Clinton Urged To Deny Spy Clemency WASHINGTON (AP) -- Disturbed that President Clinton may grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard next week, the top two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are urging fellow senators to demand that the former U.S. Navy analyst be kept in prison for life. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the committee chairman, said he is encouraging Clinton ``to rethink what I understand may be his expected course of action.'' Shelby and his vice chairman, Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., signed a letter pressing Clinton not to let Pollard go. They were circulating the document to other senators with a ``Dear Colleague'' form letter seeking co-signers to the Clinton letter before sending it to the president. Releasing Pollard, who was convicted as a spy for handing over thousands of top-secret documents to Israel in 1984 and 1985, ``would set a dangerous and unwise precedent that crimes against the United States are not serious. It would also undermine our country's ability to act as an honest broker throughout the world,'' Shelby said in an accompanying statement. At the White House, press secretary Joe Lockhart denied Clinton has made a decision on Pollard. ``The process is ongoing, and any suggestion that he's made a decision based on that is wrong,'' Lockhart said. It is ``absolutely inaccurate,'' to say Clinton intends to commute Pollard's sentence, he added, and Clinton will receive a recommendation from White House counsel F.C. Ruff ``sometime later this month.'' Clinton confirmed last month that he promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at U.S.-sponsored negotiations with the Palestinians in October that he would look into Netanyahu's request for leniency for Pollard. At the talks near Wye Mills, Md., several Israeli officials were convinced Clinton had assured Netanyahu Pollard would be freed. The Clinton administration insisted the president promised only to review the case, as he has several times before. Ruff was directed to solicit views of U.S. intelligence and security agencies. Several former U.S. intelligence officials hotly opposed clemency and alleged that Pollard attempted to provide classified information to other countries before striking a deal with Israel. At FBI headquarters Thursday, spokesman Frank Scafidi said, ``Justice has been done to this point. To release Pollard now would undo everything that law enforcement and prosecutors worked tirelessly to accomplish.'' The Justice Department's criminal division adamantly opposes clemency, senior officials said Thursday, requesting anonymity. Justice and FBI officials believe Pollard has never fully cooperated in assessing what secrets he sold the Israelis. Attorney General Janet Reno said she would send Ruff a recommendation by Monday. And at the Pentagon, spokesman Kenneth Bacon refused to say what Defense Secretary William Cohen was telling Ruff. But Bacon, asked about the Pentagon's position, said: ``The Pentagon has been strongly opposed to the release of Jonathan Pollard in the past, and I don't expect any change from that position.'' CIA director George Tenet, who attended the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in rural Maryland, vehemently opposed Pollard's release and threatened to resign if it happened, an administration official said. Asked Thursday what was Tenet's position on clemency for Pollard, CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher said the agency's recommendations are for the White House, and ``we are not going to state it publicly.'' In a letter to other senators, Shelby and Kerrey said the Wye talks almost collapsed ``over an apparent misunderstanding'' on Pollard between Clinton and Netanyahu. ``A commutation of Mr. Pollard's life sentence would imply a condonation of spying against the United States by an ally,'' Shelby and Kerrey said. ``It would also give credence to the claim that espionage is somewhat less serious when an American spies on behalf of a friendly nation with which he sympathizes.'' Some supporters of clemency for Pollard make the point that other Americans convicted of espionage have received lesser sentences, and some suspected of spying for the former Soviet Union and other adversaries where not prosecuted at all in order not to expose U.S. intelligence information.
