Word: downplay
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...past and the Catholic hierarchy growing increasingly critical of the Sandinistas' repressive measures, the bishops asked them to leave their government posts. They stayed on, claiming the country still needed their services, so the bishops came up with a compromise plan. The priests could retain their jobs but downplay their roles as priests. If Rome approved, that...
...last May. Said Mitterrand: "I understand why Pravda is content with Mr. Giscard d'Estaing. I did not wait eleven days to protest the invasion of Afghanistan." Fortunately, he added, "it is not the Russians who are voting, but the French." In his own defense, Mitterrand managed to downplay his major liability-past association with the defunct Socialist-Communist Alliance-by indicating that he would bring no Communists into a Mitterrand Cabinet...
Dismayed by the intensive coverage it had created, the Administration two weeks ago tried to downplay the story, which was "running about five times as big as it really is," according to a State Department official. Last week, White House Spokesman James Brady said that remark did not reflect the President's thinking. With the Administration unable to decide how big a story El Salvador was, the press was exercising its own news judgment. Says one network hand in El Salvador: "We've been told to do a piece on the effects of the war on the economy...
...Landesman, the man now in charge of prosecuting the oil companies, told a House Government Operations subcommittee last week that he had written a report describing how the reduced budget would cripple his efforts. But his new superiors at DOE, Landesman testified, urged him to rewrite the report and downplay the impact of the budget cuts. An internal DOE memo obtained by Subcommittee Chairman Toby Moffett of Connecticut maintained that the oil probe could earn the Treasury at least $600 million in additional payments from the companies-much more than would be saved by budget reductions...
Analysts in Washington project a continuation of Mexico's rhetorical posturing and downplay recent changes. But current intelligence suggests that Mexico is unusually determined to promote the emergence of stable, progressive and representative governments in Central America capable of asserting their independence from the US and willing to develop friendly and cooperative relations with their powerful northern neighbor. There are two principal reasons for this affirmative policy...