Herzog, Chaim

Herzog, Chaim

(1918- )

President of Israel (1983- ), born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1935 Herzog's family immigrated to Palestine, and his father, Isaac Halevy Herzog, became chief rabbi of Israel . Chaim attended the Government of Palestine Law School in Jerusalem, Cambridge University, and London University, where he earned a law degree. During World War II he was a tank commander with Britain's elite Guard Armored Division; he later directed British intelligence in Germany, where he identified a captive soldier as the Nazi chief Heinrich Himmler. After the war he served in the Jewish underground, Haganah, in Palestine.

After serving as a field commander, Herzog became chief of military intelligence in Israel (1954-62) and then returned to enter private business. As a radio commentator he became known for his military and political analyses, especially during the Six Day War (1967) and the October War (1973), of which he wrote a candid account, The War of Atonement(1975). Also in 1975, he became Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, where he denounced the General Assembly's resolution defining Zionism as racism and defended Israel's rescue of Jewish hostages in Uganda in 1976. His book The Arab-Israeli Wars(1982) was widely praised. In 1981 he became a Labor party member of Israel's Parliament, the Knesset. Highly respected by both major political parties, Herzog was elected to five-year terms as Israel's president in 1983 and 1988.