Word: diplomatic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Washington, U.S. officials debated whether it was feasible or even wise to plan reprisals against Shi'ite militants in Lebanon. "Whom would we hit and where?" asked a State Department official. Other groups, claiming to be associated with the Hizballah, are holding three Americans hostage in Lebanon: U.S. Diplomat William Buckley, first secretary of the embassy's political section; Cable News Network Correspondent Jeremy Levin; and Presbyterian Minister Benjamin Weir. Last week a fourth American disappeared: Peter Kilburn, a librarian at Beirut's American University. A retaliatory raid in Lebanon might seal their fate...
...particularly important for Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, who has promised his countrymen a referendum on Spain's continued membership in NATO by February 1986. Gonzalez has hinted that without E.C. membership he may not get the popular support he needs for NATO. Says a senior Spanish diplomat: "You cannot ask us to participate in the defense of the values of the West and not grant us the benefits." In private, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher has put it more bluntly: "Why should the Spanish send their soldiers to help defend us when...
Andrei Gromyko, the dour and durable Soviet diplomat who has survived 40 years of purges, intrigue and cutthroat competition for power...
There is no evidence, however, that the generals are eager to return. "They feel that they have fulfilled their duty and are going out the front door, the job faithfully completed," said a diplomat in Montevideo. That may be, but they are leaving behind some formidable challenges, including a 45% inflation rate, a 15% unemployment level, $5.2 billion in foreign debt, and a police and military establishment so bloated that one of every 43 Uruguayans is in uniform. Nonetheless, Sanguinetti is determined to prove that democracy can work. Said the President-elect, who will take office in March: "We hope...
...argues, pluralism engenders a far more fatal tendency: "Democracy tends to ignore, even deny, threats to its existence because it loathes doing what is needed to counter them." In other words, democracy instinctively resorts to appeasement, usually justified as the encouragement of totalitarian "moderates" over "hard-liners." A French diplomat shortly after Munich, Revel notes, described Hitler as caught between Goebbels and Himmler [hard] and Goring [moderate]; Stalin wheedled concessions out of the Roosevelt Administration by warning that his liberal tendencies were under attack in the Politburo...