Word: dire
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...nations listened attentively to cataclysmic predictions that they would have dismissed immediately a year or two ago. The atmosphere was such that sober, responsible people from Beirut to New York were ready to believe that it was no longer impossible that one or more Western powers might in some dire future contemplate military intervention in the Persian Gulf to secure control of petroleum reserves. There were even unconfirmed stories in the Middle East that Kuwait had mined its oilfields and tightened security around its pumps and pipelines...
...week's end, the polls showed Labor leading the Conservatives by margins ranging from 7½% to 9%. Of course the pollsters could be wrong, as they were in the last two elections. Even so, both the Tories and the Liberals, who have been warning of dire economic disruptions, had begun to get the message: British voters are not interested in any more bad news. One Liberal leader remarked acidly last week, "If the people want to drift off again into lollipop land, then we have some real problems...
...country in negotiations and diplomatic relationships. As a result, we will be less likely to get into screaming crises, and there will be less need for covert action. It will be the increasing responsibility of the CIA to give our leaders the knowledge necessary to move into a dire situation and defuse...
Glum economic prognostications abound, but when New York Stock Exchange Chairman James J. Needham spoke before the Economic Club of Detroit last week, his predictions were gargantuan as well as dire. Using figures based on an N.Y.S.E. study, Needham estimated that U.S. capital demands through 1985 will amount to a cumulative total of $4.7 trillion. During the same period, he argued, the economy's savings potential will only amount to a bit more than $4 trillion. The probable result: a capital shortfall of $650 billion. That figure, says Needham, "represents the projected gap between the domestic supply of investment...
...center where records of political detainees are kept), while political parties are still suspended. TIME Buenos Aires Bureau Chief Rudolph Rauch, who visited Chile last week, reports that even many who opposed Allende are fearful that complaining in public-about the high cost of living, for example-could have dire consequences. They have good reason for their fear, since large numbers of Chileans are still being arrested. Last week Amnesty International charged, moreover, that the torture of political prisoners was still going on in Chile. A report issued by the London-based human rights organization claims that beatings, electric shock...