Word: machiavellian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That sequence raises some intriguing questions for Senate investigators to probe: Was it possible that the Libyans tried to trap Billy in a Machiavellian scheme based on his potential commissions? The Libyans at some point promised to loan Billy $500,000, and the only way he could pay back that kind of money would be through his oil-sale commissions. But the Libyans controlled the sale of oil to Charter; by turning off the flow, they could also put the squeeze on Billy-and perhaps drive him to work harder in their behalf...
...primary purpose of American foreign policy, writes Nixon, should be to prevent this from happening. All other causes are secondary: arms negotiations, relations with less developed nations, enforcing "human rights" around the globe. Nixon has Machiavellian contempt for people who find excuses for Soviet aggression, like those who justify the invasion of Afghanistan on the grounds that the giant empire needs secure borders. "The Russian appetite for 'security' is insatiable," he writes...
...Nixon as Machiavellian realist also pulls the strings in Spiro Agnew's account of how he was forced out of the vice presidency: Go Quietly . . . or else (Morrow; 288 pages; $10.95). Agnew says he would never have given up the post if his boss had supported him. But when word leaked that Agnew was under investigation for accepting kickbacks even while in the White House, the President dexterously arranged to jettison him. His Chief of Staff, General Alexander Haig, finally warned that if Agnew did not step down, things could "get nasty and dirty...
Brickman is fortunate to have the talented Arkin and his cohorts in this movie. Austin Pendleton as the playful, Machiavellian Becker, and Fred Gwynne '51 as an oafish Pentagon general are particularly effective in their roles, and Madeleine Kahn, though not blessed with a very demanding part, provides some of the funnier moments at the Center. They are all able to keep their jokes alive, and Arkin's evolution from minuscule plankton to neurotic 20th-century man should be recorded as one of the funnier scenes in contemporary movie-making. But one scene doesn't make a whole movie...
...more of a teacher, more of a person who facilitates communication between departments, helps the group with material flow, all kinds of things. So it's not just a matter of changing one thing but of changing the whole system. Thus, people who are not motivated by any Machiavellian wish to maintain power are threatened by a demand for a total reorganization of their thinking and of their education...