Word: softened
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...risk an initiative that might offend American supporters of Israel. His miscalculation drew the expectable jeers from radical Arabs: the Libyan news agency JANA scoffed that his reception in Washington had lowered Mubarak "to his natural position as an employee of the U.S. State Department." Reagan sought to soften the blow by lavishing praise on Mubarak's peace efforts, but the Egyptian President charged in a speech to the National Press Club that Reagan was taking "an almost defeatist approach...
...play really intense at times," said Gurdal. "But then we soften...
Syndicated Columnist Patrick Buchanan has been one of the Reagan Administration's sternest critics from the right. He has taken a harder line than the President on arms control, and described a modest jobs bill backed by Reagan as part of "a series of calculated maneuvers to soften the image of Mr. Conservative into Mr. Conciliation." Buchanan has been even more suspicious of his colleagues in the press: as a White House speechwriter from 1969 to 1974, he crafted some of Vice President Spiro Agnew's most caustic attacks on the news media. In a column last year Buchanan described...
Initially, the ostensible reason for funding the contras was to stanch the flow of aid that Nicaragua supplied to rebels in El Salvador. Now the objectives are diffuse: by keeping the Sandinistas off balance, the insurrection may soften them up to make political concessions. Yet concessions require serious negotiations and in January, Washington suspended the talks that U.S. and Nicaraguan officials had been having in Mexico since last June. The State Department is nevertheless still hopeful about persuading Congress to subsidize the contras. "Motley's testimony was only our first shot," said one official. "We have not yet begun...
Since Reagan's cuts are bound to affect the coffers of every state, officials are trying to use their ingenuity to soften the blow. Says California Analyst Hamm: "It's not realistic for us to say [to Washington], 'Don't touch us, but get rid of the deficits.' We should be asking ourselves, 'What can we give up that will hurt us the least?' " -By Jacob V. Lamar Jr. Reported by Patricia Delaney/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Los Angeles, with other bureaus