Progress in Sodom

The Dead Sea area has for centuries been buffeted by infernal winds from the Arabian desert, seared by temperatures that often reach 120DEG and relieved by a scant two inches of rainfall a year. Nature has compensated for its cruelty with a bounty: the Dead Sea holds some 47 billion tons of minerals, which make it one of the world's richest mineral storehouses. At the southern tip of the sea, near the spot where Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, Israel is using nature's largesse for an economic boom that is revitalizing the town of Sodom.

With the help of a $25 million loan from the World Bank and a $10 million loan from the Bank of America, Israel is building 28 miles of dikes through the Dead Sea's waters to raise potash production to 600,000 tons yearly, thus making Israel one of the world's largest potash producers. It is pushing production of bromides and bromine, already ranks as one of the world's top five producers. Natural gas fields, recently discovered in the area, are being tapped and phosphate production sharply increased with loans from the Export-Import Bank. Last week a new plant opened in Sodom to refine table salt--95% of which will be exported to salt-starved Japan.

Much of this activity is the work of one man, Mordecai Makleff, 43, who took over Israel's government-owned Dead Sea Works in 1955, when the neighborhood around Sodom enjoyed a reputation hardly better than when the angels visited Lot. The Works suffered from incompetent management and low morale, and the town, with a population of 1,400, was full of prostitution and hashish addiction. Makleff, who had been made chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces at 32 because of his skill at organization and administration, quickly cleaned up Sodom. He fired most of the old managers, handed out productivity bonuses, opened training schools to teach workers new skills. Anxious to set up new industries, the government sold majority interest in the works to the public in order to qualify for the World Bank loan.

The Sodom area still has its peculiar working hazards: curious camels often make it difficult for planes to land on its airstrip, and a helicopter stands by to pull careless workers out of the slimy and corroding salt water. But the area now makes a major contribution to Israel's economy, and Makleff intends to increase its output fourfold by 1966. "These are the elements that God gave us," he says, "and we intend to use them."

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