Word: charm
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Schecter finds that the Secretary of State still bears a close personal resemblance to the Cambridge academic. "His ego is enormous, but his charm and grace are even greater. He likes to hear gossip about himself, he is complex, difficult and the best show in town." One element of the Kissinger act is to deflate formality. On President Nixon's trip to China, Kissinger brought on board the plane Vice Foreign Minister Chiao Kuan-hua. In the press section, Kissinger told his guest: "That's Jerry Schecter of TIME. He's my favorite fiction writer...
...diplomats insist that Kissinger's success is built mainly on naked power politics, as is Soviet foreign policy. "He is a troublemaker out of the 19th century," snaps a ranking French Gaullist. In fact, Kissinger has created a novel personal approach to diplomacy fashioned primarily out of self-confidence, charm, boundless energy, humor when applicable, and an ability to grasp what Kissinger, the once?and perhaps future?scholar, calls "the historical process...
...works up a mannered creature with bulging eyes and squeaking voice who never suggests Daisy's strength, her greed, or even her gaiety and charm...
...mangy as it is, the movie still works. It is an adept and forceful B picture, deriving much of its energy from its own streamlined sleaziness and from the skills of its two stars, Elliott Gould and Robert Blake. Both of them have a kind of sour, dehydrated charm that is nicely used by Director-Writer Hyams, whose most notable previous effort was the screenplay for the noxious T.R. Baskin. Gould and Blake play a couple of L.A. vice cops who are offhandedly conscientious about their work and cynical about its results. Their superiors, ever mindful of valuable connections...
...ropes the characters too tightly into the storytale genre, smothering their powerful individualities under layers of allegories, parables, plays, anecdotes, and recollections in the form of scenarios and dreams. Allegories and suchlike have a strong appeal when they make morals easy to swallow, but the device loses its charm when used repeatedly. The form's vitality is diffused as it becomes clear that the players are just being put through their paces to provide Prose with the ingredients for her morals. These morals are not expecially complex or subtle, and by the middle of the book evoke the feeling...