Word: backstab
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, his upper lip never stiffer than in the glare of BBC-TV lights, mourned the backfire of some backstab aimed in his memoirs (TIME, Nov. 24) at Dwight Eisenhower: "I sent him a copy of my book. The result was silence. I sent him a Christmas card with a very warm greeting, much warmer than to anyone else. Again there was only silence. I am awfully sad if I have lost the friendship of that great and good...
...they really are. And the confidence game has also brought a great evil in its train: the camaraderie between officials and newsmen encourages Government officials to keep facts off the record which should be published, enables them to dodge responsibility for phony stories, permits unscrupulous bureaucrats and politicos to backstab opponents with impunity. Furthermore, even competent correspondents who are constantly being "guided" by off-the-record conferences occasionally miss real news. For example, State Department correspondents had so often been confidentially told that the U.S. planned to get tougher toward Communist China that they missed the story completely when Assistant...