Ben-Gurion announcement

On this day, May 23, in 1960, the then prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, announced to the Knesset that Adolf Eichmann had been captured and was in Israel. Perhaps I should have waited to make this the subject of an entry one year from now -- the 50th anniversary of the event.

But I'm doing so now because I happen to be reading a newly published book on the subject, HUNTING EICHMANN, by Neal Bascomb.

One intriguing fact emphasized in this book involves the mechanics of flying Eichmann out of the country. The national airline, El Al, had no regular flights to and from Argentina at that time. (It didn't even have its own maps of South America yet.) And the Mossad could hardly grab Eichmann off the street and hustle him onto, say, some airliner belonging to a US based company. There was consideration of telling the Argentine authorities that El Al would like to make a "test run" of one of its planes into and out of Buenos Aires. But that seemed like a very thin cover for a highly secret operation.

Fortunately, the calender came to the aid of the Mossad. May 1960 was the 150th anniversary of Argentina's independence from Spain. The country had invited many other countries around the world to send official delegations to attend the festivities. It seemed unremarkable, them, that Israel asked for permission to bring its delegation into Buenos Aires on May 19th on a special El Al flight. (Eichmann had already been captured days before that plane left Israel -- he had been held in a safe house since May 11.)

Even the members of the official anniversary-celebrating delegation, officials of Israel's foreign ministry, were unaware of the fact that another purpose was to be served by that airplane. They were told, though, that El Al needed the plane back quickly to keep up its regularly scheduled flights, so they would have to fly home later in the month through other commercial airlines.

As a result, on the trip back to Israel on May 21, that plane carried only Eichmann, the operatives who had captured him, and the flight crew.

Even through meticulously planned operations, though, it is very difficult to keep a secret. The flight crew knew something was going on, and since Argentina's significance as a refuge for leaders of the 3d Reich was hardly a secret, some of them had a pretty good idea what it was. Bascomb has interviewed members of that flight crew and tells the story of that flight from the inside.

When the plane cleared Argentine airspace, there was a spontaneous outburst of delight. The leader of the Mossad operation decided that further efforts at in-cabin secrecy were pointless and gave the El Al security chief, Adi Peleg, the honor of making the announcement. "You've been accorded a great privilege," Peleg told the El Al crew, "You are taking part in an operation of supreme importance to the Jewish people. The man with us on the plane is Adolf Eichmann."

It was soon after touchdown on the morning of Sunday May 22, Israel time, that Ben Gurion learned of the success of the operation and of Eichmann's presence in the country. He asked his Mossad chief how many people knew. Isser Harel replied that already more than fifty knew. Thus, Ben-Gurion decided that an announcement was necessary -- news like this has to be framed by a head of state in a manner other than nodding "yes" when a reporter eventually hears about it and asks a question.

This is where we came in, the statement in the Knesset, May 23: "Adolf Eichmann is already under arrest in Israel and will shortly be placed on trial in Israel under the terms of the law for the trial of Nazis and their helpers."