Word: speech
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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BABBIT is a smart, thoughtful, articulate politician. Even so, during his speech entitled, "The End of Idealism," I couldn't get the picture out of my head of Jimmy Stewart as the Mr. Smith who went to Washington. The particular comparison with Stewart I would make was more like the famed actor's stump speech after the sequel, Mr. Smith Goes to the White House, which didn't do well at the box office. (As it turns out, unfortunately for this prissy good-government scenario, Babbit is now a Capitol Hill lobbyist for a group of healthy savings and loans...
...Gorbachev has forced a significant shift of resources away from the military. He has signed a decree cutting Soviet armed forces by 500,000 men within the next two years, helping save 14% of the total military budget and living up to the promise he made in his U.N. speech last December. These cuts have been accompanied by significant changes in doctrine. Conventional forces are being reconfigured to become more defensive in deployment. In addition, the Soviets now speak of maintaining a "reasonable sufficiency" in their nuclear and conventional forces rather than attempting to match or surpass the might...
More than political expediency seems to be involved, however, in the present re-examination of Stalin. Journalists and scholars seem genuinely eager to drop their traditional roles as perpetuators of useful historical myths and instead tell the painful truth. Gorbachev gave the signal in a February 1987 speech inviting them to fill in the "blank spots" in Soviet history, and writers have responded with everything from weighty historical tomes to popular entertainments...
...Stalin to kill prisoners through hard labor, starvation rations, harsh climate and lack of medical attention. Medvedev is also speaking out through interviews. In one, he put the number of Stalin's victims at 40 million, of whom 20 million died. Gorbachev, in a November 1987 speech, spoke only of "thousands" of victims. (An expanded and & updated version of Medvedev's book will be published in the U.S. by Columbia University Press next month...
...joking reminder came from the group to keep the speech short. After all, we had only one glass to pass around. The hour was getting late, and everyone wanted a chance to drink na pososhok, a toast before taking up your walking stick, as the Russians say. One for the road, however rough and long it might...