– V –
VANUNU, MORDECHAI (1954– ).Born in Marrakech, Morocco, to a
right-wing Jewish family, Vanunu immigrated with his parents and
sisters to Israel in the early 1960s and grew up in the city of Beer
Sheba. After ending his national service in the Israel Defense Forces
in 1976, he was looking for work and answered a newspaper ad for
technicians at the Dimona Nuclear Research Center. He was hired,
and, after gaining security clearance, signed a pledge of secrecy and
undertook not to talk to anyone about his work. On 1 January 1977
Vanunu entered a preparatory two-month employment course at the
nuclear plant. He then passed a medical checkup. For the next 10
weeks he did another round of training for work at the reactor in nu-
clear physics. This period ended at the end of June 1977, and Vanunu
was formally admitted to the “holy of holies” of Israel’s security—the
nuclear weapons program. He received another security pass, num-
ber 320, which gave him entry to Institute (Machon) 2, where al-
legedly nuclear weapons are manufactured. There were no complaints
against him or reports of unusual behavior. But after the first flush of
excitement wore off, Vanunu found the work boring and monotonous.
From 1981, while working at the Nuclear Research Center, Vanunu
was also enrolled at Ben-Gurion University in Beer Sheba, where he
studied philosophy. On campus, he began sympathizing with the
Palestinian cause and even told his fellow students how horrified he
was that Israel had so much nuclear firepower—thereby breaching
his commitment to secrecy. Vanunu accordingly became a “checkee”
(one who had to be checked and placed under supervision). But his
bosses ignored the instructions and continued to treat Vanunu as an
outstanding worker. They even sent him to an advanced course for
senior staff. The director of security for the Defense Establish-
mentand the Israeli Security Agencyalso bear some degree of re-
sponsibility for the security blunders in the Vanunu affair.
In 1985 Vanunu was fired from his job in the Dimona Nuclear Re-
search Center. He thereafter traveled to Thailand and Nepal, carrying
photographs and undeveloped film of the inside of the Israeli nuclear
reactor that he had taken secretly after smuggling a camera into In-
stitute 2. In the Far East, Vanunu considered converting, or may ac-
tually have converted, to Buddhism. However, for some reason in
1986 he moved on to Australia, where he joined a church prayer300 • VANUNU, MORDECHAI06-102 (04) Q-Z.qxd 3/24/06 7:26 AM Page 300