Word: vital
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...spineless sycophants and doormats." Thatcher responded, "They are accusing us of having the guts and spine to put our policies forward." Both candidates traded charges about who would run the country's economy, schools, housing and National Health Service better. Thatcher, for example, defended private health coverage as "absolutely vital," so that she could go to the hospital "at the time I want and with the doctor I want." Michael Meacher, Labor's chief health spokesman, called that a "callous, inhumane and selfish" stance...
...leadership in the Defense Ministry could assume a vital role in Mikhail Gorbachev' s campaign of perestroika (economic restructuring). -- With West Germany' s endorsement of the "double- zero" nuclear option, attention turns to the balance of conventional forces in Europe. -- Britain winds up a slick, "Americanized" election campaign. -- South Korea' s Chun chooses his successor...
...Persian Gulf last week, the issue only grew muddier. Finally Ronald Reagan appeared in the White House briefing room Friday afternoon to justify his policy in the wake of Iraq's accidental assault on the U.S.S. Stark. "Mark this point well," he said. "The use of the vital sea-lanes of the Persian Gulf will not be dictated by the Iranians. These lanes will not be allowed to come under the control of the Soviet Union. The Persian Gulf will remain open to navigation by the nations of the world...
...February 1974 incident in which a disgruntled U.S. Army private stole a helicopter from Fort Meade, Md., and landed it safely on the South Lawn of the White House. Then, as now, officials were shocked at the ease with which an unidentified craft was able to penetrate vital and heavily defended airspace. Initially, the Soviet press drew parallels between the two incidents, as if to minimize their seriousness. But TASS reported that during the emergency Politburo meeting the Soviet leadership took a far harsher view, and Soviet newscasters said an investigation would be conducted that could lead to the prosecution...
...dramatic new find, which includes skull, arm bones, thigh and shin fragments from a single adult female, permits a more accurate assessment. The length of the thigh bone is a gauge of height, and the relative length of the upper arm bone to the upper leg bone is a vital clue to body build. The remains, described in the British journal Nature last week, belong to a creature that lived about 1.8 million years ago and stood no more than 3 1/2 feet tall. Says Johanson, director of the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley: "This may be the smallest...