Word: westing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...place, like the Soviet Union's Konstantin Chernenko, to warm the chair for a more visionary thinker. "The real reformers will take over power in the next six to twelve months," predicts Wolfgang Seiffert, a former adviser in the East German Communist Party who now teaches at West Germany's Kiel University. Others see in Krenz the possibility of a Yuri Andropov -- someone who appeals to conservatives but recognizes the need for change...
...Oldenburg, a senior analyst with the Federal Institute for East European and International Studies in Cologne. East Germans mockingly call Krenz a "professional youth" because he has continued to dabble in youth affairs despite his age, organizing and attending rock concerts that are intended to pacify restless youngsters. A West German television crew, interviewing East Germans at random the day of Krenz's appointment, turned up evidence of the popular disdain. "He's one of the concrete heads," said a young man. Remarked an elderly woman: "They should all step down and let new blood...
...Krenz had a true change of heart when he ordered police forces to stand back during the demonstrations that continue to spread like a brush fire, last week drawing 100,000 people into the streets of Leipzig. Many point instead to his comments on recent trips to China and West Germany, during which he expressed support for the Beijing leadership's crackdown on the pro-democracy movement...
Rick Atkinson's epic of West Point's class of '66 is marked by such piercing incidents. A Washington Post reporter, he begins by following some 600 freshmen, ruddy and damp in their new gray wool uniforms. Loud harassment is the order of the day ("Pull that neck in, mister. You call that bracing?"). It has been this way since Thomas Jefferson founded the academy in 1802, and in the crowd of intimidated cadets the figures tend to blur -- until destiny selects them for service in Viet...
...tragic exits. Bill Haneke is energized by President John F. Kennedy's 1961 Inaugural speech calling for a new generation to bear any burden, meet any hardship. He returns from Southeast Asia minus a right leg, a left foot and an eye. Tommy Hayes, the son and grandson of West Point major generals, rejects the sanctuary of graduate school. In a letter home he writes, "My country has invested a great deal in me as a soldier. I should like to repay that investment." The price is his life, taken in the jungle north of Saigon...