Three Days in Sèvres, October 1956

During 1956 Colonel Bar-On served as the personal assistant of General Moshe Dayan, the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces. Over this period he kept a detailed diary. During 21–24 October colonel Bar-On served as secretary of the Israeli delegation, headed by David Ben-Gurion the Israeli Prime Minister, which in meetings held in the Parisian suburb of Sèvres negotiated the agreement between Israel, France and the United Kingdom to launch a concerted attack on Egypt. Bar-On kept a detailed record of the proceedings. He was the only one who kept such records. The French and especially the British wished ardently to keep the conference in total secrecy and refrained from leaving any written trace.

In the summer of 1957, after the completion of Israel's retreat from the Sinai, General Dayan instructed Colonel Bar-On to transform the diaries into a book form. This book remained classified for the next thirty-five years and was made available to the Hebrew public only in 1991. This article is an abbreviated translation of the chapters which describe what happened at the Sèvres Conference. When this story was written Bar-On was able to use his own diaries and other documents of the Chief of Staff's office as well as his own memory. The result is an authentic description of the event, told with great precision and full colour, though obviously written and interpreted from the perspective of a young and patriotic Israeli officer. It therefore reflects the way the Israelis understood what transpired and does not claim to be an outcome of an objective and academic research. Of special interest are the sections which describe the awkward meeting between Ben-Gurion and Selwyn Lloyd, British secretary for foreign affairs; how a new operating plan suggested by General Dayan enabled Ben-Gurion to overcome his initial hesitations; and the intimate relations which evolved between the Israelis and the French delegation, which included Guy Mollet, the prime minister, Christian Pineau, the minister of foreign affairs and Maurice Bourgès-Manoury, the minister of national defence. Also of interest is the odd way a senior British official signed the ‘Sèvres Protocol' against the ardent wish of Sir Anthony Eden to avoid any trace of direct contacts between Her Majesty's Government and the Israelis.