FROM OUR ARCHIVES

65 YEARS AGO

March 6, 1953 Soviet premier Joseph Stalin suffered a second collapse, his heart was faltering and the end appeared to be only a matter of hours. Rumors of internal conflicts and forecasts of an imminent crisis were discounted by informed sources. They were convinced that the internal and external situation would remain stable for some time and that neither purges nor foreign adventures were imminent. Foreign diplomats in Moscow believed that Georgy Malenkov would be Stalin’s successor.

50 YEARS AGO

March 6, 1968 Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek and his department heads appeared before an audience of 200 residents of east Jerusalem to report on municipality services and answer questions. In response to several complaints on the high prices charged by the East Jerusalem Electricity Company, Kollek promised that prices would be cut as soon as a “non-political” management could be installed. He said the city wanted to help install new equipment and improve management, both of which in turn would lower prices, which were three times as much as those charged in the western part of the city. He charged that the company’s directors were mixing politics in civic affairs. “Cities make neither war nor peace,” he said. Among the public works carried out in the eastern quarters, the mayor listed 239,000 lirot in loans to help repair the damage from the Six Day War, and 120,000 lirot in grants to families evacuated from the Jewish quarter and from the Mughrabi Gate area in the Old City. All local schools were open, and 12 youth clubs with 1,500 members were sponsored by the municipality.

15 YEARS AGO

March 6, 2003 US president George W. Bush and his National Security Council met with US Army general Tommy Franks, who would command US forces in a war with Iraq, to review battle plans, as secretary of state Colin Powell declared that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was still hiding banned weapons and had thrown away his “one last chance” to avoid “serious consequences.” By contrast, UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said that Iraq’s destruction of two dozen Samoud 2 missiles deemed illegal by international weapons experts constituted “real disarmament.”

10 YEARS AGO

March 6, 2008 As the security cabinet met and emerged with a message that the government would stop the attacks against Israeli communities from the Gaza Strip, three rockets struck the western Negev. The air-raid-style sirens installed in Ashkelon were tested for the first time – causing some to duck and cover, but proving that their whine could penetrate walls better than the calmly pitched “Color Red” warning. Ashkelon resident Moshe Nissimpor decide that the best way to halt rocket fire from Gaza – in light of what he termed the government’s failure to do so – was some vigilante justice. Nissimpor developed a homemade 200-millimeter ballistic missile which he planned to launch from Ashkelon into the Gaza Strip. He arrived at the Ashkelon Municipality building with the missile painted black and lettered “to Hamas, from the residents of Ashkelon” in red, and was planning to launch it. Ashkelon residents gathered round to cheer him on and protest the government’s conduct, but at the 11th hour, police stopped him from firing the missile. –Daniel Kra