Word: almost
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sudden sense of vacancy, of eternity, in Robert Kennedy's eyes on the floor of the Los Angeles hotel pantry. That vacancy, almost exactly halfway through the year, seemed to break the year's back. Nothing good, one thought, could happen after that...
...vision to lead? That has always been the fundamental question of U.S. politics. But in 1968 enduring American optimism about the future collided with brutal reality: the political system was shaken to its foundations. The old political leadership was almost literally besieged. A new vanguard, arguing for a dramatic reordering of national priorities, emerged almost against its will, born of immense popular frustration. Then shots rang out in a hotel pantry. The U.S., a bitter and lacerated democracy of 200 million, was forced to choose its vision from a field narrowed by a demented electorate...
...Kennedy lay murdered and the nation's future was immutably changed. Robert Francis Kennedy, 42, slight, tousle-haired, fatalistic, intense, was a messiah to some, an opportunist to others. He announced his candidacy for the White House four days after another improbable visionary, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, had almost beaten Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire's Democratic primary. McCarthy's antipolitical antiwar campaign had galvanized American youth. Beards shaved and locks shorn, they rushed by the thousands to become "Clean for Gene" workers in his crusade. The New York Senator's decision to enter the race split the peace...
...spasms seemed almost psychologically coordinated, as if a mysterious common impulse had swept through the nervous system of a global generation. The theme of the protests, and of the generation, was . . .what? To challenge authority. To change the world. To announce itself: Power to the imagination! Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre declared the upheaval "the extension of the limits of the possible." At Columbia University, Mark Rudd, a scion of Corporate America, borrrowed an epigram from the street poet LeRoi Jones (now Amiri Baraka): "Up against the wall, motherf*****, this is a stickup...
...fireworks sputtered in celebration of the lunar new year. Amid the cacophony, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces attacked Da Nang, South Viet Nam's second-largest city, and seven other major towns, breaking the Tet truce. Within 24 hours they hit 36 of 44 provincial capitals and overran almost all of the former colonial capital of Hue. Communist shock troops penetrated the heart of Saigon to attack the U.S. embassy and presidential palace. They drove General William Westmoreland into a windowless command bunker. "What the hell is going on?" Walter Cronkite wondered aloud as he prepared the evening...