Word: specter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...thankful for the scarcity of data. Most civilian and military strategists agree that a large scale nuclear attack launched against either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. would devastate the victim nation killing as many as a hundred million people and crippling the national economy. Haunted by the specter of such destruction governments in both nations pursue policies that they believe will minimize the likelihood of all out nuclear conflict though debate rages on the methods there is a consensus as to the common goals...
...threat of indefinitely prolonged high budget deficits . . . raises the specter of sharply higher interest rates, choked-off investment, renewed recession and rising unemployment...
...still. The strategic arms race has essentially been a battle of politics and prestige. The questions behind nuclear weapons are really ones of cost, domestic politics and proliferation. Neither defense establishment seriously fears a general thermonuclear attack started by accident or even by design. In fact, aside from the specter of European conventional clash after political revolution, the only real worries considered by each side are proliferation-a nuclear was started by a non superpower-or perhaps a non-nuclear superpower clash over some other area (the Persian Gulf, Cuba, etc.) escalating to a holocaust...
When first word of the assassination began to spread across the country--from a 12:34 p.m. (CST) UPI bulletin and a coatless Walter Cronkite interrupting the afternoon soap operas--the specter of conspiracy began to surface...
...easier to draw a line between the President and his critics. They are joined by a common fear: that history will repeat itself. They disagree as to precisely what history is about to be repeated, but everyone is quick to raise the specter of the return of some dreaded "another." The critics see another Viet Nam here, another round of gunboat diplomacy (carried out by another Teddy Roosevelt) there. Administration officials are quoted as explaining that the Grenada invasion was meant variously to prevent "another Iran," "another Beirut"(!), "another Nicaragua" or "another Suriname." (There is irony here. Suriname had fallen...