been invited by the U.S. Army, while the Pentagon did not recall any such invitation; in any event, he was allowed to visit army installations at his own expense. It has never been made clear why Dayan insisted upon being in the United States exactly when things were happening in Egypt which might have had some bearing on IsraeliAmerican relations (and about which the last one to know would certainly be the Israeli Ambassador in Washington, Abba Eban).
The failure of the operation destroyed Lavon. He was compelled to resign, and the government turned in despair to Ben-Gurion, begging him to reassume the post of Minister of Defense. Lavon himself and many others are convinced, to this day, that the whole intrigue was concocted to provide Ben-Gurion with a face-saving way to return from Sdeh Boker, where he had been waiting, with growing impatience, for his people to call him back.
The later convulsions of the affair are important only in the context of Israeli home politics. Several secret commissions of inquiry went into the matter, with varying results, until finally a "Committee of Seven" Cabinet members cleared Lavon of any responsibility. This upset Ben-Gurion so much that he resigned, making new elections necessary. Returned to office, he resigned again in 1963, under the impression that his colleagues in the government were conspiring against him. When his demand for establishing yet another commission of inquiry (in order to quash the findings of the Committee of Seven) was rejected by the government of Levi Eshkol, BenGurion split the Mapai party, which he had helped to found, and set up his own-a rather unsuccessful one which has just now returned to Mapai, without Ben-Gurion. BenGurion's preoccupation with this affair has by now assumed the proportions of an obsession, embarrassing and irritating even such former proteges as Mosche Dayan.
I find it highly significant that the biggest affair ever to rock the country was directly connected with the two