Word: ordeal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...heroes turned out to be a band of 52 people who had withstood an ordeal that they had not sought, who seemed as puzzled as they were delighted by their sudden glory, and who preached no message except love of family, home and country? Well, so much the better: here at last were men and women who could be admired without reservation...
From the beginning, he was a symbol of the crisis, an anonymous, blindfolded victim being taunted by an enraged Iranian mob soon after militants seized the U.S. embassy. During the next 14½ months, his picture was published again and again as emblematic of the ordeal of all the American hostages. The blindfold was finally lifted last week, and he was identified by friends and relatives as William Earl Belk...
...Algerian officials, who were acting as middlemen in the negotiations, were dismayed. The straight-faced diplomat told them: "My authority expires then, and then I'm going." The Algerians swiftly notified Iran of this new development, and over the next 18 hours the 14½-month hostage ordeal finally reached its denouement. Whether the small gambit helped nudge the deal into place no one but the Iranians will ever know, but at least one top State Department aide thinks so: "The exercise proved that deadlines work...
Nearly four hours later, Behzad Nabavi, Iran's chief hostage negotiator, said in Tehran that an agreement had substantially been reached. The Algerians were so certain that the ordeal was near an end that they dispatched a planeload of Algerian journalists to Tehran to cover and film the hostages' release...
...same thing that most dismayed and shocked the American public-the terrible failure of the helicopter rescue mission. On the whole, however, U.S. restraint has been regarded as admirable by its allies and, in purely humane terms, the wisdom of that restraint resides in the fact that, despite the ordeal, the 52 hostages are indeed home free...