Afterwards, he went to study in the United Kingdom, and received an MA in international relations from the London School of Economics in 1955.

[2] Argov then returned to Israel, where he spent several years working in the Prime Minister's Office under David Ben-Gurion.

[2] In 1959, Argov joined the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and was appointed consul-general in Lagos, Nigeria; following that country's independence in 1960, he became ambassador.

From 1971 to 1974, he served as ambassador to Mexico, and was appointed Deputy Director-General for Information of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem when he returned.

During his three years as ambassador, he "forcefully and articulately put forward Israel's cause to a generally hostile Foreign Office and media".

[2] On 3 June 1982, three men, Hussein Ghassan Said, Marwan al-Banna, and Nawaf al-Rosan approached Argov as he got into his car after a banquet at the Dorchester Hotel, in Park Lane, London.

[6] He was rushed to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, where he was transferred to a specialist unit and underwent emergency brain surgery.

[5] The attempted assassins were members of the Abu Nidal Organization, a Palestinian splinter group which was hostile to the PLO.

[15] The attempt on Argov's life triggered the Israeli decision to invade Lebanon two days later to rout Palestinian guerrilla bases.

[5] This was intended by the Iraqi authorities, who calculated that an Israeli war in Lebanon would be detrimental to the rival Ba'athist government in Syria—whether Syria intervened on behalf of the Palestinians or not.

The statement was later passed on to the Haaretz newspaper: "If those who planned the war had also foreseen the scope of the adventure, they would have spared the lives of hundreds of our best sons ...