Israel Seizes Nuke Papers to Stem Media Leaks
BY JACK KATZENELL, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally Published 13/01/2001
JERUSALEM -- Israel's State Archives confiscated papers relating to
the country's nuclear secrets from the widow of a former prime
minister while she was out of the country, a newspaper reported
Friday.
Alarmed by persistent leaks of nuclear secrets to the media, the
Defense Ministry ordered the confiscation of documents belonging to
late Prime Minister Levy Eshkol, the daily Haaretz said.
The ministry suspected the Eshkol archives might be the source of some
of the leaked information, the report said.
The papers were in the possession of Miriam Eshkol but were kept at a
Jerusalem government office dedicated to Eshkol's memory. State
Archivist Evyatar Friesel took advantage of the widow's absence to
have the documents moved to the State Archives, the paper said.
Friesel on Friday refused to comment on the report. Miriam Eshkol
could not be reached for comment.
Israel has a nuclear reactor near Dimona in the Negev Desert and is
widely assumed to have nuclear weapons, but has always refused to
confirm it.
Eshkol became prime minister in 1964 when the nuclear program was said
to have been in its early stages.
Last month, Israel announced the arrest of a retired general accused
of disclosing classified military information to a reporter. Retired
Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Yaacov, 75, a scientist who has U.S. as well as
Israeli citizenship, was involved in the nuclear program, the British
newspaper Sunday Times said.
In 1986, the Sunday Times published photographs taken by Mordechai
Vanunu, a technician who worked at the Dimona facility. On the basis
of the photographs, experts said at the time that Israel had the
world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Vanunu is now serving an 18-year sentence for providing the pictures.
The Defense Ministry recently decided to keep Vanunu under
surveillance after his release, and to try him again if he again
attempts to disclose classified information, Haaretz reported.
Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said he was not familiar with
either the reported confiscation of the papers or the ministry's
decision on Vanunu.
However, he said both decisions would be justified to prevent such
leaks of sensitive information.
"It is against the law to divulge classified information . .
.," he said.
