Moscow Used Pope 'Spy' Case to Provoke U.S.

While U.S. politicians remained transfixed by the presidential election controversy, Russia’s special services successfully finalized their operation against an American citizen with barely a protest from Washington against this outrage.

As NewsMax.com reported last month, the criminal case against Mr. Pope was orchestrated by Russia's FSB (Federal Security Service) – the KGB’s successor in domestic spying – especially to promote anti-American sentiments inside Russian society and to continue the anti-American direction in the Kremlin’s foreign policy.

This provocation was and is necessary for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who is seeking to impose a dictatorship domestically, and to restore Russia's influence internationally.

We know that the accusations against Edmond Pope were planted by the FSB, whose agents provided him documents concerning the relatively new Russian super-speed torpedo, the technologies of which have been widely available for the past several years. The torpedo itself has been advertised internationally by Moscow in arms export catalogs, and has already been sold to China.

But Pope was arrested in April by the FSB and charged with trying to buy Russian secrets. Pope, who is suffering from cancer, was held in the notorious former KGB Lefortovo prison and denied appropriate medical care and any interpreter but the FSB’s own.

It isn't difficult to explain the reason for selecting Pope for this provocation. If the FSB wanted to arrest somebody from another Western country, they would face immediate and very serious negative reactions, which could influence Moscow's current relations with that nation.

But that’s not true in the case of the U.S. citizen, whose government is so busy with domestic political manipulations that it doesn't have time to, or doesn't want to, protect its people.

Unfortunately, it’s well-known that in the last eight years Americans, who work overseas and have been attacked by hostile governments in dangerous places received little or no support from Washington and were left to fend for themselves.

This is exactly what happened to Pope. Since his arrest in April the White House downplayed the case, trying to preserve some mythical "cooperation", "friendship" and "strategic partnership" with Putin, who is favoring his secret-police mentality by liquidating the leftovers of freedoms of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly and others.

Moreover, since former KGB Lieutenant-Colonel Putin came to power, the Clinton-Gore administration has done everything to portray him as a symbol of democracy in Russia and a guarantor of positive developments in U.S. relations with Moscow.

During the investigation and trial, Pope tried to explain that he was doing research on possible civilian uses for military technology and that none of the documents he sought were secret.

He had been working in Moscow for years for his own company, the Pennsylvania-based CERF Technologic International, which studies the transmission of foreign maritime technologies for possible civilian commercial usage.

But of course, nobody wanted to listen to him and after a very strange trial closed to the public, the court convicted and sentenced the U.S. citizen, accused him of spying and, in a bizarre touch, of also belonging to the Navy Federal Credit Union and the American Legion.

There is no doubt that by this provocation the Kremlin leaders, who yearn to go back to the "glorious days" of their former Soviet past, tried to kill several ducks with one shot. As the Russian daily Segodnya said, in this way the FSB, which has been criticized for its handling of the case, "could save face," President Putin can demonstrate that he's not beholden to outside pressure, and Russian scientists are given a lesson about the consequences of having contacts with foreigners unauthorized by the FSB.

But the operation against Edmond Pope continues. Last week, on Dec. 8, President Clinton finally called on Putin to free Pope, but asked that he be released on "humanitarian grounds." In other words, Washington asked Moscow for a presidential pardon of Mr. Pope, which could be granted only at the condition of his admission of guilt.

Almost immediately after this call, the so-called and hitherto unknown Russian Presidential Pardon Commission had a special session and recommended to Putin that he grant a pardon to Pope.

According to recommendations from this previously unknown institution, Putin is expected to pardon Edmond Pope in the near future on "humanitarian grounds," which means recognition of his guilt.

In other words, by using this case against an innocent American citizen, the Kremlin received all possible political benefits domestically, and had a great chance to promote internationally its image of being a fair, law-abiding government. And in this situation nobody cares that Edmond Pope spent eight months in the terrible conditions of a well-known former KGB prison.

There is only one lesson to be learned from this case – without dramatic changes in White House policy toward Moscow, practically all Americans doing business in Russia will be in permanent danger of becoming targets for a new provocation, and could be accused of spying and put behind bars for no valid reason.