Sam Day (1926-2001):Vanunu Campaign Coordinator and Nuclear Resister

By Felice Cohen-Joppa

Author and activist Sam Day, coordinator of the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, died on Jan. 26, 2001 after suffering a massive stroke at his Madison, WI home. Sam had recently returned from trips to California and Washington, DC on behalf of the Vanunu campaign. His sudden death came while he was hard at work, advocating for nuclear disarmament and freedom for the imprisoned Israeli nuclear whistleblower.

It was in the late summer of 1986 that Mordechai Vanunu—after working for years as a technician at the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert—decided, as a matter of conscience, to tell the world what he knew about Israel’s secret arsenal of nuclear weapons. By late September, while the London Sunday Times was confirming his revelations, Vanunu was lured from London to Rome by a female Mossad agent. From there he was kidnapped—drugged, chained and returned on a ship to Israel. He later was convicted at a secret trial on charges of treason and espionage, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He spent the first 12 years of his sentence in solitary confinement in a 6-by-9-foot cell at Ashkelon Prison, with very little human contact. Amnesty International referred to this treatment as cruel and inhumane. He remains imprisoned under restrictive conditions, with a release date scheduled for April, 2004.

While on a peace walk through Israel and the occupied West Bank in 1992, Sam Day met members of the Israeli Committee for Mordechai Vanunu. The next day, Sam was out with others in front of Ashkelon Prison, on a vigil for the freedom of the man he saw as a kindred opponent of nuclear secrecy.

Since that time, Sam, who had himself been imprisoned for many anti-nuclear protests, worked tirelessly on Mordechai’s behalf.

As coordinator of the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, Sam Day recognized the importance of including freedom for Vanunu the individual in the grander global discussions of human rights, peace, and nuclear disarmament. Sam was responsible for organizing many efforts to pursue the campaign’s goals of freedom for Vanunu and nuclear abolition. He spearheaded lobbying efforts in Washington, DC, sometimes spending months at a time in the nation’s capital. He initiated and took part in a series of civil disobedience actions over the years at the Israeli Embassy and consulates across the U.S. to demand Mordechai’s immediate and unconditional release. His last arrest was at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC on Sept. 28, 2000, marking the 14th anniversary of Mordechai’s kidnapping and imprisonment.

Sam constantly solicited support for Vanunu from Jewish, Christian and other clergy and laity, as well as from politicians, celebrities, peace and human rights groups and grassroots activists. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Jimmy Carter, past Nobel Laureates including Mairead Maguire and Joseph Rotblat, and many other notables have called for Vanunu’s release.

Sam not only traveled all over the United States to speak at meetings and gatherings about Mordechai’s courageous whistleblowing, but on many occasions he also journeyed to Canada, Israel, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, where he spoke publicly and participated in international campaign activities. In turn, he brought Mordechai’s brother Meir, Israeli activists Yael Lotan and Gideon Spiro, and the Israeli theater troupe performing “Mr. V” to North American audiences.

Working with international campaigns to free Vanunu, Sam helped to organize the Democracy, Human Rights and Mordechai Vanunu conference, held October 1996 in Tel Aviv. The groundbreaking conference, chaired by then-Nobel Peace Prize recipient Joseph Rotblat and featuring an impressive international roster of whistleblowers and nuclear experts, was a wedge to opening a wider and more sympathetic discussion of Vanunu’s act that continues to this day in Israel. Sam’s subsequent trips to Israel included public speaking, vigils and leafletting about Vanunu and nuclear weapons around the country, and participation in the 1998 International Citizen Weapons Inspection of Dimona that resulted in the arrest of Sam and nine others.

Sam’s education and experience as a journalist, combined with his passion for free speech, made him a formidable foe of nuclear secrecy long before Vanunu’s imprisonment became a major focus of his activism. His 1991 autobiography, Crossing the Line: From Editor to Activist to Inmate—A Writer’s Journey, tells the story of becoming a prisoner for peace himself, foreshadowing his subsequent strong support for Vanunu.

Sam served as editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in the mid-1970s, and later fought the U.S. government over censorship of the H-Bomb story as managing editor of the Progressive. As founder and director of Nukewatch, in the 1980s he worked to make U.S. nuclear weapons more visible by initiating campaigns tracking H-bomb truck shipments across the country, and publishing maps of all the 1,000 land-based nuclear missile silos in the Midwest.

Sam’s long-time involvement in causes for peace and justice, as well as his great optimism, clarity, humor, humility and stellar writing and public speaking skills, had a profound impact on people around the world. Messages of condolence were received from all over the U.S., as well as from many other countries.

Sam is survived by his wife, Kathleen, their three sons, six granddaughters, and his brother and sister.

His passing is a tremendous loss for the world-wide effort to free Vanunu and rid the world of nuclear weapons. He will be greatly missed.

Donations in Sam’s memory may be made to Nukewatch, the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu or the Progressive magazine. U.S. Campaign webmaster Gail Vaughn has established a memorial Internet site for Sam at <www.nonukes.org/samday>.

The U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu has now moved to Arizona, and can be contacted at: U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, P.O. Box 43384, Tucson, AZ 85733, phone/fax (520) 323-8697, e-mail <freevanunu@mindspring.com>, Web site <www.nonviolence.org/vanunu>.

Felice Cohen-Joppa is the new coordinator of the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu. Since 1980, she has been co-editor of the Nuclear Resister newsletter, which reports on anti-nuclear and anti-war civil disobedience and encourages support for imprisoned activists.