Word: stratagem
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...line-item plan affords the President a new--and quite powerful--stratagem: he can threaten to item veto only the pork barrel projects of the congressmen who vote against the weapon system. Many congressmen, eager for re-election, might cave in to these threats and vote for a costly military device which they would ordinarily oppose. As a result, both the pork barrel and the weapons system pass Congress and are signed into law--not exactly what the line-item veto was supposed...
...stratagem was risky, audacious-and brilliant in its simplicity. In a few sentences uttered before the United Nations General Assembly in New York City last week, Salvadoran President José Napoleón Duarte pierced the psychological curtain that has divided his nation through nearly five years of civil war. During a 55-min. address, the stocky, dynamic Christian Democrat announced that he would travel unarmed to meet with his Marxist-Leninist foes, the guerrilla commanders of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.). At the meeting, he said, he would discuss the incorporation of the insurgents "into the process...
...skills in these areas are both revered and reviled: in siding circles he was once dubbed "the abominable snow-job man." A negotiator, says McCormack, should give in on minor points to soften up the opposition and ease the way for whining the important issues. Use silence as a stratagem, he urges. If a negotiator holds his tongue, the opposition may find the silence uncomfortable and volunteer information or make new concessions...
...bill being considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee to provide funds that would help poor people pay their fuel bills. The backfiring tactic was devised by top White House Aides James Baker and Richard Darman. Even some Republicans on the Republican-controlled committee were outraged by the stratagem, which would have forced Senators opposed to funding the Nicaraguan contras to vote against aid to low-income Americans. The committee rejected Stevens' amendment, 15 to 14. The Appropriations Committee also delayed voting on a similar effort to attach funds for El Salvador to a bill providing emergency food...
...defying that unbreakable rule. They have produced a building that heats itself without a furnace or conventional fuel and remains warm even during such blustery periods as the recent cold spell, when Boston temperatures plunged to 0°F. The building performs this scientific magic by a cunning engineering stratagem: it recaptures the waste heat of its own machinery, everything from computers to coffeemakers, as well as of the 2,000 people who will eventually work inside...