Charliehall – I used the phrase “an ally” because that is the law under which he was convicted — there is a legal difference between passing information to a country considered “friendly” vs. “unfriendly” — I did not mean to imply there was any formal alliance between the two countries.
That being said, I stand by my statements “more than any comparable conviction”. Your examples of Walker, Ames, and Hansen can not be considered comparable by any rational examination of the convictions. First of all, they all spied for the Soviets during a period when the USSR was considered “unfriendly” — a huge,initial difference in the conviction. Walker let a spy ring for the Soviets for close to 30 years at the hight of the cold war — many consider it the most damaging Soviet spying in history! Although it is true that we do not know what information Pollard passed on, it is pretty inconceivable that it was to this extent — and it certainly was for nowhere near that amount of time. Additionally, Walker’s plea bargain agreed to life in prison for him, in exchange for leniency for his son, who was also involved (and who received 25 years). Ames and Hansen, who also both committed espionage over long periods of time both “outed” US intelligence sources to the Soviets, directly resulting in the execution of top US informants. To say that these are “comparable” crimes, is at best “highly disingenuous”, and I would say borders on “a lie.”
As for the Rosenbergs, a large number of historians today believe their punishment was unreasonable, and a miscarriage of justice, so it is hard to understand why you keep bringing them up as an example. However, this case still does not change the accuracy of my statement that ” He is the ONLY person in this history of the US with a conviction of life for spying for an ally “. The Rosenbergs were (rightly or wrongly) convicted of espionage (a highly unusual charge to be leveled against civilians, BTW), and therefore were in a different sentencing category altogether. Pollard was convicted of one count of passing classified information to an ally, without intent to harm the United States. And as I mentioned earlier, he remains to only person with a conviction under this law to receive any such sentence.
Just to be clear — I am not trying to say Pollard was innocent or in any way justified. I am simply saying that there is certainly much room to request clemency in this case, after Pollard has already received a severe punishment of 25 years,even from the perspective of straight justice.