Former U.N. Amabassador Calls on President Obama to Free Jonathan Pollard
Bill Richardson, the former U.N. ambassador known for his efforts to release American captives overseas, called on President Obama to free Jonathan Pollard immediately.
In a Dec. 10 letter to Obama, whom he endorsed after dropping out of the 2008 presidential race, Richardson noted that an increasing number of figures involved in government when Pollard was given a 1987 life sentence for spying for Israel now believe his sentence should be commuted.
“In my view, there is no longer a need for a discussion today,” Richardson wrote. “Virtually everyone who was in a high position of government — and dealt with the ramifications of what Pollard did at the time — now support his release.”
Richardson, also the ex-governor of New Mexico, wrote that former National Security Advisor Bud McFarlane and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb placed much of the blame for Pollard’s lengthy incarceration on former Secretary of State Casper Weinberger’s negative views of Israel.
Noting in his letter that presidents traditionally consider commutations in time for the Christmas-New Year’s season, Richardson urged Obama to include Pollard among them.
Richardson, an energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton, is known for negotiating the release of Americans held captive in North Korea, Cuba, Iraq and Sudan.
He has been involved in the attempt to release Alan Gross, a State Department contractor, from a Cuban jail. Gross, of Maryland, has been imprisoned for four years after being arrested while trying to set up an Internet connection for the island’s tiny Jewish community.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30