day in a backpack and they would fantasize that
the backpack could be used to smuggle classified
documents out of the building.
Some co-workers didn’t like him, he said, because
he was a diligent employee who didn’t goof off on
the job or join co-workers at restaurants for lunch
or at bars after office hours. Some co-workers made
anti-Semitic remarks behind his back, and a bag of
pork rinds was once placed on his desk.
He recounts that one reason people said they
suspected him of spying for Israel was that he
spoke Hebrew with the Israelis — ironically one of
his major qualifications for being hired at TACOM
in the first place.
PHONY CHARGES
Tenenbaum said his antagonists at TACOM sur-
reptitiously set him up for false spying charges.
Having no legitimate factual reason to have him
investigated, they went to a high-level official at
the command who suggested having Tenenbaum
considered for a higher security level where he
could be interviewed without an attorney present.
Tenenbaum likened this to an interrogation.
He was then told to take a lie detector test. The
polygraph operator, however, destroyed his notes
and then wrongfully reported Tenenbaum had con-
fessed to spying for Israel, according to Tenenbaum
and his attorney Harold.
Based on the co-workers’ allegations and the
bogus report of a confession, the FBI initiated a full
criminal investigation.
It was Shabbat lunchtime Feb. 14, 1997, when
FBI agents raided the Tenenbaum house, seizing
his computer and stripping the family residence of
many personal effects, including drawings made by
his then 4-year-old daughter. The girl remained ter-
rified for months afterward, Tenenbaum said.
For half a year, FBI agents staked themselves out
in front of the Tenenbaum home in an unsuccess-
ful attempt to turn his Jewish neighbors against
him. To intimidate him, he said, they followed him
wherever he went. They leaked misinformation to
the news media that he was an spy for Israel, just
like Jonathan Pollard, who had been jailed a decade
earlier. Tenenbaum estimates the government
spent millions of dollars in its efforts to investigate
him.
The investigation ended a year later. “I was
cleared of everything,” Tenenbaum said. “They said
to me I did nothing wrong, and that mine was one
of the most investigated cases ever done.”
In April 1998, he was returned to his job at
TACOM. All his projects, however, were canceled,
including the one to provide armor for Humvees.
This proved ultimately disastrous for the rank-and-
file soldiers, as Tenenbaum recounts. When military
action was taken against insurgents in Iraq and
Afghanistan in the early 2000s, a new weapon was
used against U.S. troops — the improvised explo-
sive devise (IED). These IEDs were roadside bombs
detonated by booby traps or remote control. As
the Humvees drove by, the bombs penetrated the
unprotected vehicles.
Thousands of U.S. soldiers were killed or maimed,
Tenenbaum said. His project, if not canceled by the
Army some seven years earlier, could have provided
protection. The Army later did devise alternative
protection, but it was too late for the soldiers in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
“David’s false accusers have blood on their hands,”
attorney Harold said. “The price of their prejudice
was born by the soldiers.”
Tenenbaum added, “No one has been held
accountable. In fact, many of the instigators have
been promoted. In private industry, no one would
stand for this discrimination, anti-Semitism and
false accusations. So, why isn’t the government held
accountable?”
continued on page 16
Making The Case For Ethics
Washington must step up and right a longstanding
discriminatory wrong cloaked in false spy charges.
A
In many ways, the American way
lesser man would crack
is a model for the civilized world. Not
under the strain of a 21-year
fight for redress from the U.S. in David Tenenbaum’s case, unfortu-
nately.
government against spurious claims
of spying for Israel exac-
THE STRIFE WITHIN
erbated by an anti-Jewish
It was in 1992 that U.S.
work environment.
Army Tank-automotive
We as a nation have
and Armaments Command
belittled an Orthodox Jew from
(TACOM) employees first
Southfield for no legitimate
alleged that Tenenbaum, a
reason and can’t seem to
chemical engineer, was an
make amends for the ethnic
Israeli spy.
discrimination despite clear
Robert Sklar
Persistent behind-the-
and convincing evidence to
Contributing Editor
scenes accusations against
the contrary.
Tenenbaum led to the 1997
If ever an American
spying allegations, which not
deserved to be called “a
only rang hollow, but also demoral-
dedicated, loyal and professional civil
ized a devoted worker smart enough
servant in the service of our nation,” it
to figure out how to protect U.S.
is David Tenenbaum. He wants to be
Humvees in guerilla warfare. When
exonerated, compensated and respect-
the Army stepped up investigating
ed by the government he so faithfully
Tenenbaum, it also shut down a joint
has served — a tall, but just order.
program he had developed with the
The U.S. Army civilian engineer, now
U.S., Israeli and German armies to
60, continues to exhibit the patience of
Job in wanting closure, reparation and a armor Humvees, a modern take on
the vintage military jeep. Tenenbaum
government apology 21 years after first
asserts the shutdown cost the lives of
hearing false accusations that he’s a
American soldiers early on in Iraq and
spy for the Jewish state.
Afghanistan because of unarmored
Humvees being ravaged by terrorist-
FIX THE WRONG
planted IEDs (improvised explosive
His is a story of personal and profes-
devices).
sional hardship hoisted by allegedly
In 2006, the Office of Inspector
anti-Semitic Army colleagues as well
as by a Department of Defense (DOD) General, at the behest of then-U.S.
in prior administrations lacking the
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., visited the
bureaucratic spine to accept the find- case against Tenenbaum. Two years
ing of its Office of Inspector General
later, the OIG found unlawful discrimi-
that the “personnel security and
nation. The upshot: The Army targeted
counterintelligence process” against
the engineer because he was Jewish
Tenenbaum “was poorly handled and
and openly expressed ties to Israel (as
managed.”
most Zionist Jews proudly do).
Redemption lies in the capacity of
In 1984, Warren-based TACOM
current DOD leadership to stop the
hired Tenenbaum as a liaison for
charade of an interminable investiga-
joint projects with the Israeli military
tion and clear David Tenenbaum’s
because he had been to Israel and
good name. That would be the right
could speak Hebrew. Those things got
thing to do given the Inspector
him hired, but also proved his undo-
General determined the espionage
ing along with his religious lifestyle
allegations were without merit and
not meshing with anti-Semitic ele-
brought with discriminatory intent.
ments documented on the work floor.
On shaky legal grounds, the U.S.
All of this swayed the later claim he
government upended the lives of
was an Israeli spy.
Tenenbaum, his wife, Madeline,
PRESSING ONWARD
and their four children in 1997. The
Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Thanks to the backbone of two mem-
bers of the U.S. Senate Committee on
his home on a Shabbat afternoon
while presumably seeking evidence of Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, Tenenbaum may yet experi-
espionage. The emotional hurt, says
ence the remedy he so desperately
Tenenbaum, still lingers.
wants and deserves. In an Oct. 26
letter to Secretary of Defense James
Mattis, Senators Claire McCaskill,
D-Mo., and Gary Peters, D-Mich.,
ask Secretary Mattis to personally
answer and address the case against
Tenenbaum and direct the DOD “to
take appropriate action” to initiate
redress.
The push and pull of Tenenbaum’s
travails have locked him in TACOM’s
narrow work strictures despite a
restored top security clearance and
an inventive mind. The senators write
that he’s caught in “a professional
stalemate” with no significant job
opportunities within the DOD or else-
where. You could say he’s blacklisted
within the government contract field;
the American people are worse for
our government, in effect, stymieing
Tenenbaum’s ingenuity.
The Jewish community is lining
up behind Tenenbaum based on the
discrimination documented in the
Inspector General report. Community
support, resolved that Tenenbaum has
built a case for justice, bucks a federal
court ruling in Detroit that dismissed
Tenenbaum’s 2009 constitutional
rights suit against the departments of
Army and Defense in which that report
was cited as evidence. The ruling held
that Inspector General investigators
didn’t review Department of Justice
sealed documents asserting protected
state secrets. That meant the state
secrets doctrine first invoked by the
government in response to an earlier
constitutional rights case brought by
Tenenbaum still stood.
Let there be no doubt: Tenenbaum’s
journey for justice involves the entire
Jewish community because of under-
currents that reveal a Jew was target-
ed primarily because he was Jewish.
Every so often, someone comes
along with the heart, spirit, tenacity
and understanding of right to fight
injustice.
David Tenenbaum is such a person.
Our government not only should
admit accountability and redress David
Tenenbaum, as so articulately cham-
pioned by Sens. McCaskill and Peters,
but also clean up the internal horror
show that leeched discrimination
and spurred the original 1997 spying
allegations — confounding as they
were. •
Redemption lies in the capacity of current
Department of Defense leadership to stop the
charade of an interminable investigation and clear
David Tenenbaum’s good name.
David Tenenbaum
jn
January 4 • 2018
15