Word: thrall
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...Hoover never trusted anyone he didn't have something on," an aide once said. In the end, Gentry argues, Hoover became prisoner of the confidential files he had amassed to keep others in thrall. Harry Truman and John Kennedy had wanted to fire Hoover, but pressure on the director to step down reached a peak during the Nixon era. Fearful that his enemies might succeed, Hoover began going through the confidential folders to determine which ones might prove damaging if they fell into the wrong hands. He had barely reached the letter c when he gave up the task...
Though the business is increasingly global, the domestic entertainment industry is still the backbone, and it is still thriving. The enormous profits of the '80s are being reduced by the recession. But the amount of time and money the average postadolescent American spends in the thrall of entertainment remains astounding: 40 hours and $30 a week, if industry statistics are to be believed. By the time U.S. culture goes overseas, it has been tried, tested and usually proved successful at home...
...twelve-year limit might increase influence peddling rather than reduce it, claim the naysayers. To ensure rewarding employment once their terms expire, members of Congress would remain in thrall to the interests that already control them. Maybe so. Yet the Executive Branch has successfully limited the revolving-door syndrome. Restricting postcongressional work in a similar fashion would not be impossible...
...strike at an enemy. Reagan had dutifully carried the card for eight years. Its unimportance at his parting was perhaps the most powerful statement of this singular leader's legacy. The world moves toward peace, and the paraphernalia of nuclear command, which once held the world in its thrall, is almost an afterthought...
From the opening credits (a police car's siren light cruises down a street, onto the sidewalk, into a house, through a girls' shower room) to the closing crawl (which confides, "In case of tornado, southwest corner of basement"), The Naked Gun is a picture in thrall to its own silliness. Three of the film's perpetrators, the ZAZ team, spoofed '70s disaster epics in Airplane! and spy movies in Top Secret! Now they have stolen from themselves, extending their 1982 TV series Police Squad! to feature length. The stretch marks show, in a plethora of chase scenes and bathroom...