Word: skittishly
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...President and some of his top aides felt frustrated. The requirement to notify Congress of covert operations was constraining; Casey in particular believed in telling the legislators no more than the law required -- and sometimes less. Worse, when covert actions made necessary the participation of a skeptical, often skittish, federal bureaucracy, it seemed to place roadblocks in Reagan's way. Some congressional sources are pursuing the theory that in early 1983 the President and a few top members of his Cabinet decided to move some covert operations to the National Security Council staff, which, because it was not officially...
...long-awaited witness initially seemed as skittish as her name would suggest. Fawn Hall's right hand trembled when she was sworn in as the 18th and final witness in the first phase of the congressional hearings on the Iran- contra scandal. But when she coolly related an extraordinary tale of typing phony official documents, shredding classified papers and hiding others in her clothes to sneak them past White House guards, her face hardened. Whenever her motives or those of her boss, Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, were challenged, she flashed both anger and fear. "Sometimes you have to go above...
...diffident style difficult to accept. "Hart I can't see," says a prominent Southern fund raiser. "If I don't know who he is, I don't know how he can win." Labor leaders, who remember Hart's blistering attacks on Mondale's ties to special interests, are equally skittish. As Don McKee, a leading Iowa union official, puts it, "The name Hart doesn't come up among our rank and file...
Before the arms scam erupted, the contras were already besieged by charges of corruption, human-rights abuses and military ineptitude. Congressional support was anything but assured after Democrats won control of the Senate in the November elections. Moreover, Washington's Central American allies have long been skittish about the U.S. policy. Days before the Iran-contra link emerged, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams warned, "The Central Americans are scared to death. They're scared about our staying power." Now Washington's friends are all the more concerned that they may get stuck supporting the contras without U.S. help...
...toughs, including a junkie playwright who has befriended and apparently seduced the boy, a would-be writer. For De Niro fans, the role of Cuba evokes what he does best in film: veering unnervingly between caressing affection and blind rage. Small wonder that as the son, Macchio looks so skittish that his feet are almost never flat on the floor: he is forever on his toes, primed for flight. Early in the play De Niro makes the boy squirm by pledging to be his best friend, a pal so close he would pick his son's nose for him. Later...