His personal file from Prime Minister Rabin’s office, from June 1974 to the summer of 1975: invitations, greetings and his replies. In the short replies one hears his voice.
Scan: Israel State Archives, file G-6701/7 ↗. One page of the file’s 284 is shown here; the file itself is kept at the Archives.
What the file shows, in the words on the page
29 July 1974
To a high-school principal who had invited him
“In the reality of my work and my post there is a considerable gap between what is desirable and what my diary can allow me. The result is that I have cut my appearances almost to nil.” And straight after: “Until about three years ago I appeared a great deal. In any case, of goodwill towards your kind invitation I have plenty” (site translation).
21 January 1975
To a friend in Washington
“It sounds trite, I know, to say that affairs of State consume much more than the regular working hours of the day and that I have too little time for the personal things I care about. This, however, is the truth.” He ended: “Rina and I are always happy to hear from you”.
9 June 1975
To his aide, on leaving for a post abroad
To Daniel MegiddoGazit’s assistant in the Director-General’s bureau, first at the Foreign Ministry and then at the Prime Minister’s Office.More on Daniel Megiddo in “People and events” →, who had worked beside him for three and a half years, “first as my assistant in the Director-General’s office at the Foreign Ministry and then in a similar post beside me at the Prime Minister’s Office”: “You worked with devotion, precision, comradeship and great ability.” He signed off: “In friendship, and with good wishes” (site translations).
May–June 1975
Nothing is “unthinkable”
On 25 May 1975 he thanked Max Singer for a discussion paper on possible Soviet mediation between Syria and Israel, and wrote: “There should be nothing ‘unthinkable’ regarding any of our policy problems”. The comprehensive-settlement paper he drafted bears the same date.
On 22 June he answered someone who had written to him about the post in France, still in the conditional: “If I am indeed charged with serving in this post in France, I shall see it as an important challenge and do my best to meet it” (site translation).