In November 1985, Jonathan Pollard and his wife raced to the Israeli embassy in Washington seeking asylum, only to be turned away and arrested by the FBI. An American intelligence analyst raised with a fierce dedication to Zionism, Pollard exploited bureaucratic failures to enter US Naval Intelligence despite glaring red flags, then handed a mountain of classified material to Israel.

This deep dive traces how a mid-level analyst orchestrated one of the most damaging breaches in US history, strained the alliance between two close nations for three decades, and ultimately walked free through the mundane workings of the parole system before flying to Israel in 2020.

• How siloed agencies let a CIA-rejected applicant slip into the Navy on temporary clearances
• The RASIN manual and satellite photos he smuggled out, and the money, ring, and travel he accepted
• The frantic code word cactus and the neighbor who blew his cover wide open
• Why the intelligence community fought his release over sources and methods for 30 years
• His arrival in Israel on a private jet and his polarizing turn into hard-right politics