Word: emperor
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné charged that President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, while serving as Finance Minister six years ago, had accepted a 30-carat tray of diamonds worth $240,000 from Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who was deposed as Emperor of the Central African Republic last month. There is no law prohibiting French politicians from accepting such largesse. The Elysée Palace, in fact, while trying to minimize what it called the "nature and value" of the gifts, did not deny that a "traditional exchange" had taken place. Bokassa also...
...emperor's fall
...little coup, executed with characteristic French panache from behind the scenes. The successor had been picked, paratroops were at the ready, and when the despised dictator left the country, voilà! "Operation Barracuda" would go into effect. So well, in fact, did the plot come off that when tyrannical Emperor Bokassa I was overthrown in the Central African Empire two weeks ago, it was hailed as a triumph of sanity over murderous despotism. By last week, however, the French connection in the affair was proving an embarrassment, and the all too Francophile new regime of President David Dacko was proving...
...million a year in aid. Giscard periodically flew off to hunt big game with the dictator and publicly hailed him as "my relative." Scoffed Socialist Leader François Mitterrand: "What do they mean, no bloodshed? Blood was flowing for years, and it was known in Paris. This comic emperor owed his power only to the complacency of French officials...
...goal beyond human capacity. In his last months, bereft of speech, able to act only a few hours a day, he had passion strong enough for one last outburst against the pragmatists. And then that great, demonic, prescient, overwhelming personality disappeared like the great Emperor Qin Shihuang-di (Ch'in Shih Huang-ti), with whom he often compared himself while dreading the oblivion which was his fate. And his words to Nixon, like so much of what he said and attempted, had the ring of prophecy: "I have only been able to change a few places in the vicinity...