednesday at Tenenbaum's home in the Detroit suburbs.

Wilbert Simkovitz, a retired engineer from TACOM, told the Detroit Jewish News, "We get intelligence from the Israelis, too. It's not a one-way street."

Alfred Goldstein, also a retired engineer from TACOM, told the Detroit Jewish News that most work done at TACOM is not highly sensitive.

Goldstein, a mechanical engineer who does not know Tenenbaum, said there were three to five Israeli representatives at the tank command on a rotating basis.

FBI officials in Detroit would not say whether their search of Tenenbaum's home yielded any results. According to the affidavit, FBI agents were seeking documents and computer files on classified material.