Word: damascus
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Ever since Syria united with Egypt 21 months ago, the Syrian presidential palace in Damascus has been little more than a place where local politicians sip coffee while carrying out the long-distance orders of others. But last week the slouching sentries were snapping as never before. Egypt's Nasser had sent up his own commander in chief, Abdel Hakim Amer, on a special mission from Cairo-to make a restless partner happier with its lot. No longer was there any pretense that Syrians were running their own show...
...into line was given to Interior Minister Abdel Hamid Serraj a ruthless local strongman who had wholeheartedly committed himself to Nasser. Serraj clapped hundreds of Communists into jail, tortured "recantations" out of hundreds more. He helped to reduce the once-powerful Baath Party to impotence,* slashed the number of Damascus dailies from 24 to a docile seven. But for all his secret agents, Serraj was still unable to dissuade his own country from its conviction that the union meant only economic disaster. Last month President Nasser assigned that mission to Soldier Amer, one of the U.A.R.'s three Vice...
...formidable propaganda machine. Its radio-teletype network throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America gets regular transmissions from Peking. It has 31 bureaus in Red China; outside, in addition to the big Hong Kong office, it staffs bureaus in most Western European capitals, in Moscow, Damascus, New Delhi, Baghdad, Cairo, Havana-an estimated...
Sacred to Jews, Christians and Moslems alike, the rock has rarely lacked a noble covering. The present dome dates back to the great edifice erected by Abdul-Malek Ibn Marwan, Caliph of Damascus, in 691, who used up seven years' tax revenue from Egypt to realize his dream. In 1099, crusaders mounted a gold cross on the dome and turned it into a church. Later, Saladin Avon it back for Islam, lovingly coated the interior arches with mosaic, the walls with marble. Suleiman the Magnificent ordered the exterior walls covered with splendid blue tiles...
...anodized aluminum shell (cost: $364,000). Too modern, cried some citizens; too ignoble, said others. "It will look like an ad for an orange drink." snapped one traditionalist. The builders pressed on with their work, hoping to have it finished this fall. Historians pointed out that the Caliph of Damascus had melted down 100,000 gold dinars to gild the original dome. The new aluminum one will look the same, and at a fraction of the price...