Journalist and author Uri Dan, a close associate and advisor to former prime minister Ariel Sharon, died Sunday of cancer at age 71.

Dan is best known for a statement he made as then-defense minister Sharon's media advisor during the 1980s. Referring to Sharon, who was under fire for his actions in the 1982 Lebanon war and had been passed over years before as a candidate for IDF chief of staff, Dan said "Those who didn't want to see him as army chief will get him as defense minister, and those who didn't want him as defense minister, will get him as prime minister."

As a young war correspondent during the 1956 Sinai campaign, Dan parachuted with an IDF airborne unit into the Mitla Pass.

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He was attached to then-major general Sharon's division in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and remained his close friend and advisor until Sharon's devastating stroke last January.

Dan wrote for a number of publications, including Maariv, the Jerusalem Post and the New York Post.