Word: balkans
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...used to be simply Gheorghe Gheorghiu until he spent so much time in Rumania's Dej prison in pre-Red days that he tacked Dej on to his name, a Balkan equivalent of calling oneself Alphonse Capone-Alcatraz or Lucky Luciano-Sing Sing...
Battle-Scarred Warrior. To newsmen, this was a prime example of the weakness of the French press. To Nèegre, it was a big setback in a ten-year battle for freedom of the press. Neègre was a star Balkan correspondent for the French agency, Havas, oldest newsgathering agency in the world, when the invading Germans suppressed it in 1940. In Rumania, Negre promptly organized an underground French information service to smuggle news to the allies, was trapped by the Gestapo and imprisoned. Released in an exchange of prisoners, he feigned loyalty to the Vichy government...
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903), was first named by Disraeli, headed the Foreign Office four times (15 years). He shrewdly played Russia, Turkey and the Balkan countries off against one another, kept peace in Europe. After Bismarck's retirement (1890), Salisbury was the most influential statesman in Europe. He made the French drop their claim to Egypt, and (as Prime Minister) brought the Boer War to an end. Salisbury was an intellectual, a wit, a student of theology and science, and a tolerant Conservative: "There is much," he said, "which it is highly undesirable...
Reasonable Latitude. The legend that he tried to block the Normandy invasion at the Churchill-Stalin-F.D.R. meeting in Teheran he brands as completely false. He backed the plan to the hilt. Nor, says Churchill, did he,try for a Balkan invasion. What he did fight for, and did not get, was a conquest of the Aegean Islands that might bring Turkey into the war on the allied side. Because they blocked his pet plan, both F.D.R. and Eisenhower got a taste of Churchillian wrath: "There ought, I think, to be some elasticity and a reasonable latitude...
...about 40 divisions, fully refitted and resupplied, with another 30 divisions in reserve. The violence of their artillery fire in recent weeks suggests that they have stocked more ammunition than ever before. According to allied intelligence, increasing numbers of European troops, believed to be recruited from Russia's Balkan satellites, have been brought in for training and advisory work, and to serve in the artillery, antiaircraft, armor, engineer, medical and airbase units...