Who is Yitzhak Shamir from From Beirut to Jerusalem and what is their importance?

Yitzhak Shamir is the Likud Party Prime Minister and candidate in the July 1984 national elections. He is also interviewed by Friedman soon after Friedman's arrival in Israel. Shamir, whose family died in the Holocaust, becomes Prime Minister in October 1986, when Friedman goes to interview him.