Word: backdown
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...contention: in 1948, 1958 and 1961, it brought the antagonists near the brink but always just a step short. Then, in 1962, Khrushchev made his biggest blunder by putting Soviet missiles into Cuba. It was then, argues Halle, that the cold war reached its hottest point. Khrushchev's backdown was the Waterloo...
Russia can take some comfort from the divisions inside the Western Alliance and some victories in minor skirmishes, such as the U.S. backdown on the U.N. payments issue. But perhaps the prime Soviet accomplishment in recent years is that, compared to the buccaneering days of Stalin, Russia has become respectable as a world power. At home it has shown a measure of liberalization, and a pragmatic concern with prosperity that tends to discourage foreign adventure. Abroad, it has shown discretion in staving off any major, nuclear East-West conflict. The 1966 Tashkent Declaration, in which Russia acted as mediator between...
...backdown? Ho apparently realized that by trying and executing the U.S. aviators he would alienate many of the sympathizers he has in the West. It was safe to assume that he was impressed by the argument that mistreatment of the prisoners would tend to harden the U.S. mood and create a more unified, favorable attitude toward a tougher war. Since he counts on the U.S. finally tiring of the war and pulling out, he would thus be working against his own aim. Beyond this, the reaction from other countries must have raised for him the unwelcome prospect that he might...
Last week Greece's staunchly anti-Makarios Progressive Party warned that any backdown by the Stephanopoulos government would cost the government the party's eight votes, which would knock Stephanopoulos right out of power. Through it all, Makarios refused to retreat. "Whether you like it or not," he told Stephanopoulos, "I plan to go ahead and pass legislation unilaterally to bring the National Guard under Cypriot government orders...
...scenes-that old feeling will never be quite the same again. Even before the aluminum industry backed down, Chase Manhattan Bank President David Rockefeller warned: "We are in danger of backing inadvertently into a managed economy; this is not the high road to the good life." After the backdown, many businessmen expressed disappointment and chagrin. Even on Johnson's own staff, there were grumblings...