Word: secondhands
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...most of last week, U.S. officials were not even sure exactly where all the hostages were, although it was assumed that they were inside the sprawling, 27-acre embassy compound. Because Washington had no direct communication with the embassy, U.S. knowledge of the situation in Iran depended mostly on secondhand information, relayed by other diplomatic missions in Tehran or monitored from Iranian radio broadcasts. There thus was the chilling possibility that a daring rescue operation, after enormous risk, might reach the embassy only to find it empty...
...border, 200 gypsies live in old refugee housing that lacks hot water and indoor toilets and is so overrun by rats from a nearby garbage dump that children are not allowed out at night. In summer, when gypsies take to the highways in camper trucks as wandering salesmen and secondhand dealers, the treatment that they encounter is especially rough. Owners of almost 90% of West Germany's campsites, claiming that the gypsies would pester vacationers by peddling their wares, have tacked up signs reading GYPSIES FORBIDDEN. Police periodically descend on camping gypsies with guard dogs and submachine guns...
...vigorous rhythms and clean melodic lines were more reflective of the open spaces and the expansive optimism of his native land than of Europe. "America," he said, "is the richest, strongest, best fed of countries. Why should our composers produce fussy little bits of emaciated music based on secondhand European prototypes?" He wrote 16 symphonies and 185 other major works, many of them for his pianist wife, Johana. His Symphony: 1933 was the first American symphony ever recorded; the Harris Third (1937) is now a repertory staple...
Admittedly, this is not a complete exposition of Lamont's argument. But that argument seems inherently worthless because it is not, as touted, "first hand," but secondhand, the result of "more than 650 interviews." Throughout, Lamont comes across as an interloper, a strange wanderer on the outside looking in. The punch line goes, "I was there--I know." Well, Lamont wasn't there, and it results in some embarrassing misperceptions. Lamont repeatedly yaps about the "crush in the libraries." What crush? The only crush I've ever seen at Harvard is in Q-world's pinball arcade during reading period...
Even worse, Lamont's interloping secondhand technique results in some slanderous inaccuracies. For example, Lamont scorns a professor at Brown who taught students about espionage but "never asked (the students) to consider the morality of it all." That professor is Lyman Kirkpatrick, former executive director of the CIA and perhaps the most moral man ever to serve in a high echelon there. Moral considerations were central to the course, and moral discussions were so long and so frequent that someone half-jokingly suggested the course be offered in the Philosophy Department. Welcome to journalism, fella...