Excerpts from a new book
"THE WOMAN FROM MOSSAD"
by Peter Hounam
(author of "Who Killed Diana")
Out in the United Kingdom shedding new light on
the identity of the Kidnapper(s) of Mordechai Vanunu.
�9.99(UK Pounds)
from Vision Paperbacks
=========================================================
Mordechai Vanunu suffered a terrible fate for revealing Israel's nuclear
weapons secrets to a British newspaper and to Peter Hounam, the author of
this controversial book.
A sexy blonde called Cindy lured Vanunu to Italy where he was beaten to the
ground, drugged and smuggled home aboard a cargo ship.
In a sensational Jerusalem trial he received a savage 18-year sentence for
treason and espionage, and he is still incarcerated -despite an
international campaign to free him.
This is the tragic story of a reluctant whistleblower, of the ruthless
female spy who tried to destroy him, and of the Political deception thot
continues to this dory.
In a gripping tale of intrigue, the reader is led across three continents,
following Mossad's frantic efforts to minimise the impact of Vanunu's
revelations.
The author reveals how international powers - France, Belgium, South Africa
and the United States - have clandestinely helped Israel acquire nuclear
know-how and technology - making a mockery of their stance on nuclear
proliferation.
Hounam also reveals evidence of a second secret nuclear reactor in Israel,
and examines how, and why, Cindy may have been working as a US spy as well
as for Mossad.
Finally the book focuses on attempts to free Vanunu and critically examines
the recent part played by The Sunday Times, the paper that first published
his story.
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INTRODUCTION
============
It is appropriate to begin this book with the frightening events of
September 1986 when Mordechai Vanunu decided to become a whistleblower and
was then hunted down by a Mossad hit-team. One minute he was stepping off a
plane in Rome, joyfully looking forward to a brief holiday with a young
blonde American woman he had met in London. The next he was being knocked
to the ground, manacled and injected with a powerful sedative.
Bruised and distraught, Morde drifted into unconsciousness and his life as
a free man ended at that moment. Not knowing whether he was about to be
killed, he was smuggled back to Israel where he remains today - serving 18
years in the harshest of conditions.
Except for occasional trips to court and a few hours each week for
exercise, he has been incarcerated in a concrete cell with a tiny window
well above eye level. He has a shower that doubles as a urinal, and he has
spent 12 years of his sentence in solitary confinement. Since the spring of
1998, he has been free to mix with a few selected prisoners but no one is
allowed to visit him from outside except his guards, lawyers and, once a
fortnight, his brothers and sisters.
What could he have done to deserve such treatment? An assassination plot
against the President or selling secrets to an enemy state? Morde's
so-called 'crime' was speaking to The Sunday Times, and in particular me,
about the underground nuclear weapons plant in Israel's Negev desert where
he had worked. To most sane people, he did something brave and altruistic.
That prior to his trial he was illegally hijacked in a civilised European
country by agents of a friendly power is one of the great post-war
espionage scandals .
Sadly neither Italy, Britain or Israel's ally, the US, are prepared to rock
the boat. They have good reasons to remain silent for as this book shows,
many countries helped Israel build up a massive, advanced nuclear arsenal.
While other countries who try this tactic like Iraq are bombed into
submission, Israel gets massive financial aid and a discreet pat on the back.
Embarrassingly, Vanunu showed that Israel had by 1986 amassed a wide
variety of nuclear weapons, compact enough to be delivered by a new
generation of ballistic weapons that the country was also developing. The
scale of the programme was technically impressive and the evidence
provided, in photographs taken by the Israeli inside the plant was
incontrovertible.
All previous calculations had suggested Israel had only a handful of atom
bombs. Vanunu showed that between 100 and 200 devices had been built, and
that after producing atom bombs it went on to manufacture state-of-the art
thermonuclear warheads. Pride of place are neutron bombs that produce less
blast damage but kill every living organism, and city-busting hydrogen
bombs - truly the doomsday weapon.
Today, in late 1999, the plant at Dimona is still in operation and one can
calculate the tally in Israel's arsenal is now well over 400. Israel has of
course denied having any. It parrots the same misleading claim, that it
will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.
Vanunu's story, splashed in the London Sunday Times on October 5, 1986,
told the world that Israel was, let us not mince words, a liar on this
vital issue. By denying that it was the world's sixth largest nuclear power
or even that it had one crude atom bomb, it was taunting the western powers
to respond. Patently it could anticipate the likely response.
As before, diplomats in the US State Department, the British Foreign Office
and their friend's abroad squirmed awkwardly and remained stoically silent.
They knew of course that Israel was making a mockery of international
non-proliferation initiatives - that with Israel seen to be 'getting away
with it' other less friendly countries would resist pressure to limit their
nuclear ambitions.
This book is therefore an attempt to review the events and actions of
people who were responsible for Morde's downfall, to highlight the role of
governments who have stood by and ignored an act of sickening illegality
and inhumanity, or who have secretly assisted Israel to develop the bomb.
It also exposes new strands of the Vanunu story precisely how he was
snatched in Italy and taken back to Israel. I hope it sparks new attempts
in Rome for Morde's case to be taken up officially. The original Italian
probe, the present coalition government must recognise, was a travesty.
With luck it will also bring timely pressure to bear within Israel for the
freeing of a decent man who simply wanted to tell his people how a tiny
clique of politicians and generals had secretly spent vast sums of public
money. Israel claims to be a democratic country but on security issues it
tends towards being a dictatorship.
Vanunu is not the only personality whose role in this affair is central.
The blonde secret agent who he knew as Cindy played a crucial part in
limiting the damage his disclosures might cause. She worked for Mossad, the
Israeli intelligence agency that once entrapped the Nazi murderer Adolph
Eichmann, that systematically assassinated the Palestinian terrorists who
attacked athletes at the Munich Olympics, and which killed Canadian
supergun inventor Gerald Bull. Had Vanunu remained free to testify before
the US Congress, the political and diplomatic ramifications would have been
enormous. It was Mossad's task to stop him, and Cindy's to exploit his
loneliness and tempt him away using the oldest trick of all - the lure of sex.
As this book describes in detail, she achieved only partial success. The
Sunday Times went ahead and published Morde's revelations despite her
efforts and those of her back-up team. And in the end she failed simply to
vanish after completing her task, her identity forever a mystery. It took
months of effort but I finally found out who she really was and tracked her
down in Israel. It was some compensation to see her horrified reaction when
I eventually turned up unannounced at her doorstep in Netanya to tell her
she was about to be named. She was thereby rendered useless for any future
role as an undercover agent.
That she is an American is almost certainly more significant than has been
recognised. Vanunu suspects she was working for the CIA and, as later
chapters show, the US has indeed had a lot to cover up. The hypocrisy
exhibited about Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons is extraordinary.
The United States has long wagged a disapproving finger but it actually
helped Israel complete Dimona - a revelation that should cause
soul-searching even now.
I count Mordechai Vanunu a friend who has faced the torture of prolonged
isolation and ill-treatment with astonishing stoicism and courage. Vanunu
has suffered enough and if readers are moved by this story, I hope you will
take action and protest at a great injustice.
