Word: firebreak
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...often in the past, the Reagan Administration is split between the Pentagon and the State Department. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger opposes any significant compromise on any aspect of SDI, including deployment. Colleagues say he favors an INF-only deal as a "firebreak" that will satisfy congressional yearning for arms control while leaving SDI intact. Paul Nitze, special adviser to Shultz and Reagan on arms control, is concerned that an INF-only deal could lead to a Soviet strategic buildup if there is no progress in START. The only way to break the deadlock in START, he feels...
...fire lit by a teenage arsonist kindled into a firestorm whose heat set grasses and animals' fur ablaze a hundred yards before the flames. At 2:27 p.m.--precisely two hours and 16 minutes after the first alarm--the fire had crossed the mountains, jumped two highways and a firebreak, and burned the 10 miles to the sea. Over the next 24 hours, 700 firefighters--including 136 engine companies, 12 helicopter and aircraft squads and 28 camp crews--battled the blaze. When it was over by late afternoon only one human life was lost but the toil was still staggering...
...that the Red Brigades, having failed to throw Italy into chaos with the assassination of Moro and other prominent Italians, were desperate to regain their credibility. "The society did not collapse," says Bertram Brown, a terrorism consultant for California's Rand Corp. "Thus they had to leap the firebreak to internationalism by kidnaping an American." Adds Franco Ferracuti, a Rome University professor of criminology: "The Red Brigades want to embarrass the U.S., to undermine NATO and, not incidentally, to reestablish themselves as a force to be reckoned with...
Brown's defense for going public was that he had no choice. Once widely publicized leaks about Stealth began appearing, he argued, it made sense to disclose as much as he could in order to create a "firebreak" that would contain further public discussion. To deny the story, as SAC Commander Ellis urged, would be wrong, Brown later told a House subcommittee probing the affair: "As the nation learned to its bitter regret in the Watergate era, a policy of deceiving the public undermines the basic link of trust between the Government and the people...