Word: acker
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...Smiling Achille" van Acker went to his native Bruges to celebrate 25 years of happy marriage. Then he came back to Brussels to face a crisis in the uneasy union of Socialists, Liberals and Communists which he had held in precarious balance for three months...
With results nearly complete, the Christian Social Party, a revamped and somewhat liberalized version of the old conservative Catholic Party, led the field with 90 of the 202 Chamber seats, a gain of 17 over its prewar strength. Runner-up was Premier Achille van Acker's Socialist Party with 69 (prewar: 64). The Communists took 24 seats (prewar: 9), the middle-road Liberals toppled to 17 (prewar: 33). Neither the Catholics nor the leftists were now able to rule alone. The Liberals, enfeebled as they were, could still tip the scale either...
...Europe's battlefields, none had erased more of the scars of war than Belgium. As soon as the Germans vacated one end of a town, Belgians began repairing their roofs at the other. Under the energetic guidance of Socialist Premier van Acker, a basketmaker's son, they had gone on repairing, rebuilding. The dynamic, 52-year-old Premier personally directed the basic "battle of coal," lifted production from a piddling 23,000 tons daily at the beginning of 1945 to a thumping 80,000 tons daily at the end. Iron & steel, power output soared. Currency...
Because Premier van Acker's Socialist-Communist-Liberal coalition had kept the nation's nose close to the grindstone, Brussels shop windows bulged with food, clothing, luxuries. The size and variety of Belgian rations made French mouths water...
...hours next day Premier van Acker berated his King for conduct inimical to the welfare of his country. The Premier charged that Leopold had 1) expected a German victory; 2) interviewed Adolf Hitler after Belgium's capitulation to arrange postwar collaboration with Germany; 3) refused to back the Belgian Government in Exile; 4) rejected advice to escape and join the Maquis...