Dropping the Franklin Inquiry: Anticipated Contingency?

When the Genesis space craft, returning from an attempt to capture solar winds, crashed unto the Earth a couple of days ago, NASA referred to the crash as an “anticipated contingency”. The direction that the Larry Franklin Israeli spy case is now moving might also be classified as an anticipated contingency. An article in the Financial Times of Sept. 7 stated that the White House and John Ashcroft, the US attorney general, had intervened in the Israelgate case to “apply the brakes,” an anticipated contingency.

The article further stated that, according to a former US intelligence official, “The White House is leaning on the FBI. Some people in the FBI are very upset, they think Ashcroft is playing politics with this.” This wouldn’t be the first time that politics has been played when it comes to Israeli espionage against the United States.

Paul McNulty is the Virginia district attorney in charge of the Franklin probe. McNulty is a Republican political appointee and, according to various sources, he has also been told to slow down. McNulty, worked in the office of former Congressman Bill McCollum of Florida in the late 1980s.

Also working in McCollum’s office during that same time period was Yossef Bodansky. On Dec. 1, 1985, the Israeli newspaper Davar reported that “the FBI is looking into the possibility that a journalist in the US known as an associate of Israels, may have served as a courier for classified materials delivered to the Israelis. The Israeli newspaper identified the man as Yossef “Seffie” Bodansky, an Israeli living at that time in Baltimore and working as a writer and consultant on military affairs.

According to a fascinating report published in 1986 titled “Spy, Steal and Smuggle: Israel’s Special Relationship with the United States” by Claudia Wright, Bodansky, who was working on a contract with the Pentagon in 1985, underwent an investigation conducted on his activities in the Pentagon by the Defense Investigative Service, the Pentagons own security department and, many of Bodansky’s activities were put on hold. Shortly after this, Jonathan Polllard was arrested for spying on the United States for Israel.

Additionally Davar reported, Bodansky had met Pollard for lunch and Bodansky admitted to the Israeli reporter that “he may have run into Pollard at some party although he had no memory of such a meeting.” According to Wright, a Washington source claimed that he had introduced Pollard to Bodansky and confirmed that they knew each other.

Wright goes on to say that Bodansky’s principal contact at the Pentagon was Harold Rhode who was an adviser on Southwest Asia affairs to the then Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle. Rhode has been named in many articles on the current Israeli espionage affair as having traveled to Rome with Larry Franklin to meet with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Bodansky not only went on to receive additional security clearances, but he joined McCollum’s staff in the late 1980s as the head of the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. Though a citizen of Israel, Bodansky held that position until very recently.

District Attorney Paul McNulty might have gotten some interesting insights into Israeli espionage and security clearances while working in close proximity with Bodansky on McCollum’s staff. Many of these political connections and the movement were reminiscent of the experience of the Stephen Bryen Israeli Espionage case of more than 25 years ago.

In 1978, Stephen Bryen, a member of the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was investigated for over a year for having given classified documents to Israelis. The file on Bryen contained over 1000 pages of documents and, through documents obtained with the Freedom of Information Act, the official recommendation was “we urge strongly to complete this important inquiry before an investigative grand jury.”

The Bryen case never went to grand jury due to some deft political maneuvering on the part of his lawyer, Nathan Lewin, and the head of the criminal division of the Justice Department, Philip Heymann. Heymann was the ultimate decision-maker in the Bryen case and, though Heymann kept the investigation moving and had a stiff exchange of letters with Lewin, he finally capitulated to Lewin’s demands and dropped the case.

Not made public at that time was the fact the Lewin and Heymann had been schoolmates at Harvard Law School and later workmates at the US Supreme Court. Additionally, while Heymann and Lewin were writing opposing letters to each other on the Bryen case, they were actually rooming together in Washington, D.C. Normally, a legal official would recuse himself from a case where an intimate friend or associate was involved. That didn’t happen in the Bryen case. Lewin is now representing AIPAC in the current Larry Franklin Israeli spy case.

Watching Ashcroft and McNulty reminds one of the roles played by various individuals in the Bryen case. These individuals include Phillip Heymann and various aides to Heymann.

In the Bryen case, the brakes were applied when Heymann came on the case and ultimately dropped it. The same thing could happen again in the Larry Franklin case, an example of an anticipated contingency. And America will continue to suffer from its intimate incestuous relationship with a foreign country, Israel.

— Dr. Michael Saba is the author of “The Armageddon Network” and is an international relations consultant.