"Dear Moshe"

From the age of twelve, when he took up sentry duty at a Jewish pioneer settlement to guard against marauding Arabs, Moshe Dayan has been a fighting man. He went to jail in 1939 for fighting in the Jewish underground against the British; two years later he lost his left eye fighting for the British against the Vichy French in Syria. In the Palestine war of 1948-49, Colonel Dayan's motorized Israeli units captured Lydda and Ramie, cleared the Negev desert. In 1953 Dayan became chief of staff of Israel's armed forces, plotted the brilliant blitzkrieg in which Israel's army overran the Sinai peninsula and chewed up a fourth of Egypt's army in six days. Last week, a sinewy 42, Major General Moshe Dayan resigned as chief of staff, announced he would enter Jerusalem's Hebrew University to make up the schooling he had missed in 30 years of fighting.

In Israel, a country of immigrants, the army has a broader mission than in other countries. It serves not merely as a military organization, but also as an indoctrination and training institution for its recruits who enter as unskilled immigrants from perhaps Yemen or Hungary, emerge as nationally conscious Israeli citizens trained for a trade. The army's top officers have been notably wide-ranging in their interests; one chief of staff, Yigael Yadin, left his job to study archaeology at Oxford, is now Israel's chief expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dayan's successor, 38-year-old Major General Haim Laskov, recently took a three-year leave for the study of political economy and philosophy.

For the ceremony marking Dayan's resignation, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion went to the unusual length of putting on a tie, addressed Dayan affectionately as "Dear Moshe." Israelis expect Dayan to run for Parliament in the elections next year, take over the post of Defense Minister now held by Ben-Gurion.

At 72, Ben-Gurion is still spry, but increasingly conscious of his years. Some suspect he had deliberately ordered Dayan out of uniform and into politics with the idea of grooming him as his successor.

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