FROM OUR ARCHIVES

65 YEARS AGO

Prime minister David Ben-Gurion said that a request by the Labor Ministry to release 34 citrus packers from the army for the harvest had been rejected because there were hundreds of civilian packers available for the work. The civilian packers were working in other jobs but the law permitted their mobilization for the harvest, Ben-Gurion said. He went on to say that the release of servicemen for highly paid civilian jobs might cause demoralization in the army.

Finance minister Eliezer Kaplan announced that arrangements had been made to order nickel and copper for metal coins but the supplies had been cut off abroad. Aluminum coins would be used temporarily as a substitute.

The Germans tentatively offered to negotiate reparations with Israel on the basis of 10 annual payments totaling approximately $585 million (over $5 billion in today’s dollars). Payment would be in goods. This would circumvent one difficulty stressed by the Germans in the separate German war debt talks – namely Germany’s limited ability to raise foreign currency.

50 YEARS AGO

Defense minister Moshe Dayan said it was too late for a spontaneous military reaction to Egypt’s blockade of the Straits of Tiran, and still too early to draw any conclusions on the possible outcome of diplomatic action. He agreed with the general feeling that, should there be a conflict, it would be a “costly one” (in terms of casualties), and recalled that the British and French troops had fought during the latter stages of the Sinai campaign and that there would be no British planes to bomb Egyptian airfields this time. “Somebody will have to pay,” he said.

General Charles de Gaulle defined the French government’s position in relation to the Middle East by saying that “France considers that each of the two states has the right to live; but she considers that the worst thing would be the opening of hostilities. In consequence, the first state to employ arms anywhere would have neither her approval nor, for still stronger reasons, her support.”

25 YEARS AGO

The central elections committee disqualified five lists from running. The plenum session, the rowdiest and most disorganized to date, disqualified two lists, Kach and Kahane Hai, because of their stand on racism and democracy. Three other lists were barred on technical grounds. The names and particulars of their candidates, as well as their sponsors were not in order. Yosef Elbaum, of the Jewish State list, went on a long tirade against disqualification. He said the head of the list, Robert Manning, faced the electric chair if extradited to the US, and parliamentary immunity might save his life. Five committee members sided with Elbaum. [In 1994 Robert Manning was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for 30 years, after he was found guilty of complicity in the 1980 mail bomb death of Patricia Wilkerson, a Los Angeles secretary.]