Pentagon analyst says he spied on Israel
World Thursday, July 30th, 2009There’s “always a story behind the story,” we say in journalism. So, here’s the story, but what’s the real story behind it?
Lawrence “Larry” Franklin, the former Pentagon analyst convicted of passing classified information to Israel five years ago, now says he worked undercover as a double-agent by the FBI gathering information on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful pro-Israel lobby based in Washington.
Franklin said he was told by the FBI that he was suspected of being a mole for the Israeli defense and intelligence establishments. Those accusations spawned the “AIPAC affair,” involving suspicions and investigations into the activities of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, senior lobbyists for AIPAC in Washington.
Also involved in the investigation was Naor Gilon, currently the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s chief of staff and, at the time, the Congressional liaison in the Israeli Embassy.
Dr. Uzi Arad, now the policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of the National Security Council, was questioned by the FBI within the framework of the Franklin investigation and until recently was barred from entering the United States.
The case was recently closed and since then, Franklin has given a series of interviews to Israeli papers, and this week he spoke to the pro-Israel Washington Times.
Franklin’s latest revelation, revealed to the Times, is that he wore a portable recording device when meeting lobbyists for AIPAC and the Israel Embassy official. He is also accusing US defense agencies of anti-Semitism.
He told the Times that he “never sought to spy for Israel and felt betrayed when the same FBI agents whom he had assisted suddenly told him to get an attorney and threatened to send him to prison for disclosing classified information to AIPAC officials and the Israeli embassy.”
Franklin and the others were charged with violating the seldom-used Federal Espionage Act of 1917.
Critics complained that any conviction would criminalize the routine exchange of information among officials, journalists and think tanks.
In May, the government said the judge set too high a bar for the government to prove that the defendants had conspired to harm US national security.
The US Department of Justice dropped the charges against Rosen and Weissman; Arad, who holds a diplomatic passport by virtue of his position, is again free to enter the United States.
Franklin pleaded guilty early on as part of a plea agreement and is preparing to serve his reduced sentence of 100 hours of community service and 10 months in a halfway house.
Last week, Franklin, 62, said he was ready to talk.
“I have been silent for five years …” he told reporters. “The release will be therapeutic.”
Franklin spent more than 30 years in military service and in the U.S. defense establishment. His last job was at the Pentagon, in the Secretary of Defense’s office, where he worked as a senior policy analyst on Iran, Iraq, and Hezbollah.
His superiors were Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, and Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy. Franklin told reporters he now believes these two senior officials were the actual, main targets of the FBI investigation which, he says, wanted to incriminate them through him on a charge of spying for Israel.
Franklin now says he has concluded there is a “deep-rooted anti-Semitic sentiment in certain quarters of America’s intelligence community.”
“I was asked about every Jew I knew in OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense), and that bothered me,” Franklin said. His superiors at the time were both Jewish: Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, who Franklin believes was a target of the investigation.
One agent asked me, ‘How can a Bronx Irish Catholic get mixed up with? And I finished the phrase for him: ‘with these Jews.’”
Franklin answered, “Christ was Jewish, too, and all the apostles.” “Later I felt dirty,” he told Ha’aretz.
Many say the net result of the five-year affair damaged relations between the two countries, and made it difficult for AIPAC to operate in Washington.
Franklin first visited Israel more than 20 years ago on an exchange program between the Israeli army and the Pentagon. Franklin’s ties with Israel deepened in 1998, when he was appointed US Air Force attaché to Israel, a post he held until 2004. Upon returning to Washington, Franklin maintained his ties with Israeli diplomats and with visiting defense and intelligence personnel. He also met, albeit infrequently, with AIPAC lobbyists. These meetings were sanctioned by his superiors at the Pentagon, he told reporters. What’s next? A book, of course. Pakistan Daily Press News Agency (www.Daily.pk)
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on Jul 30 2009. Filed under