Word: alarming
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...message over the signature of Chief of Staff George Marshall. "Japanese future action unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment . . . You are directed to undertake such reconnaissance and other measures as you deem necessary, but these measures should be carried out so as not repeat not to alarm civil population or disclose intent. Report measures taken." Hawaii's commander, Lieut. General Walter Short, not a man of broad vision, reported back that he was taking measures to avert sabotage -- parking his aircraft close together and keeping all ammunition safely locked up. Since Washington did not specify a threat...
Roosevelt tried to call Admiral Stark, but he was at a revival of Sigmund Romberg's Student Prince; the President didn't want him paged at the theater lest that cause "undue alarm." When Roosevelt did finally reach him shortly before midnight, the Navy chief said, according to his later recollection, that the message was not "something that required action." After all, Stark testified, warnings had already gone out that Japan was "likely to attack at any time in any direction...
...returned to their ship than they were ordered out again. But few were in shape to go -- five dive bombers and four torpedo planes -- and their crews were so exhausted that the commander ordered a break before the next takeoffs. The rice balls were just being served when the alarm sounded: "Enemy dive bombers directly overhead." Swooping down, planes from the Enterprise and the dying Yorktown started the fires that would destroy the Hiryu...
...just retiring operatic heroines and "sensitive" poets. It was an indiscriminate killer, taking over 100,000 lives each year in the U.S. until the middle of this century, when antibiotics brought it under control. So when TB re-emerged in AIDS patients six years ago, it was greeted with alarm. Still, most doctors believed it posed little risk to the general population, since modern antibiotics could contain the infection before it flared into full-fledged disease...
...Grand Palais in Paris spent $1 million on extra security and $590,000 on insurance for a major retrospective of Georges Seurat. The exhibitors grouped sketches together in cases and bolted paintings onto the walls. But a small Seurat drawing, Le Cocher de Fiacre, vanished after video and alarm systems had been turned off and before guards had started their rounds. The smell of a rat is even more pungent in raids on storage rooms. According to a police survey, 57.8% of all thefts of paintings and drawings from public collections in France between 1979 and 1989 were from storage...