Word: commandant
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...unique in the history of American military endeavors is the over-whelming lack of moral commitment the war entailed. The soldiers didn't want to fight there. Our soldiers harbored no personal resentment against "Charlie," a contrived enemy, but they were compelled to fight him by the faceless military command. Our leaders were split--some wanted to beat the Viet Cong lest Communism ravage Southeast Asia and subvert the American ideal of global democracy, while others condemned the war as a futile waste of lives, energy, and national resources. No national policy emerged: we neither fought...
Fearful for the safety of the hostages, the State Department refused to release their names, but the identities of most of them gradually became known. Among them were political officers, Marines, code clerks, secretaries, the kinds of people who staff American embassies throughout the world. Tomseth, the second in command, was the ranking captive. Those held included Mike Holland, the burly security chief; Ann Swift, an efficient, Farsi-speaking officer who during the takeover tried over and over to reach the acting Defense Minister; Mike Matrinko, who was a consul in Tabriz last spring when the mission was overrun...
...throne and agree to abstain from all political activity while living in the U.S. Vance added: "We understand the key to minimizing the impact of the Shah's mission would be in Bazargan and the [Iranian] government's willingness and ability in such a situation to control and command the security forces guarding our people...
...fourth consecutive four-year term as mayor, winning both black Roxbury and white South Boston, whose residents often throw angry epithets-and sometimes more harmful things than that-at each other. In most cases, voters seemed less enthusiastic for the existing order than wearily convinced that a change of command at city hall would not make much difference. But as the results in Houston, Miami, San Francisco, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Minneapolis demonstrated, no one can take the city voter for granted: the bloc appeals and political styles that swept to triumph in the last election may guarantee defeat...
Singer has never had greater command of his material. At times he is the Jewish Somerset Maugham, spinning yarns of jealousy and violence with the detached tone of a narrator who just happened to be on the scene when the gun went off. At other instances he is a Kafkaesque master of the parable. At still others he is as comic and trenchant as Saul Bellow: a pretentious artist declares, "I must create. This is a physical need with me." A writer who consents to meet with a wealthy vulgarian is enticed with promises: "In the other world, a huge...