Matti Golan, Former Haaretz Managing Editor, Dies at 85

Journalist Matti Golan, a former managing editor of Haaretz and editor-in-chief of the financial daily Globes, died on Wednesday. He was 85.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1936, Golan studied law at Hebrew University and passed the bar exam, but then decided he didn’t want to be a lawyer and instead went to Canada as a Jewish Agency emissary. In 1968, he began writing for Haaretz from there.

After returning to Israel, he held various positions at the paper, including parliamentary reporter and diplomatic reporter. He then went to Canada a second time as a Foreign Ministry public relations officer.

In 1988, he became managing editor of Haaretz. He later left to become editor-in-chief of Globes, where he remained for 22 years, staying on as a reporter even after finishing his term as editor-in-chief.

“I don’t talk in diplomatic language,” he once said when asked him about his fights with his employers. “I put things on the table. I’m also blunt in my writing.”

Golan also wrote books, plays and screenplays, as well as directing and presenting radio and television programs.

He earned renown overseas in 1975 after publishing his book “The Secret Conversations of Henry Kissinger,” which contained transcripts of the U.S. Secretary of State’s conversations with Middle Eastern leaders after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israel’s military censor initially refused to let the book be published, but in the end, it was both published and translated.

• ‘Kissinger Never Hid His Jewish Identity. Golda Gave Him Guilt Trips’

Golan had two children by his first wife, Nitza. After their divorce, he married his second wife, Nili.