Word: aback
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Reagan Administration seemed taken aback by the Israelis' claim of a U.S. offer on the debt postponement, which would be in addition to a previously announced U.S. decision to accelerate the payment of $1.2 billion in economic aid. The Administration insisted that the possibility of a deferral had merely been discussed as one of many courses that might be necessary for Israel if all else failed...
...losses or judging reversals were the rare exceptions as the U.S. juggernaut rolled on. Even ABC'S Howard Cosell, the unofficial cheerleader of the team, seemed taken aback at the one-sidedness of the competition. Said Cosell, just before Holyfield's disqualification: "The overwhelming succession of American victories has become almost embarrassing." Nearly every weight-class competition yielded a U.S. champion with a distinctive style and something to prove...
...first mistake was to bicker with Mondale. Taken aback by Mondale's onslaught, Hart was defensive and churlish. Too late, he tried to clamber back on the highroad. "I have really tried very hard not to attack anyone in this race," he insisted in a local television debate two days before the primary. "Voters are fed up with this penny ante, picky business." But he could not restrain himself and fell to quibbling with Mondale over who had started the negative campaigning. Chastened by the New York landslide, Hart grimly announced, "If New York proved anything, it was that...
...ordered Leningrad's Hermitage museum to open its china clos ets so that guests at his daughter's wedding reception could eat in grand style. Several priceless items from Catherine the Great's dinner service were broken during the revelry. One U.S. diplomat who met with Romanov was taken aback when he rudely interrupted his interpreter to correct the translation of one of his titles. Recalls the American visitor: "The impression Romanov gave was one of boorishness and arrogance. He strutted around as if he were lord of all he surveyed...
McFarlane prompted the President to ask the Joint Chiefs if they could live without the Pershing II. The chiefs were at first taken aback. They knew that the principal purpose of both the cruise missiles and the Pershing Us was political, as symbols of the U.S. commitment to defend Western Europe with American nuclear weapons. They also knew that the strictly military rationale of the weapons was questionable, since there was no target they could reach in the Soviet Union that could not be covered by existing American weapons...