Moshe Dayan in the Yom Kippur War: a Reassessment

The purpose of this paper is to reassess the widespread accepted criticism of Moshe Dayan’s functioning as defense minister towards and during the 5 Yom Kippur War. Now that most of the archival documents have been opened to public view, we can better assess his performance during the war. This reassessment changes the picture: Dayan did not collapse, and the professional opinions he expressed were generally sound when accounting for the information available to him; however, there is no doubt that he allowed his subordinates to see his disturbed emotions and shook their confidence–a failure of leadership.