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who in the bureaucracy was arguing which position on Iran, who were the obstacles to
the adoption ofhard-line policies and the like.
"I don't think anyone's spying for anyone,II says a Jewish community activist, no fan of
Rosen's, -who asked not to be named. "Rosen is not working for Israel, because' he was
working for a separate'sovereign entity [AlPAC]. Franklin just wanted to be' a policy
nerd, to advocate for a policy he thought wasn't getting enough attention."
But there, are seeming anomalies to this benign interpretation ofthe relationship to be
found in the Franklin indictment as well. The most interesting·and surprising'part ofthe
indictment describes fourteen meetings between Franklin and ,an "FO" (foreign officer),
widely reported to be Israeli Embassy political officer Naor Oilon. They met in;the op~en,
at the Pentagon Officers' Athletic Club.and Washington-area coffee shops and
restaurants, between 2002 and 2004. The last part ofthe indictment asserts that at some
point Franklin disclosed to Oilon "clapsified United States government information
relating to a weapon~.test conducted by a Middle Easte11l country," presumably Iran. It is
hard to discount such an unauthorized disclosure to a foreign government official as an
ordinary leak.
Another intriguing issue: The indictment describes Franklin's returning from one ofhis
meetings with Oilon in May 2003. and drafting an "Action Memo to his supervisors,
incorporating suggestions made by the FO during the meeting." This suggests the FBI
may be interested not only in alleged leaks ~om Franklin to unauthorized recip~ents but
in the possibility ofFranklin's feeding information from those officials back into the
system, in an effort to influence US policy toward Iran. This raises the question of
whether tqe government thinks the nature ofthe conspiracy was not only a matter of
unauthorized leaks but also a coordinated effort by Franklin and perhaps his alleged coconspirators
to shape the US policy environment in a kind ofagent-of-influence scenario.
The US Attorney's office declined to comment on the case.
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4~~..~~Ji(rNdiion -has le~ed that among the ~o~uments the FBI ~1s. hiitS possessi~ii:isa~Fn:to
-·wntten by Rosen In 1983, soon after he JOined AIPAC, to hiS then-boss descnblng hi~. J
,liaving been informed about the contents ofa classified draft ofa White House positionj
I, .~aper concerning the Middle East and telling his boss that their inside knowledge o(iti.~
',4raft might enable the group to influence the final document. The significance wou!d
~~em to be an effort by the FBIto establis~ a pattern ofRosen's accessing classifi~d· .r .
f
i '!hformation to which he was not authorized, not just from Franklin but over_tnany -Y~ars.
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Stephen Green, a Vermont state legislator and former UN official who in the-1980s
pursued independent scholarship critical ofIsraeli-US relatiqns including by requesting
thrpugh the Freedom ofInformation Act (FOIA) State Department documentation on
counterintelligence probes, says the FBI's concerns about Rosen pre-date the September
2001 news leak incident. Green says in meetings with FBI investigators'last year, "I was
told by investigators ~at his name has showed up in wiretaps more than '!nce over time, II