Word: figurehead
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Split between Nazis and Communists as well as several traditional parties, the Reichstag became ungovernable. That gave crucial political power to a man who was supposed to be a figurehead, President Paul von Hindenburg, commander of Germany's armies during the war. Hindenburg was 83, vain, righteous and inclined to long naps. Since the Reichstag could not agree on a policy, he appointed some of his favorites as Chancellors, letting them rule by presidential decree...
Koop was expected to be a figurehead like most Surgeons General, with little authority and few staff or duties, but he quickly shook things up. He insisted that the commissioned corps of public-health officers wear uniforms. Then the 6-ft. 1-in., 210-lb. doctor, whose taste for red meat and martinis keeps him from losing his paunch, pronounced the U.S. a country of fatsoes who would have to give up cholesterol in favor of fiber. When Koop found out that the tobacco companies had fought hardest over the years against the Government's calling nicotine addictive, he stated...
...real trouble goes back to a 1943 unwritten "national pact" giving a dominant share of power to the Christian community. It has battled to hold on against the Muslims, who today are in the majority and are demanding a larger role in governing the country. Now, without even a figurehead President to sustain the fading dream of national reconciliation, and with the big guns drowning out all appeals for peace, Lebanon's chaos may have reached the point of no return...
...hundred years ago, when the U.S. was about to elect its first president, the fledgling nation seriously considered enthroning a king--their choice for the crown was George Washington. The general refused the offer, but he did admit that "the utility;--nay necessity" of such a powerful figurehead might one day arrive...
...millions of his black countrymen and to millions of other people around the world, Mandela, who has been locked up for nearly 26 years, remains a potent figurehead in the struggle toward a postapartheid future in South Africa. Jailed in 1962 for leaving the country illegally and inciting unrest, the symbolic leader of the African National Congress was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 for sabotage and plotting to overthrow the government. Since undergoing a prostate operation in November 1985, he has been held in Pollsmoor's hospital wing. Each year he is allowed 30 visits of 40 minutes ; apiece...