impressive result, considering that even I got seven per cent). Now, suddenly faced with what looked like mortal danger, a strong, young, energetic, charismatic war leader was needed-not to conduct the war, but to fulfill a psychological need. Under great public pressure, Dayan was appointed Minister of Defense two days after his fifty-second birthday. When the news was announced over the radio, soldiers jumped out of their trenches to embrace each other, and an audible sigh of relief filled the air. The man who had been fighting Arabs all his life was predestined for this hour.
* * *
What part did Dayan really play in the war? Many things have been written about this, most of them uninformed.
To many, especially to quickie war correspondents, Dayan is the man who single-handedly decided on the war and waged it, a kind of latter-day Julius Caesar who came, saw and conquered, the military genius, the desert fox. To others, he looked like a kind of stunt man, a Johnnycome-lately whose real genius lay in the field of public relations. Levi Eshkol has intimated that Dayan, while having had a salutary effect on morale, had nothing to do with the war itself.
The truth lies somewhere in between. It is true that Dayan had irritated many people by his penchant for publicity, claiming undue credit for himself, or, at least, not disclaiming the credit given him by foreign correspondents who thought that the one-eyed general would make so much better copy than some anonymous professional strategist. During the war itself, Dayan seems to have had enough time on his hands to rush around like an errant comet, dragging behind him a long tail of public relations officers, correspondents and photographers, who immortalized him, with the backdrop provided by the advancing combat units.