Word: tilts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ever since his election, Ronald Reagan has sounded the theme of a new, "constructive" tilt in U.S. relations with racist South Africa. As the President has put it, "Can we abandon a country that has stood beside us in every war we've ever fought, * a country that strategically is essential to the free world?" Translating that concern into policy, however, has turned out to be a complex and tricky business. Just how much so became clear last week as fragments emerged of the evolving U.S. plan for handling an explosive issue that pits South Africa against black Africa...
Crocker was snubbed at the outset by Mozambique's President Samora Machel who simply refused to meet with him. He spent several days trying to assure black African leaders that there would be no "tilt or endorsement of apartheid," his pains, he then received a less than enthusiastic welcome from the South Africans. An expected meeting with Prime Minister P.W. Botha, for instance, conspicuously failed to materialize. "It doesn't suit us," Botha was quoted as saying about Crocker's solicitous meetings with black African leaders. Thus, on both counts, it seemed to be an inauspicious start...
...become dependent on the countries of southern Africa for seven key materials (platinum metals, manganese, chromium, cobalt, industrial diamonds, fluorspar and antimony). The U.S. gets 53% of its platinum from white-ruled South Africa, for example, and 42% of its cobalt from black-run Zaire. A pronounced policy tilt toward either country could antagonize the other and thus endanger supplies...
...fuel tank seeped puffs of steamy vapors, supercold droplets of liquid oxygen. Suddenly, just after dawn on Sunday, the ship's three main engines roared to life. Throttling quickly to 90% of their full 1.1 million lbs. of thrust, the engines caused the spacecraft and fuel tanks to tilt ever so slightly. Seconds later, they snapped back to vertical, and two solid-fuel rockets-fiery space-age Roman candles never before used on a manned flight-ignited, adding their full fury, 5.3 million lbs. more of thrust...
Henry Kissinger raised the threat of resignation to real art. In 1971, when a leak of secret transcripts disclosed the White House "tilt" toward Pakistan (in its war with India over independence for Bangladesh), Kissinger was mortified. He never intended to resign, but he sent the signals out through his elaborate network of foreign policy friends. A resounding vote of confidence came quietly back. It shored him up spiritually and also within Nixon's White House...