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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