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A Watershed in Retrospect (The Yom Kippur War Twenty Years On
- RAK REKA No. 18)
Activity Ideas Heroism
and Involvement - Articles
Reflections on the Year - an interview with the
former Prime Minister, by Dov Goldstein - Ma'ariv, September 16,
1974 (In FEATURES OF ISRAEL, Israel Information
Center, November 1974 - no.20, p.ll, Interview with Golda Meir)
Is it true that you kept the Minister of Defense (Moshe Dayan
- ed.) from making a telecast to the nation, with the intention
of revealing the truth to the people?
I didn't prevent him. I exercised no censorship on the appearance
of Members of the Government - I had no such control. But I did
say to the Defense Minister, seeing that we were still in the
thick of fighting, that there was no need to tell the people the
whole story and that the truth at the moment might change and
not be the final truth. I didn't prevent it; no, I didn't. There
are many details I don't recall. I asked the Minister of Defense
not to appear, but it wasn't a veto. Our relationship wasn't such
that I would forbid him. Not at all.
Were you afraid that if he were to tell it to the people straight
they might lose motivation?
There were many reports, many discussions. Dayan and Dado (Chief-of-Staff,
David Elazar - ed.) presented some very serious reports. My office
chief noted them word-for-word in a diary. I lived through things,
but I never kept diaries in my life. I didn't think it important
if things would be remembered or how. The events were important
to me. The nation had to know. But while the fighting was going
on it didn't have to know the exact details of day-to-day events.
Situations are temporary, changing.
Once you address the nation about the war, you are talking not
only to your people. but also to other peoples, other governments,
other commands. So you wait. At times it is permissible to wait."
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