Word: aura
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Actually, what was imperiled by America's performance in South Viet Nam was not so much the nation's credibility as its aura of competence. The U.S. looked especially ineffectual in not anticipating just how weak its ally was. The swift collapse surprised U.S. intelligence officials. One of them admitted that in evaluating South Vietnamese military capability, "we obviously deluded ourselves." Added another intelligence officer: "When we looked below the surface, we did not like what we saw, so we turned away...
...sees an attempt to regain this single unified vision unadorned of all the trappings of his surrounding world. "His attitude of mind is a kind of reverent Philistinism, with a broad humor that delights to spread banana peelings in the paths of heroes, a simple pleasure in seeing the aura of sanctity around the traditional arcana as a fog, and a tough honesty that continues to repeat that war is always damnable and tyranny always stupid and persecution always evil, however 'necessary' at any given moment...
...first Nix on because of Watergate, then Ford because of inexperience ? Kissinger has been forced to act, in the eyes of the world, as a sort of deputy President for international affairs. As a result, pol icy failures implicate him personally and intensify the loss of the aura of infallibility that had once made him appear to be the magician of world diplomacy. Says a high British foreign service officer: "Henry has become the prisoner of his own legend...
...plots, riots, etc. Many faculty members who had strong ties to Harvard felt threatened, and surface tensions brought out more serious problems. What they perceived as a student attitude of "Who needs the University?" was met by an attitude of "Who needs the students?" I imagine that the same aura of crisis that hung over our household afflicted most faculty households...
Even at moments of seeming relaxation, Kissinger manages to maintain an aura of mystery and tension. Last week the Secretary, dressed in blue shorts and a white terry-cloth beach jacket, was sunning himself beside the pool of the New Cataract Hotel in Aswan when an aide rushed up with a secret message. Kissinger walked away from attentive newsmen to read the missive. "Can we do that?" he asked. "Yes," replied the aide. Kissinger returned to talk with the reporters, but did not tell them until they boarded the plane that they were to make an unscheduled flight to Ankara...