Word: shocks
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Shake & Shock. Plainly, some of Ky's moves were more gestures than policies. Paris reacted to the cutting of diplomatic ties with characteristic hauteur, but showed no signs of withdrawing its cultural and economic missions in Saigon. De Gaulle's only reported comment was to inquire loftily: "Qui est Ky?" It will take more than a few executions to cure the corruption that plagues Saigon and most other Asian capitals. Moreover, price controls on rice and other consumer goods do not get to the root of the problem: scarcities caused by Viet Cong control of roads between farming...
Nonetheless, Ky's first ten days succeeded in their announced purpose to "shake and shock the country out of its lethargy." Where earlier governments tried to rule by consensus, Buddhist Ky is applying casuistry and a very un-Vietnamese puritanism. Impetuous and inexperienced as he is, Ky sounds far more believable in his demands for austerity than his predecessors did. Moreover, he has an air of no-nonsense realism that has been sadly lacking in South Viet Nam. To Saigon newsmen's howls of outrage over his newspaper shutdown, Ky replied with icy calm: "Communists...
...expects these highs to be tested. In fact, the commission found that the Uffizi had 50 paintings "without which it would be impossible to write the history of Western art," and each worth $2,000,000 or more. Which was just the point of the whole exercise -to shock Italians into realizing the value of their own patrimony...
...SOUTH AMERICA. Brazil, where the cost of living rose 87% last year, has begun to control the world's worst inflation by recessionary shock treatment. Argentina, with less inflation (28% last year), has blundered its way into such a morass of public debt, deficits and fleeing private capital that financial circles predict monetary devaluation...
...unfinished airstrip blurted: "The Viet Cong are all over." In an instant, everything came unbuttoned: Communist mortar fire sent hot shrapnel up the village streets, recoilless-rifle shells slammed home, the night air buzzed with bullets. Then out of the ground fog swarmed wave upon wave of Viet Cong shock troops-some clad incongruously in breechclouts and steel helmets, all armed either with grenades, automatic rifles or Chinese flamethrowers...