The Whistleblower of Dimona: Israel, Vanunu, and the Bomb

In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a technician at Israel's highly secret nuclear arms research centre at Dimona, disclosed highly classified details about Israel's nuclear arms program to the London Sunday Times. As a result, Vanunu was kidnapped from London and taken back to Israel where, after a closed door trial, he was sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment for espionage and treason. Cohen discusses, among other questions, whether Israel should have the bomb, whether Vanunu was justified in his whistle blowing, and what the responsibilities of the Sunday Times are toward its informer. The book traces Vanunu's personal history and probes the lack of internal security at Dimona, which made it possible for Vanunu to provide the Sunday Times with such information. The book provides the first extensive publication of the deliberations at Vanunu's trial held behind closed doors. It is drawn from thousands of pages of court transcripts made available to the author. These include sensational testimony by senior Israeli ministers and officials intimately involved with the Dimona project. Cohen examines the consequences of the Vanunu Affair for Israel's intelligence community, the Israel-Arab balance of power, and the nuclear development of Iraq and Iran. Cohen also makes use of the most recent information available, integrating the records of the Vanunu trial that, until late 1999, had not been released by the Israeli courts.