Moshe Dayan: Iconic Military Leader

After leading Israel to victory in the 1956 Sinai Campaign, Dayan was appointed defense minister in 1967, ahead of the Six Day War, in order to assuage the public’s growing fear of annihilation. But what was Dayan’s role in the war itself? Why is he credited as the hero of the war, when Levi Eshkol was prime minister and Yitzhak Rabin was IDF chief-of-staff? What was his background and did his questionable private life dampen or heighten his heroic image?