Word: pretexts
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...statement to the Attorney General of Massachusetts, Oppenheimer told of being called to the Club on the afternoon of Oct. 30. "It appeared to me to be obvious that the concern of the officials was to find a pretext to close the club," the statement said. It then described the efforts of Deputy Fire Chief Francis Connolly to find a violation of fire laws, over the corrections of Building Inspector Charles Sprague...
...Britain received the news grimly. Washington saw the "absurd" pretext of a German threat as the opening bid for stationing Soviet troops on Finnish soil while diverting attention from Soviet pressure on Berlin. Ultimately, Moscow might intend to whisk neutral Finland behind the Iron Curtain, lock the Baltic door behind her. The Swedes felt the same fears, and there was growing talk about reconsidering Sweden's historic neutrality. NATO member Norway, which shares a 390-mile frontier with Finland in the north, prepared to draw up new defense plans...
...Wagged His Tail (Continental). Once upon a time in Brooklyn there was a mean old slumlord (Peter Ustinov). Golly, was he mean. He raised the rent on any pretext, lowered the boom at the first late payment, embezzled the savings of his ignorant tenants, and screamed at them just to stay in abad humor. When beggars knocked at his door, he screwed up his face till he looked like a huge, ferocious dog, and snarled and barked to frighten them away...
...week's end, Fidel Castro was still cockily unconcerned. He passed the Electra's disposition to the United Nations, claiming that otherwise the U.S. would use the incident as a pretext for invasion. "But let them come if they want to," he said. "If our destiny is to be a bloody one, let them come...
...pleas that the dispute should be settled between themselves, Bourguiba demanded an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, where Tunisia accused France of "premeditated aggression." France's U.N. Ambassador Armand Bérard retorted that the Tunisian events were "tragic and regrettable," but that "a minor pretext was used by the government of Tunisia-some minor work, involving two or three meters of terrain to facilitate the landing of planes...