Her steady influence a perfect complement to husband’s crusades
By Ed Koch
In 1950, when Hank Greenspun purchased the fledgling newspaper he would turn into the daily Las Vegas Sun, his wife, Barbara, was more than just a little bit concerned with his decision and his timing.
“I said, ‘Oh no, not a newspaper — not with all that we have on our plate,’ ” she recalled 50 years later. “He put $1,000 down to buy it, and we didn’t have $1,000 back then. We didn’t have any money”.
The Greenspuns had just lost a bundle in Hank’s first local publication, Las Vegas Life magazine. He had quit his most recent full-time job as publicity director for gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel.
And Hank, a World War II hero, had just been indicted by the federal government for shipping guns to the Middle East to help the Jewish state of Israel defend itself against the Arab armies, which attacked it following the United Nations’ partition in 1948.
Through it all, his wife not only stood by him, she actively helped.
