Word: firsthand
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Instead of being taken for a promised firsthand look at the war, the correspondents were carted off for sightseeing at former Emperor Haile Selassie's palace and repeatedly mustered for "press conferences" that turned into lengthy Marxist lectures. That was not surprising. The tour was being guided by two outfits that run the Marxist indoctrination program inside the country, the Ethiopian Revolutionary Information Committee (ERIC) and the Provisional Office for Mass Organizational Affairs (POMOA). Explained one official: "Ninety-five percent of Ethiopia is illiterate, and this jargon stuff is designed to try to communicate some very complex ideas...
Besides giving evidence on the Bompensiero murder, Fratianno has provided the FBI with details of at least ten West Coast gangland slayings since 1951. Most were disciplinary actions aimed at small-fry mobsters. He has also given authorities a firsthand account of the Mafia's Las Vegas rackets. He has described how Chicago Mob bosses demanded $1 million from an unnamed casino owner. When their regular Las Vegas contact, John Roselli, failed to collect the money, the dons ordered Roselli killed; he was asphyxiated in 1976 (Roselli gained notoriety in 1975 when he told a Senate committee that...
Though Miller won enormous respect as the chairman of Textron Inc., the giant and flourishing conglomerate, he has had little firsthand experience in the esoteric area of monetary policy. During his first few months in office he is likely to be more dependent on staff than was Burns, who dominated Fed decisions by the force of his personality and wide-ranging knowledge. As a consequence, no radical changes in Federal Reserve Board policy are expected immediately-but that will scarcely keep Miller out of controversy...
...Polish-born Brzezinski did the translating. The President meantime laid a wreath at the Tomb of Poland's Unknown Soldier, as more than 500 people broke through police lines, shouting "Carter! Car-ter!" and "Niech zyje [long life]!" It was one of the few occasions when he had firsthand contact with ordinary Poles, many of whom regard him as a symbol of freedom because of his support for human rights. Later, when he placed flowers at the Nike (Greek for victory) monument to the Poles who died in a 1944 uprising against the Nazis and at the memorial...
Orville Schell's In the People's Republic: An American's Firsthand View of Living and Working in China follows in that tradition, with one major difference. Schell, 37, has studied China for years, with several scholarly works on the subject to his credit. He also speaks fluent Chinese. That background informs his tale, and it is much easier to accept his conclusions than those of most China visitors...