Word: defenselessness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like a man in a frenzy of rage who cares neither what he says nor who hears him, the Soviet state howled its fury at defenseless, white-haired Novelist Boris Pasternak. Pasternak himself, after first telegraphing his joyful acceptance, seven days later refused the Nobel Prize awarded his poems and his novel, Doctor Zhivago: "In view of the meaning given to this honor in the society to which I belong, I should abstain from the undeserved prize . . . Do not meet my refusal with ill will." Still the screaming invective poured out, and the U.S.S.R. spilled it across the world without...
...looking for, "a cleft in the rock of the world." She seems to find it with a Brazilian diplomat named José Ybarra-Jaeger, but a scandal of which Holly is innocent breaks over her blonde head and Ybarra-Jaeger checks out. In that heartbroken moment she is defenseless and touching. " 'But oh gee, golly goddamn,' she said, jamming a fist into her mouth like a bawling baby, I did love...
...explained at length that no offense was intended and that the writer had merely been trying in philosophical vein to interpret the "signs of our hectic times.'' But Toddings admitted ruefully that in 40 years "I have never known a newspaper to be on a more defenseless wicket.'' He added sternly that the News editor who passed the piece had been "brought to book." The editor, a bewildered Texan named Elizabeth Pengelly, explained that she had been "disarmed" by the fact that the editorial was written by a usually reliable contributor, the Rev. Vibart Ridgeway...
Macmillan coupled his dramatic proposal with many a cautionary clause. He warned against the emotional appeal of a nuclear disarmament pact that might leave the West "virtually defenseless before the greatly superior weight of Russian conventional arms." He pointed out that every government since 1947, both Labor and Tory, had approved the basing of U.S. bombers in the United Kingdom for mutual defense. As to the new plan to install thermonuclear missiles in Britain-"If bases for nuclear rockets are the up-to-date equivalent for bomb-carrying planes, then our whole defense policy, our whole strategy, becomes meaningless unless...
...total manpower and armaments by the major powers (e.g., U.S. and Russia to 1,700,000 men apiece), plus inspections and bans on the import and export of arms, and checks on troop movements. European nations have worried lest the U.S., by nuclear disarmament alone, might leave them defenseless against Russian superiority in "classical" arms...