Word: seem
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fraternity of international arms dealers, this Janus-like profile does not make Ghorbanifar extraordinary. That shadowy netherworld teems with other characters who might seem too garish for a remake of The Maltese Falcon. Among them: Sarkis Soghanalian, a 300-lb. Turkish-born Lebanese citizen living in Miami who specializes these days in selling helicopters to Iraq and is said to receive jars of severed human ears from clients; and Sam Cummings, a wisecracking American-born British subject operating out of Alexandria, Va., who is unabashedly -- though so far unsuccessfully -- negotiating to peddle on the world market some $5 billion worth...
...Nicaragua. Presumably the funds went through a network of arms dealers, supposedly operating with private donations, who supplied weapons to the anti-Marxist rebels all through the two-year period during which Congress had forbidden direct or indirect U.S. military aid. As far as anyone can tell, the contras seem to have got very little in the way of either cash or arms out of this convoluted pipeline...
...various shadowy transactions that North oversaw seem likely to drag the arcane world of the private weapons dealers into its brightest public spotlight ever. Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel appointed to look into all aspects of Iranscam, has been empowered to investigate the private networks that supplied the contras. The special Senate and House investigating committees that will hold public hearings probably beginning next month intend to probe the role of the arms merchants as well...
...edges of this huge market are the free-lancers. They buy anywhere % they can, sometimes from Communist countries. Nor are they often choosy about their customers: some seem to have dealt with both sides in the Iran-Iraq war. Since 1980, that conflict has put a huge prop under a sagging business. The arms trade has been falling off in recent years, partly because world weapons pipelines are full and partly because governments are increasingly crowding the individual dealers out of what sales opportunities are left. But the demand from the Persian Gulf combatants for weapons to use against each...
...disentangle the mixture of visionary and conniver in the personalities of Ghorbanifar and Khashoggi. As investigators probe deeper into the scandal, Americans can only hope that Washington's policy does not prove to be as devious as the arms merchants say it was -- and as their own maneuvers often seem...