Nahum Admoni urgently sent a Caesarea unit to Australia to find Vanunu. But on their arrival, the agents found out that they had come too late. The bird had flown the coop—to England.
Shortly after interviewing Guerrero, the Sunday Times editor sent Peter Hounam, a star of the Insight section of the weekly, to Australia, to meet Vanunu. When he boarded his flight, Hounam already knew that British scientists had examined some of the photos brought by Guerrero and confirmed their authenticity. The meeting with Vanunu in Sydney convinced Hounam, as well, that his story was true. He was particularly impressed by Vanunu’s denial of Guerrero’s exaggerated claims that he was “an Israeli scientist.” Vanunu told him the truth: he had been only a technician at Dimona.
Vanunu and Hounam flew to London, leaving Guerrero behind. In London, Vanunu was subjected to several intensive interrogations by the Sunday Times people. He told them everything he knew, and revealed to the British that Israel was also developing a neutron bomb, capable of destroying living things but leaving buildings and structures intact. He also described the process of assembling the bombs at Institute 2. Yet, all along, he seemed scared and nervous. He feared being killed or kidnapped by the Israeli services. The Sunday Times people tried to calm him down; they moved him to another hotel, and recruited all their staff to serve, in turns, as “babysitters” for their precious guest. They insisted—in vain—that he not walk the streets alone.
When the interrogations were over, they offered him a fantastic deal: $100,000 for his story and photos, 40 percent of the distribution rights of the newspaper articles, and 25 percent of the book rights—if there were to be a book. They told him that the Sunday Times owner, Rupert Murdoch, also owned the film company Twentieth Century Fox, and he was thinking of making a movie about his life and times. The role of Vanunu would be played by Robert de Niro.
Vanunu’s hosts in London offered him all the possible temptations except one: a woman. Vanunu hungered for sex and for a woman’s warmth, and could not get them. When Insight staff member Rowena Webster kept him company, he desperately tried to convince her to have sex with him, but she refused. Sex was Vanunu’s Achilles’ heel, but the smart editors of the Sunday Times failed to realize this.
They also failed to realize that Vanunu’s fears of the Israeli services were justified. One of the Insight reporters was sent to Israel to find out if Vanunu indeed was who he claimed to be. He spoke about him with an Israeli journalist, who immediately alerted the Shabak. A few hours later, several members of the Mossad operational team landed in London. The team was headed by the ramsad’s deputy, Shabtai Shavit. The operation was commanded by the ramsad’s second deputy and Caesarea’s head, Beni Ze’evi.
Two Mossad agents, posing as press photographers, lingered by the Sunday Times building and took pictures of protesting workers, who happened to be on strike. After a few days, they saw and photographed Vanunu and followed him on London’s streets, using the “comb” method developed by veteran Mossad agent Zvi Malkin. Besides following their “mark,” the agents combed the areas that he might visit, and were in place even before he arrived. And so, on September 24, Vanunu arrived at Leicester Square, a favorite site for tourists and visitors. By a newspaper stand, he saw a girl “that looked very much like Farrah Fawcett, the star of the TV show Charlie’s Angels.”
She was a pretty blonde and to him she looked “beautiful and angelic.” He stared at her longingly while she stood in line in front of the newsstand. She turned her head and looked back at him, a long and meaningful look. Their eyes locked for a moment, but her turn came, she bought her paper, and went her way. He turned to go in another direction, but gathered all his courage, came back, and asked her if he could talk to her. She agreed with a smile. A casual conversation followed between the two of them. She introduced herself as Cindy, a Jewish beautician from Philadelphia, on a vacation to Europe.
Vanunu was suspicious. The last few days had been nerve-racking for him. The Sunday Times people kept interrogating him endlessly, and postponed the publication of his story. His fears of the Israeli services increased after he learned that the Sunday Times was going to ask the Israeli embassy in London for their comment on the story. They explained to him that a respectable paper like the Sunday Times always had to ask for the other side’s comments. He was not convinced. He felt lonely, angry, and impatient.
And all of a sudden—Cindy.
Are you from the Mossad?” he asked, half-jokingly.
“No, no,” she said. “No. What is Mossad?”
She asked him for his name.
“George,” he said. That was the name he had used when he checked into the hotel.
She smiled. “Come on,” she said. “You’re not George.”
When they settled in a café, he revealed his real name to her, and told her about the Sunday Times and his problems. She immediately suggested that he come to New York, where she could find good newspapers and good lawyers for him.
But he did not listen, not really. Mordechai Vanunu fell in love at first sight. He met with Cindy several times in the next few days, and, according to him, these were the best days of his life. They walked in the parks, holding hands, went to the movies and watched Witness with Harrison Ford and Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters. They also saw a musical, 42nd Street, and kissed a lot. The warm hugs and the sweet kisses he would never forget.
Cindy gave him her sweet kisses—but firmly refused to sleep with him. She told him she could not invite him to her hotel, because she shared a room with another girl; she also refused to come to his hotel room. You are tense and edgy, she kept saying, it won’t work. Not in London.
Then she had an idea. “Why don’t you come with me to Rome? My sister lives there, she’s got an apartment, we can have a real good time, and you’ll forget all your troubles.”
At first, he refused. But she was determined to go to Rome, and bought a business-class ticket, and when she finally convinced him, she bought him a ticket, too. “You’ll pay me back later,” she said.
And he succumbed to temptation.
If he were a more serious and reasonable man, he would have realized right away that he had fallen into a “honey trap”—the secret services’ term for a seduction by a woman. Just like that, he meets a girl in the street, and she falls for him head over heels, and is ready to do anything for him—take him to her sister’s home in Rome, buy him a plane ticket even though she barely knows him. She cannot sleep with him in London, but she can sleep with him in Rome. A sensible man would have concluded that Cindy’s story was suspicious, even ridiculous. But the Mossad psychologists had done an excellent job this time: they knew exactly what Vanunu wanted, and predicted that he would be driven blind by the sweet kisses and the even sweeter promises of a gorgeous, sexy woman.
Peter Hounam of the Sunday Times was a sensible man. As soon as he heard about Cindy, he felt something was very wrong. He tried his best to persuade Vanunu not to see her, but in vain. Vanunu had swallowed the bait already and nothing in the world could make him change his mind. Once, he asked Peter to drive him to the café where Cindy was waiting for him, and Peter caught a glimpse of the young woman (later he would be able to sketch her face, based on their brief encounter). When Peter learned of Vanunu’s intention to leave town “for a couple of days,” he again tried to talk him out of it, but to no avail. Still, he warned Vanunu not to leave England and not to leave his passport with the reception clerks at the hotel. But even Peter Hounam could not imagine that Vanunu would fly to Rome so he could, at last, sleep with his Cindy.
Cindy had agreed to sleep with Vanunu in Rome for a totally different reason. Israel did not want to abduct Vanunu on British soil. Prime Minister Peres did not want to confront the formidable “Iron Lady,” Margaret Thatcher. The Mossad did not feel comfortable in Great Britain, either. Only a few months before, the German authorities had found in a telephone booth a case containing eight false British passports. Unfortunately, the case also carried
a tag announcing the identity of its owner and his connection to the Israeli embassy. The British government was furious; the Mossad had to promise not to infringe on British sovereignty again. Therefore, neither Peres nor the Mossad could even think of launching a covert operation in Great Britain.
Rome became the best possible choice. The relations between the Mossad and the Italian secret service were close and solid. The ramsad Nahum Admoni and Admiral Fulvio Martini, the head of the Italian secret service, were good friends. And with chronic chaos reigning in Italy, it was almost certain that the Italians could never prove that Vanunu was abducted on their soil.
Cindy and Mordy, hand in hand, boarded British Airways flight 504 to Rome on September 30, 1986. When they landed at nine P.M., the two lovers were met by a jolly Italian holding a huge bunch of flowers. He took them in his car to Cindy’s sister’s place. During the trip, Cindy kept hugging and kissing her blissful Mordy.
The car stopped by a small house, and a girl opened the door. Vanunu was the first to enter. Suddenly the door was slammed shut behind him, and two men jumped him, hit him hard, and threw him to the floor. He noticed that one of them was blond. While they tied his hands and feet, the girl bent over him and plunged a needle in his arm. Everything became a blur, and he sank into a deep sleep.
A commercial van carrying the unconscious Vanunu headed to the north of the country. The vehicle traveled for several hours; on Vanunu’s side sat two men and one woman. After a few hours, Vanunu got another injection. Cindy had vanished. The car reached the port of La Spezia; Vanunu, strapped to a stretcher, was put aboard a fast speedboat that sailed to the open sea, where an Israeli freighter, Tapuz, was waiting (according to another source, it was SS Noga). The ship’s crew members were ordered to enter the crew lounge and stay inside. But those on duty saw the speedboat arrive. A rope ladder was thrown overboard and two men and one woman cautiously climbed aboard. They were carrying an unconscious man and brought him to the first mate’s cabin, locking the door behind them. The ship immediately sailed toward Israel.
Vanunu spent the entire trip locked in the small cabin. He did not see Cindy anymore. He was worried about her and did not know what had happened to her. He did not realize that she was a member of the Mossad team; she had left him at the threshold of the safe house and probably left Italy that same night. The woman who accompanied Vanunu aboard the ship was the doctor that kept shooting him with anesthetics during the trip.
The ship dropped anchor not far from the Israeli shore, and Vanunu was transferred to an Israeli Navy missile boat. He was met there by police officers and Shabak agents, who formally booked him and took him to the Shikma prison in Ashkelon.
During his first interrogation, Vanunu learned that while he was on his way to Israel, the Sunday Times had started publishing the series based on his revelations. The articles, enhanced by photographs and drawings, were reproduced in scores of papers all over the world. The Sunday Times revealed that all the previous assessments of Israel’s nuclear strength had been mistaken. So far, the experts believed that Israel possessed between 10 and 20 primitive atomic bombs. But the information brought by Vanunu proved that Israel had become a nuclear power, and its arsenal contained at least 150 to 200 sophisticated bombs; it also had the capability of producing hydrogen and neutron weapons. Vanunu got scared by the sensational revelations. He feared that the Israelis would kill him; he also feared for Cindy, and could not believe that she was a part of the plot against him.
For about forty days, the world did not know what had happened to Vanunu. The press published sensational reports that had nothing to do with the truth. The British papers described in full detail how he had been kidnapped in London and smuggled to Israel inside a “diplomatic crate.” Others quoted “witnesses” who had seen him with a young woman boarding a yacht that had taken him to Israel. Members of Parliament in London demanded an investigation and severe measures against Israel.
Vanunu was officially indicted in mid-November, and appeared in court several more times. He decided to outwit his jailers. He knew exactly where the reporters were waiting when he was brought to court. In one of the trips to the courthouse, Vanunu sat in the backseat of the police car and waited for it to stop in front of the crowd of reporters and photographers. Then, suddenly, he stuck the palm of his hand to the car window. And the reporters and photographers of the world press could read the phrase he had written on his palm:
vanunu m was hijacked in rome, itl, 30.9.86. 21:00. came to rome by fly ba 504.
That revelation did not harm Jerusalem’s relations with London, as it made clear that Vanunu had left Britain of his own free will, on a regular commercial flight. In Rome, however, the chiefs of the secret services were angry and frustrated, but after a while the Israelis repaired the damage.
Vanunu was charged with espionage and treason. He was sentenced to eighteen years in prison. But overseas, he was not considered a spy or a traitor. Associations and leagues in his name appeared in Europe and America almost overnight, and he was depicted as a bold fighter for peace, a martyr who risked his life to stop Israel’s nuclear project.
Vanunu, of course, was nothing of the kind. The heroic, ideological slogans were used only to cover the confused actions of the frustrated Institute 2 operator. He did not try to rise against the Israeli nuclear project while he worked at Dimona. If he had not been laid off, he might be working there this very day. Even when he left the country, he did not hurry to start his holy war, he traveled the world, toured Nepal and Thailand, got baptized in Australia; had he not met Guerrero, he might have kept the photos of “Golda’s balcony” and the bomb-assembly labs at the bottom of his rucksack.
But good and naive people throughout the world saw him as a fighter against the Israeli atomic danger. A sweet American couple adopted him as a son—even though his family was still alive—and other good Christians keep nominating him as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
When he was released from jail, after eighteen years, Vanunu chose to live in a Jerusalem church. Today he keeps displaying his hatred for Israel, refuses to live there, refuses to speak Hebrew, calls himself John Crossman, and publishes ads in the Arab newspapers, looking for an Arab or Palestinian bride (“Non-Israeli Only”).
And Cindy? It turned out that because of the urgency of the operation in London, the Mossad had no time to build a solid cover for her; she used her sister’s name, Cindy Hanin, and her passport, and that helped British and Israeli reporters to discover her real identity. They found out that her real name was Cheryl Ben-Tov, née Hanin, the daughter of an American millionaire who had made his fortune in the tire business. She was a devout Zionist, and immigrated to Israel at the age of seventeen. She served in the IDF and married a former Aman officer. A Mossad agent recruited her to the organization. Her IQ was high, her motivation intense, and her American passport helpful. She went through an exhausting two-year training course before being urgently flown to London with the other members of Operation Kaniuk. After Vanunu’s abduction and the burst of publicity surrounding her, she had to resign from operational activity.
Today Cheryl Hanin Ben-Tov lives in Orlando, Florida. She and her husband are in the real estate business, and lead the life of a model Jewish-American family. The Vanunu affair burned Cheryl as a Mossad agent, and her colleagues sincerely regret that the smart, pretty, and resourceful woman is no longer one of them. It is because of her that Israel got Vanunu out of England without breaking any laws.
Margaret Thatcher easily reined in her tumultuous members of Parliament once it was clear that no illegal act had been committed on British soil.
But it did not take long for the Mossad to get up to its old tricks again. Two years later, Mossad agents Arie Regev and Yaacov Barad planted a Palestinian as a double agent in London. The Palestinian was caught and arrested, but Thatcher closed the Mossad station in London and expelled Regev and Barad.
The Mossad again promised to behave. And they did—until th
e Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh affair . . .
Photo Section
The Natanz nuclear site—thanks to the watchfulness of a Mossad intelligence officer. (Google Earth)
Ali Mohammadi. Explosives in a motorcycle. (Wikipedia)
Meir Dagan. His soldiers called him “King of Shadows.” (Dan Balilti)
Dagan: “This old man is my grandfather.” (Courtesy of Yad Vashem)
Isser Harel. Ben-Gurion told him, “Bring Eichmann dead or alive.” (Amit Shabi)
Adolf Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem. (Israel Government Press Office)
Madeleine Ferraille, also known as Ruth Ben-David—Mata Hari of the ultra-orthodox Jewish world. (Yedioth Ahronoth archives)
Yossele Schuchmacher with his parents, after he was found and returned to Israel. On the right is Yechezkel Adiram, the Yedioth Ahronoth reporter. (David Rubinger)
Al-Qahir, “The Conqueror”—the missile the German scientists built in Egypt. (Yedioth Ahronoth archives)
Mossad Page 28