Word: gruffness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...smiling people, their shiny, shaved heads reflecting the dancing flames of a roaring fire, oohed, ahed and applauded. A lawyer had just pledged to file ten divorces for the ten highest bidders at a fund-raising auction on New Year's Eve. At a wooden table a grizzled, gruff man who wears a cap emblazoned with the message I'M THE MEANEST S.O.B. IN THE VALLEY nodded his approval. Charles (Chuck) Dederich, 64, was adding another ritual to his famed commune Synanon: wife swapping...
...gruff but avuncular authority figure, Vorster gained votes from both South Africans who want him to safeguard the country against change and those who want him to bring about change safely. In recent weeks there has been a series of incidents-a rash of daylight robberies and attacks in white suburban areas -that has had an unsettling effect on the national psyche. A bomb exploded at rush hour in Johannesburg's leading shopping complex, injuring 19 people. Two weeks ago, a National Party candidate for Parliament, Economist Robert Smit, and his wife Jeanne-Cora, were murdered in their home...
There is some evidence that one goal of the present crackdown on dissent is to reassure the right-wing verkrampte (narrow-minded) members of Vorster's National Party. To foreigners, the gruff Prime Minister may seem to be nothing more than a formidable reactionary. "He travels in an ox wagon always one length behind the train of history," a ranking British official observed last year. But Vorster is a pragmatist by comparison with many of his Afrikaner colleagues in government and a very shrewd politician as well. Thus, the new constitution could be interpreted as a concession to white moderates...
...ploys against South Africa. Among other things, the U.S. and Britain are banking on Vorster's support in gaining independence for Namibia (South West Africa) and Rhodesia. If they overplay their hand at the U.N., they risk the loss of Vorster's aid-a reality that the gruff Afrikaner may be counting on. "A large part of the world game against South Africa is bluff," Vorster proclaimed last week. "Now it has to be determined where the bluff ends and the serious part of the game begins...
...deceptively cherubic-looking man whose rosy face would seem more appropriate to a Dutch baker than a gruff police chief, Kruger last week extensively discussed details of the Biko case for the first time. Showing no outward emotion, the 59-year-old official patiently fielded questions in his wood-paneled Pretoria office during an interview with TIME Johannesburg Bureau Chief William McWhirter. Excerpts from their talk...