General Moshe Dayan, former chief of staff of Israel and now a member of Israel’s Parliament from the Rafi Party, will fly tomorrow to Saigon, after concluding talks with top officials and army officers on the Viet Nam war. Gen. Dayan spent a few days in Washington collecting material for a series of articles which he intends to write after his return to Israel. At a private dinner in his honor, he met Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
In an interview today Gen. Dayan said: “In Tel Aviv, there were pickets outside my house carrying placards saying I shouldn’t go. The Communists tried to push through a resolution in the Knesset (Parliament) condemning my trip, and the Foreign Minister disclaimed any Government connection with it. Some critics thought that by going to Saigon I would be identifying Israel with the American presence there.”
On his Viet Nam mission the Israeli general had this to say: “I have really two main reasons for going. One is a military one and the other is people. I want to see the relationship between the South Vietnamese military and the people. If you are going to provide security for people in a guerrilla war, you must have the confidence of the people in the soldiers. If they trust you, you can achieve something.”
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