Word: moynihanized
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...wall in the drawing room of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's apartment in Manhattan's Waldorf Towers hangs a painting of General Custer on a tightrope over Niagara Falls. That peculiarly American image of bravado might seem out of place in the otherwise formal eleven-room suite that is the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. But it aptly reflects the spirit of fight and daredeviltry that Moynihan has brought to the U.S.'s Turtle Bay headquarters. Diplomatically and intellectually, Moynihan often does this kind of balancing act. Or, in another Custer image, he makes his stand...
Last week Moynihan was deep in his latest battle, at the U.N. Security Council. There the U.S. faced a concerted Arab effort to enhance the diplomatic status of the Palestine Liberation Organization, further isolate Israel and bedevil American peacemaking efforts...
Early in the week, Moynihan got into a short but sharp verbal tussle with his Russian counterpart. The admission of the P.L.O. delegation, Moynihan protested, showed a "totalitarian" disregard for due process that threatened to turn the U.N. into "an empty shell." Soviet Ambassador Yakov Malik replied: "I agree with the professor, who lectured us that totalitarianism is a terrible thing indeed. But no less terrible is gangsterism." Moynihan had the last, somewhat heavy word: "Totalitarianism is bad, gangsterism is worse, but capitulationism is the worst...
Since he hung up his trademark Irish plaid hat at the U.N. last July, Moynihan has become one of the most jarring diplomats ever to inhabit the towering glass menagerie on Manhattan's East Side. A big (6 ft. 5 in.), bouncy, exuberant man with a cherubic Irish face and a floppy lock of prematurely gray hair, Moynihan, 48, has a well-developed ability to both charm and infuriate. Walking down a corridor, he can pick up a retinue with a nonstop monologue of patter, pontification and wisecracks ("If the U.N. didn't exist, it would be impossible to invent...
...were as important--and sometimes more important--than those that did. There was no bloodbath in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. The world's economy did not collapse. The Arabs didn't buy Disneyland. New York City did not default--although no one is sure. Neither Kissinger nor Moynihan returned to Harvard and we didn't get the Kennedy Library...