Word: softener
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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More important, perhaps, Taylor challenges the view that the bombing may stiffen rather than soften Hanoi's will to continue fighting. Conceding that Germany and Japan did not cave in under massive aerial attacks during World War II, he points out that U.S. and Allied demands for unconditional surrender left them without "an escape hatch. They had no alternative but to stand and take it." In Viet Nam, by contrast, the U.S. is making no such demand, instead is assuring the Northerners that "a better life awaits them if they cease an aggressive war which offers them nothing...
...next Assembly may be split fairly evenly between Gaullist and leftist Deputies, with the Center Catholics of Lecanuet holding the balance of power. Such an alignment would almost certainly wreck whatever chances Pompidou has of eventually taking over from De Gaulle. But it could also force De Gaulle to soften his anti-U.S. stand in the interest of a working agreement with the Center...
...industries. A corrosive poison in some forms (mercury bichloride), a therapeutic salve in others (mercury ammonium chloride), fickle mercury also goes in hefty quantities into such disparate products as dental fillings and dry-cell batteries, antibarnacle paint and electrical control apparatus. Hatmakers, however, have ceased using the stuff to soften felt. Reason: poisoned by mercury vapor, almost one U.S. hatter in ten developed shakes and mental disturbances. The resulting cliche, mad as a hatter, survives...
...death only began to go out of style when the belligerents recognized some kind of relationship, as in the case of the Greek city states, which tried to soften their deadly rivalry through diplomacy and mercy. But such temperateness was strictly limited to social equals; Aristotle, who is credited with inventing the term "a just war," could apply it to military action "against men, who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit." The Romans took over the idea of a just war as an instrument of efficient administration, and Cicero laid down some pragmatic ground rules. Only...
...government ministries are Chou's responsibility; the ministries would probably prefer to concentrate on the country's rice and steel quotas. But Mao and Lin's watchers, following events like soap opera devotees, wonder if Chou will be able to prevail up on Mao and Lin to soften the impact of the Cultural Revolution on the provincial chiefs and his own bureaucrats...