Word: cloak
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...Cloak-and-Dagger. Why the switch? Ever since the 1911 breakup of the Standard Oil trust, legal restrictions have barred any firm from using the name Standard nationally-or even the name Esso (which comes from S.O.). Jersey Standard had to operate Esso stations in the East, Humble stations in Ohio, and Enco stations elsewhere. But this was no way to build strong national-brand consciousness. In their search for a new name, Esso executives worked in cloak-and-dagger secrecy. To ensure security, they typed their own letters and memos. The project even had a code name: Operation Nugget...
...theater in Bergen. His first four plays flopped, and as a director he was a washout. Too shy to tell his actors what to do, he sat in the back of the theater tugging at his beard or hurried away from confrontation muffled up in a huge romantic cloak that made him look like Mickey Rooney playing Goethe...
...code name is given each caller, and an elaborate payoff system involving a clandestine rendezvous is used to reward the anonymous informant. The cloak-and-dagger atmosphere is apparently part of the program's lure. Said the program head: "People are interested in that type of thing-code names, secret drops. There's a little...
...familiar one. In A Thousand Clowns, Scenarist Herb Gardner created Murray Burns, the same avian specimen ostentatiously hiding his self-pity in a cloak of jokes. Georgie is a blurred replica of Murray, surrounded by the same narcissistic suffering and arriving at the same lame insights: "Time is not a thief; he's an embezzler, juggling the books at night so you don't notice anything's missing...
...omertd ? the oath of silence ? in a ceremony of blood and fire, the old-line Mafiosi cultivated their anonymity as the first line of defense against ar rest and prosecution. Despite the publicity caused by Prohibition gangland wars, the Mafia was still able to maintain a cloak of secrecy around its activities. Behind this shield, Mafia leaders gained control of gambling and narcotics, some labor unions and legitimate businesses. When the first systematic crackdowns by law-enforcement agencies started ten years ago, the bosses deemed their facelessness more important than ever...