in which Dan’s division was key in staunching the Egyptian advance in the first

in which Dan’s division was key in staunching the Egyptian advance in the first days of the war, later inflicted heavy losses on one of Sadat’s armored forces and was part of the final push on the other side of the canal. And, of course, during Entebbe. Dan had sharp tactical instincts, a belief in the importance of using new technology to gain and sustain an edge, and an openness to unconventional approaches. Faced with a challenge in planning or executing an operation, he looked at it from all sides, determined to come up with the right approach, not always the expected one. In a lot of these ways, we were similar, which was no doubt one reason our relationship had grown closer as he and I — Six years younger, and a step or two behind — rose up the ranks. In fact, Dan was the reason I’d made one of my rare forays into kirya politics not long after Moshe Vechetzi took over as chief of staff, when Misha Arens was still Defense Minister. I acted to derail what seemed to me a blatant attempt by Moshe to advance Drori’s and Amnon Lipkin’s prospects for eventual succession as chief-of-staff, and to take Dan out of the contest altogether. I was sitting at my desk on the third floor when the chief of internal army security, an officer named Ben-Dor, walked into my office. “Listen,” he said, “the chief of staff has a right to give me a direct order in cases where he thinks there is a need for a special investigation. But you’re my commander, so I wanted to let you know.” “What is it?” I asked. He replied that he had been ordered to “check out rumors that Dan Shomron is a homosexual.” I was appalled. The whole thing stank, on every level, and not just because I was confident the “rumors” were nonsense. “Look,” I said, “I have no idea whether some sub-clause in army regulations allows the chief-of-staff to give you orders over my head. But even if it does, I’m ordering you to do nothing until I talk to Moshe.” He nodded in agreement. In fact, he seemed relieved. He also let me know that the source of the rumors was a number of senior officers, including a couple of generals. I went straight downstairs and into the chief-of-staff’s office. Moshe was at his desk, smoking a cigarette. One of the advantages he had in being nearly a foot taller than most of us was that I found myself looking not into his eyes, but up at them. “Moshe,” I said, “Ben-Dor told me you’ve ordered him to investigate a rumor that Dan Shomron is a homosexual.” He said nothing. So I went on. “Tve told him not to do it. And ’ve come here to convince you that it’s 219 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011690