Insight
10I‘
EA1H1,
Reinstated
Falsely accused Army engineer reacquires
security clearance.
ALAN ABRAMS
Special to the Jewish News
S
ix years after he was accused
of spying for Israel, the U.S.
Army has restored the securi-
ty clearance for David
Tenenbaum of Southfield, effectively
exonerating him of the accusation.
Tenenbaum had appealed the
February 2000 preliminary revocation
of his security clearance. The appeal
was through Defense Department
administrative hearings held in
January and February of 2001. The
formal decision by the U.S. Army
Personnel Security Appeals Board was
handed down April 10,
2003. The board restored
Tenenbaum's "secret" secu-
rity clearance and granted
him eligibility to receive a
"top secret" clearance, the
highest level a government
employee can attain.
Tenenbaum, an
Orthodox Jew, has worked
as a civilian engineer for
the U.S. Army at the Tank
Automotive Armaments
Tenenbaum
Command (TACOM) in
Warren since 1984. In
early 1997, he became the target of a
nationally publicized FBI criminal
investigation on charges that he spied
for Israel.
Tenenbaum and his attorneys,
Morganroth & Morganroth, PLLC of
Southfield, maintain that anti-
Semitism motivated his accusers. He
still has two federal lawsuits on appeal.
Tenenbaum told the Jewish News,
"Although I am pleased that my secret
security clearance has been restored and
that I have been cleared for a top-secret
security clearance, this does not erase
the past six years of pain, humiliation
and aggravation that my family and I
have suffered, nor does it make up for
the hundreds of thousands of dollars
expended in seeking to obtain justice."
Fund-raisers and donors, many from
New York-based Orthodox organiza-
dons, have helped whittle his legal
Remember
When • • •
:As.; ..0;k.,
costs, but he said he still owes about
$100,000.
Mayer Morganroth, lead counsel of
the team representing Tenenbaum,
said: "In rendering this decision, the
U.S. Army Personnel Security Appeals
Board set aside any desire to cover for
the individuals who raised charges
against Tenenbaum to get him investi-
gated and incarcerated for espionage
and then to have his security clearance
revoked when that failed.
"The decision adds an unbeliev-
ably gratifying twist to Tenenbaum's
saga," said Morganroth, "not just in
protecting American democratic val-
ues, but in granting Tenenbaum's eli-
gibility for a top-secret
security clearance —
when it was a back-
ground investigation for
that clearance that mem-
bers of the Army and
Department of Defense
used as a ruse to set up
Tenenbaum to be crimi-
nally investigated on
charges of spying for
Israel solely because
Tenenbaum is Jewish."
Long Ordeal
Tenenbaum's ordeal began in the fall of
1996 when he was asked to complete
paperwork to upgrade his security
clearance to top secret. As part of that
procedure, Tenenbaum was summoned
to a personal interview and a separate
lie-detector test in February 1997.
According to pleadings submitted by
Tenenbaum's attorneys, the polygraph
examiner falsely told the Army, the
Department of Defense and the FBI
that Tenenbaum had admitted passing
on classified information to Israelis to
whom he had served as liaison.
When Tenenbaum arrived at work
the following day, a cadre of federal
agents surrounded him. After he was
questioned, his TACOM badge and
parking decal were confiscated and he
was sent off the base.
The next day, FBI agents raided
Tenenbaum's home while he and his
family were observing Shabbat. Agents
searched the home and confiscated the
family's music books as well as the chil-
dren's drawings and books. Tenenbaum
was informed that the FBI had begun a
criminal investigation against him and
that he had been placed on administra-
tive leave from TACOM.
Following the raid, Tenenbaum was
portrayed in the news media as an
Israeli spy. The FBI placed him and
his family under round-the-clock sur-
veillance.
After one year of investigating
Tenenbaum, the Department of
Justice and the FBI concluded that
there was no negative evidence against
him. Tenenbaum was ordered back to
TACOM in April 1998.
In spite of being cleared by the
DOD and FBI, he was removed by
TACOM from working on classified
projects and was isolated from his for-
mer work group.
Bittersweet Victory
The recent decision restoring
Tenenbaum's security clearance was
welcomed by the civilian director of
TARDEC (Tank Automotive Research
Development Engineering Center) at
TACOM, Dr. Richard McClelland,
who called it "important to David and
to the organization. Mainstream
duties in his Army job require access
to classified data. It is good to have
him back, fully."
Executive officers at TACOM and
TARDEC were given an opportunity
to comment on this story but declined
to do so. "No one can make a com-
ment. No one wants to be involved,"
said one TARDEC individual who
refused to give her name. Repeated
calls and e-mails to the Department of
the Army were not returned.
Although elated by the Security
Appeal Board's ruling, Tenenbaum is
bittersweet about the results. "I am
deeply troubled and hurt that my
entire ordeal was a direct product of
anti-Semitism and discrimination sim-
ply because I am Jewish," he said. "It
is even more disturbing because the
individuals who did this to me have
either been promoted or remain in the
same job positions without having
been disciplined in the slightest for
their conduct." ❑
From the pages of the Jewish News
from this week 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
and 60 years ago.
1993 .
Israel's first Ethiopian synagogue,
located in Beersheva, welcomes a
Sefer Torah from Dr. and Mrs. Leo
Koven of Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Michigan State Housing
Development Authority gives Jewish
Family Service a $108,145 grant to
help people who face homelessness.
6
4::".o.W0e."064
Bloomfield Township-based Temple
Beth El creates the Bad Axe Farm
Colony exhibit, which is duplicated
for inclusion in a Jewish agriculture
exhibit and symposium in Tel Aviv.
1973
After a four-week cemetery worker
strike in New York, Rabbi Samuel
Schrage, chairman of the Emergency
Committee for Jewish Burial, voices
concerns over caskets being buried in
the wrong plots in the post-strike rush
to inter the 2,500 unburied dead.
loss.
Mrs. Avraham Harman, wife of the
Israeli ambassador, is elected a vice-
president of the International
Council of Women.
The groundbreaking ceremony
for the Trenton building complex
to house Congregation Beth Isaac
and the Downriver Jewish
Community Center will be held.
.1963
Sidney D. Pierce, the only Jew in
Canada's top diplomatic service,
will be named Canadian ambassa-
dor to Brazil.
Some 10,000 volumes of books and
periodicals have been collected by the
American Friends of the Hebrew
University during the past year.
Rosina Betman, Detroit soprano,
and Margaret Graves, Detroit vio-
linist, will be guest artists at an
open-air concert at the Jewish
Community Center.
— Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
archivist, the Rabbi Leo M. Franklin
Archives of Temple Beth. El
2003
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