Word: adeptly
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Raised amid violence, Hagan responded with greater violence. Walk around like a hand grenade with the pin pulled, and people will make room. A soldier since age 13, he is adept at using battlefield logic to justify the daily carnage. "If you're in a war, you just accept that the only thing you can do is stay alive," he says. He impatiently explains the necessity of stealing from the enemy: "It's like I'm coming up in the world, you know. I'm trying to make it, and I need your wallet. That...
...bluster, Khomeini is adept at turning the fears and jealousies of rival nations to his own advantage. "Look at Iran's position today," says a senior Israeli. "No one can ignore it. And many will even admire it." Part of that success stems from Khomeini's shrewd cynicism and ability to size up opponents. Speaking of Washington two years ago, the Ayatullah dryly observed, "It is clear that if we take one step toward the U.S., they take 100 in return...
Such worries about Gorbachev's ultimate goals involve another Leninist byword: peredyshka (breathing space). Both Lenin and Stalin were adept at justifying tactical retreats and temporary accommodations when these suited Soviet aims, only to return to the global struggle when conditions ripened. "The No. 1 question," says James Schlesinger, "is whether Gorbachev's new thinking is intended simply to achieve a respite, a pause, so that the Soviets can repair their economy; then in ten or 15 years go back to the ideological conflict...
Whatever formal authority he was given, North was adept at expanding on it. One of his techniques: when a presidential finding was issued authorizing a covert operation, North would exploit a bureaucratic mechanism known as a "memorandum of notification" to spell out the meaning of the vaguely worded finding. By drafting these memos, North was able to tailor the ways and means of the operation according to his own designs. If he got a memo approved, as he often did, he would then put together an interagency working group to plan how to carry out the mission...
...Most adept footwork. Dukakis' response to a smart-alecky Buckley question about how much of Massachusetts' budget goes for defense: "None. But a lot of it goes into social services and education and economic development. And that's why today Massachusetts has the lowest unemployment rate of any industrial state...