The Israeli commandos who rescued more than 100 hostages at Entebbe Airport, Uganda captured three of the terrorists alive and have taken them to Israel for interrogation, according to a book, “90 Minutes at Entebbe,” published here today.
The book, authored by William Stevenson and published by Bantam Books, disclosed that “Out of 10 terrorists seven were killed and their fingerprints and photographs recorded. Three other terrorists, it would seem, despite Israeli denials, were taken alive for interrogation.”
According to the publisher, the 216-page book is based on interviews with Premier Yitzhak Rabin, members of the rescue team, hostages and intelligence sources. Stevenson, a Canadian who had served as a reporter in Kenya and Uganda from 1962 to 1964, spent 11 days in Israel gathering information for his book.
MAKES A NUMBER OF CLAIMS
According to Stevenson, an intelligence group of 50 Israeli agents, disguised as businessmen, flew to Nairobi three days before the raid at Entebbe and set up a headquarters at the private house of an Israeli trader for the up-coming operation.
The book also claims that once in Nairobi, the Israeli agents made contact with Lionel Bryn Davies, chief of Nairobi police, and Bruce McKenie, a former British commander with close ties to Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta. Kenya, the book asserts, agreed to “turn a blind eye” to the refueling of the Israeli planes providing the aircraft were disguised as Israeli commercial planes and the airport area was sealed off during the stopover.
The Stevenson account also makes the following claims: Israeli Cabinet ministers listened to live transmissions of the rescue operation, relayed over a prearranged radio channel from Entebbe to Tel Aviv; President Idl Am in slept at his house, not far from Entebbe, throughout the raid; some of the hostages who were released before the raid were hypnotized in Paris by Israeli experts to obtain details on their capture, and detention; Israeli officials debated a plan to capture Amin but finally dropped the plan; and Israel was aided by British intelligence sources in Kenya before the raid.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
