Word: top
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Carter's standing in the world plunged to a new low as a result of last week's strange performance at the top in the nation that is supposed to be the economic and political leader of the non-Communist world. Accustomed to their parliamentary system, in which a Cabinet resignation signals the overthrow of a government, large numbers of Europeans even wondered whether the Carter Administration had fallen. As the week progressed, they became increasingly critical of the President. "He always acts too late and thus appears to be the victim rather than the master of events...
Earlier, Carter's energy policy also met with a rather cool response. No foreign leader criticized President Carter publicly. But British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has long implied that the U.S. was being wickedly self-indulgent by using so much energy, and in off-the-record conversations top government aides in West Germany and Scandinavia were furious. "Another breach of promise," declared an adviser to West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, referring to Carter's follow-up on his pledge at the Tokyo summit to produce a tough energy policy...
Coming on top of the energy speech, the Cabinet shake-up stunned commentators and ordinary citizens abroad. Disappointed with U.S. inaction on energy, European political leaders generally were happy to see Energy Secretary James Schlesinger go. They cheered the firing of Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal, who has never lived down his brief willingness a year ago to allow the dollar to fall to its lowest levels ever. They applauded his replacement by G. William Miller, who as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board showed a tough-minded determination to protect the dollar by tightening up on money policy, even...
...telephone on the desk of Treasury Under Secretary Anthony Solomon, who handles day-to-day defense of the dollar, began ringing incessantly. European central bankers and Finance Ministry officials demanded to know what was going on. Solomon could not provide inside information on what would happen next. Deprived of top-level advice, foreign money managers followed their instincts and bought some dollars to head off any major upset in the international exchange markets. The Federal Reserve Board also poured some $2 billion into the foreign exchanges to buy dollars, and at week's end the slide was stemmed. Still...
...hamstrung by inexperienced leadership and unsophisticated weapons. The country's arsenal consists mainly of 149 aircraft and 150 U.S.-made M41 light tanks. On order are 149 British-made Scorpion reconnaissance vehicles that one local military specialist described as a "Jeep with a 76-mm gun on top." The illogical purchase of the Scorpions was arranged by a Thai general with a widely rumored penchant for profiteering...