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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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memory, and as he had been greatly moved by the progress of Israel as a country, I thought that it would be nice to do something in an area where, if successful, it would give the country a great deal of help. I had been interested by Floyd Odlum in the business of cloud-seeding, as he had employed a cloud-seeder called Krick to do some work for him in Spain on a business basis. I thought if cloud-seeding works in Spain, in dry areas, perhaps it would work in Israel. So, through the Hadassah organization and my sister-in-law, Mrs. Rosenton, I said that I would give a contribution of $25,000 to see if cloud-seeding in Israel would work.

Krick went to Israel and established some seeding stations and this went on for about five years. At the end of five years, it had indeed dropped some rain in important areas but it didn't look as if there were enough clouds with rain in them going over Israel to solve Israel's water problems. So, I thought, “What would work?”

I recalled a conversation I had with Truman when he was going out of office, that the solution to many of the world's problems would be desalinization of water and that was something that could be solved by more research, although the Navy was already desalting water in small quantities and there was a method that was known for doing this. It was an expensive method, however.

I began to make some inquiries about the desalinization of water. I also saw a news story in the New York Times speaking about the Office of Saline Water in the Department of the Interior





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