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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 12, 1981
7. CORRESPONDENCE COURSE lessons..............
0.6
8. Miscellaneous (Pastor General's Report,
Y.O.U. mailings, etc.).....................
0.5
TOTAL.
• • • . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . • • • • • . • . . . . . . . •
4 8 . 6
PAGE 9
Of the total, 28.5 million pieces were sent out in the U.S. and 20.1 million
in the Work overseas.
If the almost 50 million pieces of literature were placed in a single stack,
it would tower 61 miles high and weigh more than 5,000 tons.
If the
literature were laid end to end, the line would stretch 7,900 miles. Or, if
the literature were stacked on an American football field (300 feet long,
160 feet wide) it would stand 3� feet high.
--Richard Rice, Mail Processing Center
ON THE WORLD SCENE
ISRAEL DOES EVERYONE A FAVOR It was a daring operation, one for which the
Jewish nation is famous--and feared. On Pentecost, Sunday, June 7, Israeli
jets demolished a $260 million, 70-megawatt nuclear reactor on the out
skirts of Baghdad. The pilots of the American-made F-16's and F-lS's,
flying unmolested through Jordanian and Saudi Arabian airspace to their
target 600 miles away, disguised themselves as Jordanian airmen, speaking
in fluent Arabic.
As a result of the three-hour-long "preemptive strike," Iraq's nuclear bomb
capacity--which Prime Minister Menachem Begin claimed was directed against
Israel--was nipped in the bud. The French-made plant was due to become
operational--or "hot"--in possibly three weeks time. It would have been
capable of producing enough plutonium each year to build a Nagasaki-type
bomb.
A French nuclear technician who watched the airstrike from a safe distance
said the accuracy of the hits on the plant was "stupifying."
The deal to construct the Iraqi reactor was made in 1975. French President
Giscard d'Estaing, no friend of Israel, pushed for it in reciprocation for
increased access to Iraqi oil.
(Interestingly, the name of the reactor was "Osirak"--probably an acronym
for "Osiris Iraq." It was a duplicate of the Osiris reactor near Paris.
Osirak was part of the "Tamuz" nuclear research complex, twelve miles from
the Iraqi capital, which houses an older and smaller reactor, called
"Isis," also French-built. Neither it nor a Soviet-built reactor in the
same area was destroyed. One wonders if the first bomb would have been
named "Dagon" or "Molech.")
The Israeli government explained its position on the raid as_ follows: "For
a long time, we have followed with grave concern the construction of the
Osirak nuclear reactor. Sources of unquestioned reliability told us that
it was intended, despite statements to the contrary, for the production of
atomic bombs.