Word: extort
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...they have become convinced that the U.S. has simply replaced the French as their overlords. All too often, local officials have been appointed by Diem or his brother because of their personal loyalty rather than their efficiency, and all too often they have taken advantage of their position to extort money from the peasants, throw local merchants into jail, nominally on suspicion of Communist sympathizing, in order to extract ransom. Thus, when the Viet Cong contrive the murder of some local official, the villagers frequently hail them as liberators...
...dailies and 311 news agencies, many run by shady operators who never published a single issue but used them as fronts for smuggling operations, black-marketeering or blackmail. Reporters, paid $30 to $40 a month, were ordered to exhume scandals concerning government officials and army officers, then to extort money from them with the threat of publication. Newspapers were choked with unsubstantiated reports, rumors and wildly intemperate criticism of the government. Said one disgusted U.S. embassy official: "Any front page in this country can be bought...
...Communist guerrillas in South Viet Nam, called Viet Cong, burn villages, capture rice barges, mine roads, extort money and food from peasants. Last year, in thousands of little quick strikes, they blew up 284 bridges, killed 4,000 officials, village elders, soldiers and farmers. Last week, with South Viet Nam headed for the polls in a presidential election, fighting broke out all over. Just north of Saigon, an army patrol blundered into a Viet Cong ambush, lost 13 dead and eleven wounded. Forty miles south of Saigon. the army surprised seven companies of Viet Cong, killed 54 and captured...
...researchers concluded that children sleep less and need less sleep than many parents believe. While Hellbrügge's findings are already well accepted by most pediatricians, angry mothers and fathers jammed his phone well into the night with complaints that their youngsters were using his findings to extort late bedtimes...